It can be inferred according to the passage that

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

Which among the following rulings of the Madras H. C. has been labelled 'Impractical' by the Apex court?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

According to the passage, who among the following options had never delivered a progressive rights led ruling in the Apex court?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

It can be inferred from the passage that

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

What figure of speech is used by the author to describe the humming bird?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Many of the South American animals inspire the fascination which comes from revulsion.  Shoals of cannibal fish infest the rivers waiting to rip the flesh from any animal which tumbles among them, and vampire bats, a legend in Europe but a grim reality in South America, fly out at night from their roosts in the forests to suck blood from cows and men.

What is the main purpose of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

"Most of her life, she spent in Calcutta," she declared. "She felt more Indian than any other citizenship."— New York Times

The Savannahs are found generally in _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Many of the South American animals inspire the fascination which comes from revulsion.  Shoals of cannibal fish infest the rivers waiting to rip the flesh from any animal which tumbles among them, and vampire bats, a legend in Europe but a grim reality in South America, fly out at night from their roosts in the forests to suck blood from cows and men.

The passage does not answer which one of the following questions?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

"Most of her life, she spent in Calcutta," she declared. "She felt more Indian than any other citizenship."— New York Times

It is reasonable to infer from the passage that Mrs. Sennett asked, ''Are those children making too much noise?'' because Mrs. Sennett _________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.

What is the main insight suggested by the conversation given in the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.

Considering the events of the entire passage, it is most reasonable to infer that Mrs. Sennett calls the children bad because she ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.

'Familiarity breeds contempt'. In the passage an illustration of this proverb can be found in the phrase __________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Many of the South American animals inspire the fascination which comes from revulsion.  Shoals of cannibal fish infest the rivers waiting to rip the flesh from any animal which tumbles among them, and vampire bats, a legend in Europe but a grim reality in South America, fly out at night from their roosts in the forests to suck blood from cows and men.

The overall tone of the passage is _________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:
Laws directly tell us how to behave (or not to behave) under various specific circumstances and prescribe remedies or punishments for individuals who do not comply with the law. It can be defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Legal principles are often derived from ethical ones, but legal principles deal more with the practical regulation of morality, or behaviours and activities. Additionally many legal principles deal with the inadequacies and imperfections in human nature, and the less than ideal behaviours of individuals or groups. Legal practices are also affected more by historical precedent, matters of definition, issues related to detectability and enforceability and evolution of new circumstances than are ethical ones.

Law is also defined as a body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. The law of the Medes and the Persians were regarded as unalterable. While in ancient times the king laid down the law and the people implicitly obeyed him, in modern times laws are made by legislatures, popularly elected or partially nominated. These laws, whatever their source, are binding injunctions; if they were not binding and if their compliance with them were not obligatory, they would not be laws but mere wishes which could be treated as optional. It is the element of compulsion that distinguishes a law from an ordinary directive or expression of desire. Laws enacted by legislatures have also to be distinguished from laws of nature that indicates regularity and invariable sequence between specified conditions and specified phenomena.

All man–made laws are designed to regulate human conduct in the interest of society. In absence of such rules each person would regard himself free to do what he likes, regardless of impact of his actions on others' corresponding right of freedom of action. In fact, the very existence of society would be endangered if there were no universally recognized laws. A lawless society would mean endless confusion, possibly a reign of terror, and might result in a terrible mess where the only effective law of the jungle. Before regular laws were enacted and enforced, might was right: the physically stronger individual dominated the set–up and the weak person had perforce to surrender to the wishes of the might one or get destroyed. Laws thus enforce justice; provide equal rights and opportunities to everyone, weak or strong, male or female, rich or poor.

By which of the following options the theme of the passage is best expressed?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:
Laws directly tell us how to behave (or not to behave) under various specific circumstances and prescribe remedies or punishments for individuals who do not comply with the law. It can be defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Legal principles are often derived from ethical ones, but legal principles deal more with the practical regulation of morality, or behaviours and activities. Additionally many legal principles deal with the inadequacies and imperfections in human nature, and the less than ideal behaviours of individuals or groups. Legal practices are also affected more by historical precedent, matters of definition, issues related to detectability and enforceability and evolution of new circumstances than are ethical ones.

