Raashid Shah

PASSAGE A sensible and fair approach would be to let the high-end tax cuts expire as scheduled, but keep the other tax cuts for another year. That would keep more cash in the hands of people most likely to spend it and prop up consumer demand while the economy is weak. It would give Congress and the administration time to undertake tax reform. Most Congressional Republicans are willing to embrace reform, but only if it is revenue neutral. There is no question that the system is overly complicated; it is also riddled with hugely costly special deals for special interests. Any reform must streamline the code, make it fairer and most important raise more revenue. Each year, the government provides $1 trillion in tax breaks. Some of the largest breaks for itemized deductions and retirement savings should be retained because they subsidize important goals, like home ownership and old-age security. Right now, wealthier taxpayers get the greatest benefit. The process needs to be reformed so that most of the help flows to those who most need it: low- and middle-income taxpayers. At the same time, super-low tax rates for investment income should be ended. Capital gains are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, compared with a top rate for wages and salary of 35 percent. Proponents argue that the lower rate is an incentive to invest, but research shows that it also encourages gaming of the system. Tax breaks that have outlived their purpose must be ended, starting with subsidies for the oil industry, which is making billions in profits. The revenue from such reforms could be used to pay down the deficit and allow all tax rates to be lowered, improving incentives to work. The amount of revenue raised and the drop in tax rates will depend on how much tax breaks are curbed. Congress should consider raising revenues in other ways, like a value-added tax, or carbon taxes. That way all of the needed revenue for deficit reduction, and for what government provides, does not need to be squeezed from the income tax. A value-added tax is conducive to saving, and a carbon tax helps protect the environment. The public is open to new taxes, and the economic facts are clear. Until tax increases are considered in equal measure to spending cuts, there will be no budget fix. Q.1 What is the tone of the passage? A) Placatory B) Advisory C) Premonitory D) Critical Q.2 Which of the following can be inferred from the passage? A) The current tax structure does not give the greatest benefit to low- and middle-income taxpayers. B) The current tax structure aims to give the greatest benefit to low- and middle-income taxpayers. C) Tax breaks give the greatest benefit to wealthier taxpayers. D) The current tax structure does not give the greatest benefit to wealthier taxpayers. Q.3 Which of the following can be inferred from the last sentence of the passage? A) Tax increase will give Congress and the administration time to undertake tax reforms. B) The economy can be strengthened if more importance is given to tax increases. C) The economy can be strengthened if less importance is given to spending cuts. D) The economy can be strengthened with equal importance given to tax increases and spending cuts.         1) B2) A3) D

PASSAGE While many points are worth making in an evaluation of the single six-year presidential term, one of the most telling points against the single term has not been advanced. This kind of constitutional limitation on elections is generally a product of systems with weak or non-existent political parties. Since there is no party continuity or corporate party integrity in such systems, there is no basis for putting trust in the desire for re-election as a safeguard against mismanagement in the executive branch. Better under those conditions to operate on the basis of negative assumptions against incumbents. I do not know if the earliest proposal for a single, non repeatable term was made in the 1820s because that was a period of severely weak political parties. But I do feel confident that this is a major reason, if not the only reason, that such a proposal has been popular since the 1940s. Though the association of the non-repeatable election with weak political parties is not in itself an argument against the limitation, the fallout from this association does contribute significantly to the negative argument. Single-term limitations are strongly associated with corruption. In any weak party system, including the presidential system, the onus of making deals and compromises, both shady and honourable, rests heavily upon individual candidates. Without some semblance of corporate integrity in a party, individual candidates have few opportunities to amortize their obligations across the spectrum of elective and appointive jobs and policy proposals. The deals tend to be personalized and the payoffs come home to roost accordingly. If that situation is already endemic in conditions of weak or non-existent parties, adding to it the limitation against re-election means that candidates and officials, already prevented from amortizing their deals across space, are also unable to amortize their obligations temporally. This makes for a highly beleaguered situation. The single six-year term for presidents is an effort to compensate for the absence of a viable party system, but it is a compensation ultimately paid for by further weakening the