A factual passage reports information: a scientific idea, a place, a process, a discovery. Every answer is either stated in it or follows directly from it. This lesson shows how to read one in a single careful pass, the five kinds of question CUET asks on it, a method for each with worked examples, and the traps the wrong options are built from.
A factual passage is there to tell you something. It has one main point, and every paragraph supports it: with a reason, an example, a number or a result. Read to find that point, and hang the details on it as you go.
Every answer is in the passage. You never need to know anything about the topic beforehand, and an option that is true in the real world but not stated or implied in the passage is wrong.
Glance at the question stems first, not the options, then read the passage once, carefully, from start to finish. The stems tell you what to watch for ("why did…", "the word … in paragraph 3"), and a single careful reading is faster than skimming twice. Reading the options first fills your head with wrong answers before you have read a word of the passage.
About four to five minutes for a passage of up to 300 words and its questions. The paper gives 60 minutes for 50 questions, so a set of four or five questions on one passage has earned about five minutes, and a passage read properly once rarely needs more.
Exam shortcut
Passages on this site number their paragraphs in the margin. The paper does not always, so practise saying to yourself "paragraph one is the problem, paragraph two the solution" as you read. A question that points at a paragraph is then quick to find.
Notice three things: what each paragraph is for, the words that change direction, and the numbers. A paragraph might set up a problem, explain how something works, give an example or state a result. Words such as "but", "however", "instead" and "even" mark a turn in the argument, and questions are very often built on those turns. Numbers are usually there to compare something with something else.
Ask what the whole passage is for, then test each option against every paragraph. The main idea is the one statement that all the paragraphs serve. The first and last paragraphs usually state or restate it, but check that the middle paragraphs support it too.
Example 1 · The idea every paragraph serves
Honeybees that find flowers return to the hive and dance. The angle of the dance shows the direction of the food, measured from the Sun. Its length shows the distance: the longer the dance, the farther the flowers. Other bees watch, then fly straight to the food.
What is the passage mainly about? Options: why bees like flowers; how bees tell one another where food is; how far bees can fly; why bees live in hives.
The first sentence introduces the dance; the next two explain what it shows; the last says what the other bees do with it.
Every sentence is about the dance carrying information about food. Only one option covers all of that.
Answer
How bees tell one another where food is.
"How far bees can fly" is drawn from one detail about distance, and "why bees like flowers" is never discussed at all.
Watch out
A wrong main-idea option is usually one detail dressed up as the whole, or a topic so broad it could be the title of a book. If an option leaves out half the passage, or would fit a hundred other passages just as well, it is not the main idea.
Find the sentence the question is about, read it again, and choose the option that says the same thing in different words. The right option almost never repeats the passage word for word; it says the same thing a different way. Be suspicious of an option that copies a phrase exactly, because wrong options are often built from the passage's own words put into a statement it never makes.
It asks what must be true if the passage is true, not what might be true. A good inference is one short step from something the passage says. If you need to add a fact of your own, or take two steps, the option has gone too far.
Example 2 · One step, not two
The village well dried up in April for the first time in forty years. That month, the women began walking three kilometres to the river for water.
Which can be inferred? Options: the village will soon be abandoned; before this April, the well had not run dry for forty years; the river is polluted; the women enjoyed the walk.
"For the first time in forty years" means it had not happened for forty years before. That is one step from the text.
Abandoning the village, a polluted river and enjoying the walk are all things the passage never suggests.
Answer
Before this April, the well had not run dry for forty years.
"The village will soon be abandoned" is the trap: it could happen, but nothing in the passage says it must.
Put each option into the sentence in place of the word and keep the one that fits the sentence and the sentences around it. The question is about the meaning in this passage, which may not be the word's most common meaning. A word you do not know can still be answered this way, because the sentence around it gives the meaning away.
Ask why the writer put a paragraph, a sentence or a number there: to set up a problem, to explain how something works, to give an example, to compare or to prove a point. Purpose questions use verbs like "explain", "argue", "describe", "warn" and "compare", so match the verb to what the passage actually does. A passage that only describes something does not "argue" anything.
Note each paragraph's job, the turning words, the numbers
Questions
Main idea: the statement every paragraph serves
Detail: the same meaning in new words
Inference: one short step, never two
Word in context: put the option into the sentence
Traps
Too narrow, too broad
True in the world, not in the passage
Copied words in a wrong claim
Always, never, only
The same reading habits carry over to narrative passages, where the questions ask why people acted as they did, and to literary passages, where tone matters more.
435 questions on 87 passages, each passage printed once above its questions, easier passages first. Pick an answer and check it; the worked solution opens only when you ask for it.
The mission that learned from a fallQ1 of 435Q1
The mission that learned from a fall
Factual · 224 words · 5 questions
The mission that learned from a fall
Chandrayaan-3 was built to finish a job its had left undone. India's Chandrayaan-2 had reached the Moon's orbit, but its lander did not come down safely. The new mission had three plain : to land safely and softly on the Moon, to drive a rover across the surface, and to carry out scientific experiments on the spot.
The spacecraft travelled in two parts. A module carried the lander, with the rover tucked inside it, from the rocket to a circular orbit about 100 km above the Moon. Then the two parts separated, and the lander made the on its own. Together they weighed about 3,900 kg, and the rover was only 26 kg of that.
Much of the engineering went into making the landing survivable. The lander carried laser and radio altimeters to measure its height, instruments to measure its speed, and a camera that could spot such as boulders and steer away from them. Its legs were tested on a bed of material made to behave like the soil of the Moon.
The mission was planned to last one lunar day, which is about fourteen Earth days. In that short window, the rover studied which chemical elements lay in the soil around the landing site, and the lander measured the temperature of the ground and listened for .
AnswerD · How Chandrayaan-3 was designed to land safely and do its work
The passage begins with the mission's three aims, spends its middle on how the landing was made safe, and ends with what the lander and rover did on the surface.
Each of the wrong answers is either a single detail or something the passage does not describe at all.
Worth noting
Chandrayaan-2 is mentioned in one sentence, as the reason for the new mission. A detail from the first paragraph is not the subject of the whole passage.
Which of the following can be concluded from the passage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · The mission's work on the surface had to fit into about two weeks
The last paragraph says the mission was planned to last one lunar day, about fourteen Earth days, and calls this "a short window".
So the work on the surface had to be done in roughly two weeks.
Worth noting
The rover studied the soil where it stood. The passage never says that anything was brought back to Earth.
When the day goes dark
Factual · 217 words · 5 questions
When the day goes dark
An eclipse happens when a planet or a moon gets in the way of the Sun's light. From the Earth we can see two kinds.
In a solar eclipse, the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, blocks the Sun's light and its shadow on the Earth. For a few minutes in the middle of the day, the sky grows dark. have their own name for this: an occultation, which simply means one object blocking our view of another.
A total solar eclipse, in which the Moon covers the whole face of the Sun, happens somewhere on Earth about every year and a half. That does not mean most people will see one. The Moon's shadow on the Earth is small, so you have to be on the sunny side of the planet and inside the narrow path of the shadow. On average, any one place on Earth sees a total solar eclipse for a few minutes only about once every 375 years.
