Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The phrase means love that is harmful, as the key reads it.

The passage says: 'Parents are often aware of this, but out of misplaced love for children, they hardly ever discipline their eating habits.' Misplaced love is affection directed in the wrong way: parents who know the food is poor but still let the children eat it do them harm in the name of love.

'Love that does not exist' and 'love that is blind' say the love is absent or unseeing, but the passage presents it as real and aware ('often aware of this'). 'Love that lacks discipline' describes the result, that parents do not discipline eating habits, more than the love itself, and it is the nearest rival; I could not confirm from a dictionary which of the two the Board meant, so this follows the key.

Answer: B

The gods were afraid of Shibi because they thought Shibi might take away their kingdoms.

The passage says: 'They feared that Shibi might one day take away their kingdoms.' The fear came from his great power, and they set out to test him.

The gods did not fear that he was a disguised god; they disguised themselves, as the dove and the eagle. His sense of justice was what they tested, not what they feared, and the gardens around his courtroom have nothing to do with their fear.

Answer: B

The king saved the dove from the fierce eagle.

The passage says 'There came a scared dove flying to him and it was followed by a fierce looking eagle. The king gave shelter to the dove and saved her.' The dove is the one in need of saving and the eagle is the one described as fierce.

Reversing the pair makes the king save the eagle from the dove. Indra and Agni are the gods who took the forms of the eagle and the dove, and the king did not save them from anything.

Answer: D

The king was blessed for his benevolence and greatness, which is (a) and (b) together.

The last lines say that Indra and Agni stood 'smiling and blessing the king for his benevolence and greatness'. Both (a) and (b) are named.

Calmness, (c), is mentioned earlier ('the king remained calm and unperturbed'), but it is not given as a reason for the blessing. So 'only (a)', 'only (b)' and 'only (c)' each leave out part of what is true or add what is not.

Answer: D

The underlined part is a Noun clause.

In 'The king assured the eagle that he would give equal quantity of any other food', the clause 'he would give equal quantity of any other food', introduced by 'that', tells what the king assured the eagle of. It does the work of a noun, as the object of the verb 'assured'. One can test this by replacing it with a noun phrase: 'The king assured the eagle of compensation.'

It does not describe a noun, so it is not an adjective clause, and it does not tell when, why or how, so it is not an adverb clause. The principal clause is 'The king assured the eagle'.

Answer: B

The underlined word 'majestic' is an Adjective.

In 'His courtroom was surrounded by majestic gardens', 'majestic' describes the noun 'gardens', telling what kind of gardens they were. A word that qualifies a noun is an adjective. Its noun form is majesty, and the adverb form would be majestically.

It is not a noun because it does not name anything here, not an adverb because it modifies a noun rather than a verb, and not a conjunction because it joins nothing.

Answer: C

The error is in part (c), 'are certain of'.

The passage tells the story in the past tense: 'The gods in the guise of the dove and the eagle were assured of Shibi's righteousness.' The sentence in the question puts the same event in the present tense with 'are', which does not match the narration, so the verb phrase in (c) is the part that is wrong. 'Were certain of' would match.

The other parts are acceptable for this item: (a) and (d) read correctly, and (b) leaves out the articles before 'dove' and 'eagle', which the passage supplies, but the question looks for the clear error, which the key places in the tense of (c). I could not rule out that (b) was meant to be flagged, so this follows the key.

Answer: A

The movement of the water reflects joy.

The poet describes the fountain 'Leaping and flashing / From morn till night' and says it is 'Happy at midnight, / Happy by day!'. Leaping, flashing water that the poet calls happy is a picture of joy.

Sadness and weariness are contradicted by the energy of the leaping water and by the word 'happy'. Earnestness (serious purpose) is not a mood the poem gives the fountain; it is playful and light.

Answer: D

The key reads this as to keep on moving all the time. The other option about ideas is the nearest rival, and the poem does not state the meaning outright.

The poet admires the fountain, which is always in motion, leaping 'from morn till night', and asks that his heart be 'Fresh, cheerful, constant, / Upward, like thee'. Water that keeps moving does not go stale, so 'fresh' is read as never stagnating, which the key expresses as moving on all the time.

Taking a bath regularly and dressing elegantly are literal and unrelated to a heart. 'To have new ideas all the time' is a fair paraphrase of freshness in everyday speech, and nothing in the lines I could check rules it out; it is the key's reading, with the fountain's constant motion as the comparison, that the question accepts.

Answer: A

The word is Glorious.

The last stanza opens 'Glorious fountain!', an exclamation of praise: glorious means splendid and deserving of admiration, so it shows how the poet feels about the fountain.

Cheerful, fresh and upward describe the qualities the poet wishes for his own heart ('Fresh, cheerful, constant, / Upward, like thee'); they are what he wants to be, not the word with which he admires the fountain.