Comprehension Test Questions and Answers Practice Question and Answer

Q:

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow-
Parents all over Iceland’s capital Reykjavik embark on a two-hour evening walk around their neighbourhood every weekend, checking on youth hangouts as a 10 pm curfew approaches.The walk in Reykjavik is one step toward Iceland’s success into turning around a crisis in teenage drinking.Focusing on local participation and promoting more music and sports options for students, the island nation in the North Atlantic has dried up a teenage culture of drinking and smoking. Icelandic teenagers now have one of the lowest rates of substance abuse in Europe.The Icelandic Centre for Social Research and Analysis, the institute pioneering the project for the past two decades, says it currently advises 100 communities in 23 countries, from Finland to Chile, on cutting teenage substance abuse. “The key to success is to create healthy communities and by that get healthy individuals, ” said Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, a sociology professor who founded the Youth of Iceland programme, which now has rebranded as Planet Youth.The secret, she says, is to keep young people busy and parents engaged without talking much about drugs or alcohol. That stands in sharp contrast to other anti-abuse programmes which try to sway teenagers with school lectures and scary, disgusting ads showing smokers’ rotten lungs or eggs in a frying pan to represent an intoxicated brain.
“Telling teenagers not to use drugs can backlash and actually get them curious to try them,” Ms Sigfusdottir said. In 1999, when thousands of teenagers would gather in Reykjavik every weekend, surveys showed 56% of Icelandic 16-year-olds drank alcohol and about as many had tried smoking.
Years later, Iceland has the lowest rates for drinking and smoking among the 35 countries measured in the 2015 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. On average, 80% of European 16-year-olds have tasted alcohol at least once, compared with 35% in Iceland, the only country where more than half of those students completely abstains from alcohol.
Denmark, another wealthy Nordic country, has the highest rates of teenage drinking, along with Greece, Hungary and the Czech Republic, where 92% to 96% have consumed alcohol. In the US, teen drinking is a significant health concern, because many US teenagers are driving cars and do not have access to good public transport like teenagers in Europe.
Reykjavik mayor Dagur B. Eggertsson said the Icelandic plan “is all about society giving better options” for teens than substance abuse. He believes the wide variety of opportunities that now keep students busy and inspired has dramatically altered the country’s youth culture. Local municipalities like Reykjavik have invested in sport halls, music schools and youth centres.To make the programmes widely available, parents are offered a 500 US dollar
annual voucher toward sports or music programmes for their children.

Researchers say the Planet Youth prevention model is evolving constantly because it is based on annual surveys to detect trends and measure policy effectiveness. By law, introduced when Icelandic police routinely dealt with alcohol-fuelled street gatherings, children under 12 are not allowed to be outside after 8pm without parents and those 13 to 16 not past 10pm. “We tell the kids if they are out too late, polite and nice, and then they go home,” said Heidar Atlason, a veteran member of the patrol. Over Iceland’s harsh winter, one parent admits, evenings sometimes pass without running into any students.

What is dramatic about the figures of teenage drinking in Iceland?

740 0

  • 1
    They’ve gone up by 36%
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    They’ve become the lowest in Europe
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    They’ve shot down by 96%
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    They’ve remained the same over the years
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 2. "They’ve become the lowest in Europe"

Q:

Read the following passage carefully and give answer the following questions.
Two hundred years after Malthus predicted that population growth would overtake food production by a margin of 256 to 9, the simple fact is that food production had always been ahead of the population growth. Malthus’ doomsday prediction simply did not come true due to two major reasons: first, population did not grow geometrically and birth rates in all Western countries fell during the 20- Century, resulting in very slow population growth. Over the past quarter century, birth rates have been falling in the developing countries too. Second, modern agricultural practices and better irrigation have resulted in tremendous growth in food production in almost all parts of the globe, with the notable exception of sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, at the global level, the Malthusian doomsday never befell on us.
India’s population grew by about two and a half times in the past 45 years — from 361 million in 1951 to an estimated 916 million in 1995. But during the same period, India’s food grain production grew by nearly four times — from 51 million tonnes in 1951 to 191 million tonnes in 1995. As a result, the per capita food grain availability in India has gone up considerably since the Independence. That is, the Malthusian prediction has not come true even in India.

In the past forty-five years, India’s population has grown about

738 0

  • 1
    three and a half times
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    two and a half times
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    five times
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    one and a half times
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 2. "two and a half times"

Q:

Read the passage carefully and give the answer of following questions.

