Embibe Experts Solutions for Chapter: Reading Comprehension, Exercise 1: Exercise 1

 Direction-Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions:
To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all errors, but silly errors. If the matter can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe that hedgehogs eat black beetles because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet. Aristotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval authors knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them

The author portrays mankind as -
 

Read the following passage care fully and answer the given questions.

While tea as a category has stopped growing, green tea is bucking the trend. Judging by the numbers, it could be the latest health-food craze of Indians, right up there with cold pressed oils and millets.

Vikram Grover, VP and marketing head with Tata Global Beverages, which owns tea brand Tetley, says that the green tea category has been growing at around $60$% year-on-year compared with black tea that is growing at around $2$%. It has become an aspirational drink for young urban Indians whose food habits are not under control, he says.

Green tea is essentially normal tea that is not put through the oxidization process to keep its enzymes intact. Nutritionists tout it as an elixir for people with hectic lifestyles. For instance, medical research points out that green tea helps people lose weight and aids in digestion on top of having a positive effect on heart ailments and type-two diabetes. At least, it has great health benefits. From gym goers to corporate executives, everyone carries a green tea sachet these days.

However, palatability is a big factor. Green tea has natural harsh taste has made tea brands like Lipton and Tetley look for new flavours. We have taken a lot of effort to mask the alien taste of green tea. Two of our best-selling variants are honey and lemon and aloe vera says Grover of Tetley.

Unlike black tea, whose superiority can be judged on the basis of its strength, aroma and flavours, good green tea is supposed to taste harsh and its coarse taste is due to the preserved enzymes in the leaves.

What is/are the benefits of green tea according to the passage?

Read the following passage care fully and answer the given questions.

While tea as a category has stopped growing, green tea is bucking the trend. Judging by the numbers, it could be the latest health-food craze of Indians, right up there with cold pressed oils and millets.

Vikram Grover, VP and marketing head with Tata Global Beverages, which owns tea brand Tetley, says that the green tea category has been growing at around $60$% year-on-year compared with black tea that is growing at around $2$%. €œIt has become an aspirational drink for young urban Indians whose food habits are not under control, ” he says.

Green tea is essentially normal tea that is not put through the oxidization process to keep its enzymes intact. Nutritionists tout it as an elixir for people with hectic lifestyles. For instance, medical research points out that green tea helps people lose weight and aids in digestion on top of having a positive effect on heart ailments and type-two diabetes.”It’s a fad, but a good fad. At least, it has great health benefits. From gym goers to corporate executives, everyone carries a green tea sachet these days.

However, palatability is a big factor. Green tea’s natural harsh taste has made tea brands like Lipton and Tetley look for new flavours. €œWe have taken a lot of effort to mask the alien taste of green tea. Two of our best-selling variants are honey and lemon and aloe vera, ” says Grover of Tetley.

Unlike black tea, whose superiority can be judged on the basis of its strength, aroma and flavours, good green tea is supposed to taste harsh and its coarse taste is due to the preserved enzymes in the leaves.

Choose the word most similar in meaning to the word given below as used in the passage.
Ailments

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of four alternatives and mark your answer.

In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the kingdom's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along, carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.
As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.
The peasant learned what many others never understand: Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.

The peasant succeeded to push the huge rock away from the road:

 Read the passages carefully then answer the following questions which are based on what is stated or implied in the passage.

This is the thorny side of the prevailing examination system. Most examiners have perfected their skill in making it a veritable nightmare for the majority of the students. Quite unwittingly we have increased the enrolment in schools alarmingly. Most of the students have neither the requisite aptitude nor any clear-cut goal in life. The destiny of students would be decided in the final examination of a written nature to test bookish, rote memory. All laudable objectives of kindling originality and problem-solving ability are trumpeted only in educational seminars and workshops. Ultimately all these are gone with the wind. No wonder examination hangs like a Damocles sword. Compare this with a related discipline such as music and dance. None would venture to seek entry into such centres of excellence unless one has proven aptitude to profit from training. Here the students have an excellent rapport with their teachers who evaluate their performance on a day-to-day basis and provide constant feedback. Students enjoy practicing at home what they are taught in class. As they realise their progress through constant reinforcement they welcome and enjoy examinations in class. Under the watchful guidance of committed teachers, students grow and blossom out as well-trained artists. This is possible and feasible because the teacher-pupil ratio is ideal and the attitude of the learner is based on devotion and dedication.

According to the passage, the objective of education should be-

Direction - In this question, two columns I and II and three sentences are given, which are divided into two parts. Column I (A, B and C) consist of the first half of each sentence and Column II (D, E and F) consists of the second half of each sentence. Match column I with column II, so that the sentences formed are both meaningful and grammatically correct. Choose the option as your answer.

I.

A) The company's profits have been

B) The general misread the enemy's intentions, and

C) The effects of global warming, while not

II.

D) didn't anticipate the attack.

E) substantially lower this year.

F) immediate, are potentially catastrophic.

Direction - In this question, two columns I and II and three sentences are given, which are divided into two parts. Column I (A, B and C) consist of the first half of each sentence and Column II (D, E and F) consists of the second half of each sentence. Match column I with column II, so that the sentences formed are both meaningful and grammatically correct. Choose the option as your answer.

