CRACK CUET/CET WITH KKSC- CODING-DECODING

Coding-Decoding

Coding means to hide the meaning of any message and decoding means to understand the actual meaning of that message.

Sometimes a word or a sentence is coded by changing the position of English alphabet letters according to a definite pattern, so it is necessary to remember the positions of all the letters in English alphabetical order, both in forward and backward order.

 

CRACK CUET 2022 WITH KKSC

                       SECTION 1- LANGUAGE TEST- ENGLISH-(AS PER NTA NORMS)

Directions for questions 13 to 18: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

 

The fire at Delhi’s Mundka, with a death toll of 27 persons underscores yet again the invisibilities and insecurities of informal workers in the city. The fact that the antecedents of those who died are still unknown points to the invisibility and lack of identity of informal sector workers.

Reports on buildings catching fire leading to fatalities, followed by discussions on illegal constructions and unplanned infrastructural development in urban centres, have become a repetitive subject. With every such mishap, reports on how these buildings do not have required fire clearance and no-objection certificates from concerned authorities surface. Yet, such incidents keep on repeating; the harrowing stories of those who lost their dear ones are matters of public attention only for a few days, till the headlines shift.

Incidents of this sort are also opportunities for political leaders to display their concern for those who lost their dear ones with compensation and promises coming one after the other. Enquiry commissions and assurances of tightening procedures are all part of a larger script, with no substantial change at the ground level.

The root cause of the Mundka mishap is a serious lapse in following the norms in construction as the whole building had only one staircase. Of the 27 who lost their lives to this massive fire, 21 were women workers, employed in a company that manufactured and assembled CCTVs and WiFi routers. The manufacturing unit at Mundka employed about 100 people, half of them women. Many of them are young women and the sole or primary earners in their households.

There are thousands of unregistered/informal industrial units in cities without any data on the number of workers employed and the conditions of their employment. These workplaces are known to violate basic labour laws. Informality and precarity define such workplaces where the quality of jobs is not a concern for those who are looking for employment. The pandemic has added to women’s difficulties in finding jobs and such workplaces reveal the conditions under which women workers get employed. They are forced to join the labour market in low-paid and highly-informal jobs because of their migrant status and poor economic conditions. There is often a clear separation of tasks for men and women. Women workers are mostly into packing or are helpers — categories that are the lowest skilled as per the job classifications in such units.

 

Owing to the perception that workers employed in packing or as helpers undertake jobs that do not require much skill, wages are kept very low while the labour pool remains massive. With the pandemic and the resultant decline in work opportunities and household income, women are compelled to join employment to compensate for the loss of employment or declined income of male household members. These sweatshops, which are part of our understanding of economic development, are traps for women workers. The fact that it offers some respite from poverty and also from cultural restrictions on women also needs to be understood. But without any accountability of employers and a lack of political will to improve working conditions, we might end up allowing many more such horrific accidents.

 

Passage summary:

The passage talks about the fire in Delhi and states that there are many such industrial units with hazardous working conditions. Without the accountability of owners and without the political will to improve working conditions, we might end up allowing many such horrific accidents

 

Q13. Which of the following best encompasses the main argument of the author?

(A)       As workers employed in packing do not require much skill, the wages for such jobs are kept very low.

(B)       Without the accountability of employers and without the political will to improve working conditions, many more accidents are likely to happen.

(C)       Most small industrial units in cities in India flout labour laws.

(D)       Reports on buildings catching fire leading to fatalities have become a repetitive subject.

 

 

Q14. According to the passage, the pandemic has made the situation worse for women because

(A)       They are the sole earning members of their families.

(B)       The job opportunities and family incomes have declined.

(C)       There is a separation of tasks between men and women.

(D)       The lack of accountability of employers.

 

 

Q15. Why are the wages of workers in the packing industry kept so low? (A)because the workers do not stick to the job for very long

(B)       because only women work in the packing industry

(C)       because of people’s idea that jobs require little skill and there is a vast pool of workers available for such jobs

(D)       because the owners are misers and pocket all the profits

 

 

Q16. Which of the following best summarises paragraph 2 of the passage?

(A)       There is a lot of news about buildings catching fire.

