UPSSSC PET ENGLISH QUIZ

Choose the option that is the indirect form of the sentence.
“Get out of this room”, the officer shouted at the cadet. 

Select the most appropriate meaning of the given idiom.

Want to curl up and die

In the following question, some parts of the sentence may have errors. Find out which part of the sentence has an error and select the appropriate option. If a sentence is free from error, select 'No Error'.

Beside going to her music classes twice a week, Garima rides horses on Saturdays.

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Both mainstream and social media are full of bad language. Bad language not as in indelicate four-letter words which oughtn’t to be used in polite company, but bad language as in the wrong use of everyday words. The other day there was a large ad in the newspaper for online degree courses being conducted under the aegis of a renowned Indian university. The courses being offered were for MBA, MCom, BCom and MA degrees, and the headline of the advertisement read: ‘A reputed online degree from’ and gave the name of the university.

The adjective ‘reputed’ means alleged, something which is said to be so but is not so in fact. Something, or someone, who is worthy of repute, or has a good reputation is said to be ‘reputable’, not reputed, which has a connotation contrary to what is sought to be conveyed. This confusion between reputed and reputable, which are antonyms, or opposing words to each other, is common in spoken and written communication. But in this particular case the error was unintentionally being endorsed, and given official sanction, by an institution of advanced learning.

So big deal. Why be so pernicketyabout the use of language and the meaning of words? Why can’t we be like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty who proudly proclaimed, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” After all, as Humpty went on to ask, should we be the master of language, or should language be our master, whose rules we must follow? Language, the bridge, or link, which joins us to each other and with what we call society as a whole, is based on a set of common rules we must all follow if we are to understand and make sense of each other at all. If, like Humpty Dumpty, we make language follow our rules, instead of the other way round, language becomes a barrier not a bridge between us. Which is exactly what is happening between those who impart opposing meanings to words like ‘liberalism’, ‘secularist’, ‘dissent’, ‘nationalism’, among others. All of which might make us ask whether ours is a reputable democracy, or a reputed one. Or are the two interchangeable?

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Both mainstream and social media are full of bad language. Bad language not as in indelicate four-letter words which oughtn’t to be used in polite company, but bad language as in the wrong use of everyday words. The other day there was a large ad in the newspaper for online degree courses being conducted under the aegis of a renowned Indian university. The courses being offered were for MBA, MCom, BCom and MA degrees, and the headline of the advertisement read: ‘A reputed online degree from’ and gave the name of the university.

The adjective ‘reputed’ means alleged, something which is said to be so but is not so in fact. Something, or someone, who is worthy of repute, or has a good reputation is said to be ‘reputable’, not reputed, which has a connotation contrary to what is sought to be conveyed. This confusion between reputed and reputable, which are antonyms, or opposing words to each other, is common in spoken and written communication. But in this particular case the error was unintentionally being endorsed, and given official sanction, by an institution of advanced learning.

So big deal. Why be so pernicketyabout the use of language and the meaning of words? Why can’t we be like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty who proudly proclaimed, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” After all, as Humpty went on to ask, should we be the master of language, or should language be our master, whose rules we must follow? Language, the bridge, or link, which joins us to each other and with what we call society as a whole, is based on a set of common rules we must all follow if we are to understand and make sense of each other at all. If, like Humpty Dumpty, we make language follow our rules, instead of the other way round, language becomes a barrier not a bridge between us. Which is exactly what is happening between those who impart opposing meanings to words like ‘liberalism’, ‘secularist’, ‘dissent’, ‘nationalism’, among others. All of which might make us ask whether ours is a reputable democracy, or a reputed one. Or are the two interchangeable?