CLAT Practice Test - 10 - CLAT MCQ

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
India really cannot handle tension in West Asia right now.
That may seem obvious: after all, any escalation in hostilities between Iran and the United States, after the latter killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, will have a huge impact across the region and beyond. It's not for nothing that "World War 3" trended on Twitter on Friday.
There are two primary dangers for India, other than the extremely destabilising effects of any outright war in the region.
One, there are 8 million Indians living and working in West Asia, the vast majority of whom live in the Arabian Gulf.
Conflict would put them all in danger, as it did at the start of the 1990s, when the US went to war with Iraq and New Delhi had to arrange an airlift of more than 110,0 Indian ci tizens.
But even if there isn't all-out conflict, heightened tensions could hurt the economies of the region, and endanger the jobs of many Indians. Already the events of the last few years, including inter-regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, employment nationalisation drives in a number of countries and Dubai's struggles to recover from economic crisis, have hurt the diaspora.
Kerala has already begun coming to terms with the idea that many more will return. A sudden jolt would put pressure on the places Indians return to, and also endanger the $40 billion in remittances India receives from West Asia - more than 50% of all remittances to the country, a key source of foreign exchange.
Then there is the question of oil prices. Though international prices have gone up by 4% since the strike on Soleimani, analysts do not currently expect them to get much higher -presuming it is in no one's interests for that to happen and that both the US and Iran will back down from outright conflict.
Yet if that presumption is wrong, India will face some difficult times. Although India does not now import much oil from Iran, it is still heavily reliant on the Strait of Hormuz - the tiny span of water through which a quarter of the world's oil and a third of its natural gas travels. Higher oil prices would automatically mean inflation in India, where analysts are already worried about rising food prices. Even if India's economy were on a more stable footing, conflict in the region would be dangerous. But the current tensions, coming as they do when the Indian economy seems poised on a
precipice, should be even more alarming for policymakers. [Extracted, with edits and revisions, from: "Here's what an Iran-US conflict would mean for India", by Rohan Venkataraman, Scroll, January 2020.]

Why do the analysts expect that the international price of oil will not increase substantially?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
India really cannot handle tension in West Asia right now.
That may seem obvious: after all, any escalation in hostilities between Iran and the United States, after the latter killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, will have a huge impact across the region and beyond. It's not for nothing that "World War 3" trended on Twitter on Friday.
There are two primary dangers for India, other than the extremely destabilising effects of any outright war in the region.
One, there are 8 million Indians living and working in West Asia, the vast majority of whom live in the Arabian Gulf.
Conflict would put them all in danger, as it did at the start of the 1990s, when the US went to war with Iraq and New Delhi had to arrange an airlift of more than 110,0 Indian ci tizens.
But even if there isn't all-out conflict, heightened tensions could hurt the economies of the region, and endanger the jobs of many Indians. Already the events of the last few years, including inter-regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, employment nationalisation drives in a number of countries and Dubai's struggles to recover from economic crisis, have hurt the diaspora.
Kerala has already begun coming to terms with the idea that many more will return. A sudden jolt would put pressure on the places Indians return to, and also endanger the $40 billion in remittances India receives from West Asia - more than 50% of all remittances to the country, a key source of foreign exchange.
Then there is the question of oil prices. Though international prices have gone up by 4% since the strike on Soleimani, analysts do not currently expect them to get much higher -presuming it is in no one's interests for that to happen and that both the US and Iran will back down from outright conflict.
Yet if that presumption is wrong, India will face some difficult times. Although India does not now import much oil from Iran, it is still heavily reliant on the Strait of Hormuz - the tiny span of water through which a quarter of the world's oil and a third of its natural gas travels. Higher oil prices would automatically mean inflation in India, where analysts are already worried about rising food prices. Even if India's economy were on a more stable footing, conflict in the region would be dangerous. But the current tensions, coming as they do when the Indian economy seems poised on a
precipice, should be even more alarming for policymakers. [Extracted, with edits and revisions, from: "Here's what an Iran-US conflict would mean for India", by Rohan Venkataraman, Scroll, January 2020.]

Which one of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Since 2005, the NGO Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) have shone a light on a critical failure of India's education system: A large number of school-going children across the country are short on basic learning skills. These reports have led to debates on seminal policy interventions such as the Right to Education Act and have been catalysts for meaningful conversations on the pedagogical deficiencies of the formal school system. The latest edition of ASER, released on Tuesday, directs attention to children between four and eight years of age, and suggests that India's learning crisis could be linked to the weakness of the country's pre-primary system. More than 20 per cent of students in Standard I are less than six, ASER 2019 reveals - they should ideally be in pre-school. At the same time, 36 per cent students in Standard 1 are older than the RTE-mandated age of six. "Even within Standard I, children's performance on cognitive, early language, early numeracy, and social and emotional learning tasks is strongly related to their age. Older children do better on all tasks," the report says. This is a significant finding and should be the starting point for a substantive debate on the ideal entry- level age to primary school. In this context, policymakers would also do well to go back to the pedagogical axiom which underlines that children between four and eight are best taught cognitive skills through playbased activities. The emphasis, as ASER 2019 emphasises, should be on "developing problem-solving faculties and building memory of children, and not content knowledge". ASER 2019 talks about leveraging the existing network of anganwadi centres to implement school readiness. The core structure of the anganwadis was developed more than 40 years ago as part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Pre-school education is part of their mandate. But at the best of times, these centres do no more than implement the government's child nutrition schemes. A number of health crises - including last year's AES outbreak in Bihar - have bared the inadequacies of the system. A growing body of scholarly work has also shown
that the anganwadi worker is poorly-paid, demoralised and lacks the autonomy to be an effective nurturer. The ASER report is alive to such shortcomings. "There is a need to expand and upgrade anganwadis to ensure that children get adequate and correct educational inputs of the kind that are not modeled after the formal school," it notes. The government would do well to act on this recommendation -especially since the Draft Education Policy that was put up for public discussion last year, also stresses on the preschool system.
[Extracted with edits from: "Before school", Editorial of Indian Express, January 2020.]

