IBPS CLERK Mains 2018 – 10 Days Study Planner – English -Day 4

Dear Bankersdaily Aspirants,

IBPS CLERK Mains Exam 2018 is coming fast than you think and there are only less days to make your preparation fruitful. The preparation strategy must be fixed in such a way that the actual ones will help to score more marks in the IBPS CLERK mains Exam 2018.

The IBSP CLERK Mains Exam 2018 is scheduled to happen on 20^th December 2019.

The key to score more marks lies in scoring in the General Awareness, banking Awareness and English Section. So, one needs to be preparing in such a way that, the aspirant must get maximum marks in the above said section. Practising is the key to score in these topics and aspirants must read at least 6 months Current Affairs to crack the General Awareness Section and Banking Awareness Section.

We have started the IBPS CLERK Mains Exam 2018 – Planner where we are providing practice questions from the above topics which will help the aspirants to increase the solving ability and to learn new questions.

We have also included the New pattern Questions which have been asked in the recent exams like SBI Clerk, IBPS RRB Assistant and others. This will assist the aspirants in analyzing the type of questions and to know the nuances of attending the Different type of questions.

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• Section : English Language
• Topic: Reading Comprehension
• Total Questions: 20
• Total Timing: 15 Minutes

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We have also posted this Practice Questions with Timer in our Bankersdaily Tests. Please attend the Tests if wish to attend this reasoning tests with timer. 

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Click Here – Attend Day 4 – English Qs – IBPS CLERK Mains Planner 2018

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D.1-10): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

Blue Planet 2 demonstrated the terrifyingly fragile state of nature’s ecosystem. One of the key messages from the BBC series was that a delicate balance exists in the oceans between predators and prey. If there are too many predators, the stocks of prey fall. The predators go hungry and their numbers dwindle, allowing the prey to recover. Balance is restored.

Humans have their equivalent of this predator-prey model. It is best demonstrated by the workings of the labour market, where there is a constant struggle between employers and employees over the proceeds of growth. Unlike the world of nature, though, there is no self-righting mechanism. One side can carry on devouring its prey until the system breaks down. Over the past 40 years, employers have been the predators, workers the prey.

Consider the facts. By almost any measure, the past decade has been a disaster for living standards. Unemployment has fallen from its post financial-crisis peaks across the developed world but workers have found it hard to make ends meet. Earnings growth has halved in the UK even though the latest set of unemployment figures show that the jobless rate is the lowest since 1975.

The reason is not hard to find. Unions are far less powerful; collective bargaining in most of the private sector is a thing of the past; part-time working has boomed; and people who were once employed by a company are now part of the gig economy.

These changes in the labour market are by no means confined to the UK or US. European countries that were at the sharp end of the financial crisis – Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus – found that the cost of help was a programme of wage cuts, austerity and privatisation.

Clearly, the financial crisis has been a factor. Earnings growth in the UK in the decade before the banking meltdown was 4% to 4.5%; since 2008 it has struggled to reach half that level. But it would be a mistake to see the financial crisis as representing a break with the past. Rather, it intensified a process that had been going on since the 1970s, a process that can only really be understood by use of the C-word: class.

Seen in the simplest terms, the story of political economy over the past four decades is a class war between capital and labour, which capital has won hands down. The battlefield is littered with evidence of labour’s defeat: nugatory pay awards, precarious work, the collapse of collective bargaining, and cuts in public spending.

And to the victors have gone the spoils: higher profits and dividends; lower personal tax rates; a higher share of national income. Life for those at the top has carried on much as before, even as the average worker has experienced the worst decade for wage growth since the 19th century. Unsurprisingly, it sticks in the craw for those whose living standards are going down to see the 1% whooping it up. Nobody likes to have their nose rubbed in it.

There was a time when parties of the centre-left would have been the beneficiaries of this resentment. Yet the German Social Democrats have just had their worst electoral result since the second world war; the French Socialist party has been reduced to a rump; the Greek socialist party Pasok has been wiped out; Hillary Clinton managed to lose the race for the White House to Donald Trump. In Spain and the Netherlands the story is the same. Everywhere there is palpable unhappiness about what is seen as a rigged system; but other than in the UK, it has not translated into support for parties of the mainstream left.

