Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been highlighted for your attention.

Most people spend (on average) half of their day tapping away at their hand-held devices. Either, surfing the net or checking notifications. Facebook ranks the highest in all social networking platforms, followed by Twitter, Instagram and so forth.

Social media is addictive- which is why so many people are 'hooked'. Often referred to as Social networking addiction, this phrase is often used to describe someone who spends too much time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other channels. A blog post, Instagram post, tweet, or youtube video can be produced easily by anyone and shared, which can then be viewed by millions for free. Psychologists and scientists have now taken the time to study social media in terms of why they believe it interferes with aspects of our daily life. There is no official medical term that identifies addiction and social networking. It cannot be deemed as a disease or disorder as the cases are not severe and the habit can easily be maintained or prevented. Furthermore, instead of spending long periods of time on social media, we dip into and out of these sites all day long. We check for updates from friends and family as well as news and information. However, the behavior associated with the excessive use of these channels has become the subject of much public and sociological debate. We actively post, like, comment and share personal posts. Not only that, we tend to share and reshare expressions (of either negative or positive) contagiously. But, why?

Scientists believed some years ago that, dopamine was simply a pleasure chemical in the brain. Recent studies have shown that; dopamine actually produces the desire in people to 'want' by drawing out the need for us to -seek and search. Creating the ultimate drive to find what is that what we want.

Dopamine is spontaneous. It’s stimulated by unpredictability and small bits of information as well as reward cues which are the same conditions that social media presents to all users. In addition, the pull of dopamine is so strong that recent studies have shown that tweeting, for example, can be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol!

Researchers at Chicago University studied the effects of social media. They concluded quite quickly that people presented higher levels of addiction to social media than the need to smoke or drink. Media cravings ranked higher.

And, let’s not forget oxytocin, many call it the cuddle chemical because the brain releases pleasure chemicals that transpire usually when you kiss and hug- or tweet. It is also known as the hormone that builds the strong yet unique bond between mothers and their babies. Oxytocin is now regarded as the human stimulant of empathy, generosity, trust, and more. These are factors which many advertisers and marketers play on when promoting a brand or business over social media.

Nevertheless, problems have arisen most commonly with school kids - whereby mobile phone devices have been confiscated because exam results have fallen severely due to lack of attention on homework or studies. Schools in many westernized countries have had to take drastic action - banning smartphones, iPad and most portable devices from school premises- as it is claimed to be a huge distraction. Whereas, other schools use it for educational purposes and as a rewards system for their pupils.

Research has also indicated unsurprisingly that Facebook is the most common activity that university students switch to, when studying. Worryingly, it has also found that those who most engage in this type of internet browsing tend to have lower levels of educational achievement.

Also, there have been many cases of students posting or sharing content that is unethical, which has caused parents and academic institutions to limit the use of these online networking channels.

What does the phrase 'Social Networking Addiction' mean?

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

Wetlands are amongst the most productive ecosystems on the Earth and provide many important services to human society. They exhibit enormous diversity according to their genesis, geographical location, water regime and chemistry, dominant species, and soil and sediment characteristics. Globally, the areal extent of wetland ecosystems ranges from 917 million hectares (m ha) to more than 1275 m ha. One of the first widely used wetland classifications systems, devised by Cowardin et al., 1979, categorized wetlands into marine (coastal wetlands), estuarine (including deltas, tidal marshes, and mangrove swamps), lacustrine (lakes), riverine (along rivers and streams), and palustrine ( marshes, swamps and bogs) based on their hydrological, ecological and geological characteristics.

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was an international treaty signed in 1971. Overall, 1052 sites in Europe; 289 sites in Asia; 359 sites in Africa; 175 sites in South America; 211 sites in North America; and 79 sites in Oceania region have been identified as Ramsar sites or wetlands of International importance.

As per the Ramsar Convention definition most of the natural water bodies (such as rivers, lakes, coastal lagoons, mangroves, peat land, coral reefs) and man- made wetlands (such as ponds, farm ponds, irrigated fields, sacred groves, salt pans, reservoirs, gravel pits, sewage farms and canals) in India constitute the wetland ecosystem distributed in different geographical regions ranging from Himalayas to Deccan plateau. As of February, 2022, India has 49 Ramsar sites covering an area of 10,93,636 hectares, the highest in South Asia. As per the estimates, India has about 757.06 thousand wetlands with a total wetland area of 15.3 m ha, accounting for nearly 4.7% of the total geographical area of the country . Out of this, areas under inland wetlands accounts for 69%, coastal wetlands 27%, and other wetlands (smaller than 2.25 ha) 4%.

Gujarat has the highest proportion (17.5%) and Mizoram has the lowest proportion (0.66%) of the area under wetlands. Among Union Territories, Lakshadweep has the highest proportion (around 96%) and Chandigarh has the least proportion (3%) of geographical area under wetlands.

In India, what kind of wetlands occupy the largest area?

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

The stark observation made in the Economic Survey of 2015-16 that “Indian agriculture, is in a way, a victim of its own past success – especially the green revolution”, shows the dark reality of the agriculture sector at present and the havoc that has been wreaked by the green revolution.

