OPSC OAS Prelims Paper 2 Mock Test - 10 - OPSC OCS (Odisha) MCQ

                                                                                    Passage 2

Focus should be on raising land productivity and water use efficiency. State specific strategies are needed. Dry areas need to focus on livestock. Most importantly, markets must be reformed. An important beginning has been made by granting statutory status to warehouse receipts. However, the real benefits from this measure can accrue only when the appropriate warehouse infrastructure and supporting backward linkages have been created and a nationwide trading platform has been put in place. Consideration should be given to extending infrastructure status to a wider range of agricultural market facilities in the same manner as for warehouses. States must modify the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) and the APMC Act (perhaps exclude horticulture and perishables entirely from the ambit of APMC), rebuild the extension system, increase the involvement of the private sector in marketing, and also facilitate leasing in/out of land by farmers. State agricultural universities and extension networks are in a bad shape and need strengthening.

MGNREGS has helped generate employment and income in rural areas but it can do much more to increase land productivity, particularly in rainfed areas. In addition, MGNREGS has transformed rural labour relations, which is bound to affect the production decisions of farmers, both in terms of crops as well as technologies. The agricultural support systems must facilitate this transition, which requires greater flexibility and responsiveness.

Q. Consider the following assumptions:

1. State agricultural universities have a room for improvement.

2. The current problem can be solved through market reforms alone.

With reference to the passage, which of the following assumptions is/are valid?

Statements:

I. Gautam was born exactly 28 years after his mother was born.

II. His mother will be 55 years 4 months and 5 days on August 18 this year.

Q. On which day in April is Gautam's birthday?

                                                                                   Passage - 1

All this time, Abe had kept on steadily with his reading whenever he had time, especially in the long winter evenings when he could read by the firelight. Lamps and candles were luxuries no settler could afford, but the wood was plentiful and it was easy to heap the fire high and make a splendid blaze.

He was careful, too, not to forget his writing, and he practiced writing his own name in the snow with a charred stick on slabs of wood. His father was not always pleased to find every smooth surface of the house scrawled over with black marks, but he had a great respect for learning and when he found that Abe was teaching himself to write, he was quite proud of the boy. When spring came around and they were working together in the fields, Abe took a stick and began writing his name with great care in the soft earth.

Q. Abe used to

1. work with his father in the fields sometimes

2. write his name in the snow, on wood and in the earth

Choose the correct option using the codes given below:

                                                                                   Passage - 2

When the late evolutionist and polymath Stephen Jay Gould was a toddler, he became fascinated and terrified by the towering Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History. Gould later claimed that he decided on the spot to become a palaeontologist- years before he even learned the word. Steven Pinker does not believe this oft told story. Pinker relates that Gould dedicated his first book: "For my father, who took me to see the Tyrannosaurus when I was five" and admires Gould's genius for coming up with that charming line, "But he does not believe it. Pinker says that long term memory is notoriously untrustworthy. Many children are exposed to books and museums, but few become scientists. Pinker concludes that perhaps the essence of who we are from birth shapes our childhood experiences rather than the other way round.

Q. Steven Pinker

                                                                                   Passage - 2

When the late evolutionist and polymath Stephen Jay Gould was a toddler, he became fascinated and terrified by the towering Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History. Gould later claimed that he decided on the spot to become a palaeontologist- years before he even learned the word. Steven Pinker does not believe this oft told story. Pinker relates that Gould dedicated his first book: "For my father, who took me to see the Tyrannosaurus when I was five" and admires Gould's genius for coming up with that charming line, "But he does not believe it. Pinker says that long term memory is notoriously untrustworthy. Many children are exposed to books and museums, but few become scientists. Pinker concludes that perhaps the essence of who we are from birth shapes our childhood experiences rather than the other way round.

Q. Which of the following is/ are correct?

1. Those who grow up as scientists are usually not exposed to books and museums in their childhood

2. Only those who become scientists remember their childhood experiences of books and museums

Choose the correct option using the codes given below:

Directions(Q.34-40) for the following items:

Each of the items below consists of a question and two statements. You have to decide whether the data provided in the statements are sufficient to answer the question. Give answer as: 

Statements:

I. There are ten students between Nitin and Deepak.

II. Deepak is twentieth from the top.

Q. What is Nitin's rank from the top in a class of forty students?

Statements:

I. If Sunny turns to his right and again turns to his right, he will be facing the North.

II. If Sunny walks some distance and turns left and again walks some distance, then his face will be towards left of Dinesh who is facing the South.

