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Reading Comprehension Practice Questions

Directions: Read the following paragraphs and answer the questions that accompany them. Circle the correct answer, which you believe most accurately satisfies the requirements of each question. The answer key is located at the end of this test.

Passage One
Paragraph A

Lightning is an electrical discharge that occurs in a thunderstorm. It can be seen in the form of a bright streak (or bolt) from the sky. Lightning occurs when an electrical charge is built up within a cloud, due to static electricity generated by supercooled water droplets colliding with ice crystals near the freezing level. When a large enough charge is built up, a large discharge will occur and can be seen as lightning. The temperature of a lightning bolt can be five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Although the lightning is extremely hot, the duration is short and 90% of strike victims survive. Contrary to the popular idea that lightning does not strike twice in the same spot, some people have been struck by lightning over three times, and skyscrapers like the Empire State Building have been struck numerous times in the same storm. The loud bang that is heard is the super heated air around the lightning bolt expanding at the speed of sound. Because sound travels slower than light the flash is seen before the bang, although both occur at the same moment.

1. What can be inferred from paragraph A?

A: Lightning is caused by an electrical discharge in the clouds.
B: Lightning is not as hot as the temperature of the sun's surface.
C: The sound made by lightning occurs when the electricity strikes an object.
D: The sound of lightning is heard before the lightning can be seen.

2. Being struck by lightning means:

A: Instant death.
B: Less than a fifty percent chance of survival.
C: A ninety percent chance of surviving the strike.
D: An eighty percent chance of survival.

3. Lightning is caused by:

A: Static electricity generated by cool water droplets and ice crystals colliding in the clouds.
B: Friction from the clouds rubbing together.
C: Extreme heat in the clouds caused by solar energy.
D: Warm and cold air mixing together.

Answer Key

1. A: Lightning is caused by an electrical discharge in the clouds when static electricity builds up.
2. C: A ninety percent chance of surviving the strike without permanent injury.
3. A: Static electricity generated by cool water droplets and ice crystals colliding in the clouds.

Paragraph B

Warm air has a lower density than cool air, so warm air rises within cooler air, similar to hot air balloons. Clouds form as warm air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the warm air rises, it cools. The moist water vapor begins to condense. When the moisture condenses, this releases energy that keeps the air warmer than its surroundings, so that it continues to rise. If enough instability is present in the atmosphere, this process will continue long enough for cumulonimbus clouds to form, which support lightning and thunder. All thunderstorms, regardless of type, go through three stages: the cumulus stage, the mature stage, and the dissipation stage. Depending on the conditions present in the atmosphere, these three stages can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours to occur.

4. The idea that can be inferred from paragraph B is:

A: Warm air is denser than cool air
B: All thunderstorms will go through three stages.
C: Thunderstorms may occur without clouds present.
D: The stages of a thunderstorm are finished in just a few minutes.

5. When warm air rises through colder air, it results in:

A: Evaporation.
B: Humidity.
C: Clear skies.
D: Condensation.

Paragraph C

The first stage of a thunderstorm is the cumulus stage, or developing stage. In this stage, masses of moisture are lifted upwards into the atmosphere. The trigger for this lift can be insulation heating the ground producing thermals, areas where two winds converge forcing air upwards, or where winds blow over terrain of increasing elevation. The moisture rapidly cools into liquid drops of water, which appears as cumulus clouds. As the water vapor condenses into liquid, latent heat is released which warms the air, causing it to become less dense than the surrounding dry air. The air tends to rise in an updraft through the process of convection (hence the term convective precipitation). This creates a low-pressure zone beneath the forming thunderstorm. In a typical thunderstorm, approximately 5×108 kg of water vapor are lifted, and the amount of energy released when this condenses is about equal to the energy used by a city (US-2002) of 100,000 during a month.

6. The cumulus stage of the thunderstorm is the:

A: Last stage of the storm.
B: The middle stage of the storm formation.
C: The beginning of the thunderstorm.
D: The period after the thunderstorm has ended.

7. The air is warmed due to:

A: Air moving downwards which will create a high pressure zone.
B: Air cools and becomes less dense, so that it rises.
C: Moisture moving downwards towards the earth.
D: Heat which is latent, and is caused by water vapor that is condensing into a liquid form.

Paragraph D

A severe thunderstorm is a term designating a thunderstorm that has reached a predetermined level of severity. Often, this level is determined by the storm being strong enough to inflict wind or hail damage. In most of the United States, a storm is considered severe if winds reach over 50 knots (58 mph or 93 km/h), hail is ¾ inch (2 cm) diameter or larger, or if funnel clouds and/or tornadoes are reported. In the Central Region of the United States National Weather Service, the hail threshold for a severe thunderstorm is not until it is 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. Though a funnel cloud or tornado indicates the presence of a severe thunderstorm, a tornado warning would then be issued in place of a severe thunderstorm warning.