Looking back on those days I see myself as a kind of centaur, half boy, half bike, forever wheeling down suburban streets under the poincianas, on my way to football practice or the library or to a meeting of the little group of us, girls and boys, that came together on someone's verandah in the evenings after tea.
I might come across the Professor then on his after dinner stroll; and as often as not, he would be accompanied by my father, who would stop me and demand (partly, I thought, to impress the Professor) where I was off to or where I had been; insisting, with more than his usual force, that I come home right away, with no argument I spent long hours cycling back and forth between our house and Ross McDowell or Jimmy Larwood's, my friends from school, and the Professor's house was always on the route, I was always aboard and waiting for something significant to occur, for life somehow to declare it self and catch me up I rode my bike in slow circles or figures-of-eight, took it for sprints across the gravel of the park, or simply hung motionless in the saddle, balanced and waiting.

The boy's father was trying to gain the Professor's approval, hence

737 0

  • 1
    he followed the Professor on his evening walks.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    he pretended to be interested in observing the stars.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    he boasted to the Professor about his son's riding skills.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    he would make a display of his parental skills on seeing the narrator.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 4. "he would make a display of his parental skills on seeing the narrator."

Q:

Read the passage carefully and give the answer of following questions.

Looking back on those days I see myself as a kind of centaur, half boy, half bike, forever wheeling down suburban streets under the poincianas, on my way to football practice or the library or to a meeting of the little group of us, girls and boys, that came together on someone's verandah in the evenings after tea.
I might come across the Professor then on his after dinner stroll; and as often as not, he would be accompanied by my father, who would stop me and demand (partly, I thought, to impress the Professor) where I was off to or where I had been; insisting, with more than his usual force, that I come home right away, with no argument I spent long hours cycling back and forth between our house and Ross McDowell or Jimmy Larwood's, my friends from school, and the Professor's house was always on the route, I was always aboard and waiting for something significant to occur, for life somehow to declare it self and catch me up I rode my bike in slow circles or figures-of-eight, took it for sprints across the gravel of the park, or simply hung motionless in the saddle, balanced and waiting.

The boy's constant bike riding reflects his

734 0

  • 1
    longing for a simpler way of life
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    yearning for something exciting to occur
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    desire to escape from his father's influence
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    joy in being young and without responsibilities
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 2. "yearning for something exciting to occur"

Q:

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions as directed.

Start-ups troubled by the so-called angel tax may soon receive some (A)______from the government. On Monday, the Centre set up a five-member working committee to look into revising the (B)norms of the angel tax imposed on start-ups. The tax, which was first introduced in 2012 to curb money-laundering through the (i) at bloated prices, has caused a lot of anguish among start-up investors in the country. Start-up owners have complained that income tax officials have asked many start-ups to cough up money when they try to attract capital into their entities by issuing new shares. For its part, the IT department fears that start-ups may be used as convenient tools to launder illegally acquired money, so a tax on investments beyond a certain threshold is (ii). (C) But while the (1) unintended of such an angel tax may be (2) benefits, the arbitrary nature of it means the cost of (3) intent consequences could be larger than the supposed (4) justifiable. In trying to curb money-laundering, Section 56(2)(viib) of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961 gives income tax officials a free hand to harass even genuine start-ups looking to raise investments for their growth. Under the Act, the IT department is free to arbitrarily decide the fair value of a company’s share and tax start-ups if the price at which their new shares are sold to investors is higher than the fair value of these shares. The broad-brush tax on all investments means an unnecessary cost is (iii)community simply because of the lack of better means at the government’s disposal to tackle black money.

The committee set up by the government will, among other things, consider raising the threshold beyond which new investments into start-ups will be taxed. It is expected that start-ups with aggregate paid-up share capital and share premium of less than ₹25 crore, against the previous threshold of only ₹10 crore, will not be taxed while attracting new investment. This would definitely make life easier to a certain extent for angel investors and start-ups. But it will not address the real problem with the angel tax, which has to do with the unbridled power that it vests in the hands of the income tax authorities. Investors, foreign or domestic, may become wary of investing in new ideas when they are taxed while risking money on untested ventures. So the government should look to withdraw the angel tax and focus instead on building the capability to better identify and rein in illegal wealth. Otherwise it risks killing the nascent start-up ecosystem in the country.

Which of the following words can replace the word given in bold in (B) without changing the meaning of the sentence? 

