GATE 2025 English XH – C2 Question Paper (Available)- Download Solution PDF with Answer Key

Here are two analogous groups, Group-I and Group-II, that list words in their decreasing order of intensity. Identify the missing word in Group-II.

Abuse  → Insult   → Ridicule
________   → Praise   → Appreciate

• (A) Extol
• (B) Prize
• (C) Appropriate
• (D) Espouse

Had I learnt acting as a child, I __________ a famous film star.
Select the most appropriate option to complete the above sentence.

• (A) will be
• (B) can be
• (C) am going to be
• (D) could have been

The 12 musical notes are given as \( C, C^\#, D, D^\#, E, F, F^\#, G, G^\#, A, A^\#, B \). Frequency of each note is \( \sqrt[12]{2} \) times the frequency of the previous note. If the frequency of the note C is 130.8 Hz, then the ratio of frequencies of notes F\# and C is:

• (A) \( \sqrt[6]{2} \)
• (B) \( \sqrt{2} \)
• (C) \( \sqrt[4]{2} \)
• (D) \( 2 \)

The following figures show three curves generated using an iterative algorithm. The total length of the curve generated after 'Iteration n' is:

• (A) \( \left( \frac{5}{3} \right)^{\frac{n}{2}} \)
• (B) \( \left( \frac{5}{3} \right)^n \)
• (C) \( 2n \)
• (D) \( \left( \frac{5}{3} \right)^n(2n - 1) \)

Which one of the following plots represents \( f(x) = -\frac{|x|}{x} \), where \( x \) is a non-zero real number?

Note: The figures shown are representative.

Identify the option that has the most appropriate sequence such that a coherent paragraph is formed:

P: Over time, such adaptations lead to significant evolutionary changes with the potential to shape the development of new species.

Q: In natural world, organisms constantly adapt to their environments in response to challenges and opportunities.

R: This process of adaptation is driven by the principle of natural selection, where favorable traits increase an organism’s chances of survival and reproduction.

S: As environments change, organisms that can adapt their behavior, structure, and physiology to such changes are more likely to survive.

• (A) P \( \rightarrow \) Q \( \rightarrow \) R \( \rightarrow \) S
• (B) Q \( \rightarrow \) S \( \rightarrow \) R \( \rightarrow \) P
• (C) R \( \rightarrow \) S \( \rightarrow \) Q \( \rightarrow \) P
• (D) S \( \rightarrow \) P \( \rightarrow \) R \( \rightarrow \) Q

A stick of length one meter is broken at two locations at distances of \( b_1 \) and \( b_2 \) from the origin (0), as shown in the figure. Note that \( 0 < b_1 < b_2 < 1 \). Which one of the following is NOT a necessary condition for forming a triangle using the three pieces?

Note: All lengths are in meter. The figure shown is representative.

• (A) \( b_1 < 0.5 \)
• (B) \( b_2 > 0.5 \)
• (C) \( b_2 < b_1 + 0.5 \)
• (D) \( b_1 + b_2 < 1 \)

Eight students (P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W) are playing musical chairs. The figure indicates their order of position at the start of the game. They play the game by moving forward in a circle in the clockwise direction.

After the 1^st round, 4^th student behind P leaves the game. After 2^nd round, 5^th student behind Q leaves the game. After 3^rd round, 3^rd student behind V leaves the game. After 4^th round, 4^th student behind U leaves the game. Who all are left in the game after the 4^th round?

• (A) P; T; Q; S
• (B) V; P; T; Q
• (C) W; R; Q; V
• (D) Q; T; V; W

The table lists the top 5 nations according to the number of gold medals won in a tournament; also included are the number of silver and the bronze medals won by them. Based only on the data provided in the table, which one of the following statements is INCORRECT?





(A) France will occupy the third place if the list were made on the basis of the total number of medals won.

• (B) The order of the top two nations will not change even if the list is made on the basis of the total number of medals won.
• (C) USA and Canada together have less than 50% of the medals awarded to the nations in the above table.
• (D) Canada has won twice as many total medals as Japan.

