Transformation of Sentences Questions and Answers

Direction for [ Question No: 1 To 1 ] :

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People are drawn to vegetarianism by all sorts of motives. Some of us want to live longer, healthier lives or do our part to reduce pollution. Others have made the switch because we want to preserve earth's natural resources or because we've always loved animals and are ethically opposed to eating them.

Vegetarianism promotes a natural way of life. But despite its implicit message of universal love and non-violence it has not spread as it should have. This may be because it usually is an inward-looking habit and is best cultivated in the mind.

Leading a vegetarian way of life helps the animal kingdom co-exist with man. The animals supply milk, manure and energy. This has been central to the Indian culture for thousands of years. A vegetarian life style is natural, multifaceted and helps self-preservation in a healthy way. Food and health are closely related.

Vegetarian foods provide an infinite variety of flavours whereas non-vegetarian foods have hardly any taste of their own. In fact, non-vegetarian foods have to be seasoned with ingredients from the vegetable kingdom to make them palatable.

Direction for [ Question No: 2 To 3 ] :

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Pelicans are birds. There are more than half a dozen species of pelicans. All of them have the sack for which the birds are best known all over the world. The sack is like a big bag of skin hanging under their bill, or their mouth. These large carnivorous birds use them to catch fish. Many pelicans fish by swimming in a group. They may form a line or a "U" shape and drive fish into shallow water by beating their wings on the surface. When the fish collect in the shallows, the pelicans simply scoop them up. The brown pelican, on the other hand, dives on the fish from above and traps them in its bill. Pelicans do not store fish in their pouch, but simply use it to catch them and then tip it back to drain out water and swallow the fish immediately. The American white pelican can hold some 11.5 litres of water in its bill. Young pelicans feed by sticking their bills into their parents' throats to retrieve food.

Along with giant pouch, pelicans are large birds with short legs, and they appear rather clumsy on land. Once in water, they are strong swimmers, thanks to their webbed feet. This means that webbing connects all four of their toes, even the back toe.

Pelicans are found on many of the world's coastlines and also along lakes and rivers. They travel in flocks. They also breed in groups called colonies, which typically gather on islands. The average life span of pelicans in the wild is about 10 to 25 years and their average body size is about 1.8 metres but when they open their wings their wingspan is around 3 metres. These large birds usually weigh around 13 kg.

Direction for [ Question No: 4 To 4 ] :

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Legends will tell you that flamingoes are no ordinary visitors to Kachchh. They were the honoured guests of King Lakho and he had forbidden the hunting of flamingoes, which came to Kachchh from various parts of the world every year to breed. For centuries, the region had been a haven for the migratory bird. Today, Flamingo City, an island in the middle of the Rann of Kachchh, known the world over as one of the biggest breeding grounds of the Greater Flamingo, is strewn with bodies of hundreds of flamingo chicks. The parents of these chicks have fled the island due to lack of food. Zooplanktons, algae and the small fish that these birds survive on are dying due to a sudden increase in the salinity of the Rann waters. One can even see dead fish floating. Flamingoes need salt-encrusted, damp mud to build nests. The place where they build their nests has to be inaccessible to predatory cats and birds. It should also have sufficient food. The right mix of sweet and brackish water in the Rann is crucial for the proliferation of planktons and algae that the flamingoes feed on. Faced with starvation, flamingoes have fled the island leaving their chicks to fend for themselves. Till date, around a thousand flamingoes have died.

Maharaj Kumarshi Himmatsinghji, a member of the royal family of Kachchh and an expert on the birds of Kachchh, traces the problem of increased salinity in the Rann waters to the construction of dams on rivers that flow into the region. He emphasises that efforts should be made to ensure that at least some water flows into the Rann. In fact, over the years, the number of flamingoes coming to the island has decreased because of the change in salinity of the Rann water. In 1945, Salim Ali, the late ornithologist, had found 5 lakh birds on the island. Since then, the number has not gone above 2.2 lakh. However, the studies carried out on the Flamingo City so far cannot be taken as 100 percent accurate.

Direction for [ Question No: 5 To 5 ] :

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One morning, the Emperor of China was feeling tired and sleepy. He had a lot of work to do but he could not keep his eyes open. "Perhaps I'm sick," he said to his servant. "Get my doctor!"

When the doctor arrived, the Emperor said, "I have many things to do today, but I can't keep my eyes open. Can you help me?"

