Q. The best universities like Harvard and MIT,

despite having the luxury of having some truly excellent teachers on their payroll, are increasingly embracing the “flipped classroom” format, where students listaen to video lectures at home, and spend class time applying their knowledge, solving problems, discussing examples etc. professors guide that discussion and fill in wherever necessary, explaining those bits that seem to be eluding the students and throwing in advanced ideas that happen to be topical. These universities have made their video lectures available free for anyone in the world. They are also encouraging colleges and universities all over the world to integrate these online courses into their own pedagogy, picking the pieces that are appropriate for their needs and building a package around them.

Q 1. Which one of the following statements best reflects the central idea of the passage given above?
(a) Efficacy of universities would be better in online mode of conducting classroom tuition as compared conventional method.
(b) Availability of higher education can be made easier and cheaper without diluting the content.
(c) We need not invest much in infrastructure related to higher education and yet develop better human and social capital.
(d) Private sector institutions in higher education as well as coaching institutes can take advantage of this opportunity and thrive well.

Q. In our schools, we teach our children all that is there to know no about Physics, maths and history and what-have you.

But do we teach them about the bitter caste divide that plagues the country, about the spectre of famine that stalks large part of our land, about gender sensitivity, about the possibility of atheism as a choice, etc.? Equally important, do we teach them to ask question, or do we teach them only to passively receive our wisdom? From the cocooned world of school, suddenly, the adolescent finds himself/herself in the unfettered world of university. Here he/she is swept up in a turmoil of ideas and influences and ideologies. For someone who has been discouraged from asking questions and forming an opinion, this transition can be painful.

Q 1. Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage given above?
(a) School curriculum is not compatible with the expectations of children and parents.
(b) Emphasis on academic achievements does give time for development of personality and skills.
(c) Preparing the children to be better citizens should be the responsibility of the education system.
(d) To be a better citizen, the present world order demands societal and life-coping skills in addition to academic content.

Q. Can a democracy avoid being a welfare state for long?

Why cannot mass welfare be left entirely to the markets? There is a built-in tension between markets and democracy. Markets do not work on a one-person-one-vote principle as democracies do. What one gets out of the market place depends on one’s endowments, skills, purchasing power and the forces of demand and supply. Markets reward individual initiative and skill, and may also lift many from the bottom rungs of society, but some people never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand; they are simply too poor and too handicapped; or skill formation takes too long. By creating jobs, markets may be able to help even unskilled people, but capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment.

Q 1. With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made :
1. Modern democracies rely on the market forces to enable them to be welfare states.
2. Markets ensure sufficient economic growth necessary for democracies to be effective.
3. Government programmes are needed for those left behind in economic growth.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid ?
(a) 1 and 3 only
(b) 3 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Q. …….. most people would agree that telling deliberate lies is wrong, except perhaps in certain special situations where more harm will be done by telling the truth.

Even the most truthful people probably tell a good many more lies that might be regarded as semantic lies; their use of words contains some measure of falsehood, more or less deliberate.

Q 1. The idea which the first part of the passage mentions is
(a) agreement about telling lies.
(b) disagreement about telling lies.
(c) disagreement about telling the truth.
(d) disagreement about the harm in telling the truth.

Q 2. Which one of the following habits is found more often in good people?
(a) Mixing up the true and false
(b) Intentional mixing up of truth with the false.
(c) Falsification of facts
(d) Complete concealment of truth

Q. Medieval merchants risked the hazards of the Silk Road to reach the markets of China; Portuguese caravels in the 15th century sailed beyond the bounds of the known world, searching less for knowledge than for gold and spices.

Historically, the driver for opening frontiers has always been the search for resources. Science and curiosity are weaker drivers. The only way to open up space, whether the space of solar system or interstellar space is to create an economic engine and that engine is resource extraction.

Q 1. Which one of the following statements best sums up the passage given above?
(a) Wealth generation is the primary motive for any human endeavour.
(b) Space, whether space in solar system or interstellar space, will govern our future economy.
(c) Human beings are motivated to explore new frontiers principally by economic considerations.
(d) Wealth generation is based on the risk-behaviour of some men.

Q. Researchers were able to use stem cells to gauge the neurotoxic effects of the environmental pollutants Bisphenol A (BPA).