An organization allows its employees to work independently on consultancy projects but charges an overhead on the consulting fee. The overhead is 20% of the consulting fee, if the fee is up to Rs. 5,00,000. For higher fees, the overhead is Rs. 1,00,000 plus 10% of the amount by which the fee exceeds Rs. 5,00,000. The government charges a Goods and Services Tax of 18% on the total amount (the consulting fee plus the overhead). An employee of the organization charges this entire amount, i.e., the consulting fee, overhead, and tax, to the client. If the client cannot pay more than Rs. 10,00,000, what is the maximum consulting fee that the employee can charge?

• (A) Rs. 7,01,438
• (B) Rs. 7,24,961
• (C) Rs. 7,51,232
• (D) Rs. 7,75,784

Which one of the following numbers is odd one out?

31541 \quad 42651 \quad 53791 \quad 64871 \quad 75981

• (A) 31541
• (B) 42651
• (C) 53791
• (D) 75981

Ankit, Arun, and Ankur have one apple each. Ankur also has one banana. Alam has one mango and one kiwi. Ankit has just bought one pineapple. Who has the least number of fruit(s)?

• (A) Ankit
• (B) Arun
• (C) Ankur
• (D) Alam

If each vowel in the word RESIDE is changed to its previous letter in the English alphabet and each consonant is changed to the next letter in the English alphabet, which one of the following options will be the third from the right?

• (A) T
• (B) D
• (C) S
• (D) H

Vipul, Ahmad, Santosh, and David are playing Carrom. Vipul and Ahmad are partners sitting opposite to each other. David faces towards South. If Vipul faces towards West, then who faces towards the North?

• (A) Alam
• (B) Santosh
• (C) David
• (D) Vipul

Consider the following sentence: "What the country needs ___\ accordingly."

First and last parts of the sentence are given. P, Q, R, and S are the remaining parts of the sentence, not necessarily in that order.

P: and change tactics

Q: who would encourage players

R: are coaches and officials

S: to read the game as it progresses

Which one of the following options is correct that gives the most appropriate order and meaning to the sentence?

• (A) QSPR
• (B) RQSP
• (C) RQPS
• (D) SPRQ

A car started from city P at 9:40 AM. The time taken for the car to reach city Q is 4 hours and 50 minutes. The time of arrival of the car at city Q is:

• (A) 15:10 Hours
• (B) 14:20 Hours
• (C) 14:30 Hours
• (D) 14:10 Hours

P is three years younger than R but one year older than S. S is one year older than Q but 4 years younger than R. R is 15 years old. The age of Q is ____ years.

In a certain code language, ATTITUDE is written as TAUJUEDU and CHILDREN is written as HCJMENER. How is LANGUAGE written in that code language?

• (A) ALOHVEGA
• (B) ALHOVAGA
• (C) LAVOHEGA
• (D) ALHOVGEA

The table shows the data of 450 candidates who appeared in the examination of three subjects – Social Science, Mathematics, and Science.
How many candidates have passed in at least one subject?




How many candidates have passed in at least one subject?

• (A) 48
• (B) 162
• (C) 390
• (D) 425

If \( \times \) means \( + \), \( + \) means \( \div \), \( - \) means \( \times \), and \( \div \) means \( - \), then evaluate:

8 \( \times \) 7 \( - \) 8 \( + \) 40 \( \div \) 2.

• (A) \( 3 \frac{8}{5} \)
• (B) \( 7 \frac{2}{5} \)
• (C) \( 2 \frac{7}{5} \)
• (D) \( 8 \frac{3}{5} \)

Given a series \( 5, 8, 11, 14, \dots \), if the \( n \)-th term of the given series is 320, then find \( n \) (where \( n \geq 1 \)):

• (A) 104
• (B) 105
• (C) 106
• (D) 107

Suppose, your last year taxable income was Rs. 22000. Due to hike in salary, your taxable income this year is Rs. 34200. The details for tax calculation are given in the table below.





Consider the appropriate tax slab corresponding to your income. What is theadditional amount of tax you need to pay this year compared to last year?

• (A) 1970
• (B) 1060
• (C) 910
• (D) 420

Anand, Hari, and Chris are engaged in one of the three types of occupations – clerk, teacher, and plumber, not necessarily in that order. Each person is assigned only one type of occupation. No two or more persons can be assigned the same type of occupation. Clerk is Chris’s cousin. Hari lives next door to the plumber. Anand, who knows more facts than the teacher, has to drive more than 1 hour to reach Hari’s home. Identify each of the person’s correct type of occupation, and accordingly, which one of the following options is correct?

