Directions: You have one brief passage with 5 questions following the passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

In the past 50 years, doctors across the world have accepted the practice to prescribe antibiotics at the first sign of a trivial infection or treat patients with a handful of antibiotics. These days it is not uncommon to see practitioners prescribing multiple antibiotics without any real indication or relevance for such a combination of drugs. Antibiotics have traditionally been known as miracle drugs, but there is growing evidence that they are overworked miracles, especially in countries like ours where there is easy access to drugs across the counter, including antibiotics. We cannot think of a return to pre-antibiotic days. Yet the unbridled use of these agents is inexorably propelling us in that direction.

Q:

These days it is not uncommon to prescribe antibiotics’ means 

• 1
  it is not a common practice to prescribe antibiotics.
• 2
  it is compulsory to prescribe antibiotics.
• 3
  it is rare to prescribe antibiotics.
• 4
  it is a common practice to prescribe antibiotics.