CRACK IBPS PO : New Pattern Cloze Test DAY 56

Dear Banking Aspirant,

In the following passage there are blanks each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage and against each, five words/phrases are suggested one of which fits the blank appropriately or choose No change required . Find out the appropriate word/phrase in each case:

THE Middle East is used to ruins. A millennium ago the “mad caliph” of Cairo, Hakim, ordered the levelling of all churches, including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Jesus’s burial site. The Mongols _________ (1) sacked Baghdad in 1258, causing the Tigris to flow black from the ink of discarded books. Tamerlane spared nothing but hospitals and mosques as he went on what a contemporary chronicler called a “pilgrimage of destruction” across the region’s great cities. “She is empty, and void, and waste,” wailed Nahum, the biblical prophet, ___________ (2) foreseeing the ruin of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians.

Still, the desolation of the past three years is probably the worst on record. According to the UN, half of the old city of Mosul, in Iraq, and a third of the old city of Aleppo, in Syria, are rubble. Hundreds of minarets, monasteries and monuments have been __________ (3) toppled. Of the world’s 38 endangered cultural-heritage sites, 22 are in the Middle East, says UNESCO, the UN’s cultural arm. “It’s Europe after the second world war,” says Michael Danti of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) at the University of Pennsylvania, which tracks the ___________ (4) destruction.

The jihadists of Islamic State (IS) like to boast of their role in the wreckage. They have filmed themselves razing ancient temples, churches and mosques. So they do not _____________ (5) quibble when their adversaries heap most of the blame on them for destroying the region’s heritage. “Responsibility of this devastation is laid firmly at the doorstep of ISIS,” said Major-General Joseph Martin, the commander of ______________ (6) coalition forces in Mosul, after the jihadists blew up a medieval minaret in the city.

But the American and Russian armies, along with their local allies, have inflicted at least as much damage in their war on the jihadists. Data compiled by ASOR shows that IS damaged 15 religious sites in Mosul. The American-led coalition’s operation to ____________ (7) recapture the city damaged 47, of which 38 were largely destroyed. Russian air strikes in support of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, have damaged such treasures as the pillars where Saint Simeon the Hermit is said to have ____________ (8) perched for 40 years. Mr Assad’s barrel-bombs have destroyed ancient buildings across Syria; so have the explosives of Western-backed rebels.

In 2011 the International Council of Museums (ICOM) supplied NATO with a list of heritage sites, and their co-ordinates, in Libya, which the alliance avoided in its bombing campaign. But the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has been less ______________ (9) scrupulous with the list that it received. Air strikes have hit the national museum in Dhamar, with its 12,500 artefacts; the Great Dam of Marib, an ancient engineering wonder; and the al-Qasimi complex of mud-brick towers in the old city of Sana’a. The best protection for the artefacts is often to leave them underground, says Hanna Pennock, a former director of ICOM.

Pressure for international action is rising. In March the UN security council reaffirmed that attacks on cultural sites are a war crime. Last September Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi pleaded guilty in the International Criminal Court (ICC) to crimes of cultural destruction in Mali. The jihadist leader admitted to ordering attacks on Muslim shrines in Timbuktu. As The Economist went to press, judges from the ICC were expected to award ______________ (10) reparations ,setting a precedent for similar claims at other heritage sites.

1)

(a) Sacked

(b) Bounced

(c) Captured

(d) Resurfaced

(e) No Change Required

2)

(a) Dope out

(b) Returning

(c) Failing

(d) Surpassing

(e) No Change Required

3)

(a) Victimized

(b) Toppled

(c) Waved

(d) Ascended

(e) No Change Required

4)

(a) Improvement

(b) Reparation

(c) Changes

(d) Destruction

(e) No Change Required

5)

(a) Quirk

(b) Openness

(c) Approval

(d) Unanimity

(e) No Change Required

6)

(a) Disputed

(b) Severance

(c) Coalition

(d) Equivalent

(e) No Change Required

7)

(a) Recapture

(b) Capture

(c) Claim

(d) Dethone

(e) No Change Required

8)

(a) Instability

(b) Perched

(c) Moved

(d) Lowered

(e) No Change Required

9)

(a) Careless

(b) Inaccurate

(c) True

(d) Openess

(e) No Change Required

10)

(a) Penitence

(b) Penalty

(c) Extortions

(d) Reparations

(e) No Change Required

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