The Reading Comprehension Method — Practice

Question 1

Passage: Public libraries are often dismissed as relics of a pre-digital age. Yet in many towns they have quietly reinvented themselves — lending laptops, hosting job workshops, and offering the only free, warm, quiet space open to all. Far from fading, the library has become an essential piece of civic infrastructure.
The main idea of the passage is that:
(a) Libraries are outdated relics of the past (b) Libraries have adapted and remain vital community institutions (c) Libraries mainly exist to lend books (d) Every town should build a new library

Accepted Answer

(b) Libraries have adapted and remain vital community institutions.

The passage sets up the 'relic' view only to reject it, showing how libraries have reinvented themselves into essential civic infrastructure. (a) is the view rejected, (c) is too narrow, and (d) is a recommendation the passage never makes.

Question 2

Passage: Critics argue that the new stadium is a waste of public money. It is true that the cost is high and other needs are pressing. But the stadium has already drawn three international events to the city, filling hotels and creating hundreds of jobs, and its revenue will repay the cost within a decade.
What is the author's own position?
(a) The stadium was a waste of public money (b) The stadium's benefits justify its cost (c) The city has no pressing needs (d) Public money should never fund stadiums

Accepted Answer

(b) The stadium's benefits justify its cost.

The author concedes the critics' point ('it is true…') and then turns with 'but' to the real position: the events, jobs and revenue justify the cost. The clause after 'but' carries the author's view.

Question 3

Passage: Bees communicate the location of food through a 'waggle dance', in which the angle and duration of the movement encode direction and distance. For instance, a dance angled thirty degrees from the vertical tells other bees to fly thirty degrees from the sun.
The sentence beginning 'For instance…' serves to:
(a) contradict the previous sentence (b) give an example illustrating the previous claim (c) introduce an unrelated topic (d) state the passage's main conclusion

Accepted Answer

(b) give an example illustrating the previous claim.

'For instance' signals an illustration. The sentence gives a concrete case of how the dance's angle encodes direction, supporting the general claim made just before it.

Question 4

Passage: The Sundarbans, a vast mangrove forest straddling India and Bangladesh, is the only mangrove habitat in the world inhabited by tigers. Its trees survive in salt water by filtering salt through their roots and excreting the excess through their leaves. The forest also shields the coast from cyclones.
According to the passage, how do the mangrove trees cope with salt water?
(a) By storing the salt in their trunks (b) By filtering salt through their roots and excreting it through their leaves (c) By avoiding salt water entirely (d) By growing only during the monsoon

Accepted Answer

(b) By filtering salt through their roots and excreting it through their leaves.

The passage states this mechanism directly. The other options are not mentioned and, in the case of (c), contradict the fact that the trees live in salt water.

Question 5

Passage: When the factory closed, the town's only cinema, two of its three restaurants, and its weekly market all shut within a year. The bus service, once hourly, now runs just twice a day.
Which can be inferred?
(a) The factory was the main source of the town's economic activity (b) The town never had a market (c) The cinema will soon reopen (d) The bus service was always poor

Accepted Answer

(a) The factory was the main source of the town's economic activity.

The rapid collapse of the town's businesses and services after the factory closed supports the inference that the factory anchored the local economy. The other options contradict the passage or are unsupported.

Question 6

Passage: Solar panels have become dramatically cheaper over the last decade, and their efficiency has steadily improved. In sunny regions they now generate electricity at a lower cost than new coal plants.
Which statement is NOT supported by the passage?
(a) Solar panels have become cheaper (b) Solar efficiency has improved (c) In sunny regions, solar can cost less than new coal power (d) Governments have banned the building of coal plants

Accepted Answer

(d) Governments have banned the building of coal plants.

The passage discusses cost and efficiency, and that solar can undercut new coal in sunny regions — but it says nothing about any ban. (d) goes beyond the passage.

Question 7

Passage: One reads the minister's latest report on unemployment with a kind of weary admiration — admiration for the sheer ingenuity with which inconvenient numbers have been buried, reclassified, and footnoted into invisibility.
The author's attitude towards the report is best described as:
(a) sincere praise (b) ironic and critical (c) neutral and factual (d) anxious and fearful

Accepted Answer

(b) ironic and critical.

The 'admiration' is for hiding inconvenient numbers — praise no one would sincerely give. The irony conveys sharp criticism of the report's dishonesty, not genuine approval or neutral reporting.

Question 8

Passage: It is often said that reading fiction is a mere escape from reality. This chapter will argue the opposite: that fiction, by placing us inside other minds, is one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding the real world.
The main function of these lines is to:
(a) summarise evidence already presented (b) state a common view and announce the author's opposing thesis (c) give a detailed example of a novel (d) conclude the argument

Accepted Answer

(b) state a common view and announce the author's opposing thesis.

The first sentence gives the widely held view; the second explicitly rejects it ('argue the opposite') and states the author's own thesis. This sets up the argument rather than summarising or concluding it.

Practice — The Reading Comprehension Method

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