Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The key marks 'The narrator's home town was in a remote area' as true.

The passage opens: 'My home town in the mid-1970s was a laid-back place, resembling a remote rural area, except in having some amenities.' The key treats this as the home town being in a remote area.

The other statements go beyond the passage. 'Life was comfortable in all respects' contradicts the 'except in having some amenities' limit. The annual fair was held in a small village about 15 km from the home town, so the town itself was not known for it, and the people who visited the fair were devotees going to that village, not to the home town. Strictly, 'resembling a remote rural area' is not the same as 'being in a remote area', but it is the closest of the four.

Answer: C

The answer is both (a) and (b) are right.

(a) The writer tells how 'whenever the cart jerked or sped away, I would hold my pockets tightly so that coins would not spill out', so he was careful in the cart. (b) He looked forward to the journey every year 'as though it was a journey of a life-time and worth enjoying every minute of it', so despite the jerks and jolts it was enjoyable.

Calling either statement wrong, or both, would go against those lines.

Answer: D

The answer is (a) and (b) are wrong but (c) is right.

(a) is wrong: the passage says money saved for the fair was in the narrator's pockets, which is not the same as being given enough pocket money on the day. (b) is wrong: 'We children will be in a separate cart' is about the children travelling apart from the adults, not small children with their parents. (c) is right: the writer's father's clients 'used to arrange bullock carts for us' for the family, showing a willingness to oblige him.

Any option calling (a) or (b) right misreads these lines.

Answer: D

The answer is (a) and (b) are wrong but (c) is right.

(a) is wrong: the passage says 'Gagarin rose at 5.30', not 5.00. (b) is wrong: he wore a complicated space-suit, on top of which went a pale blue fibre suit and finally an orange one, so the outer suit was orange. (c) is right: 'he entered the cabin (named Vostok)'.

The other options each count (a) or (b) as right, which the details above rule out.

Answer: A

Gagarin was a space traveller.

The passage describes his training for space flight and the morning on which he is launched in the Vostok capsule from the nose of a rocket. He is the first person to travel in space.

An adventure tourist travels for pleasure, which is not the case. He did parachute training, but that is one part of his training and does not describe what he was. The Moscow University building is only where its lift was used for the weightlessness experiment, so he was not a physicist there.

Answer: C

The benefit was that he experienced zero gravity.

The passage says the express lift of Moscow University was used for experience of weightlessness: 'At a certain high speed the passenger would find himself suspended between the floor and ceiling of the lift without support. This was a convenient and inexpensive way of reproducing "zero gravity".'

The passage calls the method inexpensive, but not that he paid nothing. Whether it was thrilling is not stated, and coming down in less time is not the aim of the lift ride.

Answer: B

The key says (b) is right and (a) is wrong. I could not make (b) agree with the passage word for word.

(a) is wrong: Gagarin recited half-remembered poetry to himself, but the passage never says he was a poet. For (b), Gagarin describes the room as 'no sound, not even the slightest rustle. No movement of the air'. The key reads this as 'no air', which is what the statement says.

Strictly the passage says there was no movement of the air, not that there was no air, and a room with no air could not have held him for long periods. On that strict reading both statements would be wrong, which is another option. The explanation follows the official key; the reader should note that (b) is a loose paraphrase of the passage.

Answer: D

The key gives to feel like in a space cabin. 'As an experiment' is the nearest rival and is also defensible.

The passage calls the dark, silent room one of the ordeals of his training and says he would shut his eyes and 'imagine himself in a space-cabin in orbit'. The keyed option reads the isolation as meant to give him a taste of the loneliness of space flight.

It was not a punishment: the room is part of the training, and the passage does not say he did wrong. Meditation is not mentioned. 'As an experiment' fits the passage's remark that the training included experiments, so the answer rests on the key's choice of the purpose the passage comes closest to stating.

Answer: C

The answer is both (a) and (b) are right.

(a) The Bishop asks 'What dost thou do here ?', which is asking the purpose of Robin Hood's visit. (b) Robin Hood replies 'I am a bold harper' and promises no music until he sees the bride and bridegroom. He is not a harper: the ballad has him pretend to be one, so he pretended to be a musician.

Calling either statement wrong, or both, disagrees with those lines.

Answer: A

A wedding was going to take place in the church.

Robin Hood says 'Till the bride and the bridegroom I see', and the knight and the young woman come in. He then protests 'This is no fit match' and says 'The bride she shall choose her own dear'. A bride, a bridegroom and a match are all signs of a marriage ceremony.

A sermon, a baptism or a funeral service would have no bride and bridegroom.