party system itself. Observers, especially foreign observers, have often noted that one source of weakness in American political parties is the certainty of election every two or four years, not only because any artificial limitation on elections is a violation of democratic principles but also because when elections are set in a certain and unchangeable cycle, political parties do not have to remain alert but can disappear into inactivity until a known point prior to the next election. To rigidify matters by going beyond the determinacy of the electoral cycle to add an absolute rule of one term would hang still another millstone around the neck of already doddering political parties. Q.1 Suppose that America adopted a single-term political system. Considering the foreign observers mentioned in the passage. how would they be expected to respond to such a development? A) They would endorse it because it further strengthens American democracy. B) They would condemn it because it further limits American democracy. C) They would neither endorse nor condemn it. D) They would condemn it because it gives the President too much power. Q.2 According to the passage, which of the following is most likely to be true of a political system with weak political parties? A) Politicians appoint unqualified people to important posts. B) Political parties favour frequent elections. C) Political bargains are made by individual candidates. D) Elections tend to occur with very great frequency. Q.3 Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the authors claim about single-term political systems? A) The discovery that foreign observers like this system B) The discovery that most politicians are honest C) The discovery that Americans dislike this system D) The discovery that parliamentary systems are more democratic     1) B2) C3) B

PASSAGE Throughout human history the leading causes of death have been infection and trauma. Modem medicine has scored significant victories against both, and the major causes of ill health and death are now the chronic degenerative diseases, such as coronary artery disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, cataract and cancer. These have a long latency period before symptoms appear and a diagnosis is made. It follows that the majority of apparently healthy people are pre-ill. But are these conditions inevitably degenerative? A truly preventive medicine that focused on the pre-ill, analysing the metabolic errors which lead to clinical illness, might be able to correct them before the first symptom. Genetic risk factors are known for all the chronic degenerative diseases, and are important to the individuals who possess them. At the population level, however, migration studies confirm that these illnesses are linked for the most part to lifestyle factors exercise, smoking and nutrition. Nutrition is the easiest of these to change, and the most versatile tool for affecting the metabolic changes needed to tilt the balance away from disease. Many national surveys reveal that malnutrition is common in developed countries. This is not the calorie and/or micronutrient deficiency associated with developing nations (Type A malnutrition); but multiple micronutrient depletion, usually combined with calorific balance or excess (Type B malnutrition). The incidence and severity of Type B malnutrition will be shown to be worse if newer micronutrient groups such as the essential fatty acids, xanthophylls and flavonoids are included in the surveys. Commonly ingested levels of these micronutrients seem to be far too low in many developed countries. There is now considerable evidence that Type B malnutrition is a major cause of chronic degenerative diseases. If this is the case, then it is logical to treat such diseases not with drugs but with multiple micronutrient repletion, or pharmaco-nutrition. This can take the form of pills and capsules nutraceuticals, or food formats known as functional foods, This approach has been neglected hitherto because it is relatively unprofitable for drug companies the products are hard to patent and it is a strategy which does not sit easily with modem medical interventionism. Over the last 100 years, the drug industry has invested huge sums in developing a range of subtle and powerful drugs to treat the many diseases we are subject to. Medical training is couched in pharmaceutical terms and this approach has provided us with an exceptional range of therapeutic tools in the treatment of disease and in acute medical emergencies. However, the pharmaceutical model has also created an unhealthy dependency culture, in which relatively few of us accept responsibility for maintaining our own health. Instead, we have handed over this responsibility to health professionals who know very little about health maintenance, or disease prevention. One problem for supporters of this argument is lack of the right kind of hard evidence. We have a wealth of epidemiological data linking dietary factors to health profiles / disease risks, and a great deal of information on mechanism: how food factors interact with our biochemistry. But almost all intervention studies with micronutrients, with the notable exception of the omega 3 fatty acids, have so far produced conflicting or negative results. In other words, our science appears to have no predictive value. Does this invalidate the science? Or are we simply asking the