Explore topic-wise MCQs in Verbal Ability.

This section includes 15 Mcqs, each offering curated multiple-choice questions to sharpen your Verbal Ability knowledge and support exam preparation. Choose a topic below to get started.

1.

A.Like most criminal laws, foetal protection laws also show large class- and race-based disparity in their targets.
B.Apart from the demographic disparity in their targets, these laws are also instruments for societies to impose their subjective conceptions of inappropriate maternal behaviour on women.

C.These laws further legitimise extensive surveillance and policing of women’s conduct before and during pregnancy. Women belonging to lower socio-economic backgrounds, minorities, and immigrants are overwhelmingly more vulnerable to the effect of these laws.
D.Factors such as age, use of assisted reproductive technologies, and history of genetic disorders, which also have an impact of foetal health, are not affected by these laws.

E.Factors such as age, use of assisted reproductive technologies, and history of genetic disorders, which also have an impact of foetal health, are not affected by these laws.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» D. D
Discussion
2.

A.India should use the interdependency and pressure-compromise strategies to leverage its interest to isolate Pakistan.
B.India has to fix its domestic issues to further social cohesion and make special efforts to build bridges between communities.

C.India needs to move on in the international system.

D.In some ways it has, but in other ways it is moving backwards. Its foreign policy is only an extension of its domestic politics.

E.This will give it an edge in the international system.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» B. B
Discussion
3.

A.The science of central banking is still evolving.
B.The concept of an independent central bank evolved in advanced economies and finds its roots in the successful anti-inflationary policy of Paul Volcker in the U.S. between 1979 and ‘82.

C.The need is to recognise that there is a clear distinction in the functioning of central banks in advanced and emerging market economies.

D.In 1900, there were hardly a dozen central banks and each had been initially created to dispense some specific function of the government, mainly to issue currency and coinage or manage foreign exchange reserves.

E.The evolution, as always, has not been easy and has had its share of challenges.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» D. D
Discussion
4.

A.But a premature lowering of the guard and growing resistance to DDT led to rising incidence in the 1980s.
B.Some of the major challenges the country had to face before it interrupted local transmission were the Plasmodium falciparum parasite becoming resistant to the chloroquine drug, behavioural changes in the vector, asymptomatic carriers and vector reintroduction.

C.Sri Lanka was close to eliminating malaria in 1963, when it reported just 17 cases.

D.But the tide turned from 2000 when a steady reduction in the number of cases was recorded.

E.The public sector and the private sector were oriented to the common goal of eliminating malaria by enhancing case notification and achieving 100 per cent detection and confirmation through tests.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» F.
Discussion
5.

A.The egregious practice that many Muslim men employ to divorce their wives instantaneously and without their consent, merely by uttering the word talaq thrice, was rendered legally invalid by the Shamim Ara vs State of UP judgment of 2002 and subsequent orders from various High Courts.
B.This practice has been either explicitly derecognised in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Iran and Tunisia or implicitly in countries such as Pakistan, which provides for a mandatory arbitration procedure after the pronouncement of talaq.

C.Shayara Bano, one such victim of this arbitrary custom — not to speak of years of domestic violence — has filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on the practice.

D.But this has not stopped the practice; many Muslim women are unaware of the judgments or have had to accept such pronouncements owing to pressure from conservative sections.

E.The conservative All India Muslim Personal Law Board that seeks to wield influence on questions of Muslim personal law has, predictably, found it an occasion to air its regressive views on the issue.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» C. C
Discussion
6.

A.Passed in 2016, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was formulated to make the process of shutting down and exiting a business easier and less time-consuming.

B.The code aims to bring this down to within a year.

C.When a firm defaults on its debt, its control will shift to a committee of creditors.

D.Apart from helping companies, it was also expected to improve India’s rankings in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.

E.India currents ranks 130th overall — out of 189 countries — and 136th on the parameter of ‘resolving insolvency’, with the World Bank saying it takes four years to resolve a bankruptcy case.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» D. D
Discussion
7.

A.Corruption is pervasive across government departments, and Mr. Ghani is yet to begin delivering on his promise to streamline governance.

B.The problem in Afghanistan has political, diplomatic and security dimensions.

C.Politically, the government is seen to be corrupt, incompetent, and unable to get its act together.

D.Even so, the repeated strikes in the most fortified areas with mounting casualties demonstrate a steadily deteriorating security situation.

E.President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah are reportedly not on the same page on key issues.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» E. E
Discussion
8.

A.The honest answer is in the negative as the approaches of India and China towards Africa are essentially different.

B. This was reflected in deliberations at the annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) recently.

C.The AfDB’s decision to hold its meeting here in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, demonstrated its confidence in recent achievements and future prospects of the Indian economy.

D.India-Africa engagement is getting stronger with the active involvement of political and business leaders of both sides.

E.AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina called India “a developing beacon for the rest of the world”, adding that the time was right for India and Africa to forge “winning partnerships”.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» B. B
Discussion
9.

