Reading Comprehension || RC PRACTICE SET - 24 || CAT 2021 || 7 JUNE

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Fish, marine mammals, and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and it is believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species. Deaths are chiefly caused by the ingestion of plastics, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.

It is claimed that one in three marine mammals have been found caught up in some type of marine litter with 90% of seabirds traced with plastic pieces in their stomachs. Seabirds who feed on the surface of the ocean are especially likely to ingest plastics that float, and then feed this to their chicks leading to their death and near extinction.

Even the deepest sea creatures cannot escape plastic pollution; samples taken by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science of the Western Isles found that 48% of creatures had plastic in them, at a depth of 2,000 m. It was mostly polyethylene and polyesters from shopping bags and clothing - which makes it was into the water via washing machine wastewater.

Plastic has been slowly accumulating in the marine environment since the 1960s, to the point that we now have huge masses of plastic floating in the oceans and other waste plastics washing up on the once beautifully clean beaches around the world. It is estimated that there are 1 million pieces of plastic of varying sizes per square mile, with a further 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year.

However, it is not just large pieces of plastic that are causing havoc with the marine environment. Household and cosmetic products laced with microplastics designed to scrub and clean, too small to be caught by water filtration systems, also add to the severity.

These microplastics, along with nurdles - lentil sized pieces of plastic that end up in the oceans as a result of mishandling or accidental spills - can be ingested by ocean wildlife and accumulate up the food chain, even reaching humans.

Plastic is cheap and versatile, making it ideal for many applications, but many of its useful qualities have led to it becoming an environmental problem. The human population has developed a disposable lifestyle: it is estimated that 50% of plastics are used once before being thrown away. Plastic is a valuable resource but polluting the planet with it, is deadly!

We need our planet – ocean and land included - to survive.

Source: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=729

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Fish, marine mammals, and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and it is believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species. Deaths are chiefly caused by the ingestion of plastics, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.

It is claimed that one in three marine mammals have been found caught up in some type of marine litter with 90% of seabirds traced with plastic pieces in their stomachs. Seabirds who feed on the surface of the ocean are especially likely to ingest plastics that float, and then feed this to their chicks leading to their death and near extinction.

Even the deepest sea creatures cannot escape plastic pollution; samples taken by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science of the Western Isles found that 48% of creatures had plastic in them, at a depth of 2,000 m. It was mostly polyethylene and polyesters from shopping bags and clothing - which makes it was into the water via washing machine wastewater.

Plastic has been slowly accumulating in the marine environment since the 1960s, to the point that we now have huge masses of plastic floating in the oceans and other waste plastics washing up on the once beautifully clean beaches around the world. It is estimated that there are 1 million pieces of plastic of varying sizes per square mile, with a further 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year.

However, it is not just large pieces of plastic that are causing havoc with the marine environment. Household and cosmetic products laced with microplastics designed to scrub and clean, too small to be caught by water filtration systems, also add to the severity.

These microplastics, along with nurdles - lentil sized pieces of plastic that end up in the oceans as a result of mishandling or accidental spills - can be ingested by ocean wildlife and accumulate up the food chain, even reaching humans.

Plastic is cheap and versatile, making it ideal for many applications, but many of its useful qualities have led to it becoming an environmental problem. The human population has developed a disposable lifestyle: it is estimated that 50% of plastics are used once before being thrown away. Plastic is a valuable resource but polluting the planet with it, is deadly!

We need our planet – ocean and land included - to survive.

Source: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=729

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Fish, marine mammals, and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and it is believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species. Deaths are chiefly caused by the ingestion of plastics, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.

It is claimed that one in three marine mammals have been found caught up in some type of marine litter with 90% of seabirds traced with plastic pieces in their stomachs. Seabirds who feed on the surface of the ocean are especially likely to ingest plastics that float, and then feed this to their chicks leading to their death and near extinction.

Even the deepest sea creatures cannot escape plastic pollution; samples taken by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science of the Western Isles found that 48% of creatures had plastic in them, at a depth of 2,000 m. It was mostly polyethylene and polyesters from shopping bags and clothing - which makes it was into the water via washing machine wastewater.

