Reading Comprehension Test 13

[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]WHAT'S THE LIFE OF A MAN 
As I was walking one morning with ease 
Viewing the leaves that had fallen from the trees, 
All in full motion appearing to be 
Those that had withered, they fell from the tree. 

If you had seen the leaves just a few days ago 
How beautiful and bright they did all seem to grow, 
A frost came upon them and withered them all 
A storm came upon them and down they did fall. 

What's the life of a man any more than a leaf 
A man has his seasons so why should he grieve. 
For although through this life we appear fine and grey 
Like a leaf we must wither and soon fade away.

[passage-header][/passage-header]Tyagaraja was born at Tiruvarur in Tanjavur district of Tamil Nadu on May 4, 1767. He was the third child of his parents, Ramabrahmam and Sitamma. They spoke Telugu at home. Tyagaraja had an elder brother named Panchapakesan or Jalpesan. 
There was music in Tyagaraja's blood. His mother was a good singer. He had his first lessons in music from her. His father was a good scholar in Telugu and Sanskrit. He learnt both the languages from him. When he was seven years old, the family moved to a village called Thiruvaiyaru. 
Tyagaraja was interested in music from his childhood. Even as a young boy he used to compose songs and write them on the walls of his house. Noticing his son's interest in music, his father took him to Sonti Venkataramayya, a musician at the court of King Sarabhoji of Tanjavur. Tyagaraja became his disciple and learnt music from him. 
When he grew up, he spent most of his time composing songs and singing them in front of the idol of Lord Rama in his house. He was married at the age of eighteen. Once a week, he went along the streets singing songs in praise of God and maintained his family with what people gave him. He never cared for wealth. But his elder brother, Jalpesan, wanted him to earn money through his music.
One day, the Raja of Tanjavur invited Tyagaraja to sing in his court. He offered him a gift of fifty acres of land and a lot of gold coins. But Tyagaraja refused to sing in the king's court. Jalpesan was wild with anger. He insisted Tyagaraja to sing in the king's court. They can be rich and live a happy life. When Tyagaraja disagreed, he threw the idol of Lord Rama into the river Kaveri. 
Not finding his deity at home, Tyagaraja composed many songs in praise of Lord Rama and sang them with great feeling. After two months he had a dream: He saw the place where his idol of Lord Rama was lying. The next morning he went to the place, found the idol and brought it back home. In a joyful mood, he sang many songs in praise of his deity.

[passage-header]Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]Great and marvelous indeed are the achievements of Science. It has broken down the barriers of time and distance. Traveling has become short, safe and comfortable. It has made contact and communication with the world easier and quicker by inventing telephones, telegraphs and the wireless. Agriculture is no longer at the mercy of nature. Yields have been multiplied with the help of mechanized farming and chemical fertilizers. Science has brought a revolution in the sphere of trade, commerce, industry and entertainment. It has relieved human suffering by discovering the secrets of health and disease. 
We, thus, see that Science is a blessing, but it is not an unmixed blessing. No doubt, it has turned impossibility into possibility, imagination into reality. But the question is whether it has taught us how to walk on mother earth. It has brought forth the evils of industrialization. Machines have become the masters of man. Can we forget dirty slums, unequal distribution of wealth and large scale unemployment in the wake of industrialization? Tars have become more hideous than ever before, thanks to the invention of terrible engines of destruction by Science.

Read the following passage carefully.

1. Caged behind thick glass, the most famous dancer in the world can easily be missed in the National Museum, Delhi. The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro is that rare artefact that even school children are familiar with. Our school textbooks also communicate the wealth of our 5000 year heritage of art. You have to be alert to her existence there, amid terracotta animals to rediscover this bronze image. 
2. Most of us have seen her only in photographs or sketches, therefore the impact of actually holding her is magnified a million times over. One discovers that the dancing girl has no feet. She is small, a little over 10 cm tall - the length of a human palmbut she surprises us with the power of great artthe ability to communicate across centuries. 
3. A series of bangles-of shell or ivory or thin metal-clothe her left upper arm all the way down to her fingers. A necklace with three pendants bunched together and a few bangles above the elbow and wrist on the right hand display an almost modern art. 
4. She speaks of the undaunted, ever hopeful human spirit. She reminds us that it is important to visit museums in our country to experience the impact that a work of art leaves on our senses, to find among all the riches one particular vision of beauty that speaks to us alone.  

