Infosys Grand

Test-1

Verbal Reasoning – 40 Questions Time: 35 mins

Directions for Questions 26-40: Read the passages and then select the best option to the questions that follow

Passage-1
Look back at the pages of history and you will find that Indians have always been entrepreneurial. India has produced great
stalwards. The likes of JRD Tata, Walchand Hirachand, GD Birla, SI Kirloskar and Dhirubhai Ambani. There are few significant
economies across the world where Indian entrepreneurs have not struck deep roots, few countries where they are not amongst
the most successful of the immigrant communities. The Indian spirit of enterprise straddles the entire spectrum. From Silicon
Valley to Wall Street. From the kiranawala to the high-tech start-up. From shipping and steel to software. From manufacturing
to services. From Dunkin Donuts to Hotmail.com.
And yet, the key question for us to introspect with a sense of urgency is: how can India be a much more powerful incubator for
entrepreneurship in the years to come, given the size of our country, our brainpower and business acumen? What can be done to spark
the entrepreneurial spirit to a far higher intensity?
Firstly, I believe, a good place to begin with is right at the grass roots level – we need profound systemic changes in our method
of education. Currently, the system pigeonholes individuals into a narrow range of disciplines and straight-jackets them into
rigid career tracks. Given the overwhelming emphasis on grades, creativity and independent thinking end up taking a back seat. So
how can we expect the spirit of curiosity and inquiry to develop in such a pressure cooker? The need of the hour is an education
system that fosters exploration, questioning and debate. A system that can help each student to pursue a path that best stimulates
their creativity and challenges him or her. The objective should be to create citizens who have the ability to think laterally.
Students who are equipped to step out into the real world and become thought leaders rather then products of a machinery
that churns out yet another commodity.
Secondly, at a different level, we need a shift in societal and individual attitudes. More often than not, our social environment tends
to suppress precisely those attributes that are prized highly in an entrepreneurial culture. For instance, we still remain largely
driven by a credential-oriented mentality that discourages individuals educational and professional paths. Striking out in an unknown
direction is frowned upon and failure entails a very heavy price.

Regrettably, our environment also accords considerable premium to conformity. The nail that sticks out gets hammered in. I believe
we need to develop a much greater tolerance for the tinkerers, the so called ‘eccentrics’ and the mavericks. Because, very often, they
are the ones who turn out to be the visionaries.
Third, there is also a compelling need to get the institutional framework right. To start an entrepreneurial activity, get the
financing in place, to obtain the approvals and get the process kick- started, is a backbreaking and contorted exercise. And God
forbid, in case of a business failure, the aftermath degenerates into a legal quagmire. Let us hope that the recent guidelines on
venture capital funding will give a fillip and provide a meaningful avenue for our entrepreneurs to realise their vision more speedily
and easily.
Fourth, to give our entrepreneurs a head-start, we need to innovate. For instance, take a look at how effective micro-credit has been
in bank lending. If it works there, I see no reason why we can’t design suitable micro-equity arrangements for entrepreneurs. Why
can’t we have microstock exchanges to address the needs of entrepreneurs? The Internet certainly makes this possible. Given our
genius in financial innovation – for example the badla system and hundi – this is certainly within our grasp. Such arrangements
would considerably lower the threshold at which businesses could reduce debt and replace it with equity capital, thereby helping
spawn many more entrepreneurs.
Fifth, entrepreneurship is a quality that large business enterprises require as much as small start-ups and much more today than
ever before. The challenge for large corporates is to turbocharge the entrepreneurial spirit in the organisation. One way is to
structure large organisations in small entrepreneurial islands within. Going forward, such a structure would be more conducive
to pursue experiments, to innovate, to develop cutting edge products, to dream new and better ways of running the business and
creating value in an unfettered manner. In essence, to create thought leaders – people who are perpetually willing to step out-of-the-
box, think laterally and go that extra mile to make a huge positive impact on the organisation. The idea is to have ‘employee
entrepreneurs’ and partners in business, rather than just employees.
Finally, above all if, as a nation, we really want to make the ‘India story’ work, we cannot afford to confine entrepreneurship to
the boundaries of business – it is much broader in its scope. We need entrepreneurs in all walks of life – in government, in the
public sector, in educational institutions, in non-governmental organisation, in our artistic endeavours too.
Even a country as successful as Singapore has firmed up a master plan to recast Singapore from a nation of cautious followers into
a nation of technophilic, creative entrepreneurs. Many proactive initiatives have been taken by the government. Among these

