Verbal Exam  >  Verbal Questions  >  To have an axe to grind a)A private end to se... Start Learning for Free
To have an axe to grind  
  • a)
    A private end to serve
  • b)
    To fail to arouse interest
  • c)
    To have no result
  • d)
    To work for both sides
Correct answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?
Verified Answer
To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse in...
Option A is the correct answer because 'to have an axe to grind' means to have a private reason for doing or being involved in something.
Options B, C and D are incorrect because these are not the correct meanings of the given phrase. 
Option E is incorrect because the correct answer has already been chosen.
 
View all questions of this test
Most Upvoted Answer
To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse in...
To have an axe to grind means to have a personal interest or motivation for doing or saying something. This phrase suggests that the speaker is not impartial or objective, but rather has a hidden agenda.

Explanation:

• The phrase "to have an axe to grind" comes from the practice of sharpening an axe on a grindstone, which requires a lot of effort and can be time-consuming.
• If someone has an axe to grind, it means they have a personal stake in the matter and are willing to put in the effort to achieve their goal.
• This phrase is often used to describe someone who is biased or has a hidden agenda.
• When someone has an axe to grind, their actions or words may be motivated by their own interests rather than the common good.
• This can lead to a lack of trust or credibility, as others may perceive the person as being dishonest or manipulative.

Example:

• The politician has an axe to grind with his opponent, so he is always criticizing him in public.
• The journalist has an axe to grind with the company, so he writes negative articles about them.
• The teacher has no axe to grind with any of her students, so she treats them all fairly.
Free Test
Community Answer
To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse in...
Option A is the correct answer because 'to have an axe to grind' means to have a private reason for doing or being involved in something.
Options B, C and D are incorrect because these are not the correct meanings of the given phrase. 
Option E is incorrect because the correct answer has already been chosen.
 
Explore Courses for Verbal exam

Similar Verbal Doubts

As formal organizations, business corporations are distinguished by their particular goals, which include maximization of profits, growth, and survival. Providing goods and services is a means to this end. If, for example, a number of individuals (outsiders or even insiders) believe that a companys aggressive marketing of infant formula in third world countries is morally wrong, the company is unlikely to be moved by arguments based on ethos alone as long as what it is doing remains profitable. But if those opposed to the companys practice organize a highly effective boycott of the companys products, their moral views will soon enter into the companys deliberations indirectly as limiting operating conditions. They can, at this point, no more be ignored than a prohibitive increase in the costs of certain raw materials. Although the concepts and categories of ethics may be applied to the conduct of corporations, there are important differences between the values and principles underlying corporate behaviour and those underlying the actions of most individuals. If corporations are by their nature end- or goal-directed how can they acknowledge acts as wrong in and of themselves? Is it possible to hold one criminally responsible for acts that if performed by a human person would result in criminal liability? The first case of this type to achieve widespread public attention was the attempt to prosecute the Ford Motor Company for manslaughter as the result of alleged negligent or reckless decision making concerning the safety engineering of the Pinto vehicle. Although the defendant corporation and its officers were found innocent after trial, the case can serve as an exemplar for our purposes. In essence, the prosecution in this case attempted to show that the corporation had produced and distributed a vehicle that was known to be defective at the time of production and sale, and that even after a great deal of additional information accumulated regarding the nature of the problems, the corporation took no action to correct them. The obvious non-corporate analogy would be the prosecution of a person who was driving a car with brakes known to be faulty, who does not have them repaired because it would cost too much, and who kills someone when the brakes eventually fail and the car does not stop in time. Such cases involving individuals are prosecuted and won regularly.If corporations have no concept of right or wrong because they are exclusively goal-directed, can they be convicted in cases of this type, and what purpose would be served by such a conviction? Perhaps we can make a utilitarian argument for convicting corporations of such crimes. The argument would be that of deterrence; conviction and punishment would deter other corporations from taking similar actions under similar circumstances. However, there appears to be considerable evidence that deterrence does not work on corporations, even if, arguably, it works on individuals. The possibility of being discovered and the potential magnitude of the fine merely become more data to be included in the analysis of limiting conditions. Directions: Read the above paragraph and answer the following:Q.A claim that things have ethical value to corporations only insofar as they are instrumental in furthering the ultimate goals of the corporation is