Read the following passage carefully.

1. Caged behind thick glass, the most famous dancer in the world can easily be missed in the National Museum, Delhi. The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro is that rare artefact that even school children are familiar with. Our school textbooks also communicate the wealth of our 5000 year heritage of art. You have to be alert to her existence there, amid terracotta animals to rediscover this bronze image. 
2. Most of us have seen her only in photographs or sketches, therefore the impact of actually holding her is magnified a million times over. One discovers that the dancing girl has no feet. She is small, a little over 10 cm tall - the length of a human palmbut she surprises us with the power of great artthe ability to communicate across centuries. 
3. A series of bangles-of shell or ivory or thin metal-clothe her left upper arm all the way down to her fingers. A necklace with three pendants bunched together and a few bangles above the elbow and wrist on the right hand display an almost modern art. 
4. She speaks of the undaunted, ever hopeful human spirit. She reminds us that it is important to visit museums in our country to experience the impact that a work of art leaves on our senses, to find among all the riches one particular vision of beauty that speaks to us alone.  

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]    Among the old Tedas, it was customary for certain tribesmen to dress in the skins of the beasts they had slain, and thus to give themselves a fearsome air of brutality, which was calculated to strike dread into the hearts of their foes. Of course, it's a fair guess that a cheetah or bison skin would make a warm, comfortable outer coat for a man whose life was in the most brutal of conditions atop ridges.
    Many legends tell of these cavemen-like soldiers, also known as Badangas, and folklore has it that they were physically transformed into the beasts whose skins they wore. The most common animals that the warriors were transformed into were the bull-tiger and leopard. Rumours suggest that the skins carried the power of the beasts and, when worn, turned the wearer into that animal at the height of its capabilities. The fact is that no one has ever set sight on a Badanga in the flesh.
    The Badanga was an object of sheer horror, as his life's object was to challenge quiet villagers to a duel. As the then law of the land stood in the Teda tribe, a man who declined to accept a challenge from a Badanga forfeited all his worldly possessions, even his wife, over to the hands of his challenger. Therefore, the Badanga had any man he challenged at his mercy. If the Badanga slews him, the farmer's possessions became his, and if the poor fellow declined to fight, he lost all legal right to his property anyway. A Badanga would invite himself to any feast and contribute to the hilarity of the entertainment by killing in gory fashion any merrymaker who displeased him. He might even single one out to murder for no other reason than to practice his combat skills.
    It is not difficult to imagine that popular superstition went along with the popular dread of these animal-skinned aggressors and that they were believed to be filled with the force, as they certainly were with the ferocity, of the beasts whose skins they wore.
    In the unlikely event of a villager slaying a Badanga warrior, he was revered as a divine savior and had a temple devoted to him. It wasn't easy. Fire merely singed, a scythe landed a mere scratch, and a venomous spear just put him to sleep - what it took was a club made of the betel tree stump to fell this fiery warrior. Of course, it comes as no surprise that no one has heard of one such village victory yet. 

[passage-header]Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]A recent report in news week says that in American Colleges students of Asian origin outperform not only the minority group students but the majority whites as well. Many of these students must be of Indian origin, and their achievement is something we can be proud of. It is unlikely that these talented youngsters will come back to India, and that is the familiar brain drain problem.
However, recent statements by the nation's policy makers indicate that the perception of this issue is changing. 'Brain bank' and not 'brain drain' is the more appropriate idea, they suggest, since the expertise of Indians abroad is only deposited in other places and not lost.
This may be so but this brain bank, like most other banks, is one that primarily serves customers in its neighborhood. The skills of the Asians now excelling in America's colleges will mainly help the U.S.A. No matter how significant, what non-resident Indians do for India and what their counterparts do for other Asian lands is only a by-product.
But it is also necessary to ask, or be reminded, why Indians study fruitfully when abroad. Newsweek records would have probably had a very different tale if they had studied in India. In America, they found elbow room, books, and other facilities not available and not likely to be available here. The need to prove themselves in their new country and the competition of an international standard they faced there must have cured mental & physical laziness. But other things helping them in America can be obtained here if we achieve a change in social attitudes, especially towards the youth.
We need to learn to value individuals & their unique qualities more than conformity and respectability. We need to learn the language of encouragement to add to our skill in flattery. We might also learn to be less liberal with blame & less tight-fisted with appreciation.

