Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 2...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 28 to 35.

        The race toward scalable quantum computing has entered a pivotal inflection, with Microsoft, Google, and IBM pursuing divergent routes toward fault tolerance. Microsoft touts Majorana-based hardware; Google advances error-corrected scaling; IBM maintains a disciplined roadmap. While optimism grows that practicality may arrive sooner than expected, skepticism persists. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has warned that commercially meaningful use could still be decades away, a sobering reminder that exuberant claims must withstand empirical scrutiny and reproducibility, not merely headline-grabbing prototypes and carefully curated demonstrations.

        Microsoft’s Majorana 1 reframes the problem as a hardware-native solution: topological structures integrate exotic states to stabilize qubits and suppress noise. Satya Nadella heralded “a new state of matter” and novel “topoconductors,” foregrounding materials engineering over incremental patchwork. Chetan Nayak argues that rethinking the quantum transistor clarifies a viable route to scale. By embedding fault tolerance in hardware, Microsoft claims the path to a million-qubit processor is within reach. Proponents insist this reduces overheads demanded by conventional error correction.

        Google’s Willow chip targets the field’s thirty-year nemesis – errors that balloon with size – by architecting error correction that improves as more qubits are added. The company reports two breakthroughs: first, an exponential suppression of error with scale; second, a benchmark completed in under five minutes that a top supercomputer would need an estimated 10 septillion years to emulate. If validated independently, this implies not mere incrementalism but a qualitative shift: scaling ceases to be punitive and begins to be self-ameliorating.

        IBM, long invested in superconducting transmon qubits, frames quantum as an engineering marathon rather than a speculative moonshot. Arvind Krishna notes a decade-plus of steady investment and a roadmap disciplined by error-correction milestones, software stacks, and use-case curation. In this telling, quantum advantage is not a singular eureka but the compound interest of systems integration. Together, these approaches suggest a heterogeneous future where materials science, architecture, and control theory co-evolve rather than converge on a single canonical design.

(Adapted from Forbes: “Recent Breakthroughs Accelerate the Race for Quantum Computing,” Mar 9, 2025)

Question 28. The word pivotal in paragraph 1 can be best replaced by ______?

A. crucial                B. peripheral                        C. tentative                        D. ornamental

Question 29. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 3 as an achievement claimed for Willow?

A. Reducing error rates as more qubits are added

B. Finishing a benchmark in under five minutes

C. Demonstrating room-temperature operational stability

D. Tackling a challenge pursued for nearly three decades

Question 30. The word skepticism in paragraph 1 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.

A. doubt                B. caution                        C. confidence                        D. wariness

Question 31. The word this in paragraph 2 refers to ______.

A. allocating a decade of investment to IBM’s roadmap

B. benchmarking a task faster than classical supercomputers

C. redesigning the quantum transistor to secure stability at scale

D. adopting superconducting transmon qubits as a standard

Question 32. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 2?

A. By building error-correction directly into qubit design, Microsoft contends million-qubit systems become feasible in the near term.

B. Microsoft asserts that integrating fault tolerance into physical components enables scalable pathways toward million-qubit architectures.

C. Microsoft believes hardware-level resilience could make a million-qubit device attainable without extreme error-correction overhead.

D. Microsoft argues hardware-native fault tolerance reduces the obstacles to achieving million-qubit computing capacity.

Question 33. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 4?

A. IBM portrays quantum progress as cumulative engineering work guided by roadmaps and layered software ecosystems.

B. IBM expects a sudden scientific discovery to replace the need for rigorous error-correction and calibration procedures.

C. IBM has recently abandoned transmon qubits to pivot entirely to topological architectures and neutral-atom arrays.

D. IBM maintains quantum advantage depends primarily on media visibility rather than durable system integration practices.

Question 34. Which paragraph mentions caution that substantial commercial quantum applications may still be decades away?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4

Question 35. Which paragraph mentions error rates diminishing as the system scales up?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4