Each of the following is a reason as to why angawadi workers are not as effective as they should be EXCEPT:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Since 2005, the NGO Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) have shone a light on a critical failure of India's education system: A large number of school-going children across the country are short on basic learning skills. These reports have led to debates on seminal policy interventions such as the Right to Education Act and have been catalysts for meaningful conversations on the pedagogical deficiencies of the formal school system. The latest edition of ASER, released on Tuesday, directs attention to children between four and eight years of age, and suggests that India's learning crisis could be linked to the weakness of the country's pre-primary system. More than 20 per cent of students in Standard I are less than six, ASER 2019 reveals - they should ideally be in pre-school. At the same time, 36 per cent students in Standard 1 are older than the RTE-mandated age of six. "Even within Standard I, children's performance on cognitive, early language, early numeracy, and social and emotional learning tasks is strongly related to their age. Older children do better on all tasks," the report says. This is a significant finding and should be the starting point for a substantive debate on the ideal entry- level age to primary school. In this context, policymakers would also do well to go back to the pedagogical axiom which underlines that children between four and eight are best taught cognitive skills through playbased activities. The emphasis, as ASER 2019 emphasises, should be on "developing problem-solving faculties and building memory of children, and not content knowledge". ASER 2019 talks about leveraging the existing network of anganwadi centres to implement school readiness. The core structure of the anganwadis was developed more than 40 years ago as part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Pre-school education is part of their mandate. But at the best of times, these centres do no more than implement the government's child nutrition schemes. A number of health crises - including last year's AES outbreak in Bihar - have bared the inadequacies of the system. A growing body of scholarly work has also shown
that the anganwadi worker is poorly-paid, demoralised and lacks the autonomy to be an effective nurturer. The ASER report is alive to such shortcomings. "There is a need to expand and upgrade anganwadis to ensure that children get adequate and correct educational inputs of the kind that are not modeled after the formal school," it notes. The government would do well to act on this recommendation -especially since the Draft Education Policy that was put up for public discussion last year, also stresses on the preschool system.
[Extracted with edits from: "Before school", Editorial of Indian Express, January 2020.]

In the last paragraph, why does the author states that the government should act on the recommendation based on the ASER report?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Since 2005, the NGO Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) have shone a light on a critical failure of India's education system: A large number of school-going children across the country are short on basic learning skills. These reports have led to debates on seminal policy interventions such as the Right to Education Act and have been catalysts for meaningful conversations on the pedagogical deficiencies of the formal school system. The latest edition of ASER, released on Tuesday, directs attention to children between four and eight years of age, and suggests that India's learning crisis could be linked to the weakness of the country's pre-primary system. More than 20 per cent of students in Standard I are less than six, ASER 2019 reveals - they should ideally be in pre-school. At the same time, 36 per cent students in Standard 1 are older than the RTE-mandated age of six. "Even within Standard I, children's performance on cognitive, early language, early numeracy, and social and emotional learning tasks is strongly related to their age. Older children do better on all tasks," the report says. This is a significant finding and should be the starting point for a substantive debate on the ideal entry- level age to primary school. In this context, policymakers would also do well to go back to the pedagogical axiom which underlines that children between four and eight are best taught cognitive skills through playbased activities. The emphasis, as ASER 2019 emphasises, should be on "developing problem-solving faculties and building memory of children, and not content knowledge". ASER 2019 talks about leveraging the existing network of anganwadi centres to implement school readiness. The core structure of the anganwadis was developed more than 40 years ago as part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Pre-school education is part of their mandate. But at the best of times, these centres do no more than implement the government's child nutrition schemes. A number of health crises - including last year's AES outbreak in Bihar - have bared the inadequacies of the system. A growing body of scholarly work has also shown
that the anganwadi worker is poorly-paid, demoralised and lacks the autonomy to be an effective nurturer. The ASER report is alive to such shortcomings. "There is a need to expand and upgrade anganwadis to ensure that children get adequate and correct educational inputs of the kind that are not modeled after the formal school," it notes. The government would do well to act on this recommendation -especially since the Draft Education Policy that was put up for public discussion last year, also stresses on the preschool system.
[Extracted with edits from: "Before school", Editorial of Indian Express, January 2020.]

Which one of the following statements is the author most likely to agree with?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Since 2005, the NGO Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) have shone a light on a critical failure of India's education system: A large number of school-going children across the country are short on basic learning skills. These reports have led to debates on seminal policy interventions such as the Right to Education Act and have been catalysts for meaningful conversations on the pedagogical deficiencies of the formal school system. The latest edition of ASER, released on Tuesday, directs attention to children between four and eight years of age, and suggests that India's learning crisis could be linked to the weakness of the country's pre-primary system. More than 20 per cent of students in Standard I are less than six, ASER 2019 reveals - they should ideally be in pre-school. At the same time, 36 per cent students in Standard 1 are older than the RTE-mandated age of six. "Even within Standard I, children's performance on cognitive, early language, early numeracy, and social and emotional learning tasks is strongly related to their age. Older children do better on all tasks," the report says. This is a significant finding and should be the starting point for a substantive debate on the ideal entry- level age to primary school. In this context, policymakers would also do well to go back to the pedagogical axiom which underlines that children between four and eight are best taught cognitive skills through playbased activities. The emphasis, as ASER 2019 emphasises, should be on "developing problem-solving faculties and building memory of children, and not content knowledge". ASER 2019 talks about leveraging the existing network of anganwadi centres to implement school readiness. The core structure of the anganwadis was developed more than 40 years ago as part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Pre-school education is part of their mandate. But at the best of times, these centres do no more than implement the government's child nutrition schemes. A number of health crises - including last year's AES outbreak in Bihar - have bared the inadequacies of the system. A growing body of scholarly work has also shown
that the anganwadi worker is poorly-paid, demoralised and lacks the autonomy to be an effective nurturer. The ASER report is alive to such shortcomings. "There is a need to expand and upgrade anganwadis to ensure that children get adequate and correct educational inputs of the kind that are not modeled after the formal school," it notes. The government would do well to act on this recommendation -especially since the Draft Education Policy that was put up for public discussion last year, also stresses on the preschool system.
[Extracted with edits from: "Before school", Editorial of Indian Express, January 2020.]