In Canada, a severe thunderstorm is defined as either having tornadoes, wind gusts of 90 km/h or greater, hail of 2 centimeters in diameter or greater, a rainfall rate greater than 50 millimeters in 1 hour, or 75 millimeters in 3 hours.
Severe thunderstorms can occur from any type of thunderstorm, however multi cell and squall lines represent the most common forms. Super cells are often the most powerful type of severe thunderstorm.

8. What is the purpose of paragraph D?

A: How to identify when a thunderstorm can turn into a tornado.
B: Who will issue storm warnings, and when these warnings should be issued.
C: To show what strength a thunderstorm must be to be considered severe.
D: To discuss why super cell thunderstorms are so dangerous and how to identify these storms.

9. It is possible to infer from passage one that:

A: Thunderstorms end with the cumulus stage, and this is the most violent part of these storms.
B: Thunderstorms can include lightning and tornadoes, as well as violent winds and large hail.
C: If a thunderstorm and a tornado are both spotted, a severe storm warning will be issued immediately.
D: Canada has a much different alert system for severe storms, with criteria that is far less.

10. What is the threshold concerning hail before the Central Region of the United States National Weather Service issues a severe storm warning?

A: Hail must be at least one inch in size before a warning is issued.
B: Hail must fall for at least three minutes before a warning is issued.
C: A severe storm warning is never issued just because of hail.
D: Hail must be accompanied by sleet as well as rain before a severe storm warning will be issued.

Passage Two

Paragraph E

The main characters in myths are usually gods or supernatural heroes. As sacred stories, myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and closely linked to religion. In the society in which it is told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past. In fact, many societies have two categories of traditional narrative—(1) "true stories", or myths, and (2) "false stories", or fables. Myths generally take place in a primordial age, when the world had not yet achieved its current form. They explain how the world gained its current form and how customs, institutions, and taboos were established. Closely related to myth are legend and folktale. Myths, legends, and folktales are different types of traditional story. Unlike myths, folktales can take place at any time and any place, and they are not considered true or sacred even by the societies that tell them. Like myths, legends are stories that are traditionally considered true; however, they are set in a more recent time, when the world was much as it is today. Also, legends generally feature humans as their main characters, whereas myths generally focus on superhuman characters.

11. Paragraph E makes it clear that:

A: Myths were discouraged by rulers, because it was believed that these stories diminished their power.
B: Myths were true stories handed down, and they played a big part in religions and politics.
C: Myths can take place in any time period and explains current world phenomenon.
D: Priests and religions frowned on myths as superstition and false stories intended to tempt man.

12. In Paragraph E it is possible to infer:

A: Folktales are set back in a time far past, before civilization covered the earth.
B: Legends have been used to help mankind explain most customs, rules, and how the world was created.
C: Myths evolve around gods or beings that are supernatural, and these stories are usually accepted by the local community as true.
D: The only difference between a myth and a legend is the time setting of the story.

13. The main idea of paragraph E is:

A: To distinguish between many types of traditional stories, and explain the background of some traditional story categories.
B: To describe traditional stories and explain how they have been used through history to control the population.
C: To determine whether myths and legends could possibly have happened.
D: To show how important folktales were, and how these traditional stories made life more bearable in harder times.

14. What is the purpose of a folktale?

A: A folktale is a story that describes a true event in the past that has important lessons which man can learn from.
B: Folktales were created to help the church ward off superstition by the populations.
C: Rulers used folktales to help control the masses and prevent unrest by putting themselves in a folktale as the hero.
D: To explain the way that the world has formed and developed, and to explore cultural taboos and behaviors.

Paragraph F

The distinction between myth, legend, and folktale is meant simply as a useful tool for grouping traditional stories. In many cultures, it is hard to draw a sharp line between myths and legends. Instead of dividing their traditional stories into myths, legends, and folktales, some cultures divide them into two categories — one that roughly corresponds to folktales, and one that combines myths and legends. Even myths and folktales are not completely distinct: a story may be considered true — and therefore a myth — in one society, but considered fictional — and therefore a folktale — in another society. In fact, when a myth loses its status as part of a religious system, it often takes on traits more typical of folktales, with its formerly divine characters reinterpreted as human heroes, giants, or fairies. Myth, legend, and folktale are only a few of the categories of traditional stories. Other categories include anecdotes and some kinds of jokes. Traditional stories, in turn, are only one category within folklore, which also includes items such as gestures, costumes, and music.

