Q.1-10. Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some questions.
This year, Delhi University has pointed to the shape of things to come in higher education. While primary and secondary education remain essentially broken, having failed to adequately serve the majority of the population, they are yet producing enough aspirants to cause a demand crisis in higher education. With cutoff marks at Delhi University slowly tending towards 100 per cent, the system that has served students and institutions for three decades is failing.
It is encouraging students to try their luck overseas, reinvigorating the brain drain precisely when it is being reversed by uncertainties and visa restrictions abroad. It is also urging students to fall back on quotas for extra-curricular activities, though the university system in India does not prioritise them. A promising basketball player in the US will be sought out by leading universities, but this does not happen in India. However, cutoffs are not the problem because the extraordinary pressure on seats would persist even if they were reduced to zero per cent. Cutoffs simply reduce the number of candidates that universities and colleges have to process. The real problem is the widening gap between the demand and supply of higher education.
This gap can be narrowed only by the rapid deployment of hundreds, if not thousands, of new institutions. Teaching shops should be discouraged and standardisation promoted, so they should be rooted in existing educational canons. The government has tried to get up to speed by pushing the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill of 2010. Despite a cabinet nod, it languishes. To bypass the need for legislation, it has also called upon the UGC to formulate guidelines for twinning Indian universities with their peers overseas, a policy that is followed in technical education. However, fresh legislation is necessary for a sweeping change, for which the government must convince Parliament that the now-visible crisis in Delhi University is only a forerunner of a general disaster in higher education.
Q.1. Why do students depend on extra-curricular activities for their admissions overseas?
(1) They get priority based on extra-curricular activities
(2) They are rejected if they show grades of extra-curricular activities
(3) Foreign countries promote extra-curricular activities
(4) Their talents are honed if they participate in extra-curricular activities
(5) None of these
Q.2. Why, according to the passage, there would be pressure on seats even if cutoffs are removed?
(1) Number of candidates gets reduced
(2) The seats would be given to those who are economically sound
(3) The candidates would study hard to get good scores.
(4) The gap between demand and supply of higher education
(5) Not mentioned in the passage
Q.3. What is meant by ‘sweeping change’ as mentioned by the passage?
(1) Insight
(2) Advancement
(3) Drastic change
(4) Description
(5) Inspiring change
Q.4. Why has the author given the example of Basketball player?
(1) To prove how popular Basketball is ,in other countries
(2) To show that, in India, education system does not value individual’s talents if his scores are not good
(3) To prove that foreign universities are incapable of judging the candidates
(4) To show that those who are good in sports are equally good in studies
(5) All of the above
Q.5. Which of the following has asked the UGC to formulate guidelines ?
(1) The President
(2) The government
(3) The university Chancellor
(4) The students
(5) The Supreme Court Judge
Q.6. Which of the following is TRUE , according to the passage?
(1) Cutoffs in Delhi university is going to cross 100 percent level
(2) In technical education , Indian universities remain aloof from their peers in foreign countries.
(3) Cutoffs increase the number of candidates universities or colleges process
(4) Primary and secondary education remain unconnected, in the present scenario.
(5) The gap between demand and supply of higher education is gradually decreasing
Q.7-8. Choose the word most nearly the SIMILAR in meaning to the word printed in bold, as used in the passage.
Q.7. Bypass
(1) Evade
(2) Prominent
(3) Appraise
(4) Diverse
(5) Make way
Q.8. Languishes
(1) Deteriorates
(2) Curtails
(3) Flourishes
(4) Lags
(5) Hovers
Q.9-10. Choose the word which is most nearly the OPPOSITE in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.
Q.9. Persist
(1) Repeat
(2) Cease
(3) Achieve
(4) Strive
(5) Execute
Q.10. Nod
(1) Inclination
(2) Recognition
(3) Reaction
(4) Understanding
(5) Dissent
Answers
Q.1.(1)
Q.2.(4)
Q.3.(3)
Q.4.(2)
Q.5.(2)
Q.6.(4)
Q.7.(1)
Q.8.(4)
Q.9.(2)
Q.10.(5)
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