In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and try to understand what it is about. Then fill in the blanks with the alternatives given below the passage.
In earlier days, a handicrafts man, the typical labourer, received a certain .....16....... from the work he did. His efforts were mostly to his own .....17..... He saw the fruits of his own work in the ....18.... object he produced. Moreover, the ......19...... of this object ....20...... demanded his adaptability or inventiveness to overcome the .....21..... which arose. In a real sense one can speak of his .....22.... Today all this has.....23..... A standardized job is done in a standardized .......24...... and a standardized job for a standardized .......25........
Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
Throughout the extensive areas of the tropics the tall and stately primeval forest has given way to eroded land, scrub, and the jumble of secondary growth. Just as the virgin forests of Europe and North America were laid low by man’s improvidence, so those of the tropics are now vanishing only their destruction may be encompassed in decades instead of centuries. A few authorities hold that, expect for government reserves, the earth’s great rain forest may vanish within a generation. The economic loss will be incalculable, for the primary rain forests are rich sources of timber (mahogany, teak) and such by-products are resins, gums, cellulose, camphor and rattans. No one, indeed can compute their resources, for the thousands of species that compose the forest cover, there are only a few whose physical and chemical properties have been studied with a view to commercial use.
Most important of all, the primeval rain forest is a reservoir of specimens, a dynamic centre of evolution which the rest of the world’s plant life has been continually enriched with new forms. These extensive reserves must be defended from the acquisitive hand of man, whose ruthless axe would expose them to the ravages of sun and rain.
According to the passage, the primary reason for conservation of the great rain forests is that they are
‘Only their destruction may be encompassed in decades instead of centuries’ means that the destruction of forests