Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions given below.

It's no secret that Mount Everest, the jewel in Nepal's Himalayan crown, is the world's premier mountain. It's one of those facts embedded in childhood, like knowing that Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon or that blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived. You may be surprised to hear, then, that other peaks could conceivably be considered Earth's tallest; it just depends how you measure them. So, judging by different parameters — including tallest by altitude, tallest from base to top and tallest based on being the farthest point from Earth's center — what is the tallest mountain in the world?

"In order to have comparability in measurements, it is necessary to have a consistent baseline," Martin Price, a professor and founding director of the Centre for Mountain Studies at the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland. "Historically, and even now, elevation is usually given as height above mean sea level," said Price. “However, this has to be with reference to a standard mean sea level, which has to be defined. Sea levels are different in different parts of the world, and they're changing due to climate change." As a result, "elevation is now measured in relation to the mathematically defined geoid of the Earth," he said. The geoid is, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "a model of global mean sea level that is used to measure precise surface elevations." This average is used to ascertain the height of mountains, a process that sometimes requires an aero plane to fly "back and forth over a mountain in a series of parallel lines to measure how much gravity pulls down on its peak," according to GIM International. These measurements, in conjunction with GPS readings, provide incredibly accurate elevation readings. 

"In order to have comparability in measurements, it is necessary to have a consistent baseline," Martin Price, a professor and founding director of the Centre for Mountain Studies at the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland. 

So, all mountains are measured from sea level, predominantly for convenience and consistency, but what if measurements were simply taken from base to peak? Would Everest still top the charts? The answer is a mountainous "no." That honor would go to Mauna Kea, an inactive volcano in Hawaii. Should we, therefore, regard Mauna Kea as the tallest mountain on Earth? "It all depends on the perspective you take," Price said. "If there were no oceans on our planet, there would be no debate! You could draw comparisons to the highest mountains on other bodies in our solar system, which have no oceans."