Read the following passages and select the most appropriate options as answers to the questions given below them:
We lifted her off the bed and, as is customary, laid her on the ground and covered her with a red shroud. After a few hours of mourning, we left her alone to make arrangements for her funeral. In the evening we went to her room with a crude stretcher to take her to be cremated. The sun was setting and had lit her room and verandah with a blaze of golden light. We stopped half-way in the courtyard.
All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she lay dead and stiff wrapped in the red shroud, thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. There was no chirruping. We felt sorry for the birds and my mother fetched some bread for them. She broke it into little crumbs, the way my grandmother used to, and threw it to them. The- sparrows took no notice of the bread. When we carried my grandmother’s corpse off, they flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper swept the bread crumbs into the dustbin.
1. ……………. was customary.
A. Laying a dead body on the ground
B. Covering a dead body with a red shroud
C. Lifting a dead body off the bed
D. Both A’ and ‘B’
2. What was the time when the grandmother was to be taken for cremation ?
A. Sunrise
B. Afternoon
C. Sunset
D. Dusk
3. What of the sparrows was indicating that they were greatly sorry on the grandmother’s death?
A. Their presence at the place.
B. Their not chirruping.
C. Their no demand for food.
D. All of these three
4. ‘Next morning the sweeper swept the bread crumbs into the dustbin.’ This sentence suggests that ………………….
A. the sweeper was regular at his work in the morning.
B. the sparrows had not eaten even a single crumb of the bread.
C. the sparrows had not turned up the previous evening.
D. the sparrows did not want to eat something offered by somebody, other than the grandmother.
