English Reading Comprehension Questions
Reading Comprehension Practice Test. Reading Comprehension based on different editorial like; The Hindu, Economics Times, Times of India etc. Welcome to the Let’s Study Together online English section. If you are preparing for Banking and Insurance Exams, you will come across Reading Comprehension Test in English language section. Here we are providing you English Reading Comprehension Test for Banking Exams , based on the latest pattern of your daily practice.
Reading Comprehension Test will help you learn concepts on important topics in English Section. This “English Reading Comprehension Test for Banking Exams” is also important for other banking exams such as SBI Clerk, IDBI Executive and Syndicate PO, IBPS PO, IBPS Clerk, SBI Clerk, IBPS RRB Officer, IBPS RRB Office Assistant, IBPS SO, SBI SO and other competitive exams.
Reading Comprehension Test for Banking Exams | Set –6
Direction (1-10) Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions. Certain words/ phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Paragraph 1: Existing advances in technology from smartphones to new car services affect our everyday lives. Yet aggregate productivity has been growing very sluggishly. The disconnect between productivity growth and the technology revolution has triggered a sharp debate in economics. A scintillating new paper by Adair Turner of the Institute for New Economic Thinking suggests that rather than presenting a puzzle, the combination of technological innovation and low measured productivity growth is exactly what we should expect.
Paragraph 2: Before turning to Turner’s argument, it’s worth revisiting previous attempts to resolve the apparent puzzle. One perspective argues that slow productivity growth is at least partly a mirage. For example, if new inventions improve the quality of goods and services but the improvements are not properly incorporated into the economic statistics, the result would be that measured productivity is lower than actual productivity. The challenge is to determine whether the measurement errors are any bigger today than in the past and how large they plausibly are in any case. Some new research suggests that the errors may be growing meaningfully larger, but most studies suggest that any effect is too small to explain the bulk of the productivity slowdown.
Paragraph 3: A second argument is that there is a lag before new technologies raise productivity, because businesses need to adjust operations to take advantage of them and that takes time. According to this perspective, we are still in the interregnum. A third perspective attributes the phenomenon to sand in the wheels of the economy, as reflected in the decline in geographic mobility and the rising gap between leading firms and others in the same sector. At frontier firms, productivity growth has not declined, which raises the question of why those advances are not spilling over to other companies.
Paragraph 4: After all the important arguments enter Turner, who has punctured many economic debates, from pensions to climate change. He writes that “it is quite possible that an acceleration in underlying technological progress, which allows us to achieve dramatic productivity improvement in existing production processes, can be accompanied by a decline in total measured productivity”. The core of Turner’s argument is that the impact of new technology on total productivity growth depends on who accrues the income from the new inventions; what additional consumption they choose to enjoy with that income; and the nature of productivity advances in the sectors that workers are shifted into as a result. In particular, if those who directly accrue income from the new inventions choose to consume more services (such as personal services or artistic ones) in which it is hard to replace people with machines, the net result could be the coexistence of rapid technological progress and slow or non-existent overall productivity growth.
Paragraph 5: So technological progress and productivity growth have tended to coexist in the past because the workers shifted from one sector (say, farming) to another (manufacturing) and in both the sender and recipient sector rapid productivity growth was occurring. However, if the recipient sectors suffer from “Baumol’s disease”, which features limited potential for productivity improvements because it is hard to replace people with machines in those areas, then, overall productivity growth will be slow or non-existent. Furthermore, as our incomes rise, we may demand more services with Baumol’s disease characteristics. The employment projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics highlight the point. The top four occupations ranked by the number of new jobs projected to be created between 2016 and 2026, for example, are personal care aides, cooks and servers, registered nurses and home health aides.
Paragraph 6: There’s no doubt that Turner may be right in theory, the question is how important this phenomenon is to the aggregate productivity puzzle. One piece of evidence comes from a recent McKinsey report, which estimates that productivity growth declined by 0.2 percentage points per year between 1987 and 2014. The McKinsey numbers suggest that, at least until recently, Turner’s argument does not fully eliminate the empirical productivity puzzle. But Turner is focused on the next several decades, and over that period he may prove to be increasingly correct.
