1/59. Five sentences are given below, labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. They need to be arranged in a logical order to
form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
1. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
2. Who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no eff ort without error
and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds.
3. It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of
deeds could have done them better.
4. Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the
best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly,
5. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
1. 32451
2. 35241
3. 21424
4. 23415
2/59. Five sentences are given below, labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. They need to be arranged in a logical order to
form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
1. The species, which are most numerous in individuals, will have the best chance of producing variations
within any given period.
2. Hence any rare species will be less quickly modified or improved within any given period, and they will
be consequently beaten in the race for life by the modified descendants of the commoner species.
3. From these considerations I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed
others will become rare and finally extinct.
4. We have evidence of this in the fact that it is the more common species that aff ord the greatest number of
varieties, or incipient species.
5. Extinction or survival, therefore, is a function of a parameter that is totally beyond the
control of the species.
1. 34215
2. 13524
3. 14235
4. 23145
3/59. Given below is a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given
options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
I guess that in the early 60s it was extraordinary, or foolhardy, for a white family to foster a black child.
Mum has always rebelled against what was considered normal. Although fostering Bim was
not a political act, just an act of love, Mum always found racism intolerable. It didn’t occur to her that people
would be openly abusive to a tiny baby because of the colour of his skin.
1. Mum was appalled by the state in which Bim arrived.
2. My dad is the Marquess of Queensberry, and in the best aristocratic tradition has produced a
truly extraordinary family.
3. She embraced him into the heart of our family without fully contemplating the consequences.
4. It was therefore a shock when occasionally in the street she was called vile names.
4/59.
The word given below has been used in sentences in four diff erent ways. Choose the option corresponding to
the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Hand
1. The board rejected the manager’s plan out of hand.
2. When you have small children at home it is advisable to have a first aid kit at hand.
3. Hes an old hand at managing advertising campaigns.
4. He is hand over glove with the new president of the company.
5/59. The word given below has been used in sentences in four diff erent ways. Choose the option
corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Pencil
1. I wanted to write a letter but couldn’t put pencil to paper.
2. The agent managed to pencil in a meeting at 4 pm.
3. An active person would hate to become a pencil pusher.
4. If you write well they will not blue-pencil the article.
6/59. The word given below has been used in sentences in four diff erent ways. Choose the option
corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Burn
1. His friends warned him not to burn his bridges when he left the company.
2. The wedding was so lavish, it seemed they had money to burn.
3. The rigorous training caused many recruits to burn up.
4. That ointment will burn when you apply it.
7/59. There are two gaps in the sentence/paragraph given below. From the pairs of words given, choose the
one that fills the gaps most appropriately.
What made Dr Hawking’s revelation so _________ to the religious establishment, and so __________
to its ideological opponents, was that until now he was regarded as an ally of faith.
1. off ensive, pertinent
2. jarring, mellifluous
3. concordant, incongruous
4. appealing, objectionable
8/59. In the question, there are four sentences or parts of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the
sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and usage. Then, choose the
most appropriate option.
A. There are many reason for this.
B. The size of the credit market is smaller today because banks will no longer lend to marginal borrowers.
C. Additionally commercial companies have seen their cash flows improve because the economy is still growing.
D. Therefore, corporations do not need as many bank loans.
1. B and C
2. B, C and D
3. A and C
4. B and D
9/59. Five sentences are given below, labelled A, B, C, D and E. They need to be arranged in a logical order to
form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. If at one time, one knew the positions and velocities of all the particles in the universe, the laws of
science should enable us to calculate their positions and velocities at any other time, past or future
B. These laws may or may not have been ordained by God, but scientific determinism asserts that he does
not intervene to break them.
C. But it was Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687, containing his theory of universal gravitation that made
the laws quantitative and precise.
D. A qualitative understanding of the laws has been the aim of philosophers and scientists, from Aristotle
onwards.
E. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been expressed by Laplace.
1. DCABE
2. DCEAB
3. ADCEB
4. EBDCA
10/59. Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Choose the option that best captures the essence of
the text.
