IBPS Clerk Prelims 2014 Paper

DIRECTIONS (Qs. 81-85) : Read the following passage andanswer the questions that follow:
If man began with speech and civilisation with agriculture,industry began with fire. Man did not invent it; probably natureproduced a marvel for him by the friction of leaves or twigs, astroke of lightning or a chance union of chemicals; man merelyhad a saving wit to imitate Nature and to improve upon her. Heput fire to a thousand uses. First, perhaps he made it serve as atorch to conquer his fearsome enemy, darkness; then he used itfor warmth and moved about freely from his native tropics to lessenervating zones, slowly making the planet human. Then, heapplied, it to metals, softening them, tempering them andcombining them into forms stronger and more supple than thosein which they had come to his hand. It was fire that created theold and honorable art of cooking, extending the diet of man to athousand foods that could not be eaten before. So beneficentand strange was it that fire always remained a miracle to primitiveman, fit to be worshipped as God. He offered it countlessceremonies of devotion and made it a centre or focus of his life.He carried it carefully with him as he moved from place to place inhis wanderings and would not willingly let it die. The Romanseven punished with death the careless virgins of the Temple ofVesta who allowed the sacred fire to be extinguished.