wrong questions? Based on pharmaceutical thinking, most intervention studies have attempted to measure the impact of a single micronutrient on the incidence of disease. The classical approach says that if you give a compound formula to test subjects and obtain positive results, you cannot know which ingredient is exerting the benefit, so you must test each ingredient individually. But in the field of nutrition, this does not work. Each intervention on its own will hardly make enough difference to be measured. The best therapeutic response must therefore combine micronutrients to normalise our internal physiology. So do we need to analyse each individual’s nutritional status and then tailor a formula specifically for him or her? While we do not have the resources to analyse millions of individual cases, there is no need to do so. The vast majority of people are consuming suboptimal amounts of most micronutrients, and most of the micronutrients concerned are very safe. Accordingly, a comprehensive and universal program of micronutrient support is probably the most cost-effective and safest way of improving the general health of the nation.Q.1 Why are a large number of apparently healthy people deemed pre-ill? A) They may have chronic degenerative diseases. B) They do not know their own genetic risk factors which predispose them to diseases. C) They suffer from Type-B malnutrition. D) There is a lengthy latency period associated with chronically degenerative diseases Q.2 Type-B malnutrition is a serious concern in developed countries because A) developing countries mainly suffer from Type-A malnutrition. B) it is a major contributor to illness and death. C) pharmaceutical companies are not producing drugs to treat this-condition. D) national surveys on malnutrition do not include newer micronutrient groups. Q.3 Tailoring micronutrient-based treatment plans to suit individual deficiency profiles is not necessary because A) it very likely to give inconsistent or negative results. B) it is a classic pharmaceutical approach not suited to micronutrients. C) most people are consuming suboptimal amounts of safe-to-consume micronutrients. D) it is not cost effective to do so. Q.4 The author recommends micronutrient-repletion for large-scale treatment of chronic degenerative diseases because A) it is relatively easy to manage. B) micronutrient deficiency is the cause of these diseases. C) it can overcome genetic risk factors. D) it can compensate for other lifestyle fa   1) D2) B3) D4) A

PASSAGE Three judgments by the Supreme Court in the month of July mark a sharp departure from pedantic legalism and point to the possibilities of a transformative constitutionalism that sustains and elaborates the idea of constitutional morality developed in the Naz Foundation judgment of the Delhi High Court in 2009. The three cases are also very different pieces that speak to different realities in similar fashion: Ram Jethmalani v Union of India (SIT); Nandini Sundar and Others v State of Chhattisgarh (SJ); and Delhi Jal Board v National Campaign for Dignity and Rights of Sewerage and Allied Workers (DJB). It might be argued, and rightly too, that radical jurisprudence by the Supreme Court is not a recent phenomenon – it has an older history rooted in struggles for civil and political rights. While that is the genealogy of this jurisprudence, we need yet to celebrate each signpost in the development of deliberative jurisprudence that responds not merely to the manifestations of a case, narrowly construed, but sees the larger socio-political context as an inextricable part of the bare facts, so to speak. The guarantee of public goods – security, infrastructure for governance, law making and enforcement, provision of material and cultural goods especially for classes that lack the power, privilege and status to secure these for themselves – is state obligation. Neither markets (which cater to self-centered activities of individuals and groups) nor purely private social action can be expected to stand in for the state and provide public goods. Central to the delineation of the problem in these cases is the opening out of the idea of constitutionalism to include a broader idea of justice that enables the mapping of injustice in all its complexity. Tracing the link between the existence of perennial channels for unaccounted monies abroad and the erosion of developmental goals of the state, the Supreme Court contextualizes the need to reign in cash flows and ensure total accountability with reference to the structure of a neo-liberal economy. Gunnar Myrdal’s caution about the dangers of a “soft state” that spawns the “unholy nexus between the law maker, the law keeper, and the law breaker” is immediately relevant. “Carried away by the ideology of neo-liberalism, it is entirely possible that the agents of the State entrusted with the task of supervising the economic and social activities may err more on the side of extreme caution, whereby signals of wrongdoing may be ignored even when they are strong. Instances of the powers that be ignoring publicly visible stock market scams, or turning a blind eye to large-scale illegal mining have become all too familiar, and may be readily cited.” The framework of justice by this token stretches illimitably beyond the narrow confines of constitutional law and decided cases to the letter and spirit of the constitution. “Modern