Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (i).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (ii).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (iii).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (iv).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (v).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (vi).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (vii).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (viii).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (ix).

Directions: Read the following passage having some numbered blanks.

Oil is perhaps the most sought-after of all natural resources. However, a major difficulty in its (i) is that oil fields are very often found below the sea (ii). As a result, the search for oil is very expensive, and unless oil is found there in (iii) quantities the companies or governments involved are liable to lose heavily. Therefore, before (iv) starts, extensive surveys are carried out to see how much oil, or natural gas the rock formation is likely to yield. If the results are favourable, an oil rig is towed into position. The rig consists of a main scaffolding on which the men work and a derrick which supports the drill. This drill goes down thousands of feet until oil or a (v) of gas is reached. The next stage is to transport the gas or oil to the shore. In the case of gas, this is normally done by (vi) a pipeline below the sea, but oil, on reaching the top of the well, is more often transported in its (vii) state by ships. On shore it is (viii) into different fuels or it is (ix) chemically to turn it into a variety of (x) materials such as polythene.

Fill blank (x).

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

Directions: Choose the word that is closest in meaning to the given word.

Recluse

Directions: Choose the word that is closest in meaning to the given word.

Multitude

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

Pipes are not a safer _____ to cigarettes because though pipe smokers do not inhale, they are still _______ higher rates of lung and mouth cancers than non-smokers.

Directions: Identify the part having an error.

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If no part has an error, mark (5).

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blank.

Most of the settlements that grew up near the logging camps were ______ affairs, thrown together in a hurry because people needed to live on the job.

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

I could not help to laugh at the joke.

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

Physicians may soon have ________ to help paralysed people move their limbs bypassing the ________ nerves that once controlled their muscles.

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

The village headman was unlettered, but he was no fool, he could see through the _____ of the businessman’s proposition and promptly ______ him down.

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

My copy is as good or better than yours.

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

While walking across the road a bus knocked him down.

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

We had to stop for diesel because we had hardly much left.

Directions: Choose the word/phrase which best replaces the italicised part in the sentence given below. If the sentence needs no change, mark (4) as your answer.

The cat has not been lying on the sofa all day.

Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blank.

Slander and libel laws stand as a protection of a person’s reputation against the ______ dissemination of falsehood.

Directions: Find the word which is antonymous to the given word.

Aloof

Directions: Choose the word that is opposite in meaning to the given word.

Amateur

Directions: Find the word which is antonymous to the given word.

Ambiguous

Directions: Identify the part having an error. If there is no error, mark (5).

The word that evokes the comment "That doesn't include time in the shower from Sylvia Earle" is

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

The reasons why explorers do what they do, include all of the following, except

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

By saying that the British are famously outward looking, the Evening Standard means that they are

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

The number of firsts to Steger's credit includes:

I. the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica in 1989-90 II. the first to have hiked to both the poles in a single year
III. the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole travelling across the ice IV. the first to have walked 750 km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

When the author says of Steger that he is almost blasé when he describes adversity, he means by the highlighted word

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

An untethered diver would most probably mean

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

What the explorers do besides discovering include which of the following?

I. Examination and analysis II. Mapping III. Prodding IV. Colonisation

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

The author traces the famous exploits of citizens from all of the following nations, except

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

In this passage, the author is discussing

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.

When Sylvia Earle uses the comparison like being in a cathedral with other worldly music, the highlighted words would refer to, in that order,

Directions: Read the following passsage and answer the given question.

That's the way it is with explorers: any reason will do. They are, after all, no ordinary mortals. They are obsessed, fiercely competitive, driving themselves to reach beyond the last barrier into the untravelled world, or to do their predecessors one better, to live to tell the world what they have seen, and not incidentally, to enjoy triumph and glory.
Hardly any place on the surface of the earth remains to be discovered, let alone mapped, prodded, examined and analysed, yet explorers persist in pushing at frontiers. Italy's Reinhold Messner, 48, the first man ever to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-plus-metre peaks - he did it without using oxygen equipment - also made the first solo oxygen-free ascent of Mount Everest and walked across Antarctica. Germany's Arved Fuchs, 39, hiked to both Poles in a single year, rounded Cape Horn in a collapsible boat, explored Greenland and the Canadian Arctic - to name only a few of his exploits.
France's Philippe Frey, 35, courted death when he travelled 9,000 km across the Sahara from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean in 1991. Working from outdated maps (which eventually got blown away by the wind), he plowed through the desert for nine agonising months. One after another, the wells that were marked on the map turned out dry. He had two camels; his water supply was down to five litres. Just as he was preparing to slit a camel's throat to drink its blood and stomach juices, two nomads appeared and directed him to an unmarked well 20 km away. Last year, the Club des Explorateurs et Voyageurs awarded Frey its Prix Liotard for exploration.
Among Americans, the leading explorer is Will Steger, 48, for whom happiness is going into an area that's never been visited before, an area where the sounds and the sights are foreign to human eyes. In 1986 Steger led the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole by traveling across the ice, and in 1989-90 made the first dogsled crossing of Antarctica. Typically, he is almost blasé when he described adversity. People are side-tracked by the suffering, by the cold, he says. it's fascinating for them the idea of going to the bathroom outdoors at 500 below zero. They imagine the hardships of cold, but it's not really much. It's just physical, temporary. But if you make a mistake, you die.
A fellow Minneston, schoolteacher Ann Bancroft, 37, is the first woman ever to reach the North Pole by dogsled (with Steger in 1986). Last November she set out with three other women to ski across Antarctica, reached the South Pole, then had to withdraw in mid-January when weather delays upset their schedule.
Californian Sylvia Earle, 57, prefers to study the last truly unexplored region on earth: the bottom of the sea. A marine biologist, she has clocked 6,000 hours underwater (That doesn't include time in the shower, she jokes) and holds the record for reaching the greatest depth - 381 m - ever attained by an untethered diver.
She has swum in the Indian Ocean with thousands of bioluminescent fish, dived in water so clear that from 30 m below the surface she could see the moon and stars; in the Pacific she has felt her body resonate with the vibrations of communicating whales- like being in a cathedral with otherworldly music. Most of the planet, she says, has yet to be explored. In the deep sea, less than one-tenth of 1% has even been looked at, and much of it has been mapped only in the most general way. Earle hopes to build a high-tech underwater craft that will take her to 11,000 m, the ocean's deepest depths.
It is the British, following centuries of tradition, who hold a special place in the chronicles of spectacular explorations. In a half-serious lexicon of Great British Things We Can Be Proud Of, London's Evening Standard recently listed Outwardness. From Sloaney grannies batting through the Hindu Kush in hire cars to lone seafarers circumnavigating the globe in sherry casks, the British are famously outward-looking.
Five hundred expeditions of dazzling variety and frequently exotic destinations, in fact, leave Britain's shores every year. Some are supported by public or private subscription, some by the Royal Geographical Society, others by sympathetic corporations.
They are costly investments and usually lose money. Britain's Robert Swan, who raised $3.5 million for a journey to the South Pole in 1984, retraced Robert Scott's 1911-12, 1,450-km route unassisted and in 1989 walked the 750-km from Ellesmere Island to the North Pole. Swan is still more than $ 100,000 in debt; his only consolation is that some of his famous predecessors - notably Sir Ernest Shackleton - died penniless.