English Quiz


Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some questions.



While strategic plans identify what your organization should do differently, very few provide a roadmap for how to build the skills, knowledge, and processes needed to carry out and sustain the critical changes. But without building these capabilities, it’s very difficult to achieve the results you want. For example, a multi-product technology firm we advised laid out a strategy to significantly increase business with its large enterprise customers by creating single points of contact and focusing on providing solutions as opposed to delivering products. The strategy was sound, but making it happen required many new capabilities: dozens of salespeople had to learn new approaches to selling and relationship building, different sales divisions needed to share information and collaborate, new roles for coordinating enterprise accounts had to be created, financial information had to be presented and analyzed differently, and so on. These changes meant that hundreds of people in the company had to work differently in some way – but the plan said nothing about developing capabilities. So despite general agreement that the strategy made sense, the missing capabilities made it impossible to carry out.


Capabilities lie at the heart an organization’s ability to achieve results, so it’s hardly a surprise that different results require different capabilities. But strategic plans often get this simple equation wrong, for one of two reasons.
First, many strategic planners and senior executives assume that if the strategy is logical, then people will figure out what to do, and don’t build capabilities development into their plans at all. And yes, every organization has people who are highly adaptable, learn quickly, and can operate in this mode. Unfortunately, they often comprise a small group, and leaders end up over-relying on these “usual suspects” to tackle challenging execution assignments; and since these few people can’t do it all, the efforts founder.

At the other extreme, some planners like to be prescriptive and can spend significant resources mapping out in great detail what everyone should do differently. But a “paint by the numbers” approach to strengthening organizational capabilities rarely works. Developing capabilities requires experimentation, trial and error, and iterative learning to figure out what will work in each organization’s unique culture, functional structure, and environment. Faced with lengthy lists of best practices and new processes that don’t match reality, teams simply give up and revert to old patterns of behaviour.

Overcoming these pitfalls requires thinking of capability development in a different way: as an integral part of the strategic execution. The key is to link each strategic priority to the capabilities needed to drive that opportunity and to frame accountability for each strategic priority around both results and capability development. Let’s look at one company that we helped take this approach. When leaders of Rich Products, a global food manufacturer, launched a strategic initiative focused on accelerating innovation, they recognized that helping the organization simultaneously strengthen its innovation “muscles” was critical to addressing the challenge. So, while some work focused on innovation strategy – the customary task of identifying where the company should place innovation bets – equal attention was paid to understanding the capabilities needed to execute the strategy. Formal diagnostics and substantive discussions across the organization generated a clear picture of the specific innovation capabilities that would need to be strengthened if the organization was to achieve its innovation targets in the necessary time frame. As teams were chartered to pursue promising opportunities, they were also tasked with developing specific capabilities that were critical to the innovation strategy. For instance, a team trying to introduce a promising cooking technology was also tasked with learning how to do effective customer immersions, a key capability gap for the organization. Another team trying to launch a new platform of food products was also made responsible for finding ways to strengthen new product introductions.


Q.1. What according to the passage do the ‘developing capabilities require”?

(A) experimentation

(B) trial and error

(C) iterative learning

(1) Only A

(2) Both A and C

(3) Only B

(4) Both A and B

(5) All A, B and C

Q.2. What do the strategic plans identify according to the passage?

(A) What your organization should do usually.

(B) What your organization should perform differently.

(C) How your organization should look like.

(1) Only A

(2) Both A and C

(3) Only B

(4) Both A and B

(5) None of them

Q.3. Which of the following generated a clear picture of the specific innovation capabilities?

(A) Formal diagnostics

(B) Substantive discussions across the organization

(C) Launch of a new platform of food products

(1) Only A

(2) Both A and C

(3) Only B

(4) Both A and B

(5) All A, B and C

Q.4. What were teams chartered to pursue?

(1) usual goals

(2) monthly targets

(3) promising opportunities

(4) random access to work

(5) onsite projects

Q.5. Choose the title which can never be suitable for the given passage?

(1) Your Strategy Won’t Work If You Don’t Identify the New Capabilities You Need

(2) You need to identify your capabilities

(3) Your strategies will not be blamed unless you are capable

(4) You need to groom yourself according to the need

(5) Your strategy will fail if you use the old doors of capabilities

Q.6. Faced with which of the following teams simply give up and revert to old patterns of behaviour?

(A) lengthy lists of best practices that don’t match reality

(B) new processes that don’t match reality

(C) handling the various situations occurring at random that don’t match reality

(1) Only A

(2) Both A and C

(3) Only B

(4) Both A and B

(5) All A, B and C

Q.7. Choose the word which is most nearly the OPPOSITE in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

SUBSTANTIVE

(1) Visual

(2) Local

(3) Fierce

(4) Impractical

(5) Umbrage

Choose the word which is most nearly the OPPOSITE in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

Q.8. INNOVATION
(1) Reciprocation

(2) Amelioration

(3) Learning

(4) Stagnation

(5) Inscription

Choose the word which is most nearly the SIMILAR in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

Q.9. CRITICAL

(1) Devoid

(2) Lacking

(3) Urgency

(4) Important

(5) Different

Q.10. Choose the word which is most nearly the SIMILAR in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

RESPONSIBLE

(1) Annoyed

(2) Forsake

(3) Trivial

(4) Liable

(5) Meek






ANSWERS :
Q.1. Option (5) Answer lies in the fourth paragraph of the passage.

Q.2. Option (3) Answer lies in the beginning of the passage.

Q.3. Option (4) Answer lies in the middle of the fifth paragraph of the passage.

Q.4. Option (3) Answer lies at the last of the passage.

Q.5. Option (3)

Q.6. Option (4) Answer lies in the last of the fourth paragraph of the passage.

Q.7. Option (4)

Q.8. Option (4)

Q.9. Option (4)

Q.10. Option (4)
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