Plastic has been slowly accumulating in the marine environment since the 1960s, to the point that we now have huge masses of plastic floating in the oceans and other waste plastics washing up on the once beautifully clean beaches around the world. It is estimated that there are 1 million pieces of plastic of varying sizes per square mile, with a further 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year.

However, it is not just large pieces of plastic that are causing havoc with the marine environment. Household and cosmetic products laced with microplastics designed to scrub and clean, too small to be caught by water filtration systems, also add to the severity.

These microplastics, along with nurdles - lentil sized pieces of plastic that end up in the oceans as a result of mishandling or accidental spills - can be ingested by ocean wildlife and accumulate up the food chain, even reaching humans.

Plastic is cheap and versatile, making it ideal for many applications, but many of its useful qualities have led to it becoming an environmental problem. The human population has developed a disposable lifestyle: it is estimated that 50% of plastics are used once before being thrown away. Plastic is a valuable resource but polluting the planet with it, is deadly!

We need our planet – ocean and land included - to survive.

Source: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=729

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Fish, marine mammals, and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and it is believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species. Deaths are chiefly caused by the ingestion of plastics, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.

It is claimed that one in three marine mammals have been found caught up in some type of marine litter with 90% of seabirds traced with plastic pieces in their stomachs. Seabirds who feed on the surface of the ocean are especially likely to ingest plastics that float, and then feed this to their chicks leading to their death and near extinction.

Even the deepest sea creatures cannot escape plastic pollution; samples taken by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science of the Western Isles found that 48% of creatures had plastic in them, at a depth of 2,000 m. It was mostly polyethylene and polyesters from shopping bags and clothing - which makes it was into the water via washing machine wastewater.

Plastic has been slowly accumulating in the marine environment since the 1960s, to the point that we now have huge masses of plastic floating in the oceans and other waste plastics washing up on the once beautifully clean beaches around the world. It is estimated that there are 1 million pieces of plastic of varying sizes per square mile, with a further 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year.

However, it is not just large pieces of plastic that are causing havoc with the marine environment. Household and cosmetic products laced with microplastics designed to scrub and clean, too small to be caught by water filtration systems, also add to the severity.

These microplastics, along with nurdles - lentil sized pieces of plastic that end up in the oceans as a result of mishandling or accidental spills - can be ingested by ocean wildlife and accumulate up the food chain, even reaching humans.

Plastic is cheap and versatile, making it ideal for many applications, but many of its useful qualities have led to it becoming an environmental problem. The human population has developed a disposable lifestyle: it is estimated that 50% of plastics are used once before being thrown away. Plastic is a valuable resource but polluting the planet with it, is deadly!

We need our planet – ocean and land included - to survive.

Source: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=729

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Fish, marine mammals, and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and it is believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species. Deaths are chiefly caused by the ingestion of plastics, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.

It is claimed that one in three marine mammals have been found caught up in some type of marine litter with 90% of seabirds traced with plastic pieces in their stomachs. Seabirds who feed on the surface of the ocean are especially likely to ingest plastics that float, and then feed this to their chicks leading to their death and near extinction.

Even the deepest sea creatures cannot escape plastic pollution; samples taken by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science of the Western Isles found that 48% of creatures had plastic in them, at a depth of 2,000 m. It was mostly polyethylene and polyesters from shopping bags and clothing - which makes it was into the water via washing machine wastewater.

Plastic has been slowly accumulating in the marine environment since the 1960s, to the point that we now have huge masses of plastic floating in the oceans and other waste plastics washing up on the once beautifully clean beaches around the world. It is estimated that there are 1 million pieces of plastic of varying sizes per square mile, with a further 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year.

However, it is not just large pieces of plastic that are causing havoc with the marine environment. Household and cosmetic products laced with microplastics designed to scrub and clean, too small to be caught by water filtration systems, also add to the severity.

These microplastics, along with nurdles - lentil sized pieces of plastic that end up in the oceans as a result of mishandling or accidental spills - can be ingested by ocean wildlife and accumulate up the food chain, even reaching humans.

