Previous Year Questions 2022: English | English for CLAT PDF Download

Q11: The main idea of the passage is that
(a) All original theories and works should receive unreserved acceptance.
(b) Many undeserving innovators have been honoured after their demise.
(c) Creativity must never be inhibited.
(d) Numerous innovators have found recognition and appreciation of their works posthumously.
Ans: (d)
Sol: The passage quotes examples of people who were criticized while they were alive and honored after their death. Hence, option (d) is the answer. Option (a) may seem tempting, but the passage does not suggest all theories should receive unreserved acceptance. The passage here says that had people been more tolerant, the deserving would live to experience the glory.
Option (b) is ruled out because it distorts the fact by saying ‘undeserving candidate’. Option (c) is out of scope.

Q12: From the passage, it is evident that Dr. Ignaz’s theory was rejected because
(a) He could not substantiate it.
(b) The doctors did not want him to regulate their work ethics.
(c) He had been declared insane.
(d) Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur had already discovered germs.
Ans: (a)
Sol: Refer to the line from the passage – “He shared his observation.........evidence to his theory.” From this line, option (a) is easily derived.

Q13: From the passage, one can conclude that the art critics who _______ Van Gogh’s works were __________.
(a) Applauded, pessimistic.
(b) Censured, hypercritical.
(c) Denounced, tolerant.
(d) Acclaimed, rigid.
Ans: (b)
Sol: From the passage, it is clear that Van Gogh was honored posthumously and he was criticized when he was alive. So, in the first blank, the word "censured" is apt. In the last few lines of the passage, the author exhibits his yearning for people to be a bit more tolerant. This shows they were not tolerant or were critical.

Q14: From the passage, it can be inferred that Max Brod
(a) Was of the opinion that Franz had not reached out to the right critics.
(b) Decried Franz’s writings.
(c) Considered it unsacred to destroy any manuscript.
(d) Appreciated and valued Franz’s works.
Ans: (d)
Sol: Franz left his unpublished work to his friend Max Brod and requested Brod to destroy the manuscript. But Max Brod made Franz Kafka’s work published rather than destroying it. From this, option (d) can be inferred.

Q15: The word "relentlessly" in the passage can be best replaced by the word
(a) Irresolutely
(b) Recklessly
(c) Unabatedly
(d) Unabashedly
Ans: (c)
Sol: Relentlessly means unceasingly intense. Irresolute means uncertain. Reckless means without thinking, hasty. Unabated means unceasing. Unabashed means shameless. Relentless and unabated are close-meaning words.

4. Cryptocurrencies are a terrible thing. They are the essence of a Ponzi scheme whose value is based entirely on a greater fool prepared to buy it. the promise of alchemy-turning lead into gold has bewitched humanity throughout the ages and cryptocurrencies are just the latest alchemy. Do not get me wrong, if rich people want to lose their money, in this or any other way, they should be allowed to do so. the rich should be the vanguards of new things in case something unforeseen and good falls out of them. But we need to protect those vulnerable consumers whose lives are such that almost any get-rich-quick schemes will be seductive, and seven out of 10 times, they will lose their life savings. 
Cryptocurrencies are today’s South Sea Bubble - one of the earliest recorded financial bubbles that took place in the 1720s’ Britain. Meme-based currencies like dogecoin, dogelon Mars and doge dash remind me of the infamous plan of one company during the South Sea Bubble to raise money “for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage; but nobody to know what it is.” The cryptocurrency bubble is worse than tulip mania. Through the veil of technology, cryptocurrency enthusiasts are leaning on policy-makers to permit them to be exempt from regulation, privatize money, and make money so disconnected from the economy that it would reap financial disaster. There are many reasons to avoid financial disasters, but one of them is that they ratchet up poverty and inequality. 
The current money-credit system is not perfect, but like democracy, it is the worst system barring all the others. it has evolved from the ashes of the system cryptocurrency enthusiasts are trying to resurrect. The current system is vulnerable to attack because money is little understood. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have attracted a following based on the fiction that the central bank or government creates money and are busy debasing it in their self-interest. 
This is not the case, but then again, there is some overlap between cryptocurrency advocates, conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaxxers. The time has come for someone to stand up for the current fiat money system and explain that while it could be better still, it has been associated with far more growth, much more distributed, and has responded better to economic crisis than what came before. in today’s money-credit system, banks create money when they issue a loan and place the loan’s proceeds into the account of their customers, creating a deposit. Money is, in fact, a tradable debt. 
The bank’s deposit can be used as cash because the bank is a regulated issuer of loans and deposit-taker, which gives the deposit credibility and convertibility. The central bank only influences the creation of money indirectly by its regulatory requirement that a proportion of the loans need to be funded by shareholder’s profits. They need to have skin in the game. Money creation then is based on thousands of separate decisions by loan officers and is more distributed than a centralized algorithm like Bitcoin. And its supply is determined by the private demand for loans, which means it is closely aligned to the economy.