Which one of the following best describes the essence of the passage?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Since 2005, the NGO Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) have shone a light on a critical failure of India's education system: A large number of school-going children across the country are short on basic learning skills. These reports have led to debates on seminal policy interventions such as the Right to Education Act and have been catalysts for meaningful conversations on the pedagogical deficiencies of the formal school system. The latest edition of ASER, released on Tuesday, directs attention to children between four and eight years of age, and suggests that India's learning crisis could be linked to the weakness of the country's pre-primary system. More than 20 per cent of students in Standard I are less than six, ASER 2019 reveals - they should ideally be in pre-school. At the same time, 36 per cent students in Standard 1 are older than the RTE-mandated age of six. "Even within Standard I, children's performance on cognitive, early language, early numeracy, and social and emotional learning tasks is strongly related to their age. Older children do better on all tasks," the report says. This is a significant finding and should be the starting point for a substantive debate on the ideal entry- level age to primary school. In this context, policymakers would also do well to go back to the pedagogical axiom which underlines that children between four and eight are best taught cognitive skills through playbased activities. The emphasis, as ASER 2019 emphasises, should be on "developing problem-solving faculties and building memory of children, and not content knowledge". ASER 2019 talks about leveraging the existing network of anganwadi centres to implement school readiness. The core structure of the anganwadis was developed more than 40 years ago as part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Pre-school education is part of their mandate. But at the best of times, these centres do no more than implement the government's child nutrition schemes. A number of health crises - including last year's AES outbreak in Bihar - have bared the inadequacies of the system. A growing body of scholarly work has also shown
that the anganwadi worker is poorly-paid, demoralised and lacks the autonomy to be an effective nurturer. The ASER report is alive to such shortcomings. "There is a need to expand and upgrade anganwadis to ensure that children get adequate and correct educational inputs of the kind that are not modeled after the formal school," it notes. The government would do well to act on this recommendation -especially since the Draft Education Policy that was put up for public discussion last year, also stresses on the preschool system.
[Extracted with edits from: "Before school", Editorial of Indian Express, January 2020.]

What does the word "seminal" mean as used in the first paragraph passage?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.
At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage; Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch ; Drona, the brahmin-warrior; Drupad, the king of Panchaal; and Karna, the great warrior.
But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leatherbound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time-the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time.
Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man.
But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking, I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.
Better still, I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her
heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali? It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Author's Note of her novel "The Palace of Illusion", by Chitra Lekha Banerjee Divakumari, 2008]

What does the word 'subservient' as used in the passage mean?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.
At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage; Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch ; Drona, the brahmin-warrior; Drupad, the king of Panchaal; and Karna, the great warrior.
But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leatherbound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time-the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time.
Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man.
But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking, I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.
Better still, I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her
heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali? It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Author's Note of her novel "The Palace of Illusion", by Chitra Lekha Banerjee Divakumari, 2008]

It can be inferred from the passage that the novel "The Palace of Illusions" is most likely to be:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.
At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage; Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch ; Drona, the brahmin-warrior; Drupad, the king of Panchaal; and Karna, the great warrior.
But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leatherbound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time-the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time.
Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man.
But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking, I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.
Better still, I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her
heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali? It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Author's Note of her novel "The Palace of Illusion", by Chitra Lekha Banerjee Divakumari, 2008]

Why did the author place the women in the forefront of action in her novel "The Palace of Illusions"?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.
At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage; Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch ; Drona, the brahmin-warrior; Drupad, the king of Panchaal; and Karna, the great warrior.
But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leatherbound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time-the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time.
Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man.
But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking, I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.
Better still, I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her
heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali? It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Author's Note of her novel "The Palace of Illusion", by Chitra Lekha Banerjee Divakumari, 2008]

In the novel "The Palace of Illusions", some of the male characters of Mahabarat:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.
At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage; Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch ; Drona, the brahmin-warrior; Drupad, the king of Panchaal; and Karna, the great warrior.
But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leatherbound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time-the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time.
Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man.
But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking, I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.
Better still, I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her
heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali? It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Author's Note of her novel "The Palace of Illusion", by Chitra Lekha Banerjee Divakumari, 2008]

Consider this line from the passage: "I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits.". What is invisible?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Why on Earth is it taking so long for the world's richest countries to take action on climate change? For a partial answer, we can look back to the controversy that started a decade ago this November, which came to be known as Climategate. In a 2010 paper in the journal Environmental Values, the sociologist Brigitte Nerlich looked at what happened.
Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. The leaked file included more than 1,0 emails, but climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them: some messages in which scientists debated the publication of potentially flawed work, and some others in which they discussed adjusting data using a "trick"-a piece of mathematical jargon that commentators misinterpreted as an effort to deceive the public.
In the U.S. and UK, conservative bloggers quickly latched onto the messages as proof of dishonesty among climate scientists. Nerlich writes that they effectively reached their audiences with a few specific phrases. One of these was the word "climategate" itself- apparently first used by conservative UK writer James Delingpole. The -gate suffix, referring back to Watergate, is a familiar method used by partisans and members of the media to indicate a serious scandal.
Looking at the messaging in blog posts about climategate, Nerlich found that another common theme was "science as a religion." Climate change deniers accused environmentalists and scientists of irrationally clinging to their belief in human-made climate change in the face of what they saw as evidence that it was a hoax. "The Global Warming religion is as virulent and insidious as all mindbending cults of absolute certitude, and yet it has become mainstream orthodoxy and infallible spirituality faster than any faith-based cult in history," as one blogger put it.
Nerlich notes that, when it comes to scientists' levels of certainty, climate change deniers wanted to have it both ways. Any hint of uncertainty-which is almost always a factor in scientific analyses, especially concerning predictions about complex systems-was presented as a reason not to believe that change was happening at all. But too much certainty became proof that scientists were no longer operating from evidence, but instead trying to justify a cult-like faith.
Ultimately, Climategate was shown to be a fabrication. In April 2010, an independent panel cleared the climate scientists of any wrongdoing in the leaked messages. Yet the controversy apparently succeeded in changing public opinion, at least temporarily. In February of 2010, the Guardian reported that, in the previous year, the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent. [Extracted with edits from: "How to Sell Climate Denial", by Liyia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, November 2019.]

