The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
India as a country has been bestowed with several nomenclatures. Right from unity in diversity to birthplace of Hinduism and Sanskrit, the land has always been admired and revered for its rich cultural legacy and variety that it offers. India is a story, a legend, folklore and an anecdote in itself. It needs no introduction, no specific mention. It has continued to thrive for centuries and there are bright chances of it being the next super power. The country has always nourished numerous cultures, traditions and religions. All the major religions thrive in India and none of them have ever felt insecure or unprotected. That’s the beauty of the land.
Go to any part of rich India and you will find numerous temple and shrines and all of them contain their own unique stories. We have always believed in beautiful and fascinating description of Indian Gods and Goddesses. Many stories have been told and retold in different fashions about how particular God originated in a particular place. All the descriptions of deities are believable and they convey just one message of Good winning over the evil. Gods in Indian religion have always fought monsters and even taken human forms to conquer evils in convincing manner. Right from north India to southern and western states, everywhere one can find plenty of amazing tales about our religion and sustenance over the centuries. The essence remains the same, the versions differ.
Indian mythology has always been popular among masses. Its effect can be seen from different religious functions and tales told to the kids by their grandma. The virtues have always been exemplified by the conduct of the Gods. Many present day symbols have been born from our mythology and religious beliefs. For example, Om or Swastika or Trishul etc have always been revered. Religious beliefs are in tune with our traditional way of living and we as staunch believers still believe in following the rules and customs. When you hear of stories about our mythological characters like Ram, Sita, Hanuman, Ravana, Ganesha, Krishna and Bhima etc you get to know about what the essence of India is made of. These characters are now being used in animation movies that will be further helpful in making new generation aware of India’s famous religions and mythology. Religion and mythology is no less than precious treasure that must be respected and preserved. India is a story in itself. There have been civilizations and archaeological facts that are constantly being researched about the birth place of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Though many times there are fake inventions, there seems a lot of history in the shrines and temples in India. Each depiction of God and villains seems appropriate with the truth winning over the evil. Each time and place has the new emergence of a Hindu God who takes care of the three worlds and slays the evil. A swastika or an Om is a revered sign and mentioned as prosperity. There are many symbols like the Trishul or the Trident which is not displayed everywhere as it is considered aggressive. It is customary to smear ash or sandalwood powder in the forehead as it cools the mind. These are beliefs turned to tradition and most of us follow the rules and codes. The latest generation is quite inquisitive about facts yet totally appreciates the quests of Lord Rama, the slaying of the ten headed Ravana, the piousness of Sita and the loyalty of Hanuman. Animation flicks are being created showing characters like Gathotkach the son of Bhima, Hanuman and Ganesha. Though these are kid specials, this would be the best way to teach them about Gods and religion. Dashavatar is a wonderful combination of story and the magnanimous nature of Lord Vishnu. Each avatar or creation has a set nature and character. It is mind blowing to see the story narration and is well received by the all of us. Our art and culture have direct relation with the mythology. The Shravan month is a holy time where people get religiously and maintain fasting. This is also the time for the beginning of all festivals. Magic or splendour is what we see at the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in India. The Durga Puja is another feat. South traditions relate to Lord Muruga( Karthik) or Lord Ayyappa. The shrine of Vaishnodevi in Jammu involves climbing a steep mountain of 14 kilometers bent and the mission seems accomplished once we see the holy pind. People hold allegiance and complete belief in miracles when life challenges them. Mythology is the treasure of Indian religion and must be given to our progeny.

 

It can be concluded from the passage that

Four jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Three of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out.

1. Scientists can't directly observe black holes with telescopes that detect x-rays, light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation.

2. We can, however, infer the presence of black holes and study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby.

3. If a black hole passes through a cloud of interstellar matter, for example, it will draw matter inward in a process known as accretion.

4. When a star burns through the last of its fuel, the object may collapse, or fall into itself.

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Tens of thousands of years ago, a huge horse species walked, trotted and galloped across the shifting sands of what is today South Africa’s Cape south coast.
The Giant Cape Zebra (Equus capensis) weighed an estimated 450 kg. Its extant relatives in southern Africa are far smaller: the plains zebra weighs between 250 and 300 kg and the Cape mountain zebra is the smallest of all zebra species, with a mass of between 230 and 260 kg.
The Giant Cape Zebra became extinct just over 10,000 years ago. This may have been partly because of the loss of its preferred habitat of extensive grasslands, as rising sea levels flooded the vast Palaeo-Agulhas Plain. But until now it hasn’t been clear how common the species was on the Cape south coast because its body fossils are predominantly from southern Africa’s west coast.
That’s where ichnology – the study of tracks and traces – comes in. Since 2007 our team has documented more than 350 fossil vertebrate tracksites along a 350 km stretch of the Cape south coast.
Now, by studying the tracks left by those galloping, walking and trotting zebra so long ago, we’re able to say that they must have been a fairly regular sight on the landscape of the Cape south coast, and were more common than was suggested by the body fossil record in the area. This confirms the capacity of the body fossil record and ichnology to complement each other.
Being able to look back in time in this way doesn’t just help scientists to better understand ancient landscapes. It’s also an important part of understanding what’s changed over time and the effects of climate change and humans.
In our recently published article, we described how we have identified 26 equid tracksites – including tracks belonging to Equus capensis – in aeolianites (cemented dunes) on South Africa’s Cape south coast in the vicinity of towns like Still Bay and Plettenberg Bay.
This is especially exciting because equid tracks dating to the Pleistocene epoch, which started 2.6 million years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago, are rare. In fact, our finds mean that the Cape south coast accounts for the majority of the sites known globally from this time period (other sites are in Kenya, Ethiopia, Italy, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Americas).
Thirteen of the tracksites we found contain tracks 12 cm or greater in length, and eight contain tracks 10 cm or less in length (in the remaining five cases we could not access the tracks for measurement). Well preserved equid tracks are fairly distinctive: features include an unbroken hoof wall and what is known as a “frog” towards the centre of the track.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct according to the passage?

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Tens of thousands of years ago, a huge horse species walked, trotted and galloped across the shifting sands of what is today South Africa’s Cape south coast.
The Giant Cape Zebra (Equus capensis) weighed an estimated 450 kg. Its extant relatives in southern Africa are far smaller: the plains zebra weighs between 250 and 300 kg and the Cape mountain zebra is the smallest of all zebra species, with a mass of between 230 and 260 kg.
The Giant Cape Zebra became extinct just over 10,000 years ago. This may have been partly because of the loss of its preferred habitat of extensive grasslands, as rising sea levels flooded the vast Palaeo-Agulhas Plain. But until now it hasn’t been clear how common the species was on the Cape south coast because its body fossils are predominantly from southern Africa’s west coast.
That’s where ichnology – the study of tracks and traces – comes in. Since 2007 our team has documented more than 350 fossil vertebrate tracksites along a 350 km stretch of the Cape south coast.
Now, by studying the tracks left by those galloping, walking and trotting zebra so long ago, we’re able to say that they must have been a fairly regular sight on the landscape of the Cape south coast, and were more common than was suggested by the body fossil record in the area. This confirms the capacity of the body fossil record and ichnology to complement each other.
Being able to look back in time in this way doesn’t just help scientists to better understand ancient landscapes. It’s also an important part of understanding what’s changed over time and the effects of climate change and humans.
In our recently published article, we described how we have identified 26 equid tracksites – including tracks belonging to Equus capensis – in aeolianites (cemented dunes) on South Africa’s Cape south coast in the vicinity of towns like Still Bay and Plettenberg Bay.
This is especially exciting because equid tracks dating to the Pleistocene epoch, which started 2.6 million years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago, are rare. In fact, our finds mean that the Cape south coast accounts for the majority of the sites known globally from this time period (other sites are in Kenya, Ethiopia, Italy, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Americas).
Thirteen of the tracksites we found contain tracks 12 cm or greater in length, and eight contain tracks 10 cm or less in length (in the remaining five cases we could not access the tracks for measurement). Well preserved equid tracks are fairly distinctive: features include an unbroken hoof wall and what is known as a “frog” towards the centre of the track.

The study of tracks and traces is called

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Tens of thousands of years ago, a huge horse species walked, trotted and galloped across the shifting sands of what is today South Africa’s Cape south coast.

The Giant Cape Zebra (Equus capensis) weighed an estimated 450 kg. Its extant relatives in southern Africa are far smaller: the plains zebra weighs between 250 and 300 kg and the Cape mountain zebra is the smallest of all zebra species, with a mass of between 230 and 260 kg.

The Giant Cape Zebra became extinct just over 10,000 years ago. This may have been partly because of the loss of its preferred habitat of extensive grasslands, as rising sea levels flooded the vast Palaeo-Agulhas Plain. But until now it hasn’t been clear how common the species was on the Cape south coast because its body fossils are predominantly from southern Africa’s west coast.

