MCQ Test: Passage Inference - 2 - Bank Exams MCQ

Directions: Given below is a conversation between two people, read the conversation carefully and answer the following questions.

Person A: The rising global temperatures and extreme weather events are alarming. It feels like our planet is getting hotter and more unpredictable each year.

Person B: Absolutely. It's not just about the heat, though. The melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels pose a significant threat to coastal communities and island nations.

What is the tone of Person A in this conversation?

Directions: Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate options.

"Pandemic" is a household word today. According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, it was the most searched word in 2020 and was declared the word of the year- thanks to COVID-19, the latest, but not the last, pandemic that humanity encounters.

A disease outbreak across continents and spreading globally is a pandemic. Hundreds of them have "plagued" humankind down the millennia, and we have records of major outbreaks such as "The Plague". The three plague pandemics over different regions and periods, killed as many as 350 million people approximately. This was followed by seven major outbreaks of cholera, five of influenza, and three of Coronavirus, including the latest.

How and when do pandemics originate? There is enough evidence to suggest that infections of pandemic proportions emerged when the hunter-gatherer, nomadic tribes transitioned into more sedentary agrarian settlers. By a rough estimate, infectious diseases could have emerged only within the past 11,000 years following the rise of agriculture. For infections to spread and sustain, it needed large groups of population. Such settlements were unheard of in history before the advent of agriculture. Such diseases were earlier called "crowd diseases". The twin disease burden that humanity faces - communicable diseases such as influenza, chicken pox and non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and cancer owe their origin to a great extent to this transition of man from hunter-gatherer to agriculturist. To put it simply, the growth of civilisation is the root cause of diseases.

Most microbes which cause diseases were originally colonising animals. For a disease to establish as a pandemic, complex movements of animal-human transmission are involved. This again was facilitated when the agrarians domesticated animals such as goats, cows, horses and pigs. In the process of milching, riding, ploughing they established longer and closer nearness which made such animal-to-human transmission possible.

‘To put it simply, the growth________'

The underlined word is opposite in meaning to : 

DIRECTIONS: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:

Helium – an inert, odourless, monatomic element known to lay people as the substance that makes balloons float and voices squeak when inhaled – could be gone from this planet within a generation.
Helium itself is not rare; there is actually a plentiful supply of it in the cosmos. In fact, 24 per cent of our galaxy’s elemental mass consists of helium, which makes it the second most abundant element in our universe. Because of its lightness, however, most helium vanished from our own planet many years ago. Consequently, only a miniscule proportion – 0.00052%, to be exact – remains in earth’s atmosphere. Helium is the byproduct of millennia of radioactive decay from the elements thorium and uranium. The helium is mostly trapped in subterranean natural gas bunkers and commercially extracted through a method known as fractional distillation.
The loss of helium on Earth would affect society greatly. Defying the perception of it as a novelty substance for parties and gimmicks, the element actually has many vital applications in society. Probably the most well known commercial usage is in airships and blimps. But helium is also instrumental in deep-sea diving, where it is blended with nitrogen to mitigate the dangers of inhaling ordinary air under high pressure; as a cleaning agent for rocket engines; and, in its most prevalent use, as a coolant for superconducting magnets in hospital MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners. The possibility of losing helium forever poses the threat of a real crisis because its unique qualities are extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible to duplicate.

We cannot afford to lose helium because-

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
Growth may be defined as the quantitative increase in size or mass. When weight is measured in kilograms and height in centimetres from time to time, we can know how much growth has occurred in a child. When the organs of the body grow, the number, the size and the weight of their cells increase. Growth can be measured in terms of the change in length, width, depth and volume in a specific time period. Although growth is a characteristic of living beings, in all living beings, the rate of growth also depends on nutrition and living conditions, including the environment at home.
Growth, development and maturation occur side by side. Growth is a quantitative increase in size through increase in number of cells or elongation of cells. Development may be defined as the progression of changes, both qualitative and quantitative, which lead to an undifferentiated mass of cells to a highly organised state. Maturation is a measure of functional capacity. For example, a child begins to speak by making unintelligible sounds. Then, slowly it acquires the capacity for speaking in a manner, which is easily understood by others. Another example of maturation is when a child begins to crawl and then matures to a state of walking on two legs. Similarly, organs of reproduction reach maturity at the end of puberty.
Which of the following factor does not affect the rate of growth in living beings?

