Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Heat stroke is more serious because its victims do not sweat.

The passage names 'a blocked sweating mechanism' and 'hot and dry skin' among the features of heat stroke. Sweating is how the body gets rid of excess heat, so when it stops the temperature keeps rising, which makes the condition life-threatening.

The passage does not say that the victims have no salt in their bodies or cannot take in water, and muscle cramps are not mentioned, so options B, C and D have no support in the text.

Answer: B

The person most likely needs to be given more salt water.

Nausea and dizziness are listed among the symptoms of heat exhaustion, which results from losing water and salt through sweating. The first-aid treatment described includes giving the victim sips of salt water over a 1-hour period, together with lying down, raised feet and cool, wet cloths.

Immersion in a tub of water (C) is the treatment for heat stroke. An immediate hospital transfer (A) is not what the passage prescribes for exhaustion, and sweating more (D) would lose still more water and salt, the very cause of the condition.

Answer: B

The passage says men spent most of their time looking for food.

Its first sentence reads "Long ago men spent most of their time looking for food." The rest of the first paragraph shows the same thing: they ate anything they could find, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, bark, eggs, fish and small animals.

Shelter, clothes and luxury are never mentioned in the passage as what took their time. Questions of this kind are answered from the opening statement of the passage, not from general ideas about early life.

Answer: C

When food was scarce, men ate the bark of trees.

The passage says: "When food was scarce, they ate the bark of trees." That is the direct answer to the question about a shortage of food.

The other options also appear in the passage but in other situations. The roots of plants were part of their ordinary diet, a bird's nest with eggs was a stroke of luck ("if they are lucky"), and rotten whales were what people living near water ate when something washed ashore. The question links the item to scarcity, and only the bark does.

Answer: D

The passage mainly informs the reader about solar eclipses.

Para 1 defines a solar eclipse and its three kinds (partial, annular and total), and para 2 explains how the moon can cover the sun and how long a total eclipse lasts. Together these give general information about the topic.

The duration of a total eclipse is only one detail, so A is too narrow. The passage uses facts about the moon only to explain eclipses, so B misses its purpose. Option C reverses the relation: it is the moon that obscures the sun, not the sun the moon.

Answer: C

The sun is obscured in its entirety in a total eclipse.

The passage says that 'in a total eclipse, the sun is completely covered by the moon'.

In a partial eclipse the moon covers only part of the sun, and in an annular eclipse it covers the centre and leaves a bright ring of light. 'A celestial eclipse' is not a type described in the passage.

Answer: B

In para 1 the word 'ring' is best replaced by circle.

The sentence describes 'a bright ring of light around the moon', that is, a circle of light, which is what is seen in an annular eclipse.

'Piece of gold' and 'jewel' treat 'ring' as an ornament, which does not fit a ring of light. 'Bell' fits the sense of a ringing sound, which is unrelated to the sentence.

Answer: C

A 'celestial body' in para 2 is most probably one found somewhere in the sky.

The sentence names the moon as 'a celestial body of the size of the moon', so a celestial body is an object in the heavens, like the moon or the sun.

The moon's shadow is a patch on the earth and is not where the moon itself is found, and the surface of the sun is only one place for one such body. The earth's atmosphere is where weather occurs, and the moon and sun lie far beyond it.

Answer: D

'Block out' in para 2 means cover.

The sentence says it seems improbable that a body of the moon's size could 'completely block out' the immense sun, and the next sentences explain how the moon is able to cover the sun. 'Block out' therefore means hide from view by covering.

The moon does not square, evaporate or shrink the sun, and none of those meanings fits the idea of one object hiding another.

Answer: C

The passage suggests that there may be other planets like the Earth in this universe.

The author rejects an exact replica of the Earth as an unlikely idea, but says it is possible that, if planetary systems are common, there are planets whose conditions are similar to the Earth's and to which our form of life could adapt. That makes similar planets a possibility, not a certainty.

Option A claims there cannot be another such planet, which is stronger than the text says. Option B treats other Earth-like planets as found only in stories, but the passage says they are possible. Option D asserts a planet exactly like the Earth, which the author calls not worth considering.