ibps-so 2018 · Question 215 of 356

The last comparison called for by the committee is one between the membership carried by the smallest of the federations and that carried by the federation whose groups are the largest in average strength. What is the ratio of the number of women borne upon the rolls of the groups a liated to Federation F₁ to the number of women borne upon the rolls of the groups a liated to Federation F₄?

1. A8 : 13
2. B9 : 14
3. C9 : 13Correct
4. D10 : 13
5. E7 : 11 Directions (Q111–Q115) : The passage reproduced below is the second of the two cloze passages of this paper and is to be attempted upon the same principle as the rst. Five blanks have been numbered, and against each number ve words are suggested. Choose in each case the one word which is right both for the grammar of the sentence and for the sense that the passage as a whole is plainly intended to convey. Few inventions have altered the pattern of world trade so thoroughly as the steel box, and few have been so (111) in appearance. Before it came into use, a cargo ship spent the greater part of its life not at sea but alongside a quay, where gangs of men (112) sacks, barrels and crates from the dockside into the hold and out of it again. The cost of moving goods lay, accordingly, less in the voyage itself than in the (113) at either end of it. The box did away with that labour, but upon one condition only: that every box, every crane, every lorry bed and every rail wagon in the world should be built to dimensions settled in advance and adhered to everywhere alike. Standardisation of that order is less a feat of engineering than of (114), for it obliges rivals to agree, and agreement among rivals is the scarcest commodity in commerce. The moral reaches well beyond the docks. Wherever a network is worth more than the sum of its parts, the man who owns the best crane is at the mercy of the man who (115) the shape of the box.