List of practice Questions

When an unpolarized plane electromagnetic wave in a dielectric medium with refractive index \( n_1 \) is incident on a plane interface separating it from another dielectric medium with refractive index \( n_2 \) (where \( n_2 > n_1 \)), and the angle of incidence is \(\tan^{-1} \left( \frac{n_2}{n_1} \right) \), the following statement is true:

Choose the appropriate phrase to replace the underlined part:
If you are thinking about investing, \(\underline{\text{isn't make sense to find an experienced financial advisor?} }\)

Choose the appropriate phrase to replace the underlined part:
The old man looked \(\underline{\text{with caution before he crossed the busy street.} }\)

Read the passage and answer to the question that follows:
Somehow, Ramdas Korwa of Rachketha village was not overjoyed to learn that he was worth RS 17.44 lakh to the government. Late in 1993, the authorities decided to lay a three km road leading to Rachketha village in the name of tribal development by allocating rs 17.44 lakh towards the project.
Tribals constitute a 55 per cent majority in Surguja, one of India’s poorest districts. And the Pahadi or Hill Korwas. who have been listed as a primitive tribe by the government, fall in the bottom 5 per cent. Special efforts are underway for their development which often involves large sums of money. Just one centrally funded scheme, the Pahadi Korwa project. is worth RS 42 crores over a five-year period. There are around 15.000 Pahadi Krowas. the largest number of these in Surguja. However. for political reasons. the main base of the project is in Raigad district. There was just one small problem about building the Pahadi Korwa Marg in Rachketha-the village is almost completely devoid of Pahadi Korwas. Ramdas’s family is the only real 23 exception.
’It doesn’t matter if these don’t benefit the Pahadi Krowas in the least and are completely useless. Out here. even if you put up a swimming pool and a bungalow. you do it in the name of tribal development.’ says an NGO activist. ”Nobody bothered to check whether there were really any Pahadi Korwas living in Rachketha village’ and ’there was already a kutcha road here.’ says Ramavatar Korwa, son of Ramdas. ’They just added lal mitti (red carth) to it. Even today. after spending rs 17.44 lakh, it is not a pucca road.
’ Ramdas’s own demands are touchingly simple. ’All I want is a little water.’ he says. ’How can we have agriculture without water?’ When repeatedly pressed. he adds: ’Instead of spending rs 17.44 lakh on that road. if they had spent a few thousand on improving that damaged well on my land. wouldn’t that have been better? Some improvement in the land is also necessary. but let them start by giving us a little water.’ Ramdas’s problems were ignored. The government’s problem was ’fulfilling a target.’ ’If the money were simply put into bank fixed deposits. none of these Pahadi Korwa families would ever have to work again. The interest alone would make them very well off by Surguja’s standards.’ says an official mockingly.
Nobody thought of asking Ramdas what he really needed. what his problems were or involving him in their solution. Instead. in his name. they built a road he does not use. at a cost of rs 17.44 lakh. ’Please do something about my water problem, sir.’ says Ramdas Korwa as we set off across the plain, journeying two kilometres to reach his road nowhere.

Read the passage and answer to the question that follows:
Under the colonial regime, basic infrastructure such as railways, ports, water transport. posts and telegraphs did develop. However. the real motive behind this development was not to provide basic amenities to the people but to subserve various colonial interests. Roads constructed in India prior to the advent of the British rule were not fit for modern transport. The roads that were built primarily served the purposes of mobilising the army within India and drawing out raw materials from the countryside to the nearest railway station or the port to send these to far away England or other lucrative foreign destinations. There always remained an acute shortage of all-weather roads to reach out to the rural areas during the rainy season.
Naturally. therefore, people mostly living in these areas suffered grievously during natural calamities and famines. The British introduced the railways in India in 1850 and it is considered as one of their most important contributions. The railways affected the structure of the Indian economy in two important ways. On the one hand it enabled people to undertake long distance travel and thereby break geographical and cultural barriers while. on the other hand. it fostered commercialisation of Indian agriculture which adversely affected the self-sufficiency of the village economies in India. The volume of India’s exports undoubtedly expanded, but its benefits rarely accrued to the Indians. The social benefits. which the Indians gained owing to the introduction of the railways, were thus outweighed by the country’s huge economic loss.
Along with the development of roads and railways, the colonial dispensation also took measures for developing the inland trade and sea lanes. However, these measures were far from satisfactory. The inland waterways. at times. also proved uneconomical as in the case of the canal on the Odisha coast. Though the canal was built at a huge cost to the government exchequer. yet, it failed to compete with the region running parallel to the canal. and had to be ultimately abandoned. The introduction of the expensive system of electric telegraph in India. similarly. served the purpose of maintaining law and order. The postal services, on the other hand. despite serving a useful public purpose. remained all through inadequate.

Read the passage and answer to the question that follows:
Chola temples often became the nuclei of settlements which grew around them. These were centers of craft production. Temples were also endowed with land by rulers as well as by others. The produce of this land went into maintaining all the specialists who worked at the temple and very often lived near it - priests, garland makers. cooks, sweepers. musicians, dancers, etc. In other words. temples were not only places of worship: they were the centers of economic. social and cultural life.
Amongst the crafts associated with temples. the making of bronze images was the most distinctive. Chola bronze images are considered amongst the finest in the world. While most images were of deities. sometimes images were made of devotees as well.

Read the passage and answer to the question that follows:
38 Box 5.5: Organically Produced Cotton in Maharashtra
In 1955, when Kisan Mehta of Prakruti (an NGO) first suggested that cotton, the biggest user of chemical pesticides, could be grown organically, the then Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, famously remarked,” Do you want India to go naked?” At present, as many as 130 farmers have committed 1,200 hectares of land to grow cotton organically on the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement’s standards. The produce was later tested by the German Accredited Agency, AGRECO, and found to be of high quality. Kisan Mehta feels that about 78 percent of Indian farmers are marginal farmers owning at best less than 0.8 hectares but accounting for 20 percent of India’s cultivable land. For such farmers, organic agriculture is more profitable in terms of money and soil conservation in the long run.

Read the passage and answer the following questions:
Organic agriculture offers a means to substitute costlier agricultural inputs (such as HYV seeds. chemical fertilisers, pesticides etc.) with locally produced organic inputs that are cheaper and thereby generate good returns on investment. Organic agriculture also generates income through exports as the demand for organically grown crops is on a rise. Studies across countries have shown that organically grown food has more nutritional value than chemical farming thus providing us with healthy foods. Since organic farming requires more labour input than conventional farming, India will find organic farming an attractive proposition. Finally. the produce is pesticide-free and produced in an environmentally sustainable way.
Popularising organic farming requires awareness and willingness on the part of farmers to adapt to new technology. Inadequate infrastructure and the problem of marketing the products are major concerns which need to be addressed apart from an appropriate agriculture policy to promote organic farming. It has been observed that the yields from organic farming are less than modern agricultural farming in the initial years. Therefore, small and marginal farmers may find it difficult to adapt to large-scale production. Organic produce may also have more blemishes and a shorter shelf life than sprayed produce. Moreover, choice in production of off-season crops is quite limited in organic farming. Nevertheless, organic farming helps in sustainable development of agriculture and India has a clear advantage in producing organic products for both domestic and international markets. Do you think food and non-food items cultivated using organic farming methods will be cheaper?