Q16: Which of the following does best describe the attitude of the author towards rich people?
(a) Concerned
(b) Assiduous
(c) Indifferent
(d) Sympathetic
Ans: (c)
Sol: Refer to the line – “The rich should be the vanguards of new things in case something unforeseen and good falls out of them.” It is clear that the author is not concerned or sympathetic towards the rich. In fact, he shows apathy towards the rich. Hence, (c) is correct. Assiduous means hardworking. It does not fit in the context.

Q17: Which of the following is true in the context of the passage?
(a) The author defends the current money–credit system.
(b) The author rejects the idea that the central bank or government creates money and are busy debasing it in their self-interest.
(c) The author backs the protection of the poor from the menace of cryptocurrencies.
(d) All the above
Ans: (d)
Sol: From the last second paragraph’s first line, option (b) can be derived. From the line – “The current money–credit system is not perfect, but like democracy, it is the worst system barring all the others.” Option (a) is derived. And from the line – “But we need to protect those vulnerable consumers whose lives are such that almost any get-rich-quick schemes will be seductive, and seven out of 10 times, they will lose their life savings.” Option (c) can be derived.

Q18: Which rhetorical device is employed in ‘cryptocurrencies are just the latest alchemy’?
(a) Antithesis
(b) Metaphor
(c) Periphrasis
(d) Synecdoche
Ans: (b)
Sol: Antithesis: The placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast of ideas, as in “Give me liberty or give me death.” Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.” Personification: The attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure. Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man. In the given line, cryptocurrency is called alchemy, which is applied to comparison. Hence, (b) is the answer.

Q19: Which of the following does best describe the passage?
(a) Argumentative and explanatory
(b) Descriptive and argumentative
(c) Narrative and explanatory
(d) Expository and argumentative
Ans: (a)
Sol: The author is explaining the reason why some deserving people receive honor posthumously and trying to convince people that they should be more tolerant.

Q20: What do the cryptocurrency enthusiasts rely on?
(a) Exemption from regulation
(b) Privatization of money
(c) Disconnection of money from the economy
(d) All the above
Ans: (d)

5. The fact that Gaia, in her monstrous avatar, decided to distribute fossil fuels very unevenly across the Earth has been central to the emergence of the world’s current geopolitical order. From a vitalist point of view, it could be said that the wars of the twentieth century were won as much by the fossilized energy of botanical matter as by particular groups of humans. in the First World War Germany’s lack of oil put it at a huge disadvantage against the Allies, more or less ensuring its defeat. The shortage of oil effectively cancelled the technological advantages Germany enjoyed at the start of the war: despite having a large fleet, for instance, it was unable to use its navy effectively because its coal-burning ships needed to refuel every eleven days. Conversely, the assured supply of American oil conferred so great an advantage on Britain and France that “it could be fairly stated that the war was won for the Western allies by tankers.” Not for nothing was it said of the First World War that Britain, France, and the United States floated “to victory on a sea of oil.”
in the Second World War the shortage of oil was even more critical to the defeat of the Axis powers. The German Luftwaffe was forced to rely on synthetic fuels derived from coal, and these could not provide the high-octane energy that was necessary for high- compression aero engines: “it was largely due to the inferior engines in german aircraft that the Luftwaffe lost the battle of Britain.” the shortage of oil also dictated Germany’s war strategy: it was in order to seize the oilfields of the Caucasus that the German army pushed eastward into the Soviet Union in 1942, leading to a defeat at Stalingrad from which it never recovered. Japan’s invasion of the Dutch East indies was similarly forced by its lack of oil.
in short, over the course of the twentieth century access to oil became the central focus of global geopolitical strategy: for a Great Power, to be able to ensure or hinder the flow of oil was to have a thumb on the jugulars of its adversaries. In the first part of the twentieth century the guarantor of the flow of oil was Britain. After the Second World War, the baton was passed, along with a string of British naval bases, to the United States. The role of guarantor of global energy flows is still crucial to US strategic dominance and to its position as global hegemon.
Today, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey has pointed out, “US energy policy has become increasingly militarized and secured by the Navy, the largest oceanic force on the planet.” in the words of the historian Michael Klare, the iraq War of 2003 marked the transformation of the US military into “a global oil protection service, guarding pipelines, refineries, and loading facilities in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
It is important to note that the strategic value of controlling oil flows is tangentially related to the US’s energy requirements. The period in which the American military was turning into “a global oil protection service” was one in which the US was well on its way to reducing its dependence on imported oil. The fact that the US is now self- sufficient in fossil fuels has in no way diminished the strategic importance of oil as an instrument for the projection of power- it is the ability to deny energy supplies to rivals that is strategically of central importance.

