UGC-NET/SET Paper I Reading Comprehension Practice Set-04

Read the passage below and answer the questions (Nos. 1 to 5) based on your understanding of the passage:

The “who’s who’ of universities and research institutions published by the Human Resource Development Ministry, as the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2018, should be viewed mainly as a proposition that data make it possible to assign objectivecredentials to some aspects of education. Its assessment of some of the top institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the IITs and the IIMs is unsurprising, given their record of research, peer-reviewed publications and outcomes for graduates. 

Even among the 3,954 institutions that participated, there is a clear skew towards southern, southeastern and western India. Participation levels are inadequate: there were 40,026 colleges and 11,669 standalone institutions according to the HRD Ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education for 2016-17. 

To the faculty and students in many colleges, what matters is the vision of the administrative leaders and a commitment to excellence. The governing bodies should make available adequate financial and academic resources to colleges, particularly the younger ones, to help them improve performance. These are measured by the NIRF in terms of the percentage of faculty with doctoral degrees, papers published in credentialed journals, inclusivity and diversity of students and median salaries for the graduates.

1. With reference to paragraph 1, what does the author mean by the phrase “who’s who”? 

(A) He wants to know who they are? 

(B) He is wondering who developed the list.

(C) He is referring to the top institutions among universities and research institutes.

(D) He is asking the reader to guess who these institutions are?

2. Which of the following four regions demonstrate greater tendency towards participation in the NIRF?

 (i) Northern

(ii) North-Eastern

(iii) Western (iv) South-Eastern Code: 

(A) Only (iii) and (iv)

(B) Only (i), (iii) and (iv) 

(C) Only (i), (ii) and (iv)

(D) Only (ii) and (iv)

3. Which of the following parameter(s) does/do the faculty and students consider to be most important while determining the worth of an institution? 

(i) Vision of the leadership

(ii) Frequency of pay hikes

(iii) Availability of adequate academic resources Code: 

(A) Only (iii)

(B) Only (i)

(C) Only (i) and (iii)

(D) Only (ii) and (iii)

4. Which of the following parameter (s) is/are used by the NIRF to judge institutions for the purpose of their ranking?

 (i) Papers published in reputed journals 

(ii) Number of highly qualified faculty

(iii) Diversity of the student body Code: 

(A) Only (iii) 

(B) Only (i), (ii) and (iii) 

(C) Only (i) 

(D) Only (ii)

5. Which of the following is/are true according to the passage?

(i) There was a huge amount of participation in NIRF 2018.

(ii) The ranking system has been critiqued for failing to capture the critical metric of learning outcomes.

(iii) NIRF’s assessment of the top institutions is still expected.

Code: 

(A) Only (i) 

(B) Only (ii) 

(C) Only (i), (ii) and (iii) 

(D) Only (iii)

Answer Key

1. C

2. A

3. C

4. B

5. D