COMPREHENSION TEST
 396. Find the option that is opposite in meaning to alien.          404. Rehmat Ali found himself hidden from his pursuers
       (1) disputable            (2) indigenous                            because
       (3) unethical             (4) unscientific                          (1) he had gone around an unexpected bend.
 397. The Bengal Renaissance was different from the 16th                   (2) his pursuers could not run fast enough.
       century European Renaissance because                                (3) he had stopped dead.
       (1) Europeans did not have the dowry system.                        (4) he had acted with speed and decision.
       (2) Raja Rammohan Roy and Tagore were not born in             405. There are circumstances in which the least energetic
           the 16th century.                                               of mankind, learn to act with speed and decision, (and
       (3) The Bengal Renaissance was an essentially Hindu                 the most cautious forget their care) Rehmat illustrates
           Movement.                                                       this by
       (4) Unlike the Bengalis, Europeans were not under                   (1) running away from his pursuers.
           foreign rule.                                                   (2) by stopping dead.
 398. The spirit of Renaissance                                            (3) turning into a lane.
                                                                           (4) jumping into the garden.
       (1) is to embrace atheism.
                                                                         Directions (406-415) : You have a passage with 10
       (2) is to get inspiration from Western-intellectual
                                                                    questions. Read the passage carefully and choose the best
           thought.
                                                                    answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
       (3) lies in breaking all shackles of backwardness and                                              (SSC Graduate Level Tier-I
           narrow mindedness.                                                                         Exam. 21.04.2013, IInd Sitting)
       (4) is essentially scientific.                                                      CYBER BOGEYS
 399. The Bengal Renaissance movement                                    The cyber-world is ultimately ungovernable. This is
       (1) wanted to overthrow colonialism.                         alarming as well as convenient; sometimes, convenient
       (2) wanted to propagate Brahmoism.                           because alarming. Some Indian politicians use this to great
       (3) wanted social reform to improve the lot of the weak      advantage. When there is an obvious failure in governance
           and the downtrodden.                                     during a crisis they deflect attention from their own
       (4) None of the above.                                       incompetence towards the ungovernable. So, having failed
 400. The Bengal Renaissance gathered momentum in the               to prevent nervous citizens from fleeing their cities of work
       19th century because                                         by assuring them of proper protection, some national leaders
       (1) the British had colonised India.                         are now busy trying to prove to one another, and to panic-
       (2) there was an abundance of intellectual and creative      prone Indians, that a mischievous neighbour has been using
           activities in Bengal then.                               the internet and social networking sites to spread dangerous
       (3) the Brahmo Samai was formed.                             rumours. And the Centre’s automatic reaction is to start
                                                                    blocking these sites and begin elaborate and potentially
       (4) Raja Rammohan Roy and Tagore lived at that time.
                                                                    endless negotiations with Google, Twitter and Facebook
                           PASSAGE-II
                                                                    about access to information. If this is the official idea of
       “I must find a hiding place," he thought, “and in the        prompt action at a time of crisis among communities, then
next few seconds or 1 am done for.”                                 Indians have more reason to fear their protectors than the
     Scarcely had the thought crossed his mind that the             nebulous mischief-makers of the cyber-world. Wasting time
lane took a sudden turning so that he found himself hidden          gathering proof, blocking vaguely suspicious websites,
from his pursuers. There are circumstances in which the             hurling accusations across the border and worrying about
least energetic of mankind learn to act with speed and              bilateral relations are ways of keeping busy with inessentials
decision. This was such an occasion for Rehmat Ali and              because one does not quite know what to do about the
those who knew him best would have been the most                    essentials of a difficult situation. Besides, only a fifth of the
astonished at the lad"s boldness. He stopped dead, threw            245 websites blocked by the Centre mention the people of
the box or jewellery over a garden wall and, leaping upwards        the Northeast or the violence in Assam. And if a few morphed
with incredible lightness, he seized the top of the walls with      images and spurious texts can unsettle an entire nation,
his hands and tumbled headlong into the garden.                     then there is something deeply wrong with the nation and
                                                                    with how it is being governed. This is what its leaders should
                 SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
                                                                    be addressing immediately, rather than making a
 pursuers            : persons who are following or chas-
                                                                    wrongheaded display of their powers of censorship.
                        ing somebody.                                    It is just as absurd, and part of the same syndrome to
 stopped dead        : stopped immediately.                         try to ban Twitter accounts that parody despatches from
                                                                    the Prime Minister’s Office. To describe such forms of
 401. Rehmat All is most likely
                                                                    humour and dissent as “misrepresenting” the PMO — as if
       (1) a burglar.               (2) a policeman.
                                                                    Twitterers would take these parodies for genuine despatches
       (3) a night watchman.        (4) a jogger.                   from the PMO — makes the PMO look more ridiculous than
 402. What kind of a person was Rehmat Ali originally ?             its parodists manage to. With the precedent for such action
       (1) slow and steady.         (2) lazy and indecisive.        set recently by the chief minister of West Bengal, this is yet
       (3) reflective in nature. (4) bold and decisive.             another proof that what Bengal thinks today India will think
 403. The expression to stop dead means                             tomorrow. Using the cyber-world for flexing the wrong
       (1) to be paralysed.         (2) to come to a complete halt. muscles is essentially not funny. It might even prove to be
       (3) to die suddenly.         (4) be close to death.          quite dangerously distracting.
                                                               SEE–945