constitutionalism posits that no wielder of power should be allowed to claim the right to perpetrate state’s violence against anyone, much less its own citizens, unchecked by law, and notions of innate human dignity of every individual.” Q.1 Which of the following options correctly sums up the areas that the author seeks to cover through the passage? A) Jurisprudence, Justice and the Constitution B) Jurisprudence, Neo-liberalism and Politics C) Society, Politics and Jurisprudence D) The Constitution, Jurisprudence and Enforcement of justice Q.2 “Central to the delineation of the problem in these cases is the opening out of the idea of constitutionalism to include a broader idea of justice that enables the mapping of injustice in all its complexity.” Which of the following statements would correctly paraphrase the above line? A) The main way to define the problem is to merge the understanding of constitutionalism and justice so that all aspects of injustice are covered. B) The essential way to define the problem is to include the understanding of constitutionalism and justice with all aspects of injustice. C) The crucial aspect of defining the problem is to broaden the understanding of constitutionalism and hence justice to include aspects of injustice. D) The crucial aspect of defining the problem is to widen the understanding of constitutionalism and hence justice so that all complexities of injustice are covered. Q.3 How does the author develop the central idea? A) By making a reference to three cases which form the core of the discussion. B) By making a reference to the Naz foundation judgment which forms the base for the core of the discussion. C) By making a reference to recent judicial developments and referring to the lineage of jurisprudence that includes the socio-political context. D) By making a reference to recent judicial developments and referring to the lineage of jurisprudence in the context of neo-liberalism. Q.4 It can be inferred that the tone of the author in the third paragraph is A) critical B) forgiving C) objective D) disparaging       1) A2) D3) C4) C    

PASSAGE It is now forty years and something more since I surveyed the scene in the economically advanced countries, especially the United States, and wrote The Affluent Society. The book had a satisfying reception, and Im here asked as to its latter-day relevance. That should not be asked of any author, but the mistake having been made, I happily respond. The central argument in the book was that in the economically advanced countries, and especially in the United States, there has been a highly uneven rate of social development. Privately produced goods and services for use and consumption are abundantly available. So available are they, indeed, that a large and talented expenditure on advertising and salesmanship is needed to persuade people to want what is produced. Consumer sovereignty, once governed by the need for food and shelter, is now the highly contrived consumption of an infinite variety of goods and services. That, however, is in what has come to be called the private sector. There is no such abundance in the services available from the state. Social services, health care, education especially education public housing for the needful, even food, along with action to protect life and the environment, are all in short supply. Damage to the environment is the most visible result of this abundant production of goods and services. In a passage that was much quoted,I told of the family that took its modern, highly styled, tail-finned automobile out for a holiday. They went through streets and countryside made hideous by commercial activity and commercial art. They spent their night in a public park replete with refuse and disorder and dined on delicately packaged food from an expensive portable refrigerator. All this, were I writing now, I would still emphasize. I would especially stress the continuing unhappy position of the poor. This, if anything, is more evident than it was forty years ago. Then in the United States it was the problem of southern plantation agriculture and the hills and hollows of the rural Appalachian Plateau. Now it is the highly visible problem of the great metropolis. There is another contrast. Were I writing now, I would give emphasis to the depressing difference in well-being as between the affluent world and the less fortunate countries mainly the post-colonial world. The rich countries have their rich and poor. The world has its rich and poor nations. There has been a developing concern with these problems; alas, the progress has not kept pace with the rhetoric. The problem is not economics; it goes back to a far deeper part of human nature. As people become fortunate in their personal well-being, and as countries become similarly fortunate, there is a common tendency to ignore the poor. Or to develop some rationalization for the good fortune of the fortunate. This is not, of course, the full story. After World War II decolonization, a greatly civilized and admirable step, nonetheless left a number of countries without effective self-government. Nothing is so important for economic development and the human condition as stable, reliable, competent and honest government. Here Im not suggesting an independent role for any one country and certainly not for the United States. I do believe we need a much stronger role for international