Watching one also needs care. Except during the moment when the Moon completely hides the Sun, it is never safe to look straight at the Sun, even when most of it is covered. Special eclipse glasses or an method, such as a pinhole viewer, are needed to watch safely.
Why do most people never see a total solar eclipse from their own town?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · The Moon's shadow covers only a small part of the Earth at a time
The third paragraph says the Moon's shadow on the Earth is small, so a place must be inside its narrow path to see the eclipse.
That is why one place sees a total eclipse only about once every 375 years, even though one happens somewhere every year and a half.
Worth noting
The figure of 375 years is about one place, not about eclipses in general. The passage says a total eclipse happens somewhere about every eighteen months.
AnswerD · To warn readers how to watch an eclipse safely
The paragraph opens with "Watching one also needs care" and explains when looking at the Sun is unsafe and how to watch safely.
Its purpose is to warn and to advise.
Worth noting
It mentions a pinhole viewer only as one example; it does not explain how to make one.
India's first visit to the Moon
Factual · 184 words · 5 questions
India's first visit to the Moon
On 22 October 2008, a PSLV rocket lifted off from Sriharikota carrying Chandrayaan-1, India's first to the Moon. The spacecraft weighed about 1,380 kg at launch and was built to circle the Moon at a height of 100 km, mapping its surface, its minerals and the chemicals in its rocks.
It was also an effort. Of the eleven scientific instruments on board, some were built in India and others came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria. Scientists from many countries were therefore waiting for the data it would send back.
The mission was planned to last two years. , it achieved its major objectives well before that, and in May 2009 its orbit was raised to 200 km. Chandrayaan-1 went round the Moon more than 3,400 times. On 29 August 2009, contact with the spacecraft was lost, and the mission came to an end after less than a year in orbit.
Even so, it had done what it set out to do, and it opened the way for the Chandrayaan missions that followed.
Where were the instruments on Chandrayaan-1 built?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · In India and five other countries
The second paragraph says some instruments were built in India and others came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
That is India and five other countries.
Worth noting
Germany is one of the five, but it is not the only one.
AnswerD · the story of India's first mission to the Moon
The passage follows Chandrayaan-1 from its launch, through its work in orbit, to its end, and closes by saying it opened the way for later missions.
It is the story of that one mission.
Worth noting
The other countries are one detail of the second paragraph, not the subject.
The work the body does at night
Factual · 218 words · 5 questions
The work the body does at night
It is to think of sleep as time when nothing happens, time that could be better spent studying or scrolling through a phone. The body sees it differently. While you sleep, it is busy supporting the brain and repairing and the rest of you. In children and teenagers, sleep also supports growth.
Even the heart gets a rest. As you fall into deep sleep, your blood pressure and heart rate fall, and the heart does not have to work as hard as it does during the day. As you wake, they rise again to their usual level.
How you feel and how well you do during the day depends partly on what happens at night. Too little sleep, night after night, affects how well you think, learn, and get along with other people. Over time, it can also raise the risk of long-term health problems, such as high blood pressure and heart disease.
So how much is enough? Experts recommend that adults sleep between seven and nine hours a night, and children and teenagers need more, depending on their age. That makes the student who stays up past midnight before every test an interesting case: they may be exactly the sleep that helps them think clearly for a few more hours of tired revision.
According to the passage, what happens to the heart during deep sleep?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It does not have to work as hard
The second paragraph says that in deep sleep, blood pressure and heart rate fall and "the heart does not have to work as hard as it does during the day".
Worth noting
A lower heart rate is not a stopped heart. Watch for options that turn "less" into "none".
According to the passage, how much sleep do experts recommend for adults?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Seven to nine hours a night
The last paragraph says "Experts recommend that adults sleep between seven and nine hours a night".
Worth noting
The passage adds that children and teenagers need more than this, depending on their age.
A cold, red neighbour
Factual · 209 words · 5 questions
A cold, red neighbour
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is often called the Red Planet. The name is : its ground is full of iron that has rusted, and rust is red. Seen from the Earth, even without a telescope, it glows a dull orange-red, which is why people have known it since times.
In many ways Mars looks like a smaller, colder version of our own world. It is about half the size of the Earth. It has seasons, ice caps at its poles, volcanoes, deep and weather, with clouds and winds. Sometimes the wind lifts the red dust into storms so large that they cover the whole planet.
But it would be a hard place to live. Mars is a freezing desert, with an average temperature far below the freezing point of water. Its air is very thin and made mostly of carbon dioxide, so people could not breathe it. There are signs that floods once ran across its surface, but today most of its water is in icy soil and thin clouds.
A day on Mars is only a little longer than ours, at about 24.6 hours. Its year, though, lasts 687 Earth days, almost twice as long as a year on Earth.
The paragraph opens by calling Mars "a smaller, colder version of our own world" and then lists what it shares with the Earth: seasons, ice caps, volcanoes, canyons and weather.
Worth noting
Mars is about half the size of the Earth, so it is smaller, not larger.
How does a year on Mars compare with a year on Earth?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It is almost twice as long
The last paragraph says a year on Mars lasts 687 Earth days, "almost twice as long as a year on Earth".
Worth noting
24.6 hours is the length of a Martian day, not a year. The two are placed side by side to invite that mix-up.
The giant of the solar system
Factual · 186 words · 5 questions
The giant of the solar system
Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system by a long way. It is more than twice as as all the other planets put together, and it is so bright in the night sky that people have known about it since ancient times, without any telescope at all.
Yet for all its size, you could never stand on it. Jupiter is a gas giant, made mostly of hydrogen and helium, with a very thick atmosphere and no surface. Scientists are still not sure what lies deep inside: perhaps a solid core, or perhaps a thick, extremely hot soup.
The planet is wrapped in stripes of cloud, and it is a stormy place. Its most famous feature, the Great Red Spot, is a storm bigger than the Earth that has been for more than three hundred years.
Jupiter also spins fast. A day there lasts only about ten hours, although a year, one trip round the Sun, takes almost twelve Earth years. It has rings that are very hard to see, and dozens of moons, far more than our single Moon.
AnswerC · A day on Jupiter is shorter than a day on Earth
A day on Jupiter lasts about ten hours, while a day on Earth lasts twenty-four.
So Jupiter's day is shorter, even though its year is much longer.
Worth noting
The first paragraph says people saw Jupiter "without any telescope at all", and the last says it has dozens of moons to our one.
Farther than it looks
Factual · 182 words · 5 questions
Farther than it looks
In most drawings of the Earth and the Moon, the two sit close together on the page, like a ball and a smaller ball beside it. Those drawings are . The Moon is much farther away than most people .
On , it is about 384,400 km from the Earth. That is roughly thirty Earths lined up side by side. Because we can see the Moon so clearly without a telescope, it seems close, but thirty Earths is a very long way.
The word "average" matters here. The Moon's path around the Earth is not a perfect circle, so its distance changes. At its farthest, it is almost thirty-two Earths away; at its closest, between twenty-eight and twenty-nine.
You can see the real gap for yourself. If the Earth were the size of a basketball, the Moon would be about the size of a tennis ball. To show the distance between them correctly, you would have to place the tennis ball more than seven metres away from the basketball, which is a good deal farther than any drawing in a textbook.
Why does the writer include the basketball and tennis ball example?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · To let the reader picture the real distance for themselves
The paragraph begins "You can see the real gap for yourself", and turns the huge distance into something you could lay out in a room.
