The Indian middle class consists of so many strata that it defies categorisation under a single term class, which would imply a considerable degree of homogeneity. Yet two paradoxical features characterise its conduct fairly uniformly; extensive practice and intensive abhorrence of corruption.
In the several recent surveys of popular perceptions of corruptions, politicians of course invariably and understandably top the list, closely followed by bureaucrats, policemen, lawyers, businessmen and others. The quintessential middle class. If teachers do not figure high on this priority list, it is not for lack of trying, but for lack of opportunities. Over the years, the sense of shock over acts of corruption in the middle class has witnessed a steady decline, as its ambitions for a better material life have soared but the resources for meeting such ambitions have not kept pace.
What is fascinating, however, is the intense yearning of this class for a clean corruptionless politics and society, a yearning that has again and again surfaced with any figure, public or obscure, who focuses on his mission of eradicating corruption. Even the repeated failure of this promise on virtually every man's part has not subjected it to the law of diminishing returns.
Who figure on top of the list of corruption?
Answer: C
Correct answer: Politicians
The passage says politicians invariably and understandably top the list, and names bureaucrats, policemen, lawyers and businessmen as following them. The order is given explicitly, so the other three options are all lower down it.
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This yearning, over the years, has
Answer: A
Correct answer: Persisted
The passage says the yearning has again and again surfaced with each new figure promising to eradicate corruption, and that repeated failure has not subjected it to the law of diminishing returns. What has declined is the sense of shock at corruption, not the yearning to be rid of it.
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Piccadilly Circus was full of loneliness. It seethes and echoes with it. To live near it, looking down on it, is a discomforting exercise. You can't feel the pulse of London here, though people expect to. To Londoners it is a maddening obstruction between one place and another, and few voluntarily linger there. The only locals are those who live off the lingerers; the lingerers are primarily sightseers, with a fair sprinkling of people hoping to draw attention to themselves - both typically from the provinces. They have come to see the heart of London and expect to see spectacle, glamour and vice.
Piccadilly circus is
Answer: C
Correct answer: a centrally located area in London
The passage treats it as a place people pass through, live near and look down on - a maddening obstruction between one place and another for Londoners, and the place visitors go to see the heart of London. It is a junction in the city, not a company, a building or a ruin.
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The passage implies that
Answer: C
Correct answer: no Londoner wants to be in Piccadilly circus
The passage says Londoners find it a maddening obstruction between one place and another and that few voluntarily linger there; the only locals present are those who make their living from the visitors. Nothing in the passage suggests danger, and the vice is what sightseers expect to find rather than what is there.
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According to this passage, people from outside London go to Piccadilly circus because it is
Answer: B
Correct answer: full of glamour
The passage says visitors have come to see the heart of London and expect to see spectacle, glamour and vice. Being the pulse of London is exactly what the passage says you cannot feel there, so that option reports the expectation the passage corrects.
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For those who live near Piccadilly circus, it is
Answer: C
Correct answer: an obstruction to traffic
The passage says that to Londoners it is a maddening obstruction between one place and another. Getting past it is the complaint; noise and crowding are never mentioned, and the discomfort of living above it is described as loneliness rather than as awkwardness of structure.
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The lingerers found in Piccadilly circus are mainly
Answer: B
Correct answer: sightseers from provincial areas of Britain
The passage says the lingerers are primarily sightseers, with a fair sprinkling of people hoping to draw attention to themselves - both typically from the provinces. Those hoping to be noticed are the smaller group, and the locals are described as living off the lingerers rather than being among them.
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Today perhaps your only association with the word 'polio' is the Sabin Oral Vaccine that protects children from the disease. Fifty five years ago this was not so. The dreaded disease, which mainly affects the brain and spinal cord, causing stiffening and weakening of muscles, crippling and paralysis - which is Why I am in a wheelchair today. If somebody had predicted, when I was born, that this would happen to me, no one would have believed it. I was the seventh child in a family of four pairs of brothers and sisters, with a huge 23-year gap between the first and last. I was so fair and brown haired that I looked more like a foreigner than a Dawood Bohri. I was also considered to be the healthiest of the brood.
In his childhood, the narrator was
Answer: B
Correct answer: Very healthy
The passage says he was also considered to be the healthiest of the brood, which is the irony the paragraph is built on: the child least likely to be crippled was the one polio took. Height and build are never mentioned.
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In this passage, the word 'brood' refers to
Answer: C
Correct answer: Children in the family
Brood means the children of one family taken together, and the sentence in which it appears is comparing the narrator with his brothers and sisters. The passage is not discussing polio victims or children in general at that point.
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The narrator was the seventh child in a family of
Answer: A
Correct answer: 8 Children
The passage says he was the seventh child in a family of four pairs of brothers and sisters. Four pairs is eight children, with a twenty-three year gap between the eldest and the youngest.
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