An explanation for this is provided by William Mitchell and Thomas Fazi in their book Reclaiming the State: the left has given up on the politics of class and concentrated on the politics of identity. And while this has led to some worthy victories, none of them has actually challenged turbo-charged capitalism, which has had the field to itself.

There are still one or two politicians around who are unembarrassed about espousing the politics of class. Bernie Sanders is one; Jeremy Corbyn is another. Neither has bought into the argument – increasingly prevalent on the left since the 1970s – that nation states are powerless in the face of global market forces. Rather, Sanders and Corbyn say the state can and should be used as aggressively by the left as it has been by the right. This runs counter to the whole third-way approach pursued by Bill Clinton in the US and Tony Blair in the UK, which stated that centre-left governments had to come to an accommodation with the markets, in which accommodation meant repealing Roosevelt’s curbs on Wall Street’s speculative activities and using taxpayers’ money to top up poverty wages through tax credits.

Labour’s current contortions over Brexit are evidence of the tension between these two worldviews. A chunk of the party – the bigger chunk – thinks the only way to counter the excesses of capitalism is at a supra-national EU level. Yet it is hard to square this belief with the 2007 Lisbon treaty, which commits member states to act in accordance with the principle of an open economy with free competition; frowns on state aid; and lays out disciplinary procedures for governments that run excessive deficits.

What’s more, neoliberal theory has been put into practice – which is why, when French and German banks lent recklessly to Greece, the imperative was to protect French and German bondholders rather than Greek workers.

It is a big and debilitating modern myth that the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s and the 1980s weakened the power of the state. What actually happened was that parties of the right refashioned and repurposed the state to undermine the power of labour and strengthen the power of capital. The enduring power of nation states was highlighted in the 2008 financial crisis, when it was only the willingness of governments to wade in with public money and taxpayer guarantees that prevented the entire global banking system from going bust.

So here are the options. Parties on the left can carry on believing that capitalism can be tamed at a transnational level, even though all the available evidence is that this is not going to happen. They can seek to use the power of the state for progressive ends, even though this will be strongly resisted. Or they can sit and watch as the predators munch their way through their prey. Even for the predators, this would be a disastrous outcome.

Q.1) Suggest a suitable caption for the passage:

a) Capitalism- The captain of economic team.

b) Economy vs Inflation.

c) Influence of capitalism.

d) Trademark of capitalism.

e) Power of the wealthy.

Q.2) Which among the following is/are the reasons for employment rate being low?

I) Unions are far less powerful.

II) Collective bargaining in most of the private sector is a thing of the past.

III) People who were once employed by a company are now part of the gig economy.

IV) Part-time working has boomed.

a) I,II and III

b) II, III and IV

c) Both II and III

d) All of the above.

e) None of the above.

Q.3) Which among the following substantiate(s) the crushing of labour by capital?

I) Nugatory pay awards.

II) Precarious work.

III) The collapse of collective bargaining.

IV) Cuts in public spending.

a) I,II and III

b) II, III and IV

c) Both II and III

d) All of the above.

e) None of the above.

Q.4) Which among the following is not true?

a) Labour’s current contortions over Brexit are evidence of the tension between these two worldviews.

b) Earnings growth in the UK in the decade before the banking meltdown was 4% to 4.5%; since 2008 it has struggled to reach half that level.

c) Over the past 40 years, employers have been the predators, workers the prey.

d) Unemployment has fallen from its post financial-crisis peaks across the developed world but workers have found it hard to make ends meet.

e) None of the above.

Q.5) Which among the following is the synonym of the word ‘resentment’?

a) Zeal

b) Rancour

c) Rendezvous

d) Contentment

e) Fester

Q.6) Which among the following is the antonym of the word ‘precarious’?

a) Perilous

b) Secure

c) Vulnerable

d) Vet

e) Scrutinize

Q.7) Which among the following is not false?

a) It is a big and debilitating modern myth that the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s and the 1980s weakened the power of the state.

b) There are still one or two politicians around who are unembarrassed about espousing the politics of class.

c) Hillary Clinton managed to lose the race for the White House to Donald Trump.

d) When French and German banks lent recklessly to Greece, the imperative was to protect French and German bondholders rather than Greek workers.

e) All of the above.

