Questions

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

It was a bittersweet moment for me when I found out that I had been selected for the Sakura Science Exchange programme, a Robotics and IoT workshop in Japan. A fully-funded opportunity of a lifetime. Fly off to Saitama without a care on the world, and all I had to do was put into practice what I love to do – computer science. The bitter part of the episode – that I would lose two weeks of IB education, an almost literal mountain to cover when I got back – was quickly forgotten when I envisioned myself programming robots in the country that gave us Anime and sushi! It was with the eagerness to have an extended vacation in an un-visited land, and the opportunity to learn more about a subject that I am passionate about, that I headed to the Kempegowda International Airport outside Bengaluru. Little did I know this would be the experience of a lifetime, more for the endearing values of the Japanese culture that made their mark on me than anything else. The first feature of Japanese society that called out to me was the Discipline. Walking into the Narita International Airport, used as I was to the noisy crowds back in India, I quite literally lost my breath to the sight that awaited me. Be it the security check or baggage claim, somehow there was a silence that felt right. Everyone went about their activities without any confusion. And, contrary to the bharatiya custom of lazy pot-bellied officials, every guard and all counter personnel did what they were supposed to do to ensure this flow was maintained.

Why was the writer travelling to Japan?

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

Everyone expected Mary Zophres to win for her retro-revival Technicolor clothes in La La Land — the eventual winner, Colleen Atwood for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, seemed surprised too. But as other awards began to slip away from the well-reviewed musical, a theme could be teased out. What is Fantastic Beasts if not a plea for equal treatment of people, magical or otherwise? Then, Arrival, a film about the inherent benignity of aliens (read immigrants) won for Best Sound Editing. Hacksaw Ridge, which is, in a way, an anti-guns movie, won in two categories. Fences, about an African-American father who fears racial discrimination, took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Earlier, Moonlight, featuring two minority communities (black and gay), won for Best Supporting Actor. This turned out to be one of those years the Oscar voter was underestimated. As a majority of voters are actors, there was the tendency to think they'd reward La La Land, a celebration of creation: the heroine wants to make movies, the hero wants to make jazz. It looked like the year of The Artist all over again.

What does the lead female actor in La La Land want to do?

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

My coat's pretty warm, even though it cost £9.99 and came from the flea market. It had a label in it, CHRISTIN BIOR, but I cut it out as soon as I got home. You can't work where I work and have CHRISTIN BIOR in your coat. You could have a genuine vintage Christian Dior label. Or something Japanese. Or maybe no label because you make your clothes yourself out of retro fabrics that you source at Alfies Antiques. But not CHRISTIN BIOR.

As I get near Catford Bridge, I start to feel a knot of tension. I really don't want to be late today. My boss has started throwing all sorts of hissy fits about people "swanning in at all times," so I left an extra twenty minutes early, in case it was a bad day. I can already see: It's a god-awful day. They've been having a lot of problems on our line recently and keep cancelling trains with no warning. Trouble is, in London rush hour, you can't just cancel trains. What are all the people who were planning to get on that train supposed to do? Evaporate?

Why is her boss angry?

Select the synonym of

panorama

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

Prebiotics are the lesser-known gut-health promoters which serve as food for good bacteria inside the gut. "We found that dietary prebiotics can improve non-REM (random eye movement) sleep, as well as REM sleep after a stressful event," said Robert Thompson, a PhD researcher at University of Colorado Boulder in the U.S. Prebiotics are dietary fibres found naturally in foods like artichokes, raw garlic, leeks and onions.

When beneficial bacteria digest prebiotic fibre, they not only multiply, improving overall gut health, but they also release metabolic by-products. Researchers fed three-week-old male rats a diet of either standard chow or chow that included prebiotics. They then monitored the rats' body temperature, gut bacteria and sleep-wake cycles — using electroencephalogram (EEG), or brain activity testing over time. Findings revealed that the rats on the prebiotic diet spent more time in non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, which is restful and restorative, than those on the non-prebiotic diet.

What are prebiotics?

The Mansabdari system introduced by Akbar was borrowed from the system prevalent in

Select the antonym of

conception

Rearrange the parts of the sentence in correct order.

P: And when they manifest our soils, minds and bodies suffer such as depression and calousy.
Q: These negative states hide in our consciousness at different leads therefore they may manifest permanently or occasionally.
R: Egocentric fixation resists in negative state.
S: Meditation reveals the state of egocentric fixation and free people from suffering, because people are able to see more clearly their negative.