Vocabulary Test...

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Years ago, people woke up to find sparrows chirping in their backyard. A noisy lot, they took grains right from your hand if you had befriended them. They got over their fear easily and demanded food or water with their loud chirping if you had forgotten to give them their regular share of food. Tiny pink beaks opened to morsels of food or worms sometimes regurgitated by the parent birds. We had a splendid time watching the bird family bond and as children sat gazing at them as they picked up grain or splashed about us in muddy water. Many people have written poems and lyrics on sparrows, their noisy chirps, their friendly nature, and their spotty feathers. Sparrows were a menace on the fields. There were guards with slings and stones to chase them away as they ate grain from standing crops. Now people are trying to woo them back to nature.

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]Parth S. Sutaria, 44 Panvel, Mumbai
The day that was: July 26, 2005
Awarded for: Drawing a flood-trapped family to safety
The rain refused to let up. The ground-floor of the building, inside the ONGC colony at Panvel, was already flooded with water and the level was rising by the minute. At 7 P.M., the power went off, plunging the entire area into darkness. By that time, the water had risen from ground level to a height of five feet. Parth and his mother were busy packing, afraid that they might have to vacate their first floor flat too. His father, a finance manager with ONGC, was stuck on this way home. Suddenly they heard screams and banging. Parth rushed downstairs and waded through the water - neck-deep by this time - towards the ground-floor flat. Their door, he found out, was stuck and with the water-level rising alarmingly, the trapped family faced an ominous future. Parth found a piece of log from a neighbour and began to hammer on the door. "People from the entire building had come down, but just stood paralyzed," he says. After a while, the mesh gave way but the main door still wouldn't open. By this time the water came almost up to his mouth. "I don't remember anything," he says, "just that door and the children crying inside, and that I had to get them out." After many more heaves, the top half splintered and fell through. The family was pulled out to safety. Not surprisingly, it is the army and its spirit of service that he admires the most.

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]The next day, to my surprise, his photograph was published again, this time with an interview. With growing interest, I learned that Hanumanthappa was a coolie's son and the oldest of five children. They belonged to a tribal group. He was unable to study further, he said in the interview because he lived in a village and his father, the sole breadwinner, earned only Rs. 40 a day. I felt sorry for this bright boy. Most of us send our children to tuitions and to coaching classes, we buy them reference books and guides and provide the best possible facilities for them without considering the cost. But it was different for Hanumanthappa. He had excelled in spite of being denied some of the basic necessities of life.