action, including, needless to say, the United Nations. We need to have a much larger sense of common responsibility. So I take leave of my work of forty years ago.. There remains always the possibility, even the probability, that books do more for the self-esteem of the author than for the fate of the world. Q.1 What is the author attempting to illustrate through this passage? A) The fact that books like The Affluent Society, end up promoting the cause of the author more than finding real solutions to the issues they deal with. B) The disparity in the development of utilities and services between the private sector and the state sector in the United States. C) The trend of bipolar disparities in economic endowments observed by him from the time of the first publication of The Affluent Society. D) That human nature and not economic factors are responsible for the gap between the rich and the poor. Q.2 The author is likely to agree with which of the following? A) Contrived consumption in todays world leads to unfair competitive practices among sellers of private goods. B) The environmental impact of consumer sovereignty is best addressed by bodies like the United Nations rather than by individual countries in the developing world. C) The family (quoted in the passage) which went for a holiday liked commercial art because commercial art is one of the features of the affluent society. D) A disregard for the public good is one of the hallmarks of the affluent society. Q.3 Which of the following terms corresponds best to the definition of consumer sovereignty? A) Buyers market B) Consumerist culture C) Consumer Goods D) Perfect competition among seller         1) C2) D3) B

PASSAGE Recent years have brought minority-owned businesses in the United States unprecedented opportunities-as well as new and significant risks. Civil rights activists have long argued that one of the principal reasons why Blacks, Hispanics, and other minority groups have difficulty establishing themselves in business is that they lack access to the sizable orders and subcontracts that are generated by large companies. Now Congress, in apparent agreement, has required by law that businesses awarded federal contracts of more than $500,000 do their best to find minority subcontractors and record their efforts to do so on forms filed with the government. Indeed, some federal and local agencies have gone so far as to set specific percentage goals for apportioning parts of public works contracts to minority enterprises. Corporate response appears to have been substantial. According to figures collected in 1977, the total of corporate contracts with minority businesses rose from $77 million in 1972 to $1.1 billion in 1977. The projected total of corporate contracts with minority businesses for the early 1980’s is estimated to be over 53 billion per year with no letup anticipated in the next decade. Promising as it is for minority businesses, this increased patronage poses dangers for them, too. First, minority firms risk expanding too fast and overextending themselves financially, since most are small concerns and, unlike large businesses, they often need to make substantial investments in new plants, staff, equipment, and the like in order to perform work subcontracted to them. If, thereafter, their subcontracts are for some reason reduced, such firms can face potentially crippling fixed expenses. The world of corporate purchasing can be frustrating for small entrepreneurs who get requests for elaborate formal estimates and bids. Both consume valuable time and resources, and a small company’s efforts must soon result in orders, or both the morale and the financial health of the business will suffer. A second risk is that White-owned companies may seek to cash in on the increasing apportionments through formation of joint ventures with minority-owned concerns. Of course, in many instances there are legitimate reasons for joint ventures; clearly, White and minority enterprises can team up to acquire business that neither could acquire alone. But civil rights groups and minority business owners have complained to Congress about minorities being set up as “fronts” with White backing, rather than being accepted as full partners in legitimate joint ventures. Third, a minority enterprise that secures the business of one large corporate customer often runs the danger of becoming-and remaining-dependent. Even in the best of circumstances, fierce competition from larger, more established companies makes it difficult for small concerns to broaden their customer bases: when such firms have nearly guaranteed orders from a single corporate benefactor, they may truly have to struggle against complacency arising from their current success. Q.1 The primary purpose of the passage is to A) present a commonplace idea and its inaccuracies B) describe a situation and its potential drawbacks C) propose a temporary solution to a problem D) analyze a frequent source of disagreement Q.2 The passage supplies information that would answer which of the following questions? A) What federal agencies have set percentage goals for the use of minority-owned businesses in public works contracts? B) To which government agencies must businesses awarded federal contracts report their efforts to find minority subcontractors? C) How widespread is the use of minority-owned concerns as “fronts” by White backers seeking to obtain