Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The spirit within man tells him to cut down his desires and passions.

The passage says man 'has within him a spirit which is ever exhorting him to cut down his needs and learn to be happy with what he has'. Option C, cutting down desires and passions, is the closest wording.

Being a mixture of motives describes man, not the spirit's advice, and evaluating situations intelligently is not stated. Acquiring more wealth and comforts is the opposite of what the spirit says.

Answer: C

Only statement III is true, so the answer is Only III.

III is stated in the passage: man is 'eager to satisfy his passion for more and more knowledge'. Statement I is false, because the passage says the maxim asks us 'not to be passive in our attitude to life'. Statement II is false, because the passage says every difficulty and problem 'can be tackled successfully with the spirit of inventiveness'.

That removes every option that includes I or II.

Answer: D

The one that is not a characteristic of man in the passage is that he desires to have more and more comforts and money.

The passage says man has many motives and needs (A), creates needs as well as being subject to them (B) and seeks to satisfy them (C). It says his passion for more and more is for knowledge, and that the spirit within him urges him to cut down his needs. Comforts and money are not mentioned as something he is eager for.

Answer: D

The statement that is not true as per the passage is that man's inner spirit tells him to be on the look out for newer and higher wants.

The passage says the opposite: the spirit within him is 'ever exhorting him to cut down his needs and learn to be happy with what he has'.

The other three agree with it: the spirit of inventiveness helps with every new problem (A); man is the subject of needs (B); and man caters to his desire for beauty and grace, which makes some of the needs he creates good or beautiful (C).

Answer: C

The Little Black Boy was born in the southern wild.

The first line of the extract says 'My mother bore me in the southern wild', which gives the boy's birthplace. The 'desert wastes', 'the servants' house' and 'the east coast' do not appear in the lines given; the east is mentioned only when his mother points towards the rising sun.

Answer: D

The key gives white.

The extract does not state the boy's wish in so many words. It sets his colour against the English child, 'White as an angel', and says he is 'black as if bereav'd of light', and the poem as a whole is about the boy's longing to be like the white child. Of the four options, only white follows from this contrast.

Nothing in the lines given suggests that he wanted to be educated, older or free.

Answer: A

The mother says God put people on earth to learn to endure his love.

In the third stanza she says 'we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love'. To bear the beams of love is to learn to endure God's love, which is option A.

Working off sins, preparing for trials and learning equality are not given as reasons anywhere in the extract.

Answer: D

The mother says his dark skin and face are a cloud.

The last two lines read 'these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.' So she calls his dark skin a cloud, a temporary covering through which light can still shine, and not a blessing, a veil or a curse.

Answer: B

The phrase 'like a shady grove' is a simile.

A simile compares two unlike things directly, using 'like' or 'as'. Here the child's dark body is compared with a shady grove through the word 'like'.

A metaphor makes the comparison without 'like' or 'as' (saying one thing is another). Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds, and personification gives human qualities to something non-human; neither describes this phrase.

Answer: D

The key gives All of the above.

'As if bereav'd of light' most plainly refers to the colour of the boy (C): his dark skin makes him look as if deprived of light. The speaker also contrasts himself with the English child who is 'White as an angel', which suggests that he thinks less of himself (A), and being bereaved suggests loss and a lack of hope (B). The key accepts all three readings.

This is an interpretive item. Read literally, the phrase speaks of colour alone, so an examinee choosing C has a fair case; the key counts the other readings as well.