Precis: Capf 2021

UPSC
CAPF 2021
PRECIS
Practice Book
DR. PRASHANT JAGTAP

Assistant Commandant, CISF
PUNE: +91 8530314222, +91 7420 831018
NEW DELHI: +91 8530316222
CAPF PATHFINDERS
PUNE: +91 7420 831018, +91 8600 192703
NEW DELHI: +91 9867 321800

PATHFINDERS' ACADEMY PUNE
Enter to learn, Depart to serve!
ONE STOP SOLUTION FOR upsc CAPF AC PREPARATION!
Que.1 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

Do not suggest a title. Write, as far as possible, in your own words. इस हाशिए में
The précis must be written only in the précis-format given below: नह ीं शिखना
(15) चाहहए
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The belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has great advantages. It makes this margin.
thought unnecessary and puts the highest intelligence within the reach of everyone. It is not diffi-
cult to learn the correct use of such words as 'complex,' 'sadism,' 'Oedipus,' 'bourgeois,'
"deviation,' 'left'; and nothing more is needed to make a brilliant writer or talker. Some, at least, of
such words represented much thought on the part of their inventors; like paper money they were
originally convertible into gold. But they have become for most people inconvertible, and in de-
preciating have increased nominal wealth in ideas. And so we are enabled to despise the paltry
intellectual fortunes of former times.
The modern-minded man, although he believes profoundly in the wisdom of his period,
'must be presumed to be very modest about his personal powers. His highest hope is to think first:
what is about to be thought, to say what is about to be said, and to feel what is about to be felt; he
has no wish to think better thoughts than his neighbours, to say things showing more insight, or to
have emotions which are not those of some fashionable group, but only to be slightly ahead of
others in point of time. Quite deliberately he suppresses what is individual in himself for the sake
of the admiration of the herd. A mentally solitary life, such as that of Copernicus, or Spinoza, or
Milton after the Restoration, seems pointless according to modern standards. Copernicus should
have delayed his advocacy of the Copernican system until it could be made fashionable; Spinoza
should have been either a good Jew or a good Christian; Milton should have moved with the
times, like Cromwell's widow, who asked Charles II for a pension on the ground that she did not
agree with her husband's politics. Why should an individual set himself up as an independent
judge? Is it not clear that wisdom resides in the blood of the Nordic race or, alternatively, in the
proletariat ? And in any case what is the use of an eccentric opinion, which never can hope to con-
quer the great agencies of publicity?
The money rewards and widespread though ephemeral fame which those agencies have
made possible places temptations in the way of able men which are difficult to resist. To be point-
ed out, admired, mentioned constantly in the press, and offered easy ways of earning much money
is highly agreeable; and when all this is open to a man, he finds it difficult to go on doing the
work that he himself thinks best and is inclined to subordinate his judgment to the general opin-
ion.
(440 words)
SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Write one word in each division and five words in each line. Punctuate your passage in the usual इस हाशिए में
way and divide it into paragraphs, if necessary. You may make a rough copy first, if you so wish,
नह ीं शिखना
on the rough pages in the answer-book. The rough work should be scored through before you hand-
over your answer-book. चाहहए
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Que.2 Write precis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

