GATE XH-C5 Reading Comprehension PYQs & Answers — Page 2

Questions 11–19 of 19. Imported answers require independent review unless marked reviewed.

Tailgating another vehicle is unsafe and illegal. Many rear-end collisions are caused by drivers following too close to the vehicle in front of them. The rules state that a driver must keep significant distance from the vehicle in front in order to stop safely and avoid a collision. Drivers should allow a minimum two seconds gap between their vehicle and the one ahead. At 60 km per hour, this equates to a gap of 33 meters; at 100 km per hour, it equates to a gap of 55 meters. More distance is needed to safely stop in rain or poor visibility, as during rain slippery roads reduce the effectiveness of braking.

Which of the following statement(s) can be inferred from the above passage?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

People drive faster in rain and under poor visibility.

Braking may not be as effective during rain as in the dry conditions.

Tailgating is against the road rules.

Collision has no relationship with tailgating.

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For a painting to succeed, it is essential that the painter and his public agree about what is significant. The subject of the painting may have a personal meaning for the painter or a common person; but there can also be the possibility of their agreement on its general meaning. It is at this point that the culture of the society and the period in question precedes the artists and her/his art. Renaissance art would have meant nothing to the Aztecs, and vice versa. If, to some extent, a few intellectuals can appreciate them both today, it is because their culture is a historical one. Its inspiration is history and all known developments to date.

According to the passage, which of the following is/are NOT necessarily among the attributes needed for a painter to succeed?

Your answerChoose one option.

The subject must have a personal meaning for the painter.

The painter is able to communicate and justify the significance of its subject selection.

The painter and the public agree on what is significant.

The painting of the subjects is driven by public demand.

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Cholera, typhoid, diphtheria and tuberculosis cause huge number of deaths. Poor quality drinking water has always been the world’s greatest single carrier of sickness. Disease is transmitted when sewage and drinking water come into contact. Children are particularly vulnerable. In some of the poorest countries the infant mortality rate is high. The separation of sewage and the supply of clean drinking water are the domain of civil engineers, and their work makes a significant contribution to public health. That contribution was recognized when public sanitation was voted the greatest medical breakthrough, beating the discoveries including antibiotics and vaccines in a poll organized by the British Medical Journal.

Identify the statement(s), which is/are NOT TRUE according to the page.

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Children are less prone to water borne diseases.

The infant mortality rate was high in economically weaker countries.

The provision of sewage and drinking water should be adequately separated from each other.

The literature states that the public health and sanitation was never given its due importance.

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Shark’s teeth have evolved to correspond to the diet of each particular species of shark. Consequently, the teeth of the great white shark bear little resemblance to those of the bull shark or nurse shark. There were essentially four different shark diets and thus four varieties of shark teeth. Sharks that feed on fish have needle like teeth, perfect for spear and rip. Sharks that eat mammals such as seals and sea lions have heavy, serrated teeth, typically triangular on the upper jaw and pointed on the lower jaw. Shark that feed in the benthic zone of the ocean have flattened teeth for crushing the shell of the creatures they find scuttling in the sand or cling to rocks. Sharks that bask have teeth that are largely non-functional; these sharks filter food from the water by passing it through their gills.

Which of the following is/are the CORRECT inference(s) as per the page?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Shark’s teeth are not specially designed for slaughter.

The shape of the shark’s teeth relates to its prey.

Some species of sharks filter food through their gills.

Shark’s teeth relate to its diet.

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After Florentino Ariza saw her for the first time, his mother knew before he told her because he lost his voice and his appetite and spent the entire night tossing and turning in his bed. But when he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhoea and green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells, and his mother was terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastation of cholera. Florentino Ariza’s godfather, an old homeopathic practitioner who had been Tránsito Ariza’s confidant ever since her days as a secret mistress, was also alarmed at first by the patient’s condition, because he had the weak pulse, the hoarse breathing, and the pale perspiration of a dying man. But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera. He prescribed infusions of linden blossoms to calm the nerves and suggested a change of air so he could find consolation in distance, but Florentino Ariza longed for just the opposite: to enjoy his martyrdom.

(Adapted from Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.)

The author of the passage is implying that:

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Homeopathy cures love.

The doctor could not distinguish between love and cholera.

The doctor could distinguish between love and cholera.