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are – rewriting some of the more restrictive regulations, building a world class science park for ‘technopreneurs’ and a total
overhaul of the educational system. Their avowed objective is to develop well-rounded individuals who would be the entrepreneurs
of the future.
It is my firm belief that we must look upon entrepreneurs as role models in our society, because it is they who contribute in a great
measure to the process of wealth-creation and nation-building.
For to my mind, entrepreneurs are, to borrow the lines of Longfellow
“Brave men who work while others sleep, who dare while others fly, they build a nation’s pillars
deep, and lift them to the sky.”

26. In the author’s perception a society that overemphasises ‘degrees’ and ‘track records’
1] cannot produce an entrepreneurial culture that throws up visionaries.
2] cannot promote a culture of excellence.
3] will be enable to respond to macroeconomic challenges.
4] will eventually face implosion.
27. The author feels that promotion of genuine entrepreneurial spirit in our country is possible if
1] budding entrepreneurs are given on-the-job training.
2] receiving approval and getting finance in place are made hassle-free.
3] restrictions are removed on receiving venture capital.
4] a failed business venture is not allowed to get caught in a legal imbroglio.
28. In stating that the objective of our education should be to create people who can think laterally, what the author
implies is that our system should produce people
1] Who can think for themselves and come up with new ideas.
2] Who are capable of thinking brilliantly and logically to offer solutions to problems.
3] Trained to think in ways which seek to solve problems by finding new perspectives rather than following conventional or logical
lines of thought.
4] Used to a way of thinking in which they use their imagination to make connection between things that are not normally thought of
together.
29. For innovation in business financing that helps fledgling entrepreneurs, the author recommends
1] the functionally effective badla system.
2] the age-old hundi system.
3] micro-equity arrangements with micro-stock exchanges.
4] micro-credit in bank lending.
30. Who among the following fits into the definition of a thought leader, as given by the author?
1] A sales manager who achieves figures beyond targeted sales in a given period.
2] A strategic marketing in charge who succeeds in positioning one of his brands to make it a market leader in a record time.
3] A Central Excise Assistant in the despatch section of a large corporate who suggests a simple product design change that results
in increasing its market acceptance several fold.
4] A research and Development Officer in a large engineering company whose suggestions for re-engineering a section of the shop
floor leads to eliminating losses.

Passage 2
If it was Max Weber who first defined bureaucracy and predicted its triumph, Warren Bennis may go down in sociological textbooks as
the man who first convincingly predicted its demise and sketched the outlines of the organizations that are springing up to replace it.
At precisely the moment when the outcry against bureaucracy was reaching its peak of shrillness on American campuses and elsewhere,
Bennis, a social psychologist and professor of industrial management, predicted flatly that “in the next twenty – five to fifty years: we
will all “participate in the end of bureaucracy.” He urged us to begin looking “beyond bureaucracy.”
Thus Bennis argues that “while various proponents of ‘good human relations’ have been fighting bureaucracy on humanistic grounds and
for Christian values, bureaucracy seems most likely to founder on its inability to adapt to rapid change…..

“Bureaucracy,” he says, “thrives in a highly competitive undifferentiated and stable environment, such as the climate of its youth, the
Industrial Revolution. A pyramidal structure of authority, with power concentrated in the hands of a few…..was, and is, an eminently
suitable social arrangement for routinized tasks. However, the environment has changed in just those ways which make the mechanism
most problematic. Stability has vanished.”
Each age produces a form of organization appropriate to its own tempo. During the long epoch of agricultural civilization, societies were
marked by low transience. Delays in communication and transportation slowed the rate at which information moved. The pace
of individual life was comparatively slow. And organizations were seldom called upon to make what we would regard as high-speed
decisions.
The age of industrialism brought a quickened tempo to both individual and organizational life. Indeed, it was precisely for this reason
that bureaucratic forms were needed. For all that they seem lumbering and inefficient to us, they were, on the average, capable
of making better decisions faster than the loose and ramshackle organizations that preceded them. With all the rules codified, with a set
of fixed principles indicating how to deal with various work problems, the flow of decisions could be accelerated to keep up with
the faster pace of life brought by industrialism.
Weber was keen enough to notice this, and he pointed out that “The extraordinary increase in the speed by which public
announcements, as well as economic and political facts are transmitted exerts a steady and sharp pressure in the direction of speeding
up the tempo of administrative reaction….” He was mistaken, however, when he said, “The optimum of such reaction time is

