Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: D

'Block out' in para 2 means cover.

The sentence says it seems improbable that a body of the moon's size could 'completely block out' the immense sun, and the next sentences explain how the moon is able to cover the sun. 'Block out' therefore means hide from view by covering.

The moon does not square, evaporate or shrink the sun, and none of those meanings fits the idea of one object hiding another.

Answer: B

The passage says men spent most of their time looking for food.

Its first sentence reads "Long ago men spent most of their time looking for food." The rest of the first paragraph shows the same thing: they ate anything they could find, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, bark, eggs, fish and small animals.

Shelter, clothes and luxury are never mentioned in the passage as what took their time. Questions of this kind are answered from the opening statement of the passage, not from general ideas about early life.

Answer: C

When food was scarce, men ate the bark of trees.

The passage says: "When food was scarce, they ate the bark of trees." That is the direct answer to the question about a shortage of food.

The other options also appear in the passage but in other situations. The roots of plants were part of their ordinary diet, a bird's nest with eggs was a stroke of luck ("if they are lucky"), and rotten whales were what people living near water ate when something washed ashore. The question links the item to scarcity, and only the bark does.

Answer: D

The most immediate concern is to lower the victim's temperature.

The passage says heat stroke is 'an immediate life-threatening situation' in which the body temperature may reach 106 degrees F, and that first-aid measures 'should be directed at quickly cooling the body', by a tub of cold water or repeated sponging with cool water.

Salt water (A) and raising the feet (B) are treatments given for heat exhaustion, the milder condition. The pulse (C) is a rapid one in heat stroke, but it is a symptom, not something to be lowered directly: it settles as the body is cooled.

Answer: B

The symptom of heat exhaustion is excessive sweating.

The passage lists clammy skin, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, profuse perspiration and sometimes fainting for heat exhaustion. Profuse perspiration is the same thing as excessive sweating.

A rapid pulse, hot and dry skin and a high body temperature are given as characteristics of heat stroke. Hot, dry skin is in fact the opposite of the sweating seen in heat exhaustion. Fever is not among the symptoms listed for exhaustion in the passage.

Answer: A

Heat stroke is more serious because its victims do not sweat.

The passage names 'a blocked sweating mechanism' and 'hot and dry skin' among the features of heat stroke. Sweating is how the body gets rid of excess heat, so when it stops the temperature keeps rising, which makes the condition life-threatening.

The passage does not say that the victims have no salt in their bodies or cannot take in water, and muscle cramps are not mentioned, so options B, C and D have no support in the text.

Answer: B

The person most likely needs to be given more salt water.

Nausea and dizziness are listed among the symptoms of heat exhaustion, which results from losing water and salt through sweating. The first-aid treatment described includes giving the victim sips of salt water over a 1-hour period, together with lying down, raised feet and cool, wet cloths.

Immersion in a tub of water (C) is the treatment for heat stroke. An immediate hospital transfer (A) is not what the passage prescribes for exhaustion, and sweating more (D) would lose still more water and salt, the very cause of the condition.

Answer: B

The one who lived beyond his salary was the shirastedar.

The last sentence of the passage says the shirastedar's income was reputed to be more than the sahib's, and that although this may be an exaggeration, he certainly lived beyond his salary.

The sahib is the officer being criticised for temper, not for money. The sahib's peon is only mentioned as someone who had to be cajoled, and the passage does not say that the officers lived beyond their salaries.

Answer: A

The ones ready to lend their ears to sycophants were the Princes.

The passage says: 'Princes were always at the mercy of others and ready to lend their ears to sycophants.' That sentence names no one else.

Sahibs, shirastedars and officers appear in the following lines, as people who had to be cajoled or who held power, but they are not described as listening to flatterers.

Answer: D

What had intoxicated him was power.

The first paragraph says the officer could have politely asked the writer to go, 'but power had intoxicated him to an inordinate extent'. His impatience and anger came from his sense of authority.

Wealth, physical strength and money and property are never mentioned in connection with him; the passage speaks only of his rank and temper.