Plastic is cheap and versatile, making it ideal for many applications, but many of its useful qualities have led to it becoming an environmental problem. The human population has developed a disposable lifestyle: it is estimated that 50% of plastics are used once before being thrown away. Plastic is a valuable resource but polluting the planet with it, is deadly!

We need our planet – ocean and land included - to survive.

Source: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=729

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Far beneath Mauritius’ inactive volcanoes lies an astonishing, important piece of the Earth’s history: a fragment of ancient continental crust. This discovery, which my colleagues and I have outlined in a newly published study, is extremely exciting. Discovering new pieces of continent will help geoscientists understand the details of how continents break apart, and how the pieces can be better reconstructed to their pre-breakup configurations. This could, for example, be used as an important exploration tool for mineral deposits.

Our work demonstrates that continental break-up is often a complex and messy process. When continents begin to break apart, they can be stretched and fragmented, as new oceanic crust forms by continuous outpourings of magma at mid-ocean ridges. This forces the newly-formed crust to separate in opposite directions, taking the passive pieces of continent with them. Sometimes the sites of deep convection cells can suddenly shift, causing “ridge jumps”. This is how fragments of continent can become isolated, or “stranded” in many places across the ocean floor.

The Indian Ocean is a good place to study this because it contains large fragments of continental crust-like Madagascar, smaller ones like Seychelles, and still smaller ones like the one now thought to underlie Mauritius.

Mauritius is an Indian Ocean island of volcanic origin and lavas started forming there about nine million years ago. Today it is dormant and most of the craters are covered with a rich variety of fauna and flora.

My colleagues and I suggest that during the active period, the lavas erupted on top of a small continental fragment that was then buried several kilometres below the new volcanic island. As the Mauritian lavas rose toward the surface, they passed through the stranded continental fragment, incorporating and dissolving some of it.

We were able to show that this continental fragment exists because we found tiny crystals of zircon – a mineral that can be analysed to provide age information – in a rare volcanic rock called trachyte, which is exposed at five different sites in Mauritius. We determined that the zircons were formed 2,500 to 3,000 million years ago. This is vastly older than even the earliest Mauritian volcanic rocks, which started erupting nine million years ago.

The ages of the ancient zircons are also much older than the rocks present on the floor of the Indian Ocean, which all formed less than 200 million years ago. The nearest place where rocks as old as the ancient zircons can be found is in Madagascar, which is more than 700 km to the West. The ancient zircons recovered in the new research are the only accessible remnants of the old granitic rocks which are now hidden below. We cannot specify the exact size of the buried fragment of the ancient continent, but we think it might be similar to the present areal extent of Mauritius, about 2000kmsq.

Source: scroll.in/article/829856/why-the-discovery-of-a-small-piece-of-continent-in-the-indian-ocean-matters

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Far beneath Mauritius’ inactive volcanoes lies an astonishing, important piece of the Earth’s history: a fragment of ancient continental crust. This discovery, which my colleagues and I have outlined in a newly published study, is extremely exciting. Discovering new pieces of continent will help geoscientists understand the details of how continents break apart, and how the pieces can be better reconstructed to their pre-breakup configurations. This could, for example, be used as an important exploration tool for mineral deposits.

Our work demonstrates that continental break-up is often a complex and messy process. When continents begin to break apart, they can be stretched and fragmented, as new oceanic crust forms by continuous outpourings of magma at mid-ocean ridges. This forces the newly-formed crust to separate in opposite directions, taking the passive pieces of continent with them. Sometimes the sites of deep convection cells can suddenly shift, causing “ridge jumps”. This is how fragments of continent can become isolated, or “stranded” in many places across the ocean floor.

The Indian Ocean is a good place to study this because it contains large fragments of continental crust-like Madagascar, smaller ones like Seychelles, and still smaller ones like the one now thought to underlie Mauritius.

Mauritius is an Indian Ocean island of volcanic origin and lavas started forming there about nine million years ago. Today it is dormant and most of the craters are covered with a rich variety of fauna and flora.

