General English -1 (NIACL Administrative Officer)

English - 1 NIACL (Administrative Officer)

40 Questions Published

Questions

Question 1 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (i).

  1. manufacture
  2. exploration
  3. research
  4. investigation
  5. refining
Question 2 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (ii).

  1. surface
  2. shelf
  3. shore
  4. floor
  5. bed
Question 3 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (iii).

  1. usable
  2. saleable
  3. commercial
  4. practical
  5. exposable
Question 4 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (iv).

  1. mining
  2. prospecting
  3. drilling
  4. digging
  5. bugging
Question 5 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (v).

  1. wall
  2. marsh
  3. mine
  4. stratum
  5. sphere
Question 6 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (vi).

  1. dropping
  2. making
  3. laying
  4. channelling
  5. starting
Question 7 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (vii).

  1. raw
  2. crude
  3. liquid
  4. impure
  5. naked
Question 8 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (viii).

  1. made
  2. refined
  3. diverted
  4. parted
  5. split
Question 9 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (ix).

  1. converted
  2. treated
  3. made
  4. produced
  5. processed
Question 10 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield.
If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (x).

  1. processed
  2. industrial
  3. artificial
  4. synthetic
  5. plastic
Question 11 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

  1. Unless you do not
  2. take care of your health
  3. you will continue
  4. to suffer
  5. No error
Question 12 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

  1. Although it is summer
  2. now the weather at the
  3. hill station was
  4. quite pleasant
  5. No error
Question 13 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word that is closest in meaning to the given word.

Recluse

  1. Loner
  2. Muffle
  3. Bestride
  4. Compassionate
  5. Summon
Question 14 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word that is closest in meaning to the given word.

Multitude

  1. Conciliate
  2. Placate
  3. Mass
  4. Frankness
  5. Mangle
Question 15 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

Pipes are not a safer _____ to cigarettes because though pipe smokers do not inhale, they are still _______ higher rates of lung and mouth cancers than non-smokers.

  1. preference...free from
  2. answer...responsible for
  3. alternative...subject to
  4. rejoinder...involved in
  5. replacement...responsible for
Question 16 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Identify the part having an error.

  1. All survivors
  2. of the ill fated aircraft
  3. have told
  4. the same story.
  5. No error
Question 17 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If no part has an error, mark (5).

  1. He had hoped to finish
  2. the work in the last week
  3. but in fact
  4. he could not
  5. No error
Question 18 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blank.

Most of the settlements that grew up near the logging camps were ______ affairs, thrown together in a hurry because people needed to live on the job.

  1. nomadic
  2. protracted
  3. unobtrusive
  4. rickety
  5. profane
Question 19 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

I could not help to laugh at the joke.

  1. laughing at
  2. laugh at
  3. to laughing at
  4. No improvement needed
Question 20 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

Physicians may soon have ________ to help paralysed people move their limbs bypassing the ________ nerves that once controlled their muscles.

  1. instruments....detrimental
  2. ways.....damaged
  3. reason......involuntary
  4. impediments.....complex
  5. None of these
Question 21 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

The village headman was unlettered, but he was no fool, he could see through the _____ of the businessman’s proposition and promptly ______ him down.

  1. deception.....forced
  2. naivete.....turned
  3. potential.....forced
  4. sophistry.....turned
  5. None of these
Question 22 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

My copy is as good or better than yours.

  1. as good as
  2. as good and better
  3. as good as or
  4. No improvement needed
Question 23 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

While walking across the road a bus knocked him down.

  1. a bus knocked him
  2. he was by a bus knocked
  3. he was knocked down by a bus
  4. No improvement needed
Question 24 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

We had to stop for diesel because we had hardly much left.

  1. some
  2. more
  3. any
  4. No improvement needed
Question 25 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

The cat has not been lying on the sofa all day.

  1. The cat had not been laying on the sofa all day.
  2. The cat has been not lying on the sofa the entire day.
  3. The cat has not been laying on the sofa all day.
  4. No improvement needed
Question 26 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blank.

Slander and libel laws stand as a protection of a person’s reputation against the ______ dissemination of falsehood.

  1. inferential
  2. inevitable
  3. incontestable
  4. irresponsible
  5. responsible
Question 27 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Find the word which is antonymous to the given word.

Aloof

  1. Professional
  2. Litany
  3. Sociable
  4. Dry
  5. Split
Question 28 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Choose the word that is opposite in meaning to the given word.

Amateur

  1. Professional
  2. Litany
  3. Sociable
  4. Dry
  5. Split
Question 29 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Find the word which is antonymous to the given word.

Ambiguous

  1. Determined
  2. Definite
  3. Unfriendly
  4. Cold
  5. Obstinate
Question 30 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

  1. Sitting under the shade
  2. of a tree for a while
  3. made us fresh
  4. for the further journey
  5. No error
Question 31 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

The word that evokes the comment "That doesn't include time in the shower from Sylvia Earle" is

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. marine
  2. diver
  3. underwater
  4. depth
Question 32 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

The reasons why explorers do what they do, include all of the following, except

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. the spirit of fierce competition which forces them to compete even if the goal is difficult
  2. the urge to tell the world about the marvels they have seen
  3. the ambition to enjoy the triumph and glory heaped on them
  4. the compulsion to travel into areas not explored before
Question 33 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

By saying that the British are famously outward looking, the Evening Standard means that they are

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. adventurous and brave, and love life outdoors
  2. interested in places and things outside one's own country or region
  3. broad-minded and willing to try out other modes of living
  4. ready to try to copy and adopt good things from all over the world
Question 34 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

The number of firsts to Steger's credit includes:

I. the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica in 1989-90
II. the first to have hiked to both the poles in a single year
III. the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole travelling across the ice
IV. the first to have walked 750 km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. I and II
  2. II and III
  3. I and III
  4. III and IV
Question 35 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

When the author says of Steger that he is almost blasé when he describes adversity, he means by the highlighted word

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. vexed
  2. cloyed
  3. animated
  4. upset
Question 36 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

An untethered diver would most probably mean

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. the one who is not attached to the main boat by rope
  2. the one who is free to experiment and swim as he pleases
  3. a diver who is not hindered or tied down to one place
  4. a diver who is not bound to be with the others in his group
Question 37 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

What the explorers do besides discovering include which of the following?

I. Examination and analysis
II. Mapping
III. Prodding
IV. Colonisation

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. I and II
  2. II and III
  3. III and IV
  4. I, II and III
Question 38 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

The author traces the famous exploits of citizens from all of the following nations, except

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. France
  2. America
  3. Germany
  4. Australia
Question 39 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

In this passage, the author is discussing

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. the reason why British are fond of exploring
  2. the great adventures of innumerable people
  3. the great explorations of many brave explorers, both men and women
  4. the problems faced by explorers during their journey
Question 40 Multiple Choice (Single Answer)

When Sylvia Earle uses the comparison like being in a cathedral with other worldly music, the highlighted words would refer to, in that order,

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

  1. body, vibrations
  2. pacific, whales
  3. ocean, waves
  4. temple, music