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Entrance Exam Name : National Entrance Screening Test NEST 2015

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NISER NEST Previous Question papers

2007 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-07.pdf
2008 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-08.pdf
2009 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-09.pdf

Related : NISER NEST 2016 National Entrance Screening Test : www.entrance.net.in/7916.html

2010 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-10.pdf
2011 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-11.pdf
2012 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-12-A.pdf
2013 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST-13-A.pdf
2014 https://www.entrance.net.in/uploads/131-NEST2014_A.pdf

NATIONAL ENTRANCE SCREENING TEST (NEST – 2014)
SET A
Total Marks: 200
Time: 3 hours :

General Instructions

1. This question booklet contains five sections. Each section carries 50 marks.
2. Section 1 is the General section. Sections 2 to 5 are for the subjects Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics, respectively. Attempt the General section and any three of the four subject sections.
3. Read the instructions given at the beginning of each section carefully.
4. Calculators, cell phones, log tables, etc. are NOT permitted in the examination hall.
5. Answers to the questions are to be marked on the OMR sheet provided.
6. Please make sure that the question booklet code (A or B or C or D) matches with the OMR sheet code (A or B or C or D). In case of discrepancy, please inform the invigilator immediately.
7. Return the OMR sheet to the invigilator at the end of the examination.

Instructions for OMR Sheet

1. Read and follow the instructions given on the OMR sheet.
2. As far as possible, fill in the answers only after you are sure that you do not need to change them. In case you do have to change the answer after filling, erase the mark completely so that no black spot is left inside the bubble.
3. Check that you are filling the correct answers for the correct section on the OMR sheet.
4. Your roll number (as given in the admit card) MUST BE ENTERED CORRECTLY. If entered incorrectly or not entered at all, the OMR sheet will be taken to be invalid and will not be graded.

Section 1 GENERAL

Marks for Section 1: 50
This section contains 18 questions.
For each question, only one of the four options is the correct answer. For questions 1.1 to 1.14, a correct answer will earn 3 marks. For questions 1.15 to 1.18, a correct answer will earn 2 marks. For this GENERAL section, a wrong answer or an unattempted question will earn 0 marks.

Read the following passage carefully and answer questions 1.1 to 1.3.
Darwin had given the study of natural animal behaviour a scientific turn. He had seen the central idea of ethology, that is animal behavioural routines are as important an aspect of the animal’s adaptation to its environment as its anatomical structure or its physiological processes. Routines are elaborate, integrated chains of behaviour directed to the achievement of certain ends adaptive to the breeding success of a species. As an example, consider the behavioural routine of gaping (wide opening of mouth) for food amongst young birds. The capacities to recognise the right stimulus are not always inherited. The young of many species of birds do not recognize conspecifics (birds of their own kind), if they have not been introduced to them at a definite period of their development.

The young of Godwits hatch at an advanced stage of development and soon after hatching can recognize the adult bird. The young birds immediately display appropriate behaviour in the presence of adults, say gaping for food. They flee from human beings without any special prompting or learning. For these birds and similar species, the capacity to recognize the object of a behavioural routine, as well as the capacity to perform the routine, must be innate or inherited.

On the other hand, the Greylag Geese do not have a prolonged period of hatching. They vividly display another pattern of development. When young geese are reared wholly by human beings it is towards humans that the young geese direct their behavioural routines. They seem to acquire as a prime object of interest whatever creature happens to be present at the right moment in their development. The first recorded observation of this phenomenon (now called ‘imprinting’) is due to Oskar Heinroth.

1.1 The word ‘conspecifics’ refers to
(A) Birds with a specific period of development.
(B) Birds displaying appropriate behaviour in the presence of adults.
(C) Birds of the same species.
(D) Bird species not needing any special prompting or learning.

1.2 The pattern of development in Greylag Geese demonstrates that
(A) The hatching at an advanced stage is critical for imprinting.
(B) The capacity to recognise an adult of its own species is necessarily inherited.
(C) Rearing by humans does not alter the object of the behavioural routine.
(D) Geese reared by humans cannot be taught to respond to its own species.

