Direction: In the following questions, you have two passages with 5 questions in each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Passage
India is chiefly an agricultural land. The cultivation of crops depends on a proper supply of water throughout the year. Since olden times, large parts of our country have suffered from occasional periods of too much rain and those of drought. People have known that if surplus flood water could be stored away for use during the dry season, these problems will be solved. Unfortunately, they had neither
the knowledge nor the means to do much in this direction. Whatever little they knew, they tried to put into practice. They dug canals to drain water from perennial rivers. This was heavy and expensive work and practicable over only a small area. Large tanks were excavated and small dams built to hold back floods. But it was not possible to do anything on a countrywide scale.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
(1) drought (N.) : a long period of time when there is little/no rain
(2) perennial (Adj.) : happening again and again
(3) excavated (V.) : to dig