15. The main idea of paragraph F is that:

A: Myths, fables, and folktales are not the same thing, and each describes a specific type of story.
B: Myths, fables, and folktales are all stories that are not true and are just intended to tell a moral story.
C: Myths are used for religious purposes, and when this is no longer true then myths are forgotten and discarded.
D: Myths can never become folk tales because one is true and the other is false.

16. The terms myth and legend are:

A: Ancient descriptions that mean the words true and false, and these are used to describe the origins of a story.
B: Tools that allow traditional stories to be grouped according to certain categories.
C: Interchangeable because both of these terms mean a story traditionally passed down through generations.
D: meant to distinguish between a story that involves a hero and a moral message and a story meant only to entertain.

17. Traditional story categories not only include myths and legends, but:

A: Can also include gestures because many of these stories were passed down before the written and spoken word.
B: Also folklore, which are the stories involving fables and fairy tales.
C: These story categories can also include folk music and traditional dress as well.
D: Traditional stories themselves are a category of folklore, which may also include costumes and gestures among others.

18. Passage two shows that:

A: There is a distinct difference between a myth and a legend, and these are both folktales.
B: Folktales, legends, and myths all were created to teach children moral obligations, and normally had no basis in the truth.
C: Myths, legends, and folktales play an important part in tradition and the past, and they are a rich and colorful part of history.
D: Stories from the past can impart important lessons because they are always based on facts and truth.

19. It is possible to infer from passage two that:

A: Legends were used to warn children of the dangers that bad behavior could cause.
B: Myths are based on stories about gods and people with super human qualities, instead of super exploits by mere mortals and humans.
C: Stories are only labeled as folk tales, legends, or myths, and traditional stories do not fit into any other category.
D: Stories were considered entertainment through history, and had no other value except for this.

20. The main idea of passage two is that:

A: It may be hard to distinguish between myths, legends, and folktales, and what may be a myth to one culture may be a legend or folktale to another culture.
B: Myths are based on fables and fairy tales, and are grounded in ancient stories based on fictional people.
C: Stories have been told through history from one generation to the next, and at some point these same stories have been called myths, legends, and folk tales.
D: Whether a story was considered a legend, a myth, or a folk tale depended on the cultural the story was told in.

Passage Three

Paragraph G

A cloud is a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity, such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae. Clouds are studied in the nephology, or cloud physics branch of meteorology. On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. They thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance at the base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may appear colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds look darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.

21. Paragraph G infers that clouds are responsible for:

A: An increase of wind in the atmosphere.
B: Reflecting sunlight off of water droplets and dispersing this light.
C: Keeping the earth cool and moist, with no vapor loss.
D: Droplets of water in the clouds are not very efficient at dispersing light.

22. The main idea of paragraph G is that:

A: Condensation occurs in clouds that can have an intense effect on the weather on the surface of the earth.
B: Atmospheric gases are responsible for the gray color of clouds right before a severe storm happens.
C: Clouds which are thick and fluffy can absorb color from the environment easier than clouds which are thin, because there are more vapor droplets present.
D: Clouds reflect light in varying amounts and degrees, depending on the size and concentration of the water droplets.

23. The study of the physics involved in clouds is a branch of meteorology called:

A: Convection
B: Thermal meteorology
C: Nephology
D: Nephelometry

Paragraph H

The color of a cloud, as seen from the Earth, tells much about what is going on inside the cloud. Clouds form when water vapor is light enough to rise due to becoming warmer than its surrounding. As it rises it cools and the vapor condenses out of the air as micro-droplets. These tiny particles of water are densely packed and sunlight cannot penetrate far into the cloud before it is reflected out, giving a cloud its characteristic white color. As a cloud matures, the droplets may combine to produce larger droplets, which may combine to form droplets large enough to fall as rain. By this process of accumulation, the space between droplets becomes increasingly larger, permitting light to penetrate farther into the cloud. If the cloud is sufficiently large and the droplets within are spaced far enough apart, it may be that a percentage of the light which enters the cloud is not reflected back out before it is absorbed. A simple example of this is being able to see farther in heavy rain than in heavy fog. This process of reflection/absorption is what causes the range of cloud color from white to black. For the same reason, the undersides of large clouds and heavy overcasts can appear as various degrees of gray shades, depending on how much light is being reflected or transmitted back to the observer. Other colors occur naturally in clouds. Bluish-gray is the result of light scattering within the cloud. In the visible spectrum, blue and green are at the short end of light's visible wavelengths, while red and yellow are at the long end. The short rays are more easily scattered by water droplets, and the long rays are more likely to be absorbed. The bluish color is evidence that such scattering is being produced by rain-sized droplets in the cloud.

24. The main idea of paragraph H is that:

A: The color of the cloud will be determined by the size of the vapor droplets in the cloud.
B: Cloud colors are determined by atmospheric pollutants, and any color but white means there is air pollution present.
C: Gray clouds mean that a thunderstorm is coming and will hit soon.
D: Blue color in the clouds means that tornado conditions are present and shelter should be taken.