Some parts of America have long taken a tough, frontier attitude to justice. That tendency sharpened around
four decades ago as rising crime became an emotive political issue and voters took to backing politicians who
promised to stamp on it. This created a ratchet eff ect: lawmakers who wish to sound tough must propose laws
tougher than the ones that the last chap who wanted to sound tough proposed. When the crime rate falls, tough
sentences are hailed as the cause, even when demography or other factors may matter more; when the rate
rises tough sentences are demanded to solve the problem. As a result, America’s incarceration rate has
quadrupled since 1970.
1. America’s incarceration rate has been a key factor in controlling crime and is therefore supported by both the
voters and politicians.
2. A tough attitude towards rising crime is the only long-term solution to the problem and some parts of America
have implemented it successfully.
3. In America, increasingly tougher laws are perceived as the only eff ective factor in lowering the crime
rate despite other factors being important.
4. As the crime rate rose, voters started supporting tougher laws and this has led to the government making ever
more stringent regulations in certain parts of America.
11/59. Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Choose the option that best captures the essence of
the text.
There is no doubt that anonymity leads people to act out in ways they normally wouldn't. For many, this means
increased anti-social behavior and, in comments sections, an uncharacteristic tendency to insult and attack.
Diane Mapes wrote a good column on this two years ago, in which she noted that faceless communication leads
to disinhibition, whether its online, in a car or on the phone with a customer-service representative. "Between outof-control customers, vituperative online posters and road-raging drivers, it’s hard to find an individual who hasn't
succumbed to the siren song of faceless, consequence-free communication," she wrote. Psychologists even
have a name for the online phenomenon: "online disinhibition eff ect".
1. The roots of the online disinhibition eff ect lie in the anti-social behavior of people.
2. Anonymity encourages people to display their natural instincts of anti-social behavior.
3. When communication is anonymous people frequently display anti-social behavior.
4. Online disinhibition eff ect leads to out-of-control customers, vituperative online posters and road-raging
drivers.
12/59. There are two gaps in the sentence/paragraph given below. From the pairs of words given, choose the
one that fills the gaps most appropriately.
The day dies slowly, ___________. It’s reluctant to go and drags out the farewell, like an elemental orchestra returning
with just one more _______, one final flourish, and then another, and then just one more.
1. turbulently, encore
2. arduously, presage
3. quietly, abyss
4. languorously, refrain
13/59. Four sentences are given below, labeled A, B, C and D. They need to be arranged in a logical order to
form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. A Welsh boy named Billy Williams turns 13 and begins his wretched life as a coal miner.
B. King George V is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
C. A lot happens on the first page of Ken Follett’s ‘Fall of Giants’.
D. And Mr. Follett, who was once a Welsh boy himself but grew up to become his generation’s most
vaunted writer of colorless historical epics, kicks off a whopping new trilogy.
1. ADCB
2. ABCD
3. CBAD
4. CDAB
14/59. The word given below has been used in sentences in four diff erent ways. Choose the option
corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Close
1. That comment hit close to home and made him uncomfortable.
2. The police managed to close in to the suspect in a few days.
3. The bank was forced to close down during the depression.
4. The workers decided to close ranks and confront the manager.
15/59. Given below is a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options,
choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
Observant viewers of Sunday night's 82nd Academy Awards broadcast might have noticed something even
more surprising than The Hurt Locker's near sweep of awards. For the first time since 1988, winners were back.
Rather than the politically correct, nonjudgmental phrase that has been foisted on presenters for more than two
decades “And the Oscar goes to ...” presenters this year introduced each winner with the blunt, old-fashioned
but perfectly accurate phrase "And the winner is ..."
1. Why the switch? No one at the Motion Picture Academy would give any explanation.
2. Officials acknowledged that it was a decision made by producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman, with
an O.K. from the Academy.
3. Whether the new format will stay is a decision for the producers who are in charge next year.
4. The benefit of the earlier format was twofold: it plugged the award continuously, and it didn’t make losers feel
any worse than they already did.
16/59. Given below is a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options,
choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
Terrorist attacks appall us because of the loss of life, but even more because the killing is deliberate. In London,
traffic kills more people than bombs. But we are outraged by what the bombings express. The bombers want us,
any of us, dead, or at least are prepared to kill us to make a political point.
1. It is this that arouses the resentful backlash.
2. In the climate created, anybody would have found retaliation imperative.
3. Each killing is defended as retaliation for the last.
4. Had it not been for terrorist attacks, the common man would never have learnt to care for the death of his
fellow countrymen!