Q.8) Through which among the following statements has the author alluded that “the people who embrace capitalism walk away with benefits”?

a) The bourgeois are failing to make both ends meet.

b) It sticks in the craw for those whose living standards are going down.

c) Employers have been the predators, workers the prey.

d) To the victors have gone the spoils.

e) Neoliberal theory has been put into practice.

Q.9) Which among the following was/were the need of the hour for certain countries to get out financial crisis?

I) Wage cuts.

II) Austerity.

III) Privatisation.

a) I,II and III

b) II, III and IV

c) Both II and III

d) All of the above.

e) None of the above.

Q.10) All the following statements are mentioned in the passage above EXCEPT?

a) Sanders and Corbyn say the state can and should be used as aggressively by the left as it has been by the right.

b) Parties on the left can carry on believing that capitalism can be tamed at a transnational level, even though all the available evidence is that this is not going to happen.

c) The left has given up on the politics of class and concentrated on the politics of identity.

d) The French Socialist party has been reduced to a rump.

e) None of the above.

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D.11-20):  Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

If you haven’t read journalist Nick Bilton’s American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind Silk Road, now is the time to immerse yourself in the riveting page-turner. Published in May 2017, the conversation that Bilton has fast reignited on a global scale is all about the underbelly of the Internet. American Kingpin opens with Homeland Security Officer Jared Der Yeghiayan intercepting an unmarked single pink pill in 2011. The suspicion surrounding the package builds up to a full-fledged manhunt for the creator of the highly-encrypted marketplace Silk Road and the ultimate arrest of Ross Ulbricht. Despite that, unlike a lot of other crimes, Bilton says, “The dark web is the dark web; there’s no way to put it in a bottle.” Decentralised sites such as those in the dark web claim to hand power back to people online; power in the form of communication, currency and archiving. But it’s power of a different kind. Bilton talks of a recent report released by Tor, upon which Silk Road operated, “One of the founders of Tor stated he was shocked to learn that 95% of websites on the anonymity network are now used for nefarious purposes.” The Dark Web and it’s murky underpinnings are explored by Nick Bilton in his book. Possibly due to its shifting nature, understanding the infrastructure of the darknet is almost impossible for the regular person who does a day job and goes to bed at night. It is possible to comprehend what goes down there, though. Bilton explains: “When the Internet came along, the public imagined it would be this happy, Utopic place, but the reality is quite different: Russia used it to hack the US elections, Donald Trump uses it to incite violence on Twitter, driverless cars can be used to drive into people, and hackers are now using Bitcoin to hold companies and hospitals ransom and demanding vast amounts of money before they turn the power back.” Law enforcement agencies pull down these websites that operate at high stakes, but they are easily accessible to those in the know, especially the young, with illegal transactions of every sort being the norm. Silk Road, for instance, featured sinister products, such as dismembered body parts and the services of a hit man. Notions of ‘the double life’ first sparked the idea for the book, when Bilton was residing in Glen Park in San Francisco around the time Silk Road got taken down and then found out that Ulbricht was his almost-neighbour. Ulbricht’s Libertarian beliefs reflected upon drug laws in America as tyrannical, and perhaps that’s largely what shaped his idea for Silk Road; he viewed the world as a place that should operate without coercion or aggression. How mediated we are by technology is the big joke of it all, according to Bilton, “What Ross managed to do is lead two lives and make them unbelievably different. He was a very sweet and kind kid. Then you have Dread Pirate Roberts, his alter-ego, who was capable of making really ruthless decisions about potentially having people killed and selling body parts on the Internet.” At the time of his arrest, Ulbricht’s net worth lay at $28.5 million dollars, while Silk Road’s was $1.2 billion, conveying the amount of international activity the site had amassed in its four years of existence. To this day, Bilton still mulls over whether Ulbricht deserves the double-life sentence; while he led a double life, he didn’t have an active hand in anyone’s death, but he did have an intention to kill those in his way. He simply sums up, “I do believe that Ross’ sentence intended to send a message — whether or not that works, remains to be seen.” In fact, a look at silkroaddrugs.org shows that Ulbricht’s conviction has led to an increase in the sales of products on darknet sites. Bilton’s vividly-detailed journalism (he writes for Vanity Fair and used to be a columnist at The New York Times) brings you to a unique frontier, the kind, like all good journalism, shows you two sides of a story, while also showing that the power struggle is far from over. Bilton speaks in great detail of just how much Ulbricht changed the lives of pretty much everyone in the narrative — from his college girlfriend to the members of law enforcement agencies. The resulting power-play is intriguing, as Ulbricht and the authorities use Silk Road as a litmus test of their abilities. Chilling vividness is achieved through Bilton’s hundreds of hours of interviews with everyone impacted by Ulbricht — from childhood friends to those holding the highest position in the government. The narrative is almost cinematic in nature, while showing how tectonic shifts in the way crime operates and engulfs young people, do change the world, and not always for the good.

