English Quiz on Reading Comprehension for SSC CGL,IBPS CLERK,IBPS PO,SBI Exams

English Quiz on Reading Comprehension

English Quiz on Reading Comprehension for SSC CGL,IBPS CLERK,IBPS PO,SBI Exams

Directions (1-10): you have to brief passages with 5 questions in each passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each questions out of the four alternatives.

Passage-I

Pidgins are languages that are not, acquired as mother tongues and that are used for a restricted set of communicative functions. They are formed from a mixture of languages and have a limited vocabulary and a simplified grammar. Pidgins serve as a means of communication between speakers of mutually unintelligible language and my become essential, in multilingual areas. A creole develops

from a pidgin when the pidgin becomes the mother tongue of the community. To cope with the consequent expansion of communicative functions the consequent expansion of communicative functions the vocabulary is increased and the grammar becomes more complex. Where a creole and the standard variety of English coexist, as in the Caribbean, there is a continuum form the most extreme form of creole to the form that is closest to the most extreme form of creole to the form that is closest to the standard language. Linguists mark off the relative positions on the creole continuum as the ‘basilect’ (the furthest from the standard language), the ‘mesolect’, and the ‘acrolet’. In such stuations, most creole speakers can very their speech along the continuum and many are also competent in the standard English of their country.

1.  A pidgin develops in a situation when

(A) Different and mutually unintelligible languages exist side by side

(B) A creole becomes the mother tongue of a linguistic community

(C) A language with restricted vocabulary undergoes an expansion in grammar and vocabulary

(D) Two similar languages are mixed to create a new language

Answer: A

2.  According to the given passage a pidgin becomes a creole when

(A) It creases to be a means of communication

(B) It becomes the mother tongue for a new generation of speakers

(C) Its vocabulary undergoes some kind of change

(D) Two or more languages are mixed with an existing pidgin

Answer: B

3.  According to the passage, a creole continuum is

(A) A linguistic term for the mixture of more than tow languages

(B) A scale which measures the linguistic competence of the speaker

(C) A scale in which the proximity of the creole to the standard language is measured

(D) A record of the continuous history of a creole

Answer: C

4.  According to the passage ‘basilect’ means

(A) An impure form of a creole

(B) A form of creole which is furthest from the standard language

(C) A form of creole which has an extended vocabulary

(D) A form of creole which is very close to the standard language

Answer: B

5.  Find out a word in the passage which is opposite in meaning to the word-‘Simplified’

(A) Complex

(B) Expansion

(C) Restricted

(D) Consequent

Answer: A

Passage-II

There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in 

my room, smoking and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

6.  The four felt down and out because

(A) the room was too smoky

(B) they could never read a patent medicine advertisement

(C) they thought they were ill

(D) they had experienced a most extraordinary thing

Answer: C

7.  Whenever the speaker read a liver pill circular

(A) he suffered from an extraordinary surge of giddiness

(B) he felt sure that he had a liver disorder

(C) he felt the urge to smoke

(D) All of the above

Answer: B

8.  The author of the above passage seems to be suffering from

(A) fits of morbid depression without real cause

(B) an abnormal anxiety about his health

(C) melancholia

(D) an unnecessarily dark, gloomy and pessimistic attitude to life

Answer: B

9.  Harris was troubled by

(A) a symptom of vertigo

(B) garrulity

(C) tribulation

(D) frailty

Answer: A

10. The word which is closest in meaning to virulent is

(A) fantastic

(B) vital

(C) viral

(D) hostile

Answer: C