Urbanization – the demographic shift from country to city – began with industrialization, and it has not let up. In 1900,fewer than 15 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Fifty years later, that number had doubled to 30 percent of the world’s population of 750 million. By 2000, 2.9 billion people, or 47 percent of the world’s population, were living in urban areas, with the greatest growth occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In 2007, for the first time in history, the urban population exceeded 50 percent, and by 2050, according to World Health Organization (WHO), seven out of ten people will call urban areas home….
Contrary to common belief, fewer than 10 percent of urban dwellers are residents of megacities with populations of over ten million. A megacity consists of the city proper and its adjoining suburban centers. An example is the New York‐Newark aggregation, which in 1950 was the world’s only megacity; by 2011, it was the sixth largest of 21 megacities. The population of Greater Tokyo, the world’s largest urban area and home to 36.7 million residents, is forecast to exceed 37 million by 2020.Megaciites Mumbai, Delhi, Dhaka, and Lagos, which do not yet appear on the Top Ten list, are steadily moving up the ladder. About half of the world’s urban dwellers live in cities of under half a million people, and these cities continue to outpace megacities in growth.
While the benefits of developed infrastructure, public transportation system, employment opportunities, better health care, and education, plus a wide range of services, make cities the place to live, work, and enjoy, they are plagued with enormous problems. As engines of growth, cities have also become engines of pollution, traffic congestion, waste production, and environmental destruction….
In the 1960s, the concept of urban ecology emerged from the growing awareness of cities’ impact on the environment. In 1975, the nonprofit organization Urban Ecology was founded in Berkeley, California, with the purpose of rebuilding cities in balance with nature. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro established Agenda 21, a plan for the sustainable development of cities, and in 2002, 1,200 representatives (including 200 slum dwellers) from 80 countries participated in the first World Urban Forum, making urban ecology and sustainable eco‐cities based on environment, economy, education, equity more than just a nice idea.
Megacities are classified according to __________.
- population
- territorial area
- their ecological footprint
their GDP
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The question asks about the criteria for classifying a city as a "megacity." From the provided passage, we can determine the correct classification criterion.
-
The passage states, "Contrary to common belief, fewer than 10 percent of urban dwellers are residents of megacities with populations of over ten million." This directly indicates that the classification is based on population.
-
A megacity is defined by the size of its population rather than land area, ecological footprint, or economic output (GDP). The clear mention of population benchmarks (for example, "over ten million") signal the metric used for categorization.
-
Thus, the correct answer is "population" as it aligns with the passage's emphasis on population numbers as a defining characteristic of megacities.
Hence, based on the information provided in the passage, megacities are classified according to population.
Match each of the following meanings with the corresponding underlined words / phrases in the numbered items below:
(i) Reaching a higher position
(ii) Seriously suffering from
(iii) The absolute best
(iv) Something not very practical
______ A. “Megacities Mumbai, Delhi, Dhaka, and Lagos, which do not yet appear on the Top Ten list, are steadily moving
up the ladder.”
______ B. “... the benefits of developed infrastructure, public transportation system, employment opportunities, better
health care, and education, plus a wide range of services, make cities the place to live, work, and enjoy....”
______ C. “... they are plagued with enormous problems.”
______ D. “... making urban ecology and sustainable eco‐cities based on environment, economy, education, equity more
than just a nice idea.”
(i) Reaching a higher position
(ii) Seriously suffering from
(iii) The absolute best
(iv) Something not very practical
______ A. “Megacities Mumbai, Delhi, Dhaka, and Lagos, which do not yet appear on the Top Ten list, are steadily moving
up the ladder.”
______ B. “... the benefits of developed infrastructure, public transportation system, employment opportunities, better
health care, and education, plus a wide range of services, make cities the place to live, work, and enjoy....”
______ C. “... they are plagued with enormous problems.”
______ D. “... making urban ecology and sustainable eco‐cities based on environment, economy, education, equity more
than just a nice idea.”
- A‐(i); B‐(ii); C‐(iii); D‐(iv)
- A‐(iv); B‐(iii); C‐(ii); D‐(i)
- A‐(i); B‐(iii); C‐(ii); D‐(iv)
- A‐(iii); B‐(ii); C‐(iv); D‐(i)
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
To solve this problem, we need to match specific meanings with the corresponding underlined words/phrases from the passage provided. Let's go through each option and corresponding sentence to find the correct matches:
- Reaching a higher position: The phrase "up the ladder" in statement A is an idiom that signifies moving to a higher rank or position, often used in the context of professional advancement. Therefore, A matches with (i).
- Seriously suffering from: The word "plagued" in statement C conveys the sense of being troubled or suffering from significant issues or problems. Therefore, C matches with (ii).
