English Practice Questions for IBPS RRB, IBPS Clerk, IBPS PO
Directions
(1 – 5): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given
below it.
U.S.
President Donald Trump’s tax plan, released as a brief one-page document this
week, promises some bold reforms to _____(1)_____refresh America’s
sluggish economy. Weak private investment spending has been at the heart of
what is now dubbed the slowest U.S. economic recovery in the post-War era,
which ____(2)______has been coupled with a serious slump in
productivity. The plan does well in attempting to address basic structural
problems that have held back the American private sector. However, its eventual
success in _____(3)_____revive to growth and productivity will depend
on the extent to which its benefits trickle down from the balance sheets of big
business to the real economy. The Trump administration ______(4)_____propose steep
cuts to the corporate tax rate (from 35% to just 15%), a significant reduction
and simplification of the individual income tax, a doubling of standard tax
deductions, and the scrapping of the wealth tax and the alternative minimum
tax. Notably, the earlier proposal to impose a protectionist border adjustment
tax has also been shelved, hopefully due to the ________(5)______ administration realisation
that trade tariffs ______(6)_______ don’t come with a zero
cost on Americans. It is estimated that U.S. corporations have stacked a cash
pile of more than $1.8 trillion overseas to avoid the corporate income tax. Mr.
Trump hopes to push them to repatriate some of this cash stock after paying a
minimal one-time tax.
Whether
the likely inflow of capital _______(7)________ will
incentivise U.S. corporations to increase investments, or simply
distribute the cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends is an open
question. In this context, another relevant issue is the administration’s own
spending plans. The cut in the corporate tax alone is estimated to cost over $2
trillion, and overall the plan could lead to anywhere between $3 trillion and
$7 trillion in lost revenue over the next 10 years. Whether the Trump
administration will walk back on its ______(8)_______beginning to
promise to adopt a tax plan that is revenue and deficit neutral or cut down
on spending to match lower revenues remains to be seen. Most recently, U.S.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin argued that higher growth will
help_______(9)______(damage) for the revenue loss from tax cuts,
suggesting a spending cut may not be on the cards. Mr. Trump’s bullish stance
on infrastructure and military spending also suggests he is unlikely to reduce
spending. This means that the real ______(10)______(needed) income
of Americans won’t receive any significant boost in the near term. Further,
productivity improvements in the long run require improvements in general
business freedom as well, not just tax cuts. Lastly, of course, Mr. Trump’s tax
plan will require the approval of a Republican-dominated Congress that is
filled with deficit hawks.
1.
(a) Liquidate (b) ravage (c) sabotage (d) Rejuvenate (e) No change
required
2. (a) had
been (b) have been (c) has been couple (d) been (e) No change required
3. (a) revive (b)
reviving (c) been reviving (d) revived (e) No change required
4. (a)
proposed (b) had proposed (c) have proposed (d) has proposed (e) No change
required
5. (a)
administration (b) administrations (c) administration’s (d) administrations’ (e)
No change required
6. (a) didn’t
come (b) doesn’t come (c) did come (d) will come (e) No change required
7. (a) would
have been incentivise (b) would been incentivise (c) would have to incentivise (d)
will incentivise (e) No change required
8. (a)
Initial (b) Inferior (c) Collateral (d) Incipient (e) No change required
9. (a)
Penalize (b) Come done with (c) Compensate (d) Deprive (e) No change required
10. (a)
Necessary (b) Decisive (c) paramount (d) Disposable (e) No change required
Directions
(11 – 15): Read each sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. The
error, if any, will be in one part of die sentence. The number of that part is
the answer. If there is no error, the answer is (e). (Ignore errors of punctuation,
if any).
11. People are
worried (a) / more because of the frequency (b) / of occurrence of the crimes
rather (c) / than the magnitude of each one (d) / no error (e).
12. The quality
of construction (a) / of our building was (b) / highly appreciable by (c) /
most of the visitors (d) / no error (e)
13. The
discreet enquiry revealed (a) / that his involvement in (b) / the fraud cases
have been (c) / more than what was first guessed (d) / no error (e)
14. I know
nothing (a) / about chess because (b) / my games teacher also (c) / was not
knowing nothing about it (d) / no error (e)
15. Due to
uncertainty (a) / capital market conditions, (b) / there has been a tremendous
(c) / growth in bank deposits (d) / no error (e)
Answers:
1. D) 2. E)
3. B) 4. D) 5. C)
6. E) 7. E) 8. A)
9. C) 10. D)
11.
(c) With
‘more’ in (b) there is no need to have ‘rather’; just ‘than’ is sufficient.
12.
(c) The word should be
‘appreciated’ (v.) (praised) and not ‘ appreciable’ (adj.) (considerable).
13.
(c) As we are referring to ‘his
involvement’. It should be ‘has been’ and not ‘have been’. There has to be
agreement between the noun, number and the verb. Don’t make the mistake of
matching the verb with ‘fraud cases’.
14.
(d) ‘Was not knowing nothing’
has a wrong tense usage and also involves two negatives. It should be ‘did not
know anything’ (or ‘knew nothing’) in place of ‘was not knowing nothing’.
15.
(a) It should be ‘uncertain’
(adj.) before ‘capital market conditions and not ‘uncertainly’ (noun).
