Instructions: –
1. Attempt all the questions.
2. Once you have completed all the questions of a particular section click on the submit button for scores and explanations then move to the next sections.
3. For each correct answer, you receive 1 mark. For this mock, there is no negative marking.
English Language
Each set of questions in this section is based on a single passage. Please answer each question based on what is stated or implied in the corresponding passage. In some instances, more than one option may be the answer to the question; in such a case, please choose the option that most accurately and comprehensively answers the question.
To be lucky, it’s often essential to be open and alert to the unexpected. Consider an entertaining experiment that the British psychologist Richard Wiseman carried out for a BBC TV show some time ago, which involved just two people: one who saw himself as ‘lucky’, and one who identified herself as ‘unlucky’. The researchers asked both participants to take separate trips to a coffee shop outside which they’d placed a £5 note on the pavement. Inside, someone posing as a successful businessman sat at the table by the counter. The ‘lucky person’ approached, spotted the money and picked it up. Inside, he ordered a coffee, sat next to the businessman and struck up a conversation with him. The self-described ‘unlucky’ person, on the other hand, failed to notice the money or talk to the businessman. Later, the researchers asked both participants how their day had been. The ‘lucky’ person reported having had a great day – he’d found money in the street, and made a new friend (who might lead him to additional opportunities). Meanwhile, the ‘unlucky’ person described her day as uneventful. So, although both participants had the same chances, only one was able to ‘see’ them.
Such an experiment – while lighthearted – shows that your mindset, and how you think about possibility in your life, can affect your ability to be alert when opportunity occurs. In fact, the terms ‘unexpected’, ‘extraordinary’ and ‘unlikely’ are misleading because accidents or coincidences happen all the time. But we must be able to see the opportunity in the moment. Although being alert to the unexpected is vital for creating smart luck, there is another key factor: preparation. This is partly about removing the barriers to serendipity, both mental (your mindset) and physical (the spaces you live and interact in), such as: overloaded schedules; senseless meetings; and the inefficiencies throughout your day that rob you of time, curiosity and a sense of joy. You can prepare by strengthening your mental readiness to connect with opportunity and creating an environment that enables the use of your skills and available resources to act on the moment. An unprepared mind often discards unusual encounters, thereby missing the opportunities for smart luck. But this is a learned behavior. Preparation is about developing the capacity to accelerate and harness the positive coincidences that show up in life.
Quantitative Techniques
An online website of electronic items is selling five different Bluetooth speakers viz. JBL, Sony, Philips, Infinity and Bose wireless speakers. The selling information of these five wireless speakers is given below.
The marked price of JBL speaker is Rs. 6000 and if two successive discounts, each of x% on the marked price are equal to a single discount of Rs. 1140. The marked price of Sony speaker is 260/3 % of the marked price of JBL speaker and the selling price of Sony speaker after two successive discounts, each of y% on the marked price is Rs. 4026.88.
The marked price of Philips speaker is the average of the marked price of JBL speaker and Sony speaker together and the selling price of Philips speaker after two successive discounts of 15% and z% on the marked price is Rs. 4284.
The marked price of Infinity speaker is Rs. A and the selling price after x% discount is Rs. 3600. The marked price of Bose speaker is Rs. B and the discount of a% on the marked price is equal to Rs. 390. The marked price of Bose speaker is (15/26)th of the marked price of Sony speaker.
Logical Reasoning
India is pioneering the concept of digital public goods that enhance the ease, transparency and speed with which individuals, markets and governments interact with each other. Built on the foundation of Aadhaar and India Stack, modular applications, big and small, are transforming the way we make payments, withdraw our PF, get our passport and driving licence and check land records, to name just a few activities.
So, there is an opportunity for India to embark on digital diplomacy — to take its made-in-India digital public goods to hundreds of emerging economies across the world. This could be a strategic and effective counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The cost of setting up an open source-based high school online educational infrastructure, to supplement the physical infrastructure, for an entire country is less than laying two kilometres of high-quality road. The investments required for transporting digital public goods are minuscule in comparison and there is no chance of a debt trap.
It is a fact that the emerging economies are characterised by gross inefficiencies in the delivery of government services and a consequent trust deficit. Digital public goods spread speed, transparency, ease and productivity across the individual-government-market ecosystem and enhance inclusivity, equity and development at scale. It eliminates ghost beneficiaries of government services, removes touts collecting rent, creates an audit trail, makes the individual-government-market interface transparent and provides efficiencies that help recoup the investments quickly. Processes get streamlined and wait times for any service come down dramatically. Therefore, pursuing digital diplomacy will take made-in-India digital public goods across the world and boost India’s brand positioning as a leading technology player in the digital age. It will enable quick, visible and compounding benefits for India’s partner countries and earn India immense goodwill.
