Let Review on Reading Comprehension 2021

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Reading comprehension questions usually fall into several general categories.  

 

1. Main Idea.  This usually refers to the passage as a whole, not to some segment or part of the passage.  Questions are usually about the main idea or theme of the passage, about a possible title, or about the author’s primary objective.  The main idea is typically (but not always) found in the first paragraph.  It is the statement that gives the overall theme of the passage.  In many cases, it is in the form of an argument, including a premise and conclusion.

 

World War II brought new demands and needs to the nation in the 1940s.  Financing the war meant additional taxes and changes to payroll processing.  An armed force with millions of people produced new challenges in administration and record keeping.  New weapons required countless calculations and tests.  Defense research demanded the development of large-scale computing devices.

 

2. Supporting Ideas.  This is about the idea expressed in one part of the passage rather than about the passage as a whole.  This type of question is to distinguish between the main idea and those themes that support it, some of which may be implicit or implied rather than explicitly stated.

 

Males and females are each associated with different kinds of behavior, and what is considered masculine and feminine differs from society to society.  These concepts of masculinity and femininity extend to how people walk, sit, talk, and dress.  In our society, as in all others, men walk and talk in certain ways and until very recently dressed very differently from women.  In some societies, different spatial areas are associated with males and females – women in many Middle Eastern societies are restricted to certain parts of the house and may only come into contact with the males who are members of their family.  In such societies, the coffee house and the market are defined as male domains.  In contrast, in some African societies, women predominate in the marketplace.

 

3. Drawing Inferences.  This asks about ideas that are not explicitly stated in a passage.  The question refers meanings implied by the author based on information given in the passage.

 

The procedure is actually quite simple.  First, you arrange the items into different groups.  Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do.  If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step; otherwise, you are pretty well set.  It is important not to overdo things.  That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many.  In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise.  A mistake can be expensive as well.  At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated.  Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life.  It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then, one never can tell.  After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again.  Then they can be put into their appropriate places.  Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated.  However, that is part of life.

 

4. Specific Details.  This type of questions asks about specific facts or details the author has stated explicitly in the passage.

 

Today, farmers grow about 449 million tons of corn worldwide.  In terms of area under cultivation, it’s the world’s second or third largest crop.  Providing 19 percent of the world’s food calories and 15 percent of its food-crop protein, global corn production yields about 200 pounds of the cereal for every individual alive.  It should come as no surprise, then, that corn – also known as maize – is a staple for some 200 million people, including nearly half the world’s chronically malnourished.  However, conventional corn is deficient in the vitamin niacin, and roughly half its protein in lacks lysine and tryptophan – two essential amino acids.  As a result, this staple is not a sufficient protein source, for children, the sick, and pregnant or lactating women.

 

5. Tone or Attitude of the Passage.  This concentrates on the author’s style, attitude, or mood.  The use of key words such as adjectives that reveal if the author is “pessimistic,” “critical,” “supportive,” or “objective” about an event, idea, or situation in the passage help determine the tone or attitude.

 

Them dirty lousy politicians is getting altogether too high and might, the way they is always arranging to take advantage of the little businessmen by raising up the tax payments and collecting more money from the little fellows.  They ain’t nothing much can be done about this here business, because them politicians has certainly got the inside connections and they always work through undercover arrangements.  It’s might funny that the generals and the admirals and the presidents of the big corporations aren’t paying out no oversized tax installments but just the little businessmen who aren’t getting much money nohow.

6. The Logical Structure of the Passage.  This tests the overall meaning, logic, or organization of a passage.  The question asks how several ideas in a passage are interrelated or how a passage is constructed, classifies, compares, describes events, or situations.

 

Let’s begin then to investigate the characteristics of your memory system as it now operates.  You may be surprised to discover that there is already more to your memory system than you realize even existed.  Scientific investigations of memory and how it works have turned up the fact that each of us actually has three completely different types of memory.  These memory systems are called immediate memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.  Each of these retains, and loses, information differently.  In addition, the life span of information within each system varies.  Consequently, each is use for different purposes and we must learn how to use each most effectively.  Whenever something is to be remembered for only a short period, it can go into short-term memory; it if is to be used immediately, immediate memory is where it belongs.

 

7. Determining the Meaning of Words from the Context.  When a question asks for the meaning of a word, it can usually e deduced from the context of the passage.

 

Nature loves edges.  Take a place where mountain meets plain, field joins forest, or river fuses with ocean.  Abundant wildness usually occurs where one kind of habitat hits another.  At a good edge the number and variety of living things – the quotient of ecological diversity – generally exceed what can be found in a more uniform habitat.  And because humans appreciate visual contrasts, edges often mean aesthetic distinctness too.  So it is with an estuary, the biological hot spot and scenic climax where freshwater and saltwater first meet head on.