English

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Mercury is a toxic element that damages human health and the environment, even in low concentrations. In humans, mercury exposure is associated with problems such as kidney damage, neurological impairment and delayed cognitive development in children.
Mercury became a popular pesticide ingredient for agriculture in the early 1900s, and a number of poisoning events ensued throughout the world.
They include the Iraq grain disaster in 1971-72 when grain seed treated with mercury was imported from Mexico and the United States. The seed was not meant for human consumption, but rural communities used it to make bread, and 459 people died.
In the decades since, most countries have banned the production and/or use of mercury-based pesticides on crops. In 1995 Australia discontinued their use in most applications, such as turf farming.
Despite this, authorities exempted a fungicide containing mercury known as Shirtan. They restricted its use to sugar cane farming in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
According to the sugar cane industry, about 80% of growers use Shirtan to treat pineapple sett rot disease.
But this month, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority cancelled the approval of the mercury-containing active ingredient in Shirtan, methoxyethylmercuric chloride. The decision was made at the request of the ingredient's manufacturer, Alpha Chemicals.
Shirtan's registration was cancelled last week. It will no longer be produced in Australia, but existing supplies can be sold to, and used by, sugar cane farmers for the next year until it is fully banned.
 Over the past 25 years, Australia's continued use of Shirtan allowed about 50,000 kilograms of mercury into the environment. The effect on river and reef ecosystems is largely unknown. What is known is that mercury can be toxic even at very low concentrations, and research is needed to understand its ecological impacts.
The use of mercury-based pesticide has also created a high risk of exposure for sugar cane workers. At most risk is those not familiar with safety procedures for handling toxic materials, and who may have been poorly supervised. This risk has been exacerbated by the use of itinerant workers, particularly those from a non-English speaking background.
Further, in the hot and humid conditions of Northern Australia, it has been reported that workers may have removed protective gloves to avoid sweating. Again, research is needed to determine the implication of these practices for human health.
To this end, Mercury Australia, a multi-disciplinary network of researchers, has formed to address the environmental, health and other issues surrounding mercury use, both contemporary and historical.

Based on the passage, which of the following best captures the overall conclusion?

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

The true test of changed position of women in India is not the distinction achieved by them but what makes an era of revolutionary change is their free participation in all spheres of life from villages to national government- by Indian tradition they were never by nature, inferior. Before the social disabilities made the women's participation and equality impossible, the ancient Indian custom treated them fair affirming their equality. Gandhian movement did enough to unfetter women from their social bondages and improve their societal status.

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Mercury is a toxic element that damages human health and the environment, even in low concentrations. In humans, mercury exposure is associated with problems such as kidney damage, neurological impairment and delayed cognitive development in children.
Mercury became a popular pesticide ingredient for agriculture in the early 1900s, and a number of poisoning events ensued throughout the world.
They include the Iraq grain disaster in 1971-72 when grain seed treated with mercury was imported from Mexico and the United States. The seed was not meant for human consumption, but rural communities used it to make bread, and 459 people died.
In the decades since, most countries have banned the production and/or use of mercury-based pesticides on crops. In 1995 Australia discontinued their use in most applications, such as turf farming.
Despite this, authorities exempted a fungicide containing mercury known as Shirtan. They restricted its use to sugar cane farming in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
According to the sugar cane industry, about 80% of growers use Shirtan to treat pineapple sett rot disease.
But this month, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority cancelled the approval of the mercury-containing active ingredient in Shirtan, methoxyethylmercuric chloride. The decision was made at the request of the ingredient's manufacturer, Alpha Chemicals.
Shirtan's registration was cancelled last week. It will no longer be produced in Australia, but existing supplies can be sold to, and used by, sugar cane farmers for the next year until it is fully banned.
 Over the past 25 years, Australia's continued use of Shirtan allowed about 50,000 kilograms of mercury into the environment. The effect on river and reef ecosystems is largely unknown. What is known is that mercury can be toxic even at very low concentrations, and research is needed to understand its ecological impacts.
The use of mercury-based pesticide has also created a high risk of exposure for sugar cane workers. At most risk is those not familiar with safety procedures for handling toxic materials, and who may have been poorly supervised. This risk has been exacerbated by the use of itinerant workers, particularly those from a non-English speaking background.
Further, in the hot and humid conditions of Northern Australia, it has been reported that workers may have removed protective gloves to avoid sweating. Again, research is needed to determine the implication of these practices for human health.
To this end, Mercury Australia, a multi-disciplinary network of researchers, has formed to address the environmental, health and other issues surrounding mercury use, both contemporary and historical.

All of the following, if true, would strengthen the author's claims EXCEPT:

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Mercury is a toxic element that damages human health and the environment, even in low concentrations. In humans, mercury exposure is associated with problems such as kidney damage, neurological impairment and delayed cognitive development in children.
Mercury became a popular pesticide ingredient for agriculture in the early 1900s, and a number of poisoning events ensued throughout the world.
They include the Iraq grain disaster in 1971-72 when grain seed treated with mercury was imported from Mexico and the United States. The seed was not meant for human consumption, but rural communities used it to make bread, and 459 people died.
In the decades since, most countries have banned the production and/or use of mercury-based pesticides on crops. In 1995 Australia discontinued their use in most applications, such as turf farming.
Despite this, authorities exempted a fungicide containing mercury known as Shirtan. They restricted its use to sugar cane farming in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
According to the sugar cane industry, about 80% of growers use Shirtan to treat pineapple sett rot disease.
But this month, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority cancelled the approval of the mercury-containing active ingredient in Shirtan, methoxyethylmercuric chloride. The decision was made at the request of the ingredient's manufacturer, Alpha Chemicals.
Shirtan's registration was cancelled last week. It will no longer be produced in Australia, but existing supplies can be sold to, and used by, sugar cane farmers for the next year until it is fully banned.
 Over the past 25 years, Australia's continued use of Shirtan allowed about 50,000 kilograms of mercury into the environment. The effect on river and reef ecosystems is largely unknown. What is known is that mercury can be toxic even at very low concentrations, and research is needed to understand its ecological impacts.
The use of mercury-based pesticide has also created a high risk of exposure for sugar cane workers. At most risk is those not familiar with safety procedures for handling toxic materials, and who may have been poorly supervised. This risk has been exacerbated by the use of itinerant workers, particularly those from a non-English speaking background.
Further, in the hot and humid conditions of Northern Australia, it has been reported that workers may have removed protective gloves to avoid sweating. Again, research is needed to determine the implication of these practices for human health.
To this end, Mercury Australia, a multi-disciplinary network of researchers, has formed to address the environmental, health and other issues surrounding mercury use, both contemporary and historical.