(B)       Fire accidents keep happening in buildings followed by discussions on their causes and victims but public attention soon shifts to other issues.

(C)       Public memory is short and people repeat their mistakes.

(D)       People forget about past accidents and become careless, setting off more accidents.

 

Q17. Which of the following courses of action is the author most likely to support?

(A)       Building more industrial units with hazardous working conditions.

(B)       Building fewer industrial units with hazardous working conditions.

(C)       Improvement of working conditions in industrial units including accountable owners.

(D)       More discussion on illegal constructions and the lack of fire clearance.

 

Q18. What is the meaning of the word ‘respite’ in the context of the passage?

(A)       Spite

(B)       Inspite

(C)       Despite

(D)       Relief

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ENGLISH LITERATURE: MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN- SALMAN RUSHDIE

ENGLISH LITERATURE: MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN- SALMAN RUSHDIE: Midnight's Children is a 1981 book by Salman Rushdie that deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independ...

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN- SALMAN RUSHDIE

Midnight's Children is a 1981 book by Salman Rushdie that deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial literature and magical realism. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events as with historical fiction.

Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.  In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books.

Background and plot summary

The novel has a multitude of named characters; see the List of Midnight's Children characters.

Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as well as an enormous and constantly dripping nose with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. The novel is divided into three books.

The book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to India's Independence and Partition. Saleem is born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, therefore, exactly as old as the independent republic of India. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. on that date are imbued with special powers. Saleem, using his telepathic powers, assembles a Midnight Children's Conference, reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts. In particular, those children born closest to the stroke of midnight wield more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva "of the Knees", Saleem's nemesis, and Parvati, called "Parvati-the-witch," are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem's story.

Meanwhile, Saleem's family begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent. During this period he also suffers amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythological exile in the jungle of Sundarban, where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the Indira Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's overreach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation; a chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by history.

Major themes

The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history.  Nicholas Stewart in his essay, "Magic realism in relation to the post-colonial and Midnight's Children," argues that the "narrative framework of Midnight's Children consists of a tale – comprising his life story – which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the first person: 'And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan.' and the third: 'I tell you,' Saleem cried, 'it is true. ...') recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted Arabian Nights. The events in Rushdie's text also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in Arabian Nights (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p.353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p.383))." He also notes that, "the narrative comprises and compresses Indian cultural history. 'Once upon a time,' Saleem muses, 'there were Radha and Krishna, and Rama and Sita, and Laila and Majnun; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) Romeo and Juliet, and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn," (259). Stewart (citing Hutcheon) suggests that Midnight's Children chronologically entwines characters from both India and the West, "with post-colonial Indian history to examine both the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence.

Reception

Midnight's Children was awarded the 1981 Booker Prize, the English Speaking Union Literary Award, and the James Tait Prize. It also was awarded the Best Of The Booker prize twice, in 1993 and 2008 (this was an award given out by the Booker committee to celebrate the 25th and 40th anniversary of the award).

In 1984 Indira Gandhi brought an action against the book in the British courts, claiming to have been defamed by a single sentence in chapter 28, penultimate paragraph, in which her son Sanjay Gandhi is said to have had a hold over his mother by his accusing her of contributing to his father's Feroze Gandhi's death through her neglect. The case was settled out of court when Salman Rushdie agreed to remove the offending sentence.

Adaptations

In the late 1990s the BBC was planning to film a five-part miniseries of the novel with Rahul Bose in the lead, but due to pressure from the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, the filming permit was revoked and the project was cancelled. Later in 2003, the novel was adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Director Deepa Mehta collaborated with Rushdie on a new version of the story, the film Midnight's Children. Indian-American actor Satya Bhabha played the role of Saleem Sinai while other roles were played by Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Siddharth Narayan, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan, Shahana Goswami, Anita Majumdar and Darsheel Safary. The film was premiered in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival (2012-09-09)^[14] and the Vancouver International Film Festival (2012-09-27).

Regards

KK Singh

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Sailing to Byzantium

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Sailing to Byzantium: This poem was written by Yeats in 1926, marking a point in his maturity, it was part of a collection called Tower, when Yeats stayed at th...