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She was one of those pretty, charming women who are born, as if by an error of fate, into a petty official's family. She had no dowry, no hopes, nor the slightest chance of being loved and married by a rich man, so she slipped into marriage with a minor civil servant.
Unable to afford jewels, she dressed simply. But she was wretched, for women have neither caste nor breeding in their beauty, grace, and charm replace pride of birth. Innate refinement, instinctive elegance, and wit give them their place on the only scale that counts, and these make humble girls the peers of the grandest ladies.
She suffered, feeling that every luxury should rightly have been hers. The poverty of her room, the shabby walls, the worn furniture, the ugly upholstery caused her pain. All these things that another woman of her class would not even have noticed, made her angry. The very sight of the little Breton girl who cleaned for her awoke rueful thoughts and the wildest dreams in her mind. She dreamt of rooms with oriental hangings, lighted by tall, bronze torches, and with two huge footmen in knee-breeches made drowsy by the heat from the stove, asleep in the wide armchairs. She dreamt of great drawing rooms upholstered in old silks, with fragile little tables holding priceless knickknacks, and of enchanting little sitting rooms designed for tea-time chats with famous, sought-after men whose attentions all women longed for.
She sat down to dinner at her round table with its three-day-old cloth, and watched her husband lift the lid of the soup tureen and delightedly exclaim: 'Ah, a good homemade beef stew! There's nothing better!' She visualised elegant dinners with gleaming silver and gorgeous china. She yearned for wall hangings peopled with knights and ladies and exotic birds in a fairy forest. She dreamt of eating the pink flesh of trout or the wings of grouse. She had no proper wardrobe, no jewels, nothing. And those were the only things that she loved, she felt she was made for them. She would have so loved to charm, to be envied, to be admired and sought after.

Which word best describes the actual living conditions of the couple in the selection?

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Medical waste has been a growing concern because of recent incidents of public exposure to discarded blood vials, needles (sharps), empty prescription bottles, and syringes. Medical waste can typically include general refuse, human blood and blood products, cultures and stocks of infectious agents, laboratory animal carcasses, contaminated bedding material, and pathological wastes.
Wastes are generally collected by gravity chutes, carts, or pneumatic tubes, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Chutes are limited to vertical transport, and there is some risk of exhausting contaminants into hallways if a door is left open during use. Another disadvantage of gravity chutes is that the waste container may get jammed while dropping, or it may be broken upon hitting the bottom. Carts are primarily for the horizontal transport of bagged or containerized wastes. The main risk here is that bags may be broken or torn during transport, potentially exposing the worker to the wastes. Using automated carts can reduce the potential for exposure. Pneumatic tubes offer the best performance for waste transport in a large facility. Advantages include high-speed movement, movement in any direction, and minimal intermediate storage of untreated wastes. However, some objects cannot be conveyed pneumatically.
Off-site disposal of regulated medical wastes remains a viable option for smaller hospitals (those with less than $150$ beds). Some preliminary on-site processing, such as compaction or hydro pulping, may be necessary prior to sending the waste off-site. Compaction reduces the total volume of solid wastes, often reducing transportation and disposal costs, but it does not change the hazardous characteristics of the waste. Compaction may not be economical if transportation and disposal costs are based on weight rather than volume.
Hydro pulping involves grinding the waste in the presence of an oxidizing fluid, such as a hypochloride solution. The liquid is separated from the pulp and discharged directly into the sewer unless local limits require additional pretreatment prior to discharge. The pulp can often be disposed of at a landfill. One advantage is that waste can be rendered innocuous and reduced in size within the same system. Disadvantages are the added operating burden, difficulty of controlling fugitive emissions, and the difficulty of conducting microbiological tests to determine whether all organic matters and infectious organisms have been destroyed from the waste.
On-site disposal is a feasible alternative for hospitals generating two tons or more per day of total solid waste. Common treatment techniques include steam sterilization and incineration. Although other options are available, incineration is currently the preferred method for the on-site treatment of hospital waste.
Steam sterilization is limited in the types of medical waste it can treat, but is appropriate for laboratory cultures and/or substances contaminated with infectious organisms. The waste is subjected to steam in a sealed, pressurized chamber. The liquid that may form is drained off to the sewer or sent for processing. The unit is then reopened after a vapour release to the atmosphere, and the solid waste is removed for further processing or disposal. One advantage of steam sterilization is that it has been used for many years in hospitals to sterilise instruments and containers and to treat small quantities of waste. However, since sterilization does not change the appearance of the waste, there could be a problem in gaining acceptance of the waste for landfills.
A properly designed, maintained, and operated incinerator achieves a relatively high level of organism destruction. Incineration reduces the weight and volume of the waste by as much as $95\%$ and is especially appropriate for pathological wastes and sharps. The most common incineration system for medical waste is the controlled-air type. The principal advantage of this type of incinerator is low particulate emissions. Rotary-kiln and grate-type units have been used, but the use of grate-type units has been discontinued because of high air emissions. The rotary kiln also puts out high emissions, and the costs have been prohibitive for smaller units.