Q21: What is the central idea of the passage?
(a) Fossil fuels in war-making.
(b) Strategic value of fossil fuels in US dominance in the world.
(c) Role of fossil fuels in modern geopolitical order.
(d) Distribution of fossil fuels in the world.
Ans: (c) 
Sol: The passage starts with the importance of fossil fuels in World War I and World War II. It goes on to talk about the importance of fossil fuels in US dominance, and the passage ends with the statement that, in spite of fuel independence, the US dominates the world by controlling the oil flows. This sums up as option (c).

Q22: What was the cause of Germany’s defeat in the First World War?
(a) Germany’s shortage of oil.
(b) Advantage of Britain and France.
(c) Weaknesses of Germany’s navy.
(d) All the above.
Ans: (d)
Sol: From the second paragraph, it is clear that Germany had a shortage of oil during World War I. This shortage became a weakness for its navy because the ships needed to be refueled every 12 days. An assured supply of American oil worked as an advantage for Britain and France. Hence, all the given statements are correct.

Q23: Which of the following could be inferred from Michael Klare’s opinion on US military?
(a) The US military interferes with energy needs of other countries.
(b) The US energy policy has become increasingly militarized.
(c) The US has changed energy policy drastically.
(d) The US has fully understood the strategic value of controlling oil flows.
Ans: (b) 
Sol: Refer to the lines from the passage – "US energy policy... on the planet." This line makes option (b) correct. Option (d) is a close option and is ruled out because of the word ‘fully’, which makes it too strict an option to select as an answer.

Q24: What does the phrase ‘tangentially related’ mean?
(a) Related directly and in a straightforward way.
(b) Related closely and centrally.
(c) Related only slightly and peripherally.
(d) None of the above.
Ans: (c)

Q25: What makes the US a strategically dominating global hegemon?
(a) Capacity of the US to provide oil protection service, guarding pipelines, refineries, and loading facilities.
(b) Increasingly militarized energy policy of the US Navy, the largest oceanic force on the planet.
(c) The role of the US as a guarantor of global energy flows.
(d) All the above.
Ans: (c)
Sol: Options (a) and (b) are factually correct, but they are not the reasons for the strategic dominance of the US. From the last line of the last third paragraph, option (c) can be derived.

