List of top English Questions

What is the meaning of "Talking nineteen to the dozen"?

Statement: Should one close relative of a retiring government employee be given a job in government in India?
Arguments:
I. Yes where else will the relatives get a job like this?
II. No, it will close doors of government service to competent and needy youth.

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
Paragraph 1: When you are the chief executive of a public company, the temptation to opt for a merger or acquisition is great indeed. Many such bosses may get a call every week or so from an investment banker eager to offer the kind of deal that is sure to boost profits. Plenty of those calls are proving fruitful. In the first three quarters of 2017, just over $2.5trn-worth of transactions were agreed globally, according to Dealogic, a data provider. The total was virtually unchanged from the same period in 2016, but the number in Europe, the Middle East and Africa was up by 21%.
Paragraph 2: It is easy to understand why an executive opts for a deal. Buying another business looks like decisive action, and is a lot easier than coming up with a new, bestselling product. Furthermore, being the acquirer is far more appealing than being the prey; better to be the butcher than the cattle. A takeover may keep activist hedge funds off the management’s back for a while longer. And being in charge of a much bigger company is a more demanding task that will surely justify a larger salary for the executives in charge.
Paragraph 3: But these temptations, good and bad, should generally be resisted. S&P Global Market Intelligence, a research arm of the ratings agency, has updated a study on the impact of deals on the acquiring company’s share price. The study looked at M&A deals done by listed companies in America’s Russell 3000 index between January 2001 and August 2017; deals were only included if they cost more than 5% of the total enterprise value of the acquirer (5% of the equity value, for financial companies). The acquirers’ shares underperformed the market and those of rival firms in the same industry
Paragraph 4: That share-price performance was understandable, in the light of what tended to happen to the fundamentals of the acquiring company’s business. The study finds that, relative to the company’s peer group, net profit margins fall, as do the returns on capital and on equity; earnings per share grow less quickly; and both debt and interest expenses increase. As the deal is done, however, the executives always sound bullish. Costs will be cut, the companies will benefit from selling a wide range of products and so on; a whole range of “synergies” will be achieved. Instead, the combined companies tend to suffer from clashes of culture and teething problems as systems prove hard to integrate. The AOL-Time Warner merger of 2000 is perhaps the most famous example of a dysfunctional deal; at the time, it was one of the biggest mergers in corporate history. Not every deal is that bad. But instead of two plus two equaling the promised five, all too often they add up to three-and-a-half.
What is the tone of the author in the passage?

Choose the appropriate word to fill in the blank: What prevented her ______________ coming?

The large-scale _____ of troops by the Syrian government and its allies around the province, has led to speculation about an ______ attack as well as calls to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

It was very cold outside, and the fire we lit was dimming down; hence I decided to ______ it a bit.

Identify figure of speech in the following sentence: "A child is a fire to lit, not a vase to be filled."

Which conjunction can fill in the following sentence? He had a severe tooth pain ______________ he visited a doctor.

Make common cause with

Which Adverb can be filled in the following sentence? He appeared ______________ excited to see his mother.

Largesse?(Vocabulary Based)

Choose Correct Active/Passive Voice Conversion
Please help me.

Choose the correct Synonym
Breach

My tooth was aching so I went to the dentist?

Each set of questions in this section is based on the passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. For some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the questions.
In order to understand the development of Gangetic Valley plains, scholars have traditionally relied primarily on evidence from historical documents. However, such documentary sources provide a fragmentary record at best. Reliable accounts are very scarce for many parts of Northern India prior to the fifteenth century, and many of the relevant documents from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries focus selectively on matters relating to cultural or commercial interests.
Studies of fossilized pollens preserved in peats and lake muds provide an additional means of investigating vegetative landscape change. Details of changes in vegetation resulting from both human activities and natural events are reflected in the kinds and quantities of minute pollens that become trapped in sediments. Analysis of samples can identify which kinds of plants produced the preserved pollens and when they were deposited, and in many cases the findings can serve to supplement or correct the documentary record.
For example, analysis of samples from a bay in Jammu has revealed significant patterns of cercal-grain pollens beginning by about fourth century. The substantial clay content of the soil in this part of Jammu makes cultivation by primitive tools difficult. Historians thought that such soils were not tilled to any significant extent until the introduction of the wooden plough to India in the seventh century. Because cereal cultivation would have required tiling of the soil, the pollens evidence indicates that these soils must indeed have been successfully tilled before the introduction of the new plough.
Another example concerns flax cultivation in Jammu, one of the great linen-producing areas of India during the sixteenth century. Some aspects of linen production in Jammu are well documented, but the documentary record tells little about the cultivation of flax, the plant from which linen is made, in that area. The record of sixteenth-century linen production in Jammu, together with the knowledge that flax cultivation had been established in India centuries before that time, led some historians to surmise that this plant was being cultivated in Jammu before the sixteenth century. But pollens analyses indicate that this is not the case; flax pollens were found only in deposits laid down since the sixteenth century.
It must be stressed, though, that there are limits to the ability of the pollen record to reflect the vegetative history of the landscape. For example, pollen analysis cannot identify the species, but only the genus or family, of some plants. Among these is turmeric, a cultivated plant of medicinal importance in India. Turmeric belongs to a plant family that also comprises various native weeds, including Brahma Thandu. If Turmeric pollen were present in a deposit it would be indistinguishable from that of uncultivated native species.