Legal Reasoning
One of the key problems we face when articulating peace as the fundamental value that international law exists to serve is that the international community appears to lack a universally accepted definition.
Within theory there are two components of peace. The first is negative peace, which refers to the absence of war or armed conflict. The majority of peace research has focused on this category—exploring the prevention of war, termination of war, transition from war, etc. Within the UN Charter, this is encapsulated by Article 2(4): “Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” It is important to note that the UN Charter sets forth the rule of prohibition of the use of force but provides two exceptions: self-defence in accord with Article 51 or authorization by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII. The current regime is one of realistic peace, which recognizes the exceptions, not principled peace, which is absolute, with no exceptions permitted. Indeed, much of the literature actually addresses these exceptions as well as the challenges presented by increased use of humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect (R2P) actions, and recent use of military force against nonstate actors where host states are “unable or unwilling” to address terrorist threats, all of which suffer from questionable legality and legitimacy. The United Nations requires states to be “peace loving” in order to join; further, it indicates that states have an obligation to settle disputes by peaceful means according to Article 2(3) and sets forth a sequence where states first shall seek nonviolent dispute resolution according to Article 33. This is a part of the UN Charter that is often overlooked.
The second component is positive peace, which refers to cooperation between states and peoples, social justice, respect for human rights, including equality and nondiscrimination, and the elimination of structural violence that causes inequality, poverty, and exclusion. This was advocated by Johan Galtung, but later was correlated with communism or utopianism, and hence peace research returned to examining negative peace instead. It may be argued that there is a need to pursue positive peace policies. Article 55 of the UN Charter indicates that peace has inter- and intrastate dimensions and underscores the relevance of institutions to promote development and human rights as preconditions for peace. This links back to the Kantian vision of the triad of mutual democracies, development, and cooperation. We recognize the contribution of FAO, IFAD, UNESCO, WHO, ILO, World Bank, IMF, WTO DSM, UN Climate Change Regime and the UN Environment Programme, UN Oceans, the UN human rights committees, and UN programs addressing sustainable development and poverty reduction. The question is to what extent is the positive peace vision is altered by the recession of democracies in the world and the increased trend toward authoritarianism.
Current Affairs & General Knowledge
In a groundbreaking study that shifts our view of the universe, astronomers have revealed a “black hole triple” system-the first-ever found in the universe-an unprecedented discovery in astrophysics. The astonishing stellar configuration lies about 8,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation
Cygnus, comprises a central black hole, V404 Cygni, and two stars-one in a tight orbit and the other at a much greater distance. The results featured in the scientific journal Nature, which centers on that work’s contribution to new definitions of astrophysical principles.
Scientists have always been captivated by black holes. Such phenomena push physics past its established limits. It is identified by an extremely strong gravitational field, with nothing at all, even light, able to leave once caught in it. The conventional astronomical lore would be that such things happen when the massive stars burn through their nuclear fuel, explode as supernovae. This finding of this black hole triple system challenges this conventional story and implies something a little more complex.
The triple system has three different parts: the central black hole, V404 Cygni, of nearly nine times the Sun, and a companion star orbiting the black hole every 6.5 days. The third part is a more distant star that completes its orbit in an astonishing 70,000 years. This configuration is also different from most of the binary systems previously detected – thus underlining the complexity of the system, and probably to much more.
It was during the researchers’ study of data based on observations by a telescope group that they serendipitously stumbled upon their most crucial discovery: they found that the two stars were gravitationally connected with the central black hole in such a way that implies a dynamic history of evolution that could be common in similar systems.
Significantly, the authors forward a new model for the generation of the V404 Cygni, a “direct collapse,” where a star of significant mass collapses into itself, rather than exploding as most stars do and therefore, without the ejection of matter that characterizes a supernova, an event properly defined as a “failed supernova.” This hypothesis not only challenges the previous theory but also asks for a review of the black hole-building processes which take place in all of the cosmos.
Indeed, these results have implications that extend far beyond astrophysical research. The discovery of a black hole triple system raises deep questions about the ways that the life cycles of celestial objects unfold, postulating many binary systems could start life as triples wherein black holes consume their companions over time. As V404 Cygni continues its gravitational feast, so the dynamics in the unique system will evolve toward other changes and insights.