Question:
Passage:
Insects' lives are very diminutive and they have many enemies, but they must survive long enough to rear and perpetuate their kind. The less insect-like they look, the better their probability of survival. To look "uneatable" by resembling or imitating plants is a deceit widely practised by insects. Mammals hardly ever use this kind of camouflage, but many fish and invertebrates do.
The stick caterpillar is well named. It is hardly discernible from a brown or green twig. This caterpillar is quite familiar and can be found almost anywhere in North America. It is also called "measuring worm" or "inchworm." It walks by arching its body, then stretching out and grasping the branch with its front feet then looping its body again to bring the hind feet forward. When danger threatens, the stick caterpillar stretches its body away from the branch at an angle and remains rigid and still, like a twig, until the danger has passed.
Walking sticks, or stick insects, do not have to assume a rigid, twig-like pose to find protection; they look like inedible twigs in any position. There are many kinds of walking sticks, ranging in size from the few inches of the North American variety to some tropical species that may be over a foot long. When at rest their front legs are stretched out, heightening their camouflage. Some of the tropical species are adorned with spines or ridges imitating the thorny bushes or trees in which they live. Leaves also seem to be a favorite object for insects to imitate. Many butterflies can suddenly disappear from view by folding their wings and sitting quietly among the foliage that they resemble.
Question: What is the main theme of the passage?
Passage:
Insects' lives are very diminutive and they have many enemies, but they must survive long enough to rear and perpetuate their kind. The less insect-like they look, the better their probability of survival. To look "uneatable" by resembling or imitating plants is a deceit widely practised by insects. Mammals hardly ever use this kind of camouflage, but many fish and invertebrates do.
The stick caterpillar is well named. It is hardly discernible from a brown or green twig. This caterpillar is quite familiar and can be found almost anywhere in North America. It is also called "measuring worm" or "inchworm." It walks by arching its body, then stretching out and grasping the branch with its front feet then looping its body again to bring the hind feet forward. When danger threatens, the stick caterpillar stretches its body away from the branch at an angle and remains rigid and still, like a twig, until the danger has passed.
Walking sticks, or stick insects, do not have to assume a rigid, twig-like pose to find protection; they look like inedible twigs in any position. There are many kinds of walking sticks, ranging in size from the few inches of the North American variety to some tropical species that may be over a foot long. When at rest their front legs are stretched out, heightening their camouflage. Some of the tropical species are adorned with spines or ridges imitating the thorny bushes or trees in which they live. Leaves also seem to be a favorite object for insects to imitate. Many butterflies can suddenly disappear from view by folding their wings and sitting quietly among the foliage that they resemble.
Insects' lives are very diminutive and they have many enemies, but they must survive long enough to rear and perpetuate their kind. The less insect-like they look, the better their probability of survival. To look "uneatable" by resembling or imitating plants is a deceit widely practised by insects. Mammals hardly ever use this kind of camouflage, but many fish and invertebrates do.
The stick caterpillar is well named. It is hardly discernible from a brown or green twig. This caterpillar is quite familiar and can be found almost anywhere in North America. It is also called "measuring worm" or "inchworm." It walks by arching its body, then stretching out and grasping the branch with its front feet then looping its body again to bring the hind feet forward. When danger threatens, the stick caterpillar stretches its body away from the branch at an angle and remains rigid and still, like a twig, until the danger has passed.
Walking sticks, or stick insects, do not have to assume a rigid, twig-like pose to find protection; they look like inedible twigs in any position. There are many kinds of walking sticks, ranging in size from the few inches of the North American variety to some tropical species that may be over a foot long. When at rest their front legs are stretched out, heightening their camouflage. Some of the tropical species are adorned with spines or ridges imitating the thorny bushes or trees in which they live. Leaves also seem to be a favorite object for insects to imitate. Many butterflies can suddenly disappear from view by folding their wings and sitting quietly among the foliage that they resemble.
Question: What is the main theme of the passage?
Show Hint
Notice that every example in the passage, the stick caterpillar, walking sticks, and butterflies, is about looking like something else to avoid predators.
Updated On: Jul 20, 2026
- Life cycle of insects
- The feeding habits of insects
- Camouflage techniques in insects
- Mode of survival in mammals
- Tropical species of insects
Show Solution
Verified By Collegedunia
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: The passage opens with the general idea that "to look 'uneatable' by resembling or imitating plants is a deceit widely practised by insects", which is a direct statement about camouflage as a survival strategy.
Step 2: The rest of the passage develops this single idea through two extended examples: the stick caterpillar, which freezes at an angle to look like a twig, and walking sticks/stick insects and butterflies, which naturally resemble twigs, thorny bushes or leaves.
Step 3: The passage never discusses the insects' life cycle (birth, growth, reproduction stages) or their feeding habits, so options (a) and (b) are incorrect. Mammals are mentioned only once, in passing, to say they rarely use camouflage, so option (d) is wrong. Tropical species are just one detail within the walking-sticks paragraph, not the overall theme, so option (e) is too narrow.
Step 4: Since every paragraph circles back to how insects disguise themselves to avoid being eaten, the main theme is camouflage techniques in insects.
Step 2: The rest of the passage develops this single idea through two extended examples: the stick caterpillar, which freezes at an angle to look like a twig, and walking sticks/stick insects and butterflies, which naturally resemble twigs, thorny bushes or leaves.
Step 3: The passage never discusses the insects' life cycle (birth, growth, reproduction stages) or their feeding habits, so options (a) and (b) are incorrect. Mammals are mentioned only once, in passing, to say they rarely use camouflage, so option (d) is wrong. Tropical species are just one detail within the walking-sticks paragraph, not the overall theme, so option (e) is too narrow.
