The first important traveler to India was a Greek named Megasthenes. He lived here for a number of years and wrote about our country and people in his book Indika. This is not available now, but some little pieces are still there. With their help, it is possible to make a picture of India as it was at that time.
About 2400 years ago, Seleukos, a general of Alexander the Great, tried to recapture the territories once held by his master but afterwards conquered by Chandragupta Mourya. Chandragupta defeated him in 305 B. C. The defeated Seleukos sent Megasthenes as his ambassador to Chandragupta's court.
Megasthenes observed our two largest rivers, the Ganges and the Sindhu. These rivers were used for journeys, only during the rainy season they could not be used because they were flooded. Roads were also used, and the best-known road ran from the northwest to Patliputra. It had shady trees, signposts, rest houses, and wells and may be called a forerunner of the present Grand Trunk road.
The numerous trees that grew in India also attracted his attention. The banyan tree whose branches grew downwards and took root particularly charmed him. About the people of India, Megasthenes says that Indians were generally tall and slim. Most people wore a white cotton dress, which contrasted with their dark complexion. The rich, however, wore gaily colored linen clothes. They wore ivory earrings and gold ornaments.
Megasthenes undoubtedly admired the Indian character. He says that the Indians behaved in an orderly manner. They just followed their customs and traditions. They did not care for written contracts. In business deals, they took a man at his word.

How does Megasthenes describe the physical appearance of the Indians?

Directions: Read the given comprehension carefully and answer the question that follows.

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities of growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

Which of the following is the aim of this passage?

Read the passage below and answer the question that follows:

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

What did Ramanujan do in his spare time?

Read the passage below and answer the question that follows:

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

How was it possible for Ramanujan to go to England?

Read the passage below and answer the question that follows:

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

What is Professor Huxley's opinion about Ramanujan?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

How much salary must Ramanujan have been getting as a clerk in the Madras Port Trust?

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these industrials, writers, and artists, helping to bud a new India and a new world?

The second paragraph mentions 'food', 'healthy conditions of living', education', and 'opportunities of growth' as being poor in India. Which of these were denied to Ramanujan?

Read the passage below and answer the question that follows:

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

What proves that Ramanujan was a genius?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary figure of recent times. This was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no opportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling over with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance, he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge, and during a very brief period, there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way and made him a fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 33. Professor Julian Huxley has, I believe, referred to him somewhere as the greatest mathematician of the century.
Ramanujan's brief life and death are symbolic of conditions in India of our millions how few get any education at all, how many live on the verge of starvation; of even those who get some education and have nothing to look forward to but a clerkship in some office on a pay that is usually far less than the unemployment dole in England. If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities for growth, how many among these individuals, writers, and artists, will help to bud a new India and a new world?

What is your opinion about opportunities provided to budding students in India?