Question: Ques: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table. "Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?" the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by the stranger. "I'm from Mississippi too." Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty party. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair. "They began telling me all the news of Mississippi," Welty said. "I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking." Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi. "My friends said: 'Now we believe your stories,'" Welty added. "And I said: 'Now you know. These are the people that make me write _ .'" Sitting on a sofa in her room, Welty, a slim figure in a simple gray dress, looked pleased with this explanation. "I don't make them up," she said of the characters in her fiction these last 50 or so years. "I don't have to." Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets of her native Jackson, Miss., from conversations overheard on a bus. It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment  of a particularly interesting story. Question: What happened when Welty was with her friends at the cafe? - Two strangers joined her. - Her childhood friends came in. - A heavy rain ruined the dinner. - Some people held a party there.
Ans: Two strangers joined her.

Ques: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Several different stories are told about the origin of Saint Valentine's day. One legend dates as far back as the days of Roman Empire. According to the story , Claudius , the Emperor of Rome, wanted to increase the size of the army. He knew that it would be easier to get young men who were not married to join the army; therefore, he made a rule that no young men could marry until he had served in the army for a number of years.  A priest named Valentine broke the rule and secretly married a great number of young people. Finally, Claudius found out about Valentine and put the priest in prison, where he remained until his death on February 14.  After his death, Valentine was made a saint and the day of his death was named Saint Valentine's day--- which is time for people to send one another their greetings of many kinds.  February 14, Valentine's Day, is sweetheart's day, on which people in love with each other express their tender emotions.  People sometimes put their love message in a heartshaped box of chocolate or a bunch of flowers tied with red ribbons. Words of letters may be written on the flower-covered card, or something else. Whatever the form may be , the message is almost the same: "will you be my Valentine?" Question: The passage mainly tells us about   _ - how Valentine died. - the Emperor of Rome - how Valentine's Day is celebrated - the origin of Valentine's Day
Ans: the origin of Valentine's Day

Ques: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Our sense of hearing is one of the most important means of knowing what is going on around us. We are warned of danger by sounds. The sounds of music please us. Sound has a waste product, too, in the form of noise. Noise has been called unwanted sound. Noise is growing and it may get much worse before it gets any better. Scientists, for several years, have been studying how noise affects people and animals and are alarmed by what they have learned. Peace and quiet are becoming harder to find. Noise pollution is no joke. It is a threat that should be looked at carefully. Sound is measured in units called decibels  . At a level of 140 decibels people feel pain in their ears. Trucks, buses, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, and factories all make noise. This noise bothers not only our ears, but our minds and bodies as well. There is a saying about "it is so noisy that you can't hear yourself think". Doctors who study noise believe that we must be able to hear ourselves think most of the time. If we don't, we may have headaches, other aches and pains, or even mental problems. Noise adds even more tension to a society which already faces too much stress. Question: Which of the following statements is TRUE? - Scientists are warning people noise can be harmful. - It's possible for man to get rid of all noises. - Sounds under 140 decibels are not considered to be noise. - Society has become more lively because there is noise now.
Ans: Scientists are warning people noise can be harmful.

Ques: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The old man fished alone in a small rowboat and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's patents had told him that the old man was now bad luck, and ordered the boy to join another boat, which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his boat empty and he always went down to help him carry in the fishing lines or take down the old, patched sail. "Santiago," the boy said to him as they dragged up the boat to the sand. "I could go with you again. I've made some money." the old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him. "No," the old man said. "You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them. You must obey your father." "We can be lucky again too. Remember when we didn't catch a fish for 10 days, then caught a big one each day for a month?" said the boy. "Can I offer you a beer on the balcony and then we'll take the stuff home," said the boy. "Why not?" the old man said. "Santiago," the boy said as they sat on the balcony, "If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way." "You bought me a beer," the old man said, lifting the bottle to his mouth. "Do you remember the first time I took you out to fish?" the old man asked. "I was five. I remember the tail of a huge fish slapping against the boat, the noise of you clubbing him and the sweet blood smell. I remember everything from when we first went together," the boy said. The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, loving eyes. "May I get some sardines for tomorrow? Let me get four fresh ones," said the boy. "One," the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening like a sea breeze. "Two," the boy said. "Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained modesty. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. "Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this... Question: Why was the boy forced to stop working for the old man? - It was too dangerous to continue fishing. - It was time for the boy to return to school. - The old man was thought to be a poor teacher. - The boy couldn't earn enough money with the old man.
Ans:
Answer: The boy couldn't earn enough money with the old man.