List of top Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) Questions

Read the following passage and answer the question
A lot of avoidable excitement, or anxiety, depending on which side of the political fence one sits, has been caused by the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of the Union of India vs Mohit Minerals Pvt Ltd. delivered on Thursday. While sitting in judgement on the limited question of whether IGST can be levied on ocean freight paid by a foreign seller to a foreign shipping line on reverse charge basis, the SC bench comprising Justices D. Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath dwelt at length on the constitutional framework of GST law, and concepts such as co-operative federalism, un-co-operative federalism and fiscal federalism and came to the conclusion that recommendations of the GST Council are not binding on the Centre or the States. It is not evident if the scholarly exposition was warranted while deciding the limited question pertaining to the case but the fact is that the Court has only spelt out what is clearly evident from reading Articles 246A and 279A of the Constitution.. In simple terms, Parliament and State Legislatures have simultaneous powers to legislate under the GST. The Centre has, for obvious reasons, sought to play down the judgment as not interpreting anything new and has underlined that individual States have always complied with decisions made in the GST Council even when such decisions went against their interests. The last thing the Centre wants is for some States to legislate their own tax laws that run counter to the GST. That would begin the process of collapse of the GST which, warts and all, has aided in formalisation of the economy, improving collections and in helping tax-payers avoid the cascading effects of multiple indirect levies. While it may be tempting for some States to break out and legislate on their own, they should realise that in the long run such an act will work against their own interests, besides causing avoidable chaos for tax-payers. The benefits of a common national market for goods and services and profiting from the systemic efficiencies that this confers will be lost as check-posts re-emerge at State borders. Investors would migrate out of such States due to complexities in doing business. Though only five years have lapsed since its introduction, it may be time already for reform of the GST. What we need is statesmanship at the GST Council even if the Court has said that the Council is a place as much for political contestation as for co-operative federalism. Taking this literally will spell trouble for the Union; there are other forums for political contestation. The Council should transcend political rivalries of the day. The point is that States should have the right to dissent in the Council and their voice should not be drowned in the pursuit of unanimity in decision-making. The Centre can set an example by accommodating the demands of the States in the Council even if it means some sacrifice on its part. After all, the onus is on it to run the Council harmoniously. If the GST has made the tax-payer's life better — and it certainly has then the responsibility is on the Centre and the States to make it work. That's also in their best interests.
What is the main message of the above passage?

Identify the correctly spelled word:

The following idiom is followed by some alternatives. Choose the one which best expresses its meaning.
TURN THE HOUSE UPSIDE DOWN

Read the following passage and answer the question
The capability approach is a broad normative framework for the evaluation of individual well-being and social arrangements, the design of policies and proposals about social change in society. The capability approach is used in a wide range of fields, most prominently in development thinking, welfare economics, social policy and political philosophy. It can be used to evaluate a wide variety of aspects of people's well-being, such as individual well-being, inequality and poverty. It can also be used as an alternative evaluative tool for social cost-benefit analysis, or to design and evaluate policies, ranging from welfare state design in affluent societies, to development policies by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries. In academia, it is being discussed in quite abstract and philosophical terms, but also used for applied and empirical studies. In development policy circles, it has provided the foundations of the human development paradigm. The core characteristic of the capability approach is its focus on what people are effectively able to do and to be, that is, on their capabilities. This contrasts with philosophical approaches that concentrate on people's happiness or desire-fulfilment, or on theoretical and practical approaches that concentrate on income, expenditures, consumption or basic needs fulfilment. A focus on people's capabilities in the choice of development policies makes a profound theoretical difference, and leads to quite different policies compared to neo-liberalism and utilitarian policy prescriptions. Some aspects of the capability approach can be traced back to, among others, Aristotle, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, but the approach in its present form has been pioneered by the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, and more recently also been significantly developed by the philosopher Martha. Sen argued that in social evaluations and policy design, the focus should be on what people are able to do and be, on the quality of their life, and on removing obstacles in their lives so that they have more freedom to live the kind of life which, upon reflection, they find valuable: "The capability approach to a person's advantage is concerned with evaluating it in terms of his or her actual ability to achieve various valuable functionings as a part of living. The corresponding approach to social advantage -for aggregative appraisal as well as for the choice of institutions and policy - takes the set of individual capabilities as constituting an indispensable and central part of the relevant informational base of such evaluation"
The main theme of the above passage is....