• (A) Anand is teacher and Chris is clerk.
• (B) Hari is clerk and Anand is plumber.
• (C) Chris is teacher and Hari is clerk.
• (D) Anand is clerk and Chris is plumber.

Many countries are facing water shortage crises in the past few years. A report of the United Nations has named India among the worst countries for poor quality of water. The report ranks 122 countries according to the quality of their water as well as their commitment to improve the situation. Some countries in Europe are considered the worst because of the quality of its groundwater. Rain failed in some parts of India in the past. The vast areas of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh were affected by severe drought. People without water turn desperate and violent. Consequently, the food godowns were attacked in some of the states. Based on the details given in the passage, which of the following option(s) is/ are correct statement(s)?

• (A) There is no proof that India is affected by poor quality of water.
• (B) A few European countries are suffering due to the occurrence of drought.
• (C) Lack of access to water can lead to social unrest.
• (D) Intense shortage of water is visible in some states of India.

In the following figure, four overlapping shapes (rectangle, triangle, circle, and hexagon) are given. The sum of the numbers which belong to only two overlapping shapes is ______.

Consider a square field ABCD. The diagonal AC is 50 meter. The cost of laying grass in the field is Rs. 5 per square-meter. The total cost for laying grass in the field ABCD is Rs. ________ (rounded off to two decimal places).

Which historical event is mentioned in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger?

• (A) The Boer War
• (B) British Imperialism in India
• (C) The Bodyline Cricket Series
• (D) The Sinking of the Titanic

“The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” These lines were written by ________.

• (A) Henry James
• (B) Nathaniel Hawthorne
• (C) Sylvia Plath
• (D) Robert Frost

The medieval fabliau is a __________\.

• (A) short comic or satiric tale in verse
• (B) faculty of the mind distinguished from reason
• (C) rough, heavy-footed, and jerky versification
• (D) mode of freewheeling narrative

Which one of the following options correctly matches the texts with their authors?

• (A) a-i, b-iv, c-iii, d-ii
• (B) a-iv, b-i, c-iii, d-ii
• (C) a-iv, b-iii, c-ii, d-i
• (D) a-iii, b-ii, c-i, d-iv

Who among the following were the Cavalier Poets?

• (A) Robert Herrick
• (B) George Herbert
• (C) Richard Lovelace
• (D) Andrew Marvell

Which of the following line(s) has/have been excerpted from W. B. Yeats’ writings?

• (A) Consume my heart away; sick with desire/And fastened to a dying animal/It knows not what it is
• (B) What we call the beginning is often the end/And to make an end is to make a beginning
• (C) Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned
• (D) Lay your sleeping head, my love,/Human on my faithless arm;/Time and fevers burn away/Individual beauty from/Thoughtful children, and the grave/Proves the child ephemeral

Who of the following were suffragettes?

• (A) Emmeline Pankhurst
• (B) Mary Wollstonecraft
• (C) Emily Davison
• (D) Florence Nightingale

Which of the following narrative(s) has/have an intrusive narrator?

• (A) Tom Jones
• (B) “The Killers”
• (C) War and Peace
• (D) “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

Which among the following is/are synonymous with vibhāva (determinant) in the rasa theory?

• (A) kāraṇa (cause)
• (B) nimitta (instrument)
• (C) hetū (reason)
• (D) pariṇāma (outcome)

Who among the following thinker(s) viewed imagination as a faculty that unites what we receive through our senses with the concepts of our understanding?

• (A) Plato
• (B) Horace
• (C) Immanuel Kant
• (D) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Which of the following characteristic(s) is/are associated with the epic?

• (A) High seriousness
• (B) Description of athletic contests or games
• (C) Beginning the story in the beginning of the action
• (D) Brief and easy journeys made by the hero

Who among the following is/are NOT connected with the ‘race turn’ in the USA?

• (A) W. E. B. Du Bois
• (B) Stuart Hall
• (C) Frederic Jameson
• (D) Alain Locke

Which is/are the special skill(s) associated with Harry Potter in J. K. Rowling’s novel series?

