CSS Forums - English Precis and Composition KPK 2010

[CENTER][B]KHYBER PUKHTOON KHWA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION,PESHAWAR
SUBJECT:- COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR THE POST OF PROVINCIAL MANAGEMENT SERVICE (BPS-17)

ENGLISH PRECIS AND COMPOSITION[/B]
[/CENTER]

Time allowed: 3 hours
Max marks:100

[B]Note: i) Attempt ALL questions. Marks will be deducted for incorrect use of language. Extra attempt of any question not is considered.
ii) Candidate must draw two straight lines (=====) at the end to
separate each question attempted in answer book.[/B]

Q.1 Read the following Passage and answer the questions that follow: (20)

During the last few decades, medicine has undoubtedly advanced by huge strides in consequence of innumerable discoveries and inventions. But have we actually become healthier as a result of this progress? Admittedly, Tuberculosis or Cholera is today a much rarer cause of death in many countries. On the other hand, various other no less dangerous diseases have appeared which we term” Time diseases". They include not only certain impairments of the heart and the circulatory system, of the skeletal structure and internal organs, but also an increased psychic instability, the addiction to all manner of drugs etc. and states of nervous shock and exhaustion.

According to Bodamer,"Man's hysterical and vain attempt to overtax and do violence to his nature in order to adjust it to the technical world leads to a dangerous threat to health". In other words, our organs can no longer cope with the noise, the bustle, and all the inevitable concomitants of our modern civilization. A man's body is simply not a machine to be used as he think fit, and as long as he likes. It is some thing living, a part of the image of GOD in which we were created. That is why the body has a rhythm of its own, a rhythm that can make itself heard.

The most deep-seated of all the diseases of our time is that man no longer takes GOD into account, that he has lost confidence in God’s domination over the world, that he considers the visible as the ultimate the only reality. But man without GOD suffers from his fate because he can not accept it from the hand of GOD .he suffers from the world because he senses its disordered state without being able to put it right, he begins to suffer form his work because it exhausts him without satisfying him. He begins to suffer form his fellowmen because they are not his neighbors, whom GOD would have him turn, but because he lets them get on his nerves a make him ill. and he suffers from himself because he finds himself out of tune and dissatisfied with himself .it is only because our time is no longer centered in GOD that its structure is increasingly becoming what critics of our civilization call “pathological” dominated by the fear of life as well as by the lust of life, ending in the splitting of personality.

i) How does the expression “time diseases” indicate that these various ailments have some thing fundamental in common? Explain.
ii) Why does modern man suffer from his time? It is not because he has not adapted his body sufficiently to the demands of the machine. It is not rather, because he has surrendered his soul to time and its powers.
iii) What cure would you suggest to combat these ills?
iv) Explain the last sentence fully.

Q.2 Write a precise of 100 words of the following passage. Suggest a suitable title. (20)

Climate influences labour not only by enervating the labourer or by invigorating him, but also by the effect if produces on the regularity if his habits. Thus, we find that no people living in very Northern latitude have ever possessed that steady and unflinching industry for which the inhabitants of temperate region are remarkable. In the more northern countries, the severity of the weather and at some seasons the deficiency of light; render it impossible for the people to continue their usual out of door employment. the result is that he working classes being compelled to cease form their ordinary pursuits are rendered more prone to desultory habits, the chain of their industry is as it were broken and they lose that arises a national character more fitful and capricious than that possessed by people whose climate permits the regular exercise of their ordinary industry . Indeed so powerful is this principle that we perceive its operation even under the most opposite circumstances. It would be difficult to conceive a greater difference in government laws religion and manner than that which distinguishes Sweden and Norway on the one hand from Spain and Portugal on the other .but these four countries have one great point in common. In all of them continued agricultural industry is impracticable. In the two southern countries, labour is interrupted by the dryness of the weather and by the consequent stat of the soil. In the Northern countries, the same effect is produced by the severity of the winter and the shortness of days. The consequence is that these four nations though so different in other aspects are all remarkable for a certain instability and fickleness of character.

Q.3 Explains the meaning of any five of the following. (05)

i) Enervate.
ii) Invigorate.
iii) Impetus.
iv) Capricious
v) Impracticable
vi) Severity
vii) Instability
viii) Fickleness

Q.4 Chose the word nearest in meaning to the word in capitals (Attempt only five) (05)

1) ABATE
a) rebate
b) lessen
c) essence
d) obvious

2) AUGMENT
a) boost
b) diminish
c) degrade
d) respect

3) BELATED
a) overdue
b) punctual
c) influential
d) repudiate

4) BENIGN
a) tenfold
b) peaceful
c) blessed
d) gentle

5) COLLUSION
a) consistence
b) confrontation
c) connivance
d) bustle

6) ENIGMA
a) work
b) problem
c) solution
d) question

b) use any five of the following in sentences, which illustrate the meaning of the idiom. (10)

i) Twiddle with
ii) Look large
iii) Besetting sin
iv) To hang fire
v) Off the wall
vi) Wear the pants in the family.

Q.5 Change the following into reported speech. attempt only five. any extra attempt will not be considered. (10)

i) The teacher said, “The earth goes round the sun.”
ii) He said, “Will you listen to such a man”?
iii) The police said to us, “Where are you going?”
iv) He said to him, “Please wait here till I return”.
v) He shouted, “Let me go”.
vi) He said, “Alas! I am undone.”
vii) Alice said, "How clever I am!”

b) Make up five groups of three words, which are similar in meaning, or area of usage. (10)

Excerpt
Scum
Moor
Lather
Lung
Froth
Passage
Fragment
Jab
Universal
Stab
Cosmic
Infinite
Berth
Anchor

Q.6 Write about 250 words on one of the following. (20)

i) How free is the press?
ii) The lure of fashion.
iii) A world without women.
iv) Children should be seen not heard.