Q.11) Which of the following is/are the main concept(s) of Nick Bilton’s?

I) The man behind Silk Road.

II) The conversation that Bilton has fast reignited on a global scale.

III) The Dark web being the breeding ground of many sites, give people power in many forms.

a) Only I

b) Only II

c) Both I and II

d) Both I and III

e) None of the above.

Q.12) What is/ are false among the following according to the passage?

I) Nick Bilton’s book is about the Criminal Mastermind Behind Silk Road.

II) Decentralised sites give people power in the form of communication, currency and archiving.

III) Bilton was shocked to learn that 95% of websites on the anonymity network are now used for nefarious purposes.

a) Only I

b) Only II

c) Only III

d) All the above are false.

e) None of the above.

Q.13) Which of the following is/are the ill effect(s) of the internet?   

a) Russia used darkweb to hack the US elections.

b) Donald Trump uses internet to incite violence on Twitter.

c) Hackers use bitcoin as ransom by hacking hospitals and companies.

d) All the above.

e) Not given in the passage.

Q.14) What was/were the inception(s) that led to the arrest of Robert Ulbricht?

I) Interception of an unmarked single pink pill.

II) Ross managed to lead two lives and make them unbelievably different.

III) For creating Silk Road, a notorious online market place to sell pills.

a) Only I

b) Only II

c) Both I and II

d) Both I and III

e) None of the above.

Q.15) Give a suitable title for this passage.

a) Dark web, Dark psyche

b) Robert Ulbritch and his hacking

c) Bilton’s American Kingpin

d) The American drug Mafia

e) Silk Road and its powers

Q.16) According to the passage, Ross is associated to which of the following?

I) Ross created the online portal Silk Road to trade drugs.

II) Ross’ libertarian beliefs reflected upon drug laws in America as tyrannical.

III) Ross was sentenced a double-life imprisonment for hacking into federal bank.

a) Only I

b) Only III

c) Both I and II

d) Both II and III

e) None of the above.

Q.17) Why was Ross granted a parole?

a) He wanted to sell drugs online.

b) Ross is a psychopath who has split personality.

c) Ross wanted to kill many people as much as he can.

d) His libertarian beliefs reflected upon drug laws in America.

e) Not mentioned in the passage.

Q.18) What is the synonym of the word ‘Underpinnings’ from the passage?

a) Foundation

b) Infrastructure

c) Remedy

d) Evidence

e) Crumble

Q.19) What is the meaning for the word ‘notions’ according to the passage?

a) Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

b) Inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real.

c) A conception of or belief about something.

d) Importance or relevance.

e) blind acceptance of facts.

Q.20) What is the antonym for the word ‘Nefarious’ from the passage?

a) Worthy

b) Immoral

c) Good

d) Wicked

e) Reverted

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Aspirants can check the answers for the above questions below. 

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Q.1) c

Q.2) e

Q.3) d

Q.4) e

Q.5) b

Q.6) b

Q.7) e

Q.8) d

Q.9) d

Q.10) e

Q.11) d

Q.12) c

Q.13) d

Q.14) a

Q.15) c

Q.16) c

Q.17) e

Q.18) a

Q.19) c

Q.20) c

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