The precis must be written only in the précis-format given below: नह ीं शिखना
Candidates
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There is a fatal imbalance between what man is and what he wishes to be. This discord is this margin.
responsible for our unrest. We talk like wise men but act like lunatics. We cannot prepare for war
and at the same time for a world community. We are tormented by inner uneasiness and pangs of
conscience. The warring sides of our nature require to be reconciled. If we are to defeat fratricidal
tendencies in us, we must break our self-will, the pride of egoism which is widespread in all sides
of our life. In man there is always an urge to self-transcendence, but until it becomes absolute un-
selfishness, narrow loyalties and destructive rivalries will prevail. The unrest in the world is a re-
flection of our inner disharmony.
A people are saved not by their military leaders or industrial magnates, or by their priests
and politicians, but by their saints of implacable integrity. Religion is the discipline by which we
are helped to overcome the discord in our nature and integrate our personality. If we reflect on the
history of religious development, we will be surprised at the amount of intellectual ingenuity, pas-
sion and zeal spent on the task of defining the Supreme to which silence or poetry would seem to
be the most appropriate response. Self-righteousness breeds fanaticism. None but fools and fanat-
ics are quite certain of their views of God. With crusaders there is no arguing.
Before God there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, neither master nor
slave. They are all citizens of the one commonwealth, members of one family. A truly religious
person cannot hold back but should lead. He cannot remain silent when he should speak up. He
should not compromise when he should stand fast. Ethical values have relevance to social facts.
We must face up to the ugly facts of sin, pride and greed. Human nature is essentially good and it
is opposed to tyranny, injustice and authoritarianism.
Religion appeals to the hearts of men to root out fear, guilt and faith in force. The tradition of tol-
erance, not merely in a negative, but in a positive sense, that is an appreciation of other faiths, has
been with us for centuries. Tolerance is not apathy, but is conviction without condescension. Ag-
gressiveness is not an essential part of human nature. Combativeness can be replaced by meekness
and gentleness. The Cross indicates that the love which suffers is more powerful than the force
which inflicts suffering.
(440 words)

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Que.3 Write precis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

The precis must be written only in the precis-format given below: नह ीं शिखना
Candidates
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There is no better illustration of human folly than the narrative of Sheikh Chilli. Who in this margin.
India is not aware of the story of this incorrigible fool who chose to ignore the sane advice of a
passer-by of not cutting the same branch on which he himself was sitting. Obviously fools fail to
learn from others' experiences and pay a heavy price in the process.
They have use neither for their own intelligence nor for that of others. They live in their
own world, while apparently they may be in the middle of a group of people. Fools by nature are
enemies of thinking, both Tell reflective and prospective. They never doubt their intelligence, are
cocksure of their sense of judgement. They think they are benefactors of society and are an-
guished that the world fails to recognise their talent. All fools possess a degree of impatience in
their desire to make the world realise their worth, wishing to improve its lot by setting a personal
example before it. They are sure that the folks around them lack an innate sense of discretion and
require to learn from them.
Fools have been immortalized by literature across the world. Like Sheikh Chilli's account
in India, the legend of Don Quixote, the fictional Spanish knight, is equally famous in the West.
He is known for thriving in a make-believe world where he is the lone saviour of humanity. The
good thing is that these self-proclaimed samaritans often inhabit the world of imagination, limit-
ing their capacity to cause damage to the real world and producing in the process hilarious effects
through their irrationality. But there are instances when such fools have come to occupy the centre
stage of history. Their actions then had disastrous effects on our welfare, as well as on our exist-
ence. We all know how people like Hitler brought the world to the brink of destruction through
their disastrous leadership. The condition of the world continues to be precarious and its future
insecure due to foolish scientists who have handed over the destructive secrets of nuclear power to
vicious politicians. There goes a saying that it is no use crying over spilt milk. Now what we need
to become vigilant about is the danger posed by fools to our survival. Academic curricula across
the world need to educate learners about the negative potential of fools to challenge the safety and
security of planet earth.
(403)

