List of top Logical Reasoning Questions on Verbal Reasoning

Which word in the following is the "odd man" out?
(a) Pampering
(b) Promoting
(c) Nurturing
(d) Incubating

India is poised for rapid economic growth, potentially spurred by a young population driving production and demand. In the process, inevitably, lifestyles are being dramatically altered for the worse. India now reports the highest growth of ultra-processed food consumption among the youth, as well as low levels of exercise and adequate sleep. Cultural changes, including smartphones and a preponderance of English in schools, are also associated with weakened family relationships. Until recently, in the absence of extensive data, the role of these factors on mental well-being, encompassing our full range of mental capability, was not well understood. Recent findings based on a large database of over 1,50,000 individuals in India are beginning to shed light on the correlates of mental well-being among adolescents. The findings are dire. There is a silent epidemic of mental ill-health in India. Previous studies have found that ownership of smartphones is” frying” the brain. Data also suggests that it is not merely the ownership of a phone but also the early age of access that is associated with worse cognition and mental well-being as young adults. The young brain is developing and must be nurtured. These gadgets are handed to adolescents, presumably more out of convenience than sound logic. The American philosopher David Henry Thoreau remarked over 175 years ago,” Technology is an improved means to an unimproved end.” This is an extreme position but one worth mulling. India reports the highest growth in consumption of ultra-processed foods. Some evidence suggests that these foods are as addictive as smoking. Recent data globally and from India shows a strong association between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and poor mental well-being, particularly the capacities for emotional and cognitive control.

While a majority of homeless groups exist solely in modernized cultures, homelessness remains a problem throughout the world. Everywhere there are people in constant search of food, water, and shelter. Many of these people have nowhere to go and can find no end or relief to their suffering. Homelessness was originally believed to be a cultural problem but is now revealing itself as a global problem. It is a problem suffered by all of humanity and must be faced and solved as such. Although this problem exists everywhere, it is more severe in certain parts of the world. Due to the differing circumstances of homelessness around the world, there can be no one solution or one set of guidelines for everyone to follow.
Even the United States constantly struggles with homelessness, despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. According to a 2005 survey by the United Nations, 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing. The causes vary depending on the place and person. Common reasons include a lack of affordable housing, poverty, a lack of mental health services, and more. Homelessness is rooted in systemic failures that fail to protect those who are most vulnerable. Approximately 580,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in the United States, as stated by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Department. The number of individuals experiencing homelessness varies by region, with urban areas experiencing higher rates of homelessness compared to rural areas. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated homelessness and housing insecurity, leading to increased rates of eviction, unemployment, and housing instability. Using social distancing measures to curb the virus’s transmission has presented difficulties for homeless shelters and service providers in main training their capacity. The economic fallout from the pandemic has further strained resources and support systems for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Being a consultant, your work consists of a deep examination of the company’s environment and its internal system to notice inefficiencies and potential improvements. The interaction with the company’s management and different sections to decipher their objectives, opportunities, and processes. This means that, through the use of data analysis, industry best practices, and the formulation of creative ways of solving all problems, to come up with unique solutions to all problems to increase efficiency and productivity, and hence, increase profitability for employers. This might entail operations such as logistics redesign, business process re-engineering, adopting new applications, systems, or even community relation programs. People management is a critical component of change management, to make sure that all the relevant parties interpret the potential alterations positively. Also, to offer orientation and create resources to explain the changes to the group and make it comfortable with the shift. The general goal is the organization’s ability to continue to grow and remain relevant with the shareholders and stakeholders in the industries it operates

How many meaningful English words can be formed by using 2nd, 4th, 7th and 9th letter of the word ‘WONDERFUL’? Use each letter only once, but in different sequence.

Words remain an enigma, their presence within human sphere is a unique mystery. They form the intricate tapestry that convinces us of our existence, blurring lines between fact and fiction. An engagement with words is the most captivating, enchanting, and sometimes daunting encounter with the world. A word, a symbolic entity formed from the ethereal, exists neither as animate nor inanimate, yet pulsates with life. It can emanate warmth or coldness, absorb emotions, or stand as dry as a rock. Words can provoke smiles and elicit joy. They are like glow-worms, momentarily dispelling the surrounding darkness and act as life-saving rafts amid the tumultuous ocean waves. Words grant us the ability to explore the universe, and “to see a world in a grain of sand.” as William Blake noted. They impart a semantic existence to the lifeless, and bestow aesthetic form upon the formless. Scriptures say the word is the world. I say the world within the word is the abode of faith.

