Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Direction for [ Question No: 1 To 5 ] :

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow.

We sallied out at three o'clock in the afternoon, having finished our tiffin and coffee. The main job for the day was to mount and frame the photograph. Uncle carried it in his hand delicately, enclosed in an old envelope, as if it were fragile and likely to perish at a finger's pressure. As we went down the street, a neighbour standing at his door hailed us and demanded, "Where are you taking the young fellow?" He was an engineer who worked in some distant projects on the hills, coming home once in a while and then again disappearing from our society. He was a particular friend of my uncle as they occasionally gathered for a game of cards in my house. He asked, "I am here for a few days. Can't we have a session some time?"

"Of course, of course," said my uncle without much fervour, "I will let you know", and moved on.

"Won't aunt get angry?" I asked, remembering the arguments they had had after every card session. The card players would have been sitting around in the middle of the hall, demanding coffee and edibles, and playing far into the night. My aunt would complain after the company had dispersed, "Sitting there with your friends, you lock me up in the kitchen all day! What madness seizes you people when you touch a pack of cards, I wonder!" Worn out by her attacks, my uncle began to avoid his friends, the company gradually dwindled and disappeared. But it did not prevent them from dreaming about cards or luxuriating in visions of a grand session. Somewhere my uncle was supposed to have lost a lot of money through the card games, and my aunt was very definite that he should never go near cards again, although he kept saying, "We play only Twenty-eight, and not Rummy, after all, Twenty-eight...".

Direction for [ Question No: 6 To 9 ] :

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate options.

The contacts between India and the western world which Chandragupta Maurya had established continued during the reign of his son, Bindusara. Ambassadors came to the court at Pataliputra from Ptolemy of Egypt and Antiochus, the son and successor of Seleucus Nicator of Western Asia. Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, added to these contacts, and India became in his time an important international centre, chiefly because of the rapid spread of Buddhism.

Ashoka succeeded to this great empire in about 273 BC. He had previously served as Viceroy in the North-Western province of which Taxila, the university centre, was the capital. Already the empire included the greater part of India and extended right into Central Asia. Only the South-East and a part of the South were beyond its sway. The old dream of uniting the whole of India under one supreme government fired Ashoka and forthwith he undertook the conquest of Kalinga on the east coast, which corresponds roughly with modern Orissa and part of Andhra. His armies triumphed in spite of the brave and obstinate resistance of the people of Kalinga. There was a terrible slaughter in the war, and when news of this reached Ashoka, he was stricken with remorse and disgusted with war. Unique among the victorious monarchs and captains in history, he decided to abandon warfare in the full tide of victory. The whole of India acknowledged his sway, except for the southern tip, and that tip was his for the taking. But he refrained from any further aggression, and his mind turned, under the influence of the Buddha's gospel, to conquests and adventures in other fields.

Direction for [ Question No: 10 To 10 ] :

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate options.

For a few days, no one knew where Venkatashami had gone. Enquiries revealed that he had run away with the Dombara girl. The leader of the troupe came to the Gowda to express his grief and went back to the camp. There was nothing that anyone could do. Four days later, a Gowda from a village some five miles away was passing this way, and he brought Venkatashami and left him at his parents' house. The boy was burning with fever. It seems the girl was with him when he became ill. She had been taken home by her father and Venkatashami had been brought back seriously ill.

The boy did not recover from that illness. He was a handsome boy with an open face. Dark, yes, but attractive. The black of his skin, that of his eyes, and of his moustache were of three different shades. When he smiled, it was like a flash of lightning among the clouds. His body was so well-built, no hammer could break it. The fever that had caught hold of him seemed unwilling to let go of such a fine physique. They call the fever by the name typhoid now and can diagnose it in no time. But those days, nobody was aware of such things. All they knew was that something was wrong with the tongue. He was given the traditional medicines and kept on a local diet. A fortnight later, Venkatashami passed away. His delirious mind rambled and his talk was all about his meeting with the girl. Whenever he was conscious, he kept asking them to call her. It would have been all right if he had been married to her. His request would have been treated with understanding and sympathy, and she would have been sent for. But does one bring the girl who had led him astray to his bedside in these circumstances ?