Comprehension


Direction: In the following questions, you have brief passages with 5/10 questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
As my train was not due to leave for another hour, I had plenty of time to spare. After buying some magazines to read on the journey, I made my way to the luggage office to collect the heavy suitcase I had left there three days before. There were only a few people waiting, and I took out my wallet to find the receipt for my case. The receipt did not seem to be where I had left it. I emptied the contents of the wallet, and the railway tickets, money, scraps of paper, and photographs tumbled out of it; but no matter how hard I searched, the receipt was nowhere to be found. I explained the situation sorrowfully to the assistant. The man looked at me suspiciously as if to say he had heard this type of story many times and asked me to describe the case. I told him that it was an old, brown looking object no different from the many suitcases I could see on the shelves. The assistant then gave me form and told me to make a list of the contents of the case. If they were correct, he said, I could take the case away. I tried to remember all the articles I had hurriedly packed and wrote them down. After I had done this, I went to look among the shelves. There were hundreds of cases there and for one dreadful moment, it occurred to me that if someone had picked the receipt up, he could easily have claimed the case already. Fortunately this had not happened, for after a time, I found the case lying on its side high up in the corner. After examining the articles inside, the assistant gave me the case. I took out my wallet to pay him. I pulled out a ten shilling note and out slipped my ‘lost’ receipt with it! I could not help blushing. The assistant nodded his head knowingly, as if to say that he had often seen this happen too !!
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
(1) suspiciously (Adv.) : in a way that shows you think somebody has done something wrong, illegal/ dishonest
(2) dreadful (Adj.) : very bad/unpleasant
(3) flushing (V.) : to become red in the face because you are embarrassed/ashamed

  1. The writer had plenty of time to spare because









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    he had arrived an hour earlier

    Correct Option: B

    he had arrived an hour earlier


Direction: In the following questions, you have two brief passages with 5 questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swam by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put it in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there – sometimes a mile and a half wide; we ran nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up – nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next, we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywhere – perfectly still – just like the whole world was asleep; only sometimes the bullfrog's cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water was a kind of dull line – that was the woods on the other side; you couldn’t make anything else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and wasn’t black any more, but grey; you could see little dark spots drifting along-ever so far away – trading scows and such things and long black streaks – rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep creaking or jumbled up voices, it was so still and sounds come so far and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
(1) reckon (V.) : to think something/have an opinion about something
(2) monstrous (Adj.) : very large and frightening
(3) navigating (V.) : sailing over/through a sea, river, etc.
(4) towhead (N.) : a sandbar/low-lying alluvial island in a river, especially one with a stand of trees
(5) scows (N.) : a large flat-bottomed boat with square ends, used chiefly for transporting freight
(6) streaks (N.) : a long thin mark/line
(7) snag (N.) : difficulty
(8) moor (N.) : a high open area of land that is not used for farming, especially an area covered with rough grass

  1. How did the days and nights go by, according to the writer?









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    They slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely.

    Correct Option: A

    They slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely.



  1. The streak on the water looks as it does because









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    of a snag there in the swift current which breaks on it.

    Correct Option: C

    of a snag there in the swift current which breaks on it.


  1. In the stillness of the night









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    the whole world was asleep

    Correct Option: C

    the whole world was asleep



  1. After a swim in the moor they









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    set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep and watched the daylight come.

    Correct Option: B

    set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep and watched the daylight come.