Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: The need for planned cities.

Every part of the passage argues the same thing: a city can enhance life, but only if it is planned - organ systems for recreation and culture, open space, fine buildings, and grouping that should mean something important to the people of the place. Animals, transport and entertainment each appear as illustrations within that argument, so none of them can be the title.

Answer: B

Correct answer: A city should not defeat the fulfilment of life's aspiration and aims.

A frustrater is something that defeats or thwarts, so saying a city need not be a frustrater of life is saying it need not defeat what people hope for. The option about a city providing all essential needs is a different and stronger claim, and the passage makes clear that a city only does this if it is planned for it.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Promoter

Frustrater means one who blocks or defeats an aim, so its opposite is one who advances it - a promoter. Applauder and approver express approval rather than help, and an executer carries out what somebody else has decided.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Should be built according to some suitable design, not indiscriminately.

Anyhow and anywhere are the two words the sentence objects to, so it is arguing against carelessness in both design and placement. The passage adds that buildings and their grouping should mean something important to the people of the place, which is a demand for design, not for wider spacing.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Powerful

Drastic means far-reaching and forceful, so of the four powerful is the closest. Orderly, consistent and determined all describe how something is done rather than how great its effect is.

Answer: B

Correct answer: By allowing nature to retain its primitive and undomesticated character.

Unspoilt means not interfered with, so nature stays unspoilt precisely when it is left as it is. Free access to parks describes what the passage wants people to have, not what keeps nature unspoilt, and the organ-system comparison is about the city, not about nature.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Raise the tone of life and make it more meaningful.

The passage opens by calling the city a mechanism for enhancing life and closes by requiring buildings to mean something important to the people of the place. Community expression, gatherings and traffic are means to that end; the question asks for the end itself.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Only a city can provide the means to lead a full life.

The opening sentence claims the city can produce possibilities of living which are not to be realized except through cities. Except through cities is the decisive phrase: it makes the city not merely one place among several but the only one where those possibilities exist.

Answer: C

The correct inference is that ultra-black skin has both advantages and disadvantages to species S.

The passage gives two advantages (avoiding predators and attacking prey unseen) and one disadvantage (less collagen, so a more fragile skin). An inference that keeps to the passage must reflect both sides.

"Only advantageous" ignores the fragile skin. "Only disadvantageous ... advantageous only to their predators" contradicts the passage, which says the skin helps the fish avoid predators. The option crediting lower collagen with the advantage reverses cause and effect: it is the black pigment that hides the fish, while the lower collagen is the cost.

Answer: C

When we run our eyes quickly over a text to find a particular piece of information such as a name or a date, we are scanning. Skimming gives the general idea, and skipping and speed reading are different. The answer is scanning, option C.

Skimming is a quick reading to get the gist of the text, while scanning is a search for a specific item such as a name or date, which is the activity the question describes.