Passage Completion Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Correct answer: In a word, our primary knowledge of the world comes only through the sense organs

The paragraph lists three senses in turn, each with the same structure: we perceive only by means of a particular organ. The blank closes that list, and in a word signals a summing-up of exactly this kind. The option about the eyes and the optic nerve would add a fourth example rather than close the list, and the one about refraction goes into a level of detail the paragraph never uses.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Therefore, I always had animals around me

The blank follows the fact that the speaker's father worked with big animals when the speaker was four, and it is followed by what the speaker himself was doing at fourteen. A sentence drawing the consequence - animals were always around - is what links the two. The other options are opinions about animals, which break the run of autobiography.

Answer: D

Correct answer: This does not have to be done all at one time

Here is the good news promises something that makes the sixty minutes easier, and the sentence after the blank explains that five or ten minute sessions count. Only the keyed option is the good news those sessions illustrate; the others give advice or introduce a programme that the paragraph never returns to.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Your parents tell you to wear sunscreen when you're outside in the summer

The second sentence is and they are certainly right, so the blank must contain a plural they for that pronoun to refer to. Only the option naming your parents supplies one. The rest of the paragraph then explains why the advice is right.

Answer: D

Correct answer: But I've used it before and it did not help at all.

The doctor's reply is are you sure? It's the best on the market, which is a defence of the medicine, so the patient must have objected to it. The patient then asks for a different prescription, which confirms it. The two questions about dosage and side effects would not provoke a defence, and the third option puts the doctor's words in the patient's mouth.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Then you wouldn't recommend it, would you?

Karen answers certainly not. Do not waste your time, which is the answer to a question about recommending. A tag question inviting agreement fits both the answer and Karen's lukewarm verdict. A question about reviews would be answered with a yes or a no about reading them, not with advice.

Answer: C

Correct answer: But it wasn't my fault. You've got to believe me.

The father replies I'm sure it wasn't, which can only follow a denial of fault, and he backs it with the count of accidents. An apology would not be met with that sarcasm, and the two questions about the car and the money do not fit a son who has just crashed it.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Can you help me prune the roses in the garden at the weekend?

Mary's reply - are you kidding? We are in June - objects to the timing, and her last line gives the right time for trimming roses. So Tom must have proposed doing it now. The option asking what the right time is would make her answer redundant, and the one about planting concerns a different job.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Why are you always complaining about your parents?

Mark's reply, that's because they never stop criticizing me, needs a why question about a habit of his, and they must be his parents, whom Nina names in the next line. The other three questions are about other people entirely.

Answer: D

Correct answer: You had better go home and take a rest.

Amit answers no, I'm okay, I can wait until the end of the meeting, so Rosy must have suggested leaving. Rosy then insists, and Amit gives in with I'll see you tomorrow, which only makes sense if he is going home. The option asking whether he can wait would be answered yes, not no, I'm okay.