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normally attained only by a strictly bureaucratic organization.” For it is now clear that the acceleration of change
has reached so rapid a pace that even bureaucracy can no longer keep up. Information surges through society so rapidly, drastic changes in
technology come so quickly that newer, even more instantly responsive forms of organization must characterize the future.
What, then, will be the characteristics of the organizations of super-industrial society? “The key word,” says Bennis, “will be
‘temporary’; there will be adaptive, rapidly changing temporary systems.” Problems will be solved by tasks forces composed of
“relative strangers who represent a set of diverse professional skills.”
Executives and managers in this system will function as coordinators between the various transient work teams. They will be skilled in
understanding the jargon of different groups of specialists, and they will communicate across groups, translating and interpreting the
language of one into the language of another. People in this system will, according to Bennis, “be differentiated not vertically,
according to rank and role, but flexibly and functionally, according to skill and professional training.”
Because of the high rate of movement back and forth from one transient team to another, he continues, “There will……be a reduced
commitment to work groups…… While skills in human interaction will become more important, due to the growing needs for
collaboration in complex tasks, there will be a concomitant reduction in group cohesiveness…… People will have to learn to develop
quick and intense relationships on the job, and learn to bear the loss of more enduring work relationships.”
This then is a picture of the coming Ad-hocracy, the fast – moving, information – rich, kinetic organization of the future, filled with
transient cells and extremely mobile individuals. From this sketch, moreover, it is possible to deduce some of the characteristics of the
human beings who will populate these new organizations – and who, to some extent, are already to be found in the prototype
organizations of today. What emerges is dramatically different from the stereotype of the organization man. For just as the
acceleration of change and increased novelty in the environment demand a new form of organization, they demand, too, a new kind of
man.
Three of the outstanding characteristics of bureaucracy were, as we have seen, permanence, hierarchy, and a division of labour.
These characteristics molded the human beings who manned the organizations.
Permanence – the recognition that the link between man and organization would endure through time – brought with it a commitment
to the organization. The longer the man stayed within its embrace, the more he saw his past as an investment in the organization,
the more he saw his personal future as dependent upon that of the organization. Longevity bred loyalty. In work organizations, this
natural tendency was powerfully reinforced by the knowledge that termination of one’s links with the organization very often meant a
loss of the means of economic survival. In a world wracked by scarcity of the many, a job was precious. The bureaucrat was thus
immobile and deeply oriented toward economic security. To keep his job, he willingly subordinated his own interests and convictions to
those of the organization.
Power-laden hierarchies, through which authority flowed, wielded the whip by which the individual was held in line.
Knowing that his relationship with the organization would be relatively permanent (or at least hoping that it
would be) the organization man looked within for approval. Rewards and punishments came down the hierarchy to the
individual, so that the individual, habitually looking upward at the next rung of the hierarchical ladder, became conditioned to
subservience. Thus: the wishy-washy organization man - the man without personal convictions (or without the courage to make them
evident). It paid to conform.
Finally, the organization man needed to understand his place in the scheme of things; he occupied a well-defined niche, performed
actions that were also well-defined by the rules of the organization, and he was judged by the precision with which he followed
the book. Faced by relatively routine problems, he was encouraged to seek routine answers. Unorthodoxy, creativity, venturesomeness
were discouraged, for they interfered with the predictability required by the organization of its component parts.
The embryonic Ad-hocracies of today demand a radically different constellation of human characteristics. In place of
permanence, we find transience-high mobility between organizations, never-ending reorganizations within them, and a constant generation
and decay of temporary work groupings. Not surprisingly, we witness a decline in old-fashioned “loyalty” to the organization and its
sub-structures.