That’s where ichnology – the study of tracks and traces – comes in. Since 2007 our team has documented more than 350 fossil vertebrate tracksites along a 350 km stretch of the Cape south coast.

Now, by studying the tracks left by those galloping, walking and trotting zebra so long ago, we’re able to say that they must have been a fairly regular sight on the landscape of the Cape south coast, and were more common than was suggested by the body fossil record in the area. This confirms the capacity of the body fossil record and ichnology to complement each other.

Being able to look back in time in this way doesn’t just help scientists to better understand ancient landscapes. It’s also an important part of understanding what’s changed over time and the effects of climate change and humans.

In our recently published article, we described how we have identified 26 equid tracksites – including tracks belonging to Equus capensis – in aeolianites (cemented dunes) on South Africa’s Cape south coast in the vicinity of towns like Still Bay and Plettenberg Bay.

This is especially exciting because equid tracks dating to the Pleistocene epoch, which started 2.6 million years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago, are rare. In fact, our finds mean that the Cape south coast accounts for the majority of the sites known globally from this time period (other sites are in Kenya, Ethiopia, Italy, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Americas).

Thirteen of the tracksites we found contain tracks 12 cm or greater in length, and eight contain tracks 10 cm or less in length (in the remaining five cases we could not access the tracks for measurement). Well preserved equid tracks are fairly distinctive: features include an unbroken hoof wall and what is known as a “frog” towards the centre of the track.

The given passage is mainly associated with

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
How we as human beings develop cognitively has been thoroughly researched. Theorists have suggested that children are incapable of understanding the world until they reach a particular stage of cognitive development. Cognitive development is the process whereby a child’s understanding of the world changes as a function of age and experience.
No theory of cognitive development has had more impact than the cognitive stages presented by Jean Piaget. Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, suggested that children go through four separate stages in a fixed order that is universal in all children. Piaget declared that these stages differ not only in the quantity of information acquired at each, but also in the quality of knowledge and understanding at that stage Piaget’s four stages are known as the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.
The sensor motor stage in a child is from birth to approximately two years. During this stage, a child has relatively little competence in representing the environment using images, language, or symbols. An infant has no awareness of objects or people that are not immediately present at a given moment. Piaget called this a lack of object permanence. Object permanence is the awareness that objects and people continue to exist even if they are out of sight.
The preoperational stage is from the age of two to seven years. The most important development at this time is language. Children develop an internal representation of the world that allows them to describe people, events, and feelings. Children at this time use symbols, they can pretend when driving their toy car across the couch that the couch is actually a bridge. Children in the preoperational stage are characterized by what Piaget called egocentric thoughts. The world at this stage is viewed entirely from the child’s own perspective. Thus a child’s explanation to an adult can be uninformative. Three-year-olds will generally hide their face when they are in trouble--even though they are in plain view, three-year-olds believe that their inability to see others also results in others’ inability to see them. A child in the preoperational stage also lacks the principle of conservation. This is the knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance of objects. If you put two identical pieces of clay in front of a child, one rolled up in the shape of a ball, the other rolled into a snake, a child at this stage may say the snake piece is bigger because it is rolled out.
The concrete operational stage lasts from the age of seven to twelve years of age. The beginning of this stage is marked by the mastery of the principal of conservation. Children develop the ability to think in a more logical manner and they begin to overcome some of the egocentric characteristics of the preoperational period. One of the major ideas learned in this stage is the idea of reversibility. This is the idea that some changes can be undone by reversing an earlier action. An example is the ball of clay that is rolled out into a snake piece of clay. Children at this stage understand that you can regain the ball of clay formation by rolling the piece of clay the other way. Children can even conceptualize the stage in their heads without having to see the action performed. The formal operational stage begins in most people at age twelve and continues into adulthood. This stage produces a new kind of thinking that is abstract, formal, and logical. Thinking is no longer tied to events that can be observed. A child at this stage can think hypothetically and use logic to solve problems. It is thought that not all individuals reach this level of thinking.
Most developmental theorists have agreed that Piaget has provided us with an accurate account of age-related changes in cognitive development. Piaget’s suggestion, that cognitive performance cannot be attained unless cognitive readiness is brought about by maturation and environmental stimuli, has been instrumental in determining the structure of educational curricula.

The concrete operational stage lasts from the age of