In the second paragraph the author mentions "trick" in quotes in order to highlight that the adjusting of data was:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Why on Earth is it taking so long for the world's richest countries to take action on climate change? For a partial answer, we can look back to the controversy that started a decade ago this November, which came to be known as Climategate. In a 2010 paper in the journal Environmental Values, the sociologist Brigitte Nerlich looked at what happened.
Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. The leaked file included more than 1,0 emails, but climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them: some messages in which scientists debated the publication of potentially flawed work, and some others in which they discussed adjusting data using a "trick"-a piece of mathematical jargon that commentators misinterpreted as an effort to deceive the public.
In the U.S. and UK, conservative bloggers quickly latched onto the messages as proof of dishonesty among climate scientists. Nerlich writes that they effectively reached their audiences with a few specific phrases. One of these was the word "climategate" itself- apparently first used by conservative UK writer James Delingpole. The -gate suffix, referring back to Watergate, is a familiar method used by partisans and members of the media to indicate a serious scandal.
Looking at the messaging in blog posts about climategate, Nerlich found that another common theme was "science as a religion." Climate change deniers accused environmentalists and scientists of irrationally clinging to their belief in human-made climate change in the face of what they saw as evidence that it was a hoax. "The Global Warming religion is as virulent and insidious as all mindbending cults of absolute certitude, and yet it has become mainstream orthodoxy and infallible spirituality faster than any faith-based cult in history," as one blogger put it.
Nerlich notes that, when it comes to scientists' levels of certainty, climate change deniers wanted to have it both ways. Any hint of uncertainty-which is almost always a factor in scientific analyses, especially concerning predictions about complex systems-was presented as a reason not to believe that change was happening at all. But too much certainty became proof that scientists were no longer operating from evidence, but instead trying to justify a cult-like faith.
Ultimately, Climategate was shown to be a fabrication. In April 2010, an independent panel cleared the climate scientists of any wrongdoing in the leaked messages. Yet the controversy apparently succeeded in changing public opinion, at least temporarily. In February of 2010, the Guardian reported that, in the previous year, the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent. [Extracted with edits from: "How to Sell Climate Denial", by Liyia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, November 2019.]

Why did some of the conservative users add the suffix -gate in climategate?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Why on Earth is it taking so long for the world's richest countries to take action on climate change? For a partial answer, we can look back to the controversy that started a decade ago this November, which came to be known as Climategate. In a 2010 paper in the journal Environmental Values, the sociologist Brigitte Nerlich looked at what happened.
Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. The leaked file included more than 1,0 emails, but climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them: some messages in which scientists debated the publication of potentially flawed work, and some others in which they discussed adjusting data using a "trick"-a piece of mathematical jargon that commentators misinterpreted as an effort to deceive the public.
In the U.S. and UK, conservative bloggers quickly latched onto the messages as proof of dishonesty among climate scientists. Nerlich writes that they effectively reached their audiences with a few specific phrases. One of these was the word "climategate" itself- apparently first used by conservative UK writer James Delingpole. The -gate suffix, referring back to Watergate, is a familiar method used by partisans and members of the media to indicate a serious scandal.
Looking at the messaging in blog posts about climategate, Nerlich found that another common theme was "science as a religion." Climate change deniers accused environmentalists and scientists of irrationally clinging to their belief in human-made climate change in the face of what they saw as evidence that it was a hoax. "The Global Warming religion is as virulent and insidious as all mindbending cults of absolute certitude, and yet it has become mainstream orthodoxy and infallible spirituality faster than any faith-based cult in history," as one blogger put it.
Nerlich notes that, when it comes to scientists' levels of certainty, climate change deniers wanted to have it both ways. Any hint of uncertainty-which is almost always a factor in scientific analyses, especially concerning predictions about complex systems-was presented as a reason not to believe that change was happening at all. But too much certainty became proof that scientists were no longer operating from evidence, but instead trying to justify a cult-like faith.
Ultimately, Climategate was shown to be a fabrication. In April 2010, an independent panel cleared the climate scientists of any wrongdoing in the leaked messages. Yet the controversy apparently succeeded in changing public opinion, at least temporarily. In February of 2010, the Guardian reported that, in the previous year, the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent. [Extracted with edits from: "How to Sell Climate Denial", by Liyia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, November 2019.]

