Category: Reading Comprehension

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions.

Unemployment is a key index of economic slack and lost output. But it is not distributed in proportion to people’s ability to face it. It affects painfully the young, women, the unskilled as well as semiskilled, the black person, the older people, and underemployed people in rural areas.

The unemployment among specific groups means greater costs to society that can be calculated easily in hours of idleness or dollars of income lost. The other costs include disturbance of the careers and increased juvenile delinquency.

There is another cost of unemployment. For labors, continuous unemployment results in “share-the-work” pressures for shorter hours and escalate resistance to technological advances. On business side, the shortcomings of markets results in attempts to raise prices to cover increased costs and to pressures for protection against buying products from abroad.

QUESTIONS

1. Unemployment is an index of
   (A) the employment rate
   (B) economic slack and lost output
   (C) diminished resources
   (D) over utilization of capacity
2. According to the passage, the unemployment falls most heavily upon all except the
   (A) unskilled worker
   (B) semiskilled worker
   (C) black people
   (D) white middle class
3. The cost to society of unemployment can be measured by all except
   (A) disruption of careers
   (B) idleness
   (C) the death rate
   (D) lost incomes
4. Serious unemployment results in labor groups to demand
   (A) more jobs with shorter hours
   (B) “no fire” policies
   (C) higher wages to those employed
   (D) cost-cutting solutions
5. A normal business reaction to a recession is to press for
   (A) restrictive business practices
   (B) protection against imports
   (C) government action
   (D) higher unemployment insurance

ANSWERS: ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION PRACTICE EXERCISE

1. (B) economic slack and lost output
2. (D) white middle class
3. (C) the death rate
4. (A) more jobs with shorter hours
5. (B) protection against imports

Instructions:
Read the following paragraphs carefully. Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

The sea-waves can cause a significant damage when they crash the lands. Under a clear sky and calm sea, a wall of water may appear twenty or thirty feet high over beaches, destroying houses and drowning residents in its path.

When a submarine earthquake happens, it is likely to cause an enormous amount of shock, disturbing the quite waters of the deep ocean. This disturbance transfers to the surface and forms a huge swell. The swells in the ocean are nearly a mile wide and rise to various multiple of ten feet in height.

Nothing was accomplished about tsunamis until after the second World War. These waves travel towards the land hundreds of miles an hour, and you can imagine that how they would crash!

1. An aspect of the waves is the fact that they
   (A) are produced by deep swells
   (B) often strike during clear weather
   (C) arise under conditions of cold temperature
   (D) are formed in concentric patterns
2. These destructive waves are caused by
   (A) storms
   (B) concentric time belts
   (C) underwater earthquakes
   (D) seismic changes
3. The normal maximum width of the waves is approximately
   (A) one mile
   (B) five miles
   (C) five feet
   (D) ten feet
4. Nothing was done about the waves until
   (A) a solution was found
   (B) deaths occurred
   (C) severe damage was incurred
   (D) the outbreak of World War II
5. The motion of the waves has been calculated at a speed of
   (A) 1 kilometer an hour
   (B) 50 miles an hour
   (C) 100 miles an hour
   (D) more than a hundred miles an hour

ANSWERS: ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION EXERCISE

1. (B) often strike during clear weather
2. (C) underwater earthquakes
3. (A) one mile
4. (D) the outbreak of World War II
5. (D) more than a hundred miles an hour