Worth noting
The example is about size and distance, not weight or shape.
The water planet
Factual · 185 words · 5 questions
The water planet
Seen from space, the Earth is mostly blue, and for good reason. The ocean covers about seventy per cent of the planet's surface, and it holds about ninety-seven per cent of all the Earth's water.
Most of the rest is locked away. About two per cent of the Earth's water is frozen in and ice caps. Less than one per cent is the fresh water that people, animals and crops depend on, and a tiny floats in the air as water .
The ocean is not only but deep. Its average depth is about 3,682 metres, more than three and a half kilometres. Throughout those depths there is life. In fact, the ocean is the largest space on the planet where living things can survive, and there is more life there than anywhere else on Earth.
Yet we know surprisingly little about it. Most of the ocean has never been , and before scientists can explore a place properly, they must first map it. So the planet's largest home for life is still, in large part, a place nobody has seen.
AnswerC · Although the ocean is the planet's largest home for life, most of it is still unexplored
The paragraph says "Most of the ocean has never been explored" and ends by calling it "a place nobody has seen".
Worth noting
The paragraph says scientists must map before exploring, which is the opposite of saying maps are not needed.
It is never too late to start
Factual · 209 words · 5 questions
It is never too late to start
We have all heard it many times: regular exercise is good for you. Yet many people spend most of the day sitting, at a desk, in a classroom or on a bus, and never quite changing their habits. The good news is that it is never too late to begin, and there is no need to start with anything difficult. You can start slowly and find small ways to be more active.
The are real. Along with a diet, regular exercise helps people reach and stay at a healthy weight. It strengthens the heart and improves the flow of blood, which raises the level of oxygen in the body. That in turn lowers the risk of heart disease. Exercise can also help bring down high blood pressure, which is one of the things that make heart disease more likely.
Put together, these effects add up. People who are regularly active tend to feel better, are more likely to prevent or control many diseases, and are likely even to live longer.
None of this requires a gym. A walk, a game in the park or climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift all count, and each small step makes the next one easier.
How does exercise help lower the risk of heart disease, according to the passage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · By strengthening the heart and improving the flow of blood
The second paragraph says exercise "strengthens the heart and improves the flow of blood, which raises the level of oxygen", and that "lowers the risk of heart disease".
Worth noting
Diet is mentioned only alongside exercise for weight. The passage does not say exercise makes people eat less.
The writer opens with "The good news", says it is never too late, and ends with easy, everyday suggestions.
The aim is to encourage readers to take small, practical steps.
Worth noting
The passage uses plain words and simple suggestions, so it is not difficult or scientific in tone.
The grain that needs little water
Factual · 182 words · 5 questions
The grain that needs little water
Long before rice and wheat filled most Indian plates, millets were grown and eaten across the country. Jowar, bajra and ragi are all millets, and India is still one of the world's major producers of them.
Millets have a lot in their favour. They are highly grains, and they can be grown with very little water and few other . They also suffer less from and diseases than many crops, which means they can be grown easily as organic crops, without chemical sprays.
Because of these health benefits, the Government of India officially named millets "nutri-cereals" in April 2018. India then proposed to the United Nations that a whole year be given to celebrating them. The proposal was supported by seventy-two countries, and in March 2021 the United Nations General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets.
The aim was to make more people, in India and abroad, grow and eat these old grains again. In a country where water is growing in many places, a crop that asks for so little of it has an obvious .
AnswerA · To point out a strong practical reason for growing millets today
Earlier the passage says millets "can be grown with very little water". The last sentence links this to water growing scarcer.
The ending shows why this old grain makes sense today.
Worth noting
The passage says millets need little water, the opposite of using too much.
A jacket for the planet
Factual · 194 words · 5 questions
A jacket for the planet
The Earth wears a jacket. It is not made of cloth but of gases, and we call it the atmosphere.
This jacket does a great deal for us. It keeps the planet warm. It gives us the oxygen we breathe. And it is where all our weather happens, from a light to the heaviest monsoon rain.
The atmosphere wraps around the Earth rather like the peel around an orange. But unlike an orange peel, it is not the same all the way through. It is made of layers, each with its own , stretching from the ground all the way up to outer space.
Scientists name six of them. Closest to the ground is the troposphere, where we live and where the clouds and weather are. Above it come the stratosphere, the mesosphere and the thermosphere. The ionosphere with some of these higher layers, and last of all, away into space, is the exosphere.
The Earth is a good planet to live on for many reasons, and its atmosphere is one of the most important. Without that thin jacket of air, there would be no breath, no weather and no warmth.
AnswerB · The atmosphere is one of the main reasons the Earth can support life
The paragraph says the atmosphere is "one of the most important" reasons the Earth is a good planet to live on, and that without it there would be no breath, weather or warmth.
Worth noting
The paragraph calls the atmosphere a "thin jacket", not a thick one.
Before you recycle
Factual · 200 words · 5 questions
Before you recycle
Recycling means collecting things that would otherwise be thrown away, them, and turning them into new products. Old newspapers can become new paper; plastic bottles can become new containers.
It brings real benefits. When materials are recycled, fewer new such as wood, water and minerals have to be taken from the Earth to make new things. Recycling also saves energy, because it usually takes less energy to make a product from recycled material than from material dug up or cut down for the purpose.
But recycling is not the first thing to do with waste. Experts the ways of dealing with waste in order, from best to worst for the environment. At the top is making less waste in the first place, by buying and using less. Next comes reusing things, such as refilling a bottle instead of buying a new one. Recycling comes after both of these.
So the order to remember is simple: reduce, then reuse, and only then recycle. A plastic bottle that is recycled is better than one thrown away. A bottle that is refilled a hundred times is better still, and a bottle never bought at all is best of all.
What does the example of the plastic bottle in the last paragraph show?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · That each step up the order, from recycling to reusing to not buying, is better for the environment
A recycled bottle is "better than one thrown away", a refilled bottle "better still", and one never bought "best of all".
The example shows the order of reduce, reuse, recycle in a single object.
Worth noting
The example puts recycling at the bottom of the three good choices, not the top.
Why the sea is blue
Factual · 178 words · 5 questions
Why the sea is blue
Pour sea water into a glass and it looks clear. Look out at the open sea and it is blue. Both are true, and the reason is sunlight.
Sunlight is made of all the colours mixed together. When it enters the ocean, the water soaks up, or , the colours at the red end of the light first. In this way the water acts like a . What is left, and what bounces back to our eyes, is mostly light from the blue end. A glass of water is too shallow for this to show, but a sea many metres deep has enough water to filter the light strongly.
The sea is not always blue, though. It can look green, brown or even red when light bounces off tiny particles, mud or living things floating in the water.
And most of the ocean is not blue at all, but completely dark. Hardly any sunlight reaches deeper than about 200 metres, and none at all reaches beyond about 1,000 metres. Below that lies a world of night.
According to the passage, below what depth does no sunlight at all reach?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · About 1,000 metres
The last paragraph says "none at all reaches beyond about 1,000 metres".
Worth noting
About 200 metres is where hardly any light reaches, not where light stops completely.