17/59. In the question, there are four sentences or parts of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the
sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is/are incorrect in terms of grammar and usage. Then, choose the
most appropriate option.
A. Last June I shared a cab with Grayson Perry, one of Britain’s best-known artist.
B. He had just returned from the Basel art fair, where he had been struck by something.
C. Everything is now happening all at once, he told me with a roll of the eyes.
D. At the fair, there is no longer a ruling style or taste, no common agreement on what is avant-garde and what
is retrograde.
1. A and C
2. Only A
3. B and C
4. A and D
Directions for questions : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the
most appropriate answer to each question.
In a stadium in Prague, 20 years ago today, a hundred thousand people, including my father and me, saw
something we were not supposed to see. For decades it had been forbidden. The music, we were told,
would poison our minds with filthy images. We would be infected by the West’s capitalist propaganda.
It was a cool August night in 1990; the Communist regime had officially collapsed eight months earlier, when
Vaclav Havel, the longtime dissident, was elected president. And now the Rolling Stones had come to Prague.
I was 16 then, and to this day I recall the posters promoting the concert, which lined the streets and the walls
of the stadium: “The Rolling Stones roll in, Soviet army rolls out”.
Soviet soldiers had been stationed in Czechoslovakia since 1968, when their tanks brutally crushed the so-called Prague
Spring. My father was 21 at that time, dreaming of freedom and listening to bootlegged copies of ‘Let’s Spend the Night
Together’. But it would be more than two decades before he would get to see the band live.
During those years, you had to tune into foreign stations to hear the Stones. Communists called the
band members ‘rotten junkies’, and said no decent socialist citizen would listen to them.
I only knew one Stones song, ‘Satisfaction’, but I knew it by heart. I had heard it for the first time on a pirated tape
my father had bought on the black market in Hungary and smuggled into the country. It put an immediate spell on
me. I was hugely impressed by the rough, loud guitar riff , so unlike the mellow sound of Czechoslovakian music.
(The Communists frowned on the bass and the electric guitar, but they severely disapproved of the saxophone
because they said it was invented by a Belgian imperialist.)
Czechoslovakians had been urged for four decades to sacrifice their inner dreams to the collective happiness
of the masses. People who went their own way ‘rebels’ often ended up in jail.
That night in August, waiting for the Rolling Stones to come on stage, we felt like rebels.
The concert was held in the same stadium where the Communist government used to hold rallies and organize
parades. My classmates and I had spent endless hours in that stadium, marching in formations that, seen from
the stands above, were supposed to symbolize health, joy and the discipline of the masses.
Now, instead of marching as one, we were ready to get loose. ‘We gotta get closer’, my father whispered into
my ear as we tried to make our way through the crowd.
I sensed that everyone was nervous. They were accustomed to being lied to, to having promises broken. They
didn’t quite believe that the Stones were really coming to play live. I could see that my father didn’t either. “We
might see their photographs or a movie instead”, I heard some people saying, pointing to huge video screens
installed inside the stadium. I started to have doubts myself. We had been waiting for five hours.
Suddenly, the lights dimmed. Drums started to pound, and the screens turned on as if by magic. “Oh my God, it
is really happening”, whispered a woman standing close to me. She was expressing something more than just
the thrill of a concert. She was saying that the Communists were truly gone. That we were finally free to do as
we pleased.
18/59. Which of the following best captures what the Rolling Stones concert stood for in the author’s mind?
1. A chance to celebrate the demise of the communist regime.
2. An expression of individual choice and freedom.
3. An opportunity to indulge in an activity that had been banned for a long time.
4. A rebellion against conformity.
Directions for questions : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the
most appropriate answer to each question.
In a stadium in Prague, 20 years ago today, a hundred thousand people, including my father and me, saw
something we were not supposed to see. For decades it had been forbidden. The music, we were told,
would poison our minds with filthy images. We would be infected by the West’s capitalist propaganda.
It was a cool August night in 1990; the Communist regime had officially collapsed eight months earlier, when
Vaclav Havel, the longtime dissident, was elected president. And now the Rolling Stones had come to Prague.
