(Paper) ISS - Indian Statistical Service General English Previous Year Paper (2000)

Paper : ISS - Indian Statistical Service General English Previous Year Paper (2000)

1. Write an essay on one of the following topics in 1000 - 1200 words: 40
(a) Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos.
(b) How TV programmes in India can be made more socially responsible?
(c) How far has the common man benefited from economic liberalization in India?
(d) What success means to you?
(e) The importance of forests.
(f) More than anything else, it is a sense of humor which makes life bearable.

2. Write a precise of the following passage in about 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 - one word in each block - and these sheets should be fastened securely inside the answer book)

What is prejudice? Its characteristics and origins have by now been carefully studied by psychologists and sociologists so that today we know a good deal about how it is transmitted from one person to another.

Prejudice is a false generalization about a group of people - or things - which is held on to despite all facts to the contrary. Some generalizations, of course, are true and useful - often needed to put people and things into categories. The statements that Negroes have darkly pigmented skin and nearly always curly hair, isn’t a prejudice but a correct generalization about Negroes. Ignorance isn’t the same as prejudice, either. Many people believe that Negroes are basically less intelligent than white people because they’ve heard this and never been told otherwise. These people would be prejudiced if they persisted in this belief after they knew the facts! Well documented studies show that when Negroes and whites are properly matched in comparable groups, they have the same intelligence.

Prejudiced thinking is rarely, probably never, confined to any one subject. Those prejudiced against one group of people are nearly always prejudiced against others. Prejudice, then, could be said to be a disorder of thin king a prejudiced person makes fully generalizations by applying to a whole group what he has learned from one or a few of its members. Sometimes, he doesn’t even draw on his own experiences but bases his attitudes on what he has heard from others. Then he behaves toward a whole group as if there were no individual differences among its members. Few people would throw out a whole box of strawberries because they found one or two bad berries at the top - yet this is the way prejudiced people think and act.

The first important point about how children learn prejudice is that they do. They aren’t born that way, though some people think prejudice is innate and like to quote the old saying. “You can’t change human nature.” But you can change it. We now know that very small children are free of prejudice. Studies of school children have shown that prejudice is slight or absent among children in the first and second grades it increases there after building to a peak usually among children in the fourth and fifth grades. After this, it may fall off again in adolescence. Other studies have show that, on the average, young adults are much freer of prejudice than older ones.

In the early stages of picking up prejudice, children mix it with ignorance which, as I’ve said, should be distinguished from prejudice. A child as he begins to study the world around him tries to organize his experiences. Doing this, he begins to classify things and people and begins to form connection - or what psychologists call associations. He needs to do this because he saves time and effort by putting things and people into categories. But unless he classifies correctly, his categories will mislead rather than guide him. For example, if child learns that ‘all fires are hot and dangerous,” fires have been put firmly into the category of things to be watched carefully - and thus he can save himself from harm. But if he learns a category like “Negores are lazy” or “foreigners are fools,’ he’s learned generalization that mislead because they’re unreliable. The thing is that, when we use categories we need to remember the exceptions and differences, the individual variations that qualify the usefulness of all generalizations. Some fires, for example, are hotter and more dangerous than others. If people had avoided all fires as dangerous, we would never have had cooking or central heating.

School can help undo the damage. Actual personal experience with children of other groups can show a child directly, immediately and concretely that not all members of a group are blameworthy, stupid, dirty or dishonest. In addition, unprejudiced teachers can instruct children in the ways of clear thinking that underlie tolerance. There is definite evidence that education reduces prejudices. It’s been found, for example, that college graduates are less prejudiced on the whole than people with less education. Direct instruction -about different groups and Cultures, another Study shows, reduced prejudice in those who were taught.

Fortunately, we seem today to be making progress in the direction of less prejudiced belief and behaviour. Today, parents treat children with greater respect for them as individuals - in short, with less prejudice. This will continue to exert a healthy influence on the next generation. In fact, one survey has shown that t already has College students of our generation, it demonstrates, are less prejudiced than college students of the last generation. But since, prejudice against members of a minority group or the peoples of other countries is a luxury we can increasingly ill afford - no parent should relax his vigilance in guarding against sowing the seeds of intolerance.

3. Write a single paragraph, in about 200 words, on one of the following topics :  10
(a) Man spoils mattes much more by speech than by silence
(b) When all think alike no one thinks very much.
(c) A traffic jam.
(d) Scene in an examination hall before the beginning of the examination.

4. Use the following words in sentences so as to bring their meaning clearly. Do not change the form of the word. No mark will be given for a vague or ambiguous sentence: 10
(a) potential
(b) legacy
(c) interpret
(d) elaborate
(e) environments

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
Albert Camus, an Algerian writer who (i die) some time age, (ii note), for his symbols of the absurd hero. When he (iii write). Camus (iv draw) upon mythology, history, fiction, and drama in order (v illustrate) his absurdism. Camus (vi choose) Sisyphus as the absurd hero in classic form. According to legend, Sisyphys (vii accuse) by the gods of (viii steal) their secrets. The gods condemned him to an eternity of (ix push) a rock to the top of a bill and (x see) it roll down the slope again.

6. Correct the following sentences without changing their meaning. Please do not make unnecessary changes in the sentences: 10
(a) I am believing what you tell me.
(b) I like Rita because she is too helpful.
(c) What a fine weather.
(d) Coffee keeps person awake.
(e) I want you and she to help me.
(f) Hardly he had left the house when the storm broke.
(g) He was very too much happy to know that he had won a lottery.
(h) They demanded that the manager is dismissed.
(i) “Didn’t you meet Kailash?” “Yest, l didn’t.”
(j) The party comprises of Dinesh, Ramesh and Mohan.