Why did the climate change deniers use the analogy of science as a religion?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Why on Earth is it taking so long for the world's richest countries to take action on climate change? For a partial answer, we can look back to the controversy that started a decade ago this November, which came to be known as Climategate. In a 2010 paper in the journal Environmental Values, the sociologist Brigitte Nerlich looked at what happened.
Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. The leaked file included more than 1,0 emails, but climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them: some messages in which scientists debated the publication of potentially flawed work, and some others in which they discussed adjusting data using a "trick"-a piece of mathematical jargon that commentators misinterpreted as an effort to deceive the public.
In the U.S. and UK, conservative bloggers quickly latched onto the messages as proof of dishonesty among climate scientists. Nerlich writes that they effectively reached their audiences with a few specific phrases. One of these was the word "climategate" itself- apparently first used by conservative UK writer James Delingpole. The -gate suffix, referring back to Watergate, is a familiar method used by partisans and members of the media to indicate a serious scandal.
Looking at the messaging in blog posts about climategate, Nerlich found that another common theme was "science as a religion." Climate change deniers accused environmentalists and scientists of irrationally clinging to their belief in human-made climate change in the face of what they saw as evidence that it was a hoax. "The Global Warming religion is as virulent and insidious as all mindbending cults of absolute certitude, and yet it has become mainstream orthodoxy and infallible spirituality faster than any faith-based cult in history," as one blogger put it.
Nerlich notes that, when it comes to scientists' levels of certainty, climate change deniers wanted to have it both ways. Any hint of uncertainty-which is almost always a factor in scientific analyses, especially concerning predictions about complex systems-was presented as a reason not to believe that change was happening at all. But too much certainty became proof that scientists were no longer operating from evidence, but instead trying to justify a cult-like faith.
Ultimately, Climategate was shown to be a fabrication. In April 2010, an independent panel cleared the climate scientists of any wrongdoing in the leaked messages. Yet the controversy apparently succeeded in changing public opinion, at least temporarily. In February of 2010, the Guardian reported that, in the previous year, the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent. [Extracted with edits from: "How to Sell Climate Denial", by Liyia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, November 2019.]

Why does the author mention that the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Why on Earth is it taking so long for the world's richest countries to take action on climate change? For a partial answer, we can look back to the controversy that started a decade ago this November, which came to be known as Climategate. In a 2010 paper in the journal Environmental Values, the sociologist Brigitte Nerlich looked at what happened.
Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. The leaked file included more than 1,0 emails, but climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them: some messages in which scientists debated the publication of potentially flawed work, and some others in which they discussed adjusting data using a "trick"-a piece of mathematical jargon that commentators misinterpreted as an effort to deceive the public.
In the U.S. and UK, conservative bloggers quickly latched onto the messages as proof of dishonesty among climate scientists. Nerlich writes that they effectively reached their audiences with a few specific phrases. One of these was the word "climategate" itself- apparently first used by conservative UK writer James Delingpole. The -gate suffix, referring back to Watergate, is a familiar method used by partisans and members of the media to indicate a serious scandal.
Looking at the messaging in blog posts about climategate, Nerlich found that another common theme was "science as a religion." Climate change deniers accused environmentalists and scientists of irrationally clinging to their belief in human-made climate change in the face of what they saw as evidence that it was a hoax. "The Global Warming religion is as virulent and insidious as all mindbending cults of absolute certitude, and yet it has become mainstream orthodoxy and infallible spirituality faster than any faith-based cult in history," as one blogger put it.
Nerlich notes that, when it comes to scientists' levels of certainty, climate change deniers wanted to have it both ways. Any hint of uncertainty-which is almost always a factor in scientific analyses, especially concerning predictions about complex systems-was presented as a reason not to believe that change was happening at all. But too much certainty became proof that scientists were no longer operating from evidence, but instead trying to justify a cult-like faith.
Ultimately, Climategate was shown to be a fabrication. In April 2010, an independent panel cleared the climate scientists of any wrongdoing in the leaked messages. Yet the controversy apparently succeeded in changing public opinion, at least temporarily. In February of 2010, the Guardian reported that, in the previous year, the proportion of British adults who believed that climate change was "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44 to 31 percent. [Extracted with edits from: "How to Sell Climate Denial", by Liyia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, November 2019.]

Which one of the following can replace the phrase "absolute certitude" as used in the fourth paragraph?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
One of the kinds of human enhancement that has received extensive philosophical attention in recent years is the use of biomedical interventions to improve the physical performance of athletes in the context of sports. One reason athletic performance enhancement garners so much attention is because of its currency, given the epidemic of "doping" scandals in contemporary sport. At first impression, the ethical problem with performance enhancement in sport would seem to be simply a problem of cheating. If the rules of sport forbid the use of performance enhancements, then their illicit use confers an advantage to users against other athletes. That advantage, in turn, can create pressure for more athletes to cheat in the same way, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot.
The rules of a game can be changed. In sports, novel forms of performance enhancing equipment and training are routinely introduced as athletic technology and expertise evolve. Where issues of athletes' equitable access arise, they can be dealt with in one of two ways. Sometimes it is possible to ensure fair distribution, as for example, when the International Olympic Committee negotiated an agreement with the manufacturer of the new "FastSkin" swimming suit to provide suits to all the teams at the Sydney Olympics. In other cases, inequalities may simply come to be accepted as unfortunate but not unfair. This is, for example, how many people would view a story about an equatorial country that could not afford year-round artificial snow for its ski team, and so could not compete evenly with the ski teams of northern countries. If enhancement interventions can either be distributed fairly or the inequities they create can be written into the rules of the social game in question as part of the given advantages of the more fortunate, then individual users no longer face a fairness problem. For those who can afford it, for example, what would be ethically suspect about mounting a mirror image of the "Special Olympics" for athletes with disabilities: a "Super Olympics", featuring athletes universally equipped with the latest modifications and enhancements? For answers to that challenge, the critics of biomedical enhancement have to dig beyond concerns about the fair governance of games to a deeper and broader sense of "cheating", in terms of the corrosive effects of enhancement on the integrity of admirable human practices.
[Extracted, with edits, from: "Human Enhancement", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, revised in May 2019]