I was 16 then, and to this day I recall the posters promoting the concert, which lined the streets and the walls
of the stadium: “The Rolling Stones roll in, Soviet army rolls out”.
Soviet soldiers had been stationed in Czechoslovakia since 1968, when their tanks brutally crushed the so-called Prague
Spring. My father was 21 at that time, dreaming of freedom and listening to bootlegged copies of ‘Let’s Spend the Night
Together’. But it would be more than two decades before he would get to see the band live.
During those years, you had to tune into foreign stations to hear the Stones. Communists called the
band members ‘rotten junkies’, and said no decent socialist citizen would listen to them.
I only knew one Stones song, ‘Satisfaction’, but I knew it by heart. I had heard it for the first time on a pirated tape
my father had bought on the black market in Hungary and smuggled into the country. It put an immediate spell on
me. I was hugely impressed by the rough, loud guitar riff , so unlike the mellow sound of Czechoslovakian music.
(The Communists frowned on the bass and the electric guitar, but they severely disapproved of the saxophone
because they said it was invented by a Belgian imperialist.)
Czechoslovakians had been urged for four decades to sacrifice their inner dreams to the collective happiness
of the masses. People who went their own way ‘rebels’ often ended up in jail.
That night in August, waiting for the Rolling Stones to come on stage, we felt like rebels.
The concert was held in the same stadium where the Communist government used to hold rallies and organize
parades. My classmates and I had spent endless hours in that stadium, marching in formations that, seen from
the stands above, were supposed to symbolize health, joy and the discipline of the masses.
Now, instead of marching as one, we were ready to get loose. ‘We gotta get closer’, my father whispered into
my ear as we tried to make our way through the crowd.
I sensed that everyone was nervous. They were accustomed to being lied to, to having promises broken. They
didn’t quite believe that the Stones were really coming to play live. I could see that my father didn’t either. “We
might see their photographs or a movie instead”, I heard some people saying, pointing to huge video screens
installed inside the stadium. I started to have doubts myself. We had been waiting for five hours.
Suddenly, the lights dimmed. Drums started to pound, and the screens turned on as if by magic. “Oh my God, it
is really happening”, whispered a woman standing close to me. She was expressing something more than just
the thrill of a concert. She was saying that the Communists were truly gone. That we were finally free to do as
we pleased.
19/59. According to the passage, which of the following is not a characteristic of Czechoslovakia while it
was under Soviet/Communist influence?
1. Suppressing of individual thoughts and ideas.
2. Mass demonstrations and parades.
3. Censorship of news reporting.
4. Discouragement of rebellious ideas or themes.
Directions for questions : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the
most appropriate answer to each question.
In a stadium in Prague, 20 years ago today, a hundred thousand people, including my father and me, saw
something we were not supposed to see. For decades it had been forbidden. The music, we were told,
would poison our minds with filthy images. We would be infected by the West’s capitalist propaganda.
It was a cool August night in 1990; the Communist regime had officially collapsed eight months earlier, when
Vaclav Havel, the longtime dissident, was elected president. And now the Rolling Stones had come to Prague.
I was 16 then, and to this day I recall the posters promoting the concert, which lined the streets and the walls
of the stadium: “The Rolling Stones roll in, Soviet army rolls out”.
Soviet soldiers had been stationed in Czechoslovakia since 1968, when their tanks brutally crushed the so-called Prague
Spring. My father was 21 at that time, dreaming of freedom and listening to bootlegged copies of ‘Let’s Spend the Night
Together’. But it would be more than two decades before he would get to see the band live.
During those years, you had to tune into foreign stations to hear the Stones. Communists called the
band members ‘rotten junkies’, and said no decent socialist citizen would listen to them.
I only knew one Stones song, ‘Satisfaction’, but I knew it by heart. I had heard it for the first time on a pirated tape
my father had bought on the black market in Hungary and smuggled into the country. It put an immediate spell on
me. I was hugely impressed by the rough, loud guitar riff , so unlike the mellow sound of Czechoslovakian music.
(The Communists frowned on the bass and the electric guitar, but they severely disapproved of the saxophone
because they said it was invented by a Belgian imperialist.)
Czechoslovakians had been urged for four decades to sacrifice their inner dreams to the collective happiness
of the masses. People who went their own way ‘rebels’ often ended up in jail.