31. According to the author, Weber was incorrect in his evaluation of the bureaucratic organization because
1] arguments of Bennis predicted the demise of bureaucracy.
2] Weber underestimated the rate of change and information flow through a society.
3] the author believed that all organizational forms are temporary.
4] bureaucracy only thrives in transient environments.
32. According to Bennis.
1] bureaucratic organizations would be obsolete as they lacked good human skills.
2] a bottom-heavy organizational structure is unfit to manage any form of organization in competitive environments.
3] the organizations of tomorrow would rely on specialized skill-sets of the members constituting the organization
4] employees of non-bureaucratic organizations would be self-centred and find it difficult to work under trying conditions.
33. Which of the following is not true of the organizational man in a bureaucratic environment?
1] He subordinated his own interests to those of the organization.
2] He viewed his experience in the organization as in investment.
3] He explored creative solution to a small set of problems related to his niche.
4] Rewards came down the hierarchy to the organizational man.
34. According to the author, the organizations of today
i] require work-groups that are rapidly formed and demolished to resolve the task on hand. ii] are populated with people with
high levels of energy and good at multi-tasking.
iii] would seek people who know their role in the scheme of things, and perform actions well defined by the organization
1] i only 2] ii & iii 3] i & iii 4] i, ii and iii
35. According to the passage, the key differences between bureaucratic organizations and modern organizations is
i] in the nature of work performed by each ii] in the characteristics of the people that form the organization

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iii] in the manner in which problems will be approached and solved iv] in the rate at which information would
flow through the organization.
1] i & ii 2] i & iii 3] ii & iii 4] ii and iv
Passage 3
January 6, 1990.
It wasn’t until thirty years ago, in the 1960s, that there began to be any widespread realization that ecstasy is a legitimate human need
– as essential for mental and physical health as proper nutrition, vitamins, rest, and recreation. Though the idea had been
foreshadowed by Freud and stressed by Wilhelm Reich, there had never been anything particularly ecstatic about
psychoanalysts, or their patients. They seemed, on the whole, emotionally catharticized and drearily mature. Ecstasy, in the form of
mystical experience, had also been the objective of a growing minority that, since the beginning of the century, had been fascinated
with yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, and other forms of Oriental meditation; and these people were always rather serious and
demure. But in the sixties, everything blew up. Something almost like a mutation broke out among people from fifteen to twenty-five,
to the utter consternation of the adult world. From San Francisco to Katmandu, there suddenly appeared multitudes of hippies with
hair, beards, and costumes that disquietingly reminded their elders of Jesus Christ, the prophets, and the apostles – who were all at a safe
historical distance. At the peak of our technological affluence, these young people renounced the cherished values of Western
Civilization – the values of property and status. Richness of experience, they maintained, was far more important than things and
money, in pursuit of which their parents were miserably and dutifully trapped in squirrel cages.
Scandalously, hippies did not adopt the ascetic and celibate ways of traditional holy men. They took drugs, held sexual orgies and
substituted free-loving communities for the hallowed family circle. Those who hoped that all this was just an adolescent quest for kicks
that would soon fade away were increasingly alarmed, for it appeared to be in lively earnest. The hippies moved on from marijuana
and LSD to Hindu chants and yoga, hardly aware that mysticism, in the form of realizing that one’s true self is the Godhead, is
something Western society would not tolerate. After all look what happened to Jesus. Mysticism, or democracy in the kingdom of God,
seemed arrant subversion and blasphemy to people whose official image of God had always been monarchical – the cosmic
counterpart of the Pharaohs and Cyruses of the ancient world. Mysticism was therefore persecuted alike by church and state, and
the taboo still continued – with assistance from the psychiatric inquisition. Admittedly, the hippies were credulous,
undiscriminating, and immoderate in their spiritual explorations. But if the approach was fumbling, the goal was clear. I have
before me a faded copy of the summer 1969 bulletin of what was then California’s revolutionary Mid peninsula Free University (now
the world respected Castalia University of Menlo Park), which bluntly affirms that “The natural state of man is ecstatic wonder; we
should not settle for less”.
Looking back from 1990, all this is very understandable, however inept. The flower children knew what their parents hardly dared
contemplate: that they had no future. At any moment, they might suffer instant cremation by the H-bomb or the slower and grislier
dooms of chemical and biological warfare. The history of man’s behaviour warned them that armaments which exist are almost
invariably used and may even go off by themselves. By the end of 1970, their protests against the power structure of the West (which
from their standpoint included Russia), combined with the Black-Power movement, had so infuriated the military industrial police
labor union- Mafia complex known as the ‘establishment’ that the United States was close to civil war.
Happily, it was just then that the leading scientists, philosophers, and responsible statesmen of the world abruptly called factionists and
politicians to their senses. They solemnly proclaimed an ecological crisis and put it so bluntly that the world almost went into panic.
Ideological, national, and racial disputes were children’s tiffs in comparison with the many headed menace of overpopulation,
totally inadequate food production, shortage of water, erosion of soil, pollution of air and water, deforestation, poisoned food, and utter
chemicals imbalance of nature. By 1974, no one could refuse to see that all extravagant military and space projects must forthwith be
canceled and every energy diverted to feeding and cleansing the world. Had this not happened, I could not be writing to you. Civilization
would not have endured beyond 1980 and certainly would not have taken its present direction. For we have gone a long way in
persuading people that “the natural state of man is ecstatic wonder.”

