Verbal questions are asked in most placement tests, including that of Tech Mahindra. Through these questions, the candidates are tested for their grammatical knowledge, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills. Verbal questions feature in form of one-word substitution, sentence correction/ completion, para jumbles, antonyms/ synonyms, analogies, etc. Here, we have given a sample RC passage and other practice questions for Tech Mahindra verbal test:
Tech Mahindra Verbal Questions
DIRECTIONS for questions 1-4: Answer the questions that follow each passage.
All men by nature, desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses: for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others, the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things. By nature, animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation, memory is produced in some of them, though not in others. And therefore, the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g., the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides memory, have this sense of hearing can be taught.
The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasoning. Now from memory, experience is produced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much like science and art, but really, science and art come to men through experience; for 'experience made art', as Polus says, 'but inexperience luck.'
Now art arises, when from many notions gained by experience, one universal judgment about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgment that when Callias was ill of this disease that did him good, and similarly, in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g., to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers – this is a matter of art. With a view to action, experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge of individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man, except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.)
But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which implies that wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and the cause. Hence we think also that the master-workers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done (we think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do-, as fire burns, but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions by a natural tendency, the labourers perform them through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes.
And in general, it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore, we think art – more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot. Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the 'why' of anything – e.g., why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot. At first, he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wiser and superior to the rest.
But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence, when all such, inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure. We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience. The master-worker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then, Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.
What is the relationship between sensation and memory?
All animals have sensation but some animals do not have memory.
Human beings are intelligent as they can reason, whereas animals do not have the capacity of reasoning.
Human beings have sensation and memory both.
When sensation is remembered, it becomes as memory experience and this leads to connected experience, which in turn gives rise to reasoning.
Answer: Option D.
Refer to the fifth line of 1st paragraph.
Sensation may produce memory.
Those with memory are more intelligent and apt at learning.
Memory produces experience which then leads to judgment.
What is the difference between art and experience?
Art explains the cause of things together with its effects, whereas experience gives us just the effect of things, not the cause.
Art does not give the cause and effect of things, whereas experience gives the cause and effect of things.
Experience and art give rise to one another and they are complementary and supplementary to each other.
Both experience and art are views of a contradictory time and space and this is where the difference between the two lies.
Answer: Option A.
Refer to 3rd paragraph.
The first line ‘Now art arises......is produced’.
Also refer to line 3 of 5th paragraph.
‘For men of experience ......cause’. Hence option (A).
Why, according to the author, were the mathematical arts founded in Egypt?
Because they were men of experience and had wisdom and knowledge about certain principles and causes.
Because the sciences which do not cater to necessities or pleasures develop only after the previous two have been invented and only then, men have time for themselves. So was the case in Egypt where the priestly caste had ample leisure time.
Because the inventors of luxuries were considered more important than the inventors of necessities and in Egypt, the kingly and priestly class had developed great standards in luxurious tastes and attitudes.
Because Egyptians were considered to be connoisseurs of art and crafts and had superior civilization as opposed to the other ancient civilizations.
Answer: Option B.
The last paragraph talks about mathematics and art being founded because the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure. Hence option B.
Also the 1st line of last paragraph indicates that the sciences which gave pleasure or the necessities of life were already discovered.
Which of the following can be considered to be the central idea of the passage?
"Experience made art, but inexperience luck".
Art is superior to experience.
What actually is "Wisdom"?
Knowledge is wisdom.
Answer: Option B.
The passage talks about art and experience and shows how art is superior to experience.
DIRECTIONS for questions 5 to 6: Select the pair of words which exhibits the same relationship between each other as the capitalized pair of words.
BEWILDERMENT : CONFUSION : :
bursa : sack
fantod : nervousness
bewitched : alliteration
coracle : lodestar
Answer: Option B.
Fantod – a state of extreme nervousness or restlessness.
Bewilderment is the condition of being confused or disoriented.
Coracle- a small, round or very broad boat.
Lodestar – a star that shows the way.
Hence option B.
Answer: Option A.
Preamble : Statute
Preamble is an introductory part of a statute.
Prologue is an introductory part of a novel.
Hence option A.
The poet "drew on his fancy" not his knowledge of nature, when he wrote his poem on birds
used his understanding
used his imagination
used his aptitude
used his skill
Answer: Option B.
Drew on his fancy –used his imagination.
Very ambitious people do not like to "rest on their laurels."
be unhappy
be impatient
be motivated
be complacent
Answer: Option D
To rest on their laurels means be happy with what they get, be complacent. Hence option D.
DIRECTIONS for the questions 9: Arrange the sentences marked A, B, C, D and E to form a logical paragraph.
A nation has gone against its historical record
Risen above its worst prejudices in one, emotional, incandescent moment.
Well, at least partly, and for a while. Americans have voted in larger numbers than they have in decades, perhaps ever.
Millions of younger voters have been fired by the youthful Senator they have chosen to send to the White House.
The African-American president-elect did far better with white male voters than fellow-Democrat Johan Kerry did four years ago.
ABCDE
CDABE
DECBA
BCEDA
Answer: Option B.
Here A and B are clearly related as “its” in B refers to “ a nation” in A. The paragraph talks about elections and E will have to be after D as the youthful Senator became the African – American president. The option which has AB and D before E is option B only, which is the correct answer.
DIRECTIONS for question 10: Sentences are given with blanks to be filled in with an appropriate word. Choose the correct word out of the four.
I have absolutely no doubt .............. the innocence of the accused.
on
with
over
about
Answer: Option D.
With doubt we always use the preposition about.
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