MAH CET 10th Mar 2024 Slot 4

Read the short passage below and answer the questions that follow.

Marie was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, where her father was a Professor of Physics. At an early age, she displayed a brilliant mind and a blithe personality. Her great exuberance for learning prompted her to continue with her studies after high school. She became disgruntled, however, when she learned that the university in Warsaw was closed to women. Determined to receive a higher education, she defiantly left Poland and in 1891 entered the Sorbonne, a French university, where she earned her masters degree and doctorate in physics.

Marie was fortunate to have studied at the Sorbonne with some of the greatest scientists of her day, one of whom was Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre were married in 1895 and spent many productive years working together in the physics laboratory. A short time after they discovered radium, Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn wagon in 1906. Marie was stunned by this horrible misfortune and endured heartbreaking anguish. Despondently she recalled their close relationship and the joy that they had shared in scientific research. The fact that she had two young daughters to raise by herself greatly increased her distress.

Curie's feeling of desolation finally began to fade when she was asked to succeed her husband as a physics professor at the Sorbonne. She was the first woman to be given a professorship at the world-famous university. In 1911 she received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for isolating radium. Although Marie Curie eventually suffered a fatal illness from her long exposure to radium. she never became disillusioned about her work. Regardless of the consequences, she had dedicated herself to science and to revealing the mysteries of the physical world.

A sanctuary may be defined as a place where Man is passive and the rest of Nature active. Till quite recently Nature had her sanctuaries, where man either did not go at all or only as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now. in this machinery age, there is no place left where man cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. He can strangle to death all the nobler wildlife in the world today. Tomorrow he certainly will have done so, unless he exercises due foresight and self-control in the meantime.

There is not the slightest doubt that birds and mammals are now being killed off much faster than they can breed. And it is always the largest and noblest forms of life that suffer most. The whales and elephants, lions and eagles, go. The rats and flies, and all mean parasites, remain. This is inevitable in certain cases. But it is wanton killing off that I am speaking of tonight. Civilized man begins by destroying the very forms of wildlife he learns to appreciate most when he becomes still more civilized. The obvious remedy is to begin conservation at an earlier stage, when it is easier and better in every way, by enforcing laws for close seasons, game preserves, the selective protection of certain species, and sanctuaries.

I have just defined a sanctuary as a place where man is passive and the rest of Nature active. But this general definition is too absolute for any special case. The mere fact that man has to protect a sanctuary does away with his purely passive attitude. Then, he can be beneficially active by destroying pests and parasites, like bot-flies or mosquitoes, and by finding antidotes for diseases like the epidemic which periodically kills off the rabbits and thus starves many of the Carnivora to death. But, except in cases where the experiment has proved his intervention to be beneficial, the less he upsets the balance of Nature the better, even when he tries to be an earthly Providence.

In the following passage there are blanks, each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage and against each, five words are suggested, one of which fits the blank appropriately. Find out the appropriate word in each case.
Not a ..... (1) ..... passes without a controversy ..... (2) ..... over the national sports awards.
The ..... (3) ..... that arises every year following the announcement of the Khel Ratna, Arjuna
and Dronacharya awards often ..... (4) ..... to accusations of bias, regionalism and ..... (5) .....
Representations to the Sports Minister, interventions ..... (6) ..... Chief Ministers, Union
Ministers and politicians have all ..... (7) ..... part of the game, though the rules stipulate that
any form of "canvassing" could lead to disqualification of an ..... (8) ..... In practice, no such
disqualification takes ..... (9) ..... and aspiring candidates readily plead their cases with the
Sports Minister even after the recommendations of the awards panel become public .....(10).