A.There was a time in our country when prejudice was not allowed to blatantly declare itself.
B.We hear far more strident voices against reservation, against allowing communities to eat what they want, against norms of behaviour of women and such voices are getting normalised and have become part of our public gossip. C.There was a time when there was something that was shameful about publicly stating one’s prejudices.

D.Repeatedly, we hear statements about caste, religion, the poor and the marginalised, in public domains and in public conversations as if they are matters of fact and not fictions of prejudice.

E.The prejudices inherent in our media are compounded by those inherent in our education system.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» F.
Discussion
10.

A. During the framing of the Constitution, the subject of cow slaughter was one of the most fraught and contentious topics of debate.

B.This dispute over prohibiting the sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter at animal markets has a history, which goes back to the founding of the Republic.

C.The Supreme Court rejected these arguments and upheld the laws, but it did so by focussing its reasoning entirely on — apparent — economic considerations.

D.Proponents of a cow slaughter ban advanced a mix of cultural and economic arguments, invoking the “sentiments of thirty crores of population” on the one hand, and the indispensability of cattle in an agrarian economy on the other.

E.Seth Govind Das, a member of the Constituent Assembly, framed it as a “civilisational problem from the time of Lord Krishna”, and called for the prohibition of cow slaughter to be made part of the Constitution’s chapter on fundamental rights, on a par with the prohibition of untouchability.

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» D. D
Discussion
11.

A. The government is also seeking to define a new category of business — ‘Innovative Start-ups’ — to distinguish them from micro, small, medium and large enterprises that are built on conventional business models.

B. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release the blueprint of ‘Start Up India’ programme which may include a Startups and Entrepreneurship Law to make it easier for setting up new ventures and closing unviable ones, besides clearing regulatory issues that hamper access to finance.
C. The government will unveil a blueprint for startups to ease the process of setting up new ventures.
D. This will funnel tech based talent to the startup ecosystem which can then further innovate and create business opportunities.

E. The Start Up India policy would thus attempt to address key concerns the government wants to fix in India’s start-up ecosystem.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» E. E
Discussion
12.

A. The virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is also responsible for the spread of dengue and chikungunya.

B. Chikungunya virus is a pathogen transmitted by mosquitoes, and has established itself in the Caribbean approximately 350,000 suspected cases in the Western Hemisphere since December 2013.

C. It stems from a huge surge in babies being born with microcephaly, a rare, incurable condition in which their heads are abnormally small.

D. An obscure mosquito-borne virus, Zika, is on the prowl and has already caused an “unprecedented situation” in the world of scientific research.

E. The virus gets its name from the Zika forest in Uganda, Africa, where it was first identified in rhesus monkeys in 1947.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» C. C
Discussion
13.

A. For the first time the government seems to be prepared for goods and services tax (GST) but the corporate world seems to be grappling with the regulation.

B. There would be many goods and services which would be out of GST so it would provide benefit to common man in respect of taxes.

C. Even as most of the top companies have roped in some tax and tech specialists to implement GST, some of the mid-scale and small companies are finding it tough to adapt to the indirect tax regime.

D. The government on its part has uploaded some of the basic tech programmes on several of its platforms to help smaller companies.

E. However, the impact of GST is set to be across the board from taxation, technology and even on a company’s growth strategy.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» C. C
Discussion
14.

A. Through advancement of technology and broadband connection almost in all households the method of piracy has changed from physical reproduction and distribution to online distribution.

B. Recent reports about the change in copyright infringement warnings on various websites have triggered anxiety among many Internet users in India.

C. Internet users in India, many of whom routinely use torrent sites to access a range of entertainment and other content, are understandably worried about the new punitive rhetoric that underlies the warning.
D. While the government has maintained a list of banned websites for quite some time, the warning that one earlier saw merely mentioned that the website had been blocked under directions from the Department of Telecommunications, while the new message warns against the viewing, downloading, exhibition and duplication of the contents of the URL as being offences which are punishable under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act.
E.It may therefore be useful to unpack what the law actually says on the point and also examine the impulse behind this rhetorical shift within the logic of copyright enforcement.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» B. B
Discussion
15.

A. It has now become too easy to brand anyone articulating differences with a homogenous construct of nationalism.

B. The alternative progressive nationalism would entail a different understanding of India, with the focal point being the unprivileged, and would advocate going beyond the confines of territorial nationalism.

C. This is because cultural nationalism — an idea that has been associated with those in power today — basically seeks to subsume the “other” within a limiting construct of the self and the nation.

D. This also explains why cultural nationalists played a peripheral and even regressive role in the freedom struggle.

E. Dalits who reject Brahminical Hinduism, leftists and secular intellectuals who reject Hindutva, beef-eaters, inter-religious couples and even dissidents who argue for freedom from hunger, patriarchy and caste oppression, are branded as “anti-national”.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E
Answer» C. C
Discussion