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During the launching of a satellite, the rocket must travel in exactly the right direction and this margin.
at exactly the right speed. Radio signals are automatically sent back to earth from the rocket.
These signals tell men on the ground how the rocket is travelling and help them to make sure that
it is going as it should. The signals go to special calculating machines called computers that work
very fast. The computers work out whether the rocket is travelling correctly. If it is not, they cal-
culate what correction is needed. Radio signals send the correction to the rocket and make it auto-
matically change its direction or speed as necessary. Artificial satellites are used for many things.
By sending them through the upper parts of the atmosphere we can find out more about the atmos-
phere. The more air there is, the more slowly the satellite will travel, until it falls to earth. By
sending satellites round the earth at different heights, we can find out how much air there is at
each height.
We can find out more about the shape of the earth by means of satellites. If the earth is not per-
fectly round, its gravity will not be the same everywhere. Because the pull of the earth's gravity
keeps the satellite in its orbit, any change in the gravity will change the orbit. By watching the
way a satellite travels, we can find out whether the earth's gravity changes anywhere. If it does,
we know that the shape of the earth is different at that place. In this way artificial satellites have
shown us that the poles of the earth are flattened, and that the South Pole is flattened more than
the North. Satellites can give us information about the weather. By sending up satellites with tele-
vision cameras on board, we can get pictures of the clouds below. Each picture shows an area the
size of one or more whole countries. By looking at these pictures, we can see bad weather before
it comes to us. By getting warning of hurricanes or typhoons in this way, people can get ready to
shelter from them. Weather satellites can also show us when rain will come. Men are now trying
to forecast weather all round the world with the help of satellites.
(381)

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Language as culture has three important aspects. Culture is a product of the history which this margin.
it in turn reflects. Culture in other words is a product and a reflection of human beings communi-
cating with one another in the very struggle to create wealth and to control it. But culture does not
merely reflect that history; or rather it does so by actually forming images or pictures of the world
of nature and nurture. Thus the second aspect of language as culture is as an image-forming agent
in the mind of a child. Our whole conception of ourselves as a people, individually and collective-
ly, is based on those pictures and images which may or may not correctly correspond to the actual
reality of the struggles with nature and nurture which produced them in the first place. But our
capacity to confront the world creatively is dependent on how those images correspond or not to
that reality, how they distort or clarify the reality of our struggles. Language as culture is thus me-
diating between me and my own self; between my own self and other selves; between me and na-
ture. Language is mediating in my very being. And this brings us to the third aspect of language
as culture. Culture transmits or imparts those images of the world and reality through the spoken
and the written language that is through a specific language. In other words, the capacity to speak,
the capacity to order sounds in a manner that makes for mutual comprehension between human
beings is universal. This is the universality of language, a quality specific to human beings. It cor-
responds to the universality of the struggle against nature and that between human beings. But the
particularity of the sounds, the words, the word order into phrases and sentences, and the specific
manner, or laws, of their ordering is what distinguishes one language from another. Thus a specif-
ic culture is not transmitted through language in its universality but in its particularity as the lan-
guage of a specific community with a specific history. Written literature and orature are the main
means by which a particular language transmits the images of the world contained in the culture it
carries.
Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature,
the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world.
(395 words)

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Newton pointed natural philosophy in a new direction. He offered mathematical analysis this margin.
anchored in inescapable empirical fact as the new foundation for a rigorous account of the cos-
mos. From this perspective, the great error of both Aristotelian and the new mechanical natural
philosophy was its failure to adhere strictly enough to empirical facts. Vertical mechanics, for ex-
ample, claimed that matter was moved by the action of an invisible agent, yet this, the Newtonians
began to argue, was not to explain what is really happening but to imagine a fiction that gives us a
speciously satisfactory rational explanation of it. Natural philosophy needs to resist the allure of
such rational imaginings and to instead deal only with the empirically provable. Moreover, the
Newtonians argued, if a set of irrefutable facts cannot be explained other than by accepting the
brute facticity of their truth, this is not a failure of philosophical explanation so much as a devo-
tion to appropriate rigor. Such epistemological battles became especially intense around Newton's
theory of universal gravitation.
Few questioned that Newton had demonstrated an irrefutable mathematical law whereby
bodies appear to attract one another in relation to their masses and in inverse relation to the square
of the distance between them. But was this rigorous mathematical and empirical description a
philosophical account of bodies in motion? Critics such as Leibniz said no, since mathematical
description was not the same thing as philosophical explanation, and Newton refused to offer an
explanation of how and why gravity operated the way that it did. The Newtonians countered that
phenomenal descriptions were scientifically adequate so long as they were grounded in empirical
facts, and since no facts had yet been discerned that explained what gravity is or how it works, no
scientific account of it was yet possible. They further insisted that it was enough that gravity did
operate the way that Newton said it did, and that this was its own justification for accepting his
theory. They further mocked those who insisted on dreaming up chimeras like the celestial vorti-
ces as explanations for phenomena when no empirical evidence existed to support of such theo-
ries.
(302)