subcontracts? D) What is one set of conditions under which a small business might find itself financially overextended? Q.3 According to the passage, civil rights activists maintain that one disadvantage under which minority-owned businesses have traditionally had to labor is that they have A) been especially vulnerable to governmental mismanagement of the economy B) been denied bank loans at rates comparable to those afforded larger competitors C) not had sufficient opportunity to secure business created by large corporations D) not been able to advertise in those media that reach large numbers of potential customers Q.4 The passage suggests that the failure of a large business to have its bids for subcontracts result quickly in orders might cause it to A) experience frustration but not serious financial harm B) face potentially crippling fixed expenses C) have to record its efforts on forms filed with the government D) increase its spending with minority subcontractors Q.5 The author implies that a minority-owned concern that does the greater part of its business with one large corporate customer should A) avoid competition with larger, more established concerns by not expanding B) concentrate on securing even more business from that corporation C) try to expand its customer base to avoid becoming dependent on the corporation D) pass on some of the work to be done for the corporation to other minority-owned concerns Q.6 It can be inferred from the passage that, compared with the requirements of law, the percentage goals set by “some federal and local agencies” (lines 14-15) are A) more popular with large corporations B) more specific C) less controversial D) less expensive to enforce     1) B2) D3) C4) A5) C6) B

PASSAGE In nearly all human populations a majority of individuals can taste the artificially synthesized chemical phenylthiocarbonide (PTC). However, the percentage varies dramatically–from as low as 60% in India to as high as 95% in Africa. That this polymorphism is observed in non-human primates as well indicates a long evolutionary history which, although obviously not acting on PTC, might reflect evolutionary selection for taste discrimination of other, more significant bitter substances, such as certain toxic plants. A somewhat more puzzling human polymorphism is the genetic variability in earwax, or cerumen, which is observed in two varieties. Among European populations 90% of individuals have a sticky yellow variety rather than a dry, gray one, whereas in northern China these numbers are approximately the reverse. Perhaps like PTC variability, cerumen variability is an incidental expression of something more adaptively significant. Indeed, the observed relationship between cerumen and odorous bodily secretions, to which non-human primates and, to a lesser extent humans, pay attention suggests that during the course of human evolution genes affecting body secretions, including cerumen, came under selective influence. Q.1 It can be inferred from the passage that human populations vary considerably in their A) ability to assimilate artificial chemicals B) vulnerability to certain toxins found in plants C) ability to discern bitterness in taste D) sensitivity to certain bodily odors   Q.2 Which of the following provides the most reasonable explanation for the assertion in the first paragraph that evolutionary history “obviously” did not act on PTC? A) PTC is not a naturally occurring chemical but rather has been produced only recently by scientists. B) Most humans lack sufficient taste sensitivity to discriminate between PTC and bitter chemicals occurring naturally. C) Variability among humans respecting PTC discrimination, like variability respecting earwax, cannot be explained in terms of evolutionary adaptivity. D) Unlike non-human primates, humans can discriminate intellectually between toxic and non-toxic bitter substances.   Q.3 Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage? A) Artificially synthesized chemicals might eventually serve to alter the course of evolution by desensitizing humans to certain tastes and odors. B) Some human polymorphisms might be explained as vestigial evidence of evolutionary adaptations that still serve vital purposes in other primates. C) Sensitivity to taste and to odors have been subject to far greater natural selectivity during the evolution of primates than previously thought. D) Polymorphism among human populations varies considerably from region to region throughout the world.   Q.4 It can be inferred from the passage that A) The amount of bodily odours and secretion that take place reduce at each stage of evolution. B) The extent of attention paid by non-human primates to body secretions is much higher than that of the more evolved human species. C) Artificially sythesized chemicals have impaired the extent of sensitivity that human beings have to body secretions. D) All of these   1) Ans. C2) Ans. A3) Ans. B4) Ans. B