- The absolute best: The benefits of a developed infrastructure, public transportation system, etc., in statement B highlight what makes cities desirable or the best places for living, working, and enjoying. Thus, B matches with (iii).
- Something not very practical: The phrase "more than just a nice idea" in statement D suggests that urban ecology and sustainable eco-cities are often considered idealistic or not very practical. Therefore, D matches with (iv).
Based on the analysis above, the correct match for each option is:
- A-(i); C-(ii); B-(iii); D-(iv)
Therefore, the correct answer is A-(i); B-(iii); C-(ii); D-(iv).
Indicate which of the two statements in the following pairs contains a main idea (M) and which contains supporting details (SD)?
(I) _____ Tokyo is the world’s largest megacity.
(II) _____ Megacities are growing, but not as rapidly as smaller cities.
(I) _____ Tokyo is the world’s largest megacity.
(II) _____ Megacities are growing, but not as rapidly as smaller cities.
- I – M & II – SD
- I – SD & II – M
- I & II both MI & II both SDHide Solution
Verified By CollegeduniaThe Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
To determine which statement contains the main idea (M) and which contains supporting details (SD), we need to analyze the content and relationship between the statements:
- Statement I: "Tokyo is the world’s largest megacity."
- This statement presents a specific fact about Tokyo being the largest megacity. It does not delve into broader concepts or trends.
- Thus, it serves as an example or illustration, typical of supporting details (SD).
- Statement II: "Megacities are growing, but not as rapidly as smaller cities."
- This statement provides a broader observation about the growth patterns of cities and contrasts the growth rate of megacities with that of smaller cities.
- It establishes a general trend and forms the main idea (M) that supports understanding the dynamics of urban growth.
Considering the above analysis, we can conclude that:
- Statement I contains the supporting detail (SD).
- Statement II presents the main idea (M).
Therefore, the correct answer is: I – SD & II – M.
Was this answer helpful?00Question: 4What does the phrasal verb “let up” means in the first sentence:Updated On: Dec 30, 2025- to come to an end
- to be less successful
- not to be working
- to be less strong
Hide SolutionVerified By CollegeduniaThe Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
To determine the meaning of the phrasal verb "let up" in the context of the given passage, it's important to analyze the sentence and the overall context. The sentence from the passage reads: "Urbanization – the demographic shift from country to city – began with industrialization, and it has not let up."
- The passage describes urbanization as a continuous and increasing trend since the start of industrialization.
- The phrase "it has not let up" indicates that this process of urbanization has been ongoing and unrelenting.
- Looking at the choices provided:
- to come to an end - This option suggests that urbanization would have stopped, which contradicts the information in the passage.
- to be less successful - This option refers to success, which is not relevant to the passage's context of continuous urbanization.
- not to be working - This option suggests a cessation of activity, which again does not fit the ongoing nature of urbanization.
- to be less strong - This option implies a decrease in intensity or strength, which aligns with the idea that urbanization has continued without diminishing.
- Therefore, the correct interpretation of "let up" in this context is "to be less strong." This aligns with the understanding that urbanization has continued robustly since industrialization, showing no signs of diminishing in strength or impact.
Thus, the correct answer is: to be less strong.
Was this answer helpful?00Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- Acrucial moderating factor in how people experience comparisons is self-esteem. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to interpret upward comparison as informative rather than threatening. They are more resilient in the face of others’ success and more likely to believe they can reach their own goals. In contrast, people with low self-esteem are more prone to interpret comparison as judgment, reinforcing negative self-views and triggering feelings of inadequacy.
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop. People with high self-esteem are less vulnerable to upward comparison, which intensifies those doubts. Those with a secure sense of self are more likely to use comparison as a learning tool. The same external stimulus—a colleague’s achievements, a friend’s popularity—can have radically different effects depending on internal stability.
Self-esteem also influences how people choose their comparison targets. Research has found that individuals often engage in “selective comparison,” seeking out those who confirm their existing beliefs about themselves. This can become a subtle form of self-sabotage. Someone who feels unworthy may subconsciously seek out targets that reinforce that sense, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority. One of the most promising antidotes to social comparison is temporal comparison—evaluating oneself not against others, but against one’s own past. This method has been shown to increase motivation and satisfaction, especially when individuals can see concrete progress. Temporal comparison activates the same reward circuits as social comparison but avoids the threat systems associated with social ranking. It also reinforces agency: individuals focus on what they can control and improve rather than what others control. In therapeutic and coaching settings, temporal comparison is used to help clients build self-efficacy and track growth over time.