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The iconic struggle between the apartheid regime of South Africa and those who resisted it this margin.
illustrates the complexity of some cases of civil resistance. Originally the use of civil resistance
against apartheid was based on Gandhian ideas, which originated in South Africa in 1906 where
Gandhi was a lawyer working for an Indian trading firm. Soon the African National Congress
(ANC), founded in 1912, became the major force opposing the apartheid system’s oppression of
the 80% non-European population of the country. Using mostly legal tactics of protest during its
first four decades, the ANC became more militant in the early 1950s and began using nonviolent
direct action. White South Africans (Afrikaners) monopolized control over the state and the econ-
omy, including rich natural resources such as a third of the world’s known gold reserves. The Af-
rikaners developed an explicit theology and philosophy of white racial superiority and a legal and
economic system enforced by a modern military and police force that deliberately excluded non-
whites from economic and political power. Nevertheless, the system became increasingly reliant
upon non-white labor and isolated from international diplomacy and trade.
Discouraged about the lack of results from their nonviolent campaign, Nelson Mandela
and others called for an armed uprising, creating the Umkhonto We Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”)
that paralleled the nonviolent resistance. That, too, failed to tear down the apartheid system, and
in the end a concerted grassroots nonviolent civil resistance movement in coalition with interna-
tional support and sanctions forced the white government to negotiate.
On 17 March 1992 two-thirds of South Africa’s white voters approved a negotiated end of
the minority regime and the apartheid system. Nelson Mandela was elected as the President of the
new South Africa in the first free elections by the entire population. The decades of struggle saw
the ebb and flow of a wide variety of strategic actions within the anti-apartheid movement.
(313)

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The précis must be written only in the précis-format given below: (15) नह ीं शिखना
चाहहए
By definition, a federal state is underlined by two rules: first, it must have at least two lev-
Candidates
els of government. Second, each level must have at least one area of action in which it is autono- must not
mous. The latter requirement must be guaranteed by a written constitution, and disputes between write on
the two tiers are resolved by a single independent judiciary. Federations are centralized or decen- this margin.
tralized. The US and Brazil are examples of decentralized federalism where the regional states are
strong and the centre weak. Whereas, centralized federal constitutions grant very limited autono-
my to the states and allocate most of the power to the Centre. Austria, Belgium and India are ex-
amples of this kind. If one compiles the data on how many states have federal constitutions, then
amongst 191 states, only 25 are federal. However, these include the most populous states like the
US, Russia, India, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and Nigeria which constitute 41 per cent of the pop-
ulation of the globe.
India has a population of 1.21 billion with 80 per cent of the population being Hindu,
Muslims constituting 13 per cent and Christians and Sikhs 2 per cent respectively. The pattern of
population across states in India is very multifarious. In order to handle such diversities, India has
a two tier federal structure with decision making divided amongst the 28 states. The federation is
asymmetric with states like Kashmir and Nagaland having special provisions under Articles 370
and 371 respectively. Since the breakdown of Congress dominance in the 1990s, federalism has
also perhaps facilitated the proliferation of a number of regional parties providing for representa-
tion in terms of class, caste, region, language, or ethnicity. In 1999, 20 parties provided a stable
national coalition termed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre , transforming
the national political process earlier dominated by a single party. Earlier in 1993, there was a three
tier structure of decentralization when the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution estab-
lished Panchayati Raj with local bodies, aimed at removing rural poverty and the caste system.
Interestingly, India is now divided into 28 states, seven union territories with 600,000 villages and
towns.5 There has been further decentralization of power with the establishment of state election
commissions, and state financial commissions and the institutionalization of the Gram Sabha
(direct participatory village assemblies). Urban areas are governed by Municipal Corporations,
Councils, Town Area committee, and Notified Area Committees. Rural areas have 474 district
legislative bodies (Zilla Parishad) with 5, 906 blocks councils (Panchayat Samitis) and 227, 698
village councils (Gram Panchayats) at the base.
In India, the federal structure is based on a distribution of power between the centre and
the state, the cardinal features of which are:
1) A Single Judiciary;
2) Uniformity of Civil and Criminal Laws; and,
3) Common All India Civil Services.
The All India Civil Services (bureaucracy) provide that unifying thread for the federal ex-
perience as well. The Inter-State Council, which was established in 1990 under Article 263, also
provides a mechanism for chief ministers of states to come together and discuss issues.
(509)

