2020 English

Directions : In this section you have a few short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage - I Not all agricultural societies become civilizations, but no civilization can become one without passing through the stage of agriculture. This is because at some stage in the development of agriculture, as productivity improves, not all people would need to be engaged in producing or procuring food. A significant number of people could be freed up to pursue other activities such as building walls or monuments for new cities; making new tools; weapons and jewellery; organizing long-distance trade; creating new artistic masterpieces; coming up with new inventions; keeping accounts; and perhaps constructing new public infrastructure such as irrigation canals that further improve the productivity of agriculture, thus realizing even more people to do new things. This can happen, of course, only if a society that has transitioned to high-productivity agriculture has also, at some stage in its evolution, found a way to channel the bonanza of free time into other work fruitfully. In the ancient world, this often involved creating new ideologies and new hierarchies or power structures to coerce or otherwise convince large groups of people to devote their time to the new tasks for very little reward. Which one of the following statements is true according to the author ?

A significant number of people were sent to carry out other work from agriculture because

What kind of agriculture based societies would emerge as civilizations ?

People as groups were convinced to do new work through

Which word in the passage means 'changeover' ?

Passage - II When we pick up a newspaper, a book, or an article, we come to our task with certain preconceptions and predispositions. We expect to find a specific piece of information or be presented with an argument or an analysis of something, say, the likelihood of recession in the next six months or the reasons why children can't read. We probably know a little about the book or article we are reading even before we start. There was, after all, some reason why we chose to read one piece of writing rather than another. Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us to what the article and its author is actually saying. If, for example, we are used to disagreeing with the author, we may see only what we expect to see and not what is actually there. Day after day in our routine pattern of life we expose ourselves to the same newspaper, the same magazine, even books by authors with the same perspectives. In order to reflect on our reading habits and improve our skills we need to break out of this routine, step back and look at what we are doing when we read. According to the author, which one of the following statements is not true?