25. It is possible to infer from paragraph H that:

A: The color of a cloud will determine how much visibility there will be.
B: Fog is thicker than rain, and this is why visibility is worse when a fog is present.
C: The low visibility conditions caused by fog is because the water vapor is so light that it rises.
D: A thick rainfall can hamper visibility more than fog because the water droplets are larger.

Paragraph III

A greenish tinge to a cloud is produced when sunlight is scattered by ice. A cumulonimbus cloud emitting green is an imminent sign of heavy rain, hail, strong winds and possible tornadoes. Yellowish clouds are rare but may occur in the late spring through early fall months during forest fire season. The yellow color is due to the presence of smoke. Red, orange and pink clouds occur almost entirely at sunrise and sunset, and are the result of the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere. The clouds do not become that color; they are reflecting long and rays of sunlight that have not been scattered, which are predominant at those hours. The effect is much like if one were to shine a red spotlight on a white sheet. In combination with large, mature thunderheads this can produce blood-red clouds.

26. Green colored clouds are caused by:

A: Smoke in the clouds.
B: Warm weather.
C: Ice reflecting scattered sunlight.
D: Dust in the atmosphere.

27. Paragraph I has the main idea that:

A: Clouds are colored in a wide variety of colors for many different reasons, but the color is a result of light reflections and not the cloud itself.
B: The color of the cloud will determine how severe the storm is and what other effects may occur.
C: Blood red clouds occur because of a forest fire or air pollution.
D: Clouds that are colored are always an indication that a severe thunderstorm is on the way.

28. Passage three allows the reader to infer that:

A: The cloud color can alert you to changes that are occurring halfway around the globe.
B: Fire can cause many different colors in the clouds, from gray to red to black.
C: Severe thunderstorms and snowfall can cause yellow or green clouds to be seen above the horizon.
D: The color of the clouds can hold important clues as to what is going on or about to happen locally.

29. Passage three describes:

A: The causes of different cloud colors, and how the color can be evaluated to determine the cause as well as where the effect is coming from.
B: Why the cloud colors are important, and how to determine what type of storm will occur.
C: How smoke and air pollution can affect the quality of rain that happens during a thunderstorm.
D: How a cloud forms during a thunderstorm and what the different colors in the clouds represent.



Answer Key

4. B: All thunderstorms will go through three stages.
5. D: Condensation.
6. C: The beginning of the thunderstorm is called the cumulus stage.
7. D: Heat which is latent, and is caused by water vapor that is condensing into a liquid form.
8. C: To show what strength a thunderstorm must be to be considered severe.
9. B: Thunderstorms can include lightning and tornadoes, as well as violent winds and large hail.
10. A: Hail must be at least one inch in size before a warning is issued by the Central Region of the United States National Weather Service.
11. B: Myths were true stories handed down, and they played a big part in religions and politics. Rulers and priests approved of and told these stories.
12. C: Myths evolve around gods or beings that are supernatural, and these stories are usually accepted by the local community as true.
13. A: To distinguish between many types of traditional stories, and explain the background of some traditional story categories.
14. D: To explain the way that the world has formed and developed, and to explore cultural taboos and behaviors. These traditional stories and activities outline what is good and bad in society, both in the past and the present, as well as explaining how the world came to be.
15. A: Myths, fables, and folktales are not the same thing, and each describes a specific type of story that is traditional.
16. B: Tools that allow traditional stories to be grouped according to certain categories.
17. D: Traditional stories themselves are a category of folklore, which may also include costumes and gestures among others.
18. C: Myths, Legends, and folktales play an important part in tradition and the past, and they are a rich and colorful part of history.
19. B: Myths are based on stories about gods and people with super human qualities, instead of super exploits by mere mortals and humans.
20. A: It may be hard to distinguish between myths, legends, and folktales, and what may be a myth to one culture may be a legend or folktale to another culture.
21. B: Reflecting sunlight off of water droplets and dispersing this light.
22. D: Clouds reflect light in varying amounts and degrees, depending on the size and concentration of the water droplets.
23. C: Nephology, which is the study of cloud physics.
24. A: The color of the cloud will be determined by the size of the vapor droplets in the cloud.
25. B: Fog is thicker than rain, and this is why visibility is worse when a fog is present.
26. C: ice reflecting scattered sunlight.
27. A: Clouds are colored in a wide variety of colors for many different reasons, but the color is a result of light reflections and not the cloud itself.
28. D: The color of the clouds can hold important clues as to what is going on or about to happen locally.
29. D: How a cloud forms during a thunderstorm and what the different colors in the clouds represent.