Set 9 — Read the Passage

📄 Passage

The end of formal colonialism did not __1__ erase the structural inequalities that empire had constructed over centuries. In many post-colonial states, the administrative apparatus — legal codes, land tenure systems, and territorial borders — was __2__ wholesale from the departing colonial power, often without regard for indigenous institutions or traditions. This institutional legacy has __3__ state-building efforts in profound ways, contributing to governance deficits, ethnic tensions, and __4__ economic dependency on former colonial powers. The borders __5__ at the Berlin Conference of 1884, for instance, arbitrarily divided communities and __6__ together rival ethnic groups, sowing seeds of conflict that persist to the present day. Contemporary scholars __7__ that genuine sovereignty requires not merely political independence but a systematic __8__ of colonial knowledge systems, economic structures, and cultural hierarchies. This process, often termed 'decolonisation', extends __9__ the political realm into education, medicine, law, and the arts. __10__ it is pursued comprehensively, critics warn, formal independence will remain a hollow achievement.