27. Reading Skills Comprehension: HIGH ADVENTURE

By | September 2, 2022

HIGH ADVENTURE

When I was twenty years old I had my first long trip. With an older friend, I visited the South Island of New Zealand. One of our plans was to spend two days at a famous tourist resort, “The Hermitage”, right in the heart of the giant peaks of the southern Alps. We had a magnificent drive through the mountains and arrived at the Hermitage in the early afternoon.

 It was a perfect day and the great peaks around seemed to tower over our heads. I looked on them with a growing feeling of excitement—the great rock walls, the hanging glaciers and the avalanche-strewn slopes. And then strangely, stirred by it all I felt restless for action and decided to go for a walk. I set off towards the Scaly Range, which I could see high up, behind the hotel. I soon realised it was much farther than I had judged, but for some reason, I kept going on and soon with an astonishing sense of achievement I climbed back down the long slopes to the Hermitage.

That evening, as I sat in the lounge, I felt restless and excited. And then the hum of voices suddenly hushed, and I looked up to see two young men coming into the room. They were fit and tanned, they had an unmistakable air of competence about them. I could hear a whisper going around the room. “They’ve just climbed Mount Cook”. And soon they were the centre of an admiring group. Some years later I came to know the two famous personalities, Stevenson and Dick. They had had a great partnership in climbing and they and they’d just completed the first Grand Traverse of Mount Cook from North to South. I retreated to a corner of the lounge filled with a sense of futility at the dull, mundane nature of my existence. Those chaps, now, we’re really getting a bit of excitement out of life. I decided there and then to take up mountaineering. Tomorrow I’d climb something.

1- Answer the following questions in short                                                             (2×4=8)

 (a) When did Edmund Hillary go on his first long trip?

 (b) What had inspired the narrator to go on a long walk?

 (c)What was the narrator’s experience in the lounge that evening?

 (d) Why did the narrator feel depressed?

2- Pick out words from the passage that mean the following                                (1×4=4)

(a) well known (lines Ito 10)

(b) splendid (lines 1 to 10)

 (c) complete/flawless (lines I to 10)

 (d) the joint venture (lines 8 to 18)

Answers

1- (a) When he was twenty years old.

(b) The great rock walls, the hanging of glaciers, the avalanche—stream slopes

(c) He was feeling both excited and restless.

(d) He felt so at his dull and mundane existence.

2- (a) famous

(b) magnificent

(c) perfect

(d) partnership 

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Passage-51 BEHAVIOUR (400 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-52 GLOBAL WARMING (400 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-53 MANUFACTURING (350 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-54 ATM (400 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-55 SUPERHERO (400 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-56 POSTURE (350 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-57 MUSIC (400 Words Subjective/Objective Solved)

Passage-58 WRESTLING (400 Words Subjective Unsolved)

Passage-59 JIMMY VALENTINE (400 Words Subjective Unsolved)

Passage-60 MY FATHER (350 Words Objective Unsolved)