The doctor opened his bag and took out a small box. There were some dry, dark leaves inside the box. He gave them to the Emperor and asked him to chew them. "They will help you. They are called tea leaves," said the doctor.

The Emperor looked at the tea leaves; then he put them in his mouth and began to chew them. They didn't taste nice at all. The Emperor refused to have them and became angry at the doctor. He asked the doctor to leave else he would chop his head.

Just as the doctor was leaving, two servants came into the room. They were carrying the Emperor's bath. It was full of hot water. Some of the tea leaves that the doctor was carrying fell into the hot water and the water smelled wonderful.

The Emperor asked his servant to bring a cup of hot water. When the servant brought a cup of hot water, the Emperor put a few tea leaves in the water. It became a beautiful golden colour and smelt flavourful. The Emperor tasted the water. There was a big smile on his face.

Then he drank up all the water.

A few minutes later, he stopped feeling sleepy. He was fully awake, and he felt youthful and strong again. The Emperor smiled at the doctor and praised him for his cleverness. He ordered his servant to give him a cup of that wonderful drink every morning. Since that day, people have grown tea in China, India and in other parts of the world.

Direction for [ Question No: 6 To 6 ] :

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1. Physical health affects the mind and vice versa. Which of the two is the more important is like asking the age-old question : what comes first, the chicken or the egg. For our present subject, let us be clear that a sound mind in a sound body is a prerequisite for high efficiency and good quality work in the office, factory or field, which leads to a sense of achievement and fulfilment.

2. Our health is, of course, important not only to us, but also to our families and even to our employers. No wonder then that companies everywhere have a stake in the health and fitness of their employees and are willing to spend considerable money towards this purpose. Japanese companies particularly excel in this and the more successful among them start off the day with a body-bending and stretching session and even singing the company song designed to promote loyalty and motivation among the workforce! This is considered an important factor contributing to high productivity and quality. Here is a lesson which has been emulated elsewhere in the world and could work wonders in India. It is estimated that some 20,000 American firms have established in-house health clubs. Typical of these is the soft drink manufacturer Pepsi Cola which has spent about $2 million in setting up a health club at its head office in New York State. Such expenditure has proved to be a wise investment in achieving better efficiency and higher productivity. It has, indirectly, also helped reduce the premium on the health insurance of its staff. This business has grown so large that hundreds of consultancies have sprung up for the management of health clubs and fitness centres. In some cases, there is a nominal contribution by the employees on the premise that this way they will value and use the facilities all the more. Some insurance companies have teamed up with employers in such ventures as better health contributes to a longer life and hence more premium! Though many firms in India have generous medical schemes, the movement towards health clubs and the like is yet to gain momentum.

Direction for [ Question No: 7 To 7 ] :

Directions : Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate options.

Aimee had a painful childhood. She was born in 1975 with no shin bones. The doctors therfore had to amputate both her legs so that she would be able to walk later in life. Unfortunately, she had to undergo a number of surgeries at the age of two, five and eight, and had to spend a long time in a hospital. Aimee grew up with artificial legs. Her mother, however, treated her as a self-sufficient person who did not require any special treatment. She was gradually able to learn how to move and run, and even play various sports like softball and go swimming, hiking and skiing.

When she was in high school, Aimee discovered her passion for athletics. Towards the end of high school, she participated in the Boston track and field meet for the disabled. On arriving in Boston, she was surprised to discover that she was the only athlete wearing wooden legs. The rest of the athletes had metal, shock-absorbent legs that she didn't even know existed. Not to mention that all the other athletes had at least one normal leg. This fact did not shake her determination; instead it made her push herself harder to succeed. And succeed she did - she not only won, she also broke a national record in doing so. She decided to enter the long jump competition next, an event that double amputees were technically 'not supposed' to enter. A year later, she broke the world record in it.

Aimee was not happy with the way prosthetic legs were designed. So she invited innovators to combine science and art, and design unconventional prosthetic legs. She was soon wearing cheetah legs, handcrafted wooden legs, jellyfish legs and many more. She now began getting invitations from different parts of the world to talk about her life story and designer legs. The fashion and beauty industry took note of Aimee's talent and beauty and asked her to model for, or endorse beauty products. Today she is a global model for a leading brand of cosmetics.