Students have been abuzz over how artificial intelligence tools can do their homework and programmers over how these can increase their productivity or take away their jobs. As much as digitization has transformed the country in recent years, there is a widespread feeling that at some point around the horizon, AI shall rejig everything in even more fundamental, fantastic, and frightening ways. This is why deciding how the coming changes should be regulated is very important. TRAI has made a strong case for an independent statutory authority to ensure the responsible development and use of AI in the country, a global agency along similar lines shall likely be pitched at the G20 leaders’ summit, and interestingly even American MNC Microsoft has floated a blueprint for AI governance in India. The great size and diversity of its “data points” make India of great interest to all developers of AI technologies.
But India is only at their receiving end, nowhere close to the US and China’s advances. Although lately, it is becoming obvious how much state censorship is encumbering China’s large language modeling, the country is still very much in the game with PhDs in fields related to AI, investments in AI chip hardware design, and domestic generative models like Wu Dao. The scientific accomplishments of India’s Chandrayaan mission have seen it being wooed for various international space collaborations. This promises spinoff technological benefits across Indian industry and is also geo-strategically useful. Likewise, it is only with sufficient AI prowess that India shall really get to play at the high table of global rulemaking for AI.
Knowing how much Indians’ future shall be shaped by generative AI needs matching efforts to create indigenous models. In this and at this stage, a proactive government role is key, rather than just waiting on some large corporation to do the needful. Missing this bus will after all be even more costly than missing the chip research one. Plus, GOI alone can push academia-industry collaborations with the necessary weight and urgency. This does not let other institutions off the hook. A US judge has rejected the copyright for an AI-generated artwork. Indian courts should start engaging with the broader issue of non-human agency rather than wait for precedence to be set elsewhere. Indian schools need to think beyond the ban-ChatGPT mindset. Let us lead instead of only being led.
[Extracted from “First, get the tech: Unless India develops domestic AI heft, it wouldn’t play any meaningful part in global regulatory efforts”, Times of India]

Imagine you have just been appointed as a consultant for a manufacturing company that is experiencing a decline in its production efficiency. The company produces a wide range of products, and the management is concerned about the overall output. Your task is to identify the root causes of this decline and recommend solutions.
As you begin your investigation, you gather information and observe the following: 
• The company recently introduced a new production system that is more automated but requires highly specialized operators. 
• The workforce has reported a lack of motivation and job satisfaction, which has led to increased absenteeism. 
• There have been several breakdowns in the new machinery, leading to production delays and quality issues. 
• The company’s competitors have adopted similar automation technologies and are experiencing increased productivity. 
• Customer complaints about product quality have increased in recent months.

In a world where aspirations for upward mobility are fervent, the opportunities for achieving such dreams remain limited. When one generation falls short, the mantle of ambition passes to the next, embedding within it a heavy burden of responsibility. Failing to meet these expectations can lead to profound sorrow, and in the direst cases, even to suicide. It’s in this landscape that coaching institutes assume a significant role, cultivating an atmosphere of uncertainty among students and parents. A stark discrepancy emerges between preparation for board examinations and competitive tests, amplifying the inequalities that plague the education system. The coaching industry’s massive marketing campaigns further exacerbate the situation, with some strategies veering into ethical grey areas. The tests themselves, designed to be more challenging than standardised exams, set the stage for feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt when not conquered. Our educational system is tailored to gauge an individual’s merit through examinations. Eminent thinker Michael J Sandel dubs this system the “tyranny of merit”, a sentiment echoed by the Supreme Court of India. Upholding the OBC reservation judgment, the Court called for a deeper evaluation of the “idea of merit”, highlighting its nuanced nature. Merit as a concept remains shrouded in misunderstanding and often goes unexamined within school curriculum. Adapting to new living arrangements, sourcing nourishing meals, battling isolation, and grappling with commutes form the backdrop against, which education unfolds. For marginalised communities and gender minorities, these hurdles are often amplified. Social media algorithms exacerbate mental health concerns, sowing loneliness and impeding attention spans and creativity. Technology emerges as a potential equaliser in this landscape. Online platforms now offer preparation opportunities from the comfort of one’s home. Government-curated or market-driven content could usher in a new era of accessibility.

In the given word "LAVISHLY" if all the consonants are replaced with its previous letter after that remove all the repeated letters and arrange them in alphabetical order then, which of the following letters is 3rd from the left end?