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The précis must be written only in the précis-format given below: (15) नह ीं शिखना
चाहहए
Psychology overlaps with many other areas of study or even areas of life and work. Per- Candidates
haps in part because of this, a definition has proved difficult for more than 100 years. Nowadays, must not
it is usually defined as: the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes. Some years ago, write on
behavioural purists wanted the definition to embrace only behaviour, but the vacuity of that was this margin.
eventually realised. There is clearly more to the human condition than behaviour. Also, the word
psyche has an interesting background; it is a mixture of mind, spirit and, originally, even air (the
other sense of spirit). It is perhaps reasonable that psychology should be concerned with such as-
pects of life as well as with behaviour.
The ‘scientific’ part of the definition, at a basic level, refers to empiricism. In other words,
the idea is that psychology should proceed in such a way as to be This process has worked well
over some days and now the coach has Charlie on the golf course and is starting to take him from
green to green and putt to putt in increasingly difficult circumstances. All the time, he is taking
things very slowly and gently and having Charlie calmly visualize what he is going to do before
allowing him to give it a try. It seems to be starting to work quite well. verifiable by observation
or experience, that is, by data that come from the senses. The alternative is to derive information
simply from theory or from logic. This is not to say that psychologists ignore theory or logic but
that they tend to agree that their fundamental information should come via empirical means.
The fact that psychology is such a broad subject and that it is usually regarded as depend-
ent on empiricism is simultaneously a strength and a weakness. The strength, as many academic
psychologists would point out, is that it has its basis squarely in the scientific endeavour and so
there is an emphasis on methodological rigour and great care is taken not to over-generalise, that
is, not to ‘go beyond’ the observations made. The weakness is that this approach has tended to
make psychology a rather arid and cautious discipline, one that has not led to as penetrating an
understanding of the human condition as might be expected.
Interestingly, the humanities (many of which have little or nothing to do with empirical science)
are best described as those subjects that are concerned with what it is to be human. Psychologists
are frequently concerned more simply with what humans do rather than with the human condition.
This can make the subject somewhat disappointing to the beginning student who seems to want
rather more than this. For many students, one of the core reasons for studying psychology is to
find out more about oneself and others and to find things that might be useful as one goes about
one’s daily life. All too often, such knowledge is not to be found in psychology texts. One point to
bear in mind is that understanding of what it is to be human comes not just from the humanities
(such as history, languages and literature, the classics and philosophy) but also from art (in its
widest definition) and literature. These, it should be said, are not empirical endeavours – they do
not follow the precepts of the scientific method. However, whatever techniques their practitioners
use must in the end derive from empirical observations. What else is there? It is hard to conceive
of a human being born with no capacity to receive any sensory input who is then able to think. In
this sense, pure thought is not possible; surely, also, consciousness is not possible without sensory
input. So, the entire human endeavour is ultimately based on sensory input or empirically derived
data. However, it does not necessarily follow from this that all that it then remains to do is follow
some rather narrow methods in order to gather and view any information that might be available.
(665)