Rubbish in the sea
Factual · 188 words · 5 questions
Rubbish in the sea
Marine is the name for rubbish that ends up in the sea. It includes anything solid that people have made or used and then thrown away or lost, from drink cans and plastic bags to old fishing nets and boats.
It is more than an ugly sight on a beach. Marine debris injures and kills sea creatures, gets in the way of ships, and can be a danger to human health.
Much of the rubbish on our beaches does not arrive by sea at all. It comes from the land: carried by storm drains and sewers, or simply left behind by people picnicking and spending a day at the beach.
Lost and fishing gear is a particular problem. Nets and lines that have been left in the water go on "fishing" long after anyone uses them, catching, injuring and drowning seals, turtles, fish and birds that swim into them.
Today, there is no place on Earth by this problem. The good news is that much of it begins with what people do on land, and so much of it can be prevented there too.
AnswerD · Rubbish made or used by people that ends up in the sea
The first paragraph says it is "rubbish that ends up in the sea", including "anything solid that people have made or used and then thrown away or lost".
Worth noting
Natural things like sand and seaweed are not debris in this sense.
The passage defines marine debris, explains the harm it does, where it comes from, and how it can be prevented.
Worth noting
Turtles are among the animals harmed, but the passage is about the rubbish.
Turn around, don't drown
Factual · 170 words · 5 questions
Turn around, don't drown
Floods kill more people each year than any other danger that comes with a thunderstorm, and many of those deaths could be prevented.
Most people who drown in floods are not swept away from their homes. In the United States, over half of all flood drownings happen when someone drives a vehicle into flood water. The next largest number happen when people walk into or near fast-moving water.
The problem is that people the power of moving water. Just fifteen centimetres of fast-flowing flood water can knock an adult off their feet. About thirty centimetres of rushing water can carry away most cars, and around sixty centimetres can even large vehicles and trucks. Flood water also hides what lies beneath it: the road under the water may have been washed away entirely.
That is why weather services repeat one simple rule: it is never safe to drive or walk into flood water. If a road is flooded, do not try to get through. Turn around, don't drown.
Why might a flooded road be dangerous even if the water looks shallow?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · The road under the water may have been washed away
The third paragraph says "Flood water also hides what lies beneath it: the road under the water may have been washed away entirely."
Worth noting
The danger is what the water hides, not its temperature.
Running low on water
Factual · 161 words · 5 questions
Running low on water
Dehydration happens when the body loses more water than it takes in, and no longer has enough to work properly.
There are many ways to lose too much water. Heavy sweating, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea can all do it, and so can simply not drinking enough.
Some people are more than others. Babies and small children are more likely to have diarrhoea or vomiting. Some older people lose their sense of thirst, so they do not drink enough. People who exercise or work outdoors in hot weather sweat a great deal, and people with certain illnesses may lose water faster than usual.
The signs in adults include feeling very thirsty, a dry mouth, sweating and passing urine less than usual, dark-coloured urine, dry skin, tiredness and .
For most people, the answer is simple: drink enough water or other fluids through the day, and more when it is hot, when you are active, or when you are ill.
AnswerB · To give simple, practical advice for avoiding dehydration
It says "the answer is simple: drink enough water or other fluids through the day", with more when hot, active or ill.
Worth noting
The paragraph gives advice, not new causes or treatments.
The windy blue giant
Factual · 137 words · 5 questions
The windy blue giant
Neptune is the eighth and planet from the Sun, more than thirty times as far away as the Earth. It is dark, cold and extremely windy.
Like its neighbour Uranus, Neptune is called an ice giant. Under its thick, windy atmosphere of hydrogen, helium and methane lies a deep of water, ammonia and methane flowing over a solid about the size of the Earth. The methane in its air is what gives Neptune its deep blue colour.
The planet has six faint rings, which are very hard to see, and sixteen known moons.
Neptune's day is short, about sixteen hours. But its journey around the Sun is so long that one Neptune year lasts 165 Earth years. In other words, since it was discovered in 1846, Neptune has gone round the Sun only once.
Neptune has "a deep soup of water, ammonia and methane". Here "soup" means
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · a thick mixture of liquids
The water, ammonia and methane flow over a solid core, like a thick liquid.
"Soup" is used as a picture of a thick mixture, not as food.
Worth noting
The word is used as a comparison, so the everyday meaning of food does not fit.
Our home planet
Factual · 199 words · 5 questions
Our home planet
The Earth is a rocky planet with a solid, surface of mountains, valleys, canyons and plains. But what makes it special is water. It is an ocean planet: water covers about seventy per cent of its surface.
Its atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen, with plenty of oxygen for living things to breathe. It is also a . Most of the small rocks from space that head towards the Earth burn up and break apart in the atmosphere before they can reach the ground.
The atmosphere is also just the right thickness to keep the planet warm enough for life. As far as we know, the Earth is the only planet in the solar system where life exists.
A day on Earth lasts a little under twenty-four hours, and a year lasts about 365 and a quarter days. Those extra quarter days add up to one whole day every four years, which is why we have a .
You might think that we already know everything about our own planet. We do not. Satellites circling the Earth are still measuring its weather, oceans, soil and climate, and still discovering new things about the only home we have.
AnswerA · It makes most small space rocks burn up before they reach the ground
The passage says "Most of the small rocks from space that head towards the Earth burn up and break apart in the atmosphere before they can reach the ground."
Worth noting
The atmosphere lets sunlight through; it does not block all of it.
AnswerA · That scientists are still learning about our own planet
It says "You might think that we already know everything about our own planet. We do not." and describes satellites still measuring and discovering.
Worth noting
The paragraph corrects the idea that we know everything, rather than supporting it.
Clean hands
Factual · 209 words · 5 questions
Clean hands
Washing your hands with soap and water is one of the best ways to stay healthy, and one of the simplest. from unwashed hands get into the body when we touch our eyes, nose or mouth. They get into food when we cook or eat without washing first. They also pass from surfaces to people, and from one person to another when someone coughs or sneezes into their hands and then touches something else.
So when should you wash? Before, during and after preparing food; before and after eating; after using the toilet; after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing; after touching animals, their food or their waste; and after touching rubbish.
The method has five simple steps. Wet your hands with clean running water and put on soap. Rub your hands together to make a , not forgetting the backs of your hands, the gaps between your fingers and the skin under your nails. Keep scrubbing for at least twenty seconds. your hands well under clean running water. Finally, dry them with a clean towel or let them dry in the air.
If soap and water are not available, a hand can be used instead, but it should contain at least 60 per cent alcohol.
Twenty is the number of seconds for scrubbing, not part of the sanitiser advice.
Windows into a planet
Factual · 222 words · 5 questions
Windows into a planet
A volcano is an opening in the surface of a planet or moon that lets material hotter than its surroundings escape from inside. Some are explosive, throwing rock and ash high into the sky; others are calm, with rock flowing gently out. Over many eruptions, layers of rock, ash and other material can pile up into a mountain.
Molten rock is called magma while it is underground and lava once it reaches the surface. On Earth, magma rises in three main kinds of place. Where the plates of the Earth's crust move apart, it rises to fill the space. Where plates push together, one is forced down into the hot , where heat and pressure melt the rock. And at hot spots, areas of great heat deep inside the Earth, magma rises because it becomes lighter than the rock around it.