1.3 Which of the following was an insight of Darwin?
(A) Behavioural animal routines need to be regarded as the animal’s environmental adaptation.
(B) Behavioural animal routines are more significant than the anatomical structure in the animal’s environmental adaptation.
(C) Behavioural animal routines are not related to environmental adaptation.
(D) Behavioural animal routines are always instinctive in their origin.

1.5 In a particular cipher, each character of the message is conveyed to the other party as a string of numbers indicating a page number of a previously agreed book, a line number on that page and the position of a character in that line. Choose the correct statement.
(A) The book in this example acts as a public key.
(B) The string of numbers in this example is a symmetric key.
(C) The text from the book is plaintext.
(D) This is an example of a symmetric key stream cipher.

1.7 Given the statement “All the students in a class passed the examination” is false, consider the following four statements :
I. All the students in the class failed the examination.
II. There are some students in the class who failed the examination.
III. No student in the class passed the examination.
IV. Not all the students in the class passed the examination.
Which of the above statements are always true?
(A) I and III only. (B) I and II only.
(C) II and IV only. (D) III and IV only.

1.8 Contour maps are used in Geography to show the heights at various locations. In a contour map, each line (contour) denotes a specific height. The map on the right is a contour map of a mountain. Four climbers (P, Q, R and S) reach four different points at the foot of the mountain. Which of these four is facing the steepest side of the mountain?
(A) P (B) Q (C) R (D) S

1.10 The practice of alternating pulses (like moong, peas, gram) with cereals (like rice, wheat) by farmers is an example of crop rotation. The primary reason for this practice is to
(A) Replenish the soil microbes.
(B) Avoid competition among pollinating agents.
(C) Protect themselves against price fluctuation of cereals.
(D) Maintain the water table in the field.

1.11 Lactobacillus sp. and Streptococcus sp. are two bacterial species responsible for curdling of milk. One quantum of each of these species was introduced to a very large container of milk. One quantum of either species can curdle 10 ml of milk in 26 minutes, which is also the doubling time for Streptococcus sp. The doubling time for Lactobacillus sp., however, is 78 minutes. What will be ratio of the total milk curdled by Streptococcus sp. to Lactobacillus sp. at the end of 156 minutes?
(A) 3 (B) 3.5 (C) 5.25 (D) 7

1.13 A square with vertices at O(0, 0), A(1, 0), B(1, 1) and C(0, 1) is transformed into another quadrilateral with vertices at O(0, 0), A'(2, 0), B'(3, 2) and C'(1, 2). The transformations involved in the process are
(A) Magnification and rotation. (B) Translation and shear.
(C) Translation and rotation. (D) Magnification and shear.

1.14 Which of the following sentences represents a “hypothesis”?
(A) The bicycle tyre has a puncture.
(B) Bicycle tyres must be inflated for riding the bicycle.
(C) When I filled air in the bicycle tyre, the tyre did not inflate.
(D) If a bicycle tyre is flat, then it must have a leak in it.

For rest of the questions in this section, each correct answer will earn 2 marks.
1.15 Recently, Prof. C. N. R. Rao was awarded the “Bharat Ratna”. His primary research work is in the field of
(A) Material Science. (B) Statistics.
(C) Space Science. (D) Particle Physics.

1.16 Toothpastes do not contain
(A) Calcium carbonate. (B) Methanol.
(C) Titanium dioxide. (D) Sorbitol.

1.17 Which of the following substances has purely planar (2-dimensional) structure?
(A) Diamond (B) Graphite (C) Graphene (D) Fullerene

1.18 The rocky Deccan plateau is a result of volcanic activity in the past. Which of the following is the resulting rock composition?
(A) Marble (B) Gypsum (C) Granite (D) Lignite

Section 2 BIOLOGY

Marks for Section 2: 50
This section contains 14 questions.
For questions 2.1 to 2.10, only one of the 4 options is correct. A correct answer will earn 3 marks, a wrong answer will earn (-1) mark, and an unattempted question will earn 0 marks.

