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Characteristics of Living Organisms
Concepts tested here
- Defining features of life
All Questions
2007 AIPMT-PRE 1 question
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The living organisms can be unexceptionally distinguished from the non-living things on the basis of their ability forSeveral features distinguish living beings from non-living things, such as growth, reproduction, metabolism and response to stimuli.
Growth and movement cannot be used as distinguishing features without exception: non-living things such as crystals and sand dunes also grow by the addition of material from outside, and many non-living objects move.
Responsiveness to touch is shown only by some organisms and is not a general criterion.
According to the answer key of this paper, reproduction, the ability to produce young ones of their own kind, is taken as the property found only in living organisms and never in non-living objects.
Note: present NCERT textbooks point out that some organisms such as mules and sterile worker bees do not reproduce, and treat metabolism, cellular organisation and consciousness as the defining features; none of these is among the options.
So the answer is reproduction.