In the following lines “Despite this, authorities exempted.”, the author is referring to what defiance?

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and choose the correct option.

1. In Tokyo, they built an expressway linking the international airport in Haneda to the centre, and widened some of the city's major arteries.

2. These infrastructure improvements helped to bring about the Japanese economic miracle over the next couple of decades.

3. Tokyo 2020 was supposed to be a great economic stimulus, replicating the achievements of Tokyo 1964. 

4. It was thanks to hosting that Olympics that Japan invested in infrastructure such as the famous Shinkansen bullet train.

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and choose the correct option.

1. For example, a seller anticipating that the dollar should debilitate during the day may purposely make, through client exchanges and exchange in the inter-bank market, an oversold position in the desire for squaring it later during a day at a profit, should his assumption regarding the dollar debilitating materialise.

2. Trade control doesn't out and out forbid Indian banks from keeping open positions over the span of a day.

3. Thus, depending upon the strategy of a bank, vendors might be permitted to take intra-day positions so as to make a profit.

4.  For market creators offering two-way quotes in the international markets, open positions are undeniably more common.

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

Mercury is a toxic element that damages human health and the environment, even in low concentrations. In humans, mercury exposure is associated with problems such as kidney damage, neurological impairment and delayed cognitive development in children.
Mercury became a popular pesticide ingredient for agriculture in the early 1900s, and a number of poisoning events ensued throughout the world.
They include the Iraq grain disaster in 1971-72 when grain seed treated with mercury was imported from Mexico and the United States. The seed was not meant for human consumption, but rural communities used it to make bread, and 459 people died.
In the decades since, most countries have banned the production and/or use of mercury-based pesticides on crops. In 1995 Australia discontinued their use in most applications, such as turf farming.
Despite this, authorities exempted a fungicide containing mercury known as Shirtan. They restricted its use to sugar cane farming in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

According to the sugar cane industry, about 80% of growers use Shirtan to treat pineapple sett rot disease.

But this month, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority cancelled the approval of the mercury-containing active ingredient in Shirtan, methoxyethylmercuric chloride. The decision was made at the request of the ingredient's manufacturer, Alpha Chemicals.

Shirtan's registration was cancelled last week. It will no longer be produced in Australia, but existing supplies can be sold to, and used by, sugar cane farmers for the next year until it is fully banned.

 Over the past 25 years, Australia's continued use of Shirtan allowed about 50,000 kilograms of mercury into the environment. The effect on river and reef ecosystems is largely unknown. What is known is that mercury can be toxic even at very low concentrations, and research is needed to understand its ecological impacts.

The use of mercury-based pesticide has also created a high risk of exposure for sugar cane workers. At most risk is those not familiar with safety procedures for handling toxic materials, and who may have been poorly supervised. This risk has been exacerbated by the use of itinerant workers, particularly those from a non-English speaking background.

Further, in the hot and humid conditions of Northern Australia, it has been reported that workers may have removed protective gloves to avoid sweating. Again, research is needed to determine the implication of these practices for human health.

To this end, Mercury Australia, a multi-disciplinary network of researchers, has formed to address the environmental, health and other issues surrounding mercury use, both contemporary and historical.

Which of the following can be responsible for the Iraq grain disaster?

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

The formation of polymers, long-chain molecules made of repeating units of monomers, is a far more difficult experimental problem than the formation of monomers. Polymerization reactions tend to be dehydration. A molecule of water is lost in the formation of a peptide from two amino acids or of a disaccharide sugar from two monomers. Dehydrating agents are used to initiate polymerization. The polymerization of amino acids to form long protein-like molecules (“proteinoids”) was accomplished through dry heating by American biochemist Sidney Fox and his colleagues. The polyamine acids that he formed are not random molecules unrelated to life. They have distinct catalytic activities. Long polymers of amino acids were also produced from hydrogen cyanide and anhydrous liquid ammonia by American chemist Clifford Matthews in simulations of the early upper atmosphere.

Some evidence exists that ultraviolet irradiation induces combinations of nucleotide bases and sugars in the presence of phosphates or cyanides. Some condensing agents such as cyanamide are efficiently made under simulated primitive conditions. Despite the breakdown by the water of molecular intermediates, condensing agents may quite effectively induce polymerization, and polymers of amino acids, sugars, and nucleotides have all been made this way.

That adsorption of relevant small carbon compounds on clays or other minerals may have concentrated these intermediates was suggested by the British scientist John Desmond Bernal. The concentration of some kind is required to offset the tendency for water to break down polymers of biological significance. Phosphorus, with which Deoxyribose sugar forms the “backbone” of DNA and is integrally involved in cell energy transformation and membrane formation, is preferentially incorporated into pre-biological organic molecules. It is hard to explain how such a preference could have happened without the concentration of organic molecules.

Which of the following words best expresses the true meaning of 'integral'?