Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: C

According to the author one should study for pleasure and enhanced capability.

The first sentence of the passage reads: Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Delight is pleasure, and ability is capability, so the option joins the first and last of the three uses the author names.

Gathering information about the world and worldly wisdom are not what the author names; he even says that the wisdom of using studies lies outside them, 'won by observation'. Passing time in a creative manner has no support, since the author calls spending too much time in studies sloth.

Answer: A

The author does not recommend too much study because it reflects idleness.

The passage states plainly: To spend too much time in studies is sloth. Sloth means laziness or idleness, so the objection to too much study is that it signals idleness, a neglect of action and of the business of life.

Nothing in the passage speaks of cost, so the costly-affair option is unsupported, and health and hygiene are never mentioned. The author also does not say that study promotes contradiction; his other two cautions are that too much use for ornament is affectation and that judging wholly by rules is the humour of a scholar.

Answer: D

The kind of people who denounce studies are the cunning.

The passage says: Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them. Crafty means cunning, so the men who condemn, that is denounce, studies are the cunning.

The wise are said to use studies, not to denounce them. 'Innocent' and 'stupid' stand near the passage's simple men, who admire studies, so neither of them condemns studies.

Answer: C

A properly designed media programme uses different sources of media according to the type of the product.

The passage opens by saying that a properly designed programme uses press, posters, printed leaflets and so on in proportions suitable to the nature of the product itself. The mix of media is therefore chosen to fit the product, which is what this option says.

The impulse option picks up only the phrase 'impulse purchases', which the passage ties to television and small items, not to the design of a whole programme. Television for large-scale production reverses the passage, which gives television to goods sold in small quantities. Money to achieve the target is never mentioned.

Answer: B

The producers advertise larger items in the press so that the customer may see details leisurely.

The passage says that larger items, such as cars and refrigerators, may be more profitably advertised in the press as they are examined in greater detail and more leisure than television. A buyer of an expensive item wants to read the details at his own pace, and print allows that.

Substantial profit is only the result the passage mentions in passing and is not the reason given for choosing the press. Television commercials are described as suited to quick, impulse buying of small items, so they do not fit larger ones. Profit through university graduates has no basis in the passage.

Answer: C

Rights cannot last long without the corresponding obligations.

The passage says a right by itself is incomplete and "cannot last long if the obligations which accompany that right are absent". That is option C almost word for word.

The other options bring in ideas the writer never links to the life of a right. Illiteracy is not mentioned. Rights being "imperfect" confuses the writer's point, which is that a right is incomplete without duties, not that the right itself is flawed. Support from the press is mentioned only later, when the writer turns to the press as a whole.

Answer: D

If we think excessively of rights and poorly of obligations, we become critics.

The writer says we think too much of rights and too little of obligations, and that this "weakens a nation" so that "we then become merely decriers and grumble without anything positive to contribute". A decrier is a person who runs things down, that is, a critic.

Achieving our targets and making the nation strong are the opposite of the weakening the writer describes. Becoming slaves of the press is not said anywhere; the press is brought in only as an example of the same fault.

Answer: D

The writer believes that it is wrong to impede the freedom of the press.

The passage says that even if the government dislikes the liberties the press takes and finds them dangerous, "it is wrong to obstruct the freedom of press". To impede and to obstruct mean the same here.

Suppressing the press and controlling ideas are the course the writer argues against. Nothing in the passage says that the Government likes to give the press freedom; it says the opposite, that the government may dislike what the press does with it.

Answer: B

By imposing constraints, we cause the idea and thought to spread.

The passage ends: "By imposing restrictions you do not change anything, you merely suppress the public manifestation of certain things, thereby causing the idea and thought underlying them to spread further."

Restrictions therefore do not change the situation for the better and do not change the society, since they "do not change anything". They do not wipe the idea out either, because the idea is only pushed out of public view and spreads further.

Answer: A

The true statement is the solitary man described in the passage is dead.

The passage is in the past tense throughout: his life was divided, he worked at all hours, and he probably courted his fatal illness. An illness described as fatal, and a life that is summed up as over, show that the man has died. The passage comes from an essay titled “A Funeral”, but the question says to use only the passage, and the passage itself already tells us this.

(B) reverses the passage: the man's own name has little to show, and his learning went to raise the reputation of strangers, not the other way round. (C) twists scattered and fruits: the fruits of his erudition are scattered, but nothing says he found joy in it. (D) is not supported: worked at all hours says nothing of a court, and the fatal illness is not placed at any workplace.