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The recent passing of Stephen Hawking has been met with expressions of grief as creative this margin.
as the man himself. Unfortunately, ableism has abounded in this collective celebration of the life
of arguably the most famous person with disability in the world. And disability rights activists
have been calling it out.
The disability rights movement is a relatively young human rights movement, and isn’t
always met with the empathy it demands. The idea that disability is suffering and pain is well en-
trenched in the public psyche. In fact, the movement now chiefly subscribes to the ‘social’ model,
which is to say that people who may have impairments are disabled by lack of access to infra-
structure and communication and by attitudes around them that create barriers. That it is these
barriers to participation that should be addressed by the sector by enacting rights-based legisla-
tions prohibiting discrimination, and promoting new technology and services to support people’s
efforts to communicate, move and make decisions.
People have been hoping that that policymakers derive inspiration not from Hawking him-
self but from the outcomes of support provided to the disabled. There is a considerable cost to ex-
cluding persons with disabilities from society; given that the majority of them in the world are
still restrained by barriers to participation, any estimate would come up short. Existing resources
being diverted to services that perpetuate segregation, infantilisation and dependence need to be
repurposed towards giving the disabled the supports they need to realise their own potential. To –
in atribute to Hawking – “to look up at the stars” and not at their impairments.
(262)

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It all began with the East India Company, incorporated by royal charter from Her Majesty this margin.
Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 to trade in silk and spices, and other profitable Indian commodities.
The Company, in furtherance of its trade, established outposts or ‘factories’ along the Indian
coast, notably in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay; increasingly this involved needing to defend its
premises, personnel and trade by military means, including recruiting soldiers in an increasingly
strife-torn land (its charter granted it the right to ‘wage war’ in pursuit of its aims). A commercial
business quickly became a business of conquest; trading posts were reinforced by forts, merchants
supplanted by armies.
The first British ‘factor’, William Hawkins, found himself treated with scant respect, his
king mocked and his assets scorned. When the first British ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, present-
ed his credentials in 1615 at the court of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, the Englishman was a
supplicant at the feet of the world’s mightiest and most opulent monarch. The Mughal Empire
stretched from Kabul to the eastern extremities of Bengal, and from Kashmir in the north to Kar-
nataka in the south. But less than a century and a half later, this Mughal Empire was in a state of
collapse after the spectacular sacking of Delhi by the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739 and the loot of
all its treasures. The Mughal capital was pillaged and burned over eight long weeks; gold, silver,
jewels and finery, worth over 500 million rupees, were seized, along with the entire contents of
the imperial treasury and the emperor’s fabled Peacock Throne; elephants and horses were com-
mandeered; and 50,000 corpses littered the streets. It is said that when Nadir Shah and his forces
returned home, they had stolen so much from India that all taxes were eliminated in Persia for the
next three years.
(304)

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The association of India with wealth, magic, and wisdom remained current for many cen- this margin.
turies. But this attitude began to change in the nineteenth century when Europe entered the mod-
ern age, and the lack of enthusiasm for Indian culture in certain circles became almost proportion-
ate to the earlier over-enthusiasm. It was now discovered that India had none of the qualities
which the new Europe admired. There was apparently no stress on the values of rational thought
and individualism. India’s culture was a stagnant culture and was regarded with supreme disdain,
an attitude perhaps best typified in Macaulay’s contempt for things Indian. The political institu-
tions of India, visualized largely as the rule of the Maharajas and Sultans, were dismissed as des-
potic and totally unrepresentative of public opinion. And this, in an age of democratic revolutions,
was about the worst of sins.
Yet, a contrary attitude emerged from amongst a small section of European scholars who
had discovered India largely through its ancient philosophy and its literature in Sanskrit. This atti-
tude deliberately stressed the non-modern, non-utilitarian aspects of Indian culture, where the ex-
istence of a continuity of religion of over three thousand years was acclaimed; and where it was
believed that the Indian pattern of life was so concerned with metaphysics and the subtleties of
religious belief that there was no time for the mundane things of life. German romanticism was
the most vehement in its support of this image of India: a vehemence which was to do as much
damage to India as Macaulay’s rejection of Indian culture. India now became the mystic land for
many Europeans, where even the most ordinary actions were imbued with symbolism. India was
the genesis of the spiritual East, and also, incidentally, the refuge of European intellectuals seek-
ing escape from their own pattern of life. A dichotomy in values was maintained, Indian values
being described as ‘spiritual’ and European values as ‘materialistic’, with little attempt at placing
these supposedly spiritual values in the context of Indian society (which might have led to some
rather disturbing results). This theme was taken up by a section of Indian thinkers during the last
hundred years and became a consolation to the Indian intelligentsia for its inability to compete
with the technical superiority of Britain.
The discovery of the Indian past, and its revelation to Europe in the eighteenth century,
was largely the work of Jesuits in India and of Europeans employed by the East India Company,
such as Sir William Jones and Charles Wilkins. Soon the numbers of those interested in studying
the classical languages and literatures of India grew, and the early nineteenth century saw consid-
erable achievements in linguistics, ethnography, and other fields of Indology. Scholars in Europe
expressed a keen interest in this new field of inquiry as is evident from the number of persons
who took to Indology and of one of whom at least mention must be made – F. Max Muller.
(486)

