In the following passage ten blanks are left out labeled with letters A, B, C…
2025
In the following passage ten blanks are left out labeled with letters A, B, C and so on. You have to choose a set of words that is correct grammatically and contextually in order to fill the blank.
The Union Cabinet has approved a series of changes in foreign direct investment norms as the government prepares to enter the last lap of its economic policy-setting phase ahead of the 2019 election. Key among these was the decision to _____ 1 _____ up to 49% overseas ownership, including by a foreign airline, in Air India. This comes just a little more than six months after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod for a strategic _____ 2 _____ of the airline. The relaxation in ownership norms clears the decks for possible bidders such as the Singapore Airlines-Tata combine and Jet Airways — with its overseas equity and route partners — to make a more detailed commercial _____ 3 _____ of the investment opportunity the state-owned flag carrier presents. For the fiscally constrained government, the _____ 4 _____ couldn’t have come sooner. With the Union Budget due soon and the government _____ 5 _____ short of its budgeted strategic disinvestment goal for the current financial year — as of end-November, only 28% of the targeted ₹15,000 crore had been realised — the hope must be for an _____ 6 _____ timetable for the stake sale. Still, the fulfillment of a necessary condition for a strategic sale doesn’t automatically become sufficient grounds for a successful privatisation. Given the carrier’s accumulated debt of about ₹50,000 crore and the fact that the interest of potential investors is likely to be focused on Air India’s _____ 7 _____ long-haul international routes and its fleet of more than 40 wide-bodied aircraft, disinvestment will be neither easy nor guaranteed. At the very least, the government needs to set a distinct, _____ 8 _____ road map for the sale process. The other reform cleared by the Cabinet was the _____ 9 _____ decision to put 100% FDI in Single Brand Retail Trading under the ‘automatic’ route, accompanied by the long-sought relaxation of mandatory local sourcing norms. This had been a major issue with potential investors including Apple, which had repeatedly urged the government to take a more _____ 10 _____ view given the level of technological advancement incorporated in its products and the difficulty in finding local sources of supply at the requisite scale.
Choose a set of words that is correct grammatically and contextually in order to fill the blank 7
(question no 1 till 10 are linked together)
- A.
potentially, likely
- B.
futile, cost-effective
- C.
pragmatic, realistic
- D.
lucrative, fruitful
Attempted by 2 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
In a cloze-passage vocabulary question, the correct word-set must pass two independent tests: it must fit the sentence grammatically (same part of speech, correct agreement at the blank), and its meaning must match the argument the surrounding sentences are building -- a word-set can sound fine in isolation and still be wrong if it does not carry the sense the passage needs.
The sentence with blank 7 reads: "...the interest of potential investors is likely to be focused on Air India's ___7___ long-haul international routes and its fleet of more than 40 wide-bodied aircraft..." Both blank-filling words must be adjectives modifying "routes", and the passage's whole argument is about whether Air India's assets are valuable enough to attract a buyer despite its roughly Rs 50,000 crore debt. "Lucrative, fruitful" are near-synonyms meaning profitable and rewarding -- exactly the property that would draw investor interest in those routes in spite of the debt burden, and the sentence reads naturally with them in place.
Checking each option set against both tests -- grammatical fit and the passage's argument -- rules out the rest:
"potentially, likely" are hedging adverbs about probability, not adjectives describing a route's value; they don't sit naturally before "long-haul international routes" and add no sense of why the routes would attract a buyer.
"futile, cost-effective" -- "futile" (pointless, unlikely to succeed) contradicts the passage's premise that investors are actively pursuing the airline; pairing it with a cost-focused term like "cost-effective" also produces an inconsistent pair that doesn't describe route value.
"pragmatic, realistic" describe a way of thinking or an approach, not a property of the routes themselves -- they would answer "what kind of outlook" rather than "why are these routes attractive", so they don't fit the noun phrase being modified.
Re-reading the completed sentence -- "...focused on Air India's lucrative, fruitful long-haul international routes..." -- flows naturally and reinforces the editorial's point that disinvestment hinges on whether the airline's assets are valuable enough; no other option set produces a coherent, on-argument sentence here.