Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow.

It is well accorded that COVID-19 extracts a huge toll on the mental health of patients and leaves behind a slew of neurological sequelae in its wake. However, what is alarming is the wide gamut of mental and neurological disorders seen even in those with milder symptoms. Such patients frequently reported being anxious, depressed and having difficulty in sleeping. A higher incidence of frank psychosis manifesting as disorganization of thought processes and personality disorders was also reported. Many survivors of COVID19 had to battle substance abuse in its immediate aftermath. There was a steep increase in the amount of alcohol consumed by regular drinkers. Persons who had stopped smoking and consuming alcohol resumed their habit in disconcerting numbers.

The occurrence of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinsonism is concerning as this would bring longterm disability in the form of impaired mobility and memory decline. It has been hypothesized that the causative mechanism for many of the neurological conditions due to COVID-19 may be the direct invasion of the nervous system by the virus, an increased tendency to blood clotting or an exaggerated immune response by the body. Various other factors like pre-existing psychiatric illness, prolonged quarantine, perceived lack of organizational support, and social stigma are risk factors. Anxiety, Nervousness, and Posttraumatic stress disorder are often fuelled by fear of infecting other family members, physical distancing, loneliness, and ________ at home in cramped quarters.

The pandemic has radically transformed the way businesses function and services delivered. Remote working disrupts a healthy-work life balance. Face to face contact and human interactions which were considered so essential for emotional well-being has taken a backseat. Lack of comforting physical contact like shaking hands and hugging friends is stressful and disconcerting. Online classes and home-schooling have placed a gargantuan burden both on students and parents. Lack of access to reliable computer hardware and spotty internet connections, particularly in rural areas and in the economically backward have created a new class divide. Children have been deprived of co-curricular activities, participation in group events and sports which is essential for their holistic development. Mental stress and fatigue have increased manyfold due to the rigours imposed by virtual learning.

How did the pandemic transform the way businesses are run?

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

Since September, at least 25 people have died and thousands have been made homeless. Every state and territory in Australia has experienced fires this summer. But the biggest fires burn along stretches of the eastern and southern coast, where most of the population lives. This includes areas around Sydney and Adelaide. More than 6.3 million hectares (63,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) have been burned so far – one hectare is roughly the size of a sports field. To put that in perspective, around 800,000 hectares were engulfed in a bush fire in 2018 in California. Australia has always experienced bushfires – it has a "fire season". But this year they are a lot worse than normal.

Fires are usually caused by lightning strikes or accidentally by a spark – but some fires are also started deliberately. This year, a natural weather phenomenon known as the ‘Indian Ocean Dipole’ has meant a hot, dry spell across the country. This year, Australia twice set a new temperature record: an average maximum of 41.9°C was recorded on 18 December. That comes on top of a long period of drought.

Scientists have long warned that this hotter, drier climate will contribute to fires becoming more frequent and more intense. The more extreme weather patterns and higher temperatures increase the risk of bushfires and allow them to spread faster and wider. Fire fighters are spraying water and fire retardant from planes and helicopters as well as from the ground. But fighting bush fires is extremely difficult and often authorities have to focus on just stopping the spread, rather than putting the fire out. The spread can for instance be best contained by digging earth boundaries to stop the flames from spreading. The priority is saving lives.

Professional fire fighters are the first in line to battle the flames, but they are outnumbered by the thousands of volunteers. Three of them have died. There's also help coming from abroad: the US, Canada and New Zealand have sent fire fighters to help. Australia's police, military and navy are involved in rescue and evacuation efforts. While people can flee the fires and are being evacuated if need be, the flames are devastating wildlife in the affected areas. One study estimated that half a billion animals have died in New South Wales alone.

Zookeepers take animals home to save them from fire, but the fires don't only kill animals directly, they also destroy the habitat, leaving the survivors vulnerable even when the fires have gone. So the true scale of loss isn't yet clear. Experts say more than 100,000 cows and sheep may also have been lost, which is devastating for farmers.

Each state runs its own emergency operation, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised better funding for fire-fighting and payouts for volunteer fire fighters, and an additional A$2billion ($1.4billion; £1billion) for the recovery. But the national government has come under strong criticism from its opponents that it has not been doing enough against climate change. The country is one of the world's biggest per capita greenhouse gas emitters but under international agreements it has committed itself to reduction targets

“Some fires are also started deliberately”. ‘Deliberately’ here means:

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

If you’re concerned that automation and artificial intelligence are going to disrupt the economy over the next decade, join the club. But while policymakers and academics agree there’ll be significant disruption, they differ about its impact.

On one hand, techno-pessimists argue that new forms of automation will displace most jobs without creating new ones. In other words, most of us will lose our jobs. On the flip side of the debate, techno-optimists contend that continued investments in education and research and development will offset the job losses and generate many new human tasks that complement AI.

Researchers have been studying jobs that involve digital skills for years to try to understand their merit. But what does it really mean for a job or skill to be “digital”?

In earlier research, all it meant was that a worker used a computer. Since nearly all workers use a PC today, we need a more refined definition of digital skills that takes into account how much a job depends on doing things like programming, crunching data in Excel spreadsheets and even using a smartphone.

In a particular research, a new way was created to measure digital or information technology skills in the labour market based on how frequently they’re used in an occupation. For example, how much time does a financial adviser spend analyzing data or an event planner use a computer?