[passage-header]A Bus ride into History[/passage-header]    In 1955, an African-American woman was tired after a hard day at work as a seamstress. When a white man told her to give up her bus seat so he could sit down, she refused. The woman was arrested for what she did. Her name was Rosa Parks. Some people call her the 'Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.' 
   Rosa Parks grew up in Alabama at a time when African-Americans were not treated the same as white Americans. She was not able to attend the same schools as white children. Her school didn't even have any windows. It was a time when 'Jim Crow' laws separated the races. There were drinking fountains, restaurants. restrooms and even elevators labeled 'whites only'. When Rosa and her cousin went to a local store for a soda, the girls were told that the store wouldn't serve them. They were asked to leave!
    As an adult, Rosa usually walked miles to and from work. She avoided taking the local bus. She didn't like it that black people had to use a rear door and sit at the back of the bus. She also didn't like the fact that she was required to give up her seat to a white person when the bus was crowded. Rosa chose to walk up flights of stairs in buildings instead of riding an elevator marked 'blacks only'. She would go thirsty rather than drink from a 'black only' drinking fountain to quench her thirst. 
    Rosa was forty-two years old on 1 st December 1955. She was living in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa was very tired on that particular day. With aching feet, she decided to take the bus home and not walk as she usually did. The bus became crowded, and a white man ordered Rosa to give him her seat. Rosa refused. The bus driver stopped the bus. He found two police officers and asked them to remove her from the bus. She was arrested and fined 14 dollars. Rosa refused to pay the fine. Members of the African-American community organized a boycott of the bus company. They wanted to protest the treatment they received.
    The boycott lasted 381 days. It led to the Supreme Court of the United States becoming involved. The Supreme Court ruled that blacks could sit anywhere on a bus or train. African-Americans no longer had to give up their seats to white passengers. Rosa's bus ride that day certainly changed history. 

[passage-header]A Bus ride into History[/passage-header]    In 1955, an African-American woman was tired after a hard day at work as a seamstress. When a white man told her to give up her bus seat so he could sit down, she refused. The woman was arrested for what she did. Her name was Rosa Parks. Some people call her the 'Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.' 
   Rosa Parks grew up in Alabama at a time when African-Americans were not treated the same as white Americans. She was not able to attend the same schools as white children. Her school didn't even have any windows. It was a time when 'Jim Crow' laws separated the races. There were drinking fountains, restaurants. restrooms and even elevators labeled 'whites only'. When Rosa and her cousin went to a local store for a soda, the girls were told that the store wouldn't serve them. They were asked to leave!
    As an adult, Rosa usually walked miles to and from work. She avoided taking the local bus. She didn't like it that black people had to use a rear door and sit at the back of the bus. She also didn't like the fact that she was required to give up her seat to a white person when the bus was crowded. Rosa chose to walk up flights of stairs in buildings instead of riding an elevator marked 'blacks only'. She would go thirsty rather than drink from a 'black only' drinking fountain to quench her thirst. 
    Rosa was forty-two years old on 1 st December 1955. She was living in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa was very tired on that particular day. With aching feet, she decided to take the bus home and not walk as she usually did. The bus became crowded, and a white man ordered Rosa to give him her seat. Rosa refused. The bus driver stopped the bus. He found two police officers and asked them to remove her from the bus. She was arrested and fined 14 dollars. Rosa refused to pay the fine. Members of the African-American community organized a boycott of the bus company. They wanted to protest the treatment they received.
    The boycott lasted 381 days. It led to the Supreme Court of the United States becoming involved. The Supreme Court ruled that blacks could sit anywhere on a bus or train. African-Americans no longer had to give up their seats to white passengers. Rosa's bus ride that day certainly changed history.