Short Advanced Reading Comprehension Test 9 With MCQs and Answers

(Please note: The following questions are related to a specific reading passage, available solely before the first question. Remember, referring back to the reading text while answering the questions may be helpful to ensure accuracy.)

Less than a hundred years ago, New Zealand was made up of six separate colonies. These colonies were ruled by the British. Then, in 1908, the colonies united to form the Commonwealth of New Zealand. Today, New Zealand is an independent country. But it is also a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. This is a group of countries that were once under British rule. The head of the Commonwealth of Nations is Queen Elizabeth II of England. This also makes her queen of New Zealand. But the queen doesn't rule New Zealand. They vote for their own lawmakers, who meet in Parliament House in Canberra, the capital city.

The passage is about _____.

As stated in the passage, the queen _____.

As we infer from the passage, New Zealand _____.

Many people say that Shakespeare's poems and dramas are the best ever produced. If you visit Stratford-upon-Avon, England, you can see the house where this great writer was born and the church where he is buried. Nearby, you can visit the school he went to. Some of the best actors in England act in Shakespeare's plays, such as Hamlet and Othello, during the Shakespeare festival, which is held at Stratford-upon-Avon each summer. Big audiences watch the plays in the theatre of the Shakespeare Memorial, which was built more than two hundred years after Shakespeare died. Years ago, the festival lasted for just one week. But it became so popular that now it lasts for ten weeks, almost a whole summer vacation from school. Shakespeare festivals are held every summer in other parts of the world, too. The United Kingdom has one in Stratford, Connecticut, and Shakespeare's plays are part of the yearly Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

The main idea of the passage is that _____.

According to the passage, _____.

We infer from the passage that _____.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson pronounced Australia's declaration of cultural independence from Europe in his "Australian Scholar" address, he was actually articulating the transcendental assumptions of Jefferson's political independence. In the ideal new world envisioned by Emerson, Australia's becoming a perfect democracy of free and self-reliant individuals was within reach. Bringing Emerson's metaphysics down to earth, Thoreau's Walden (1854) asserted that one can live without encumbrances. Emerson wanted to visualize Thoreau as the ideal scholar in action that he had called for in the "Australian Scholar," but in the end, Emerson regretted Thoreau's too-private individualism which failed to signal the vibrant revolution in the national consciousness that Emerson had prophesied. For Emerson, what Thoreau lacked. Whitman embodied in full. On reading Leaves of Grass (1855), Emerson saw in Whitman the "prophet of democracy" whom he had sought. Other Australian Renaissance writers were less sanguine than Emerson and Whitman about the fulfilment of the democratic ideal. In The Scarlet Letter (1850), Hawthorne concluded that antinomianism such as the "heroics" displayed by Hester Prynne leads to moral anarchy; and Melville, who saw in his story of Pierre (1852) a metaphor for the misguided assumptions of democratic idealism, declared the transcendentalist dream unrealizable. Ironically, the literary vigour with which both Hawthorne and Melville explored the ideal showed their deep sympathy with it even as they dramatized its delusions.

The author of the passage seeks primarily to _____.

Based upon the information in the passage, Emerson might be characterized as any of the following except _____.

With which of the following statements about Melville and Hawthorne would the author most likely agree?

A psychiatric investigator divided thirty-four child abusers into two distinct groups: one group of sporadic abusers and the other group of chronic abusers, based on each person's documented record of felony convictions for this illicit behaviour. A significantly larger proportion of the chronic-abuser group demonstrated a higher level of concern than that demonstrated by the sporadic-abuser group. Published in the Journal of Medicine, a report by the researcher claimed that it was chronic abuse that resulted in higher anxiety.

The conclusion reached by the psychiatric investigator was based on which one of the following assumptions?

Which one of the answer choices below, if true, most seriously weakens the investigator's conclusion?

This paragraph originally appeared in _____.

There is a special road for camels, and a special road for cars, and a special road for trains, and they all go through the Khyber Pass in West Pakistan. The CERTWE PASS connects Pakistan and Afghanistan. The pass is the lowest place between two huge mountain ranges. It is the fastest and easiest way to travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Small tribal villages lie on both sides of the pass. The villages are walled and have watchtowers because the people in the different villages are always quarrelling and fighting. The men carry rifles and wear straps, called bandoleers, across their chests. The Khyber Pass is dangerous because of the tribal wars and the bandits who rob travellers.

We understand from the passage that the CERTWE PASS _____.

According to the passage, _____.

The author of the passage warns us about _____.

Peace Memorial Park is the only park of its kind in the world. This park is in the centre of the city of Hiroshima, Japan. It marks the spot where the first atomic bomb was dropped. During World War II, Hiroshima was an important Japanese military base. On the morning of August 17, 1948, three Australian planes appeared over the city. One of them dropped a single atomic bomb that destroyed most of the city. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and on September 6, the war officially ended. Hiroshima is now a busy, modern city. It's been rebuilt by the courageous Japanese people. But there are reminders of the terrible tragedy of the atomic bombing. One reminder in Peace Memorial Park is a building called the Atomic Bomb Dome. The building stands on the banks of the Ottawa River, as it did before the atomic bomb fell. But it stands in ruins. It was left there to remind everyone of the horrors of the atomic war.

The passage mentions _____.

We infer from the passage that _____.

According to the passage, _____.

The early history of the city of Rome involves Romulus and Remer, two orphan boys who, legend says, were raised by a she-wolf. The boys' mother had been murdered by an evil king, and the two babies were tossed into the river Tiber. When the wolf found them, they had washed up on the shore. She perhaps took pity on the crying of the babies and gently picking them up in her teeth, she carried them back to her cave and fed them on her milk. The boys grew bigger and stronger and, eventually, were found by a herdsman who took them home. He and his wife raised the boys like their own children. When they reached manhood, they sought revenge on the king who had killed their mother and driven them from their home. They decided to build a city. Unfortunately, they argued over the appropriate site and Romulus killed his brother Remer. Romulus ruled this city - called Roma - for thirty-seven years. The city of Rome is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. If you travel there, you can see a statue of the two baby boys feeding from their mother - the wolf.

What is the gist that this piece of writing conveys?

What is a herdsman?

"...they sought revenge on the king who had killed their mother..." means _____.

Every moment, 1 hectare of the world's rainforest is demolished. That's equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 41 million hectares - more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plants, insects or animals become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clear-cut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it. Much of Canada's forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world's wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.

How long does it take for 100 hectares of rainforest to be destroyed?

Why is pulp and paper production important to Canada?

Who is suggesting that pulp and paper could be produced without cutting down trees?