733 0

  • 1
    Measures
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    Deviations
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    Regulations
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    Standards
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 5
    Abbreviations
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 4. "Standards "

Q:

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them, while answering some of the questions.
Among those suffering from the global recession are millions of workers who are not even included in the official statistics : urban recyclers – the trash pickers, sorters, traders and reprocesses who extricate paper, cardboard and plastics from garbage heaps and prepare them for reuse. Their work is both unrecorded and largely unrecognized, even though in some parts of the World they handle as much as 20% of all waste.
The World’s 15 million informal recyclers clean up cities, prevent some trash from ending in landfills and thus, reduce climate change by saving energy on waste disposal techniques like incineration. In the developed countries they are the preferred ones since they recycle waste much more cheaply and efficiently than governments or private corporations can. In the developing World, on the other hand, they provide the only recycling services except for a few big cities. But as recession hits the markets Worldwide, the price of scrap metal, paper and plastic has also fallen. Recyclers throughout the World are experiencing a sharp drop in income. Trash pickers and scrap dealers saw a decline of as much as 80% in the price of scrap from October 2007 to October 2009. In some countries scrap dealers have shuttered so quickly that researchers at the Solid Waste Management Association didn’t have a chance to record their losses. In Delhi, some 80% of families in the informal recycling business surveyed by an organization said they had cut back on “luxury foods,” which they defined as fruit, milk and meat. About 41% had stopped buying milk for their children. By this summer, most of those children, already malnourished, hadn’t had a glass of milk in nine months. Many of these children have also cut down on hours spent in school to work alongside their parents. Families have liquidated their most valuable assets – primarily copper from electrical wires – and have stopped sending remittances back to their rural villages. Many have also sold their emergency stores of grain. Their misery is not as familiar as that of the laid-off workers of big name but imploding, service sector corporation, but it is often more tragic. Few countries have adopted emergency measures to help trash pickers. Brazil, for one, is  providing recyclers, or “catadores,” with cheaper food, both through arrangements with local farmers and by offering food subsidies. Other countries, with the support of non-governmental organizations  and donor agencies are following Brazil’s example. Unfortunately, most trash pickers operate outside official notice and end up falling through the cracks of programmes like these. In the long run,  though, these invisible workers will remain especially vulnerable to economic slowdowns unless they are integrated into the formal business sector, where they can have insurance and reliable wages. This is not hard to accomplish. Informal junk shops should have to apply for licences, and governments should create or expand doorstep waste collection programmes to employ trash pickers. Instead of sorting through haphazard trash heaps and landfills, the pickers would have access to the cleaner scrap that comes from households.

The need of the hour, however, is a more immediate solution. An efficient but temporary solution would be for governments where they’d have to pay a small subsidy to waste dealers so they could purchase scrap from trash pickers at about 20% above the current price. This increase, if well advertised and broadky utilized, would bring recyclers a higher price and eventually bring them back from the brink. Trash pickers make our cities healthier and more liveable. We all stand to gain by making sure that the work of recycling remains sustainable for years to come.

Which of the following is intended in the given passage?

731 0

  • 1
    To highlight the domination of the big-name service industry corporations in the scrap dealing business
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    To highlight various factors responsible for the prevailing malnutrition in children of the informal recyclers
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    To suggest the steps which can help the anguished recyclers
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    To explain the measures which can be taken in order to make recycling more energy efficient
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 5
    None of these
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 4. "To explain the measures which can be taken in order to make recycling more energy efficient"

Q:

A passage is given with 5 Questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives and click the button corresponding to it.

The public distribution system, which provides food at low prices, is a subject of vital concern. There is a growing realization that though India has enough food to feed its masses two square meals a day, the monster of starvation and food insecurity continues to haunt the poor in our country. Increasing the purchasing power of the poor through providing productive employment leading to rising income, and thus good standard of living, is the ultimate objective of public policy. However, till then, there is a need to provide assured supply of food through a restructured, more efficient and decentralized public distribution system (PDS). Although the PDS is extensive world – it hasn't reached the rural poor and the remote places. It remains an urban phenomenon, with the majority of the rural poor still out of its reach due to lack of economic and physical access. The poorest in the cities and the migrants are left out, for they generally do not possess ration cards. The allocation of PDS supplies in big cities is larger than in rural areas. In view of such deficiencies in the system, the PDS urgently needs to be streamlined. Also, considering the large it is one of the largest such systems in the food grains production combined with food subsidy on one hand and the continuing slow starvation and dismal poverty of rural population on the other, there is a strong case for making PDS target group oriented. By making PDS target group oriented, not only the poorest and the neediest would be reached without additional cost but we can also reduce the overall costs incurred. 

What should be an appropriate step to make the PDS effective? 

731 0

  • 1
    To make it target group oriented
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    To increase the amount of food grains per ration card
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    To decrease the allotment of food grains
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    To reduce administrative cost
    Correct
    Wrong
  • Show Answer
  • Workspace

Answer : 1. "To make it target group oriented "

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully

  Report Error

Please Enter Message
Error Reported Successfully