The process that transforms waste from hazardous to harmless and diminishes waste volume is-

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A pioneer leader for women's rights, Susan B. Anthony became one of the leading women reformers of the nineteenth century. In Rochester, New York, she began her first public crusade on behalf of temperance. The temperance movement dealt with the abuses of women and children who suffered from alcoholic husbands. Also, she worked tirelessly against slavery and for women's rights. Anthony helped write the history of woman suffrage.
At the time Anthony lived, women did not have the right to vote. Because she voted in the 1872 election, a U.S. Marshall arrested Anthony. She hoped to prove that women had the legal right to vote under the provisions of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. At her trial, a hostile federal judge found her guilty and fined her $100, which she refused to pay.
Anthony did not work alone. She collaborated with reformers of women's rights such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer. Susan worked for the American Anti-Slavery Society with Frederick Douglass, a fugitive slave and black abolitionist. On July 2, 1979, the U.S. Mint honored her work by issuing the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. Although Anthony did not live to see the fruits of her efforts, the establishment of the nineteenth amendment is indebted to her efforts.

An effective reformer is-

Directions: Read the given comprehension carefully and answer the question that follows.

While federalism is a grand, macro- constitutional concept, its operational reality is the creation, operationalisation and imbibing of the culture of local self- government, including municipal self- administration. If the federal concept is the chariot, the Constitution its majestic horse and the organs of state its harmonious wheels, then local self- government and panchayati raj alone can qualify as the ultimate destination of this chariot. The Indian irony- some would rightly call it tragedy-was that although Panchayati Raj had been an integral part of rural India and although panchayats had played a key role for centuries in maintaining social order in Indian villages, the institution had virtually died during centuries of colonial rule and existed only on paper in an anaemic condition till the late Rajiv Gandhi decided to revitalize, reinvigorate and reinstall ancient India's established forms of self-governance. He not only personally set up a High Powered apex Committee for revitalization of panchayati raj but zealously followed up its recommendations to ensure their implementation. His untiring commitment to the cause led to the enactment of the 73rd and 74th Constitution (Amendment) Act in 1992, respectively for rural and urban areas.Despite its many imperfections, the result of this constitutional impulse has been electrifying. India has over 2,50,000 elected panchayats involving over 3.2 million elected representatives i.e., more than the population of Norway. Within the relatively short span of the last decade, over 1.2 million women now hold elected positions in the panchayat. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes which had experienced participatory democracy only in name or on paper or inside mega government reports have found real empowerment and real grassroots participation in decision-making. The structure is intended to be three-tiered with the village assembly (gram sabha) being the foundation of local democracy, followed by the Panchayat samiti at the taluk level and headed by the zilla parishad at the district level. Holding of regular elections has been made mandatory and, while apex institutions like Parliament and State Assemblies still differ over women's reservation, 33 per cent of all seats in panchayat bodies are actually occupied by women. This is apart from and in addition to quota for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and in some states for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Consider the following statements regarding the above passage.
1. During British Rule PRIs were in anaemic condition.
2. According to our Constitution the destination of the wheels of federalism is the local rural body.
3. In the three tier structure village Panchayat is the base of local democracy.
4. A sizeable number of seats in PRIs are now being held by women.
Choose the correct answer:

Direction-Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions.

Presently, global warming, extinction of biodiversity, worldwide food shortages and spiralling food grain prices have resurrected the specter of a hungry world, roiled with unrest and political upheavals. Several theories have also been brought out of the closet to explain, or rationalize, this haunting vision. World biodiversity has declined by almost one third in the past 35 years mainly due to habitat loss and the wildlife trade, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on 16th May 2008. It warned that climate change would lead increasingly to the wildlife woes over the next three decades. Some scientists see the loss of plants, animals and insects as the start of the sixth great species wipe out in the Earth's history, the last being in the age of the dinosaurs which disappeared 130 million years ago and since then, no rate of extinction has been observed as yet.
The technological bind of improved varieties is that they eliminate the resource upon which they are based. Since the past 10,000 years, crop plants have proliferated to an innumerable number of locally adapted genotypes. These land-races and folk varieties of indigenous and peasant agriculture have been the genetic reservoir for the plant breeder in crop improvement. Suddenly this genetic diversity is being replaced with a relatively small number of varieties bred for high yield and other adaptations necessary for high input agriculture. In addition, the scarcity of land is forcing changes in land use and agro practices resulting in the disappearance of habitat which harbor the wild progenitors / weedy forms of our basic food plants. As a result of these two trends, there is urgent need to collect and conserve the diverse genetic materials that remain. In a world where per capita resources are decreasing on pace with growing human population, the concept of a sustainable future is becoming a matter of great concern. Biological diversity is one of the components of any sustainable future that includes all the organisms and safeguarding them through scientific skill should be our goal.

According to the passage what is the apprehension made by the scientists regarding extinction of some plants and animals species?
1. Global warming would lead increasingly to the wildlife woes over the next three decades.
2. Loss of plants, animals and insects will be the end of the sixth great species wipe-out.
3. The sixth great species wipeout in the earth's history was the disappearance of dinosaurs.
Choose the correct answer: