Embibe Experts Solutions for Chapter: Reading Comprehension, Exercise 1: Exercise

Read the following passage carefully and answer the question given below it.

Male lions are rather reticent about expanding their energy in hunting more than three-quarters of kills are made by lionesses. Setting off dusk on at hunt, the lionesses are in front, tensely scanning ahead, the cube lag playfully behind and the males bring up the rear, walking slowly their massive heads nodding with each step as if they were bored with the whole matter. But slothfulness may have survival value. With lionesses busy hunting, the males function as guards for the cubs, protecting them, particularly from hyenas.

When lionesses go in search of their prey, they are very

This question has a text portion followed by four alternative summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the text.

Popular thinking, propelled by mass hysteria and surge of emotions, cannot challenge organized, planned rational decision-making in a democratic system. Popular opinion can be suggestive or even mobilizing, but cannot become a diktat. Organized democratic systems have a very vital role to play. If such systems were not in place, people would be relegated into anarchy. Popular opinion can be justified but mobocracy and radical measures cannot be an answer to a few ills of a thriving democracy.

The primary objective of all the endeavours of the Rural Development Ministry has been the welfare of people, especially the rural poor. The policies and programmes have been designed with the aim of alleviation of rural poverty, which has been one of the primary objectives of planned development in India. A sustainable strategy of poverty alleviation is usually based on increasing productive employment opportunities as the inbuilt process of growth itself. Elimination of poverty, ignorance, diseases and inequality of opportunities and providing a better and higher quality of life are the basic premises of rural development.
Rural Development implies both the economic betterment of people as well as greater social transformation. In order to provide rural people with better prospects for economic development, increased participation of people in rural development programmes, decentralisation of planning, better enforcement of land reforms, and greater access to credit are envisaged. The growth of the Indian economy will have to be inclusive in nature, which means renewed importance for the development of the rural areas and weaker sections of our society.
NREGA has arrived as an unprecedented opportunity for rural India as it guarantees one of the crucial rights, the Right to Work, envisaged in Article 41 of the Indian Constitution. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has the potential to provide a “big push” in India's regions of distress. Gram Panchayats have a central role in the implementation and monitoring of the Schemes under NREGA. Under the provisions of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), eligible households apply to the Gram Panchayats which, after due verification, issues the job card. Each district has to prepare a shelf of projects on a bottom-up basis, which is done on the basis of priority assigned by the Gram Sabha. At least 50% of the works have to be compulsorily allotted to Gram Panchayats for execution.

According to the passage, what the author implying by 'the growth of the Indian economy will have to be inclusive'?
1. Empowering weaker sections of the society so that they could demand equality.
2. Giving importance to the development of rural areas as was done before.
Choose the correct option:

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it
The strength of the electronics industry in Japan is the Japanese ability to organise production and marketing rather than their achievements in original research. The British are generally recognised as a far more inventive collection individuals, but never seem able to exploit what they invent. There are many examples, from the TSR Z hovercraft, high speed train and Sinclair scooter to the Triumph, BSA and Norton motorcycle which all prove this sad rule. The Japanese were able to exploit their strengths and marketing and development many years ago, and their success was at first either not understood in the West or was dismissed as something which could have been produced only at their low price. They were sold because they were cheap copies of other people'™s ideas churned out of a workhouse which was dedicated to hard grind above all else.

The main theme of this passage is :

Read the following passage care fully and answer the given questions.

After losing the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte settled in exile at a tiny, remote, volcanic island St Helena in the Atlantic. Except a few of his trusted servants no one else was allowed to live there. One of his servants administered small dosages of arsenic to Napolean till he died in 1821. This fact would have remained buried but for the fact that some of the servants retained tufts of his hair as mementos and their later generations sold them at a premium to buyers around the globe. One such buyer got the hair analysed in 1950, and it was found that it contained a fatal dose of arsenic.

Arsenic is a slow and deadly poison and has been used since times immemorial. It is unfortunate that once again the issue of arsenic has become a hot topic and the villain is none but the nature itself. Gorundwater in West Bengal is already in grip of arsenic toxin. Millions in West Bengal are suffering from it.