Law is also defined as a body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. The law of the Medes and the Persians were regarded as unalterable. While in ancient times the king laid down the law and the people implicitly obeyed him, in modern times laws are made by legislatures, popularly elected or partially nominated. These laws, whatever their source, are binding injunctions; if they were not binding and if their compliance with them were not obligatory, they would not be laws but mere wishes which could be treated as optional. It is the element of compulsion that distinguishes a law from an ordinary directive or expression of desire. Laws enacted by legislatures have also to be distinguished from laws of nature that indicates regularity and invariable sequence between specified conditions and specified phenomena.

All man–made laws are designed to regulate human conduct in the interest of society. In absence of such rules each person would regard himself free to do what he likes, regardless of impact of his actions on others' corresponding right of freedom of action. In fact, the very existence of society would be endangered if there were no universally recognized laws. A lawless society would mean endless confusion, possibly a reign of terror, and might result in a terrible mess where the only effective law of the jungle. Before regular laws were enacted and enforced, might was right: the physically stronger individual dominated the set–up and the weak person had perforce to surrender to the wishes of the might one or get destroyed. Laws thus enforce justice; provide equal rights and opportunities to everyone, weak or strong, male or female, rich or poor.

Which among the following statements can be inferred from the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

"Most of her life, she spent in Calcutta," she declared. "She felt more Indian than any other citizenship."— New York Times

Which among the following statements can be inferred from the passage? I. Mother Teresa was actually a Serbian. II. People are fighting against the basic place where Mother Teresa lived.
III. The controversy around Mother's states actually highlights the underlying ethnic strains in the Balban Society.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

"Most of her life, she spent in Calcutta," she declared. "She felt more Indian than any other citizenship."— New York Times

Considering how Mrs. Sennett is portrayed in the passage, it is most reasonable to infer that the word ravaged, as it is used, most nearly means that her face reveals _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.

A shoal of fish can be substituted by ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Many of the South American animals inspire the fascination which comes from revulsion.  Shoals of cannibal fish infest the rivers waiting to rip the flesh from any animal which tumbles among them, and vampire bats, a legend in Europe but a grim reality in South America, fly out at night from their roosts in the forests to suck blood from cows and men.

Which of these would not be an outcome of absence of laws?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:
Laws directly tell us how to behave (or not to behave) under various specific circumstances and prescribe remedies or punishments for individuals who do not comply with the law. It can be defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Legal principles are often derived from ethical ones, but legal principles deal more with the practical regulation of morality, or behaviours and activities. Additionally many legal principles deal with the inadequacies and imperfections in human nature, and the less than ideal behaviours of individuals or groups. Legal practices are also affected more by historical precedent, matters of definition, issues related to detectability and enforceability and evolution of new circumstances than are ethical ones.

Law is also defined as a body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. The law of the Medes and the Persians were regarded as unalterable. While in ancient times the king laid down the law and the people implicitly obeyed him, in modern times laws are made by legislatures, popularly elected or partially nominated. These laws, whatever their source, are binding injunctions; if they were not binding and if their compliance with them were not obligatory, they would not be laws but mere wishes which could be treated as optional. It is the element of compulsion that distinguishes a law from an ordinary directive or expression of desire. Laws enacted by legislatures have also to be distinguished from laws of nature that indicates regularity and invariable sequence between specified conditions and specified phenomena.

All man–made laws are designed to regulate human conduct in the interest of society. In absence of such rules each person would regard himself free to do what he likes, regardless of impact of his actions on others' corresponding right of freedom of action. In fact, the very existence of society would be endangered if there were no universally recognized laws. A lawless society would mean endless confusion, possibly a reign of terror, and might result in a terrible mess where the only effective law of the jungle. Before regular laws were enacted and enforced, might was right: the physically stronger individual dominated the set–up and the weak person had perforce to surrender to the wishes of the might one or get destroyed. Laws thus enforce justice; provide equal rights and opportunities to everyone, weak or strong, male or female, rich or poor.

The details and events in the passage suggest that the friendship between the narrator and Mrs. Sennett would most accurately be described as ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.

One of the functions of laws, which is not mentioned in the passage is _________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:
Laws directly tell us how to behave (or not to behave) under various specific circumstances and prescribe remedies or punishments for individuals who do not comply with the law. It can be defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Legal principles are often derived from ethical ones, but legal principles deal more with the practical regulation of morality, or behaviours and activities. Additionally many legal principles deal with the inadequacies and imperfections in human nature, and the less than ideal behaviours of individuals or groups. Legal practices are also affected more by historical precedent, matters of definition, issues related to detectability and enforceability and evolution of new circumstances than are ethical ones.

