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    Question

    Directions : Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. In what looks like a pristine, remote mountain region, tiny pieces of plastic pollution were found raining down from the sky—raising questions about the global extent of plastic pollution—a first-of-its-kind study has found. Scientists recorded a daily rate of 365 microplastic particles per square meter falling from the sky in the Pyrenees Mountains in southern France. “It was incredible how much microplastic was being deposited,” said Deonie Allen, a researcher at EcoLab in the School of Agricultural and Life Sciences in Toulouse, France. There were no obvious sources for the microplastics within 60 miles (100 kilometres), said Allen. Microplastics are very small pieces of plastic waste. Their presence in oceans and waterways has received a great deal of scientific and media attention in recent years. However, only two previous studies have looked for the presence of microplastics in the air. Both were in cities and their results were comparable, says Allen. Microplastics in the air appear to be ubiquitous . People are exposed to microplastics through food and air, but the health effects are unknown. What is known is that microplastics smaller than 25 microns can enter the human body through the nose or mouth and those less than five microns can end up in lung tissue. There is a great deal of concern about fine particulates in the air formed by burning fossil fuels, including black carbon or soot. These have been linked to a wide range of health impacts from asthma to heart attacks to impairing children’s memory and IQ. Most countries have air pollution standards to limit the volumes of particles less than 10 microns, and especially those below 2.5 microns, respectively known as PM 10 and PM 2.5 standards. Climate change is yet another reason to reduce plastic consumption, a new study published at the same time warns. (6) Nearly all plastics are /made from fossil fuels and /this industry resulted in emissions amount to /1.7 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2015/. If the plastics industry were a country it’d be the fourth largest CO2 emitter behind China, the U.S., and India. However, aggressive application of renewable energy, recycling, and biomass as a feedstock could keep emissions in 2050 on par with 2015 levels, the study noted. That said, there would also be four times as much plastic being produced. Scientists have warned we are creating a “plastic planet”. Some 420 million tons of plastics were produced in 2015, up from just over two million tons in 1950. Over this 65-year period roughly six billion tons ended up either in landfill or in the natural environment, a 2017 study estimated. (7) Plastic waste that starts out as bottles, packaging, and so on degrades from time to microplastic particles or much smaller nanoparticles. One study estimated there are 15 to 51 trillion microplastics particles floating on the surface of the oceans. A trillion is one thousand billion. A trillion seconds is nearly 32,000 years.

    In the sentence marked as (6) in the passage, find out

    an error, if there is any. If there is no error, mark option 5, ‘No error’ as the answer. Nearly all plastics are /made from fossil fuels and /this industry resulted in emissions amount to /1.7 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2015.
    A Nearly all plastics are Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    B made from fossil fuels and Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    C this industry resulted in emissions amount to Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    D 1.7 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2015 Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    E No error Correct Answer Incorrect Answer

    Solution

    Here, ‘amount to’ is incorrect. It should be ‘amounting to’. Nearly all plastics are made from fossil fuels and this industry resulted in emissions amounting to 1.7 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2015.

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