My colleagues and I suggest that during the active period, the lavas erupted on top of a small continental fragment that was then buried several kilometres below the new volcanic island. As the Mauritian lavas rose toward the surface, they passed through the stranded continental fragment, incorporating and dissolving some of it.

We were able to show that this continental fragment exists because we found tiny crystals of zircon – a mineral that can be analysed to provide age information – in a rare volcanic rock called trachyte, which is exposed at five different sites in Mauritius. We determined that the zircons were formed 2,500 to 3,000 million years ago. This is vastly older than even the earliest Mauritian volcanic rocks, which started erupting nine million years ago.

The ages of the ancient zircons are also much older than the rocks present on the floor of the Indian Ocean, which all formed less than 200 million years ago. The nearest place where rocks as old as the ancient zircons can be found is in Madagascar, which is more than 700 km to the West. The ancient zircons recovered in the new research are the only accessible remnants of the old granitic rocks which are now hidden below. We cannot specify the exact size of the buried fragment of the ancient continent, but we think it might be similar to the present areal extent of Mauritius, about 2000kmsq.

Source: scroll.in/article/829856/why-the-discovery-of-a-small-piece-of-continent-in-the-indian-ocean-matters

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Far beneath Mauritius’ inactive volcanoes lies an astonishing, important piece of the Earth’s history: a fragment of ancient continental crust. This discovery, which my colleagues and I have outlined in a newly published study, is extremely exciting. Discovering new pieces of continent will help geoscientists understand the details of how continents break apart, and how the pieces can be better reconstructed to their pre-breakup configurations. This could, for example, be used as an important exploration tool for mineral deposits.

Our work demonstrates that continental break-up is often a complex and messy process. When continents begin to break apart, they can be stretched and fragmented, as new oceanic crust forms by continuous outpourings of magma at mid-ocean ridges. This forces the newly-formed crust to separate in opposite directions, taking the passive pieces of continent with them. Sometimes the sites of deep convection cells can suddenly shift, causing “ridge jumps”. This is how fragments of continent can become isolated, or “stranded” in many places across the ocean floor.

The Indian Ocean is a good place to study this because it contains large fragments of continental crust-like Madagascar, smaller ones like Seychelles, and still smaller ones like the one now thought to underlie Mauritius.

Mauritius is an Indian Ocean island of volcanic origin and lavas started forming there about nine million years ago. Today it is dormant and most of the craters are covered with a rich variety of fauna and flora.

My colleagues and I suggest that during the active period, the lavas erupted on top of a small continental fragment that was then buried several kilometres below the new volcanic island. As the Mauritian lavas rose toward the surface, they passed through the stranded continental fragment, incorporating and dissolving some of it.

We were able to show that this continental fragment exists because we found tiny crystals of zircon – a mineral that can be analysed to provide age information – in a rare volcanic rock called trachyte, which is exposed at five different sites in Mauritius. We determined that the zircons were formed 2,500 to 3,000 million years ago. This is vastly older than even the earliest Mauritian volcanic rocks, which started erupting nine million years ago.

The ages of the ancient zircons are also much older than the rocks present on the floor of the Indian Ocean, which all formed less than 200 million years ago. The nearest place where rocks as old as the ancient zircons can be found is in Madagascar, which is more than 700 km to the West. The ancient zircons recovered in the new research are the only accessible remnants of the old granitic rocks which are now hidden below. We cannot specify the exact size of the buried fragment of the ancient continent, but we think it might be similar to the present areal extent of Mauritius, about 2000kmsq.

Source: scroll.in/article/829856/why-the-discovery-of-a-small-piece-of-continent-in-the-indian-ocean-matters

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Far beneath Mauritius’ inactive volcanoes lies an astonishing, important piece of the Earth’s history: a fragment of ancient continental crust. This discovery, which my colleagues and I have outlined in a newly published study, is extremely exciting. Discovering new pieces of continent will help geoscientists understand the details of how continents break apart, and how the pieces can be better reconstructed to their pre-breakup configurations. This could, for example, be used as an important exploration tool for mineral deposits.