• (A) Wizardry
• (B) Rugby
• (C) Quidditch
• (D) Bridge

Which of the following work(s) is/are NOT written by Anita Desai?

• (A) Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
• (B) Diamond Dust
• (C) Games at Twilight
• (D) All About H. Hatterr

Which of the following work(s) may be described as Lad Lit?

• (A) Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch
• (B) Jane Austen’s Emma
• (C) John King’s The Football Factory
• (D) Jennifer Egan’s Visit from the Goon Squad

Who among these colonial administrators is/are Orientalist(s)?

• (A) Nathaniel Brassey Halhed
• (B) Sir William Jones
• (C) Charles Grant
• (D) John Gilchrist

Which of the following is/are the pre-romantic current(s) that contributed to the evolution of Romanticism?

• (A) Graveyard poetry
• (B) Picaresque novel
• (C) The Sturm und Drang phase
• (D) Pre-Raphaelite poetry

Which of these works is/are NOT written by Dryden?

• (A) Astrea Redux
• (B) Aureng-Zebe
• (C) The Way of the World
• (D) Short View of the Immortality and Profaneness of the English Stage

Match the following estimates of Shakespeare with their authors:

• (A) a-iv, b-iii, c-i, d-ii
• (B) a-i, b-ii, c-iii, d-iv
• (C) a-iii, b-iv, c-i, d-ii
• (D) a-iv, b-iii, c-ii, d-i

Which prestigious literary prize has historical ties to a colonial business enterprise subsequently associated with engineering, shipping, and rum marketing?

• (A) The Commonwealth Prize
• (B) The Pulitzer Prize
• (C) The Man Booker Prize
• (D) The Nobel Prize

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,/Is the immediate jewel of their souls/Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;/‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands.”
These lines are from ______________\.

• (A) The Duchess of Malfi
• (B) Dr Faustus
• (C) Othello
• (D) Macbeth

“I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. . . . He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: ‘The horror! The horror!’”
Which political and existential condition can be inferred from the above passage in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?

• (A) The degeneration of the corrupted white man recognizing the moral evil of imperialism
• (B) The state of shock on witnessing the economic disaster and commercial catastrophe suffered by the unnamed Belgian company
• (C) The sense of an ending due to the imminent failure of a new nation state
• (D) The fear of an emerging apocalypse caused by an ecological disaster

Which of the following works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is regarded as a masterpiece of magical realism?

• (A) One Hundred Years of Solitude
• (B) Love in the Time of Cholera
• (C) Chronicle of a Death Foretold
• (D) The General in His Labyrinth

Who is considered the father of modern English essay writing?

• (A) Francis Bacon
• (B) Samuel Johnson
• (C) William Hazlitt
• (D) Charles Lamb

Which among the following work(s) was/were accused of portraying obscenity?

• (A) The Importance of Being Earnest
• (B) The Rainbow
• (C) The Well of Loneliness
• (D) Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Which of the following statement(s) is/are true about “The Republic of Orissa: A Page from the Annals of the Twentieth Century,” one of the earliest narrative texts written in English by an Indian?

• (A) It was written by Shoshee Chunder Dutt.
• (B) It depicted resistance against the British led by an English educated youth.
• (C) It was published in 1845.
• (D) In the work, the resistance against the British is provoked by the passing of a Slavery Act by the British in 1916.

Alexander Pope produced an edition of Shakespeare in 1725, for which, he was vehemently criticized by the Shakespearean scholars of his time. One of the scholars exposed Pope’s mistakes in his Shakespeare Restored (1726). Pope retaliated by making this scholar the occupant of the throne of dullness in his The Dunciad. Who among the following is/are NOT the Shakespearean scholar(s) alluded to?

• (A) Lewis Theobald
• (B) John Dryden
• (C) Samuel Johnson
• (D) Colley Cibber

Which of the following characteristic(s) is/are associated with Renaissance Humanism?

• (A) It emphasized the dignity and central position of human beings in the universe.
• (B) It denied the importance of studying classical, imaginative and philosophical literature.
• (C) It insisted on the ordering of human life on the principles of reason as opposed to the instinctual appetites and animal passions.
• (D) It incorporated the concepts and ideals inherited from pagan antiquity into the frame of the Christian creed.

