4) Put the verbs in brackets the Present Simple or Present Continuous Tense.

Conquering mount everest it was six-thirty in the morning of 29 may, 1953. two nearly frozen men crawled out of their tents. they each pulled three pairs of gloves onto their hands. the men were roped together for safety. first one man took the lead and then the other. they looked up. the two climbers were tenzing norgay of nepal and sir edmund hillary of new zealand. later, tenzing wrote, "this was really one of the worst places on the whole climb, because it was not only a matter of what you yourself did, but what the snow under you did, and this you could not control." foot by foot they climbed. at last they stood on the south summit, but the true summit of mt everest still towered above them. masses of ice and rock stuck out and made extremely difficult. tenzing and hillary climbed humps of rocks and snow supporting each other with ropes. "is this the last one? " they asked themselves as each hump was passed. finally they set to the last hump. they stopped for a moment and went on to the summit. just a few feet separated them as they climbed the "top of the world". two men from different lands and cultures joined hands after this supreme achievement. everest had at last been conquered. for thirty-three years brave men had challenged the mountain and failed. naturally, tenzing and hillary became famous overnight. why? the most famous explanation was given by the climber mallory who died on the mountain in 1924. "why try to climb everest? " he was asked. "because it is there." nobody has ever given a better explanation! h.i. christ