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There is an enemy beneath our feet - an enemy more deadly for his complete impartiality. this margin.
He recognizes no national boundaries, no political parties. Everyone in the world is threatened by
him. The enemy is the earth itself. When an earthquake strikes, the world trembles. The power of
a quake is greater than anything man himself can produce. But today scientists are directing a
great deal of their effort into finding some way of combating earthquakes, and it is possible that at
some time in the near future mankind will have discovered a means of protecting itself from
earthquakes. An earthquake strikes without warning. When it does, its power is immense. If it
strikes a modern city, the damage it causes is as great as if it has struck a primitive village. Gas
mains burst, explosions are caused & fires are started. Underground railways are wrecked. Build-
ings collapse, bridges fall, dams burst, gaping crevices appear in busy streets. If the quake strikes
at sea, huge tidal waves sweep inland. If it strikes in mountain regions, avalanches roar down into
the valley. Consider the terrifying statistics from the past 1755: Lisbon, capital of Portugal - the
city destroyed entirely and 450 killed. 1970: Peru: 50,000 killed. In 1968 an earthquake struck
Alaska. As this is a relatively unpopulated part, only a few people were killed. But it is likely that
this was one of the most powerful quakes ever to have hit the world. Geologists estimate that dur-
ing the tremors, the whole of the state moved over 80 feet farther west into the Pacific Ocean.
Imagine the power of something that can move an entire subcontinent! This is the problem
that the scientists face. They are dealing with forces so immense that man cannot hope to resist
them. All that can be done is to try to pinpoint just where the earthquake will strike and work
from there. At least some precautionary measures can then be taken to save lives & some of the
property.
(330 Words)