Volcanoes are sorted by how recently they have erupted. An active volcano has erupted recently or is expected to erupt soon. A volcano is quiet now but may erupt in the future. An volcano will probably never erupt again.
Earth is not the only world with volcanoes. Venus and Mars are covered with extinct ones, and NASA spacecraft have photographed eruptions taking place today on Io, a moon of Jupiter, and on moons of Saturn and Neptune.
AnswerD · What volcanoes are, how they form and how they are classed, on Earth and other worlds
It defines a volcano, explains magma and lava and where magma rises, sorts volcanoes into three kinds and mentions volcanoes elsewhere in the solar system.
Worth noting
Safety is not discussed at all.
Drop, cover, hold on
Factual · 227 words · 5 questions
Drop, cover, hold on
When the ground begins to shake, the safest thing is not to run. People who are indoors are advised to stay inside, to keep away from doorways, and to protect themselves at once with three simple actions: Drop, Cover and Hold On.
Drop down onto your hands and knees, so that the shaking cannot knock you over. Cover your head and neck with one arm and hand, and if there is a table nearby, crawl underneath it. Then hold on until the shaking stops.
The advice changes a little with the situation. If you are in bed, turn face down and cover your head and neck with a pillow. If you are driving, pull over, stop and put on the parking brake. If you are outdoors, move to an open area away from buildings, trees, streetlights and power lines, all of which can fall.
Preparing in helps too. Heavy things such as bookcases and refrigerators can be fixed firmly in place, and objects kept on low shelves. A family can practise what to do and keep supplies of food, water, a torch and a whistle. After the shaking stops, people should leave a damaged building and not go back in. They should also expect , the smaller earthquakes that often follow the main one, and be ready to drop, cover and hold on again.
AnswerA · To tell readers how to stay safe before, during and after an earthquake
Every paragraph gives advice: what to do when shaking starts, in bed, in a car, outdoors, how to prepare and what to do afterwards.
Worth noting
The passage never explains the causes of earthquakes.
Lights over the poles
Factual · 199 words · 5 questions
Lights over the poles
Near the North and South Poles, the night sky sometimes fills with moving curtains of coloured light. These light shows are called auroras. Near the North Pole they are known as the aurora borealis, or northern lights; near the South Pole they are the aurora australis, or southern lights.
They begin at the Sun, which is always sending energy and tiny out into space. Most of these never reach us, because the Earth's field acts as a . During a solar storm, however, the Sun can throw out huge bubbles of gas. Some of the particles become trapped in the Earth's magnetic field and travel along it towards the poles. There they rush down into the atmosphere and react with the gases in the air, which give off light.
The colour depends on the gas. Oxygen gives off green and red light, while nitrogen glows blue and purple.
Auroras are not found only on Earth. Jupiter and Saturn have them too: Saturn's appear as red swirls around its south pole, and Jupiter's have been photographed in ultraviolet light. Scientists think that any planet with an atmosphere and a magnetic field probably has auroras of its own.
According to the passage, which kind of planet would be least likely to have auroras?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · A planet with no atmosphere and no magnetic field
Scientists think "any planet with an atmosphere and a magnetic field probably has auroras".
Without either, there is nothing to trap the particles and no gases to give off light.
Worth noting
Jupiter is named in the passage as a planet that does have auroras.
The changing Moon
Factual · 199 words · 5 questions
The changing Moon
The Moon seems to change shape from night to night, but the Moon itself does not change. What changes is our view of it.
The Moon makes no light of its own; it shines because it light from the Sun. At any moment, the Sun lights up one half of the Moon, the half that faces the Sun. As the Moon travels round the Earth, we see different amounts of that lit half, and these are the Moon's .
The cycle has eight phases. At new moon, the side facing us is dark and we cannot see the Moon at all. Then a thin appears, followed by the first quarter, when half of the Moon's face is lit, and then a waxing gibbous moon, more than half lit. At full moon we see the whole of the lit side. After that the lit part shrinks again, through gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent, until the next new moon. "Waxing" means growing and "waning" means shrinking.
The Moon takes about 27.3 days to go once round the Earth. The time from one new moon to the next is a little longer: about 29.5 days.
"The time from one new moon to the next is a little longer: about 29.5 days."
Worth noting
27.3 days is the time the Moon takes to go once round the Earth, which the passage says is shorter.
Forests under the sea
Factual · 208 words · 5 questions
Forests under the sea
Kelp are large brown that grow in cool, fairly shallow water close to the shore. Where many grow together, they form groups that rise from the seabed like trees, and so these places are called kelp forests. They are found mainly along the west coast of North America, in cold water that is rich in .
Kelp needs sunlight to make its food, so it rarely grows deeper than about 15 to 40 metres. Within that depth, it grows astonishingly fast: in the best conditions, giant kelp can grow up to about 45 centimetres in a single day.
A kelp forest is one of the richest places in the ocean. It gives food and shelter to thousands of kinds of fish, and marine mammals, and few other ocean communities hold a greater variety of plants and animals. Seals, sea lions, whales and sea otters live in or visit kelp forests, and birds such as gulls, terns, herons and cormorants feed there. The thick blades of the kelp protect young animals from and from storms.
Kelp forests change with the seasons. Winter storms and El Niño events can tear the kelp and wash it away, leaving the forest ragged, but it grows back each spring.
AnswerA · Storms can tear the kelp away, but it grows back each spring
"Winter storms and El Niño events can tear the kelp and wash it away, leaving the forest ragged, but it grows back each spring."
Worth noting
The damage is seasonal; the passage says the forest grows back.
Swim sideways
Factual · 219 words · 5 questions
Swim sideways
A rip current is a powerful, narrow of fast-moving water that flows away from the beach. Rip currents form on ocean beaches and even on the shores of large lakes, and they can move at up to about 2.4 metres a second, faster than an Olympic swimmer.
They are a serious danger. In the United States alone, lifeguards carry out tens of thousands of rescues from rip currents every year, and about 100 people die in them.
What makes them so dangerous is often the swimmer's own reaction. Someone caught in a rip current feels themselves being pulled away from the shore and, in a , tries to swim straight back against it. Even a strong swimmer cannot beat the current this way. Fighting it only wears the swimmer out, and an swimmer can drown.
The right thing to do is not to fight. Instead, swim to the shore, across the current rather than against it. Because a rip current is narrow, swimming sideways soon carries you out of it. Then swim back to land at an angle.
A rip current is not the same thing as a rip tide. A rip tide is a strong flow of water caused by the tide, moving through a narrow opening such as the mouth of an .
AnswerA · A rip tide is caused by the tide and flows through a narrow opening such as an inlet
"A rip tide is a strong flow of water caused by the tide, moving through a narrow opening such as the mouth of an inlet."
Worth noting
The passage says plainly they are "not the same thing".
Satellites
Factual · 216 words · 5 questions
Satellites
A is anything that orbits a planet or a star. By that definition the Earth is a satellite, because it orbits the Sun, and the Moon is a satellite of the Earth. These are natural satellites. Thousands of others have been made by people.
America's first man-made satellite, Explorer 1, was launched in 1958. Today's satellites come in many shapes and sizes, but nearly all have two parts in common: an , for sending and receiving information, and a source of power, usually solar panels or batteries.
