COMPREHENSION TEST
 234. The farmer dismounted his son from the ass because         result is more people are with imaginary illnesses. The
       (1) the son found it difficult to ride the ass.           healthy man should not be wasting any time talking about
       (2) the son co mplained that the ri de was not            health, he should be using health for work, the work he
           comfortable.                                          does and the work that good health makes possible.
       (3) some old friends advised him to do so.                241. Modern medicine is primarily concerned with
       (4) he was too tired to walk the distance.                      (1) promotion of good health.
                                                                       (2) people suffering from imaginary illnesses.
 235. The travellers asked the farmer to carry the ass be-
       cause                                                           (3) people suffering from real illnesses.
       (1) the exhausted ass will have no takers in the mar-           (4) increased efficiency in work
           ket.                                                  242. A healthy man should be concerned with
       (2) the ass was very tired.                                     (1) his work which good health makes possible.
       (3) the donkey wanted to be carried.                            (2) looking after his health.
       (4) they felt sorry for the ass.                                (3) his health which makes work possible.
 236. The word vexed means                                             (4) talking about health.
       (1) pleased.                 (2) sad.                     243. Talking about health all the time makes people
       (3) annoyed.                 (4) pestered.                      (1) always suffer from imaginary illnesses.
 237. The word trudged means                                           (2) sometimes suffer from imaginary illnesses.
       (1) walk casually.           (2) walk with effort.              (3) rarely suffer from imaginary illnesses.
       (3) walk stylishly.          (4) walk briskly.                  (4) often suffer from imaginary illnesses.
238.On seeing the boy walk beside the ass, the women             244. The passage suggests that
       and children                                                    (1) health is an end in itself.
       (1) praised the boy for his compassion towards his              (2) health is a blessing.
           father.                                                     (3) health is only a means to an end.
       (2) called the farmer a selfish man.                            (4) we should not talk about health.
       (3) found fault with the farmer for ill-treating the ass. 245. The passage tells us
       (4) asked the farmer to take their children to the              (1) how medicines should be manufactured.
           market.                                                     (2) what a healthy man should or should not do.
 239. The lesson learnt by the farmer was                              (3) what the television progra-mmes should be about.
       (1) do not carry an ass when it can walk.                       (4) how best to imagine illnesses.
       (2) do not overload the ass.                                                        PASSAGE-II
       (3) in trying to please all you please none.                   Time was when people looked heavenward and prayed,
       (4) it is foolish to please the ass.                      “Ye Gods, give us rain, keep drought away.” Today there
 240. On seeing the farmer and his son walking along with        are those who pray. “Give us rain, keep El Nino away.”
       the ass, the girls                                             El Nino and its atmospheric equivalent, called the
                                                                 Southern Oscillation, are together referred to as ENSO,
       (1) called the farmer and his son fools for not riding
                                                                 and are household words today. Meteorologists recognize it
           the ass.
                                                                 as often being responsible for natural disaster worldwide.
       (2) wondered at the dutiful father and son.
                                                                 But this wisdom dawned only after countries suffered, first
       (3) asked the farmer to take them also to the market.     from the lack of knowledge, and then from the lack of co-
       (4) sympathized with the beast of burden.                 ordination between policy making and the advances in sci-
      Directions (241–290) : You have eight brief passag-        entific knowledge.
es with 5-10 questions following each passage. Read the               Put simply, El Nino is a weather event restricted to
passages carefully and choose the best answer to each            certain tropical shores, especially the Peruvian coast. The
question out of the four alternatives.                           event has diametrically opposite impacts on the land and
                                                                 sea. The Peruvian shore is a desert. But every few years,
           (SSC Graduate Level Tier-II Exam. 04.08.2011 Paper-II
                                                                 an unusually warm ocean current - El Nino - warms up the
                           PASSAGE-I                             normally cold surface-waters off the Peruvian coast, caus-
     In the world have we made health an end in itself ? We      ing very heavy rains in the early half of the year,
have forgotten that health is really a means to enable a              And then, miraculously, the desert is matted green.
person to do his work and do it well. A lot of modern med-       Crops like cotton, coconuts and banana grow on the other-
icine is concerned with promotion of good health. Many           wise stubbornly barren land. These are the Peruvians’ anos
patients as well as many physicians pay very little attention    de abundencia or years of abundance. The current had
to health; but very much attention to health makes some          come to be termed El Nino, or the Christ Child because it
people imagine that they are ill. Our great concern with         usually appears as an enhancement if a mildly warm cur-
health is shown by the medical columns in newspaper, the         rent that normally occurs here around every Christmas.
health articles in popular magazines and the popularity of            But this boon on land is accompanied by oceanic di-
the television programme and all those books on medicine.        sasters. Normally, the waters off the South American coast
We talk about health all the time. Yet, for the most only        are among the most productive in the world because of a
                                                            SEE–930