Symbiosis National Aptitude Test SNAP 2017 Paper

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DIRECTIONS (Qs. 101-106):
Read the passage given below and answer the following questions based on it.
About 200-300 million years ago, it is believed that all the land on earth was joined together as one big mass of land. This one single continent was called the Pangea (which means "all lands" in Greek) supercontinent. From Pangea, two smaller land masses began to split off, and these were Laurasia and Gondwana. Today's continents that were a part of Gondwana include Australia, Antarctica, South America, Africa, and the regions of the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent which have now moved entirely into the Northern Hemisphere.
The breakup of Gondwana occurred in the early Jurassic period (about 184 million years ago) with massive eruptions of lava. The region of East Gondwana began to separate away. These were the land masses of Antarctica, Madagascar, India, and Australia, which separated from Africa. South America began to drift slowly west away from Africa as the South Atlantic Ocean formed, occurring about 130 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous.
There are many techniques that scientists use to determine that these lands were once joined. One way is through identifying the same or similar plants/land animals that exist in different continents. These give us some proof that the continents were joined. Another method is to study rocks which when formed at any given time, freeze at the local magnetic field. The earth has a magnetic field with the North and South poles, and when rocks form as the continents drift apart, the distances from the magnetic poles can provide information.
Australia separated from Gondwana 100 million years ago, and initially remained warm and humid with rainforest vegetation. Inland Australia had systems of rivers and lakes with abundant wildlife. Fossil birds, platypus, frogs and snakes are present from this period.
Australia became an independent nation on 1 January 1901 when the British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia was established as a constitutional monarchy. 'Constitutional' because the Commonwealth of Australia was established with a written constitution, and 'monarchy1 because Australia's head of state was Queen Victoria. The Australian Constitution was written by representatives of the six colonies during a series of conventions in the 1890s, and accepted by a referendum in each colony.
Under the Constitution, the reigning British monarch is also the Australian monarch, and therefore Australia's head of state. The Constitution grants the monarch certain governing powers that place them above all other levels of the government. Because of the large distance between Australia and Britain, the monarch is permitted to appoint a Governor-General who can exercise the monarch's powers in their absence. The Constitution created a federal system of government where power was divided between the federal government and the governments of the six colonies, which were renamed 'states' by the Constitution.
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