It was found that workers in occupations that rank higher in IT industry earn more than demographically similar peers in other occupations – and that this earnings gap has been growing. Not only that, but it was also found something interesting on the impact of a college degree on the lifetime earnings of a person in IT industry. Historically, workers with a college degree have earned a lot more than peers without one. Even the level of the college makes a difference. Recent research has shown that this so-called college premium has been flattening. The main cause, according to the analysis, is that the college premium for occupations requiring fewer digital skills has been declining, while it has been rising for those we identified as digital jobs such as software developers, programmers and aerospace engineering. At least some of the flattening in the college premium is due to the increasing number of bachelor’s degrees that convey few skills that are valued in the marketplace.

Another research compares the measures of job quality – such as a sense of purpose, enjoyability and career advancement – with income, occupations and a range of demographic characteristics. It found that jobs that require greater interaction with technology tended to score higher in quality, particularly in terms of measures like career advancement.

The fact that these jobs not only pay more but also provide greater levels of employee satisfaction and engagement paints a more optimistic picture about the future of work. And that gives hope, particularly since the digital economy is growing at a pace nearly four times faster than the broader economy.

The key is making tomorrow’s jobs “robot-proof” by designing them in a way that takes advantage of the digital skills described above. And universities must play a big role in this by identifying what a good job looks like and ensuring future generations learn the necessary skills.

According to the passage, why are some people concerned with the ongoing transformation of the economy brought by the use of automation and AI?

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.

Why is there no real medical term that identifies addiction and social networking?

Directions: In each of the questions given below, four words are given in bold. These four words may or may not be in their correct positions. The sentence is then followed by options with the correct combination of words that should replace each other in order to make the sentence grammatically and contextually correct. Find the correct combination of words that replace each other. If the sentence is correct as it is, select '5' as your option.

Sarah moved (A) to the big city with successful (B) of becoming a dreams (C) singer, but she was met with harsh rejection (D) everywhere.

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.

Which of the following questions cannot be answered after reading the above passage?

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it

Amidst a maze of rocks tucked in the Aravalli mountain ranges of Haryana, a team of archaeologists discovered cave paintings they believe belong to the Upper Palaeolithic age. The cave paintings have been discovered just outside the national capital and a stone’s throw away from a holy grove called Mangar Bani- the region’s only surviving patch of primary forest.

While the residents of the villages have been familiar with the paintings for ages, the Haryana government’s museum and archaeology department took note of them just recently. A fact-finding team was sent to the area in the last week of June. The team came across cave paintings comprising images of human figurines, animals, foliage, and geometric drawings. While some have paled over time, others are still very visible. They also discovered rock art and open-air ceremonial sites.

Banani Bhattacharyya, deputy director of the department of archaeology and museums informed, “So far, cave paintings in Delhi-NCR have only been found here. The paintings are yet to be dated but at least some of them belong to the Upper Palaeolithic period in all likelihood. We are viewing the paintings in continuation with the Soanian culture which has been found in Shivalik hills, Narmada and Aravallis.”

Most of the cave paintings found were in ochre colour, but some were in white. As per experts, cave paintings in white are usually from a later stage (early contemporary era), while Stone Age paintings are more often than not in ochre. “Stone age paintings generally use red and ochre colours. Stones of these colour used to be available locally and inhabitants crushed the stones for preparing the colour for paintings,” added Bhattacharyya

The Upper Paleolithic Age began around 40,000 years ago and lasted till around 10,000 years ago. While yet to be established through archaeological dating, Bhattacharyya says the Mangar cave art is 20,000-40,000 years old. Bhattacharyya claimed that the discovery is extremely significant. “Starting from the Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic then Upper Palaeolithic, we see the evolution here. We have found significant remains from Lower Palaeolithic till Middle and Upper Palaeolithic period too,” she explained. “Though tools from the Palaeolithic Age have been identified earlier in parts of the Aravallis, it is for the first time that cave paintings and rock art of a large magnitude have been found in Haryana,” she added.

Most of the cave paintings found in Mangar forest area in Haryana are in which colour?

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

Santiniketan embodies Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of a place of learning that is unfettered by religious and regional barriers. Established in 1863 with the aim of helping education go beyond the confines of the classroom, Santiniketan grew into the Visva Bharati University in 1921, attracting some of the most creative minds in the country.

He developed a curriculum that was a unique blend of art, human values and cultural interchange. Even today, in every step, in every brick and in every tree at Santiniketan, one can still feel his presence, his passion, his dedication and his pride in the institution. In 1862, Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath, was taking a boat ride through Birbhum, the westernmost corner of Bengal, when he came across a landscape that struck him as the perfect place for meditation. He bought the large tract of land and built a small house and planted some saplings around it. Debendranath Tagore decided to call the place Santiniketan, or the ‘abode of peace’, because of the serenity it brought to his soul. In 1863, he turned it into a spiritual centre where people from all religions, castes and creeds came and participated in meditation.

In the years that followed, Debendranath’s son Rabindranath went on to become one of the most formidable literary forces India has ever produced. He wrote in all literary genres but he was first and foremost a poet. As one of the earliest educators to think in terms of the global village, he envisioned an education that was deeply rooted in one’s immediate surroundings but connected to the cultures of the wider world.

Located in the heart of nature, the school aimed to combine education with a sense of obligation towards the larger civic community. Blending the best of western and traditional eastern systems of education, the curriculum revolved organically around nature with classes being held in the open air. Tagore wanted his students to feel free despite being in the formal learning environment of a school, because he himself had dropped out of school when he found himself unable to think and felt claustrophobic within the four walls of a classroom. Nature walks and excursions were a part of the curriculum, special attention was paid to natural phenomena and students were encouraged to follow the life cycles of insects, birds and plants.

The rural paradise of Santiniketan, Tagore’s erstwhile home, has become a thriving centre of art, education and internationalism over the years.

Which of these statements about Santiniketan is NOT true?