Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: D

We use a limited number of words in everyday conversation because we repeat a lot of words.

The last paragraph says that a person has about ten thousand words, of which only five thousand are used in everyday conversation, and 'This leads to a limited variety of words. This is because we repeat a lot of words.'

The first option contradicts the passage, which speaks of a limit. Not being a genius like Shakespeare and not being highly educated are never given as reasons.

Answer: B

An English speaking person usually uses 5,000 words in everyday conversation.

The passage says, 'We normally have a vocabulary of about ten thousand words of which only five thousand are used in everyday conversation.' The question asks how many are usually used, so the figure is five thousand.

Ten thousand is the size of the ordinary vocabulary, fifteen thousand is the upper end of a modern novelist's vocabulary, and 3,000 is the number of languages spoken today.

Answer: B

The most often used word in English is the.

Counts of large collections of written and spoken English, such as the Oxford English Corpus, consistently find that the definite article 'the' is the most frequent word, making up around five to six per cent of all words in running text. It is followed by words such as 'be', 'to', 'of', 'and' and 'a'.

'A' is very common but less frequent than 'the', since the indefinite article is used only with singular countable nouns. 'Is' and 'one' are much further down the list.

Answer: C

English is the most widely used language in the world because it has taken words from other languages.

The second paragraph says English is one of the most widely spoken, and that this 'remarkable achievement is only because of the one thing that we all love to do - copy', giving 'siesta', 'sputnik', 'restaurant' and 'super' as words borrowed from other languages. Borrowing is the reason the passage gives.

Shakespeare's writing is mentioned only for his vocabulary and for the words he adapted. Being the richest language and having half a million words are described as facts about English, not as the reason it is so widely used. The passage also says Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people.

Answer: C

The gifts he or she receives usually are put away and forgotten.

The first paragraph says the speaker is usually given a token gift such as a pen or a plaque, and that 'However well-meant, such gifts are destined to gather dust in forgotten corners.' So they are put aside and forgotten.

The passage does not say they are used if needed, given away to others, or kept religiously as mementoes.

Answer: B

The gift the writer received was environment friendly.

The writer was given six trees to be planted in a plantation in his name, as part of a 'green' movement, and the passage calls the gift of a living tree or plant a perfect present in an increasingly environmentally-conscious world. A tree is an environment-friendly gift.

The passage calls the tradition of gifts a marketing exercise but does not say that this gift was one, nor that it was very expensive. It is the usual plaque-like gifts, not this one, that gather dust in a corner.

Answer: B

You do not care much for a shirt or a kurta as a gift because you already have so many of them.

The third paragraph asks what to give people 'who have more or less everything', and the examples, another shirt or kurta, another bottle of scent, another box of chocolates, all use the word 'another'. The point is that the receiver already has such things in plenty.

The passage does not mention the cost to the giver, the colour, or whether the receiver was asked about the choice.

Answer: C

The gaps in the wall are made by hunters.

The poem opens 'The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair where they have left not one stone on a stone, but they would have the rabbit out of hiding, to please the yelping dogs.' The hunters pull stones down in search of rabbits, and the speaker repairs what they leave.

Rabbits and dogs are what the hunters are after and what they please, not the ones who break the wall. The poem says that no one sees the gaps being made, but the first lines name the hunters as the cause; nature is not given as a cause.

Answer: A

The neighbours meet in the spring season to fill the gaps in the wall.

The extract says 'at spring mending-time we find them there' (the gaps), and then 'on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again'. They meet to repair the wall that stands between their land, which means filling the gaps.

They do walk along the line, but the walk is the way of finding the gaps, not the purpose. The poem does not say they meet to find out who broke the wall, as the hunters did and no one saw them do it, and lifting the stones is part of the repair and not the reason for meeting.

Answer: D

The neighbours use a spell to fix the irregular stones in the wall.

The extract says that some of the boulders are 'loaves' and some 'so nearly balls' and 'We have to use a spell to make them balance'. The spell, 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned !', is said to make the awkward, irregular stones stay balanced in place.

The spell has nothing to do with looking for rabbits or counting stones. The stones are not made to 'obey' in general; the purpose stated is to make them balance in the wall.