Q. Which direction is Sunny facing now?

Statements:

I. T does not study in the same school as either R or J.

II. R and J study in schools D and F respectively.

Q. T studies in which of the schools B, C, D, E and F?

Statements:

I. Last year 2935 cards were sold.

II. The number of cards sold this year was 1.2 times that of last year.

Q. How many New Year's greeting cards were sold this year in your shop?

Statements:

I. K has two sons, one of the sons is A.

II. The mother of T has only two sons A and B.

Q. How is T related to K?

You head the commercial aviation arm of the government, which is not doing well financially. The reason for this is the laid back attitude of the employees of the company. The employees hardly bother about providing the services to the customer. You have been asked to turn around the organization and make it possible. You will-   

You are a director in the Land Revenue Department and responsible for probing illegal land deals. It has come to your notice through media reports that an influential politician's relative is connected with such an illegal deal. This has created widespread furore among the general public. You will   

You are working as a supply supervisor in a leading oil company in the public sector. It has come to your attention that certain company officials are stealing petrol from the company's plant and adulterating the remaining to cover up their tracks. They can sell the stolen petrol illegally to make a neat profit. You would  

Statements:

I. Gagan, Vimal and Kunal are all of the same age.

II. Total age of Vimal, Kunal and Anil is 32 years and Anil is as old as Vimal and Kunal together.

Q. What is Gagan's age?  

Directions (Q. 65-71) for the following items: 

Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow these passages. Your answers to these items should be based on these passages only.

                                                                                    Passage 1

The NAC proposals go against its earlier proposal of experimenting with universal entitlements in the poorest 150 districts of the country - a retrograde step for a country where half of the population is malnourished. In the final proposals, even this minimum effort to experiment with universalization was given up. The issue is why the NAC went against such universalization.

A universal PDS is not only the best possible option from the perspective of a rights based approach, it is also far more realistic in its commitment to ensure food security for the poor. Universalization would also be in line with the larger agenda of the UPA government of changing the architecture of the social service programs to make them more inclusive.

Targeting is inherently problematic. The BPL census, which is the primary means of targeting public services and subsidies to the poor, has failed to serve the purpose. The process of targeting is not only administratively costly but also discriminatory to the poor; limiting food security to BPL necessarily involves the exclusion of families who are very similar to other families that have been included. Historically, limiting food security to BPL families has severely impaired the effective access of food for poor families. Large numbers of poor families did not have BPL cards, even when they had cards, access to PDS was not automatic and, even ifthey had access to the PDS, they did not receive the full entitlement of food. But does it really mean that universalization is not feasible? Do we have enough foodgrains for a universal system?

The total requirement of a Universal PDS is 96.60 million tonnes if the entire population lifts its foodgrain quota. However, there will be some sections of the population who will not take their quota of foodgrain. This could be because they are well off and therefore do not need the ration food. It could also be a matter of taste and preference and they may not like the PDS foodgrain which is generally of inferior quality. These will largely be the rich and well off in urban areas.

Q. It can be inferred from the aim of the passage is to  

                                                                                    Passage 1

The NAC proposals go against its earlier proposal of experimenting with universal entitlements in the poorest 150 districts of the country - a retrograde step for a country where half of the population is malnourished. In the final proposals, even this minimum effort to experiment with universalization was given up. The issue is why the NAC went against such universalization.

A universal PDS is not only the best possible option from the perspective of a rights based approach, it is also far more realistic in its commitment to ensure food security for the poor. Universalization would also be in line with the larger agenda of the UPA government of changing the architecture of the social service programs to make them more inclusive.