Direction for [ Question No: 8 To 8 ] :

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I have told you already about the formation of tribes. When agriculture came, and there was some division of work or labour, it became necessary for some person in the tribe to organise the work. Even before this, the tribes wanted someone to lead them to battle against another tribe. The leader was usually the oldest man in the group. He was called, or rather we call him now, the patriarch. As the oldest, he was supposed to be the most experienced and to have the most knowledge. This patriarch was not very different from the other members of the tribe. He worked with the others, and all the food that was produced was divided between all the members of the tribe. Everything belonged to the tribe. It was not like we have now, each person having his separate house and money and many other things. Whatever a man earned was divided up as it all belonged to the tribe. The patriarch or the organiser of the tribe did this dividing.

But changes came in slowly. There were new kinds of work, especially on account of agriculture, and the patriarch had to spend most of his time in organising and seeing that work was properly done by all the members of the tribe. Little by little, the patriarch gave up doing the ordinary work or labour of the people. He thus became quite different from the rest of the people. We see now another kind of division of work or labour : the patriarch doing the organizing and ordering people about, and the other people working in the fields and hunting and going to battle, and obeying the orders of their leader, the patriarch. If there was a war or fight between two tribes, the patriarch became even more powerful, for in wartime it was not possible to fight well without a leader. So the patriarch became very powerful.

Direction for [ Question No: 9 To 9 ] :

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At that moment, we heard a big bang from outside, as if a bomb had exploded! We felt as if we were being thrown violently to the ground. From the shadow of a tree nearby, someone emerged and walked slowly towards the shop to stand before us. Everything had happened in the fraction of a second and seeing his face now, my throat went suddenly dry.

He was a young boy. Across his cheek ran a deep gash, from eye to lip made by a bullet or a sharp knife. There was blood and pus in it. The flesh under his lip looked as if it had been ripped open and we could see his teeth in the quavering light.

I went to the old woman and took her hand in mine, gripping it tightly. We were both shivering. The boy was wearing black jeans and a khaki jacket. And what was that in his hand ? A revolver ? Even in the smoky light of the kerosene lamp, the barrel shone. The old woman burst into a hysterical cry.

'Oh my Kanbap, my son! I told your father a thousand times to bring you from the railway track. Oh my son, what has happened to you ? Why are you bleeding like this ?'

Suddenly the boy's eyes fell on the girl sitting in the corner and trembling with fear. He sped like a bullet towards the girl and grabbing her hair, rained blows and kicks on her stomach, shouting, 'I will smash your womb! I will kill the bastard child of that soldier you are carrying... Making love with a soldier, dirty bitch! Phooh! Phooh!

Direction for [ Question No: 10 To 10 ] :

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What was this new state like? Fortunately, we have full accounts, both Indian and Greek. Megasthenes, the ambassador sent by Seleucus, has left a record and, much more important is that contemporary account - Kautilya's Arthashastra, 'the Science of Polity'. Kautilya is another name for Chanakya, and thus we have a book written, not only by a great scholar, but a man who played a dominating part in the establishment, growth and preservation of the empire. Chanakya has been called the Indian Machiavelli, and to some extent the comparison is justified. But he was a much bigger person in every way, greater in intellect and action. He was no mere follower of a king, a humble advisor of an all-powerful emperor. A picture of him emerges from an old Indian play - the Mudra-Rakshasa - which deals with this period. Bold and scheming, proud and revengeful, never forgetting a slight, never forgetting his purpose, availing himself of every device to delude and defeat the enemy, he sat with the reins of empire in his hands and looked upon the emperor more as a loved pupil than as a master. Simple and austere in his life, uninterested in the pomp and pageantry of high position, when he had redeemed his pledge and accomplished his purpose, he wanted to retire, to a life of contemplation.

There was hardly anything Chanakya would have refrained from doing to achieve his purpose; he was unscrupulous enough; yet he was also wise enough to know that this very purpose might be defeated by means unsuited to the end. Long before Clausewitz, he is reported to have said that war is only a continuance of state policy by other means. But, he adds, war must always serve the larger ends of policy and not become an end in itself; the statesman's objective must always be the betterment of the state as a result of war, not the mere defeat and destruction of the enemy. If war involves both parties in a common ruin, that is bankruptcy of statesmanship. War must be conducted by armed forces, but much more important than the force of arms is the high strategy which saps the enemy's morale and disrupts his forces and brings about his collapse, or takes him to the verge of collapse, before armed attack.