Our work demonstrates that continental break-up is often a complex and messy process. When continents begin to break apart, they can be stretched and fragmented, as new oceanic crust forms by continuous outpourings of magma at mid-ocean ridges. This forces the newly-formed crust to separate in opposite directions, taking the passive pieces of continent with them. Sometimes the sites of deep convection cells can suddenly shift, causing “ridge jumps”. This is how fragments of continent can become isolated, or “stranded” in many places across the ocean floor.

The Indian Ocean is a good place to study this, because it contains large fragments of continental crust like Madagascar, smaller ones like the Seychelles, and still smaller ones like the one now thought to underlie Mauritius.

Mauritius is an Indian Ocean island of volcanic origin and lavas started forming there about nine million years ago. Today it is dormant and most of the craters are covered with a rich variety of fauna and flora.

My colleagues and I suggest that during the active period, the lavas erupted on top of a small continental fragment that was then buried several kilometres below the new volcanic island. As the Mauritian lavas rose toward the surface, they passed through the stranded continental fragment, incorporating and dissolving some of it.

We were able to show that this continental fragment exists because we found tiny crystals of zircon – a mineral that can be analysed to provide age information – in a rare volcanic rock called trachyte, which is exposed at five different sites in Mauritius. We determined that the zircons were formed 2,500 to 3,000 million years ago. This is vastly older than even the earliest Mauritian volcanic rocks, which started erupting nine million years ago.

The ages of the ancient zircons are also much older than the rocks present on the floor of the Indian Ocean, which all formed less than 200 million years ago. The nearest place where rocks as old as the ancient zircons can be found is in Madagascar, which is more than 700 km to the West. The ancient zircons recovered in the new research are the only accessible remnants of the old granitic rocks which are now hidden below. We cannot specify the exact size of the buried fragment of ancient continent, but we think it might be similar to the present areal extent of Mauritius, about 2000kmsq.

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Far beneath Mauritius’ inactive volcanoes lies an astonishing, important piece of the Earth’s history: a fragment of ancient continental crust. This discovery, which my colleagues and I have outlined in a newly published study, is extremely exciting. Discovering new pieces of continent will help geoscientists understand the details of how continents break apart, and how the pieces can be better reconstructed to their pre-breakup configurations. This could, for example, be used as an important exploration tool for mineral deposits.

Our work demonstrates that continental break-up is often a complex and messy process. When continents begin to break apart, they can be stretched and fragmented, as new oceanic crust forms by continuous outpourings of magma at mid-ocean ridges. This forces the newly-formed crust to separate in opposite directions, taking the passive pieces of continent with them. Sometimes the sites of deep convection cells can suddenly shift, causing “ridge jumps”. This is how fragments of continent can become isolated, or “stranded” in many places across the ocean floor.

The Indian Ocean is a good place to study this, because it contains large fragments of continental crust like Madagascar, smaller ones like the Seychelles, and still smaller ones like the one now thought to underlie Mauritius.

Mauritius is an Indian Ocean island of volcanic origin and lavas started forming there about nine million years ago. Today it is dormant and most of the craters are covered with a rich variety of fauna and flora.

My colleagues and I suggest that during the active period, the lavas erupted on top of a small continental fragment that was then buried several kilometres below the new volcanic island. As the Mauritian lavas rose toward the surface, they passed through the stranded continental fragment, incorporating and dissolving some of it.

We were able to show that this continental fragment exists because we found tiny crystals of zircon – a mineral that can be analysed to provide age information – in a rare volcanic rock called trachyte, which is exposed at five different sites in Mauritius. We determined that the zircons were formed 2,500 to 3,000 million years ago. This is vastly older than even the earliest Mauritian volcanic rocks, which started erupting nine million years ago.

The ages of the ancient zircons are also much older than the rocks present on the floor of the Indian Ocean, which all formed less than 200 million years ago. The nearest place where rocks as old as the ancient zircons can be found is in Madagascar, which is more than 700 km to the West. The ancient zircons recovered in the new research are the only accessible remnants of the old granitic rocks which are now hidden below. We cannot specify the exact size of the buried fragment of ancient continent, but we think it might be similar to the present areal extent of Mauritius, about 2000kmsq.