Targeting is inherently problematic. The BPL census, which is the primary means of targeting public services and subsidies to the poor, has failed to serve the purpose. The process of targeting is not only administratively costly but also discriminatory to the poor; limiting food security to BPL necessarily involves the exclusion of families who are very similar to other families that have been included. Historically, limiting food security to BPL families has severely impaired the effective access of food for poor families. Large numbers of poor families did not have BPL cards, even when they had cards, access to PDS was not automatic and, even ifthey had access to the PDS, they did not receive the full entitlement of food. But does it really mean that universalization is not feasible? Do we have enough foodgrains for a universal system?

The total requirement of a Universal PDS is 96.60 million tonnes if the entire population lifts its foodgrain quota. However, there will be some sections of the population who will not take their quota of foodgrain. This could be because they are well off and therefore do not need the ration food. It could also be a matter of taste and preference and they may not like the PDS foodgrain which is generally of inferior quality. These will largely be the rich and well off in urban areas.

Q. Limited food security to BPL families is not a feasible option. Why?  

                                                                                     Passage 2

How is India's middle class culture being changed and affected? Let us have a look at what is happening. First the numbers, independent India did not count its population along the lines of caste, and it required special surveys, like that of the Mandal Commission, to identify the size of peasant groupings. The number was revealed to be over 50% of the population. The British census before independence told us that the Brahmin population was about 6%, though the community's power and projection in urban India was disproportionate.

Three small castes, all put together about 10% of the population, dominated the urban middle classes. Brahmin, Baniya and Kayastha. What most urban Indians know as middle class culture is actually the culture of these 3 communities.

The second most important thing we must consider is the quality and texture of literacy. India was only 5% literate at the turn of the 20^th century, and in the last 20 years the direction of urban middle class literacy is towards English. Increasingly, families speak English even at home and most middle class Indians do not read in their mother tongue. We are not referring here to the ability to read, which they have picked up at school. They can speak in the mother tongue, if it is peppered with the English words which have become indispensable. We mean regular reading of literature or entertainment in the mother tongue.

This has produced a unique community. There is no parallel to India of a nation whose middle class is trained to think and approach life in a foreign language, one they have not mastered. India's elite occupy a minimal space; it is emotionally Hindi and intellectually English. One reason India produces so little literature is that India's middle class does not own any language properly. The knowledge of English has come to them through stock phrases because the quality of teaching is poor. Even half literate Americans speak better, cleaner and more precise English than educated Indians. And on the mother-tongue side, the loss of language has resulted in the erosion of India's high culture, its classical inheritance.

Q. Which of the following options would help one understand the author's argument that the loss of language has resulted in the erosion of India's culture?    

Directions (Q.72-80) for the following items:

Each of the items below consists of a question and two statements. You have to decide whether the data provided in the statements are sufficient to answer the question. Give answer as:

Statements:

I. Monika came after Anita but not after Tanvy.

II. Ratna came afterTanvy but not after Sonal.

Q. Among Monika, Anita, Sonal, Ratna and Tanvy, who came last for the program?

Statements:

I. Sharad is younger than Madan.

II. Arvind is younger than Kamal. 

Q. Madan is elder than Kamal and Sharad is younger than Arvind. Who among them is the youngest?

Statements:

I. Ritesh will complete 30 years of service in office X in April 2015 and desires to retire.

II. As per office X rules, an employee has to complete minimum 30 years of service and attain age of 60. Ritesh has 3 years to complete age of 60.

Q. Can Ritesh retire from office X in January 2018, with full pension benefits?   

Statements:

I. Sulekha's husband is the only son of Nandini's mother.

II. Sulekha's brother and Nandini's husband are cousins.

Q. How is Sulekha related to Nandini?

Statements:

I. Only boys play football.

II. There are forty boys and thirty girls in the class.

Q. How many students in a class play football?

Statements:

I. D is sitting opposite to A.

II. B is sitting right of A and left of D.

Q. Who is sitting opposite to C in a round table which seats A, B, C and D?

Which of the following statement is true about G?

Which of the following does not belong to a certain group?

If 4 (P's Capital ) = 6 ( Q's Capital ) = 10 ( R's Capital ) , then out of the total profit of Rs 4650 , R will receive

A, B, C rent a pasture. A puts 10 oxen for 7 months, B puts 12 oxen for 5 months and C puts 15 oxen for 3 months for grazing. If the rent of the pasture is Rs. 175, how much must C pay as his share of rent?