That night in August, waiting for the Rolling Stones to come on stage, we felt like rebels.
The concert was held in the same stadium where the Communist government used to hold rallies and organize
parades. My classmates and I had spent endless hours in that stadium, marching in formations that, seen from
the stands above, were supposed to symbolize health, joy and the discipline of the masses.
Now, instead of marching as one, we were ready to get loose. ‘We gotta get closer’, my father whispered into
my ear as we tried to make our way through the crowd.
I sensed that everyone was nervous. They were accustomed to being lied to, to having promises broken. They
didn’t quite believe that the Stones were really coming to play live. I could see that my father didn’t either. “We
might see their photographs or a movie instead”, I heard some people saying, pointing to huge video screens
installed inside the stadium. I started to have doubts myself. We had been waiting for five hours.
Suddenly, the lights dimmed. Drums started to pound, and the screens turned on as if by magic. “Oh my God, it
is really happening”, whispered a woman standing close to me. She was expressing something more than just
the thrill of a concert. She was saying that the Communists were truly gone. That we were finally free to do as
we pleased.
20/59. What can be inferred as the real reason for Communists in Czechoslovakia to oppose ‘The Rolling Stones’?
1. They were viewed as a form of rebellion by the regime.
2. They were created by outsiders and conflicted with traditional Czech themes.
3. They exposed the audience to vulgar images.
4. They were a form of propaganda for Western governments.
21/59. One of the major forces in contemporary literary criticism and theory is Jacques Derrida, whose
___________ critique on structuralism and the tradition of Western philosophy has ___________a wide
range of influential critical activities generally known as deconstruction.
1. meticulous, inaugurated
2. off hand, unveiled
3. dogmatic, given
4. pioneering, disclosed
22/59. The word SHOULDER has been used in four sentences below. Identify the sentence where the word
has been INCORRECTLY used.
1. The football fan shouldered his way into the crowd in order to get closer to his favorite footballer and obtain
his autograph.
2. Being the eldest of the siblings, he had to shoulder the entire responsibility of the family.
3. Even the police should not be allowed to sit on the shoulder of a road without any lights on as it might be
dangerous for them as well as for other motorists.
4. The entire cost of repairs and renovations will be shouldered by the company.
23/59.
Identify the figure of speech
As hungry as a wolf
1. simile
2. metaphor
3. Personification
4. Paradox
24/59. Our house is practically on the highway. The adverb "practically" modifies
1. Sentence
2. Propositional Phrase
3. Verb
4. Adjective
25/59. I live in a small town in London. Here, the word in is a
1. Conjuction
2. Gerund
3. Preposition
4. Interjection
26/59. We all told Mr.Smith that we want__ salary in time. But, he ignored __
1. our/us
2. their/ours
3. his/them
4. our/these
27/59. I think our house _______ by the end of next year.
1. will be sold
2. to be sold
3. will have been sold
4. is going to be sold
28/59. Stanley's house ____ been pulled down before he was born
1. had been
2. was
3. must have
4. had
29/59. The flood victims are short of food. ________ they need urgent medical attention
1. Similarly
2. In addition
3. any how
4. for instance
30/59. _____ people will be nice to you if you are nice to them
1. apart from
2. same way
3. in most cases
4. for instance
31/59. What among the following is the best definition of the word 'Countenance'?
1. Tone
2. Expression
3. Gesture
4. Law
32/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Commissioned'
1. Started
2. Closed
3. Finished
4. Terminated
33/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Exodus'
1. Influx
2. Home-coming
3. Return
4. Restoration
34/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Relinquish'
1. Abdicate
2. Renounce
3. Possess
4. Deny
35/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Quiescent'
1. Active
2. Dormant
3. Weak
4. Unconcerned
36/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Subservient'
1. Aggressive
2. Straight forward
3. Dignified
4. Supercilious
37/59. Pick the antonym for - 'Remiss'
1. Forgetful
2. Watchful
3. Dutiful
4. Harmful
38/59. Stunned by the enormity of sustenance with such _______ support in the mountains, it was a silent drive
to the Komik have been the desolate surroundings, the bleak weather, or just the _______, but the monastery
had a confounding
1. miniscule, austerity
2. enormous, posterity
3. considerable, prosperity
4. negligible, opulence
39/59.
