Paper : ISS - Indian Statistical Service General English Previous Year Paper (1999)

1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics in about 1200 words : 40
(a) The purpose of human life is to serve
(b) Great men discuss ideas, averse men discuss events, and small men discuss people
(c) India fifty years from now
(d) The spirit of adventure
(e) Noise pollution
(f) Education as a tool for national development

2. Write a precise of the following passage in 200 words, using your own words as far as possible. Please state the number of words used in your precise : 20

(Note: The precise must be written only on the special sheets provided for the purpose and these sheets should be fastened securely inside the answer book).

Each society creates its own type of personality by its way of bringing up children in the family, by its system of education, by its effective values (that is, those values that are rewarded rather than only preached). It creates the type of “Social character” which is needed for its proper functioning. It forms men who want to do what they have to do. What kind of men does our large-scale, bureaucratized industrialism need?

It needs men who cooperate smoothly in large groups, who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated l needs men who feel free and independent, yet who are to be commanded, to do what is expected, to fit into the social machine without friction; men who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without an aim except the aim to be on the move, to function, to go ahead Modern industrialism has succeeded in producing this kind of man. He is the “alienated” man. He is alienated in the sense that his actions and his own forces have become estranged from him; they stand above him and against him, and rule him rather than being ruled by him. His life forces have been transformed into things and institutions, and these things and institutions have become idols.

They are something apart from him, which he worships and to which he submits. Alienated man bows down before the works of his own hands. He experiences himself not as the active bearer of his own forces and riches but as an impoverished “thing” dependent on other things outside of himself. He is the prisoner of the very economic and political circumstances which he has created.

Since our economic organization is based on continuous and ever-increasing consumption (think of the threat to our economy if people did not buy a new car until their old one was really obsolete), contemporary industrial man is encouraged to be consumption-crazy. Without any real enjoyment, he “takes in” drink, food, cigarettes, sights, lectures, books, movies, television, any new kind of gadget. The world has become one great maternal breast, and man has become the eternal suckling, forever expectant, forever disappointed.

In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucracy in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, fringes benefits, well-ventilated factories and pipe music, and by psychologists and “human relations” experts; yet all this oiling does, not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue and the whitecollar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.

The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find themselves out of a job (and with installment payments due); they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually productive authentic and independent human beings.

The man whose life is centered around producing, selling and consuming commodities transforms himself into a commodity. He becomes increasingly attracted to that which is man-made and mechanical, rather than to that which is natural and organic. Many men today are more interested in sports-cars than in women; or they experience women as a car which one can cause to rece by pushing the right button. Altogether that they expect happiness, is a matter of finding the right button, not the result of a productive, rich life, a life which requires making an effort and taking risks. But while it is impossible to find the button for happiness, the majority is satisfied with pushing the buttons of cameras, radios, television sets, and watching science friction becoming reality.

3. Write a single paragraph, in 200 words, on ONE of the following topics:  10
(a) Happiness is a state of mind
(b) Risk-taking is inherently failure-prone
(c) Whom do the politicians really serve?
(d) Scene at a railway platform after the departure of a train

4. Use the following words in sentences so as to bring out their meaning clearly and unambiguously: 10
(a) subtle
(b) momentous
(c) aesthetic
(d) posthumous
(e) book (as verb)

5. Supply the correct forms of verbs given in parentheses in the following passage. Please write correct verb forms in your answer book against numbers given in parentheses; do not reproduce the entire passage :  10

Life (i be) full of surprises, people say, and they (ii be) right. When I (iii arrive) in India last year, I (iv be) a bachelor. I (v fly) into the airport without a care in the world. My family back home (vi give) me all sorts of advice, which I was determined to forget. In the terminal I (vii have) to wait around for my baggage, which consisted of an oversize trunk, a couple of suitcases, and three small bags. White (viii wait), a beautiful blond young girl walked by. I was so (ix take) by her that I (x tip) over another woman.

6. Correct the following sentences without changing their meaning. Please do not make unnecessary changes in the sentences :  10
(a) He did nothing but laughed.
(b) Vimla talks a lot, isn’t it?
(c) I shall help you after three-four days.
(d) Old habits die hardly.
(e) When only five years old, my grandmother died.
(f) A busy person has a little time to spare.
(g) Milk is more preferable than tea.
(h) Dr. Sharma has gone to Lucknow last week.
(i) The economist will discuss about the unemployment problem.
(j) I ordered for lunch.