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
Growth may be defined as the quantitative increase in size or mass. When weight is measured in kilograms and height in centimetres from time to time, we can know how much growth has occurred in a child. When the organs of the body grow, the number, the size and the weight of their cells increase. Growth can be measured in terms of the change in length, width, depth and volume in a specific time period. Although growth is a characteristic of living beings, in all living beings, the rate of growth also depends on nutrition and living conditions, including the environment at home.
Growth, development and maturation occur side by side. Growth is a quantitative increase in size through increase in number of cells or elongation of cells. Development may be defined as the progression of changes, both qualitative and quantitative, which lead to an undifferentiated mass of cells to a highly organised state. Maturation is a measure of functional capacity. For example, a child begins to speak by making unintelligible sounds. Then, slowly it acquires the capacity for speaking in a manner, which is easily understood by others. Another example of maturation is when a child begins to crawl and then matures to a state of walking on two legs. Similarly, organs of reproduction reach maturity at the end of puberty.
Which of the following process occurs along with development and growth?

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
Growth may be defined as the quantitative increase in size or mass. When weight is measured in kilograms and height in centimetres from time to time, we can know how much growth has occurred in a child. When the organs of the body grow, the number, the size and the weight of their cells increase. Growth can be measured in terms of the change in length, width, depth and volume in a specific time period. Although growth is a characteristic of living beings, in all living beings, the rate of growth also depends on nutrition and living conditions, including the environment at home.
Growth, development and maturation occur side by side. Growth is a quantitative increase in size through increase in number of cells or elongation of cells. Development may be defined as the progression of changes, both qualitative and quantitative, which lead to an undifferentiated mass of cells to a highly organised state. Maturation is a measure of functional capacity. For example, a child begins to speak by making unintelligible sounds. Then, slowly it acquires the capacity for speaking in a manner, which is easily understood by others. Another example of maturation is when a child begins to crawl and then matures to a state of walking on two legs. Similarly, organs of reproduction reach maturity at the end of puberty.

Q: Antonym of word “increase” is-

DIRECTIONS: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:

Helium – an inert, odourless, monatomic element known to lay people as the substance that makes balloons float and voices squeak when inhaled – could be gone from this planet within a generation.
Helium itself is not rare; there is actually a plentiful supply of it in the cosmos. In fact, 24 per cent of our galaxy’s elemental mass consists of helium, which makes it the second most abundant element in our universe. Because of its lightness, however, most helium vanished from our own planet many years ago. Consequently, only a miniscule proportion – 0.00052%, to be exact – remains in earth’s atmosphere. Helium is the byproduct of millennia of radioactive decay from the elements thorium and uranium. The helium is mostly trapped in subterranean natural gas bunkers and commercially extracted through a method known as fractional distillation.
The loss of helium on Earth would affect society greatly. Defying the perception of it as a novelty substance for parties and gimmicks, the element actually has many vital applications in society. Probably the most well known commercial usage is in airships and blimps. But helium is also instrumental in deep-sea diving, where it is blended with nitrogen to mitigate the dangers of inhaling ordinary air under high pressure; as a cleaning agent for rocket engines; and, in its most prevalent use, as a coolant for superconducting magnets in hospital MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners. The possibility of losing helium forever poses the threat of a real crisis because its unique qualities are extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible to duplicate.

Helium is obtained from the element-

Passage: At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels, for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travelers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake—a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from the "grand hotel" of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder day, with its name inscribed in German-looking lettering upon a pink or yellow wall and an awkward summerhouse in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbors by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month of June, American travelers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevey assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an American watering place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and thither of "stylish" young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a rattle of dance music in the morning hours, a sound of high-pitched voices at all times. You receive an impression of these things at the excellent inn of the "Trois Couronnes" and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to Congress Hall. But at the "Trois Couronnes," it must be added, there are other features that are much at variance with these suggestions: neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys walking about held by the hand, with their governors; a view of the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle of Chillon.

Q. What can readers infer about the tourists who come to Vevey, Switzerland?

Passage: One fine day in winter some Ants were busy drying their store of corn, which had got rather damp during a long spell of rain. Presently up came a Grasshopper and begged them to spare her a few grains, "For," she said, "I'm simply starving." The Ants stopped work for a moment, though this was against their principles. "May we ask," said they, "what you were doing with yourself all last summer? Why didn't you collect a store of food for the winter?" "The fact is," replied the Grasshopper, "I was so busy singing that I hadn't the time." "If you spent the summer singing," replied the Ants, "you can't do better than spend the winter dancing." And they chuckled and went on with their work.

Q. Based on the passage, which of the following activities would the ants recommend?

Passage: "What am I going to do without you, Marjorie?" Mary Raymond's blue eyes looked suspiciously misty as she solemnly regarded her chum.