1. Why is it necessary to determine how bigger are the measurement errors today in comparison to that in past for the argument to hold true?
A. To demonstrate that the slowdown in productivity is just an illusion.
B. As if they are not bigger they could not explain the deceleration in measured productivity.
C. To determine how credible are the measurement of errors.
D. To comprehensively explain the reason for the entire slowdown in the productivity.
E. None of these
2. What is the probable reason for slow or non-existent economic growth according to Turner’s argument given in para 4? 3. What can be the possible impact(s) with the increase in the services with Baumol’s disease characteristics? (i) Aggregate productivity growth will not march in lockstep with technological progress. A. Both (i) and (ii) 4. What does the author want(s) to imply by the phrase “ we are still in the interregnum” given in bold in the third paragraph of the passage? 5. Which of the following statement is not true in context of the passage? A. Impact of sector shifting is an important pillar of Turner’s argument. 6. The author is in a position to draw parallels between New Imperialism and New Mercantilism because- A. both originated in the developed Western capitalist countries.
A. The workers have shifted from farming to manufacturing sectors.
B. Technological advances achieve dramatic productivity improvement in existing production processes only.
C. The potential for productivity improvement is limited in the manufacturing sector.
D. The consumption of services which are hard to automate.
E. None of these
(ii) Employment transitioned from high-productivity manufacturing sectors to lower-productivity sectors.
(iii) Automation will dramatically change how services ranging from personal care to education to healthcare can be delivered.
B. Only (i)
C. Only (ii)
D. Both (ii) and (iii)
E. All are correct
A. We are far from resolving the productivity puzzle.
B. It takes a considerable time to be able to sufficiently harness new technologies.
C. We are still far from the technological advancement which will increase our productivity.
D. We are in a period where there is a gap(lag) between technology and productivity.
E. None of these
B. Rise in the income can indirectly contribute to slow productivity.
C. None of the arguments given in the passage have resolved the productivity puzzle.
D. According to Turner low productivity is not a puzzle but an expected outcome.
E. All are correct
B. New Mercantilism was a logical sequel to New Imperialism.
C. they create the same set of outputs- a labour force, middle classes and rival centres of capital.
D. both have comparable uneven and divisive effects.
E. None of these
7. According to the author, the British policy during the ‘New Imperialism’ period tended to be defensive because –
A. it was unable to deal with the fallouts of a sharp increase in capital.
B. its cumulative capital had undesirable side effects.
C. its policies favoured developing the vast hinterland.
D. it prevented the growth of a set-up which could have been capitalistic in nature.
E. None of these
8. In the sentence, “They are prisoners of the taste patterns and consumption standards set at the centre.” (fourth paragraph), what is the meaning of ‘centre’? 9. Under New Mercantilism, the fervent nationalism of the native middle classes does not create conflict with the multinational corporations because they (the middle classes)- 10. What does the author mean by “ revived the paraphernalia of the landed aristocracy it had just destroyed” as given in 1st paragraph of the passage? Note:
A. National government
B. Native capitalists
C. New capitalists
D. Both (b) and (c)
E. None of these
A. negotiate with the multinational corporations.
B. are dependent on the international system for their continued prosperity
C. are not in a position to challenge the status quo.
D. do not enjoy popular support.
E. All of the above
A. It revived the aristocratic regime which was destroyed completely in the Edwardian government.
B. Atavistic policy culture which was recently destroyed was revived again in the Edwardian government.
C. All the perils associated with the authoritarian regime were revived once again revived.
D. All the liabilities associated with this ‘new imperialism’ were revived once again after being comprehensively destroyed in the Edwardian government.
E. Britain’s policies gave rise to the asymmetry in the expansion which is ironic as they had destroyed it recently.
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