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When you grow up in a place where it rains for five months a year, wise elders help you to get acquainted with the rain early. The rains are called after flowering plants because ______. -

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Question

(1) When you grow up in a place where it rains for five months a year, wise elders help you to get acquainted with the rain early. They teach you that it is ignorance to think that it is the same rain falling every day. Oh no! the rain is always doing different things at different times. There is rain that is gentle, and there is also rain that falls too hard and damages the crops. Hence, pray for the sweet rain that helps the crops to grow.
(2) The monsoon in the Naga Hills goes by the native name, I<huthotei (which means the rice- growing season). It lasts from May to early or mid-October. The local residents firmly believe that Durga Puja in October announces the end to rain. After that, one might expect a couple of short winter showers, and the spring showers in March and April. Finally, comes the 'big rain' in May; proper rainstorms accompanied by heart-stopping lightning and ear-splitting thunder. I have stood out in storms looking at lightning arc across the dark skies, a light-and-sound show that can go on for hours.
(3) This is the season when people use the word 'sezuo' and 'suzu' to refer to the week-long rains, when clothes don't dry and smell of mould, when fungus forms on the floor and you can't see the moon or the stars.
(4) The rains are also called after flowering plants and people believe that the blossoming of those plants draws out rain. Once the monsoon sets in, field work is carried out in earnest and the work of uprooting and transplanting paddy in flooded fields is done. The months of hard labour are June, July and August. In August, as the phrogo plant begins to bloom, a rain will fall. This August rain, also called phrogo, is a sign that the time for cultivation is over. If any new grain seeds are sown, they may not sprout; even if they do sprout, they are not likely to bear grain. The rain acts as a kind of farmer's almanac.
(5) The urban population of school-goers and office-goers naturally dislikes the monsoon and its accompanying problems of landslides, muddy, streets and periodic infections. For non-farmers, the month of September can be depressing, when the rainfall is incessant and the awareness persists that the monsoons will last out till October. One needs to have the heart of a farmer to remain grateful for the watery days, and be able to observe from what seems to the inexperienced as a continuous downpour-many kinds of rain. Some of the commonly known rain-weeks are named after the plants that alternately bloom in August and September. The native belief is that the flowers draw out the rain.
(6) Each rain period has a job to fulfil: October rain helps garlic bulbs to form, while kumunyo rain helps the rice bear grain. Without it, the ears of rice cannot form properly. End of October is the most beautiful month in the Naga Hills, as the fields turn gold and wild sunflowers bloom over the slopes, all heralding the harvest. Prayers go up for protecting the fields from storms, and the rains to retreat because the grains need to stand in the sun and ripen. The cycle nears completion a few weeks before the harvest, and the rain does retreat so thoroughly from the reaped furrows that the earth quickly turns hard. The months of rain becomes a distant memory until it starts all over again.

The rains are called after flowering plants because ______.

Options

  • heavy rains kill plants. 

  • flowers grow in the rainy season. 

  • it is believed that the plants bring the rain.

  • flowers grow all the year round.

MCQ
Fill in the Blanks

Solution

The rains are called after flowering plants because it is believed that the plants bring the rain.

Explanation:

The fourth paragraph of the passage states, "The rains are also named after flowering plants, and the rains are drawn out by those plants."

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Reading Comprehension (Entrance Exam)
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