Reading Comprehension and Cloze Test — Working a Real Passage Instead of Guessing at One

Every other part of the English paper asks you to remember something — an idiom, a rule, a spelling. Comprehension asks you to remember nothing. The answer is printed on the page in front of you, which makes it the cheapest block of marks in the section and the one students most often waste.

They waste it by reading the passage the way they read a story: start to finish, absorbing atmosphere, then answering from a general impression. That impression is exactly what the paper-setter builds distractors against. A well-made wrong option is one that matches your impression of the passage while contradicting a specific line in it.

So treat comprehension as a search task, not a reading task. Skim once for structure — what is each paragraph doing? Then answer each question by locating the line that settles it. If you cannot point at a line, you have not answered the question; you have guessed at it.

1. Passage: "Rainwater harvesting in the Thar has long relied on the tanka — an underground tank lined with lime plaster, filled by runoff from a patch of swept, hardened ground above it." According to the passage, what fills a tanka?

2. In the sentence "The committee's report, though widely praised, stopped short of naming those responsible", the phrase 'stopped short of' means:

3. Fill the blank: "The scheme was announced with great fanfare; ______, three years on, not a single unit has been built."

4. Fill the blank: "The minister ______ serious concern over the delay in construction."

5. Passage: "Between 2011 and 2021 the number of registered street vendors in the city tripled, while the number of designated vending zones stayed at eleven." Which of the following can be reasonably inferred?

6. Passage: "Handloom weaving survives not because it competes with the powerloom on price, but because it does what the powerloom cannot — small runs, changed designs, and a finish buyers pay a premium for." The most suitable title is:

7. Passage: "Another committee, another set of recommendations, another shelf. One begins to admire the consistency." The tone of these lines is best described as:

8. Passage: "The library opens at nine and closes at six. It is shut on the second Saturday of every month." Which statement is NOT supported by the passage?