36. According to the author,

1] prior to 1960, psychoanalysts and their patients were serious and demure.
2] Buddhism, Zen and Vedanta are not considered forms of ecstasy.
3] Western civilization was not characterized by materialistic greed.
4] In the search for ecstasy, the hippies went overboard.
37. Which word would best replace the word “consternation” as used in the second paragraph?
1] confusion 2] amazement 3] delight 4] dismay
38. According to the passage, the explosion of interest in mysticism in the 1960’s was later checked by
1] threat of nuclear was and biological warfare.
2] focus on issues related to environment and ecology.
3] the interest is space travel and further investment in military equipment.
4] institutionalization of the process of mysticism by institutes such as Mid-peninsula Free University.
39. According to the generation swayed by mysticism in the 1960’s,
1] it was more important to enjoy the experience than enjoy the financial benefits that accrue from it.
2] the fear of being “nuked” was absent in their predecessors.
3] celibacy and renunciation were opposites of mysticism and ecstasy.
4] United States had to opposed as it favoured the Church in persecution of mysticism.
40. “But in the sixties, everything blew up”. By this the author means
1] that definition of mysticism changed significantly.
2] that the popularity of Yoga, Buddhism, Zen and Vedanta increased exponentially.
3] that there was a sudden increase globally in the number of people pursuing the path of mysticism.

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4] that youth, for the first time, joined the followers of ecstasy in hordes.

Directions for Questions 41-45: A number of sentences are given below which, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph.
Each sentence is labeled with a letter. Choose the most logical order of sentences from among the four given choices to construct a
coherent paragraph.
41.
A. Exquisite paintings on walls of village huts, ‘rangoli’ at doorways during festivals to guide the goddess Laxmi into households on
Diwali are all spontaneous creative expressions of the ladies of the house.
B. But thanks to the current craze for ethnic, the best of the old is now back with a vengeance.
C. Walls and floors have traditionally been mediums of self-expression in India.
D. Now with synthetic paints replacing the dung plastering on walls and printed vinyl wallpapers adding that dash of modern artistry,
one would think the traditional has well and truly been displaced.
1] CADB 2] BDAC 3] DBCA 4] BCAD
42.
A. But the basic colour vocabulary of even the richest language is pitifully small - fewer than a dozen words.
B. The human eye can discern the difference between several million colours of varying hue, saturation and lightness.
C. It is not colour awareness that is lacking but a colour vocabulary.
D. All other colour terms are a matter of qualifying a basic word, such as light blue or dark green.
1] ACDB 2] BADC 3] DBCA 4] CBDA
43.
A. Absorption with products and production processes has given way to an overriding concern with customer needs as the determinant
of company strategy.
B. The past three decades of international trade have been marked by intense competition among well managed industrial companies.
C. At the same time, a noticeable shift has taken place in the preoccupation of top managers in the more successful companies. D. More
recently still, this market focus has taken on an explicitly competitive dimension.
1] DACB 2] ACBD 3] BCAD 4] CDAB
44.
A. Existing information sources may provide an executive with financial analyses such as return on assets, return on sales, return on
equity; or with customer profiles, industry trends and productivity measures.
B. However, other systems of data input to managers are possible - such as issue-oriented data analysis - that pinpoint problems top
management wants to address, so that decisions taken are consistent with the overall strategy of the enterprise.
C. Thus the manager may not have to waste time penetrating the “smoke screen” commonly found in historically grown reports and
statistics.
D. From such data, he would develop responses and actions to whatever business problems loomed large at that time.
1] CABD 2] DCAB 3] BDAC 4] ADBC
45.
A. According to sociologists ‘speech is the instrument of society’
B. Language is the essential requirement for all human co-operative work.
C. It is used not only for giving and receiving information, but also for greeting, conversation, arguments etc.
D. But a more useful approach is that, it is a means of social control.
1] BACD 2] CDAB 3] ADCB 4] DBAC