"Despite its sincerity, the junta might lack the vision and integrity needed to take Pakistan into the next
century." Which of the following, if assumed, will flaw the statement?
1. Vision and integrity are manifestations of sincerity.
2. Vision and integrity are subjective
1. 1 alone
2. 2 alone
3. Both 1 & 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2
40/59. Which two sentences in the following convey the same idea? Choose from the
combinations listed below:
1)He is in a fool‘s paradise
2)He can‘t see the wood for the trees
3)He can‘t distinguish between reality and fancy.
4)He is unable to separate unimportant details from the really important ones
1. 2, 3
2. 2, 4
3. 1, 4
4. 1, 3
41/59. Choose the correct meaning for the word:
cynic-
1. the person who is selfish
2. the person who is concerned about others
3. the person who isnt misanthropic
4. the person who believes that people always act from selfish motives
42/59. Choose the word with correct spelling
1. categories
2. diarrhea
3. omission
4. inaugurate
43/59. Pick out the right
sentences. 1.I will go with you.
2.There was nobody I could go with. 3.I
have a glass with painting on it.
4.The curtains do not match with the furniture.
1. 1&2
2. 2&3
3. 1&4
4. all
Read the following passage and answer within its context. Nearly two thousand years have passed since a
census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in
the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to
meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have managed to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the
census taker that does the travelling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to
get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording and evaluating information have presumably been
improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an
adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental
agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue for
future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more
immediate concern, the reliability of present-day economic forecasting, there are considerable diff erences of
opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association.
There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some
speakers talked about new-fangled computers and high-faulting mathematical systems in terms of excitement
and endearment, which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated
more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to a deplorable record of highly esteemed
forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets and the President-elect of the
Association cautioned that ?high- powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and
inadequate, statisticians assume.? We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with
the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their
merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation
of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.
44/59. According to the passage, taxation in Roman times were based on
1. mobility
2. wealth
3. population
4. census takers
Read the following passage and answer within its context. Nearly two thousand years have passed since a
census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in
the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to
meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have managed to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the
census taker that does the travelling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to
get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording and evaluating information have presumably been
improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an
adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental
agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue for
future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more
immediate concern, the reliability of present-day economic forecasting, there are considerable diff erences of
opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association.
There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some
speakers talked about new-fangled computers and high-faulting mathematical systems in terms of excitement
and endearment, which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated
more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to a deplorable record of highly esteemed
forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets and the President-elect of the
Association cautioned that ?high- powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and
inadequate, statisticians assume.? We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with
the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their
merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation
of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.
45/59. The author refers to the Mets primarily in order to
1. show that sports do not depend on statistics
2. contrast verifiable and unverifiable methods of record keeping
3. indicate the changes in attitudes from Roman days to the present
4. illustrate the failure of statistical predictions.
Read the following passage and answer within its context. Nearly two thousand years have passed since a
census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in
the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to
meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have managed to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the
census taker that does the travelling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to
get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording and evaluating information have presumably been
improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an
adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental
agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue for
future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more
immediate concern, the reliability of present-day economic forecasting, there are considerable diff erences of
opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association.
There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some
speakers talked about new-fangled computers and high-faulting mathematical systems in terms of excitement
and endearment, which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated
more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to a deplorable record of highly esteemed
forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets and the President-elect of the
Association cautioned that ?high- powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and
inadequate, statisticians assume.? We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with
the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their
merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation
of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.
46/59. The author's tone can best be described as
1. jocular
2. scornful
3. pessimistic
4. humanistic
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our
time." Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in about 1910 "human character changed" and
illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies
are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and
more has been the f s independence". But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's
domination as one of' their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has
literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern
literature have gone unremarkedfar from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them
and now that women are enough to make a diff erence in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the
landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change.
47/59. According to the passage, modernists are changing literary criticism by:1. Noting instances of hostility between men and women
2. Seeing literature from fresh points of view
3. Studying the works of early twentiethcentury writers
4. Reviewing books written by feminists
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our
time." Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in about 1910 "human character changed" and
illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies
are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and
more has been the f s independence". But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's
domination as one of' their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has
literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern
literature have gone unremarkedfar from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them
and now that women are enough to make a diff erence in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the
landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change.
