Comprehension: Common traps and time plan

When the number of pending cases in courts rises, the usual demand is for more judges. More judges certainly help, but a large share of the delay comes from how hearings are used, not from how many there are. A case may be listed dozens of times, and on most of those days nothing happens: a lawyer seeks an adjournment, a document has not been filed, or a witness has not been summoned. Each such day costs the court time that could have gone to another case. A court that allows adjournments freely will find that its new judges soon have crowded lists of their own.
Which one of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the passage?

A fixed deposit that pays 6 per cent a year looks like a safe place for savings. But if prices rise by 7 per cent over the same year, the money withdrawn at the end buys less than the money deposited at the start. The saver has not lost a single rupee on paper, yet has become poorer. Those hurt most are often those who can least afford it: retired people living on interest, and households who keep their savings in cash or in low-interest accounts because they distrust or do not understand other options.
Which one of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the passage?

Many insects that fly at night find their way by keeping a bright light, such as the moon, at a fixed angle to their path. A street lamp, being close, defeats this rule: an insect trying to hold the angle spirals inward and circles the lamp until it is exhausted or eaten. Since many night-flying insects pollinate plants, and many birds and bats feed on them, a lamp does more than gather a cloud of moths. Lights that shine downward, use warmer colours and switch off when no one is around reduce the harm without leaving streets dark.
Which one of the following is the most rational corollary of the passage?

In much of India, the farmer who pumps the most groundwater pays the least for each litre. Free or flat-rate electricity for agriculture means that once a pump has been installed, running it for one more hour costs the farmer almost nothing. Water tables fall, wells are deepened, and the farmer who cannot afford a deeper borewell is the first to lose access. Supplying power for only a few hours a day has slowed this race but has not ended it, because those hours are still free. What is needed is not the withdrawal of support to farmers but a change in its form: support that rewards a farmer for using less water, rather than support that quietly pays him to use more.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?

Lending to poor households without collateral was once thought impossible. Group lending changed that: borrowers in a small group guarantee each other's loans, so neighbours, who know one another far better than any bank does, do the screening and the reminding. Repayment rates in such programmes have often been remarkably high. But the method works only as long as each household borrows from one group. Where several lenders compete in the same village and none of them knows what the others have lent, a household can take a fresh loan to repay an old one, and high repayment figures may hide a growing pile of debt until it collapses all at once.
Which one of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the passage?

A district whose average household income rises is often reported as a district that is doing better. But an average can rise because a few households have become much richer while most have stayed where they were or even slipped back. The same average can describe a district where everyone earns roughly the same and one where a handful earn a great deal and the rest very little. A programme designed for the 'average' household may then reach almost no one, being too generous for the rich and too little for the poor. Before deciding whom to help and how, planners need to know not only how much a district earns, but how that income is shared. Consider the following statements:
1. An average by itself may give a misleading picture of well-being when income is unevenly distributed.
2. Averages are of no use in planning and should be abandoned.
3. Information on how income is distributed helps in designing better-targeted programmes.
Which of the statements given above reflect(s) the central idea of the passage?

Rumours spread faster than corrections, not because people are foolish but because a rumour usually answers a question that people are anxious about, while a correction merely says that the answer was wrong. When an official denial arrives days later in dry language, it competes with a story that is vivid, emotional and already shared by friends. Penalising those who spread falsehoods may deter a few, but it does little to fill the gap that the rumour filled. Institutions that speak early, plainly and honestly, and that admit what they do not yet know, leave less room for rumour in the first place. Consider the following statements:
1. Rumours fill a gap created by the absence of timely information.
2. Punishment alone cannot address the underlying reason why rumours spread.
3. Institutions should avoid admitting uncertainty, since doing so weakens public trust.
Which of the statements given above reflect(s) the essence of the passage?

Which one of the following describes best the concept of Nirvana in Buddhism?