Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: C

English is the most widely used language in the world because it has taken words from other languages.

The second paragraph says English is one of the most widely spoken, and that this 'remarkable achievement is only because of the one thing that we all love to do - copy', giving 'siesta', 'sputnik', 'restaurant' and 'super' as words borrowed from other languages. Borrowing is the reason the passage gives.

Shakespeare's writing is mentioned only for his vocabulary and for the words he adapted. Being the richest language and having half a million words are described as facts about English, not as the reason it is so widely used. The passage also says Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people.

Answer: C

The gifts he or she receives usually are put away and forgotten.

The first paragraph says the speaker is usually given a token gift such as a pen or a plaque, and that 'However well-meant, such gifts are destined to gather dust in forgotten corners.' So they are put aside and forgotten.

The passage does not say they are used if needed, given away to others, or kept religiously as mementoes.

Answer: B

The gift the writer received was environment friendly.

The writer was given six trees to be planted in a plantation in his name, as part of a 'green' movement, and the passage calls the gift of a living tree or plant a perfect present in an increasingly environmentally-conscious world. A tree is an environment-friendly gift.

The passage calls the tradition of gifts a marketing exercise but does not say that this gift was one, nor that it was very expensive. It is the usual plaque-like gifts, not this one, that gather dust in a corner.

Answer: B

You do not care much for a shirt or a kurta as a gift because you already have so many of them.

The third paragraph asks what to give people 'who have more or less everything', and the examples, another shirt or kurta, another bottle of scent, another box of chocolates, all use the word 'another'. The point is that the receiver already has such things in plenty.

The passage does not mention the cost to the giver, the colour, or whether the receiver was asked about the choice.

Answer: C

The gaps in the wall are made by hunters.

The poem opens 'The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair where they have left not one stone on a stone, but they would have the rabbit out of hiding, to please the yelping dogs.' The hunters pull stones down in search of rabbits, and the speaker repairs what they leave.

Rabbits and dogs are what the hunters are after and what they please, not the ones who break the wall. The poem says that no one sees the gaps being made, but the first lines name the hunters as the cause; nature is not given as a cause.

Answer: A

The neighbours meet in the spring season to fill the gaps in the wall.

The extract says 'at spring mending-time we find them there' (the gaps), and then 'on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again'. They meet to repair the wall that stands between their land, which means filling the gaps.

They do walk along the line, but the walk is the way of finding the gaps, not the purpose. The poem does not say they meet to find out who broke the wall, as the hunters did and no one saw them do it, and lifting the stones is part of the repair and not the reason for meeting.

Answer: D

The neighbours use a spell to fix the irregular stones in the wall.

The extract says that some of the boulders are 'loaves' and some 'so nearly balls' and 'We have to use a spell to make them balance'. The spell, 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned !', is said to make the awkward, irregular stones stay balanced in place.

The spell has nothing to do with looking for rabbits or counting stones. The stones are not made to 'obey' in general; the purpose stated is to make them balance in the wall.

Answer: D

On the key's reading, the figure of speech in lines 9-10 is irony.

Lines 9 and 10 read 'And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again.' The neighbours come together in order to put a barrier between them, so an act of meeting is used to keep apart. The sense is the opposite of what the meeting would suggest, which is the nature of irony.

There is no like or as, so it is not a simile, and the lines do not give a human quality to a thing or call one thing another, so they are not personification or metaphor. The reading rests on the gap between the meeting and its purpose; the key could not be checked against a published commentary.

Answer: B

The figure of speech is a metaphor.

In 'And some are loaves and some so nearly balls', the stones are said to be loaves and balls, a direct identification without 'like' or 'as'. That implied comparison, describing the stones' rounded shapes by calling them loaves of bread and balls, is a metaphor.

A simile would make the comparison explicit with 'like' or 'as' ('some are like loaves'). Personification gives human qualities to things, which is not happening in this line. Irony says the opposite of what is meant or shows a contrast between expectation and reality, which the line does not do.

Answer: C

The hunters' main aim is to catch the rabbits.

The first lines say 'they would have the rabbit out of hiding, to please the yelping dogs'. The hunters pull the wall down to drive the rabbit out and catch it, and the speaker repairs the damage.

Pleasing the dogs is a side effect, not the aim, and the hunters do not intend to remove the stones for their own sake. They do not intend to make the neighbours rebuild the wall; that is an unintended result of their hunting.