Which of the following statement(s) is/are true of Queer Theory?

• (A) Queer theorists do not view sexuality as disengaged from gender and from the binary opposition of male and female.
• (B) Queer theorists rely on postmodern concepts as gender ambivalence, ambiguity, and multiplicity of identities.
• (C) Queer theorists have sought to create a public that includes self-identified gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgenders.
• (D) Queer theorists use the word ‘queer’ for its shock value as well as for its sense of playfulness and its wrenching sense of recontextualization.

Which of the following statement(s) is/are true regarding Elaine Showalter’s essay “A Literature of Their Own”?

• (A) Showalter argued that a canon of women authors does exist.
• (B) Showalter observed that in the Feminine phase (1840-1880), women authors mostly imitated the male authors’ models.
• (C) Showalter observed the Feminist phase which began in the 1880s and 1890s is the period when women authors rebelled against prevalent patriarchal attitudes.
• (D) Showalter observed that the Female phase which began from the latter half of the twentieth century is marked by the women authors’ disavowal of sexuality as the possible source of creativity.

Which of the following statement(s) is/are INCORRECT regarding post-colonial feminism?

• (A) It emphasizes cultural difference between women.
• (B) It dismisses the cultural relativism of women’s experience.
• (C) It believes that the spiritual constitutes an important aspect of women’s lives.
• (D) It does not extend black feminism’s concerns to address the experiences and oppression of women hailing from other cultural, national and geo-political locations.

“I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.”

• (A) It homogenizes all non-European knowledge systems as one monolithic entity.
• (B) It depicts the colonial perspective where Eastern languages and knowledge systems seem lacking when compared to their Western counterparts.
• (C) It constructs a binary between the East and the West.
• (D) It invokes the library movement around the globe which led to global literacy as a result of the Enlightenment.

“Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd–seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalised figure of a sahib.”

• (A) Cynicism and existential exhaustion
• (B) Violence and vendetta
• (C) Self-reflexive shame
• (D) Subversive performance

“I resemble everyone/but myself, and sometimes see/in shop-windows,/despite the well-known laws/ of optics,/the portrait of a stranger,/date unknown,/often signed/in a corner/by my father”

• (A) Existential alienation
• (B) Anxiety of self, caused by the structures of kinship
• (C) Artistic ecstasy
• (D) Euphoria in the marketplace

Which of the following political position(s) is/are advocated in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’s work Decolonising the Mind?

• (A) To use the colonizer’s language as a tool for acquiring agency and social mobility.
• (B) To do for African languages what Spenser, Milton, and Shakespeare did for English, what Pushkin and Tolstoy did for Russian.
• (C) To critique the coercive imposition of the colonizer’s language which alienates colonized subjects from their cultural lived experience.
• (D) To mimic the colonizer’s language and acquire a form of complex cosmopolitanism.

Which of the following novels has/have been written by the novelist who also wrote A Goddess Named Gold?

• (A) So Many Hungers
• (B) A Bend in the Ganges
• (C) Distant Drum
• (D) He who Rides a Tiger

Which of the following statement(s) aptly describe(s) the novel, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale?

• (A) The novel projects a picture of the bestial horrors enacted on the Indo-Pakistan border region during the days of August 1947.
• (B) The novel begins with house-breaking and robbery followed by the murder of the money lender Lala Ram Lal.
• (C) The novel is located in the disturbed pre-Partition period and concentrates on the inner tensions and external movements of a well-to-do Sikh family.
• (D) The novel’s triumph is really the portrait of Sabhrai, Buta Singh’s wife, whose faith in the Guru and in the Adi Granth is unflinching.

In The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde repeatedly uses the term ‘Bunbury’. It refers to the ____\ .

• (A) witty act of Jack Worthing to invent a fictional brother
• (B) queer strategy of coding transgressive sexual desire
• (C) invention of new bread making technique
• (D) stance of Wilde on the role of criticism

Who among the following developed the notion of intersubjectivity on which Stanley Fish’s idea of ‘interpretive communities’ rests?

• (A) Friedrich Nietzsche
• (B) Henri Bergson
• (C) Rene Descartes
• (D) Charles Baudelaire