UPSC CDS 2 2020 English Paper

Direction: How wonderful is the living world! The wide range of the living types is amazing. The extraordinary habitats in which we find living organisms, be it cold mountains, deciduous forests, oceans, fresh water lakes, deserts or hot springs, leave us speechless. The beauty of a galloping horse, or a migrating bird, the valley of flowers or the attacking shark evokes awe and a deep sense of wonder. The ecological conflict and cooperation among members of a population and among populations of a community or even a molecular traffic inside a cell make us deeply reflect on- what indeed is life ? This question has two implicit questions within it. The first is a technical one and seeks answer td living is as opposed to the non-living, and the second is the philosophical one, and seeks answer to what the purpose of life is.
What is living? When we try to define "living, we conventionally look for distinctive characteristics exhibited by living organisms. Growth, reproduction, ability to sense environment and mount a suitable response come to our mind immediately as unique features of living organisms. One can add a few more features like metabolism, ability to self-replicate, self-organize, interact and emergence to this list.