Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The branches have either few or no leaves, so the answer is either (i) or (ii).

The second line of the poem reads 'When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang / Upon those boughs'. The poet allows both: at this time of year there may be a few yellow leaves left, or none at all.

'Only (i)' and 'only (ii)' each drop one of the two, and 'neither (i) nor (ii)' would leave the branches full of leaves, which contradicts the line. The poem is Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.

Answer: B

The branches earlier enjoyed the sweet songs of birds.

The first four lines end with 'Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang'. A choir is a place where singers sing, so the bare boughs are called ruined choirs because the sweet birds sang there until lately.

'A ruined group of singers' mistakes the picture: the choirs are the ruined thing, not the singers. The sunset and its darkness belong to the second part of the poem, where the poet speaks of a day ending, not of what the branches enjoyed.

Answer: A

'Death's second self' stands for sleep that gives rest.

The second part of the poem compares the poet to the twilight of a day that fades after sunset, which black night soon takes away. Night is 'Death's second self that seals up all in rest': like death, it shuts everything into rest, and sleep is the rest it brings.

The dying fire and the ashes of youth belong to the next part of the poem, and the setting sun is the twilight being taken away, not the thing that seals up all in rest.

Answer: B

The phrase uses a metaphor.

The poet does not say youth is like ashes. He says the glowing of his life is a fire lying on the 'ashes of his youth': youth is spoken of as something already burnt to ashes, and the comparison is carried without a word like 'like' or 'as'. That is the mark of a metaphor.

It is not a simile because there is no 'like' or 'as' in the phrase. It is not personification because the phrase gives no human act to a thing, and it is not alliteration because no repeated initial sound runs through it.

Answer: A

The theme of the poem is the idea of death.

Each of the three images shows the poet growing old and moving towards death: the bare boughs of late autumn, the twilight that night will take away, and the fire dying on the ashes of its youth. Death is what all three have in common.

The seasons are only the first image and the birds belong to one line of it. Love does appear in the closing couplet, where the listener's love grows stronger because the poet must be left soon, but it follows from the idea of death, which runs through the whole poem. What could not be settled with certainty is how far the examiner meant love to count as a theme, so the explanation follows the key.

Answer: D

Thoughts affect us when our pride is hurt.

The passage says that not every thought that passes through the mind affects us: 'we get affected when our ego is hit', and then the mind whirls and creates a tornado of restlessness. Pride and ego are the same idea here, and the examples that follow ('how dare he insult me') are all injuries to self-respect.

Job, sleep and learning are never named as what makes thoughts matter, so those three options bring in things the passage does not say.

Answer: C

A is correct and B is incorrect, so the answer is A is correct and B is incorrect.

Statement A follows the passage: we are not born with the filter but acquire it over the years 'with the kind of books we read', the company we keep and our interests, so our reading helps decide it.

Statement B goes beyond the text. The filter 'chooses the types of thoughts or subjects that we like to brood upon', but the passage says nothing of likes as against dislikes, and it speaks of thoughts we brood upon, not of what we like or dislike. So B is not supported and the options calling B correct are wrong.

Answer: A

The incorrect statement is 'Each one of us has an inborn filter in our mind.'

The passage says the opposite: 'We are not born with this filter but we acquire it over the years.' So the filter is acquired, not inborn.

The other three are supported: people like to be respected (the scenarios about not going where one is not respected), the filter chooses which thoughts we dwell upon and so shapes what we do, and thoughts keep moving, 'appearing and disappearing' instead of staying at one point.

Answer: D

Thoughts are compared to clouds.

The passage says 'Like clouds in the sky or waves in the ocean, thoughts appear and disappear as if in ceaseless activity.' This is a simile, marked by 'like'.

Comments, judgements and associations are things that come with every thought ('for every thought that appears, there are comments, judgements and associations'), so they accompany thoughts and are not what thoughts are likened to.

Answer: C

The process of thinking continues from morning to night.

The passage describes thinking as a continuous activity, with the mind jumping from one thought to another 'from morning till night'. That is the only time span it names.

Day to day, week to week and year to year are longer stretches that the passage never mentions, so they are not what it says.