A satellite stays in orbit because of a balance between its speed and the pull of gravity. Without that balance, it would either off into space or crash back down.
Satellites do many jobs. Some take pictures of the Earth's land, air and water, helping scientists to follow the weather and to track hurricanes, wildfires and volcanoes. More than 30 satellites make up the GPS system that tells phones and cars where they are. Others look out into space, at black holes and distant galaxies, and many carry television signals and phone calls around the world.
Two common kinds of orbit are geostationary, in which a satellite stays above the same spot on the , and polar, in which it passes over the North and South Poles.
AnswerA · stays above the same spot on the equator
The passage defines it: "geostationary, in which a satellite stays above the same spot on the equator".
Worth noting
Passing over the poles describes a polar orbit.
The wake-up chemical
Factual · 222 words · 5 questions
The wake-up chemical
Caffeine is a bitter found naturally in more than 60 plants, including coffee beans, tea leaves, kola nuts and the cacao pods used to make chocolate. It is also made in factories and added to some pain relievers, cold medicines, energy drinks and snacks.
The amount of caffeine in a drink a great deal. A cup of coffee of about 240 millilitres has 95 to 200 milligrams, the same amount of tea has 14 to 60 milligrams, and an energy drink of that size has 70 to 100 milligrams. A can of cola, about 355 millilitres, has 35 to 45 milligrams.
Caffeine acts on the brain and nerves, making people feel more awake and full of energy. It also has other effects. It makes the body pass more urine, getting rid of extra salt and water; it increases the acid in the stomach, which can cause an upset stomach; and it raises blood pressure.
For most adults, up to 400 milligrams a day is generally not harmful. Too much can cause restlessness, shakiness, sleeplessness, headaches, dizziness, a fast heartbeat, and anxiety. People who suddenly stop taking caffeine may have headaches, feel drowsy and , and find it hard to concentrate for a couple of days. Children and teenagers are more to caffeine and should have less than adults.
What does the passage advise for children and teenagers?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · They should have less caffeine than adults
"Children and teenagers are more sensitive to caffeine and should have less than adults."
Worth noting
Being more sensitive means a smaller amount affects them more.
How a cavity begins
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
How a cavity begins
Tooth decay begins with bacteria. The bacteria in the mouth feed on the sugars and in food and drink and turn them into acid. The acid attacks , the hard outer surface of the tooth.
Each attack takes some minerals out of the enamel. At first this shows as white spots. At this early stage the damage can be stopped or even , because enamel can repair itself with minerals from and from fluoride. If the attacks go on, the enamel is worn through and a hole, called a cavity, forms, which a dentist has to fill.
Early decay usually causes no pain, so many people do not know they have it. As it gets worse it can cause toothache, or make the teeth sensitive to sweet, hot or cold food. An infected tooth can form an , causing pain, a swollen face and fever.
Decay can be prevented. Brush twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and clean between the teeth with floss. Drink fluoridated tap water where it is available. Cut down on sugary drinks and on foods full of sugar and starch, and snack less often. Dentists can also coat the chewing surfaces of the back teeth with thin protective sealants.
AnswerB · Every snack feeds the bacteria sugar and starch to turn into acid, which attacks the enamel
The passage explains that bacteria turn sugars and starches into acid, and "each attack" takes minerals from the enamel.
Snacking often means more attacks, with less time for the enamel to repair itself.
Worth noting
The passage does not mention cost; the reason follows from how decay begins.
A watch on the Sun
Factual · 195 words · 5 questions
A watch on the Sun
For all its importance to life on Earth, the Sun is hard to watch without a break. From the ground, night hides it for half of every day, clouds hide it often, and our own blocks some of the light that scientists most want to study. Even a satellite circling the Earth passes behind the planet again and again.
Aditya-L1, launched by a PSLV rocket on 2 September 2023, was India's answer to this problem, and the country's first space mission to study the Sun. It was not sent to the Sun itself. Instead it was sent to a point in space called Lagrange point 1, or L1, which lies between the Earth and the Sun, about 1.5 million km from the Earth. There the pulls of the two bodies balance in such a way that a spacecraft can stay the Earth as the Earth travels round the Sun.
In January 2024 the spacecraft settled into a looping path, called a halo orbit, around L1. From there, nothing ever comes between it and the Sun: no night, no cloud and no . It can watch the Sun without .
AnswerC · A place from which the Sun is never hidden
The passage begins with a problem, that the Sun is often hidden from view, and ends with the answer: from L1, nothing comes between the spacecraft and the Sun.
A good title names that whole idea, not one part of it.
Worth noting
"Away from the Sun" turns the passage upside down. L1 lies between the Earth and the Sun.
The writer's main purpose in the first paragraph is to
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · explain the problem the mission was designed to solve
The first paragraph lists the ways the Sun gets hidden: night, cloud, the atmosphere, and the Earth itself for a satellite.
The second paragraph then calls Aditya-L1 "India's answer to this problem". So the first paragraph sets up the problem.
Worth noting
The paragraph opens with the Sun's importance to life, but only in passing. It is not what the paragraph goes on to explain.
Why summer is not about distance
Factual · 230 words · 5 questions
Why summer is not about distance
Ask most people why summer is hot and they will say that the Earth is closer to the Sun at that time of year. The idea sounds , and it is wrong.
It is true that the Earth's path around the Sun is not a perfect circle, so the distance between them changes a little during the year. But the northern half of the planet has its winter when the Earth is closest to the Sun, and its summer when the Earth is farthest away. Compared with how far away the Sun is, the change in distance is too small to make much difference to our weather.
The real cause is the Earth's . The planet spins around an imaginary line, its , which runs from the North Pole to the South Pole. That axis does not stand straight up; it leans to one side. As the Earth travels round the Sun, first one half of the planet and then the other is tipped towards the Sun and receives its most rays. When the North Pole leans towards the Sun, it is summer in the northern half of the world; when it leans away, it is winter there.
Because the poles are at ends of the planet, the two halves of the world always have opposite seasons. When it is summer in India, it is winter in Australia.
Based on the passage, which statement must be true?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · Australia has its summer when India has its winter
The last paragraph says the two halves of the world always have opposite seasons, and gives India's summer and Australia's winter as the example.
If the seasons are always opposite, then when India has winter, Australia must have summer.
Worth noting
The passage never says the tilt itself changes. The tilt stays the same; what changes is which half faces the Sun as the Earth moves along its path.
An ordinary star
Factual · 216 words · 5 questions
An ordinary star
It is easy to think of the Sun as something , but to an astronomer it is an ordinary star: a hot, glowing ball of gas like the stars we see at night. It only looks different because it is so much nearer. Even so, it is far away, about 150 million kilometres, which is roughly four hundred times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
The Sun is about a hundred times wider than the Earth, yet it is only an average size for a star. Astronomers have found stars a hundred times bigger than the Sun, and others ten times smaller.
It is also . The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old and is at present a type of star called a yellow dwarf. In another five billion years or so it will into a big, cooler star called a red giant. A few billion years after that, it will shrink into a white dwarf: a star about the size of the Earth, but far heavier.
None of this makes the Sun any less important to us. Its holds the whole solar system together, and life on Earth depends on its light and heat. An ordinary star, it turns out, is enough to make a planet a home.
The passage says again and again that the Sun is an ordinary star, in its size and its age, and ends by saying it is still enough to make the Earth a home.