They used a combination of biochemical and cell-based assays to examines the gene expression profile during the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells upon treatment with BPA, a compound known to cause heart diseases, diabetes, and developmental abnormalities in humans. They were able to detect and measure BPA toxicity towards the proper specification of primary germ layers, such as endoderm and ectoderm, and the establishment of neural progenitor cells.

Q 1. On the basis of the passage given above, the following assumptions have been made:
1. BPA may alter embryonic development in vivo.
2. Biochemical and cell-based assays are useful in finding out treatments for pollution-induced diseases.
3. Embryonic stem cells could serve as a model to evaluate the physiological effects of environmental pollutants.
Which of the above assumptions are valid?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Q. A study conducted on the impacts of climate change over the Cauvery basin of Tamil Nadu using regional climate models showed an increasing trend for maximum and minimum temperatures, and a decrease in the number of rainy days.

These climatic shifts will have an impact on the hydrological cycles in the region, lead to more run-off and less recharge, and affect the groundwater tables. Further, there has been an increase in the frequency of droughts in the State. This has driven farmers to increase dependency on groundwater resources to secure their crops.

Q 1. Which one of the following statements best reflects the crux of the passage given above?
(a) Development of regional climate models helps in choosing climate-smart agricultural practices.
(b) Heavy dependence on groundwater resources can be reduced by adopting dry-land cropping systems.
(c) Climate changes increase the criticality of water resources while simultaneously threatening it.
(d) Climate changes cause the farmers to adopt unsustainable livelihoods and risky coping strategies.

Q. Approximately 80 percent of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, including birds and mammals, but the main pollinators are insects.

Pollination is responsible for providing us with a wide variety of food, as well as many plant-derived medicines. At least one-third of the world’s agricultural crops depend upon pollination. Bees are the most dominant taxa when it comes to pollination and they are crucial to more than four hundred crops. Pollination is an essential service that is the result of intricate relationship between plants and animals, and the reduction or less of either affects the survival of both. Effective pollination requires resources, such as refuges of pristine natural vegetation.

Q 1. On the basis of the passage given above, the following assumptions have been made:
1. Sustainable production of India’s cereal food grains is impossible without the diversity of pollinating animals.
2. Monoculture of horticultural crops hampers the survival of insects.
3. Pollinators become scarce in cultivated areas devoid of natural vegetation.
4. Diversity in insects induces diversity of plants.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1 and 2 only
(d) 3 and 4 only

Q. Researchers simulated street lighting on artificial grassland plots contaaining pea-aphids, sap-sucking insects, at night.

These were exposed to two different types of light – a white light similar to newer commercial LED lights and an amber light similar to sodium street lamps. The low intensity amber light was shown to inhibit, rather than induce, flowering in a wild plant of the pea family which is a source of food for the pea-aphids in grasslands. The number of aphids was also significantly suppressed under the light treatment due to the limited amount of food available.

Q 1. Which one of the following statements best reflects the most critical inference that can be made from the passage given above?
(a) Low intensity light has more adverse effect on the plants as compared to high intensity light.
(b) Light pollution can have a permanent adverse impact on an ecosystem.
(c) White light is better for the flowering of plants as compare to the light of other colours.
(d) Proper intensity of light in an ecosystem is important not only for plants but for animals too.

Q. A social and physical environment riddled with poverty, inequities, unhygienic and insanitary conditions generates the risk of infectious diseases.

Hygiene has different levels : personal, domestic and community hygiene. There is no doubt that personal cleanliness brings down the rate of infectious diseases. But the entry of the market into this domain has created a false sense of security that gets conditioned and reinforced by the onslaught of advertisements. Experience in Western Europe shows that along with personal hygiene, general improvements in environmental conditions and components like clean water, sanitation and food security have brought down infant/child death/infections rates considerably. The obsession with hand hygiene also brings in the persisting influence of the market on personal health, overriding or marginalizing the negative impact on ecology and the emergence of resistant germs.

Q 1. On the basis of the passage given above, the following assumptions have been made:
1. People who are obsessed with personal hygiene tend to ignore the community hygiene.
2. Emergence of multi-drug resistant germs can be prevented by personal cleanliness.
3. Entry of the market in the domain of hygiene increases the risk of infectious diseases.
4. Scientific and micro-level interventions are not sufficient to bring down the burden of infectious diseases.
5. It is community hygiene implemented through public health measures that is really effective in the battle against infectious diseases.
Which of the above assumptions are valid?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 and 4 only
(c) 4 and 5 only
(d) 1, 2 and 4 only