Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

If all human beings started behaving like bacteria, which of the following would be the most desired outcome by all humanity?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Which three processes are responsible for evolution?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Regarding diseases caused by bacteria and virus and their eradication by medical science which conclusion is valid?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Which statement is true regarding the work that bacteria do for the cause of humanity?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Which philosophical paradigm does the model of creativity in evolution as described in the passage derives from?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

What are the reasons given in the passage against the theory of “random mutation”, with respect to explaining evolution?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Which principle described in the passage can become the basis of science fiction?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Choose the word which is most nearly theSAME in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

Myriad

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Choose the word which is most nearly theSAME in meaning as the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

Helix

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.

The driving force of evolution, according to the emerging new theory, is not to be found in the chance events of random mutations but in life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order. Once this fundamental new insight has been understood, we can then ask: What are the avenues in which evolution’s creativity expresses itself?
The answer to this question comes not only from molecular biology but also, and even more importantly, from microbiology, from the study of the planetary web of the myriads of micro- organisms that were the only forms of life during the first two billion years of evolution. During those two billion years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and, in so doing, invented all of life’s essential biotechnologies, including fermentation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, respiration, and rotary devices for rapid motion.
During the past three decades, extensive research in microbiology has revealed three major avenues of evolution. The first, but least important, is the random mutation of genes, the centerpiece of neo-Darwinian theory. Gene mutation is caused by a chance error in the self- replication of DNA, when the two chains of the DNA’s double helix separate and each of them serves as a template for the construction of a new complementary chain.
It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful, and only very few result in useful variations.
In the case of bacteria the situation is different, because bacterium divides so rapidly. Fast bacteria can divide about every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. Because of this enormous’ rate of reproduction, a single successful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment, and mutation is indeed an important evolutionary avenue for bacteria.
However, bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. Here is how Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan describe it:
Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have observed that [bacteria] routinely and rapidly transfer different bits of genetic material to other individuals. Each bacterium at any given time has the use of accessory genes, visiting from sometimes very different strains, which perform functions that its own DNA may not cover. Some of the genetic bits are recombined with the cell’s native genes; others are passed on again. As a result of this ability, all the world’s bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom.
This global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. ‘If the genetic properties of the microcosm were applied to larger creatures, we would have a science-fiction world,’ write Margulis and Sagan, ‘in which green plants could share genes for photosynthesis with nearby mushrooms, or where people could- exude perfumes; or grow ivory by picking up genes from a rose or a walrus.’
The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof that the efficiency of their communications network is vastly superior to that of adaptation through mutations. Bacteria are able to adapt to environmental changes in a few years where larger organisms would need thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation. Thus microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and a global communications network, which we consider to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years to regulate life on Earth.
The constant trading of genes among bacteria results in an amazing variety of genetic structures besides their main strand of DNA. These include the formation of viruses, which are not full autopoietic systems but consist merely of a stretch of DNA or RNA in a protein coating. In fact, Canadian bacteriologist Sorin Sonea has argued that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species, since all of their strains can potentially share hereditary traits and, typically, change up to fifteen percent of their genetic material on a daily basis. ‘A bacterium is not a unicellular organism,’ writes Sonea, ‘it is an incomplete cell belonging to different chimeras according to circumstances. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microcosmic web of life’.

Choose the word which is most OPPOSITE in meaning of the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

Typically

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However, several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other ‘transaction costs’, concerns about up-front costs and inadequate access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerted push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasise the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines thatunderpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy-efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realised if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy-efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticised the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts. New experts suggest that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual in situ performance of energy efficiency measures is 50%, with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency measures vary from 5 to 15% and arise mostly from indirect rebound effects (ie where savings from energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple harriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.

The title for the given passage could be

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However, several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other ‘transaction costs’, concerns about up-front costs and inadequate access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerted push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasise the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines thatunderpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy-efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realised if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy-efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticised the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts. New experts suggest that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual in situ performance of energy efficiency measures is 50%, with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency measures vary from 5 to 15% and arise mostly from indirect rebound effects (ie where savings from energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple harriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.

According to the author, to make programmes for conserving energy more successful

(A) only latest technology must be employed.
(B) the author’s country must adhere to norms followed in countries where such programmes have been successful.
(C) change must be brought in the attitudes of people with respect to efficient usage of energy.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However, several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other ‘transaction costs’, concerns about up-front costs and inadequate access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerted push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasise the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines thatunderpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy-efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realised if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy-efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticised the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts. New experts suggest that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual in situ performance of energy efficiency measures is 50%, with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency measures vary from 5 to 15% and arise mostly from indirect rebound effects (ie where savings from energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple harriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.

Which of the following is/are TRUE in the context of the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However, several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other ‘transaction costs’, concerns about up-front costs and inadequate access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerted push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasise the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines thatunderpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy-efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realised if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy-efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticised the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts. New experts suggest that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual in situ performance of energy efficiency measures is 50%, with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency measures vary from 5 to 15% and arise mostly from indirect rebound effects (ie where savings from energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple harriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.

What is the author trying to convey through the phrase ‘albatross around the neck’ as used in the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However, several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other ‘transaction costs’, concerns about up-front costs and inadequate access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerted push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasise the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines thatunderpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy-efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realised if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy-efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticised the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts. New experts suggest that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual in situ performance of energy efficiency measures is 50%, with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency measures vary from 5 to 15% and arise mostly from indirect rebound effects (ie where savings from energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple harriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.

The author in the given passage is

(A) of the view that no amount of efforts can bring about changes in employing energy efficiency schemes in his country.
(B) positive that more evidence on retrofit schemes is essential to make people more aware and sensitive towards them.
(C) cynical about the present state of energy efficiency measures taken in his country.

In each of these questions, one sentence has been split into four parts. There is an error in one part. Identify the part having the error. Choose (E) as your answer if there is no error in any part.

In each of these questions, one sentence has been split into four parts. There is an error in one part. Identify the part having the error. Choose (E) as your answer if there is no error in any part.

In each of these questions, one sentence has been split into four parts. There is an error in one part. Identify the part having the error. Choose (E) as your answer if there is no error in any part.

In each of these questions, one sentence has been split into four parts. There is an error in one part. Identify the part having the error. Choose (E) as your answer if there is no error in any part.

In each of these questions, one sentence has been split into four parts. There is an error in one part. Identify the part having the error. Choose (E) as your answer if there is no error in any part.

In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence. If none implies, choose (E) as your answer.

In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence. If none implies, choose (E) as your answer.

In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence. If none implies, choose (E) as your answer.

In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence. If none implies, choose (E) as your answer.

In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence. If none implies, choose (E) as your answer.