It was during the last four years that scholars began a systematic study of the Gomti sediments to find out their contents. During one such project, upstream of the confluence of the Gomti with the Ganga in Ghazipur, they found that the sediments contained alarmingly high content of arsenic.

The permissible limit of arsenic in drinking water is only 0.05 mg./litre while the sediment samples collected by the researchers during peak summers yielded 5.76 mg./litre arsenic. It may be also he noted that this is even higher than the arsenic carried by the Ganga and the Brahmaputra rivers.

Their first reaction was, "How on the earth arsenic has made sudden appearance in the Gomti water and sediments?"
What they found is alarming and shocking. Important towns like Lucknow, Sultanpur and Jaunpur are situated on the banks of the Gomti.

The municipal waste and the sewage generated by these towns are dumped in the river, which carries lots of bacteria.
These bacteria thrive during the peak summer and beginning of the monsoon. The silt carried by the Gomti is generated by the erosion and denudation of the granites in the Himalayas and through the river's catchment in higher reaches it reaches the main river.

This silt contains mica, which in turn has arsenic locked up safely in the grains. The hungry fecal bacteria need food and they gobble the silt and in the process release arsenic.

Which of the following statements is true in context to the above passage?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below.

The situation of Columbus was daily becoming more and more critical. In proportion as he approached the regions where he expected to find land, the impatience of the crew augmented. The favourable signs which increased his confidence were derided by them as delusive, and there was danger of their rebelling and obliging him to turn back, when on the point of realising the object of all his labours. They beheld themselves with dismay still wafted onward, over the boundless wastes of what appeared to them a mere watery desert surrounding the habitable world. What was to become of them should their provisions fail? Their ships were too weak and defective even for the great voyage they had already made, but if they still were to press forward, adding at every moment to the immense expanse behind them, how should they even be able to return, having no intervening port where they might victual and refit? Were they to sail on until they perished, or until all return became impossible? In such case they would be the authors of their own destruction.

The word "expanse" means

Read the following passage care fully and answer the given questions.

Self-directed learning, in its broadest meaning, describes a process in which individuals take the initiative with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs formulating learning goals, identifying resources for learning, choosing and implementing learning strategies and evaluating learning outcomes. Thus it is important to attain new knowledge easily and skillfully for the rest of his or her life.

What is the need for self-directed learning? One reason is that there is convincing evidence that people, who take the initiative in learning, learn more things and learn better than people who sit at the feet of teachers passively waiting to be thought. The second reason is that self directed learning is more in tune with our natural processes of psychological development, an essential aspect of maturing is developing the ability to take increasing responsibility of our own lives to become increasingly self-directed. The third reason is that many of the new developments in education put a heavy responsibility on the learners to take a good deal of initiative in their own learning. To meet the challenges in today's instructive environment, self-directed learning is most essential.

There is need for self-directed learning because

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it.

It was a warm sunny morning. Keshav the woodcutter waved to his wife, Radha as he made his way to the woods that day. He went directly toward the tree that he had marked the previous day. He sharpened his axe and started his work. "Please stop. If you listen to me, I will give you a memorable gift."

Keshav was startled at the voice and climbed down. A golden snake slithered down the tree and kept a package on the lowest branch and retreated. He took the package home. He locked the door of their small hut and opened the package with Radha. It was a lovely model of the earth with a tree on top of it. The globe kept rotating on its axis. There was a silvery glow on the blue surface. The tree looked so real with its leaves dancing in the wind. Suddenly the tree started talking to them. "Dear Keshav, I am the life-giving tree. When God created planet earth, it was full of wonderful things. We played and laughed together. But now things have changed. You never come to me but for cutting me down. If you protect me, you will be rewarded." So Keshav started watering the tree and it kept its promise. The next day, he got juicy fruits from the tree. Keshav went to the market and it was sold within no time. It was so delicious that people wanted more of it. The fame of his fruits spread far and wide and today, Keshav is a rich man.

Which of the following is TRUE about the package?
1. The package contained a lovely model of the earth with a tree on top of it.
2. The tree within the package started talking to Keshav.
3. The package was silver in colour.