A title that joins "ordinary" and "important to us" covers the whole passage.
Worth noting
The Sun's future as a red giant and a white dwarf is one paragraph, not the subject. "How Stars Die" is too narrow and too broad at once.
In the last paragraph, the writer's attitude towards the Sun is best described as
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · appreciative of how much it does for us, despite being ordinary
The paragraph says that being ordinary does not make the Sun "any less important", and lists what it does: its gravity holds the solar system together, and life depends on its light and heat.
The closing line, that an ordinary star "is enough to make a planet a home", is warm and appreciative.
Worth noting
The writer calls the Sun ordinary, but not as a complaint. There is no disappointment in the passage.
Three people, four hundred kilometres up
Factual · 226 words · 5 questions
Three people, four hundred kilometres up
Sending a satellite into space is hard. Sending people is much harder, because a machine can be lost but a must come home. Gaganyaan is ISRO's project to show that India can do it.
The plan is simple to state. A crew of three is to be launched into an orbit about 400 km above the Earth, stay there for a mission of three days, and then be brought back safely, landing in the sea in Indian waters.
What makes it difficult is everything that has to be built first. The rocket itself must be "human-rated", meaning it has been made and tested to the far higher standards of safety needed for carrying people. The spacecraft needs a life support system to give the crew an like the Earth's, with air to breathe and the right temperature and . There must be a way for the crew to if something goes wrong during the launch. And the astronauts must be chosen, trained, recovered from the sea and cared for once they return.
ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre leads the work, drawing on its own experience, on Indian industry and universities, and on technology available from other space agencies. The skills it builds are meant to last beyond this first flight, towards future work such as spacecraft together and building a space station.
Which of the following best states the main idea of the third paragraph?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Many difficult systems must be developed before people can be sent safely
The paragraph opens with "What makes it difficult is everything that has to be built first" and then lists the rocket, life support, an escape system and crew training.
Its main idea is the number of hard things that must be ready first.
Worth noting
The escape system is for emergencies during launch, not a planned part of the mission.
The writer's attitude towards Gaganyaan is best described as
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · respectful of how difficult the task is
The writer stresses again and again how hard the task is, from "Sending people is much harder" to the long list of what must be built first.
The tone is serious and respectful of the challenge, without doubting that it can be done.
Worth noting
Cost is never mentioned, so there is nothing to be critical of in the passage.
The rings of Saturn
Factual · 189 words · 5 questions
The rings of Saturn
Saturn's rings are among the most beautiful sights in the solar system, and one of its . Scientists have ideas about why the planet has rings, but no one knows for sure.
What we do know comes largely from four spacecraft that have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Cassini. They showed that what looks like one flat ring from the Earth is really hundreds of rings, perhaps five hundred to a thousand, with gaps between them.
The rings are in one direction and thin in the other. From edge to edge they stretch about 400,000 km, roughly the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Yet in places they are as little as 100 metres thick.
Nor are they solid. They are made of countless separate pieces, ranging from too small to see to pieces the size of a bus. Scientists think these are icy snowballs, or rocks covered in ice, all circling the planet together.
The longest visit was Cassini's. It arrived in July 2004 and orbited Saturn for thirteen years, studying the planet, its rings and its moons.
What are the rings made of, according to scientists?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · Icy snowballs, or rocks covered in ice
The fourth paragraph says "Scientists think these are icy snowballs, or rocks covered in ice".
Worth noting
"Scientists think" shows this is their best understanding, not a certain fact.
How the solar system began
Factual · 217 words · 5 questions
How the solar system began
About 4.6 billion years ago, there was no Sun and no Earth, only a thin, cloud of dust and gas, part of a much larger cloud called a nebula.
At some point this cloud . It may have been pushed by the shock wave of a nearby star exploding. As it fell in on itself, it formed a spinning disk of material, and at its centre the pressure grew so great that hydrogen atoms began to into helium, giving off a amount of energy. The Sun was born.
The young Sun gathered up more than ninety-nine per cent of all the material in the disk. What was left began to together under gravity. Small objects crashed into bigger ones, forming bigger objects still, until some were large enough to become round: the planets and the dwarf planets.
Where each planet formed depended on heat. Close to the Sun, only rock could survive, so the rocky planets, like the Earth, formed there. Farther out, gas and ice collected into the giant planets.
Not everything became a planet. The asteroids are pieces that never quite came together, and the icy comets far out in the solar system have hardly changed since those early days. By studying them, scientists piece together this long story.
Why are asteroids and comets useful to scientists?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · They have changed little since the early solar system, so they hold clues to how it formed
The last paragraph says the asteroids are leftover pieces, and comets "have hardly changed since those early days".
Because they are almost unchanged, studying them lets scientists "piece together this long story".
Worth noting
The passage says the asteroids "never quite came together" as planets. Nothing suggests they are about to.
Not a tidal wave
Factual · 196 words · 5 questions
Not a tidal wave
A tsunami is not one wave but a of waves, and it is caused not by the weather but by movement under the sea: an earthquake beneath the ocean floor, or an undersea volcano erupting.
Out in the deep ocean, a tsunami can be hard to notice. Its waves do not rise much higher than ordinary waves there. The danger comes as they travel towards land. As the water grows , the waves slow down and build up, higher and higher, until they strike the coast with terrible force.
Their speed depends on the depth of the water, not on how far they are from where they began. Over deep water, tsunami waves can travel as fast as a jet plane, slowing down only when they reach the shallows near the shore.
People often call a tsunami a "tidal wave", but scientists who study the ocean the name. , the regular daily rise and fall of the sea, have very little to do with these giant waves. Calling them tidal waves suggests a cause that is not the real one, and understanding the real cause matters to anyone who lives by the sea.
AnswerB · An earthquake under the sea, or an undersea volcano erupting
The first paragraph says it is caused "not by the weather but by violent movement under the sea: an earthquake beneath the ocean floor, or an undersea volcano erupting".
Worth noting
The passage says tides "have very little to do with these giant waves".
Why does the writer end by saying that understanding the real cause "matters to anyone who lives by the sea"?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · To show why the correct explanation is important for people's safety
People who know that tsunamis come from undersea earthquakes, not the weather or the tides, understand the real danger better.
The closing line links the correct name and cause to the safety of people on the coast.
Worth noting
The tone is explanatory, not blaming or frightening.
Trees on stilts
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
Trees on stilts
Most trees would die if salt water covered their roots twice a day. Mangroves live exactly there. These trees and grow along coasts in the intertidal zone, the strip of shore that the tide covers and then uncovers, and there are about eighty different kinds of them.
Their home is a hard one. The soil is low in oxygen, and the water moves slowly enough for fine mud to settle. Mangroves also cannot survive freezing weather, so they grow only in warm regions near the .
Many mangrove forests are easy to recognise by their prop roots, which make the trees look as if they are standing on above the water. These roots let the trees with the daily rise and fall of the tide, which floods most mangroves at least twice a day.
The roots do more than hold up the tree. They slow down the moving water, so that mud settles and builds up the muddy floor. In this way mangrove forests hold the coastline together, reducing the damage done by waves, currents, tides and storms. And the of roots gives fish and other creatures a place to find food and to hide from the animals that hunt them.