Moreover, people who focus on self-improvement rather than social dominance are less likely to fall into cycles of envy or self-pity. They can still use others as inspiration, but they do so without attaching their self-worth to the outcome. This is not to say they never compare—but that they focus on learning, rather than judgment. The most skilful approach to comparison may lie in eliminating it, but in reframing it as feedback. When we interpret comparison as information rather than a verdict, we can ask, “What can I learn from this?” This shift turns comparison into a growth tool. Teachers mentor their students, not as rivals. Psychologists emphasize that the key variable here is mindset.
A fixed mindset sees comparison as a threat. If someone else is better, it means we are worse. A growth mindset sees comparison as a map. If someone else has reached a certain level, it means the path exists. This reframing is not just a cognitive trick. It changes the emotional tone of comparison, making it more likely to inspire than to wound. Reframing also requires emotional regulation—the ability to notice an initial pang of envy or shame without reacting impulsively. With practice, individuals can learn to pause, reflect, and reinterpret their emotional responses. Over time, this builds resilience and self-trust, allowing comparison to become a learning tool rather than a cage.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
When people who are talking don’t share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. You also need the flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of unshared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while demphasizing the others. Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experiences. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUITmetaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Later, I realized that reviewing the history of nuclear physics served another purpose as well: It gave the lie to the naive belief that the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humanity such a burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction—only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously—the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn’t made the discovery when they did, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons. Here was no Faustian bargain, as movie directors and other naifs still find it intellectually challenging to imagine. Here was no evil machinery that the noble scientists might hide from the problems and the generals. To the contrary, there was a high insight into how the world works, an energetic reaction, older than the earth, that science had finally devised the instruments and arrangements to coart forth. “Make it seem inevitable,” Louis Pasteur used to advise his students when they prepared to write up their discoveries. But it was. To wish that it might have been ignored or suppressed is barbarous. “Knowledge,” Niels Bohr once noted, “is itself the basis for civilization.” You cannot have the one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn’t filter for benevolence. Knowledge has consequences, not always intended, not always comfortable, but always welcome. The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “It is a profound and necessary truth,” Robert Oppenheimer would say, “that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
...Bohr proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth. Rather, he argued, the modest but relentless goal of science is “the gradual removal of prejudices.” The discovery that the earth revolves around the sun has gradually removed the prejudice that the earth is the center of the universe. The discovery of microbes is gradually removing the prejudice that disease is a punishment from God. The discovery of evolution is gradually removing the prejudice that Homo sapiens is a separate and special creation.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
As the post–World War II generation of liberal democratic leaders forged new, highly successful domestic and international institutions and policies throughout the West, the weaknesses of liberal democracy that dominated the two decades after World War II faded from view. But they did not go away.
First, because liberal democracy restrains majorities, it slows the achievement of goals that majorities support. This generates frustration with institutional restraints, and an unacknowledged envy of authoritarian systems that can act quickly and decisively. China can build huge cities in the time it takes the United States to review the environmental impact of small highway projects. Liberal democracy requires more patience than many possess. Second, liberal democracy requires tolerance for minority views and ways of life to which many citizens are deeply opposed. It is natural to feel that if we consider certain views or ways of life to be odious, we should use public power to suppress them. In many such cases, liberal democracy restrains this impulse, a psychological burden that some will find unbearable.
This leads directly to the third inherent problem of liberal democracy—the distinction it requires us to make between civic identity and personal or group identity. For example, although we may consider certain religious views false and even dangerous, we must, for civic purposes, accept those who hold these views as our equals. They may freely express these views; they may organize to promote them; they may vote, and their votes are given the same weight as ours. The same goes for race, ethnicity, gender, and all the particularities that distinguish us from one another.
This requirement often goes against the grain of natural sentiments. We want the public sphere to reflect what we find most valuable about our private commitments. Liberal democracy prevents us from fully translating our personal identities into our public lives as citizens. This too is not always easy to bear. The quest for wholeness—for a political community, or even a world, that reflects our most important commitments—is a deep yearning to which liberal leaders can always appeal.
Nor is the fourth inherent difficulty of liberal democracy—the necessity of compromise—easy to bear. If what I want is good and true, why should I agree that public decisions must incorporate competing views? James Madison gives us the answer: in circumstances of liberty, diversity of views is inevitable, and unless those who agree with us form a majority so large as to be irresistible, the alternative to compromise is inaction, which is often more damaging, or oppression, which always is.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Beware of the old newspapers
stacked
on that little three legged stool over there.
Don’t disturb them.
I know it for a fact
that snakes have spawned in between these sheets.
Don’t even look in that direction.
It’s not because of breeze
that their corners are fluttering.
It’s alive, that nest of newspapers.
new born snakes, coiling and uncurling,
are turning their heads to look at you.
That white corner has spread its hood.
A forked tongue
shoots out of its mouth.
Keep your eyes closed.
Get rid of the whole goddamn pile if you
want to
in the morning.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
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