Direction: In the following questions, you have brief passages with 5/10 questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
We all know that Eskimos have 50 different words for ‘snow’. Or is it 500 ? Anyway, an awful lot. It is one of those interesting little facts that says something about the amazing ingenuity of humans. Whereas we see snow, the Eskimos perceive an endlessly varying realm of white textures and possibilities. Except that is not true. Talk to the average Eskimo and you’ll find he has about the same number of words for snow as we do. I discovered this when I took a sledge-dog team through the Russian Arctic and asked the locals. And it gets worse: the Eskimo-Inuit do not live in igloos. They do not even rub their noses together! Hearing this I began wondering what other myths surround the world’s far-flung places. Shelters made out of snow are indeed constructed and fashioned from snowy bricks, just as we like to imagine. Except the Eskimo-Inuit rarely lived in them for long periods and disappointingly, the elders that I met had never heard of them. In truth, these are coastal people who traditionally foraged for driftwood, whalebones, stones and turf to construct their camps, saving snow-houses for hunting excursions or migrations. Chameleons also attract numerous myths. While many of them change colour, this is often less to do with camouflage and more to do with their mood and temperature. A chameleon might, if too cold, turn a darker shade to absorb more heat. Or it might turn a lighter colour to reflect the sun and so cool down. Moreover, chameleons often change colour as a signalling device -some such as the panther chameleon, transform into a vivid orange to scare off predators, while others flash bright colours to attract a mate. The brighter the colour a mate is able to display, the more dominant. Thus the act of standing out can be more important than that of blending in.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
(1) ingenuity (N.) : the ability to invent things/solve problems in clever, new ways
(2) perceive (V.) : see
(3) realm (N.) : an area
(4) foraged (V.) : to search for something
(5)driftwood (N.) : wood that the sea carries up onto land, or that floats on the water
(6) turf (N.) : short grass and the surface layer of soil that is held together by its roots
(7) camouflage (N.) : the way in which an animal’s colour/shape matches its surroundings and makes it difficult to see
(8) predators (N.) : an animal that kills and eats other animals
(9) stand out (Phr.V.) : to be easily seen
(10) blend in (Phr. V.) : to match well with something