Convert the sentence given in the question into INDIRECT SPEECH.
Raju said, 'Bravo! You have done well.

The following question has two blanks, each blank indicating something has been omitted. Choose the word for each blank which best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
Much of what India would be able to achieve.........the next 25 years will depend on how its economy..........

The following question has two blanks, each blank indicating something has been omitted. Choose the word for each blank which best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
The United States and European Union are………………from high inflation and the word's two biggest central banks ………instituted tighter monetary policy and hiked policy rates.

Out of the four given alternatives, choose the one which is OPPOSITE in meaning to the given word: GERMANE

The following question has two blanks, each blank indicating something has been omitted. Choose the word for each blank which best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
State Governments should not …………………'non-merit freebies 'such as gifts and consumer durables………….their fiscal capabilities.

Read the following passage and answer the question
Trends in resource mobilization by Corporates as reported by SEBI. Resource mobilised through equity issuances stood at 24,461 crore during March 2022 compared to 29,671 crore in February 2022. Overall, 10 IPOs listed during the month garnering 175 crore, comprising wholly of SMEs/startups. In March 2022, there were & rights Issues which raised 879 crore compared to 113 crore in February 2022. Debt-fund raising through public issuances stood at ₹ 178 crore through one pubilia issue of corporate bonds closed in March 2022 as compared to 695 crore in February 2022 Amount raised through preferential allotment and QIP's during March 2022 stood at 3,407 crore as compared to 2,727 crore in February 2022. Private placement of corporate debt reported on exchanges increased to 77.564 crore dunng March 2022, compared to 49,304 crore in February 2022.
What is the total fund mobilized by Corporates by both equity and debt sources for March, 2022

Convert the sentence given in the question into DIRECT SPEECH.
He said Korean is easy to learn.

Convert the sentence given in the question into DIRECT SPEECH.
Varun said he didn't believe me.

Out of the four given alternatives,choose the one which best expresses the meaning of the given word: IMPERTURBABLE

Identify the correctly spelled word:

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Nature has all along yielded her flesh to humans. First,we took nature's materials as food, fibers and shelter. Then we learned to extract raw materials from her biosphere to create our own new synthetic materials. Now Bios is yielding us her mind-we are taking her logic.
Clockwork logic-the logic of the machines-will only build simple contraptions. Truly complex systems such as a cell,a meadow,an economy or a brain (natural or artificial) require a rigorous nontechnological logic. We now see that no logic except bio-logic can assemble a thinking device, or even a workable system of any magnitude.
It is an astounding discovery that one can extract the logic of Bios out of biology and have something useful. Although many philosophers in the past have suspected one could abstract the laws of life and apply them elsewhere, it wasn't until the complexity of computers and human-made systems became as complicated as living things,that it was possible to prove this. It's eerie how much of life can be transferred. So far,some of the traits of the living that have successfully been transported to mechanical systems are: self-replication,self-governance, limited self-repair,mild evolution, and partial learning.
We have reason to believe yet more can be synthesized and made into something new. Yet at the same time that the logic of Bios is being imported into machines, the logic of Technos is being imported into life. The root of bioengineering is the desire to control the organic long enough to improve it. Domesticated plants and animals are examples of technos-logic applied to life. The wild aromatic root of the Queen Anne's lace weed has been fine-tuned over generations by selective herb gatherers until it has evolved into a sweet carrot of the garden; the udders of wild bovines have been selectively enlarged in a "unnatural" way to satisfy humans rather than calves. Milk cows and carrots,therefore, are human inventions as much as steam engines and gunpowder are. But milk cows and carrots are more indicative of the kind of inventions humans will make in the future: products that are grown rather than manufactured.
Genetic engineering is precisely what cattle breeders do when they select better strains of Holsteins,only bioengineers employ more precise and powerful control. While carrot and milk cow breeders had to rely on diffuse organic evolution,modern genetic engineers can use directed artificial evolution-purposeful design-which greatly accelerates improvements.
The overlap of the mechanical and the lifelike increases year by year. Part of this bionic convergence is a matter of words. The meanings of "mechanical" and "life" are both stretching until all complicated things can be perceived as machines, and all self-sustaining machines can be perceived as alive. Yet beyond semantics, two concrete trends are happening: (1) Human-made things are behaving more lifelike, and (2) Life is becoming more engineered. The apparent veil between the organic and the manufactured has crumpled to reveal that the two really are, and have always been, of one being.