(Download) UPSC: CAPF (AC) Exam Paper 2014 - "General Studies, Essay & Comprehension"
(Download) UPSC: CAPF (AC) Exam Paper 2014 - "General Studies, Essay & Comprehension"
Exam Name: Central Police Force (Assistant Commandant) Exam
Subject: General Studies, Essay and Comprehension
Paper: II
Year: 2014
Size : 286 KB
File Type: PDF
Q1. Write essays on any four of the following in about 300 words each :
(a) Role of films in promotion of Freedom struggle
(b) Impact of climate change on agriculture and : cropping pattern in India
(c) Mass transport systems are the key to reducing fuel expenditure .
(d) Ensuring good hygiene will give the nation better pay-offs than food
subsidies
(e) Religious fundamentalism - a challenge, to national security
(f) Child labour : an accepted endemic reality in India
Q2. Write arguments for and against each of the following in about 300 words :
(a) Development and creation of jobs must take priority over social
development.
(b) Pre-poll alliances are better than post-poll partnerships.
Q3. Write Reports on the following in about 200 words each in:
(a) Penetration of Left Wing extremism tribal areas.
(b) Domestic violence against women in India.
Q4. Attempt a précis of the given passage in one-third of its length. Do not suggest a title. Write the précis, as far as possible, in your own words. State the number of words at the end of the answer. Write the précis on the separate sheets provided and fasten them to the answer book.
The belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has great advantages. It makes thought unnecessary and puts the highest intelligence within the reach of everyone. It is not difficult to learn the correct use of such words as 'complex,' 'sadism,' 'Oedipus,' 'bourgeois,' "deviation,' 'left'; and nothing more is needed to make a brilliant writer or talker. Some, at least, of such words represented much thought on the part of their inventors; like paper money they were originally convertible into gold. But they have become for most people inconvertible, and in depreciating have increased nominal wealth in ideas. And so we are enabled to despise the paltry intellectual fortunes of former times.
The modern-minded man, although he believes profoundly in the wisdom of his period, 'must be presumed to be very modest about his personal powers. His highest hope is to think first: what is about to be thought, to say what is about to be said, and to feel what is about to be felt; he has no wish to think better thoughts than his neighbours, to say things showing more insight, or to have emotions which are not those of some fashionable group, but only to be slightly ahead of others in point of time. Quite deliberately he suppresses what is individual in himself for the sake of the admiration of the herd. A mentally solitary life, such as that of Copernicus, or Spinoza, or Milton after the Restoration, seems pointless according to modern standards. Copernicus should have delayed his advocacy of the Copernican system until it could be made fashionable; Spinoza should have been either a good Jew or a good Christian; Milton should have moved with the times, like Cromwell's widow, who asked Charles II for a pension on the ground that she did not agree with her husband's politics. Why should an individual set himself up as an independent judge? Is it not clear that wisdom resides in the blood of the Nordic race or, alternatively, in the proletariat ? And in any case what is the use of an eccentric opinion, which never can hope to conquer the great agencies of publicity ?
The money rewards and widespread though ephemeral fame which those agencies have made possible places temptations in the way of able men which are difficult to resist. To be pointed out, admired, mentioned constantly in the press, and offered easy ways of earning much money is highly agreeable; and when all this is open to a man, he finds it difficult to go on doing the work that he himself thinks best and is inclined to subordinate his judgment to the general opinion.
Q5. Read the following passage and answer the questions :
I believe that the civilization India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors. Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or .Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty : it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of
duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To
observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing,
we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means "good
conduct".
If this definition be correct, then India, as so many writers have shown, has
nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should be. We notice that
the mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still
remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions the more unbridled they
become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that
happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because
he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be
unhappy, the poor to be happy. Millions will always remain poor. Observing all
this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures. We have managed
with the same kind of plough as existed thousands of years ago. We have retained
the same kind of cottages that we had in former times and our indigenous
education remains the same as before. We have had no system of life-corroding
competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade and charged a regulation
wage. It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our
forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become
slaves and lose our moral fibre. They, therefore, after due deliberation decided
that we should only do what we could with our hands and feet. They saw that our
real happiness and health consisted in a proper use of our hands and feet. They
further reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless encumbrance and
the people would not be happy in them, that there would be gangs of thieves and
robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing in them and that poor men would be
robbed by rich men. They were, therefore, satisfied with small villages. They
saw that kings and their swords were inferior to the sword of ethics, and they,
therefore, held the sovereigns of the earth to be inferior to the Rishis and the
Fakirs.
(i) Give the meaning of the following words in the passage : life-corroding,
sovereigns, anvil, indigenous.
(ii) Why was India vis-à-vis other countries charged for not being developed ?
(iii) What is the relationship between civilization and morality?
(iv) What is the foothold of Indian civilization according to the author ?
(v) What justification does the author advance for practising ancestral
occupation and why?
Q6. (a) Rewrite the sentences in correct form :
(i) The retention of a major portion of our earnings have helped build our
new house.
(ii) Geeta suspects Seeta for stealing the pen.
(iii) She's used to get up early.
(iv) Jane thought she can win the prize.
(v) The gardener picked up flowers in the garden.
(vi) I wish I was as tall as my leader.
(vii) Sharmas will start after the breakfast.
(viii) I look forward to see him soon.
(ix) Each boy and each girl was in their best dress.
(x) Why is Ruby appearing so sad?
(b) Use the following words in sentences of your own so as to bring out their meanings :
(i) coast/beach
(ii) contagious/infectious
(iii) famous/ famed
(iv) incident/accident
(v) price/cost
(c) Fill in the blanks with appropriate preposition :
(i) The beauty of Venice consists __ the style of its ancient buildings.
(ii) My insomnia was bad enough me to seek advice a psychiatrist.
(iii) The method I was taught came - a girl guide. He owns a mansion girdled a
black path.