Read the passage and answer the questions:
The metamorphosis of a butterfly epitomizes one of nature’s most intricate and captivating transformations. The life cycle initiates with the deposition of fragile eggs, often hidden on the underside of leaves, ensuring immediate access to nourishment upon hatching.
Once emerged, the larva — or caterpillar — enters a phase of relentless consumption, devouring foliage to fuel its rapid growth. During this stage, it undergoes multiple molts, shedding its rigid exoskeleton to accommodate its expanding form. This insatiable feeding period is essential for amassing the energy required for the subsequent, dramatic metamorphosis.
The transition into the pupal stage, encapsulated within a chrysalis, marks an extraordinary biological phenomenon. Inside, the caterpillar’s structures are enzymatically dismantled and reconstructed into entirely new forms — wings, antennae, and compound eyes emerge through a sophisticated process known as histogenesis.
Upon completing this hidden transformation, the adult butterfly struggles free, its crumpled wings needing to be inflated with hemolymph and dried before flight is possible. Once airborne, the butterfly’s existence centres on reproduction, perpetuating the species before its ephemeral life concludes.
Though often romanticized, the butterfly’s life cycle underscores a rigorous narrative of survival, adaptation, and evolutionary precision, offering profound insights into the fragile balance of ecosystems.
Which word from the passage is derived by adding a Greek-origin suffix meaning "formation" or "origin"?
- (a)Metamorphosis
- (b)Chrysalis
- (c)Hemolymph
- (d)Histogenesis
Answer
Why
Correct — D. -genesis comes from the Greek word genesis, origin or birth, and in English it marks the formation or production of something.
Histogenesis = histo- (tissue, from Greek histos, a web) + -genesis: the formation of tissues.
The passage uses it in that sense: "wings, antennae, and compound eyes emerge through a sophisticated process known as histogenesis" → option (d).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Metamorphosis — Metamorphosis is Greek meta- (change) + morphē (form, shape): a change of shape. Its "form" is a shape, not a formation, and the word describes change, not origin.
- (b)Chrysalis — Chrysalis comes from Greek khrysos, gold, after the golden colour of some pupae. It names the pupal case, not a process of formation.
- (c)Hemolymph — Hemolymph is hemo- (Greek haima, blood) + lymph (Latin lympha, water): the fluid that does the work of blood in insects. Hemo- is a prefix, and lymph is Latin.
Concept
Many science words are built from Greek parts, and knowing the common ones lets you read a word you have never seen.
-genesis means origin or formation: pathogenesis (how a disease arises), carcinogenesis (how cancer forms), histogenesis (how tissues form). The same root gives the endings -gen and -genic, as in oxygen and hallucinogenic.
Split each option into its parts and ask what each part means. Of the four, Histogenesis alone ends in a part meaning formation.
Dictionaries list -genesis as a combining form rather than a suffix, but it sits at the end of the word, and the stem's "suffix" points to it. All four options appear in the passage, so the item tests word parts, not recall of the text.
Key facts
- -genesis: origin, formation or production, from Greek genesis.
- histo- means tissue, as in histology, the study of tissues.
- Genesis, the first book of the Bible, takes its name from the same Greek word, meaning origin.
- hemo- (blood) is a prefix: hemoglobin, hemorrhage, hemolymph.
Study next
Common traps
- Picking Metamorphosis because morph means form and the stem says formation
- Treating hemo- as the Greek suffix, when it is a prefix at the front of Hemolymph
Here a word-formation question is set on the passage's own technical vocabulary: all four options appear in it.
The root behind -genesis also ends hallucinogenic, whose spelling is keyed at 16 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.5.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.