According to the passage, one of the reasons as to why athletic performance enhancements get so much attention is:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
One of the kinds of human enhancement that has received extensive philosophical attention in recent years is the use of biomedical interventions to improve the physical performance of athletes in the context of sports. One reason athletic performance enhancement garners so much attention is because of its currency, given the epidemic of "doping" scandals in contemporary sport. At first impression, the ethical problem with performance enhancement in sport would seem to be simply a problem of cheating. If the rules of sport forbid the use of performance enhancements, then their illicit use confers an advantage to users against other athletes. That advantage, in turn, can create pressure for more athletes to cheat in the same way, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot.
The rules of a game can be changed. In sports, novel forms of performance enhancing equipment and training are routinely introduced as athletic technology and expertise evolve. Where issues of athletes' equitable access arise, they can be dealt with in one of two ways. Sometimes it is possible to ensure fair distribution, as for example, when the International Olympic Committee negotiated an agreement with the manufacturer of the new "FastSkin" swimming suit to provide suits to all the teams at the Sydney Olympics. In other cases, inequalities may simply come to be accepted as unfortunate but not unfair. This is, for example, how many people would view a story about an equatorial country that could not afford year-round artificial snow for its ski team, and so could not compete evenly with the ski teams of northern countries. If enhancement interventions can either be distributed fairly or the inequities they create can be written into the rules of the social game in question as part of the given advantages of the more fortunate, then individual users no longer face a fairness problem. For those who can afford it, for example, what would be ethically suspect about mounting a mirror image of the "Special Olympics" for athletes with disabilities: a "Super Olympics", featuring athletes universally equipped with the latest modifications and enhancements? For answers to that challenge, the critics of biomedical enhancement have to dig beyond concerns about the fair governance of games to a deeper and broader sense of "cheating", in terms of the corrosive effects of enhancement on the integrity of admirable human practices.
[Extracted, with edits, from: "Human Enhancement", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, revised in May 2019]

"Super Olympics", as per the passage:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
One of the kinds of human enhancement that has received extensive philosophical attention in recent years is the use of biomedical interventions to improve the physical performance of athletes in the context of sports. One reason athletic performance enhancement garners so much attention is because of its currency, given the epidemic of "doping" scandals in contemporary sport. At first impression, the ethical problem with performance enhancement in sport would seem to be simply a problem of cheating. If the rules of sport forbid the use of performance enhancements, then their illicit use confers an advantage to users against other athletes. That advantage, in turn, can create pressure for more athletes to cheat in the same way, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot.
The rules of a game can be changed. In sports, novel forms of performance enhancing equipment and training are routinely introduced as athletic technology and expertise evolve. Where issues of athletes' equitable access arise, they can be dealt with in one of two ways. Sometimes it is possible to ensure fair distribution, as for example, when the International Olympic Committee negotiated an agreement with the manufacturer of the new "FastSkin" swimming suit to provide suits to all the teams at the Sydney Olympics. In other cases, inequalities may simply come to be accepted as unfortunate but not unfair. This is, for example, how many people would view a story about an equatorial country that could not afford year-round artificial snow for its ski team, and so could not compete evenly with the ski teams of northern countries. If enhancement interventions can either be distributed fairly or the inequities they create can be written into the rules of the social game in question as part of the given advantages of the more fortunate, then individual users no longer face a fairness problem. For those who can afford it, for example, what would be ethically suspect about mounting a mirror image of the "Special Olympics" for athletes with disabilities: a "Super Olympics", featuring athletes universally equipped with the latest modifications and enhancements? For answers to that challenge, the critics of biomedical enhancement have to dig beyond concerns about the fair governance of games to a deeper and broader sense of "cheating", in terms of the corrosive effects of enhancement on the integrity of admirable human practices.
[Extracted, with edits, from: "Human Enhancement", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, revised in May 2019]

Which of the following is analogous to the example of equatorial countries' inability to complete in skicompetitions?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
One of the kinds of human enhancement that has received extensive philosophical attention in recent years is the use of biomedical interventions to improve the physical performance of athletes in the context of sports. One reason athletic performance enhancement garners so much attention is because of its currency, given the epidemic of "doping" scandals in contemporary sport. At first impression, the ethical problem with performance enhancement in sport would seem to be simply a problem of cheating. If the rules of sport forbid the use of performance enhancements, then their illicit use confers an advantage to users against other athletes. That advantage, in turn, can create pressure for more athletes to cheat in the same way, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot.
The rules of a game can be changed. In sports, novel forms of performance enhancing equipment and training are routinely introduced as athletic technology and expertise evolve. Where issues of athletes' equitable access arise, they can be dealt with in one of two ways. Sometimes it is possible to ensure fair distribution, as for example, when the International Olympic Committee negotiated an agreement with the manufacturer of the new "FastSkin" swimming suit to provide suits to all the teams at the Sydney Olympics. In other cases, inequalities may simply come to be accepted as unfortunate but not unfair. This is, for example, how many people would view a story about an equatorial country that could not afford year-round artificial snow for its ski team, and so could not compete evenly with the ski teams of northern countries. If enhancement interventions can either be distributed fairly or the inequities they create can be written into the rules of the social game in question as part of the given advantages of the more fortunate, then individual users no longer face a fairness problem. For those who can afford it, for example, what would be ethically suspect about mounting a mirror image of the "Special Olympics" for athletes with disabilities: a "Super Olympics", featuring athletes universally equipped with the latest modifications and enhancements? For answers to that challenge, the critics of biomedical enhancement have to dig beyond concerns about the fair governance of games to a deeper and broader sense of "cheating", in terms of the corrosive effects of enhancement on the integrity of admirable human practices.
[Extracted, with edits, from: "Human Enhancement", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, revised in May 2019]

