FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR RECRUITMENT TO POSTS IN BPS-17 UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 1999 ENGLISH (Précis and Composition)
Time allowed: 3 hours Maximum marks: 100
Q1. Make a precis of the following passage about one-third of its length and suggest a suitable title.
To have faith in the dignity and worth of the individual man as an end in himself, to believe that it is better to be governed by persuasion than by coercion, to believe that fraternal goodwill is more worthy than a selfish and contentious spirit, to believe that in the long run all values are inseparable from the love of truth and the disinterested search for it, to believe that knowledge and the power it confers should be used to promote the welfare and happiness of all men, rather than to serve the interests of those individual and classes whom fortune and intelligence endow with temporary advantage – these are the values which are affirmed by the traditional democratic ideology. The case of democracy is that it accepts the rational and humane values as ends and proposes as the means of realizing them the minimum of coercion and the maximum of voluntary assent. We may well abandon the cosmological temple in which the democratic ideology originally enshrined these values, without renouncing the faith it was designed to celebrate. The essence of that faith is a belief in the capacity of man, as a rational and humane creature to achieve the good life by rational and humane means. The chief virtue of democracy and the sole reason for cherishing it is that with all its faults it still provides the most favourable conditions for achieving that end by those means.
Q2. Read the following passage and answer the questions given at the end in your own words.
These phenomena, however, are merely premonitions of a coming storm which is likely to sweep over the whole of India and the rest of Asia. This is the inevitable outcome of a wholly political civilization which has looked upon man as a thing to be exploited and not as a personality to be developed and enlarged by purely cultural forces. The people of Asia are bound to rise against the acquisitive economy which the West have developed and imposed on the nations of the East. Asia cannot comprehend modern Western capitalism with its undisciplined individualism. The faith which you represent recognized the worth of the individual, and disciplines him to give away all to the service of God and man. Its possibilities are not yet exhausted. It can still create a new world where the social rank of man is not determined by his caste or colour or the amount of dividend he earns, but by the kind of life he lives, where the poor tax the rich, where human society is founded not on the equality of stomachs but on the equality of spirits, where an untouchable can marry the daughter of the king, where private ownership is a trust and where capital cannot be allowed to accumulate so as to dominate the real producer of wealth. This superb idealism of your faith, however, needs emancipation from the medieval fancies of theologians and logists. Spiritually, we are living in a prison house of thoughts and emotions which during the course of centuries we have woven round ourselves. And be it further said to the shame of us – men of older generations – that we have failed to equip the younger generation for the economic, political and even religious crisis that the present age is likely to bring. The while community needs a complete overhauling of its present mentality in order that it may again become capable of feeling the urge of fresh desires and ideals. The Indian Muslim has long ceased to explore the depths of his own inner life. The result is that he has ceased to live in the full glow and colour of life, and is consequently in danger of an unmanly compromise with forces which he is made to think he cannot vanquish in open conflict. He who desires to change an unfavourable environment must undergo a complete transformation of his inner being. God changes not the condition of a people until they themselves take the initiative to change their condition by constantly illuminating the zone of their daily activity in the light of a definite ideal. Nothing can be achieved without a firm faith in the independence of one’s own inner life. This faith alone keeps a people’s eye fixed on their goal and save them from perpetual vacillation. The lesson that past experiences has brought to you must be taken to heart. Expect nothing from any side. Concentrate your whole ego on yourself alone and ripen your clay into real manhood if you wish to see you aspiration realized.
(i) What is the chief characteristic of the modern political civilization?
(ii) What are the possibilities of our faith which can be of advantage to the world?
(iii) What is the chief danger confronting the superb idealism of our faith?
(iv) Why is the Indian Muslim in danger of coming to an unmanly compromise with the forces opposing him?
(v) What is necessary for any achievement?
(vi) Explain the following expressions as used in the passage. Acquisitive economy, Undisciplined individualism, Superb idealism, Unmanly compromise, Perpetual vacillation
(vii) Suggest an appropriate title for the passage.
Q3. Write a comprehensive note of approximately 250 words on ONE of the following subjects.
(i) The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world
(ii) Charm strikes the sight but merit wins the soul
(iii) Lord, What Fools these Mortals be!
(iv) Is Democracy possible in the Third World?
Q4. Re-write the following passage after correcting its grammatical errors.
The world is poised on a dangerous and instable balance of terror, unlike the wars of the past, future war threatened to do away the human race. Future of mankind depends on peace. Without it, countless millions would be wiped of the face of earth. This fear had manifested itself in a persistent demand of disarmament – total and universal. It is, indeed, a sad reflection on human nature that while he sings praise about the virtue of peace, they continued march on a suicidal course of war. In spite of forty years of negotiation the giants did not even scraped the tips of the icebergs.
Q5. Fill in the blanks of the passage given below.
An ideal college should subscribe to an ideal scheme of education for the one is inseparable from the other. The chief ———- of education, it is said, is the total end ———- development of the individual. Any ———- system of education must provide the student firstly, with the ———- for logical and objective thinking. Without ———- skill it’s difficult to conceive of any one’s ———- and continually expanding the knowledge which is ———- indispensable to an educated man ———- education which is in practice bookish and ———- from life is lopsided and serves no ———- purpose. Secondly, it must contribute to the ———- of morality, or right conduct or good ———- in its widest sense. No academy ———- its name can afford or be ———- to this aspect, for its importance of ———- the syllabic domain. It must help ———- student to discover a meaningful act of ———- and a personal philosophy of life ———- it must pay adequate attention to ———- health and work on the premise that a healthy mind is ———- without a healthy body.
Q6. Make sentences of any FIVE of the following idioms.
(i) A jaundiced eye (ii) A left handed compliment (iii) The ruling passion (iv) Tower of strength (v) Steal a march on someone (vi) In one’s bones (vii) Hang in the balance (viii) Fly in the ointment (ix) Close-fisted