Step 4: Since every paragraph circles back to how insects disguise themselves to avoid being eaten, the main theme is camouflage techniques in insects.
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This anxiety does not dissipate, and in fact, it can increase to the level where it begins to change your behavior. That’s when it’s characterized as an anxiety disorder. Anxiety can keep you safe, helping you recognize danger, and cope with it, says Mooney. But if you begin to see danger lurking around every corner, or worry over and over again about the same events, then you might be dealing with something more substantial, like an anxiety disorder.
People with anxiety disorders often begin to avoid activities or circumstances that make them anxious, said John Forsyth, associate professor of Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany and director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Programme at the university. People may stop driving, or stop going to parties. They may stop travelling or even avoid leaving the house. It’s this curtailing of activities that causes the suffering, Forsyth said, making you feel that ‘life is shrinking around you.’
Anxiety disorders come in a variety of forms and manifest themselves in different ways. Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by ongoing worry about everyday tasks, even when there is no clear reason to worry. People with social anxiety disorder experience intense worry over social interactions, and often feel judged by people or worry that they will embarrass themselves. Post-traumatic stress disorder, which is characterized by people re-living a frightening event over and over again, is also considered an anxiety disorder. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is when people take on obsessive rituals that help them maintain the illusion of control. Often repetitive in nature, obsessive compulsive rituals can include cleaning, checking and rechecking something, counting or endlessly reviewing conversations in their mind. Treatment is available for anxiety disorders. People can use a variety of approaches, including therapy, medication and exercise. - I am the family face; flesh perishes. I live on, projecting trait and trace through time to times anon, and leaping from place to place over oblivion.
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The DNA sequence of the synthetic one was confirmed to be identical to the natural one. While the DNA pieces were synthesized chemically, the stitching together was done using the biochemical machinery of a host cell. About 100 pieces of the genome, each 5000-7000 units long in DNA sequence, were first joined to produce 25 sub-assemblies, each about 24000 base pairs long. These were then introduced into the bacterium E. coli to produce sufficient DNA for the next steps. Next, they repeated the procedure to generate large fragments comprising l/4th of the whole genome of M.genitalium.
Now, they used the clever trick of exploiting the process called homologous recombination. This is a basic essential process in every cell, which physically rearranges the two strands of DN The JCVI researchers inserted the synthesized DNA fragments into yeast and utilized its homologous recombination ability to generate the whole 580,000 long genome of M.genitalium in one step.
This is clearly a landmark work that leads into the brave new world of synthesizing life itself in the laboratory. It was hardly 200 years ago when Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea, an organic molecule, in the chemical laboratory, thus throwing out the notion of ‘vital forces’ involved in the components of living organisms. What is the next step, making life itself in the lab, bypassing nature? With single cell organisms like M.genitalium, it might not be far away. It is now possible in the lab to do so, by inserting the genome into a ‘host’ cell and asking the latter to make the bacterium of your choice. If only we find a way to insert the bacterial genome into this proto-cell, and somehow trigger it to make the bacterium itself! We would have chemically created life in the la This is not a pipedream; JCVI scientists are already on the job, and my bet is they will do it within a few years.
This surely raises ethical questions, a matter that JCVI is keenly aware of and is already engaged in with ethicists. Even their present work on M.genitalium was done with prior approval of ethical experts. But then, today it is M.genitalium, tomorrow it could be a more advanced, multi-cellular organism, and that could flummox even the ethicist. Assisted reproduction, which is the other side of the coin and truly a recently initiated technology, has become ethically and morally acceptable. Cloning of Dolly, the sheep, has not raised any outrage, but cloning a human certainly does. - The technological trajectory traversed in communications and transport from pigeon mail and pony expressto e-mail and videoconferencing is almost as great as the intellectual space between Noah's Ark and the biotechnological revolution in the preservation and improvement of the species. Dreams are multi-hued today and soar beyond the hitherto accepted bounds of human endeavor.
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An actor, essayist, screenwriter, poet, director and dramatist, Pinter was also publicly outspoken in his views on repression and censorship, at home and abroad. He used his Nobel acceptance speech to denounce Amer- ican foreign policy, saying that the United States had not only lied to justify waging war against Iraq, but that it had also 'supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship' in the last 50 years. His political views were implicit in much of his work. Though his plays deal with the slipperiness of memory and human character, they are also almost always about the struggle for power.
In Pinter's work 'words are weapons that the characters use to discomfort or destroy each other' said Peter Hall, who has staged more of Pinter's plays than any other director. But while Pinter's linguistic agility turned simple, sometimes obscene, words into dark, glittering and often mordantly funny poetry, it is what comes between the words that he is most famous for. And the stage direction 'pause' would haunt him throughout his career.
Intended as an instructive note to actors, the Pinter pause was a space for emphasis and breathing room. But it could also be as threatening as a raised fist. Pinter said that writing the word 'pause' into his first play was 'a fatal error'. It is certainly the aspect of his writing that has been most parodied. But no other playwright has consistently used pauses with such rhythmic assurance and to such fine-tuned manipulative effect. Early in his career, Pinter said his work was about 'the weasel under the cocktail cabinet'. Though he later regretted the image, it holds up as a metaphor for the undertow of danger that pervades his work.
Pinter was born in Hackney on October 10, 1930. With the outbreak of World War II, Harold was evacuated from London to a provincial town in Cornwall. His feelings of loneliness and isolation from that time were to surface later in his plays. Few writers have been so consistent over so many years in the tone and exe- cution of their work. Just before rehearsals began for the West End production of The Birthday Party half a century ago, Pinter sent a letter to his director, Peter Wood. In it he said, "The play is a comedy because the whole state of affairs is absurd and inglorious. It is, however, as you know, a very serious piece of work.'
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