Directions for Questions 46-50: Each of the sentences below has one or more blank spaces indicating that something has been
left out. Choose the set of words that makes the sentence most meaningful.

46. ______ curtains of lace not only add grace but also _______ robbers from breaking into houses for fear of being seen.
1] Diaphanous, in habit 2] Lacy, prevent
3] Dilatory, instigate 4] Desultory, in genue
47. The man was mentally _____after the death of his wife and hence was put in an ______.
1] unfit, hospital 2] deranged,asylum
3] upset,institution 4] depraved, ding
48. The _______ of his interest between music and dance put him in a ______as to which to pursue after completion of
school.
1] diffusion, charisma 2] interest, problem
3] dichotomy, dilemma 4] confusion, perplex
49. Clothes are ________ to make them shine.
1] whitened 2]bleached
3] washed 4] rubbed
50. Medical facilities have improved so well that what was ________ yesterday is_______ today.
1] unimaginable, commonplace 2] professional, amateur 3] unbelievable, possible 4] official, unofficial

Directions for Questions 51-55: Each question below has two capitalized words which have a certain relationship between
them . Following this are four other pairs. Select the pair wherein the words have a relationship closest to that of the original
pair.

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51. Ballerina:Balletomane
1] heroine:audience 2] performer:admirer 3] dance:choreographer 4] artist:critic
52. Boomerang:Aborigine
1] tomahawk:Indian 2] pistol:holster 3] horse:cowboy 4] hook:manhout
53. Stoic:Emotions
1] glint:steel 2] flint:spark 3] stork:baby 4] precious:gem
54. DISH: MENU
1] stars:stripes 2] seal: paper 3] vegetables:knife 4] leaf:book
55. BEE:HIVE
1] dog: mat 2] hornet:nest 3] duck:pond 4] worm:grub

Directions for Questions 56-60: In each question below a capitalized word is followed by words. Choose the word that is most
nearly opposite to the given capitalized word.

56. BROWBEAT
1] usurp 2] procrastinate 3] cajole 4] despair
57. DROSS
1] liquid 2] stale 3] liqeur 4] essence
58. SLACK
1] airy 2] active 3] congenial 4] flamboyant
59. SEEDY
1] slow 2] fashionable 3] intricate 4] germinal
60. CAVIL
1] hair-splitting 2] loosen up 3] applaud 4] flatter

Directions for Questions 61-65: Some of the sentences given below have certain errors in them. Spot the sentence with the
error and mark that as your answer.

61.
1] A survey of the reading habits of people
2] revealed that most people
3] are interested in fictions
4] than other literary works
62.
1] While all regional languages
2] should be given encouragement
3] It is our desire that we should
4] have a national language for us
63.
1] There goes Mr Raj and
2] his wife
3] attracting the attention
4] of all passers by
64.
1] Sachin is
2] a best example
3] of a cricketer
4] who was very nice by heart
65.
1] It is a fact that
2] he left his country
3] and settles in a foreign land
4] for money

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