In the last paragraph, what is the author's appeal to the critics of biomedical enhancements?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
One of the kinds of human enhancement that has received extensive philosophical attention in recent years is the use of biomedical interventions to improve the physical performance of athletes in the context of sports. One reason athletic performance enhancement garners so much attention is because of its currency, given the epidemic of "doping" scandals in contemporary sport. At first impression, the ethical problem with performance enhancement in sport would seem to be simply a problem of cheating. If the rules of sport forbid the use of performance enhancements, then their illicit use confers an advantage to users against other athletes. That advantage, in turn, can create pressure for more athletes to cheat in the same way, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot.
The rules of a game can be changed. In sports, novel forms of performance enhancing equipment and training are routinely introduced as athletic technology and expertise evolve. Where issues of athletes' equitable access arise, they can be dealt with in one of two ways. Sometimes it is possible to ensure fair distribution, as for example, when the International Olympic Committee negotiated an agreement with the manufacturer of the new "FastSkin" swimming suit to provide suits to all the teams at the Sydney Olympics. In other cases, inequalities may simply come to be accepted as unfortunate but not unfair. This is, for example, how many people would view a story about an equatorial country that could not afford year-round artificial snow for its ski team, and so could not compete evenly with the ski teams of northern countries. If enhancement interventions can either be distributed fairly or the inequities they create can be written into the rules of the social game in question as part of the given advantages of the more fortunate, then individual users no longer face a fairness problem. For those who can afford it, for example, what would be ethically suspect about mounting a mirror image of the "Special Olympics" for athletes with disabilities: a "Super Olympics", featuring athletes universally equipped with the latest modifications and enhancements? For answers to that challenge, the critics of biomedical enhancement have to dig beyond concerns about the fair governance of games to a deeper and broader sense of "cheating", in terms of the corrosive effects of enhancement on the integrity of admirable human practices.
[Extracted, with edits, from: "Human Enhancement", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, revised in May 2019]

What does the meaning of the word "exacerbate" as used in the passage mean?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
There's been an incredible outpouring of grief across Canada since Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by Iran, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
We have learned that among the 57 Canadians killed, there were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers. Children, newlyweds and entire families perished. Many of them have been described by Canadian news media and leaders as "exceptional." They belonged to Canada's vibrant Iranian communities and are being remembered as such in tributes and memorial services across the nation.
I've spent more than a dozen years researching public memory of another air disaster that resulted in an even greater number of Canadian casualties-the Air India tragedy.
Indeed, news of PS752 is triggering memories of June 23, 1985, when Air India Flight 182 fell into the Atlantic Ocean near Cork, Ireland, after a bomb hidden in the luggage exploded. All 329 passengers and crew on board that flight were killed. Among them were 280 Canadians, the majority from Indian-Canadian families, as reported by the official inquiry by Public Safety Canada. Winnipeg resident Nicky Mehta was 13 at the time that her uncle, aunt and two young cousins were killed on the Air India flight. On the day after Flight PS752 crashed, she woke up to an abbreviated list of "deadly plane crashes that killed Canadians" published in the Winnipeg Free Press that did not include Air India. "I felt gutted," she told me. "It was re-traumatising to see that Air India was not even worth a mention here."
The article has since been removed.
Back in 1985, there was no collective outpouring of grief or statement of national solidarity for the victims of Air India Flight 182. Were these victims not "exceptional" enough?
In fact, they too were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers, as well as homemakers, teachers, civil servants and more. Notoriously, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered his condolences to Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi for India's loss instead of addressing his own citizens. It is clear that for many Canadians (not just Mulroney) the Air India bombing was unthinkable-and thus unmemorable-as a tragedy of national consequence due to the dominant assumption that Canadian identity is synonymous with whiteness. Indeed, critics, as well as relatives of the dead, have raised the obvious question: would there have been such trouble recognising the bombing as a national tragedy if the majority of those killed were white rather than brown Canadians?
[Extracted, with edits, from: "A 35-year-old Air India tragedy suggests Canada will soon forget the Ukraine crash victims", by Angela Failler, Quartz, January 2020]

The question raised in the last sentence reiterates the main presumption that the national identity of Canada:

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
There's been an incredible outpouring of grief across Canada since Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by Iran, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
We have learned that among the 57 Canadians killed, there were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers. Children, newlyweds and entire families perished. Many of them have been described by Canadian news media and leaders as "exceptional." They belonged to Canada's vibrant Iranian communities and are being remembered as such in tributes and memorial services across the nation.
I've spent more than a dozen years researching public memory of another air disaster that resulted in an even greater number of Canadian casualties-the Air India tragedy.
Indeed, news of PS752 is triggering memories of June 23, 1985, when Air India Flight 182 fell into the Atlantic Ocean near Cork, Ireland, after a bomb hidden in the luggage exploded. All 329 passengers and crew on board that flight were killed. Among them were 280 Canadians, the majority from Indian-Canadian families, as reported by the official inquiry by Public Safety Canada. Winnipeg resident Nicky Mehta was 13 at the time that her uncle, aunt and two young cousins were killed on the Air India flight. On the day after Flight PS752 crashed, she woke up to an abbreviated list of "deadly plane crashes that killed Canadians" published in the Winnipeg Free Press that did not include Air India. "I felt gutted," she told me. "It was re-traumatising to see that Air India was not even worth a mention here."
The article has since been removed.
Back in 1985, there was no collective outpouring of grief or statement of national solidarity for the victims of Air India Flight 182. Were these victims not "exceptional" enough?
In fact, they too were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers, as well as homemakers, teachers, civil servants and more. Notoriously, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered his condolences to Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi for India's loss instead of addressing his own citizens. It is clear that for many Canadians (not just Mulroney) the Air India bombing was unthinkable-and thus unmemorable-as a tragedy of national consequence due to the dominant assumption that Canadian identity is synonymous with whiteness. Indeed, critics, as well as relatives of the dead, have raised the obvious question: would there have been such trouble recognising the bombing as a national tragedy if the majority of those killed were white rather than brown Canadians?
[Extracted, with edits, from: "A 35-year-old Air India tragedy suggests Canada will soon forget the Ukraine crash victims", by Angela Failler, Quartz, January 2020]

