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The first working steam­ powered vehicle was designed and most likely built by Ferdinand Verbies, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65 cm long scale­ model toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger. It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built. Nicolas- Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full­ scale, self ­propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769; he also created a steam­ powered tricycle. He constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. His inventions were however handicapped by problems of water supply and maintaining steam pressure. In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam ­powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods. Sentiment against steam ­powered road vehicles led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865. In 1807 Nicephore Niepce and his brother Claude probably created the world's first internal combustion engine which they called Pyreolophore.

The first full­scale, working steam ­powered tricycle was built by:

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The Alaska pipeline starts at the frozen edge of the Arctic Ocean. It stretches southward across the largest and northernmost state in the United States, ending at a remote ice-free seaport village nearly 800 miles from where it begins. It is massive in size and extremely complicated to operate. The steel pipe crosses windswept plains and endless miles of delicate tundra that tops the frozen ground. It weaves through crooked canyons, climbs sheer mountains, plunges over rocky crags, makes its way through thick forests, and passes over or under hundreds of rivers and streams. The pipe is 4 feet in diameter, and up to 2 million barrels (or 84 million gallons) of crude oil can be pumped through it daily. Resting on H-shaped steel racks called "bents", long sections of the pipeline follow a zigzag course high above the frozen earth. Other long sections drop out of sight beneath spongy or rocky ground and return to the surface later on. The pattern of the pipeline's up-and-down route is determined by the often harsh demands of the arctic and subarctic climate, the tortuous lay of the land, and the varied compositions of soil, rock, or permafrost (permanently frozen ground). A little more than half of the pipeline is elevated above the ground. The remainder is buried anywhere from 3 to 12 feet, depending largely upon the type of terrain and the properties of the soil. One of the largest in the world, the pipeline cost approximately $8 billion and is by far the biggest and most expensive construction project ever undertaken by private industry. In fact, no single business could raise that much money, so 8 major oil companies formed a consortium in order to share the costs. Each company controlled oil rights to particular shares of land in the oil fields and paid into the pipeline-construction fund according to the size of its holdings. Today, despite enormous problems of climate, supply shortage, equipment breakdowns, labour disagreements, treacherous terrain, a certain amount of mismanagement, and even theft, the Alaska pipeline has been completed and is operating.

Which of the following were not problems faced while constructing the pipeline?

In the following question, a sentence has been given in Direct/Indirect speech. Out of the four alternatives suggested, select the one, which best express the same sentence in Indirect/Direct speech.

Has anyone from our team answered your question?

In the following question, out of the given four alternatives, select the one which best expresses the meaning of the given word.

Lackadaisical

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of thefour alternatives.

One who has witnessed a debate ______ argument between two men _____________ strong intellectually, one of whom is a trained logician and the other lacking this advantage, will never forget the impression produced _________ him by the unequal struggle. The conflict is like that of a ____________ wrestler, untrained in the little tricks and turns of the science, in the various principles of applying force in a certain way at a certain time, at a certain place, with a __________ and experienced wrestler.

certain place, with a __________ and experienced wrestler

In the following question, the sentence given with blank to be filled in with an appropriate word. Select the correct alternative out of the four and indicate it by selecting the appropriate option.

During a depression even the affluent middle class struggles to _______ out a living.

 In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which will improve the bracketed part of the sentence. In case no improvement is needed, select "no improvement".

That game (were interrupted) by the rains, it resumed an hour after, when the rains stopped.

Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the four alternatives.

All art is, in an important sense, an escape. There is a sense in which the capacity to escape from his present experience, to use his accumulated consciousness of the past to project a vision of the future, is man's greatest and distinguishing ability. We must not forget the force of Aristotle's argument that poetry is valuable precisely because it shows men not simply as they are, but as they ought to be or (in terms more sympathetic to us today) as they are capable of becoming.

The author believes that man's greatest and distinguishing ability is