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Direction: Given below is a passage divided into XIV segments. Read the passage and answer the question that follow. The UK is the world’s fifth largest economy, it contains many areas of immense wealth, its capital is a leading centre of global finance, its entrepreneurs are innovation and agile, and despite the current political turmoil, it has a system of government that rightly remains the envy of much of the world. (I) It thus seems patently unjust and __(A)__ to British values that so many people are living in poverty. (II) This is obvious (1) to anyone who opens their eyes to see the deep (2) growth in foodbanks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of immense (3) despair that leads even the Government to appoint a Minister for suicide prevention (4) and civil society to report on levels of loneliness and isolation. (III) And local __(B)__, especially in England, which perform vital roles in providing a real social safety net have been gutted by a series of government policies. (IV) Libraries have closed in record numbers, community and youth centres have been shrunk and are underfunded, public spaces and buildings including parks and recreation centres have been sold off. (V) While the labour and housing markets provide the crucial __(C)__, the focus of this report is on the contribution made by social security and related policies. (VI) The results? 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are below the poverty line, and 1.5 million are __(D)__. (VII) The widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a 7% rise in child poverty between 2015 and 2022, and various __(E)__(resources) predict child poverty rates of as high as 40%. (VIII) For almost one in every two children to be poor in the twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one. (IX) The country’s most respected charitable groups, its leading think tanks, its parliamentary ommittees, independent authorities like the National Audit Office, and many others, have all drawn attention to the dramatic decline in the fortunes of the least well off in this country. (X) But through it all, the state (1) has remained determinedly (2) in a government (3) of denial while stubbornly (4) resisting to acknowledge the situation. (XI) Even while devolved __(F)__ in Scotland and Northern Ireland are frantically trying to devise ways to ‘mitigate’, or in other words counteract, at least the worst features of the Government’s benefits policy, Ministers insisted that all is well and running according to plan. (XII) Some tweaks to basic policy have __(G)__ been made, but there has been a determined resistance to change in response to the many problems. (XIII) However, the good news is that/ many of the problems could readily be solved/ if the Government is to acknowledge the problems/ and consider some of the recommendations below. (XIV)
Which of the following word given in the options should fill the blank marked as (C) in the sixth segment (VI) of the passage, to make it grammatically and contextually meaningful. Note that the word should also fill both the blanks of the following two sentences to make them contextually meaningful.
(i) Settled into a ________ of wooded hills, was the little log cabin.
(ii) The conference begins this week against a _______ of unmitigated gloom.
Backdrop
Surrounding
Precursor
Profusion
Both A and B
Backdrop- the setting or background for a scene, event, or situation; lie behind or beyond; serve as a background to Precursor- a person or thing that comes before another of the same kind, predecessor Profusion- an abundance or large quantity of something Let us look at the first sentence given above. It indicates that the hills acted as a part of the surrounding where the little log cabin was situated. So, “background” can fit here the best. “Surrounding” is quite inappropriate here. The second sentence implies that the “unmitigated gloom” acts as the pretext, in reference with which the conference begins. The similar meaning is conveyed by segment VI of the passage. It implies that though the labour and housing markets provide a background to the issue, the focus of the report is on the contribution made by social security and related policies. Thus, option A is the correct answer.
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