Why are we humans so susceptible to the doom and gloom of the news? Two reasons. The first is what psychologists call negativity bias: we’re more attuned to the bad than the good. Back in our hunting and gathering days, we were better off being frightened of a spider or a snake a hundred times too often than one time too few. Too much fear wouldn’t kill you; too little surely would.
Second, we’re also burdened with an availability bias. If we can easily recall examples of a given thing, we assume that thing is relatively common. The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings — which tend to lodge in the memory — completely skews our view of the world.
In this digital age, the news we’re being fed is only getting more extreme. In the old days, journalists didn’t know much about their individual readers. They wrote for the masses. But the people behind Facebook, Twitter and Google know you well. They know what shocks and horrifies you, they know what makes you click. They know how to grab your attention and hold it so they can serve you the most lucrative helping of personalised ads. This modern media frenzy is nothing less than an assault on the mundane. Because, let’s be honest, the lives of most people are pretty predictable. Nice, but boring. So while we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives, ‘boring’ won’t make you sit up and take notice. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads. And so Silicon Valley keeps dishing us up ever more sensational clickbait, knowing full well, as a Swiss novelist once quipped, that “News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.”
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2021.]

While men and women are both considered to be more capable as they get older, only women bear the brunt of being seen as “less warm” as they age, new research has found. This series of studies is reportedly the first to look at both gender and age to determine how perceptions of women and men differ. “It’s just stunning… These stereotypes are so hard-wired and deeply entrenched that they come out even when absolutely identical information is provided about a man and a woman,” Jennifer Chatman, Distinguished Professor of Management at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, said. In an analysis of professors’ evaluations, female professors witnessed a decline as they moved from their 30s to 40s, hitting an all-time low around the age of 47. All this while, the evaluation of male professors remained consistent. Interestingly, after the age of 47, the evaluations for women increased again, becoming equal with those of men around the early 60s. “At that point, there are different stereotypes of women, and they may benefit from being seen as more grandmotherly,” said Laura Kray, faculty director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership at Berkeley Haas and an author of the study.
Women around the age of mid 30s to late 40s also face what is called “the motherhood penalty,” where assumptions around parenting duties lead people to believe women are less committed to their careers than men. This has several repercussions, most particularly evident in hiring, promotions and wages. Women executives further pointed out that they face “hyper-scrutiny” and “scepticism” which harks back to perceptions of likeability versus agency. Gendered networks in the workplace, with men gaining greater access to senior leaders, become cemented mid-career, pose another difficulty for working women. Negative perceptions of women in middle-age can also be linked to stereotypes around menopause. In 2008, psychologists studied the attitudes of people towards women in different reproductive stages. They found that while the pregnant women or the woman with the baby were thought about in glowing terms, menopausal women were associated with negative emotions, illness and ageing.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from “How Stereotypes Affect Middle-Aged Women’s Careers”, by Ananya Singh, The Swaddle]

In this moment, the developed countries — I point to them, because these countries have already burnt massive amounts of carbon dioxide for energy to build their economies — are faced with a real energy conundrum. On the one hand, developed countries are battered because of a fast-heating planet; temperatures have gone through the roof; droughts and extreme weather events are hitting them as well. On the other hand, ordinary people in these countries are worried, not just because of climate change but because of the lack of energy to heat their homes this coming winter. In the US, gas prices went up in summer, so much so that people travelled less and consumption of fuel dropped. But now prices are down and it is business as usual.
The fact is that this energy disruption has provided the much-needed vault to the beleaguered fossil fuel industry. Governments are asking this industry to supply more. Europe has baptised natural gas, a fossil fuel less polluting than coal but still a major emitter of carbon dioxide, as “clean”. The US has passed a climate bill, which will invest in renewable energy but conditional to increased spends on oil and gas and the opening up of millions of hectares of federal land for drilling. Through this bill the US will do more than ever before to build a manufacturing base for renewable energy, particularly solar. Europe, even in this desperate scramble for gas, is working to ramp up its investment in renewable power. So, it is the worst of times. It could be the best of times, but there are some caveats. One, this renewed interest in fossil fuels must remain temporary and transient. Given the nature of economies, once the investment has been made in this new infrastructure or the supply of fossil fuel has increased from new oil and gas discoveries, it will be difficult to wean off. Two, these countries should not be entitled to more use of fossil fuels in our world of shrunk carbon budgets. They need to reduce emissions drastically and leave whatever little carbon budget space that is remaining to poorer countries to use, thereby satisfying such poorer countries’ demands.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from “New energy conundrum”, by Sunita Narain, DownToEarth]