2.1 The antigen binding site of the antibody molecule is composed of
(A) Light chains only. (B) Heavy chains only.
(C) The Fc fragment. (D) Both light and heavy chains.

2.2 Induced pluripotent stem cells are formed by
(A) Isolating and growing cells from the early embryo.
(B) Fusing enucleated ovum with adult somatic cells.
(C) Inserting a few relevant genes into adult somatic cells.
(D) Fusing egg and sperm.

2.3 Evolutionary relationships between species, such as humans and the apes, can be studied by using immunological techniques to compare proteins. A rabbit when injected with human serum protein albumin, forms antibodies against it. These antibodies are extracted and purified. A fixed amount of antibody is reacted with a fixed amount of albumin from some of the ape species -gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee and gibbon, to obtain respective precipitates. The amounts of precipitates obtained are given below.
Species Gorilla Orangutan Gibbon Chimpanzee
Amount of precipitate (units/ml) 82 70 56 96
Based on the given data, the evolutionary closeness of the above apes to humans is:
(A) Orangutan > Gorilla (B) Gibbon > Orangutan
(C) Chimpanzee > Gorilla (D) Gibbon > Chimpanzee

2.4 Which of the following properties of cellular transport across cell membranes would be applicable for transport of molecules which have a significant hydrophilic moiety but do not undergo active transport?
(A) Involvement of special membrane proteins
(B) Dependence on osmotic pressure
(C) Transport against a concentration gradient
(D) Utilization of ATP

2.5 Which of the following tissues of plant origin have the potential to introduce and transfer genetic variability to their progeny?
(A) “Eyes” of potato tubers (B) Seeds of mustard
(C) Rhizome of ginger (D) Leaf buds of Bryophyllum

2.6 During evolution of plants from growth in aquatic habitats to growth on land, which of the following processes would have been important to the plant?
I. Development of mechanisms for vertical growth
II. Development of water conservation strategies
III. Protection of reproductive cells from desiccation
IV. Absorption of synthesized food from the soil
(A) I and II only (B) II and IV only
(C) II and III only (D) I and IV only

2.7 If a female, who is a carrier of the haemophilia gene, has a child with a male who does not have haemophilia, which of the following predictions would be correct?
(A) All the sons and none of the daughters will have haemophilia.
(B) All daughters and none of the sons will have haemophilia.
(C) 50% of the sons and 50% of the daughters will have haemophilia.
(D) 50% of the sons and none of the daughters will have haemophilia.

2.8 Peripheral neurons propagate action potentials in response to sensory stimuli. These neurons have different diameters and have different levels of myelination. The diameters and myelination of the different neurons are as follows:
Aa 13-20 µm highly myelinated
Aß 6-12 µm moderately myelinated
Ad 1-5 µm minimally myelinated
C 0.2-1.5 µm non-myelinated
Which statement regarding the speed of the action potentials propagated by the neurons is correct?
(A) Aa neurons conduct fastest while C neurons do not propagate any response.
(B) Ad neurons conduct faster than C neurons but slower than Aß neurons.
(C) C neurons conduct fastest while Aa neurons do not propagate any response.
(D) Ad neurons conduct faster than Aß neurons but slower than C neurons.

2.9 In plant growth and development, which of the following sequence of events is correct?
(A) sporophyte –> mitosis –> gametes –> meiosis
(B) gametes –> meiosis –> gametophyte –> sporophyte
(C) gametophyte –> meiosis –> zygote –> gametes
(D) zygote –> sporophyte –> meiosis –> gametes

2.10 A person has received enough exposure of X-rays in the whole body to destroy only dividing cells. Which one of the following functions would survive best?
(A) Cardiac contraction (B) Red blood corpuscle production
(C) Hair growth (D) Intestinal absorption of fat