The green revolution, which is often characterised by the introduction of high-yielding variety of seeds and fertilisers, undoubtedly increased the productivity of land considerably. But the growth in the productivity has been stagnant in recent years, resulting in a significant decline in the income of farmers. There have also been negative environmental effects in the form of depleting water table, emission of greenhouse gases, and the contamination of surface and ground water. Needless to say, the agriculture sector is in a state of distress, which is severely affecting peasants and marginal farmers, and urgent policy interventions are required to protect their interests.

The government has responded to the problem by constituting a panel, which will recommend ways to double the income of farmers by 2022. While this may be an overtly ambitious target, if we want to boost stagnated agricultural growth a shift has to be made from food security of the nation to income security of the farmers. However, there are many hurdles that have to be crossed if we want to achieve this objective.

The first major barrier to overcome is declining productivity. Data from 2013 reveals that India’s average yield of cereal per hectare is far less than that of many countries (including several low income countries), but the difference is huge when compared to China. For instance, our average yield per hectare is 39% below than that of China and for rice this figure is 46%. Even Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia fare better than India in case of rice yield. Further, there is a huge inter-regional variation; the wheat and rice yield from Haryana and Punjab is much higher than from the other states.

In order to cross the declining productivity barrier there is a need to herald a rainbow revolution by making a shift from wheat-rice cycle to other cereals and pulses. Since wheat and rice coupled with other crops are backed by minimum support prices (MSP) and input subsidy (whether water, fertiliser or power) regime, there is a huge incentive for the farmers in the irrigated region of Northwest India to grow these crops.

Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?High yielding seeds 

Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

The effects of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression are forcing changes on state governments and the U.S. economy that could linger for decades. By one Federal Reserve estimate, the country lost almost an entire year's worth of economic activity – nearly $14 trillion – during the recession from 2007 to 2009. The deep and persistent losses of the recession forced states to make broad cuts in spending and public workforces. For businesses, the recession led to changes in expansion plans and worker compensation. And for individual Americans, it has meant a future postponed, as fewer buy houses and start families. Five years after the financial crash, the country is still struggling to recover." In the aftermath of [previous] recessions there were strong recoveries. That is not true this time around," said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "This is more like the pace getting out of the Great Depression." For years, housing served as the backbone of economic growth and as an investment opportunity that propelled generations of Americans into the middle class.

But the financial crisis burst the housing bubble and devastated the real estate market, leaving millions facing foreclosure, millions more underwater, and generally stripping Americans of years' worth of accumulated wealth. Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, said even the nascent housing recovery can't escape the effects of the recession. Home values may have rebounded, he said, but the factors driving that recovery are very different than those that drove the growth in the market in the 1990s and 2000s. Sanders said more than half of recent home purchases have been made in cash, which signals investors and hedge funds are taking advantage of cheap properties. That could freeze out average buyers and also mean little real economic growth underpins those sales. Those effects are clear in homeownership rates, which continue to decline. In the second quarter of this year, the U.S. homeownership rate was 65.1%, according to Census Bureau data, the lowest since 1995. In the mid-2000s, it topped 69%, capping a steady pace of growth that began after the early 1990s recession. Reversing that will be a challenge, in part because credit has tightened and lending rules have been toughened in an effort to avoid the mistakes that inflated the housing bubble in the first place.

"Credit expanded, and now contracted, and it's going to be tight like this as far as the eye can see," Sanders said. "We so destroyed so many households when the bubble burst, there's just not the groundswell to fill the demand again." Some are skeptical that the tight credit market and new efforts to regulate the financial markets, like the Dodd-Frank law, will prove lasting. Americans have often responded with calls for regulation after financial sector-driven crises and accusations of mismanagement, according to Brookings' Burtless. "But eventually, those fires cool down," he said. "It's not as though this memory of what can go wrong sticks with us very long." That can be seen in the intense efforts to water down Dodd-Frank's regulations, Burtless said. Federal regulators have already made moves to relax requirements for some potential homeowners who were victims of the recent housing crisis. Even those steps and an unlikely return to easy credit might not fuel a full housing recovery without economic growth to back it up. As Sanders, referring to the growth in low-wage and part-time employment, put it: "At those wages, it's tough to scramble together down payments and mortgages’’.

 "Turmoil in the housing market has already reshaped the makeup of households nationwide. Homeownership rates among people with children under 18 fell sharply during the recession, declining 15% between 2005 and 2011, according to Census Bureau data. In some states it was far worse. For Michigan, the decline in homeownership was 23%, and in Arizona and California it was 22%. Lackluster job growth has outlived the downturn. A study by the Economic Policy Institute showed wages for all workers, when adjusted for inflation, grew just 1.5% between 2000 and 2007. But the last five years wiped out even those modest gains—the study found wages declined for the bottom 70% of all workers since the recession began. However, some areas have seen manufacturing jobs climb back from recessionary lows, and the energy sector has been a boon for some Midwestern states. One hopeful sign for workers is the shift away from manufacturing growth in the typically low-wage South back toward the Rust Belt states, reversing a movement that was taking hold before the downturn. That trend is documented in a 2012 report from the Brookings Institution, "Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production.’’