PASSAGE The fictional world of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, the African-American section of Medallion, Ohio, a community called the Bottom is a place where people and natural things are apt to go awry, to break from their prescribed boundaries, a place where bizarre and unnatural happenings and strange reversals of the ordinary are commonplace. The very naming of the setting of Sula is a turning upside-down of the expected; the Bottom is located high in the hills. The novel is filled with images of mutilation, both psychological and physical. A great part of the lives of the characters, therefore, is taken up with making sense of the world, setting boundaries, and devising methods to control what is essentially uncontrollable. One of the major devices used by the people of the Bottom is the seemingly universal one of creating a _______________; in this case, the title character Sula upon which to project both the evil they perceive outside themselves and the evil in their own hearts. Q.1 Which of the following words would best fit into the blank in the final sentence of the passage? A) scapegoat B) hero C) leader D) victim Q.2 Based on the description of the setting of the novel Sula, which of the following adjectives would most likely describe the behavior of many of its residents? A) furtive B) suspicious C) unkempt D) eccentric   1) A 2) D

PASSAGE My favourite news story and this actually was a news story was about the noise level in Toronto restaurants. It seems many Toronto restaurants are noisy. You cant go there and have a quiet conversation anymore. They play the background music too loud and many of the walls, ceilings and floors dont contain sound-absorbing material but instead reflect noise, whether music or their own conversations, back onto patrons. Apparently, its getting to the point where and here I must say I expected to hear about an imminent hearing-impairment crisis among Toronto servers or passers-by (second-hand noise, you know) or an upcoming investigation by the citys tireless health and safety commissioner, but, no, the main reported consequence of allegedly higher noise levels in Toronto restaurants is that some patrons (though we dont know who or how many) have decided to stay away from the noisier places. Another example: the Great Canadian Anti-Salt Crusade. You read here (in April 2007) how a new Statistics Canada survey of Canadians salt use we use too much of it for our own good: is anyone surprised? seemed destined to lead to a national campaign to start managing Canadians intake of the deadly chemical. Now, three years later, a federal government interdepartmental task force on salt is indeed moving us toward greater governmental oversight of our eating habits. The CBCs Ottawa radio outlet is helping out by signing up a four-person panel of just plain folk it found via Twitter and following their salt consumption over the next few weeks. I bet a tub of MSG the panel ends up being shocked by how much salt is in our prepared foods and concluding the government needs to regulate the industry much more strictly. At the very least, we can expect Government of Canada ads aimed at increasing our Salt-Awareness. (Quebec is a world leader in this sort of thing: We have had TV ads urging us to spend more time with our kids. If things are so far gone in a society that people have to get their parenting skills from TV ads, theres really no hope for it.) Perhaps you heard Cross-Country Check-ups recent show on the camping crisis. It seems Canadians arent camping as much as we used to. Why are the numbers down? And what can we do about it? A current employee of Parks Canada assured listeners their government was on top of the situation, particularly with respect to worryingly low camping statistics among residents of the countrys major urban centres. There is now a pilot program called Camping 101 that introduces new campers us big-city types and new immigrants from countries with no camping heritage to simple camping techniques such as how to safely start a campfire, toast a marshmallow, and apply bug repellant. How thoughtful! From cradle to grave via campsite, your government and its attendant broadcast corporation are working tirelessly for you. Worry, worry, worry. Since Woodward, Bernstein and Watergate journalism schools have taught students their job is not to be interesting, entertaining and possibly even amusing but rather, in their role as a sub-genre of social worker, to get to the bottom of crises and conspiracies. If you’re going to do that around the clock, you eventually get down to salt, noise and camping crises. Fortunately, there is a solution to endlessly escalating media worry about smaller and smaller problems. Like those restaurant patrons, we can simply stop listening Q.1 Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage? A) Cautionary B) Sarcastic C) Derogatory D) Critical Q.2 Which one of these is not a characteristic of the various news stories discussed by the author? A) They arise out of the journalists need to be entertaining. B) They deal with issues that the author considers trivial. C) They are a result of practices taught in journalism schools. D) They portray issues as crises. Q.3 Which of the following cannot be inferred from the passage? A) Woodward, Bernstein and Watergate are all names related to some conspiracy. B) The author supports the Canadian governments efforts to bring people back to campsites. C) The author recommends not paying too much attention to news stories such as those discussed in the passage. D) Canadians intake of salt is high and it carries certain risks. Q.4 Which of the following would be a suitable title for the passage? A) What is worrying the news media? B) Alarming news stories C) Major issues in Canada today D) How to deal with trivial news stories?     1) B2) A3) B4) A Ads By Adsplay