What is the most likely reason as to why the author used the word "notoriously" in the seventh paragraph?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
There's been an incredible outpouring of grief across Canada since Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by Iran, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
We have learned that among the 57 Canadians killed, there were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers. Children, newlyweds and entire families perished. Many of them have been described by Canadian news media and leaders as "exceptional." They belonged to Canada's vibrant Iranian communities and are being remembered as such in tributes and memorial services across the nation.
I've spent more than a dozen years researching public memory of another air disaster that resulted in an even greater number of Canadian casualties-the Air India tragedy.
Indeed, news of PS752 is triggering memories of June 23, 1985, when Air India Flight 182 fell into the Atlantic Ocean near Cork, Ireland, after a bomb hidden in the luggage exploded. All 329 passengers and crew on board that flight were killed. Among them were 280 Canadians, the majority from Indian-Canadian families, as reported by the official inquiry by Public Safety Canada. Winnipeg resident Nicky Mehta was 13 at the time that her uncle, aunt and two young cousins were killed on the Air India flight. On the day after Flight PS752 crashed, she woke up to an abbreviated list of "deadly plane crashes that killed Canadians" published in the Winnipeg Free Press that did not include Air India. "I felt gutted," she told me. "It was re-traumatising to see that Air India was not even worth a mention here."
The article has since been removed.
Back in 1985, there was no collective outpouring of grief or statement of national solidarity for the victims of Air India Flight 182. Were these victims not "exceptional" enough?
In fact, they too were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers, as well as homemakers, teachers, civil servants and more. Notoriously, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered his condolences to Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi for India's loss instead of addressing his own citizens. It is clear that for many Canadians (not just Mulroney) the Air India bombing was unthinkable-and thus unmemorable-as a tragedy of national consequence due to the dominant assumption that Canadian identity is synonymous with whiteness. Indeed, critics, as well as relatives of the dead, have raised the obvious question: would there have been such trouble recognising the bombing as a national tragedy if the majority of those killed were white rather than brown Canadians?
[Extracted, with edits, from: "A 35-year-old Air India tragedy suggests Canada will soon forget the Ukraine crash victims", by Angela Failler, Quartz, January 2020]

Which of the following best describes the word "retraumatizing" in the context of the passage?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
There's been an incredible outpouring of grief across Canada since Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by Iran, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
We have learned that among the 57 Canadians killed, there were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers. Children, newlyweds and entire families perished. Many of them have been described by Canadian news media and leaders as "exceptional." They belonged to Canada's vibrant Iranian communities and are being remembered as such in tributes and memorial services across the nation.
I've spent more than a dozen years researching public memory of another air disaster that resulted in an even greater number of Canadian casualties-the Air India tragedy.
Indeed, news of PS752 is triggering memories of June 23, 1985, when Air India Flight 182 fell into the Atlantic Ocean near Cork, Ireland, after a bomb hidden in the luggage exploded. All 329 passengers and crew on board that flight were killed. Among them were 280 Canadians, the majority from Indian-Canadian families, as reported by the official inquiry by Public Safety Canada. Winnipeg resident Nicky Mehta was 13 at the time that her uncle, aunt and two young cousins were killed on the Air India flight. On the day after Flight PS752 crashed, she woke up to an abbreviated list of "deadly plane crashes that killed Canadians" published in the Winnipeg Free Press that did not include Air India. "I felt gutted," she told me. "It was re-traumatising to see that Air India was not even worth a mention here."
The article has since been removed.
Back in 1985, there was no collective outpouring of grief or statement of national solidarity for the victims of Air India Flight 182. Were these victims not "exceptional" enough?
In fact, they too were beloved students, professors, doctors and engineers, as well as homemakers, teachers, civil servants and more. Notoriously, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered his condolences to Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi for India's loss instead of addressing his own citizens. It is clear that for many Canadians (not just Mulroney) the Air India bombing was unthinkable-and thus unmemorable-as a tragedy of national consequence due to the dominant assumption that Canadian identity is synonymous with whiteness. Indeed, critics, as well as relatives of the dead, have raised the obvious question: would there have been such trouble recognising the bombing as a national tragedy if the majority of those killed were white rather than brown Canadians?
[Extracted, with edits, from: "A 35-year-old Air India tragedy suggests Canada will soon forget the Ukraine crash victims", by Angela Failler, Quartz, January 2020]

What is the significance of the number 280 in the overall context of the passage?

Direction: Read the given passages and answer the questions that follow.
Prime Minister [1 ] of Australia said that he would call for a high-level government inquiry into the response to the country's devastating [2]. But he did not signal a significant shift in policies to curb carbon emissions, as many had hoped.
The suggested inquiry, which [1] proposed during a televised interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, came on the heels of news that a firefighter had died overnight in the state of Victoria, the site of some of the worst of the fires that have swept parts of Australia since October. At least 28 people have been killed in the fires. [1] and his government have been harshly criticized over their response to the months long crisis. The proposed inquiry, known as a royal commission, would look at that response, including the deployment of emergency services to deal with blazes that crossed state borders, streaked across mountain ranges and forced the evacuations of thousands of people along the country's eastern and southeastern shorelines.
This fire season has been the worst in Australia's recorded history, burning millions of acres of land and at least 3,0 homes. The number of wild animals killed because of the fires has been estimated at over half a billion and rising.
At one point, Royal Australian Navy ships were dispatched to rescue people stranded on beaches after flames and deadly smoke blocked escape routes. [1 ] has declined to consider major changes to policies on renewable energy, fossil fuels and coal. The mining and export of coal are key industries in Australia's economy, and in his interview on Sunday, he reiterated that he would not put jobs at risk or raise taxes in the pursuit of lower carbon emissions. [1] has repeatedly said that enough was being done to curb emissions, particularly for a nation with Australia's relatively small population. But climate scientists say that the government's targets are low to begin with and that emissions have been rising under [1 ]'s government. [Extracted with edits from: "Australia's Leader calls for Enquiry" - The New York Times, January 2020]

In the given passage, the name referred to the recent fire in Australian has been replaced by [2]. What is the name referred to the fire in Australia?