I.

A) This agreement is very ambiguous and close

B) The government has announced an ambitious

C) The walkers in front crossed the ledge easily, seemingly oblivious at

II.

D) the fact that there was a $3000$ foot drop on either side.

E) to various interpretations

F) program to modernize the railway network.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following question given below.

Prior to $1918, 100$ years ago, only certain men had the vote. Through a very long campaign, begun in the early $19th$ century, women over $30$ and who owned property were finally given the right to have their voices heard and stand for government. It wasn’t until a decade later, however, that the $1928$ Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act granted every citizen of this country the right to vote and have a say in how we are governed, who we are and what we stand for as a country.

Multiple suffrage societies formed across the country during the Victorian era, all fighting in different ways to convince the government that women deserved the right to vote. In $1903$ a new society emerged that has dominated our history and understanding of the women’s movement in the UK: the WSPU, or Women’s Social and Political Movement, heading by the enigmatic Pankhurst family. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, are well-known names in our suffrage history. But their choice to turn to violent and extreme actions, what we would define today as terrorism, is something that is rarely acknowledged. The Pankhursts passionately believed that deeds, not words, would be the only thing to convince the government to give them the vote. After decades of peaceful protest, the WSPU recognised that something far more drastic was needed to get the government to listen to those who were campaigning for women’s rights. While we are probably familiar with tactics such as window smashing, what was the real scale of suffragette violence and militancy?

'If men use explosives and bombs for their own purpose they call it war,’ wrote Christabel Pankhurst in $1913,$ ‘and the throwing of a bomb that destroys other people is then described as a glorious and heroic deed. Why should a woman not make use of the same weapons as men. It is not only war we have declared. We are fighting for a revolution!’

Christabel’s new tactics oversaw a nationwide bombing and arson campaign that the newspapers quickly dubbed the ‘Suffragette Outrages’. One of the earliest recordings of this term is found in the Morpeth Herald on $20$November $1909$, when a suffragette attacked a young Winston Churchill with a horse whip on the platform of Bristol railway station. In the same month, Selina Martin and Lesley Hall disguised themselves as orange sellers and, armed with a catapult and missiles, attacked Prime Minster Asquith’s car in Liverpool.The following year in Battersea, a clerk suffered burns as he attempted to stop a suffragette from throwing a liquid over the papers of a Member of Parliament – one of the first recorded instances of a suffragette causing physical harm to a member of the public.Risk or injury to the public has been vehemently denied by many suffragette historians, as well as by the suffragettes themselves, but the newspapers (and even the accounts of the militant suffragettes) prove that there were numerous instances where injuries occurred, and that personal risk, or even death, was great.

One of the most dangerous suffragette attacks occurred in Dublin in $1912$.Mary Leigh, Gladys Evans, Lizzie Baker and Mabel Capper attempted to set fire to the Theatre Royal during a packed lunchtime matinee attended by Asquith. They left a canister of gunpowder close to the stage and threw petrol and lit matches into the projection booth which contained highly combustible film reels. Earlier in the day, Mary Leigh had hurled a hatchet towards Asquith, which narrowly missed him and instead cut the Irish MP John Redmond on the ear.

$1912$ proved to be an escalation point in the violence of the militant suffragettes. Glasgow Art Gallery has its glass cases smashed; bank and post office windows were smashed from Kew to Gateshead; in September,$23$ trunk telegraph wires were cut on the London road at Potters Bar; and on$28$ November simultaneous attacks on post boxes occurred across the entire country. By the end of year, $240$people had been sent to prison for militant suffragette activities. Once in prison, these inmates were often subjected to the torture of force-feeding at the hands of the prison authorities – actions which only further radicalised them and increased their commitment to the militant campaign on their release.

The newspapers soon began to carry weekly round-ups of the attacks, and reports of suffragette violence are evident across the country, with papers like the Gloucester Journal and Liverpool Echo running dedicated columns on the latest outrages. During $1913$, a suffragette attacked the glass cabinets in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, while in Dundee, in Scotland, four postmen were severely injured by phosphorus chemicals left in post boxes. In Dumbarton $20$ telegraph wires were cut; Kew Gardens orchid house was attacked, and its teahouse burnt down. In Ilford, three streets had their fire alarm wires destroyed and in Saunderton the railway station was destroyed, with placards entitled ‘Votes for Women’ and ‘Burning For the Vote’ left among the debris.Croxley Station near Watford also suffered a similar fate, although the attack was initially not attributed to the militants until a suffragette newspaper was delivered to the Station Master with a scribbled inscription, ‘Afraid copy left got burnt'.

In $1914$ the destruction of homes, pavilions and churches continued, with the year containing some of the most well-known attacks on works of art, as Mary Richardson slashed the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in London. The capital city saw a wave of cultural violence: the British Museum had mummy cases smashed, and bombs were discovered in St Paul’s and the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where a postcard was left bearing the words, ‘Put your religion into practice and give the women freedom.’ After the outbreak of World War One, however, the WSPU suspended their militant campaign.

$2-$ What can be understood from the phrase 'deeds, not words...' in the passage?