Reading Comprehension Test 1

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[passage-header]Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
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In this life, there are no gains without pains. Life indeed would be dull if there were no difficulties. Games lose their zest if there is no real struggle and if the result is a foregone conclusion. Both the winner and the loser enjoy a game most when it is closely contested to the end. No victory is a real triumph unless the foe is worthy of the steel, whether we like it or not. Life is one continuous, competitive examination.

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Directions For Questions

[passage-header]Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
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Directions For Questions

[passage-header]Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
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[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]

The loudest public food fight right now is about GMOs or genetically modified organisms. Scientists add genes to corn, soya beans, and other plants, usually to protect the crops from insects of herbicides. Those who support this say that the genetic help makes crops easier to grow and cheaper. But many consumers and those who keep an eye on food-safety worry that GMOs pose an unnatural threat to our health and the environment. These opponents say the GMOs have been linked to depression, allergies and even cancer. Unless we have been eating food labelled 100 percent organic - which means that is must be GMO-free - we probably have GMOs in our body system already!

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Adding genes to crops will _______________

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[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the mentioned question:[/passage-header]

'We are living in the golden age of answer'. Of course information is not knowledge or wisdom, and data can mislead. Profusion of online information can be distracting or even useless. Privacy can also be a problem in a digital world where everything you've clicked can be used to sell things to you, evaluate you or embarrass you. Your iphone or computer can provide information to others that you might prefer to keep to yourself. But revolutions always cause some damages. Things do get lost in the ocean of information. We no longer bother to remember stuff we can easily look up. We don't search for addresses as we use the GPS. We spend more time connecting with friends on Facebook than connecting with real friends. Still, pop-up ads, internet frauds and other inconveniences are a small price to pay for instant access to infinite information. Today we have better tools for searching, analysing or evaluating through data than before. And what's most exciting about our age of answers is its potential to change the quality of our lives.

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Directions For Questions

Read the passage and accordingly, fill in the blank:
Jyoti lived with her mother in a small village. From a young age, she had witnessed her mother, a widow, being ill-treated by the villagers. But when she was in high school she began to understand things. She couldn't take the insults to her mother anymore. She decided to change the way widows were viewed in village society. Jyoti started a "Widow Empowerment Campaign". She spoke to village elders and knocked on two hundred doors to spread her message. She learned to organize street plays which she used to make people aware about the plight of widows.

Naturally her ideas were not acceptable to the society entrenched in tradition. People pushed her out of their houses and refused to listen to what she had to say. But she went on relentlessly without faltering. Today, widows are allowed go out of their homes like others. Many, including her mother, are now employed at organizations and literacy centres.

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[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Years ago, people woke up to find sparrows chirping in their backyard. A noisy lot, they took grains right from your hand if you had befriended them. They got over their fear easily and demanded food or water with their loud chirping if you had forgotten to give them their regular share of food. Tiny pink beaks opened to morsels of food or worms sometimes regurgitated by the parent birds. We had a splendid time watching the bird family bond and as children sat gazing at them as they picked up grain or splashed about us in muddy water. Many people have written poems and lyrics on sparrows, their noisy chirps, their friendly nature, and their spotty feathers. Sparrows were a menace on the fields. There were guards with slings and stones to chase them away as they ate grain from standing crops. Now people are trying to woo them back to nature.

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[passage-header]Read the passage and accordingly, fill in the blank:[/passage-header]For Abid Surti, Sunday is no day of rest. He is busy going door to door volunteering with an assistant and a plumber. They are in an apartment building in Mumbai's densely populated suburb filled with high-rise buildings. He rings doorbells and asks residents the same question, 'Any leaky taps? We are providing a free service.' Surti is a multifaceted 79-year-old man. A national award-winning author, he has written some 80 books-novels, plays, and collection of short stories and poems. He is also an artist and a cartoonist. In 2007, Surti started Drop Dead Foundation, a water conservation NGO that caters to the buildings in Mira Road, fixing leaky plumbing for free. With water shortages and the prospects of taps running dry in Mumbai, Surti's work is vital. 'Massive' is how he describes water wastage in Mumbai. 'In poor families, they can't afford to pay a plumber but in most middle-class families, the problem is one of sheer indifference. 'Indeed it was the apathy of a friend that first spurred Surti into action. While visiting a friend's house, Surti saw a leaking tap and asked why it wasn't fixed, his friend casually dismissed the query, saying it was hard to get a plumber 'for something so trivial.'

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