48/59. The author quotes James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence primarily in order to show that:1. These were feminist writers
2. Although well meaning, they were ineff ectual
3. Before the twentieth century, there was little interest in women's literature
4. None of the above
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our
time." Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in about 1910 "human character changed" and
illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies
are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and
more has been the f s independence". But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's
domination as one of' their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has
literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern
literature have gone unremarkedfar from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them
and now that women are enough to make a diff erence in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the
landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change.
49/59. The author's attitude towards women's reformation of literary canons can best be described as one of:1. Ambivalence
2. Antagonism
3. Indiff erence
4. Endorsement
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our
time." Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in about 1910 "human character changed" and
illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies
are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and
more has been the f s independence". But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's
domination as one of' their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has
literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern
literature have gone unremarkedfar from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them
and now that women are enough to make a diff erence in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the
landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change.
50/59. Which of the following titles best describes the contents of the passage?
1. Modernist Writers and the Search for Equality
2. The meaning of Literature from 1910 onwards
3. Transforming Literature
4. None of the options
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic
it would be to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and
eye cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't form
tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some
feeling, in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
51/59. What is the passage mainly concerned about?
1. The technological advancements that have led to the invention of new techniques.
2. Safety of the patients undergoing stem cell therapy.
3. The eff ectiveness of stem cell experiments with a concern for the safety.
4. The trials of stem cell therapy which can open a whole new spectrum in the field of medicine.
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic
it would be to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and
eye cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't form
tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some feeling,
in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
52/59. Which of the following statements are true according to the passage?
I. Scientists are mainly concerned about the safety of the procedure.
II. Scientists have identified failure as a possible result of the experiments.
III. Immune protection will always be an integral part of stem cell therapy
1. Only I
2. I and II
3. II and III
4. Only II
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic
it would be to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and
eye cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't
form tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some
feeling, in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
53/59. What is the tone of the author?
1. Clinical
2. Optimistic
3. Benevolent
4. Rhetoric.
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic
it would be to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and
eye cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't form
tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some feeling,
in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
54/59. What was the lesson learnt from the year long suspension of the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron?
1. Only an in depth scientific research could resolve the problem.
2. Cautiousness is important during the course Stem Cell Therapy
3. Stem cells are highly unpredictable.
4. Advanced production methods are necessary for Stem Cell production.
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic it would be
to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and eye
cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't
form tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some
feeling, in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
55/59. Which of the following is not a quoted question, that the Stem-cell scientist will be unable to answer after
the initial round of experiments?
1. If complications involving tumors will arise.
2. If the recipient can be used as the source of stem-cells.
3. If the cells replicate the functions of the surrounding cells.
4. If properly functioning cell resolver the disability of the recipient.
Read the passage and answer the questions carefully
Now 26 and legally blind, the young woman, who can't be identified until after her treatment because
of informed-consent rules, immediately said yes. She is being evaluated as a potential pioneer to
receive the first retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells generated from embryonic stem cells. If
accepted, she will join a handful of other patients with macular degeneration who will have thousands
of cells injected into their eyes to replace their destroyed RPE cells in the retina and, hopefully, rescue
any remaining photoreceptor cells. They will help scientists answer a critical question: After all the
controversy over embryonic stem cells, are therapies derived from them safe and ultimately
eff ective? We are finally ready to break ground on this field with the first trials, says Dr. Robert Lanza,
chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that makes the RPE cells. "It's taken
a decade of extensive research to get to this point."
In those 10 years, stem-cell scientists have had to address some tough questions about how realistic
it would be to extract stem cells from a human embryo, coax those cells to develop into nerve and
eye cells and then transplant them into patients. The burden on these vanguard trials is huge, and the
questions they inspire are legion -- and disturbing. Will the transplanted cells "take," escaping
destruction by their new hosts' immune systems? The cells are, after all, made from embryos that
were completely unrelated to the recipients. Will the fact that the cells were developed from
embryonic stem cells lead them to form tumors? Embryonic stem cells are known for their ability to
grow indefinitely. Left alone, such cells tend to form grotesque balls of diff erent tissue types -- bone,
skin, tooth, hair, muscle -- known as teratomas. And if the transplanted cells do survive and don't form
tumors or teratomas, will they function properly? Will that function be enough to restore some feeling,
in the case of the spinal-cord-injury patients, or some vision in the eye patients?
