Instructions:
Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

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Comprehension:
LAST WEEK, scientists from all corners of India descended on Ahmedabad to remember the architect of India’s space programme, a man whom the late president, APJ Abdul Kalam, had famously termed “Mahatma Gandhi of Indian Science”.
They were there to launch celebrations on the birth centenary of Vikram Sarabhai, 47 years after his death at the age of 52, by when he had founded 38 institutions that are now leaders in space research, physics, management and performing arts.
Former director of the Space Applications Centre Pramod Kale was a 19-year old science graduate from MS University of Baroda, besotted by space technology, when he first met Sarabhai. “In May 1960, I went to Ahmedabad to meet Dr. Sarabhai. “I met him and ended up talking for two hours,” Kale says.
By June that year, Kale had done exactly as Sarabhai had advised him and taken up a master’s course at Gujarat University. In 1962, when Sarabhai was looking at studying the magnetic equator, Kale went on to be among the first few to go to NASA to learn radar tracking. 

The room resounded with many such memories. Former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan remembered how they ran into some trouble at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), founded in 1947 by Sarabhai, in their attempts to fly a balloon at 4 am, when in sailed Sarabhai. “He told us had the flight been successful, you would not have learnt even half of what you learnt because of that initial
problem,” said Kasturirangan.
Many of those who had collected in Ahmedabad in Sarabhai’s memory were teenagers when they first met him. Gandhinagar-based entrepreneur K Subramanian was 19 and a student of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, working on a summer project at PRL, when a man in a kurta-pyjama walked in and began turning all the wastepaper bins upside down, inspecting their contents and putting them back again. “I asked a colleague who that was and was told it is Dr Vikram Sarabhai. He had come to check how much waste the lab was generating,” laughs Subramanian.

Born to Ambalal and Sarla Devi, Ahmedabad’s leading textile-mill owners, Vikram Sarabhai showed creative promise early. He was 15 when he built a working model of a train engine with the help of two engineers, which is now housed at the Community Science Centre (CSC) in Ahmedabad. The CSC was Vikram’s way of providing other children the privileges he had, of experimental research, says his son Kartikeya, 71, adding how his father wished to work with children at the science centre after he retired.
“He was essentially a researcher, and believed that people, especially children, should be allowed to think freely and come up with solutions on their own,” recalls Kartikeya, who founded the Centre for Environment Education in 1984. Kartikeya is carefully piecing together all the dog-eared notes he is discovering in the recesses of their three grand homes — Shanti Sadan, The Retreat and
Chidambaram.
To inspire the young to dream like Sarabhai, Kartikeya is building a permanent exhibition gallery on the Sabarmati Riverfront, expected to open this November.

141)

How did Vikram Sarabhai provide under-privileged children the experience of experimental research?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

By initiating space research at PRL

B)

By founding Community Science Centre at Ahmedabad.

C)

By founding Physical Research Laboratory

D)

By providing them with scholarships in science

142)

APJ Abdul Kalam called Vikram Sarabhai “Mahatma Gandhi of Indian Science”. What does ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ mean here?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

Father

B)

Social reformer

C)

Revolutionary

D)

Architect

143)

Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

The Sarabhai family owns three grand homes in Mumbai.

B)

Vikram Sarabhai’s son, Kartikeya, is now 71 years old.

C)

The names of Vikram Sarabhai’s parents were Ambalal and Sarla Devi.

D)

Vikram Sarabhai’s father was a textile mill owner.

144)

‘He was a 19-year old science graduate besotted by space technology, when he first met Sarabhai.’ ‘besotted’ here means.

SSC CGL 2019

A)

frantic

B)

wasted

C)

obsessed

D)

greedy

145)

Who among the following went to NASA to study radar tracking?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

Pramod Kale

B)

K Subramanian

C)

K Kasturirangan

D)

Kartikeya

146)

Where did K Subramanian come from to work at PRL?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

Bangalore

B)

Baroda

C)

Ahmedabad

D)

Tiruchirappalli

Instructions:
Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

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Comprehension:
A great water scarcity looms over India; by 2025 Indians will get just over half the water they get today. This grave problem has a simple solution. Catch the rain as it falls, and the water crisis will disappear. However, about 80 per cent of India’s rainfall buckets down during the three months of the monsoons. As yet, no government programmer has discovered how to store this water.
‘Dying Wisdom’, a seven-year countryside study by Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment, reveals that ruins of amazing ancient technologies survive in every corner of India. Drip-irrigation systems of bamboo pipes in Meghalaya; ‘kunds’, underground tanks in Rajasthan; ‘pynes’, water channels built by tribals in Bihar; and thousands of open-water bodies down south are all superb examples of rain water harvesting systems. Even today, tanks called ‘eris’ in Tamil Nadu water one-third of the state’s irrigated area. Unfortunately, governmental planners mostly refuse to acknowledge the potential of these low-cost systems, concentrating on costly dams and canals.
Few cities have lost touch with their ecological traditions as fast-and with as damaging results-as Bangalore. Only 17 of its water bodies struggle to survive in a city where once 200 lakes, ponds and wetlands cooled the city and recharged its ground water. The threats continue unabated as the relentless march of urbanization shows no sign of stopping.

147)

‘This grave problem' in the passage refers to

SSC CGL 2019

A)

short monsoon span

B)

rainfall

C)

storage of water

D)

water crisis

148)

What, according to the passage, is the primary reason for the water shortage?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

Lack of means to store rainwater

B)

Government’s ignorance of the situation

C)

Less rainfall in the country

D)

Carelessness of people in using water

149)

Which State uses bamboo pipes for the drip irrigation system?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

Bihar

B)

Rajasthan

C)

Meghalaya

D)

Tamil Nadu

150)

Which of the following is not a low cost technology in water usage?

SSC CGL 2019

A)

water channels

B)

drip-irrigation

C)

underground tanks

D)

dams and canals