"From 2000 to 2010, both the Midwest and South lost manufacturing jobs at about the national rate of 34%. But the Midwest has seen nearly half of all manufacturing jobs gained since 2010, almost double the increase in the South. For Michigan, the growth was 19%; in Indiana, 12%. Even with that growth, there are caveats. Autoworker unions have ceded ground with companies on wages and benefits, for example, allowing new hires to work for lower pay and fewer benefits than those who've held their jobs longer. Unemployment remains stubbornly high in some states, and the jobs created have leaned heavily toward part-time and low-pay work. A study from the San Francisco Federal Reserve found the proportion of U.S. jobs that are part-time is high, as many of the jobs lost during the recession have not returned.

What can be sighted as the prime cause of this economic slump?

Select the sentence which has no spelling error.

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

The stark observation made in the Economic Survey of 2015-16 that “Indian agriculture, is in a way, a victim of its own past success – especially the green revolution”, shows the dark reality of the agriculture sector at present and the havoc that has been wreaked by the green revolution.

The green revolution, which is often characterised by the introduction of high-yielding variety of seeds and fertilisers, undoubtedly increased the productivity of land considerably. But the growth in the productivity has been stagnant in recent years, resulting in a significant decline in the income of farmers. There have also been negative environmental effects in the form of depleting water table, emission of greenhouse gases, and the contamination of surface and ground water. Needless to say, the agriculture sector is in a state of distress, which is severely affecting peasants and marginal farmers, and urgent policy interventions are required to protect their interests.

The government has responded to the problem by constituting a panel, which will recommend ways to double the income of farmers by 2022. While this may be an overtly ambitious target, if we want to boost stagnated agricultural growth a shift has to be made from food security of the nation to income security of the farmers. However, there are many hurdles that have to be crossed if we want to achieve this objective.

The first major barrier to overcome is declining productivity. Data from 2013 reveals that India’s average yield of cereal per hectare is far less than that of many countries (including several low income countries), but the difference is huge when compared to China. For instance, our average yield per hectare is 39% below than that of China and for rice this figure is 46%. Even Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia fare better than India in case of rice yield. Further, there is a huge inter-regional variation; the wheat and rice yield from Haryana and Punjab is much higher than from the other states.

In order to cross the declining productivity barrier there is a need to herald a rainbow revolution by making a shift from wheat-rice cycle to other cereals and pulses. Since wheat and rice coupled with other crops are backed by minimum support prices (MSP) and input subsidy (whether water, fertiliser or power) regime, there is a huge incentive for the farmers in the irrigated region of Northwest India to grow these crops.

What does the author suggest to enhance the income of the farmers?

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Fill in the blanks with the help of the alternatives given. Select the most appropriate option for each number.

A raptor’s day begins soon after dawn. They (1)______ their wings for a quick warm-up and are ready for the hunt. Nature (2)______ these birds so well that they do not need to hunt every day. By (3)______ a good kill on a particular day, the larger raptor can go without hunting (4)______ two or three weeks. These predators can do without regular meals. This helps them to (5)______ if there is bad weather or lack of food.

Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 4.

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

The Celts who lived in Britain before the Roman invasion of 43 AD could be said to have created the first towns. Celts in southern England lived in hill forts, which were quite large settlements. (Some probably had thousands of inhabitants). They were places of trade, where people bought and sold goods and also places where craftsmen worked. The Romans called them oppida.

However, the Romans created the first settlements that were undoubtedly towns. Roman towns were usually laid out in a grid pattern. In the centre was the forum or market place. It was lined with public buildings. Life in Roman towns was highly civilized with public baths and temples.

From the 5th century Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded England. At first, the invaders avoided living in towns. However, as trade grew some towns grew up. London revived by the 7th century (although the Saxon town was, at first, outside the walls of the old Roman town). Southampton was founded at the end of the 7th century. Hereford was founded in the 8th century. Furthermore, Ipswich grew up in the 8th century and York revived. However, towns were rare in Saxon England until the late 9th century. At that time, Alfred the Great created a network of fortified settlements across his kingdom called ‘burhs’. In the event of a Danish attack, men could gather in the local burh. However, burhs were more than forts. They were also market towns. Some burhs were started from scratch but many were created out of the ruins of old Roman towns. Places like Winchester rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of history.

The thing that would strike us most about medieval towns would be their small size. Winchester, the capital of England, probably had about 8,000 people. At that time a 'large' town, like Lincoln or Dublin had about 4,000 or 5,000 inhabitants and a 'medium sized' town, like Colchester had about 2,500 people. Many towns were much smaller. However, during the 12th and 13th centuries most towns grew much larger. Furthermore, many new towns were created across Britain. Trade and commerce were increasing and there was a need for new towns. Some were created from existing villages but some were created from scratch. In those days you could create a town simply by starting a market. There were few shops so if you wished to buy or sell anything you had to go to a market. Once one was up and running, craftsmen and merchants would come to live in the area and a town would grow.

Match the words with their meaning.

a. founded 1. protected

b. declined 2. created

c. fortified 3. dwindled