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One of the advantages of youth is that you may indulge yourself in the wildest of fantasies. must not
When I was young, I was an avid comic-book reader. You might say I was a fanatic, wherever I write on
went, my comics went with me. I anxiously awaited every new issue. My super-heroes depicted this margin.
adventurous deeds that I could easily identify with. Their experiences were for me, at the age of
ten, very real. I portrayed, moreover, every character that I read.
Every one of them was capable of performing super human acts. Each was unique, pos-
sessing specialized powers. Some were able to fly, to become invisible, or to change their form,
and some had strength far beyond that of mortals. Each super hero was easily identifiable by his
name and costume, which added to the story line of the particular plot.
I remember one particular afternoon I was with my parents in the country. I was reading
my favourite comic Spider Man. Nearby some rocks towered above me. I instantly sensed danger
and immediately scaled the rocks as the “wild web slinger”. When I reached the top, my “spider
sense” was tingling. I found myself face to face with my arch enemy, “The Lizard”. We immedi-
ately became locked in a ferocious band-to-hand, life-to-death struggle. A large crowd gathered
below, watching in suspense. I blinded the reptilian creature with a face full of web. With a swift
kick, I knocked him off the cliff in defeat.
It seemed as if I was continually reprimanded for living vicariously. My mother, as all
mothers, was always concerned for my well-being. The apparently misconstrued my mysterious
behaviour. She also, however, seemed to possess the understanding and the realization that one
day I would outgrow it.
All of my allowance was used to purchase comic books. On many occasions I had my
comic book in class. I would secretly place the comic in a text and read and dream while the class
was in session. Although I managed to maintain a normal class standard, I had to expend more
effort while dividing myself between two worlds. My teacher was suspicious of my actions and
thus felt I was not giving my all. She felt I had a better academic potential than I was showing,
and she periodically referred me to the dean for special counselling.
I recall that once in my sixth-grade math class I was very bored. In the next moment, I was
Doctor Bruce Banner, walking the streets of New York. Suddenly people were running toward me
in panic. They were screaming hysterically, fearing for their lives. They were running from a
monster terrorizing the city. I, too, started to run away, but I was thrown to the ground by the
crowd and lay helpless as the monster approached. With my heartbeat ever increasing, I knew that
transformation would soon occur. In seconds, I was eight feet tall, with green skin and solid mus-
cle. Doctor Bruce Banner once again became the Incredible Hulk.
In this period of my life, I did not have the same interest as my friends. As my friends em-
ulated their sports heroes, I had my super-heroes. Sometimes, in the midst of a game, I would be
criticized for my lack of attention. I would let a ball slip by me, or I would miss a throw. This an-
gered my teammates as it sometimes led to the loss of a game.
Despite any obstacles placed before me, I persevered. My world was filled with fantasy
and super-heroes fired my imagination with adventure. Over the years, I have retained my vivid
imagination. However, I now apply it to more practical ends.
(608)

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A critical difference between wisdom and intelligence is that wisdom demands some in- this margin.
sight and effectiveness around people. Intelligence does not. A person can be “smart” without be-
ing smart about people, but it makes no sense to say someone is wise if the person has no feel for
people or no understanding of their hopes, fears, passions, and drives. You can be a savvy inves-
tor or an accurate weather forecaster even if you aren’t particularly savvy about people, but you
can’t be a wise person if you aren’t wise about people. Montgomery’s preinvasion briefing may
have been more intelligently crafted and more skilfully delivered than any that Eisenhower ever
gave. But it was Ike’s understanding of the needs of his officers, and his deftness in attending to
those needs, that testify to his wisdom.
Any analysis of wisdom must reflect the fact that the most important things in life involve
other people. That is true for the executive trying to run a Fortune 500 company, the candidate
seeking public office, the artist trying to create work that will speak to the ages, or the single
mother trying to get her child through the tumultuous adolescent years. It’s true even for the soft-
ware engineer who merely wants to be left alone to write code for most of the day or the poker
player who just wants to feel the rush that comes from using her wits with money on the line. Our
exploration of what makes someone the wisest one in the room therefore focuses on human psy-
chology—on social psychology in particular. Wisdom requires understanding the most common
and most powerful influences on people’s behaviour. It also requires knowing when and why peo-
ple get off track and end up making faulty judgments, erroneous predictions, and poor decisions.
To be wise, one must be psych-wise.
Wisdom also requires perspective, something that runs through all three components of Webster’s
definition: knowledge, insight, and judgment. A wise person is able to put individual events in
perspective and take a broader view of the issue at hand. Eisenhower was able to get beyond his
concern with the overall scope and success of the mission and connect with his men on what was
at the forefront of their minds—their safety, their families, and what the first hours of the invasion
might be like.
(388)

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UPSC

DR. PRASHANT JAGTAP

PUNE: +91 8530314222, +91 7420 831018

NEW DELHI: +91 8530316222

NEW DELHI: +91 9867 321800

Que.1 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

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SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.4 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.5 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.6 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.7 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.8 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.9 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

Que.10 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

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Que.11 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

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Que.12 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

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Que.13 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

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Que.14 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

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Que.15 Write précis of given passage in one-third of it’s length. उम्मीदवारोंको

SPECIAL SHEET FOR PRECIS उम्मीदवारोंको

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