As formal organizations, business corporations are distinguished by their particular goals, which include maximization of profits, growth, and survival. Providing goods and services is a means to this end. If, for example, a number of individuals (outsiders or even insiders) believe that a companys aggressive marketing of infant formula in third world countries is morally wrong, the company is unlikely to be moved by arguments based on ethos alone as long as what it is doing remains profitable. But if those opposed to the companys practice organize a highly effective boycott of the companys products, their moral views will soon enter into the companys deliberations indirectly as limiting operating conditions. They can, at this point, no more be ignored than a prohibitive increase in the costs of certain raw materials. Although the concepts and categories of ethics may be applied to the conduct of corporations, there are important differences between the values and principles underlying corporate behaviour and those underlying the actions of most individuals. If corporations are by their nature end- or goal-directed how can they acknowledge acts as wrong in and of themselves? Is it possible to hold one criminally responsible for acts that if performed by a human person would result in criminal liability? The first case of this type to achieve widespread public attention was the attempt to prosecute the Ford Motor Company for manslaughter as the result of alleged negligent or reckless decision making concerning the safety engineering of the Pinto vehicle. Although the defendant corporation and its officers were found innocent after trial, the case can serve as an exemplar for our purposes. In essence, the prosecution in this case attempted to show that the corporation had produced and distributed a vehicle that was known to be defective at the time of production and sale, and that even after a great deal of additional information accumulated regarding the nature of the problems, the corporation took no action to correct them. The obvious non-corporate analogy would be the prosecution of a person who was driving a car with brakes known to be faulty, who does not have them repaired because it would cost too much, and who kills someone when the brakes eventually fail and the car does not stop in time. Such cases involving individuals are prosecuted and won regularly.If corporations have no concept of right or wrong because they are exclusively goal-directed, can they be convicted in cases of this type, and what purpose would be served by such a conviction? Perhaps we can make a utilitarian argument for convicting corporations of such crimes. The argument would be that of deterrence; conviction and punishment would deter other corporations from taking similar actions under similar circumstances. However, there appears to be considerable evidence that deterrence does not work on corporations, even if, arguably, it works on individuals. The possibility of being discovered and the potential magnitude of the fine merely become more data to be included in the analysis of limiting conditions. Directions: Read the above paragraph and answer the following:Q. Which of the following assertions would most strengthen the authors claim that deterrence will not work on corporations?

Suspicious as they are of American intentions, and bolstered by court rulings that seem to give them license to seek out and publish any and all government secrets, the medias distrust of our government, combined with their limited understanding of the world at large, damages our ability to design and conduct good policy in ways that the media rarely imagine.The leak through which sensitive information flows from the government to the press is detrimental to policy in so far as it almost completely precludes the possibility of serious discussion. The fear that anything they say, even in what is construed as a private forum, may appear in print, makes many people, whether our own government officials or the leaders of foreign countries, unwilling to speak their minds.Must we be content with the restriction of our leaders policy discussions to a handful of people who trust each other, thus limiting the richness and variety of ideas that could be brought forward through a larger group because of the nearly endemic nature of this problem? It is vitally important for the leaders of the United States to know the real state of affairs internationally, and this can occur only if foreign leaders feel free to speak their minds to our diplomats. Until recently, it looked as if the media had convinced the public that journalists were more reliable than the government; however, this may be changing. With the passage of time, the media have lost lustre. Theyhaving grown large and powerfulprovoke the same public skepticism that other large institutions in the society do. A series of media scandals has contributed to this. Many Americans have concluded that the media are no more credible than the government, and public opinion surveys reflect much ambivalence about the press. While leaks are generally defended by media officials on the grounds of the publics right to know, in reality they are part of the Washington political power game, as well as part of the policy process. The leaker may be currying favour with the media, or may be planting information to influence policy. In the first case, he is helping himself by enhancing the prestige of a journalist; in the second, he is using the media as a stage for his preferred policies. In either instance, it closes the circle: the leak begins with a political motive, is advanced by a politicized media, and continues because of politics. Although some of the journalists think they are doing the work, they are more often than not instruments of the process, not prime movers. The media must be held accountable for their activities, just like every other significant institution in our society, and the media must be forced to earn the publics trust.Direction: Read the above Paragraph and answer the follownig QuetionsQ.What is the main idea of the passage?

