Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Statement A is right and statement B is wrong, so the answer is A is right and B is wrong.

A matches the poem: the ground is 'snow-covered', with 'not a flower' and 'not a leaf' to be seen, and a cricket who is cold, hungry and 'trembling with cold' could not be dancing about. B is not supported at all. Nothing in the poem mentions skating, and the poem shows a starving cricket in the snow, not a cricket enjoying winter sports. B is an imagined addition and not something the poem says.

So any option that makes B right is wrong, and any that makes A wrong ignores the winter scene.

Answer: A

What sent the cricket to the ant was starvation and famine.

The poem says: 'At last by starvation and famine made bold ... Away he set off to a miserly ant'. Hunger, which turned into famine in the winter, pushed him to ask for help.

The empty cupboard and the approaching winter are parts of his situation, but they are the background to the hunger, not the stated cause of his going. The ant's store of grain is something he hoped for, not the reason he went.

Answer: C

The poem is a fable.

A fable is a short story, here told in verse, in which animals behave like people and the story ends with a lesson. The cricket and the ant, one who sang all summer and one who saved, carry the lesson about preparing for the future.

A sonnet has fourteen lines in a fixed rhyme scheme, and this poem does not. An epic is a long narrative of heroes and great deeds. A lyric expresses the poet's personal feelings, and here the poem tells a story about animals.

Answer: C

The theme is that if we do not care for our future, we will eventually suffer.

The cricket sang through summer, kept nothing for winter, and was left with an empty cupboard, no food and the need to beg. His suffering follows from ignoring the future.

'Keep slogging like the ant' is too extreme: the poem does not ask anyone to work without rest, only to plan ahead. 'Pursue our hobbies' and 'keep partying and dancing' are what brought the cricket to ruin, so the poem argues against them as a way of life, not for them.

Answer: B

The figure of speech is alliteration.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sound at the start of nearby words. In 'sunny months of gay summer and spring' the s sound begins sunny, summer and spring, giving the line its musical, light-hearted effect.

There is no comparison in the line, so it is neither a simile (which compares with 'like' or 'as') nor a metaphor (which says one thing is another). Nothing non-human is given human qualities, so it is not personification either.

Answer: A

In war between tribes the patriarch became more powerful.

The passage says: 'If there was a war or fight between two tribes, the patriarch became even more powerful, for in wartime it was not possible to fight well without a leader.' War made the leader necessary, so his power grew.

He was not ignored and did not give up leadership or lose power, which is the opposite of what the passage states.

Answer: D

Both (A) and (B) are True.

Statement (A): the passage says the patriarch spent most of his time 'organising and seeing that work was properly done', and was 'the patriarch or the organiser of the tribe'. Statement (B): the tribes 'wanted someone to lead them to battle', that leader was the patriarch, and people went 'to battle ... obeying the orders of their leader, the patriarch'.

Any option that calls either statement false is therefore wrong.

Answer: D

The leader chosen was the oldest and the wisest.

The passage says: 'The leader was usually the oldest man in the group', and 'As the oldest, he was supposed to be the most experienced and to have the most knowledge.' Age and the experience and knowledge that came with it decided the choice.

The passage says the patriarch was not very different from the other members, and that he worked with them. Being the most powerful or domineering is not given as the basis. His power came later. Humility is not mentioned.

Answer: D

The food was divided equally among all members.

The passage says: 'all the food that was produced was divided between all the members of the tribe. Everything belonged to the tribe.' The patriarch did the dividing, but the whole produce was shared and nobody owned it.

The passage never says that the strong got more, that the patriarch took the lion's share or that the division followed gender. All of those contradict the shared ownership it describes.

Answer: D

Both (A) and (B) are True.

Statement (A): the narrator says 'I went to the old woman and took her hand in mine, gripping it tightly.' Taking and gripping the hand of a distressed old woman is a gesture of comfort and sympathy. Statement (B): the boy grabbed the girl by the hair and 'rained blows and kicks on her stomach', which is a violent attack. The question treats the girl as his sister.

Any option that calls either statement false therefore contradicts the passage.