"What am I going to do without you, you mean," corrected Marjorie Dean, with a wistful smile. "Please, please don't let's talk of it. I simply can't bear it."

"One, two—only two more weeks now," sighed Mary. "You'll surely write to me, Marjorie?"

"Of course, silly girl," returned Marjorie, patting her friend's arm affectionately. "I'll write at least once a week."

Q: Based on the passage, what inference can be made about Marjorie?

Passage: The natives of Australia were always few in number. Australia produced no grain of any sort naturally; neither wheat, oats, barley nor maize. It produced practically no edible fruit, excepting a few berries, and one or two nuts, the outer rind of which was eatable. There were no useful roots such as the potato, the turnip, or the yam, or the taro. The native animals were few and just barely eatable, the kangaroo, and the koala being the principal ones. In birds alone was the country well supplied, and they were more beautiful of plumage than useful as food. Even the fisheries were infrequent, for the coast line is unbroken by any great bays, and there is thus less sea frontage to Australia than to any other of the continents, and the rivers are few in number.

Q: Which of the following can you infer from this passage?

Passage: John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger to describe it.
Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the defenses at Liège had crumbled before their huge guns like china breaking under stone. The giant shells had scooped out the forts at Maubeuge, Maubeuge the untakable, as if they had been mere eggshells, and the mighty Teutonic host came on, almost without a check.

Q: Based on the passage, we can conclude that the main characters think the Germans are ______________.

Passage: John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger to describe it.
Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the defenses at Liège had crumbled before their huge guns like china breaking under stone. The giant shells had scooped out the forts at Maubeuge, Maubeuge the untakable, as if they had been mere eggshells, and the mighty Teutonic host came on, almost without a check.

Q: What can we infer about the setting of the story?

An ant, walking by the river one day, said to himself, “How nice and cool this water looks! I must drink some of it.” But as he began to drink, his foot slipped, and he fell in.
“Oh, somebody please help me, or I shall drown!” cried he.
A Dove, sitting in a tree that overhung the river, heard him, and threw him a leaf. “Climb up on that leaf,” said she, “and you will float ashore.”
The Ant climbed up onto the leaf, which the wind blew to the shore, and he stepped upon dry land again.
“Good-by, kind Dove,” said he, as he ran home. “You have saved my life, and I wish I could do something for you.”
“Good-by,” said the Dove; “be careful not to fall in again.”
A few days after this, when the Dove was busy building her nest, the Ant saw a man just raising his gun to shoot her.
He ran quickly, and bit the man’s leg so hard that he cried “Oh! oh!” and dropped his gun.
This startled the Dove, and she flew away. The man picked up his gun, and walked on.
When he was gone, the Dove came back to her nest.
“Thank you, my little friend,” she said. “You have saved my life.”
And the little Ant was overjoyed to think he had been able to do for the Dove what the Dove had so lately done for him. 

Q: Which of the following inferences can be made based on the passage?

Passage: Pauline looked through the picket fence and scowled.
"Oh, those poor little rabbits!" she whispered to herself. "I don't believe that boy has fed them this morning. And now he's gone off to play ball. It is a shame!" She glanced under the grape arbor, where some chickweed was growing luxuriantly, and for a minute she hesitated. The next, she was down among the chickweed, pulling it up by the handful.
She approached the fence again, looked cautiously around, to make sure nobody was in sight, and then thrust the green stuff between the pickets.
That first time of Pauline's feeding the rabbits was followed by a second and a third, and finally it came to be a common thing for her to peer through the fence to see if they were supplied with food, and if not to carry them a good meal.

Q: Based on the passage, what inference can be made about Pauline?

Passage: The history of Greece goes back to the time when people did not know how to write, and kept no record of what was happening around them. For a long while the stories told by parents to their children were the only information which could be had about the country and its former inhabitants; and these stories, slightly changed by every new teller, grew more and more extraordinary as time passed. At last they were so changed that no one could tell where the truth ended and fancy began.
The beinning of Greek history is therefore like a fairy tale; and while much of it cannot, of course, be true, it is the only information we have about the early Greeks.

Q: All of the following is true about the earliest history of Greece EXCEPT ___________________.

Passage: The history of Greece goes back to the time when people did not know how to write, and kept no record of what was happening around them. For a long while the stories told by parents to their children were the only information which could be had about the country and its former inhabitants; and these stories, slightly changed by every new teller, grew more and more extraordinary as time passed. At last they were so changed that no one could tell where the truth ended and fancy began.
The beginning of Greek history is therefore like a fairy tale; and while much of it cannot, of course, be true, it is the only information we have about the early Greeks. 

Q: Based on this passage, what can readers infer about fairy tales?