Read the following passage and answer the questions set on it:
Gregor Johann Mendel was born in 1822. He was an Austrian monk. In the year 1856, he became famous for his work in a series of breeding experiments to study plant heredity. He conducted these experiments on the garden pea plant. The biological name of this plant is Pisum Sativum. This study formed the basis of scientific investigations on inheritance. Not much was known about genetics till then. Mendel was the first to work on the basic laws that govern the inheritance of genes. Earlier, it was believed that if a tall person married a short person, the **** produced would have intermediate height. But Mendel proved it wrong. He showed that individual characteristics are passed on to the next generation and would never blend.
For years, he bred and studied the edible pea plant. He chose the pea plant for his experiments for many reasons; they were small and many could be grown in a limited area; the results of these crosses had been studied earlier; as they were easy to cultivate because of their rapid life cycles and as the flowers could selfpollinate themselves or even be cross-pollinated under controlled conditions.
Out of the many features that a pea plant possessed Mendel’* breeding experiments centered on the inheritance of a few contrasting features. He conducted his experiments using good scientific method. He controlled his experimental conditions carefully. He ensured that plants were pollinated only by the pollen he transferred. He performed his experiments in three sequential stages; first, selection of pure line parents, secondly, hybridization and thirdly, self-pollination of hybrids.
What made Mendel famous?
When did Mendel become famous?
………………….. is the biological name of the pea plant. (Fill in the blanks)
Who was the first one to work on inheritance of genes?
According to an earlier belief, a tall person married to a short person would give birth to **** who
(a) are tall
(b) are short
(c) have an intermediate height.
Mention one of the reasons why the pea plants were easy to cultivate.
What were Mendel’* breeding experiments centered on?
‘He performed his experiments in sequential stages’. The second stage was
(a) Hybridization
(b) Self-pollination of hybrids
(c) Selection of pure plants.
- Fill in the blank with the right suffix to the word ‘experiment’ to form its adjective,
(al, ion, ed)
- Add a prefix to get the antonym of ‘cultivated’ ………………… (an, unj in).