The post-truth era is, expectedly, marked by a discerning erosion of public trust in sources of information. Mass media — both traditional and new-age avatars — has borne the brunt of this mistrust. And for good reasons too. Social media, its most popular platform, is a harbinger of falsity. It is thus encouraging to see that at least the old guard of the media ecosystem — the newspaper — continues to defy this discouraging trend. A pan-India survey of media consumption by Lokniti found that print media remains the most trusted source of information. The finding is consistent with the heartening surge in public endorsement of the reliability of newspapers since the pandemic. An earlier survey, which attempted to examine the impact of the lockdown on ‘reading patterns’, had found that the number of readers who used to spend over an hour on newspapers every day had risen to 38%, up from 16% in the pre-lockdown period. The increased trust in newspapers is because the lockdowns coincided with the dissemination of the crudest kinds of misinformation about the pandemic in India and around the world and newspapers played a pivotal role in exposing these lies.
But that is where the good news ends — for the print media, at least. Among other things, the data collated by the survey found deepening footprints of social media in rural and urban constituencies while television continues to dominate the screen. These developments are consistent with global trends that reveal that the newspaper industry is struggling to contain the migration of readers and revenue to other formats, especially digital media. Ironically, the pandemic, which saw a resurgence in collective trust in newspapers, adversely affected the print media as traditional advertisers, reeling under the economic fallouts of Covid-19, cut back on advertisements. But the crisis in print precedes the pandemic. Newspapers have been outpaced by speedier, but also spurious, sources of information. The dominance of the image over text as a cultural phenomenon is another formidable challenge. The print media’s hopes of remaining competitive and profitable must, therefore, centre on using this collective trust as a form of capital. Survival strategies, especially the revenue model, must be re-explored and the emphasis shifted to in-depth analyses of news as well as eyecatching layouts now that newspapers are slower to reach news to the audience.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from “Good news: Editorial on print media remaining the most trusted source of information”, The Telegraph]

The depreciation of an economy’s currency is not a matter of concern in itself. The decline in value against major currencies has to be viewed within a set of macroeconomic factors. The recent depreciation of the Indian rupee is a case in point. The rupee has been depreciating for a long time. What are of concern now are the rate at which the depreciation is occurring and the underlying factors causing the change. The Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted supply chains causing commodity prices to rise, leading to a worldwide hardening of inflationary trends. This, in turn, has caused major central banks to raise interest rates, forcing investors back to the safe haven of the US dollar. For India, these headwinds from the global economy have caused several problems. The rise in international prices, especially of crude oil, has led to a higher import bill and, hence, a greater demand for dollars. Higher interest rates in developed country markets have caused a significant outflow of portfolio investments from India, aggravating the already climbing demand for dollars from a rising import bill. By May 2022, foreign institutional investors had pulled out Rs. 1.50 lakh crore from Indian markets.
In the face of these pressures, the rupee, left to itself, would decline in value as the rupee-price of a dollar would increase substantially. One way the Reserve Bank of India could stem the tide would be to sell off dollars in the market to ease the supply situation. However, this would mean that while the value of the rupee could be contained, the nation’s foreign exchange kitty would start to erode further. The RBI has been doing exactly that. The challenge before the RBI is this: how much to let the rupee depreciate and how much to intervene to prop it up? Too much depreciation would raise domestic inflation rates as the rupee-price of imports, especially oil, would raise costs of production. It could trigger a rise in policy-controlled interest rates while closely monitoring inflationary expectations. The biggest challenge is to navigate unpredictable international economic shocks in the near future. The Indian economy’s health is not exactly at its best. Exports may not be able to take advantage of a falling rupee since international demand is expected to stagnate. India’s growth and employment situations are yet to stabilise to what they were about a decade ago. The RBI has difficult choices: controlling inflation versus stimulating growth and stabilising the rupee without severely diminishing the economy’s foreign exchange kitty.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from “Stiff test: Editorial on depreciation of rupee & challenges before RBI”, The Telegraph]

In the following question, an assertion is followed by two reasons R1 and R2.Read the assertion and the reasons and find which of the reasons is possible.
Assertion: The 10th class result is very poor this year.
R1 : The number of students in the 10th class have increased considerably
R2 : The students of 10th class belong to different sections of society.

Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R)
Assertion (A) : Money can resolve most of our problems.
Reason (R) : We are living in a hierarchical society.
In light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below

Two recent developments have brought India's reliance on fossil fuel into sharp focus. The Russia-Ukraine conflict and the consequent surge in crude oil prices roiled the economy. Separately, the most recent IPCC report on climate highlighted the energy sector's large contribution to global warming. Both these developments need to be located in the context of India's pledge to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2070. Meeting this pledge requires an overhaul of both the logistics and electricity sectors to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Transitioning to renewables in energy is an important part of the solution. Within renewables, solar energy has been lavished with policy support. However, it won't be enough to meet the targets. Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, had written that India can't meet its net-zero commitment without nuclear power. He's right. It's an area where India was off to an early start, developed relatively high indigenous capabilities in relation to other sectors, but subsequently let the ball drop. Today, nuclear power contributes a mere 3% of the total electricity generated, and has a capacity of 6780 MW. After the early euphoria of the India-United States civil nuclear deal, progress has been disappointing. The deal did open the pathway to a stable supply of uranium ore from Kazakhstan and Canada. However, the design of the subsequent bill on civil liability for nuclear damage killed the prospect of participation of Western firms. India's main partner today is Russia. which side stepped the bill through inter-government agreements.

A Madras High Court Judge's suggestion to amend the Constitution of India mandating that every citizen also has a duty to laugh comes as a whiff of fresh air - something the country has been gasping for, of late. Justice GR Swaminathan of the Madurai Bench has a remarkably refined sense of humour, but in quashing an FIR against a man arrested for an innocuous social media post, his insightful observations only highlight the idiocy and absurdity that surround the growth and normalisation of the offence-taking tribe. Written from the perspective of cartoonists and satirists, the judgment draws attention to how what ought to be a reasonable understanding of a situation is increasingly being influenced by impulses that border on the irrational and amount to an abuse of the legal process. The petitioner tried tongue-in-cheek wordplay while captioning photographs after a sight-seeing trip with family : 'Trip to Sirumalai for shooting practice'. For the police. it appeared as a threat to wage war, though the Judicial Magistrate refused remand. 'Laugh at what?' is a serious question. the Judge said. using the 'holy cow' as a metaphor, which varies from person to person. region to region. Being funny is one thing. the Judge righty states, and poking fun at another is different altogether. Those who have been at the receiving end for their attempt at humour can draw strength from the ruling, but then. a creative process facing combative opposition because of its very nature is anything but funny.

An unintended and unjust consequence of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 is its widespread persecution of teenage lovers. This law raised the age of consent from 16 to 18 years, while defining persons below 18 years as children. Consequently, when two 16-year-olds are romantically and sexually involved, but the girl's family doesn't approve the affair and files a police complaint, her consent has zero legal validity. And the consensual relationship morphs into a case of statutory rape. The Allahabad High Court has indicated how its "conscience" is concerned by such severe POCSO provisions being drawn by teenage lovers simply on the basis of family disapproval. The High Courts of Delhi, Madras and others have made similar observations in recent years and also pointed to amendments to the law that can help reduce its injustices. One suggestion that has gathered broad support is to push back both the cut-off for childhood and the age of consent to 16 years. Given that the NCRB data shows around half of POCSO cases falling in the 16-18 years age group, such an amendment is overdue. Minimizing the prosecution of consensual romances would also leave a logjammed system with more space to pursue actual sexual assault cases. The broader goal here is respecting the rights of adolescents and young adults. Their romantic and sexual autonomy needs greatly increased recognition in India.

Biodiversity is being lost at a rate not seen since the last mass extinction. But the United Nations decade-old plan to slow down and eventually stop the decline of species and ecosystems by 2020 has failed. Most of the plan's 20 targets - known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targeto have not been met. The Aichi targcto arc part of an international agreement called the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. and member states are now finalizing replacements for them. Currently referred to as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). its draft was published in July 2021. It aims to slow down the rate of biodiversity loss by 2030. And by 2050. biodiversity will be "valued. conserved. restored and wisely used. maintaining ecosystem services. sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people". The GBF is a comprehensive plan. But success will require systemic change across public policy. That is both a strength and a weakness. If systemic change can be implemented, it will lead to real change. But if it cannot, there's no plan B. This has led some researchers to argue that one target or number should be prioritized and defined in a way that is clear to the public and to policy makers. It would be biodiversity's equivalent of the 2°C climate target.