Law is also defined as a body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. The law of the Medes and the Persians were regarded as unalterable. While in ancient times the king laid down the law and the people implicitly obeyed him, in modern times laws are made by legislatures, popularly elected or partially nominated. These laws, whatever their source, are binding injunctions; if they were not binding and if their compliance with them were not obligatory, they would not be laws but mere wishes which could be treated as optional. It is the element of compulsion that distinguishes a law from an ordinary directive or expression of desire. Laws enacted by legislatures have also to be distinguished from laws of nature that indicates regularity and invariable sequence between specified conditions and specified phenomena.

All man–made laws are designed to regulate human conduct in the interest of society. In absence of such rules each person would regard himself free to do what he likes, regardless of impact of his actions on others' corresponding right of freedom of action. In fact, the very existence of society would be endangered if there were no universally recognized laws. A lawless society would mean endless confusion, possibly a reign of terror, and might result in a terrible mess where the only effective law of the jungle. Before regular laws were enacted and enforced, might was right: the physically stronger individual dominated the set–up and the weak person had perforce to surrender to the wishes of the might one or get destroyed. Laws thus enforce justice; provide equal rights and opportunities to everyone, weak or strong, male or female, rich or poor.

The second paragraph of the passage opens with a striking sentence. What method does the author employ to achieve its effect?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Many of the South American animals inspire the fascination which comes from revulsion.  Shoals of cannibal fish infest the rivers waiting to rip the flesh from any animal which tumbles among them, and vampire bats, a legend in Europe but a grim reality in South America, fly out at night from their roosts in the forests to suck blood from cows and men.

What is the primary purpose of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

A unique characteristic of the law of nature is ______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:
Laws directly tell us how to behave (or not to behave) under various specific circumstances and prescribe remedies or punishments for individuals who do not comply with the law. It can be defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Legal principles are often derived from ethical ones, but legal principles deal more with the practical regulation of morality, or behaviours and activities. Additionally many legal principles deal with the inadequacies and imperfections in human nature, and the less than ideal behaviours of individuals or groups. Legal practices are also affected more by historical precedent, matters of definition, issues related to detectability and enforceability and evolution of new circumstances than are ethical ones.

Law is also defined as a body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. The law of the Medes and the Persians were regarded as unalterable. While in ancient times the king laid down the law and the people implicitly obeyed him, in modern times laws are made by legislatures, popularly elected or partially nominated. These laws, whatever their source, are binding injunctions; if they were not binding and if their compliance with them were not obligatory, they would not be laws but mere wishes which could be treated as optional. It is the element of compulsion that distinguishes a law from an ordinary directive or expression of desire. Laws enacted by legislatures have also to be distinguished from laws of nature that indicates regularity and invariable sequence between specified conditions and specified phenomena.

All man–made laws are designed to regulate human conduct in the interest of society. In absence of such rules each person would regard himself free to do what he likes, regardless of impact of his actions on others' corresponding right of freedom of action. In fact, the very existence of society would be endangered if there were no universally recognized laws. A lawless society would mean endless confusion, possibly a reign of terror, and might result in a terrible mess where the only effective law of the jungle. Before regular laws were enacted and enforced, might was right: the physically stronger individual dominated the set–up and the weak person had perforce to surrender to the wishes of the might one or get destroyed. Laws thus enforce justice; provide equal rights and opportunities to everyone, weak or strong, male or female, rich or poor.

Given the evidence provided throughout the passage, the children probably silently mouth the word no because ________

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)

My expression must have changed. Are those children making too much noise? Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head in no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone–deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eighteenth–century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage. The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's sit down was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six–inch–square piece of spice cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen–finish paper:

Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning?

Very sincerely yours, 
Carmen Sennett

One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset. Papa came today, she said, and we've got to go back day after tomorrow.

Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here? 
She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year she came back, but now she means it. 
I said, Oh dear, scarcely knowing which side I was on.
It was awful at supper. I cried and cried. 
Did Theresa cry? 
Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do.
But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest? 
Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did. 
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to help settle. She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish–grandee air.

This isn't really goodbye, she said. I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my 
hands.  But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, No! No! No! to her with their puckered–up mouths.