Paper : IES General English Previous Year Paper (1994)

1. Write an essay on any one of the following topics in not less than 1500 words:
(a) India need a uniform system of education from the primary to the tertiary level.
(b) Both experts and the common people concentrate on the ‘cost & of all individual and collective end eavours. How about ‘values’?
(c) Investment in children’s overall improvement is the best guarantee of a nation’s bright future.
(d) We can speak about a plurality of sects, but not that of religions. Religion, by definition, can only be one.
(e) Nature has her own ways of wreaking vengeance.
(f) Women in general and Indian women in particular, are an exploited class.    (50)

2. Write a precis of the following passage in about 250 words, as far as possible in your own words. State the exact number of words used in your precis 
(Note; the precise must be written on the special sheets provided for the purpose and these sheets should be securely fastened inside the answer book.)

In addition to being a means of exchange, money is also. a means of measuring the value of men’s labour. Labour, in economic theory, is any work undertaken in return for a fixed payment. A  mother may work very hard in caring for her children, but she receives no fixed wages for this work.  It is, not; therefore labour in the strict economic sense. Economists are interested in measuring the  ervices which people render to each other. Although aware of the services which people provide  for  nothing, they are not concerned with such services. in economics, money is the standard by which  the value of things is judged. This is an objective, scientific standard and not in any way related .to  standards of a religious, ethical or subjective nature.

Human labour produces both hoods and services, the activities of a farm worker and a nurse  are very different, but each is measurable in terms of the payment received. If however a farmer is  self-employed and does not receive a fixed wage from anyone else, he is in a different category from  the nurse and from his own farm workers. His activities are not wholly labour. His workers receive  their wages, but he receives whatever surplus large or small) emerges from his farming. This surplus,  like any surplus in industry or commerce, is what we usually call ‘profit.  

Employers obtain their net profits only after they have paid all expenses arising out of their  business activities interest, rentals, payments for machinery wages and overheads generally. The  surplus is not usually available only for employers and their families. Normally part of it goes to  those who have provided the initial capital needed to start a business. There is always an element of  risk in providing capital for new businesses. Such businesses may fail. Roth those who provide the  capital and those who run the businesses agree to bear the risk, but employees of such businesses are  no expected to bear any risk. If the business is successful, the risk-taking has been justified and  invested capital earns part of the profits as a return on the investment and the period during which the  capital was at risk. 

Capital in this instance is simply the accumulation of previous surpluses on previous business  activities. In this way the past is used to finance the future. The accumulation of capital is almost always deliberate, either on the part of individual citizens or on the part of the state. Even in noncapitalist  societies a certain part of the surplus achieved in any enterprise is ploughed back’ into the  system in order to promote further growth.  When capital, labour and enterprise combine to make a w business successful, the business  must still continue to compete on the market with other companies producing the same type of  commodity. The term ‘market’ as used by economists, is a logical extension from the idea of a place  set aside for buying and selling. Formerly, part of town was kept as a marketplace, and country  people would come in on market days -to buy and sell. Markets today need not however be located  in any fixed place: the sugar market and the cotton market are not geographical locations, and simply  sets of conditions which permit buyers and sellers to work together.

In a free market, competition takes place among sellers in order to sell their commodities at  the best possible price, and among buyers in order to obtain what they want at a price which suits  them. Such competition influences prices. Changes in supply and demand have their effects, and it is  not surprising that considerable fluctuations in price can take place over periods of weeks and  months.

Since these modern markets are not normally located in any special place, buys and sellers do  not always have to meet face-to-face. They may communicate by letter, by cable, by telephone or  through their agents. In a perfect market, such communications are easy, buyers and sellers are  numerous and competition is completely unimpeded. In a perfect market there can be only one price  for any given commodity: the lowest price which sellers will accept. There are, however, no really  perfect markets. because each market is subject to its own peculiar conditions, It can be said however  that the price ruling in a market indicates the point where supply and demand meet.     (50)

3. Use any ten of the following idiomatic expression in meaningful sentences:
(a) break out (b) call off
(c) come by (d) fall out
(e) go in for (f) give away
(g) let off (h) make out
(i) make off with (j) run down
(k) send for (l) set up
(m) take to (n) turn out
(o) turn up (p) wear out
(q) wind up (r) work out
(s) write off (t) write out        (20)

4. Copy the following table on your answer-book arid supply the missing parts of speech.
ADJECTIVE NOUN ADVERB VERBS

1. Dependent

2. Concept

3. Function

4. Comfortably

5. Maturity

6. Prosperous

7. Characteristically

8. Suspicion

9. Cheerfully

10. Sympathetic

5. Correct any ten of the following sentences:
(a) The inventor deserves praise when he would devise an imaginative tool.
(b) Technological advances bring put social changes
(c) The whole nation condoled the Mahatma’s death.
(d) Will science save the humanity from the peril of water famine?
(e) Their youngest son walks to the school
(f) He is used to change cars every two years.
(g) Who is younger of the two brothers?
(h) Why you are talking like this?
(i) The indications are that the winter is around the corner.
(j) For many families bread and butter are usual combination at breakfast.
(k) You should know that either you or your brother ate to blame.
(l) He is hating me because he treats me as his rival.
(m) He said he was wanting a hot cup of coffee.
(n) Never in the history of this college the prizes have gone abegging.
(o) My friend has married my neighbour’s cousin last year:
(p) They came here with a view to meet my uncle.
(q) The news of the accidents are shocking.
(r) No sooner I had opened the door than the thief jumped out of the window.
(s) Americans are not found of football, isn’t it?
(t) My servant both looked after my ailing mother and crippled uncle.     (10)