Direction (Qs.1 to 10): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Let imagination give us two travelers. Put 25 centuries between them. One traveler enters New York, 1970; halfway around the world, the other makes his way into Babylon, 600 B.C. Over 80 generations of mankind separate the two travellers, yet in our imaginary picture they share common reactions to their respective cities: awe and fascination directed to the structures that man has raised from the ground to compete with the clouds. Skyscrapers are indeed a mark of the 20th century, but today’s towering buildings have worthy forebears in the ancient Middle East. Then as now, architects aspired to lead the eye of the beholder upward. The traveler to Babylon, for example, would gaze upon the High Place, the ziggurat known to history as the Tower of Babel. Perhaps a passer-by would tell the visitor of King Nebuchadnezzar’s inscription high in the Tower: “I prepared to place the summit in position so that it might compete with Heaven.
To Babylonians and other peoples of the Fertile Crescent, the ziggurats were material links between the earth and the heavens – between the known and the unknown. At least one ziggurat serving as the sanctuary of the local god, was built in each city. It stood apart from the temple, much as the campanile stands apart from Italian churches or minarets from mosques.
At the base was a rectangular hill of sun-baked brick. A spiral –shaped tower lifted itself from the base, with each story a different color. Ordinary citizens did not enter the sanctuary, but priests ascended on an outside ramp formed by the spiral. A top the tower the priests made celestial observations and with their astrology, counseled the loverlorn and recommended the best days for doing business. The towers also served as meteorological stations from which weather predictions were issued.
Curiously enough, the Babylonians persisted in building with clay when they were well aware that fired bricks were much more durable. Thus it was necessary for monarchs repeatedly to repair the structure. When Nebuchadnezzar undertook the Tower of Babel’s most famous face lifting, mentioned in the Bible, the structure was almost a thousand years old and already undergone previous refurbishing. Completed, the Tower stood 297 feet high, just three feet short of the Statue of Liberty.
The Tower of Babel was, however a relative latecomer to the ranks of ancient skyscrapers. Let us go back yet another 2400 years to about 3000 B.C.- to the age when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in Egypt. The Egyptians too, were stargazers, and with astrological calculations that were phenomenally accurate, the Pharaoh caused the pyramid to rise with its sides facing exactly North, South, East and West.
Question No : 1
The purpose of the passage seems to give an account of …
(1) The comparison between some ancient and some recent high rise buildings
(2) How the monarchs of the yester years were tempted by high rise buildings
(3) The height of the statue of liberty and certain other buildings
(4) Labour involved in building high rise structures
(5) None of theseQuestion No : 2
Which of the following is/are the ancient forebears of the modern day skyscrapers?
I. The Tower of Babel
II. The Great Pyramid of Giza
III. The statue of liberty
(1) All the three
(2) None
(3) Only I and III
(4) Only II and III
(5) Only I and II
Question No : 3
Which quality of the ancient Egyptians is highlighted by the author in the passage?
(1) Their perseverance of constructing buildings
(2) Their insistence on building structures made of clay
(3) Their awareness of the strengths of different construction materials
(4) Their high degree of accuracy in astrological calculations
(5) None of theseQuestion No : 4
Which of the following surprises the author?
(1) Babylonians knowledge of strength of fire bricks
(2) Babylonians knowledge of weakness of clay structures
(3) Despite knowing weakness of clay, Babylonians built structures of clay
(4) Monarch’s patience in repairing the clay structures
(5) None of theseQuestion No : 5
Which among the following is, according to the passage, the most ancient construction?
(1) The statue of liberty
(2) The Tower of Babel
(3) The Great Pyramid of Gizeh
(4) The Fertile Crescent
(5) Nebuchadnezzar’s palace
Question No : 6
What use did the priests make of the place atop the tower?
(A) For observation of the outer space
(B) For suggesting favourable time to do certain things
(C) For recommending entry of ordinary citizens to sanctuary
(1) All the three
(2) (A) and (B) only
(3) (B) and (C) only
(4) (A) and (C) only
(5) None of these
Question No : 7
Which of the following is false in the context of the passage?
(1) Skyscrapers appeared for the first time only in 20th century
(2) Ancient Middle East had a number of high rise buildings
(3) The Tower of Babel is a high rise building
(4) High rise manager do not consider it as a link between the Earth and the Heaven
(5) None of theseQuestion No : 8
In what way were the towers used during ancient time?
(A) As a sanctuary for ordinary citizens
(B) For the priests to make celestial observations
(C) For weather predictions
(1) (A) and (B) only
(2) (A) and (C) only
(3) All the three
(4) (B) and (C) only
(5) None of these
Question No : 9
What similarity do the two travelers observe as mentioned in the passage?
(1) The clouds covering the land
(2) Surprise and admiration of the construction
(3) The generation gap between them all over 25 centuries
(4) Comparison between New York and Babylon
(5) None of theseQuestion No : 10
Summit
(1) Closeness
(2) Committee
(3) Street
(4) Playground
(5) Peak