Stem-cell scientists certainly aren't expecting to answer all these questions with this first round of
trials. In fact, the initial patients are part of important safety tests to determine if stem-cell-based
tissues are safe and robust enough to live and grow in human patients. As in any situation involving a
completely novel treatment with no precedent in medical history, the scientists are hoping for the best
but bracing for the worst.
They have good reason to be cautious. Just eight months after it won approval from the Food and
Drug Administration, the spinal-cord trial, led by Geron, was suspended for nearly a year after
ongoing animal studies found that the transplanted nerve cells started to form odd clusters in the
spines of the animals. Scientists eventually determined that the so-called rosettes weren't tumors and
allowed the trial to continue, but the experience highlights the vigor and unpredictability of the cells.
Learning from that incident, Lanza decided to take no chances and developed a test that would detect
a single stray stem cell, with the potential of developing into a teratoma that might have escaped into
a preparation of over a million RPE cells. "Our cells are 99% to 100% pure," he says.
The retinal cells may have an advantage when it comes to immune rejection. The space beneath the
retina where the cells are injected is generally free of the body's patrolling immune sentries. But in the
patients in the trial, the RPE cells have been so damaged by disease that it's not clear whether they
continue to maintain their immune-protected cocoon. So just to be safe, the volunteers will be taking
drugs to suppress their immune system, in much the same way that patients receiving organ
transplants from unrelated donors do.
Looking ahead, such immune protection may not be necessary. Researchers can now make embryolike stem
cells from a patient's own skin cell, which means that the concern about immune mismatch between donor and
recipient cells may become moot. There's another benefit to these embryo-free stem cells, known as induced
pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Because they can be made from patients suff ering from diseases like diabetes
or Lou Gehrig's, scientists can watch how these cells develop and better understand how a motor neuron in a
patient with such a disease starts to go awry. So while a lot hangs on these first trials of embryonic-stem-cell
therapies, they are, says Dr. Steven Schwartz, only the beginning. Realistically, he doesn't anticipate that early
participants will regain their vision completely, nor do the spinal-cord experts expect their patients to walk again
after getting the treatments. But if the therapies are safe, then scientists can start figuring out when to intervene
with the cells to do the most good. "We can start thinking about striking at diseases like macular
degeneration before central vision is completely gone," says Schwartz. And that would indeed be worth seeing.
56/59. Pick the best title for the passage from the ones given below.
1. Stem Cell Therapy: A new dimension.
2. Stem Cell Therapy: Safety and Eff ectiveness
3. Cautious development of Stem Cell Therapy
4. Stem Cell Therapy: A not so distant treatment.
57/59.
Choose the option which is closest in meaning to the word
SUBTLE
1. Innocent
2. Elusive
3. Dangerous
4. Insidious
58/59.
Which punctuation mark is missing in the following sentences ?
Part of Australia is known to the natives as The Outback.
1. inverted commas
2. semicolon
3. comma
4. hypen
59/59.
Which punctuation mark is missing in the following sentences ?
I know that you want to learn to drive Rima but you are too young.
1. inverted commas
2. semicolon
3. comma
4. hypen
S.No Answer ChoiceS.NoAnswer Choice S.No Answer ChoiceS.No Answer ChoiceS.NoAnswer ChoiceS.No Answer
Choice
1
2 11
3 21
1 31
2 41
4 51
2
3 12
4 22
1 32
4 42
2 52
3
4 13
3 23
2 33
1 43
1 53
4
4 14
2 24
2 34
3 44
4 54
5
1 15
1 25
3 35
1 45
4 55
6
3 16
1 26
1 36
3 46
1 56
7
2 17
4 27
3 37
3 47
2 57
8
4 18
2 28
1 38
1 48
3 58
9
2 19
3 29
2 39
3 49
4 59
10
3 20
1 30
3 40
4 50
1
3
2
2
3
2
2
2
1
3