The symptoms of love and cholera are similar.

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Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

(Adapted from Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.)

The illustration of the man who takes to drink is used to underscore which of the following ideas in the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Political and economic causes control deterioration of language.

Foolish thoughts are enabled by inaccurate language.

Effect of an action becomes the cause in a cyclic pattern.

Drinking enables people to have foolish thoughts and slovenly language.

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It is a pity that Caste even today has its defenders. The defences are many. It is defended on the grounds that the Caste System is but another name for division of labour, and if division of labour is a necessary feature of every civilised society, then it is argued that there is nothing wrong in the Caste System. Now the first thing to be urged against this view is that Caste System is not merely division of labour. It is also a division of labourers. Civilised society undoubtedly needs division of labour but nowhere is division of labour accompanied by this unnatural division of labourers into watertight compartments, grading them one above the other. This division of labour is not spontaneous or based on natural aptitudes. Social and individual efficiency requires us to develop the individual capacity and competency to choose and to make his own career. This principle is violated in so far as it involves an attempt to appoint tasks to individuals in advance, not on the basis of trained original capacities, but on that of birth. Industry undergoes rapid and abrupt changes and an individual must be free to change his occupation and adjust himself to changing circumstances, to gain his livelihood. (Adapted from Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.)

Which of the following observations substantiate the arguments found in the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Newer generations are unable to change and move away from low-paying family professions, even with changed economic circumstances.

Sedentary desk jobs are considered to have more value and are in greater demand than those involving manual labour.

The government’s jobs guarantee programme makes low-level management jobs available across all industries to all graduates in the nation.

A bus driver becomes an app creator and, in the course of one month, reaches one million downloads on Playstore with a four-star rating.

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Imagine that you’re in a game show and your host shows you three doors. Behind one of them is a shiny car and behind the others are goats. You pick one of the doors and get what lies within. After making your choice, your host chooses to open one of the other two doors, which inevitably reveals a goat. He then asks you if you want to stick with your original pick, or switch to the other remaining door. What do you do? Most people think that it doesn’t make a difference and they tend to stick with their first pick. With two doors left, you should have a 50% chance of selecting the one with the car. If you agree, then you have just fallen afoul of one of the most infamous mathematical problems – the Monty Hall Problem. In reality, you should switch every time which doubles your odds of getting the car. Over the years, the problem has ensnared countless people, but not, it seems, pigeons. The humble pigeon can learn with practice the best tactic for the Monty Hall Problem, switching from their initial choice almost every time. Amazingly, humans do not!

(Adapted from an article by Ed Yong in Discover Magazine.)

Which of the following conclusions follow from the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Humans calculate the probability of independent, random events such as the opening of a door by dividing the specific outcomes by the total number of possible outcomes.

Humans find it very difficult to learn to account for the host’s hand in making the event non-random and, thereby, changing the outcome of the event.

Calculating probabilities is difficult for humans but easy for pigeons; which is why the pigeons succeed where the humans fail.

Humans are governed by reason, but pigeons are irrational and only interested in the outcome and will do whatever it takes to get food.

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The truth is that, despite the recent success of car-makers P and Q, India’s automobile industry is in a state not that different from the bad old days of the license-permit quota raj when carmakers dominated a captive domestic market with substandard vehicles and with very little, if any, research and development, and low to negligible productivity growth. High tariff barriers have certainly induced foreign automobile makers to enter the Indian market by setting up local operations, but this so-called “tariff jump” foreign investment has produced an industry that is inefficient, operating generally at a low scale, and whose products are not globally competitive either in terms of cost or of innovation. It is noteworthy that the automobile parts industry, which has faced low tariffs (as low as 12.5%) and has been largely deregulated, has been characterised by higher productivity and much better export performance than the completely-built units’ sector in the years since liberalisation.

(Adapted from an Op-Ed in The Mint.)

Which of the following statements can be inferred from the above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Low tariff barriers increase productivity.

Tariff jumping leads to increases in productivity.

Deregulation has worked for the automobile parts industry and therefore should be applied to completely-built units.

P and Q do not invest enough in research and development.

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GATE XH-C5 Reading Comprehension PYQs

Question 16

Question 22

Question 24

Question 25

Question 11

Question 12

Question 13

Question 14

Question 15