Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions in A and B below:
When a brave mountaineer is assailing the Everest he is as great a hero as a cosmonaut rocketing towards Mars in his space capsule and thousands of men and womenin different countries back his progress with their good wishes and share the thrills and anxieties of his hazardous journey to the roof of the world, which scores of anxious scientists wish him success in the hope of obtaining valuable information on atmospheric conditions in the upper regions of the earth. Mountaineering is indeed a source of pleasure and a mine of useful knowledge which is constantly enriching the scientific vocabulary of geologists, mineralogists and glaciologists of the world.

Mountaineering is a perennial source of joy to those who have eyes that can appreciate beauties of nature. Nowhere does nature reveal her charm in greater abundance than as green and flowering mountain tops with transparent stream of water flowing downtheir slopes or on snow-cladhills where sunlight weavesits magic colours into their virginal whiteness. To lovers of mountains the sound of waterfalls is like the joyful clapping of merry primitive dancers and the howling of night winds contains a musical pleasantness which surpasses the highly sustained rhapsodies of man-made organs. Lakesin high altitudes, holding within their cup-like mountainous enclosures the watery wealth of surrounding glaciers, treeless plateaus covered with rare varietiesof grass, plants and flowers and yawning chasms into whose dark, unfathomable interior nature’s countless species of animals and plants carry on their fight for existence are attractions so powerful andirresistible that no man or woman who is a member of a mountaineering party or club can turn a deaf ear to their call. These widely scattered, ever-alluring treasuresof nature are the climber’s greatest inducement to wander with a hungry heart’in search of beauty, adventure and fame along the dangerous slopes of sky-embracing heights.
Mountaineering is an awfully risky venture in the case of those ambitious souls who are dreaming of conquering such majestic peaks as Annupurana, Dhaulegiri and Everest, and who wish to be ranked among the world’s greatest climbers like Sir Edmund P. Hillary and Tenzing Norgey. Dozens of adventurers belonging to different nations with their hearts burning with a passion to conquer the highest peakin the world perished in the immortal snows of the Himalayas,after painfully inching their way to heights which werein close proximity to the summit. Expedition after expedition turned back exhausted, frost bitten and utterly disappointed when the mighty Himalayas hurled icy winds, snow storms and blizzards at those who wanted to conquer Everest, thus barring their way to this pinnacle of glory. The bones of many men of unrealized ambition lie buried in the glacial wilderness which is the home of the highest peak in the world. Such awful setbacks however did not dampen the enthusiasm of succeeding generations of mountaineers; the failure of early expeditions did not deter Colonel Hunt and his brave companions from trying to plant on the summit the flag of the victory of human defiance of nature’s death-dealing agents in high altitudes.