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Since the last few decades, growth in human population has increased the rate of consumption of natural resources. It has accelerated the loss of species and habitation in different parts of the world. Tropical regions which occupy only about one-fourth of the total area of the world, contain about three-fourth of the world human population. Over-exploitation of resources and deforestation have become rampant to fulfil the needs of large population. As these tropical rain forests contain 50 per cent of the species on the earth, destruction of natural habitats have proved disastrous for the entire biosphere.

Natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, droughts, etc. cause damage to the flora and fauna of the earth, bringing change to the biodiversity of respective affected regions. Pesticides and other pollutants such as hydrocarbons and toxic heavy metals destroy the weak and sensitive species. Species which are not the natural inhabitants of the local habitat but are introduced into the system, are called exotic species. There are many examples when a natural biotic community of the ecosystem suffered extensive damage because of the introduction of exotic species. During the last few decades, some animals like tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, crocodiles, minks and birds were hunted down mercilessly by poachers for their horn, tusks, hides, etc. It has resulted in the rendering of certain types of organisms as endangered category.

Since the last few decades, growth in human population has increased the rate of consumption of natural resources. It has accelerated the loss of species and habitation in different parts of the world. Tropical regions which occupy only about one-fourth of the total area of the world, contain about three-fourth of the world human population. Over-exploitation of resources and deforestation have become rampant to fulfil the needs of large population. As these tropical rain forests contain 50 per cent of the species on the earth, destruction of natural habitats have proved disastrous for the entire biosphere.

Natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, droughts, etc. cause damage to the flora and fauna of the earth, bringing change to the biodiversity of respective affected regions. Pesticides and other pollutants such as hydrocarbons and toxic heavy metals destroy the weak and sensitive species. Species which are not the natural inhabitants of the local habitat but are introduced into the system, are called exotic species. There are many examples when a natural biotic community of the ecosystem suffered extensive damage because of the introduction of exotic species. During the last few decades, some animals like tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, crocodiles, minks and birds were hunted down mercilessly by poachers for their horn, tusks, hides, etc. It has resulted in the rendering of certain types of organisms as endangered category.

In stark contrast to where I grew up-in warm, lush green Trivandrum, Kerala, filled with rich sights, sounds and people-life at the Poles is quiet. The harshness of winter brings along with it an eerie desolation and near-total silence. Survival in this frigid, dark and windy terrain is only for the fittest. A misstep can mean anything from an icy injury to a bitter, benumbed death.

But while it is tenuous, life here is also humbling-physically, mentally, and even spiritually. The experience has allowed me to witness the wonderous dualities of nature: raw, brutal and unforgiving but nurturing and awe-inspiring at the same time.

As the days shorten, almost all life starts to depart seeking warmer lands. But those who stay are surrounded by glacial beauty and an otherworldly stillness that stands unmatched. In peak winter months, the sun seems to live only in memory. Its absence however, is only an illusion: shimmering displays of blue, red, yellow, green, and orange auroras shifting and snaking like billowing curtains across the pitch black sky remind me that the light shall one day return.

Even the emptiness of the land is deceptive. Look closely and out waddles a flock of penguins from behind an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula.

Read the following passage, and answer the next five questions by choosing the correct options :

Unquestionably a literary life is for the most part an unhappy life; because, if you have genius, you must suffer the penalty of genius; and, if you have only talent, there are so many cares and worries incidental to the circumstances of men of letters, as to make life exceedingly miserable. Besides the pangs of composition, and the continuous disappointment which a true artist feels at his inability to reveal himself, there is the ever-recurring difficulty of gaining the public ear. Young writers are buoyed up by the hope and the belief that they have only to throw that poem at the world's feet to get back in return the laurel-crown; that they have only to push that novel into print to be acknowledged at once as a new light in literature. You can never convince a young author that the editors of magazines and the publishers of books are a practical body of men, who are by no means frantically anxious about placing the best literature before the public. Nay, that for the most part they are mere brokers who conduct their business on the hardest lines of a Profit and Loss account. But supposing your book fairly launches, its perils are only beginning. You have to run the gauntlet of the critics.

A time comes in the life of every author when he regards critics as comical rather than formidable, and goes his way unheeding. But there are sensitive souls that yield under the chastisement and, perhaps after suffering much silent torture, abandon the profession of the pen for ever. Keats, perhaps, is the saddest example of a fine spirit hounded to death by savage criticism; because, whatever his biographers may aver, that furious attack of Gifford and Terry undoubtedly expedited his death. But no doubt there are hundreds who suffer keenly hostile and unscrupulous criticism, and who have to bear that suffering in silence, because it is a cardinal principle in literature that the most unwise thing in the world for an author is to take public notice of criticism in the way of defending himself. Silence is the only safeguard, as it is the only dignified protest against insult and offence.

Read the following passage given below and answer the question.

We humans walk with two legs (called 'bipedal') and use two hands. The evolution of bipedalism began in our ancestors, the primates, about 4 million years ago. The primates not only gave us our blood groups, but our two feet and two hands as well. Primates exhibit characteristics that distinguish them from less evolved mammals. These include adaptations to live in trees (as monkeys do), big brains, heightened sense of vision, opposable thumbs to grasp the four fingers in each hand, and more flexibility in shoulder movements.

Dr. Tetsuro Matsuzawa of the Kyoto University, Japan, writes that the shared ancestor primates moved into tree tops and developed four hands from the four legs possessed by the terrestrial ancestor. This was an adaptation to arboreal life; enabling the efficient grasping of branches and tree-trunks. Subsequently, early human ancestors left the trees to start walking long distances across the land, bipedally. Thus, we created two feet from four hands during the course of evolution from our primate ancestors.

The anthropologist Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, US points out that the way we humans get around the world is different from any other animal on earth. We move around on the ground, upright on two feet, but in a unique way: with one foot after the other; holding our body fully upright in a characteristic series of motions. So, it's a big deal to figure out how and why we walk the way we do, and how our lineage really diverged so much from ape like creatures.

The human brain is about three times as big as the brain of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Moreover, a part of our brain, called the cerebral cortex - which plays a key role in memory, attention, awareness and thought - contains twice as many cells as the same region in chimpanzees. We are, thus, smarter than apes.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself:

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain:

O' listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt.

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself:

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain:

O' listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt.

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself:

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain:

O' listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt.

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself:

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain:

O' listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt.

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself:

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain:

O' listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt.

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

After reading the following passage, answer the questions which follow:

I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been of no great disadvantage to me. In fact, I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest pleasure has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now, give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes of my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word.