SSC SI & ASI (Delhi Police, CAPF, CISF) Exam paper – 2012

PASSAGE – 11
(Q. 181-190):
Economics, ethicists and business experts persuade us that honesty is the best policy, but their evidence is weak. We hoped to find data that would support their theories and, thus, perhaps, encourage higher standards of business behaviour. To our surprise, their pet theories failed to stand up. Treachery, we found, can pay. There is no compelling economic reason to tell the truth or keep one’s word. Punishment for the treacherous in the real world is neither swift nor sure.
Honesty is, in fact, primarily a moral choice. Business people do tell themselves that, in the long run, they will do well by doing good, but there is little factual or logical basis for this conviction. Without values, without a basic preference of right over wrong, trust based on such delusion would crumble in the face of temptation. Most of us choose virtue because we want to believe in ourselves and because others respect and believe us.
And, due to this, we should be happy. We can be proud of a system in which people are honest because they want to be. not because they have to be. Materially, too, trust based on morality provides great advantages. It allows us to join in great and exciting enterprises that we could never undertake if we relied on economic incentives alone.
Economists tell us that trust is enforced in the marketplace through retaliation and reputation. If you violate a trust, your victim is apt to seek revenge and others are likely to stop doing business with you, at least under favourable terms. A man or woman with a reputation for fair dealing will prosper. Therefore, profit maximisers are honest. This sounds plausible enough until you look for concrete examples. Cases that apparently demonstrate the awful consequences of trust turn out to be few and weak, while evidence that treachery can pay seems compelling
181. According to the passage, what do economists want us to believe?
A. Businessmen become dishonest at times.
B. Businessmen cannot always be honest.
C. Businessmen are rarely honest.
D. Businessmen should always be honest.

182. Which of the following phrases is closest In meaning to the word ‘persuade’ In the context of the passage?
A. Give an opinion
B. Try to convince
C. Try to give one’s own judgement
D. Try to cheat

183. What did the author find out about the saying ‘honesty is the best policy’?
A. It is correct on many occasions.
B. It is correct for all businessmen.
C. It is not a proven theory.
D. It is found to be correct only occasionally.

184. According to the author, what makes the businessmen to be honest in their dealings?
A. Businessmen are conscientious.
B. Businessmen choose to be honest of their own accord.
C. Businessmen are temperamentally honest.
D. Businessmen are afraid of being punished if they are dishonest.

185. According to the author, which of the following is the reason for being honest in business?
A. It makes a person self-seeking.
B. It satisfies one’s ego.
C. It makes one famous.
D. None of these.

186. In the context of the passage, what is the material advantage of being honest?
A. It makes one undertake activities which may not be economically attractive.
B. It enables one to make profit.
C. It makes one honest for the sake of honesty.
D. It makes one have contacts for making profit.

187. Which of the following best describes what the author is trying to point through the last sentence ‘cases that ……. compelling’?
A. The consequences of dishonesty.
B. Theories which seem to be false.
C. Economist’s predictions are correct.
D. The contradiction in real life.

188. Why do businessmen, according to economists, remain honest?
A. Businessmen can make more money if they are dishonest.
B. Dishonest businessmen cannot stay in business for long.
C. Dishonest businessmen have no respect in society.
D. Dishonest businessmen succeed only for a short while.

189. In the context of the passage, which of the following statements is false?
A. Economists believe that all businessmen are dishonest.
B. Honesty pays in the long run.
C. Honest businessmen command respect in society.
D. All dishonest people are not exposed sooner or later.

190. In the context of the passage, the sentence therefore profit maximisers are honest men’ means
A. the more profit you make, the more honest you are.
B. honest people make the most profit.
C. all profiteers are honest.
D. honest people try to maximise their profits.

PASSAGE – III
(Q. 191-200):
No one has ever suggested that grinding pauperism can lead to anything else but moral degradation. Every human being has a right to live and, therefore, to find the wherewithal to feed himself and, where necessary, to clothe and house himself. But, for this very simple performance, we need no assistance from economists or their laws. “Take no thought for the morrow” is an injunction which finds an echo in almost all the religious scriptures of the world. In a well-ordered society, the securing of one’s livelihood should be and is found to be the easiest thing in the world. Indeed, the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns but the absence of starvation among its masses. The only statement that has to be examined is: whether it can be laid down as a law of universal application that material advancement means moral progress.
Now let us take a few illustrations. Rome suffered moral fall when it attained high material affluence. So did Egypt and perhaps most countries of which we have any historical record. The descendants and kinsmen of the royal and divine Krishna too fell when they were rolling in riches. We do not deny to the Rockefellers and the Carnegies possession of an ordinary measure of morality, but we gladly judge them indulgently. I mean that we do not even expect them to satisfy the highest standard of morality. With them, material gain has not necessarily meant moral gain. In South Africa, where I had the privilege of associating with thousands of our countrymen on most intimate terms. I observed almost invariably that the greater the possession of riches, the greater was their moral turpitude.
191. Grinding pauperism means
A. oppression
B. extreme poverty
C. mental suffering
D. agony

192. in the context of the passage, pauperism and moral degradation
A. have cause-and-effect relationship
B. are two sides of the same coin
C. have a recursive relationship
D. are independent of each other

193. The right to live Implies
A. freedom from anxiety
B. moral and material progress
C. the right to food, clothing and house
D. All of these

194. According to the passage, the phrase ‘No thought for the morrow’ means
A. think of the present
B. freedom from worry
C. absence of starvation
D. orderliness

195. Test of orderliness in the context of the passage means
A. moral upgradation
B. employment for all
C. absence of diseases
D. freedom from starvation

196. The phrase ‘material affluence’ means
A. power of money
B. possession of riches
C. above the poverty line
D. addiction to wealth

197. The opposite of ‘rolling in riches’ means
A. grinding pauperism
B. possession of riches
C. material comforts
D. poverty

198. The passage seems to be a chapter from
A. a history book
B. a religious discourse
C. an autobiography
D. an article from a literary journal

199. The closing sentence of the passage
A. illustrates the first sentence
B. logically concludes the passage
C. is the key sentence
D. contradicts the first opening sentence

200. The message implied in the passage is
A. spiritual advancement and materialism go hand in hand
B. material gains and moral gains are antagonistic
C. the evils of materialism
D. riches lead to discontentment

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