Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 1...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 17 to 24.

        As plant-based analogues proliferate, a bolder proposition vies for the name “meat”: tissues cultured from animal cells. Advocates tout “cleanliness,” detractors call it synthetic; either way, it is produced without slaughter, in steel tanks dosed with growth cocktails. For millennia meat was assumed to come from animals; now laboratories rehearse that role, knitting fibers to imitate chew and savor. It unsettles definitions of food itself, fusing biotechnology with branding in ways many critics deem nutritionally dubious.

        From pipe dream to shelf trial, the timeline has tightened. A prototype burger was tasted in 2013; by 2020 Singapore permitted limited sales of cell-based chicken. Today about eighty startups court billions, while the U.S. FDA has deemed selected products safe. However, despite endorsements and capital, making cheap cutlets for the masses remains technically fraught and operationally costly. Although unit costs have fallen to reported dollars-per-hundred-grams, industrial bioreactors, sterility, and feedstock logistics still obstruct truly affordable mass manufacture.

        Climate campaigns recast livestock as planetary saboteurs, and media acolytes amplify calls for a ninety-percent cut in meat consumption. Yet ruminant methane, the Clear Center notes, belongs to a short-lived biogenic cycle that returns to carbon dioxide in roughly twelve years. A 2019 analysis suggests cultivated meat could emit long-lived CO₂ that accumulates. Meanwhile, corporate zealots for “lab meat” – including conglomerates already profiting from industrial protein – frame disruption as salvation, even as finance, not ecology, often choreographs the narrative.

        Nutritionists warn the fare is ultraprocessed: cells fed on bespoke media, then textured with additives. Reports cite fetal bovine serum as a growth catalyst, along with antimicrobials, hormones, and other inputs whose residues may persist. Large vats risk contamination – bacteria, fungi, or mycoplasma can compromise batches. One pharma firm, Merck, has invested millions in Mosa Meat and may share culture-medium know-how, blurring cuisine and clinic. To skeptics, the enterprise feels experimental, not comestible, with opaque safety data and diffuse accountability.

(Adapted from “Lab-Grown Meat: Just Another Junk Food?” by Jorg Mardian, April 25, 2023)

Question 17. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 4 as a potential risk or concern?

A. Contamination by bacteria, fungi, or mycoplasma within production vats

B. Residues from hormones, antimicrobials, or growth inputs persisting in products

C. Use of fetal bovine serum in growth media for cultured cells

D. Increased pasture biodiversity leading to unpredictable flavor variations

Question 18. The word acolytes in paragraph 3 can be best replaced by ______?

A. bureaucrats        B. adherents                        C. detractors                        D. onlookers

Question 19. The word zealots in paragraph 3 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.

A. devotees                B. partisans                        C. moderates                        D. enthusiasts

Question 20. The word it in paragraph 1 refers to ______.

A. lab-grown meat cultured from animal cells

B. traditional beef cattle raised on pasture

C. plant-based protein extracted from legumes

D. industrial bioreactors used in vaccine production

Question 21. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 2?

A. Although funding and approvals have accelerated development, achieving affordable mass production still encounters significant technical obstacles.

B. Despite substantial investment and regulatory support, delivering inexpensive products at scale continues to pose formidable challenges.

C. While capital and endorsements proliferate, producing mass-market meat affordably remains both technically demanding and economically prohibitive.

D. In spite of backing and cash, scaling to low-cost, mass-market portions remains difficult, complex, and expensive.

Question 22. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 2?

A. Singapore banned sales of any cell-based meat, citing unresolved safety issues and inadequate manufacturing capacity.

B. A 2013 tasting and a 2020 Singapore launch show progress, yet sterility and bioreactor demands still constrain scaling.

C. Costs have stagnated above four thousand per one hundred grams, discouraging investment from regulators and startups alike.

D. FDA has withheld any safety opinions, awaiting decades of trials before considering cultured products for review.

Question 23. Which paragraph mentions that livestock methane is part of a short carbon cycle returning to CO₂ in about twelve years?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4

Question 24. Which paragraph mentions pharmaceutical investment in a cultured-meat startup (Mosa Meat)?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4