1. Make a precis of the following passage and suggest a suitable title.
Generally, European trains still stop at borders to change locomotives and staff. This is often necessary. The German and French voltage systems are incompatible. Spain -- though not Portugal -- has a broad gauge track. English bridges are lower than elsewhere, and passengers on German trains would need a ladder to reach French platforms, twice as high as their own. But those physical constraints pale in comparison to an even more formidable barrier -- national chauvinism. While officials in Brussels strive for an integrated and efficiently run rail network to relieve the Continent's gorged roads and airways, and cut down on pollution, three member countries -- France, Germany and Italy -- are working feverishly to develop their own expensive and mutually incompatible high-speed trains.
2. Read the following passage and answer the questions given at the end as briefly as possible (into 2 lines each)
"Heads of Government attending the London economic summit will have no excuses if they fail to curb the level of arms exports. A new definitive study by the International Monetary Fund, not generally known for its liberal views, makes it plain that high levels of arms spending in some developing countries have retarded social programmes, economic development projects and the private sector, the latter being an issue with which the seven richest market economies can identify. The IMF, however, picks out 10, consistent offenders among developing countries which spend more than 15 percent of their ODP on the military. They are: Israel, Angola, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Libya. Employing some unusually forceful language the Fund says, High levels of military expenditure certainly led to low growth and domestic economic hardship in some countries by diverting fund from social programmes, economic development projects and the private sector."
The study poses a couple of other serious problems for the summitters. It shows for instance, that military expenditure is very sensitive to financial constraints. Thus if countries are deprived of resources then they are forced to cut back on armaments.
(i) What are the heads of Government doing at the summit?
(ii) What are the findings of the new study?
(iii) How does military expenditure affect domestic economy of a country and in what ways?
(iv) What is the relationship between military spending and economic growth?
(v) How is military expenditure related to resources?
3. Use any FIVE of the following pairs of words in your own sentences demonstrating difference in their meaning.
(i) Access, Excess
(ii) Ascent, Accent
(iii) Resources, Recourse
(iv) Whether, Weather
(v) Premier, Premiere
(vi) Ingenious, Ingenuous
(vii) Felicitate, Facilitate
(viii) Conscious, Conscientious
(ix) Disease, Decease
4. For each of the phrases at the left, write in your answer book the word closest in meaning to the phrase from the four words given on the right.
(i) Clear away: (clean, empty, removed, finish)
(ii) Break down: (collapse, enter, cut off, begin)
(iii) Keep up: (restrain, control, continue, maintain)
(iv) Turn out: (refuse, start, produced, arrive)
(v) See over: (examine, repair, discovered, inquire)
5. Make sentences for any FIVE of the following to illustrate their meaning.
(i) Damocles' sword
(ii) Every inch
(iii) Spade a spade
(iv) On the sky
(v) Palm off
(vi) Lip service
(vii) A turn coat
(viii) A wild goose chase
6. Write a note of about 120 words on any ONE of the following ideas.
(i) What can't be cured must be endured
(ii) A bee in one's bonnet
(iii) Make a virtue of necessity
(iv) A red rag to a bull
On the sky meaning?
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