Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: it simply means that the facts have not been correctly stated by law

The passage draws the distinction sharply: a law of nature is a statement of facts, not a command. So when matter appears to break one, nothing has been disobeyed - the statement was simply wrong. The option about a superior being answers a different question, namely why there is no law giver at all.

Answer: A

Correct answer: the former state facts of Nature

The first sentence makes the contrast the passage is built on: laws of nature are not commands but statements of facts. A man-made law tells people what to do; a law of nature only reports what happens. The other options describe consequences of that difference rather than the difference itself.

Answer: A

Correct answer: it implies an agency which has made them

The author says using law for a uniformity in nature invites the elementary fallacy that a law implies a law giver. That is the whole of his objection, and it is why he would prefer the word uniformities. Rigidity and harshness are never mentioned.

Answer: C

Correct answer: In a different land

The passage says he found himself in a land where the creatures lived. Nothing places the dream in his village, his house or his office - the office belongs to his waking life, which the dream is a comment on rather than a picture of.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Slimy tentacles and slug-like animals

Loathsome means repellent to look at or touch, and the two phrases that supply that physical repulsiveness are slimy tentacles and slug-like animals. Fearful dream describes Harold's reaction, and security bug is the interpretation he reaches later, not a description of the creatures.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Harold succeeded in overcoming the need for security

The dream shows him letting society feed on his body in his early years so that it would carry him when he retired - that is, trading his working life for security. Throwing off the bug therefore means giving up that bargain, which is exactly what taking up freelance work does.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Calm, dignified and affectionate disposition

Grandmotherly supplies the warmth and dignity, and preoccupied the unhurried absorption in what she is doing - the elephant is beating grass against its knees, entirely absorbed and entirely peaceable. That is why the narrator finds the idea of shooting it monstrous. Pretending to be busy reads a deception into the word that is not there.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Kind and considerate

The narrator calls shooting the elephant murder, thinks of the beast's owner, and asks the Burmans how it has been behaving before deciding anything. Each of those is a consideration for someone other than himself. He is inexperienced too, but that is a fact about him rather than the disposition the passage displays.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Did not wish to kill an animal that was not harming anybody

The Burmans tell him the elephant took no notice of you if you left him alone, and the narrator has already judged that shooting it would be murder. His inexperience is mentioned, but it is offered as a fact about him rather than as his reason; the reason is that the animal is doing no harm.

Answer: C

Correct answer: A journey into outer space

The command module is the crew compartment of a spacecraft, and everything around it confirms the setting: re-entry, splashdown in the Pacific, the moon looming close and big, and sunshine unfiltered by layers of air, which is only possible outside the atmosphere.