Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: His vocabulary

The passage says different classes of people use different vocabularies and that educated speech may strike an uneducated listener as pompous. The remedy that follows from this is to meet the listener in the vocabulary he uses. Simple words is close, but the passage's point is about matching the listener rather than about simplicity as such.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Foolish

The passage ends with the judgement itself: only a fool will express himself alike to all kinds and conditions of men. The other three options describe how such speech might sound; the passage says what it makes the speaker.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Unintentionally

A slip of the tongue is a mistake in speaking that the speaker did not mean to make; the whole point of the passage is that such accidents can create an enemy where we had hoped to win a friend. Saying something wrongly by choice or to hurt another person would be deliberate, which a slip by definition is not.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Create misunderstanding

The passage says speech can also, if we use it carelessly, make our attitude completely misunderstood, and everything after that sentence - the slip of the tongue, the ambiguous word, the class difference in vocabulary - illustrates how. Revealing our intentions is given as the blessing, not the curse.

Answer: A

Correct answer: are quite punctual but not duty conscious

The passage says employees report for duty on time and at the same time doing little work, and then itemises the gossiping, tea, pan and cigarettes that fill the day. Punctuality and productivity are separated exactly this way, so the option about lateness contradicts the passage and the ones about temperament and qualifications are never raised.

Answer: D

Correct answer: is more or less ineffective

The passage says the administrative set-up remains weak, and traces that weakness to leadership that sets no example and to staff more concerned with pleasing their bosses than with working. Red tape is a different complaint and is nowhere mentioned.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Evaluation

If an assessment is made of the time they spent… means if that time were measured and judged, which is what evaluation denotes. An enquiry investigates, a report records, and a summary shortens; none of the three weighs or judges.

Answer: D

Correct answer: is of a very poor standard

The passage asks what top bureaucrats and lower officials actually do, and concludes that employees do not have the right example to follow. Setting no example to follow is precisely a poor standard, and it is offered as the main cause of the weakness described.

Answer: B

Correct answer: The employees must change their outlook towards work

The passage opens with what needs to be set right is our approach to work, which states the thesis outright, and everything after it is evidence for that need. The option calling the outlook justified reverses it, and the employer-employee relationship is not the subject.

Answer: A

Correct answer: History

The closing sentence says the remedy is to know the history… of the social and political conditions which have given to each nation its present character. History is presented as the cause; present character is the result, and politics one of the conditions history acted through.