Sample English Language Questions for CLAT 2024

The third great defect of our civilization is that it does not know what to do with its knowledge. Science has given us powers fit for the gods, yet we use them like small children. For example, we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be man’s servants; yet he has grown so dependent on them that they are in a far way to become his masters.

Already most men spend most of their lives looking after and waiting upon machines. And the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, and given petrol to drink, and oil to wash with, and they must be kept at the right temperature. And if they do not get their meals when they expect them, they grow sulky and refuse to work, or burst with rage, and blow up, and spread ruin and destruction all round them. So, we have to wait upon them very attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper.

Already we find it difficult either to work or play without the machines, and a time may come when they will rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals. And this brings me to the point at which I asked, “What do we do with all the time which the machines have saved for us, and [do] with the new energy they have given us?” On the whole, it must be  admitted, we do very little.

For the most part we use our time and energy to make more and better machines; but more and better machines will only give us still more time and still more energy, and what are we to do with them? The answer, I think, is that we should try to become more civilized. For the machines themselves, are not civilization but aids to civilization. But you will remember that we agreed at the beginning that being civilized meant making and liking beautiful things, thinking freely, and living rightly and maintaining justice equally between man and man.

Man has a better chance today to do these things than he ever had before; he has more time, more energy, less to fear and less to fight against. If he will give his time and energy which his machines have won for him to making more beautiful things, to finding out more and more about the universe, to removing the causes of quarrels between nations, to discovering how to prevent poverty, then I think our civilization would undoubtedly be the greater, as it would be the most lasting that there has ever been.

a. Indubitably
b. Doubtlessly
c. Unquestionably
d. Possibly

a. They must be operated so no hazards are created to employees or equipment.
b. They must be fed with coal.
c. Given petrol to drink.
d. Oil to wash with.

a. Even after humanity discovered fire, it took many decades to implement it into daily
life.
b. We do not know how to manage our machines.
c. AI has so much potential, however, it has not been developed to its full extent.
d. Humanity does not utilize even 50% of the resources available to it.

a. Disagreement
b. Reconciliation
c. Amicability
d. Amity

a. Today, man has more things to fear and fight against.
b. If man devotes more time and energy into his machines, it will increase the quarrels
between nations.
c. Today, man has a better chance today to do things he had never had before.
d. Increasing development into machines would make civilization weaker.

1. (d)
Explanation: The word possibly is farthest in meaning to the word ‘undoubtedly’. The rest of the words are synonyms of the word undoubtedly.

2. (a)
Explanation: As per the passage, machines must be fed with coal, given petrol to drink, given oil to wash with and kept at the right temperature. There is no mention of operation such that no hazards are created.

3. (b)
Explanation: According to the passage, an example that civilization does not know what to do with its knowledge is that we do know how to manage our machines.

4. (a)
Explanation: The word quarrel is synonymous with the word disagreement. The rest of the
words are antonyms.

5. (c)
Explanation: The author believes that man has a better chance today to do things he had never done before. The rest of the options are antithetic to the author’s viewpoint.