6. The modern animal rights movement, which originated in the 1970s, may be understood as a reaction to dominant emphases within science and religion (principally, though not exclusively, Christianity). When the Jesuit Joseph Rickaby wrote in 1888 that “Brute beasts, not having understanding and therefore not being persons, cannot have any rights” and that we have “no duties of charity or duties of any kind to the lower animals as neither to stocks and stones”, he was only articulating, albeit in an extreme form, the moral insensitivity that has characterized the Western view of animals. That insensitivity is the result of an amalgam of influences. The first, and for many years the most dominant, was the “other worldly” or “world denying” tendency in Christianity, which has, at its worst, denigrated the value of earthly things in comparison with things spiritual. Traditional Catholicism has divided the world into those beings that possess reason and therefore immortal souls, and those that do not. Christian spirituality has not consciously been at home with the world of non-human creatures-either animal or vegetable. Classic accounts of eternal life as found in Augustine of Hippo, thomas Aquinas, or John Calvin make little or no reference to the world of animals. Animals, it seems, are merely transient or peripheral beings in an otherwise wholly human-centric economy of salvation. the second idea-common to Christianity, Judaism, and islam-is that animals, along with vegetables and minerals, exist instrumentally in relation to human beings; they are made for human beings, even belong to human beings, as resources in creation. this idea predates Christianity and is found notably in Aristotle, who argues that “since nature makes nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made them for the sake of man”. this idea, largely unsupported by scripture, was nevertheless taken over by Aquinas, who conceived of creation as a rational hierarchy in which the intellectually inferior existed for the sake of the intellectually superior. Such instrumentalism, which features rationality as the key factor dividing human beings from “brute beasts,” has in turn buttressed the third influence, namely the notion of human superiority in creation. Human superiority need not, by itself, have led to the neglect of animal life, but when combined with the biblical ideas of being made “in the image of God” and God’s preferential choice to become incarnate in human form, some sense of moral as well as theological ascendancy was indicated. As a result, Christianity, and to a lesser extent Judaism, have been characterized historically by an overwhelming concern for humanity in creation rather than an egalitarian concern for all forms of god-given life. That humans are more important than animals, and that they self-evidently merit moral solicitude in a way that animals cannot, has become religious doctrine. Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church maintains that “it is . . . unworthy to spend money on them [animals] that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery”. These influences have in turn enabled and justified the scientific exploration of the natural world and specifically the subjection of animals to experimentation. Francis Bacon pursued his scientific investigations in the belief that humanity should “recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest”. Rene Descartes famously likened the movements of a swallow to the workings of a clock, and maintained that “There is no prejudice to which we are more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think”.

Q26: Jesuit Joseph Rickaby’s articulation on animals may be termed as:
(a) Eco-centric view of animals
(b) Anthropocentric view of animals
(c) Ethnocentric view of animals
(d) Androcentric view of animals
Ans: (b)
Sol: Jesuit Joseph Rickaby says that animals do not have understanding and therefore they are not human beings. Hence, they cannot have any rights. This is an anthropocentric view, which keeps human beings at the center of everything and every rule.

Q27: According to the author, how did Christianity contribute to insensitivity of the West towards animals?
(a) It denigrated the value of earthly things in comparison with spiritual things.
(b) It divided the world into beings with and without reason.
(c) It propagated as if animals are transient or peripheral in human-centric economy of salvation.
(d) All the above.
Ans: (d) 
Sol: Refer to the lines – “but when combined with the biblical ideas... become religious doctrine.” Also, the passage suggests that humanity should recover the right over nature, which belongs to it by divine bequest. All the options can be inferred from these lines.

Q28: Which of the following is closest to the meaning of the word ‘instrumentalism’ as used in the passage?
(a) Pragmatism
(b) Idealism
(c) Egalitarianism
(d) None of the above
Ans: (a)
Sol: Pragmatism means character or conduct that emphasizes practicality. Idealism means the cherishing or pursuit of high or noble principles, purposes, goals, etc. Egalitarianism is the belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, social, or economic life. The passage asserts that God created human beings superior to other creatures, and God created other creatures for humans' convenience. Thus, the closest meaning to the word ‘instrumentalism’ is ‘pragmatism’.

Q29: Which of the following is not true in the context of the passage?
(a) Western philosophy and science are both under the influence of religion.
(b) Western philosophical views on animals have been influenced by religious notions about them.
(c) Western religious notions on animals have justified subjection of animals to scientific experimentation.
(d) Some of the scientific views on animals have been influenced by religious notions about them.
Ans: (a) 
Sol: Options (b), (c), and (d) can be easily derived from the last paragraph of the passage. Option (a) is a generic option, which says Western philosophy and science are under the influence of religion. But the passage discusses one aspect, specifically the treatment of animals and nature with respect to human beings. So, from the passage, we can derive only about that specific aspect, and not about philosophy and science in general.

Q30: It may be inferred from Rene Descartes’ view that:
(a) It is irrational to assume that animals have awareness and some mental capacities.
(b) Animals are automata or they act mechanically.
(c) Neither (a) nor (b)
(d) Both (a) and (b)
Ans: (d) 
Sol: In the last line of the paragraph, René Descartes mentions animals as dumb creatures. From this, both statements (a) and (b) can be derived.