Those who opine lose their impunity when the circumstances in which they pontificate are such that generate from their expression a positive instigation of some mischievous act. An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that owning private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which without justifiable cause do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases are absolutely required to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in matters that concern them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in matters which concern himself he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it is that there should be different experiments of living, that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others, and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when anyone thinks fit to try them. Where not the persons own character but the traditions and customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of individual and social progress. It would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if experience had as yet done nothing toward showing that one mode of existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught thempresumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his deferencebut, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow, or they may have not interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuited to him. Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters, and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom merely as custom does not educate him or develop in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowments of a human being. He gains no practice either in discerning or desiring what is best.Directions: Read the above paragraph and answer the followingQ.The author holds that one should not necessarily defer to the traditions and customs of other people. The author supports his position by arguing that: I. traditions and customs are usually the result of misinterpreted experiences. II. customs are based on experiences in the past, which are different from modern experiences.III. customs can stifle ones individual development.

Of course, in his attempts at field investigation, the historian is at the disadvantage that the countryside has changed in many respects since the period which he is studying. He is not permitted to use H.G. Wellss time machine, to enable him to see it as it actually was. Inevitably he is concerned in the main, if not exclusively, with literary and other materials, which have survived from that stretch of the past which interests him.Old maps may be plans of cities, charts of sea coasts and estuaries, cartularies of landed estates, or topographic delineations of land areas. These clearly engage the interest of historians and geographers alike, and they call for a combination of the methods and viewpoints of each. Maps can be conceived of and considered in several quite different ways, being properly regarded, and so assessed, as works of artat best as objects of colour, skill, form, and beauty. They may alternatively be regarded purely for their cartographic aesthetic. The main queries which then arise are the following: how is it that the map-maker has carried out his task and with skill of what echelon and with what degree of success has he done so? Such an inquiry falls to the specialist field of historical cartography. An antiquarian map may also be approached in a means akin to that of the student who conceives it as a font contemporaneous with the time of its production. Thus, the historical cartographer may seek to bring grist to his mill and to consider the maps reliability as a satisfactory source of empirical evidence. By such means also the regional historian, in his search for essentials about such past matters as the availability of roads, the extent of enclosed farmland, or the number and location of mines and quarries, is no less an interested party.The value of old maps as documents useful for historicity depends necessarily on to what degree they depict and on how accurately. For virtually all periods of pre-modern history some maps have survived to serve as historiography, depicting, however imperfectly, certain features of past geography. The work of Claudius Ptolemywho lived in the 2nd century A.D.for centuries provided the basis for maps of the known world and its major regions. Although many were drawn on the scientific basis which he provided, they nevertheless embodied many errorsof location, distance, and the shape of areas of land and sea. The medieval portolan charts of the Mediterranean Sea and the later charts which provided sailing directions, produced in Holland, were accurate enough to be useful in practical navigation. Plans of important cities of Europe, so well-drawn as to yield evidence of their earlier form and extent, are notably offered in Braun and Hogenbergs Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published at Cologne and, in England, in John Speeds plans of cities. Similarly, John Ogilbys Britannia, Volume the First, appearing in 1675, gives detailed information of Englands road system as it existed nearly three centuries ago. However, few of the early maps approach modern standards, which require accurate representation of distances and of heights above mean sea-level and the use of carefullydistinguished symbols. This is because it was not until the 18th century that cartography, as an exact science, was born. Directions: Read the above paragraph and answer the following:Q.With which of the following statements would the author be most likely to agree?

To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?
Question Description
To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? for Verbal 2024 is part of Verbal preparation. The Question and answers have been prepared according to the Verbal exam syllabus. Information about To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? covers all topics & solutions for Verbal 2024 Exam. Find important definitions, questions, meanings, examples, exercises and tests below for To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?.
Solutions for To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? in English & in Hindi are available as part of our courses for Verbal. Download more important topics, notes, lectures and mock test series for Verbal Exam by signing up for free.
Here you can find the meaning of To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? defined & explained in the simplest way possible. Besides giving the explanation of To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?, a detailed solution for To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? has been provided alongside types of To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? theory, EduRev gives you an ample number of questions to practice To have an axe to grind a)A private end to serveb)To fail to arouse interestc)To have no resultd)To work for both sidesCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer? tests, examples and also practice Verbal tests.
Explore Courses for Verbal exam
Signup for Free!
Signup to see your scores go up within 7 days! Learn & Practice with 1000+ FREE Notes, Videos & Tests.
10M+ students study on EduRev