Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Rights cannot last long without the corresponding obligations.

The passage says a right by itself is incomplete and "cannot last long if the obligations which accompany that right are absent". That is option C almost word for word.

The other options bring in ideas the writer never links to the life of a right. Illiteracy is not mentioned. Rights being "imperfect" confuses the writer's point, which is that a right is incomplete without duties, not that the right itself is flawed. Support from the press is mentioned only later, when the writer turns to the press as a whole.

Answer: D

If we think excessively of rights and poorly of obligations, we become critics.

The writer says we think too much of rights and too little of obligations, and that this "weakens a nation" so that "we then become merely decriers and grumble without anything positive to contribute". A decrier is a person who runs things down, that is, a critic.

Achieving our targets and making the nation strong are the opposite of the weakening the writer describes. Becoming slaves of the press is not said anywhere; the press is brought in only as an example of the same fault.

Answer: D

The writer believes that it is wrong to impede the freedom of the press.

The passage says that even if the government dislikes the liberties the press takes and finds them dangerous, "it is wrong to obstruct the freedom of press". To impede and to obstruct mean the same here.

Suppressing the press and controlling ideas are the course the writer argues against. Nothing in the passage says that the Government likes to give the press freedom; it says the opposite, that the government may dislike what the press does with it.

Answer: B

By imposing constraints, we cause the idea and thought to spread.

The passage ends: "By imposing restrictions you do not change anything, you merely suppress the public manifestation of certain things, thereby causing the idea and thought underlying them to spread further."

Restrictions therefore do not change the situation for the better and do not change the society, since they "do not change anything". They do not wipe the idea out either, because the idea is only pushed out of public view and spreads further.

Answer: A

The true statement is the solitary man described in the passage is dead.

The passage is in the past tense throughout: his life was divided, he worked at all hours, and he probably courted his fatal illness. An illness described as fatal, and a life that is summed up as over, show that the man has died. The passage comes from an essay titled “A Funeral”, but the question says to use only the passage, and the passage itself already tells us this.

(B) reverses the passage: the man's own name has little to show, and his learning went to raise the reputation of strangers, not the other way round. (C) twists scattered and fruits: the fruits of his erudition are scattered, but nothing says he found joy in it. (D) is not supported: worked at all hours says nothing of a court, and the fatal illness is not placed at any workplace.

Answer: B

The true statement is the wealthier nations are pulling down the crooked streets in their capitals.

The passage says so directly: “Every day the wealthier nations are pulling down one or another in their capitals and their great towns”.

Option A misreads the opening: the author wonders why crooked streets are pulled down, and says the streets, not the wondering, are his delight. Option C is not stated; the “islands of the past” are what remains of old streets between the broad ways, not places where crooked streets were built. Option D reverses the argument: the broad ways are what commerce needs, and the author says they can be driven without destroying history, so they are not needed to protect it.

The passage is from an essay by Hilaire Belloc titled “The Crooked Streets”; the collection it appears in could not be confirmed.

Answer: C

The statement that can be inferred with certainty is that according to the World Bank, Sri Lanka does not yet have an adequate macroeconomic policy framework.

The passage says the Bank will offer no new financing "until the country has an adequate macroeconomic policy framework in place". A refusal that lasts until the framework exists can only be explained if the framework does not exist now, so the claim follows from the text alone.

A reverses the passage: it is the root causes of the crisis that have starved the country of foreign exchange, so the shortage of foreign exchange is an effect, not the root cause. B goes beyond the text: the Bank says Sri Lanka needs structural reforms, but never says that it will advise the government. D contradicts it: the Bank only repurposes resources under existing loans and declines new financing, so no additional funds are promised.

Answer: C

The most accurate statement is that Stuart's 'losing battle' refers to his inability to succeed in enabling sepoys to wear caste-marks.

The paragraph says Stuart 'continued to fight his losing battle to allow his sepoys to wear their caste-marks' and was reprimanded again. A battle he is losing is one he cannot win, which is exactly his failure to get permission for the caste-marks.

The first statement is contradicted by the last sentence: his retort 'had no effect on his superiors', so the commander-in-chief was not moved. The second fails because the reprimands show the Europeans were not accommodating. The fourth fails because Stuart himself calls the ban an instance of European prejudice, and the commander-in-chief, who enforced it, was one of the Europeans; nothing says he was exempt.

Answer: B

The statement that can be inferred is It is an adult's memory of what he or she liked as a child.

The narrator says When I was a kid, I was partial to stories about other worlds. The past tense and the phrase 'when I was a kid' show that someone who is no longer a child is looking back, so the passage is a memory, not a child's own report.

The first option is wrong for that reason: nothing is spoken by a child in the present. The third option misreads 'partial to': here it means fond of, not 'in part', and the passage says nothing about how much of any story was read. The last option states a moral about stories and children that the two sentences never draw.

Answer: C

The true statement is the pocket-knife is described as the infant of the sword.

The passage lists the things one carries in one's pocket and names one: the pocket-knife, for instance the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Statement (C) repeats that description, so it is the only statement the text supports.

(A) misreads reflected, which here means thought about, not mirrored; no mirror is mentioned. (B) is not stated: the author planned a book of poems about the things in his pocket, and says only that the age of the great epics is past. (D) distorts the last sentence: the book would be too long, which is not the same as epics being inconvenient to write.

The question says to use only the passage, so outside knowledge about Chesterton or epics is not needed.