According to the last paragraph, how do mangroves protect the coastline?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · By slowing the water with their roots, so mud builds up and the shore is held together
The roots "slow down the moving water, so that mud settles and builds up the muddy floor", and so the forests "hold the coastline together".
This reduces the damage from waves, currents, tides and storms.
Worth noting
The roots give fish a place to shelter, which is the opposite of keeping them away.
A race against the calendar
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
A race against the calendar
The Mars Orbiter Mission was India's first into space, and it began with a race against the calendar.
The Earth and Mars travel round the Sun at different speeds, so the right moment to launch a spacecraft from one towards the other comes only now and then. When India decided to go to Mars, the nearest was just a few months away. If it was missed, the next would not come for more than 780 days, in 2016. So the planning, the building of the spacecraft, the preparation of the rocket and the systems to support them all had to happen quickly.
The spacecraft was launched on a PSLV rocket, and then faced a long, lonely journey. After leaving the Earth, it had to cross interplanetary space for about three hundred days before it could be into orbit around Mars. So far from home, it needed to be able to handle some problems on its own, without waiting for instructions.
Once there, its task was to study the surface of Mars, its minerals and its atmosphere. It was also to search for in the Martian air, a gas that could give clues about whether life ever existed on the planet.
The passage follows the Mars Orbiter Mission from the race to launch, through its long journey, to its work at Mars.
Worth noting
The search for methane is one part of the mission, and it is about Mars, not the Earth.
The cheetah comes home
Factual · 222 words · 5 questions
The cheetah comes home
For about seventy-five years, there were no cheetahs in India. The Asiatic cheetah had in the country decades earlier, and the fastest land animal in the world survived only as a picture in books.
On 17 September 2022 that changed. Eight African cheetahs were flown from Namibia and released into Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. In February 2023, twelve more followed from South Africa. It was the first time anywhere in the world that large wild cats had been moved from one to another to live in the wild again.
Such a journey carries real risks, and moving wild animals such long distances often leads to deaths. Yet all twenty arrived safely. Experts from Namibia, South Africa and India watched over the project closely, and most of the animals began to behave as wild cheetahs should: hunting, exploring, guarding their kills and setting up their own . In time, a female gave birth to cubs on Indian soil, the first in about seventy-five years.
The project has also involved the people who live around the park. Some work as cheetah , and the support of local villages has helped keep the animals safe. The plan is a long one: more cheetahs are to be brought in over the coming years, and other sites are being prepared for them.
How have local people been involved in the project?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Some work as cheetah trackers, and villages have supported the project
The last paragraph says "Some work as cheetah trackers, and the support of local villages has helped keep the animals safe."
Worth noting
The passage says community support helped keep the animals safe, the opposite of hunting them.
The planet where days outlast years
Factual · 192 words · 5 questions
The planet where days outlast years
Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun, so you might expect it to be the hottest. It is not. That belongs to Venus, the second planet.
Venus is wrapped in a thick atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, a gas that heat, under clouds made of sulphuric acid. The trapped heat makes Venus so hot that a metal like lead would melt into puddles on its surface.
In size, Venus is almost the Earth's ; the Earth is only a little bigger. But in almost every other way it is strange. It spins in the direction from the Earth and most other planets, and it spins very slowly, taking about 243 Earth days to turn round once. Yet because it is close to the Sun, it takes only 225 Earth days to travel all the way round it. So on Venus a day is a little longer than a year.
That leads to some odd sunrises. Because Venus turns backwards, its Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, and it rises only about once every 117 Earth days. Like Mercury, Venus has no moon at all.
The last paragraph says "Because Venus turns backwards, its Sun rises in the west and sets in the east".
Worth noting
On Earth the Sun rises in the east. Venus's backward spin reverses this.
How the Sun makes its heat
Factual · 215 words · 5 questions
How the Sun makes its heat
In the time it takes to blink, the Sun gives out far more energy than all the people on the Earth use in a whole year. Without it there would be no light, no warmth and no life. So where does all that energy come from?
The short answer is that the Sun is enormous. It is made mostly of hydrogen, like the planet Jupiter, but it is bigger: it would take almost a thousand Jupiters to fill it. All that material is held together by an enormous amount of gravity, and gravity squeezes the centre of the Sun with tremendous pressure.
At the centre, or core, the pressure is so and the hydrogen so tightly packed that its atoms crash together hard enough to join into a new , helium. This joining is called nuclear , and it releases energy. Each reaction helps the next one happen, so the process goes on and on.
The energy builds up until the core reaches about fifteen million degrees Celsius. From there it works its way outwards, layer by layer, until it reaches the Sun's surface and pours out into space as light and heat. A small share of it, after a journey of about 150 million kilometres, is the sunshine on your face.
According to the passage, what happens to the energy made in the core?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · It works its way outwards until it leaves the surface as light and heat
The last paragraph says it "works its way outwards, layer by layer, until it reaches the Sun's visible surface and pours out into space as light and heat".
Worth noting
The passage describes energy leaving the Sun, not changing back into hydrogen.
Why does the writer end with "the sunshine on your face"?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · To connect the huge process in the Sun to the reader's everyday experience
After explaining fusion in the core, the writer brings it back to something every reader has felt.
The ending makes the science personal and memorable.
Worth noting
The passage mentions the 150-million-kilometre journey just before, which stresses how far away the Sun is.
An ocean under the ice
Factual · 189 words · 5 questions
An ocean under the ice
There are only a few places in the solar system where scientists think life beyond the Earth might possibly be found. One of them is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.
At first sight it seems an choice. Europa is a long way from the Sun, more than five times as far as the Earth is, and it is cold. It is also small, a little smaller than our own Moon. Its surface is frozen so hard that, where you could break the Earth's winter ice with an ice pick, on Europa you would need a .
What makes Europa interesting is water. Water is one of the key for life, and scientists think Europa has a great deal of it, perhaps more than twice as much as the Earth. On the surface it is solid ice. Beneath that frozen , however, many scientists believe there may be a deep ocean of liquid water.
Nobody knows whether anything lives there. But a moon with a hidden ocean is exactly the kind of place scientists want to explore when they ask whether we are alone in the universe.
AnswerC · It may hold a great deal of water, perhaps a hidden ocean, which could support life
The passage says Europa is one of the few places where life "might possibly be found", because it may have lots of water, including a possible ocean under the ice.
Worth noting
The passage says Europa is small and far from the Sun, so calling it the largest moon or close to the Sun contradicts it.
In the last paragraph, what is the writer's attitude towards the possibility of life on Europa?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · Curious and hopeful, while admitting that nobody knows
The writer says plainly "Nobody knows whether anything lives there", but calls Europa "exactly the kind of place scientists want to explore".
The tone is careful but curious.
Worth noting
The first sentence of the paragraph rules out certainty in either direction.
The rocket that carried a hundred and four
Factual · 200 words · 5 questions
The rocket that carried a hundred and four
Among the rockets that India has built, one has earned a for above all: the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV.
In its most powerful version, the PSLV stands about 44 metres tall, is 2.8 metres wide and weighs about 320 tonnes at lift-off. It has four , each of which fires in turn and then falls away. The first stage gives the huge push needed to lift the rocket off the ground; the fourth and last carries the satellites to the exact orbits they need.
What makes the PSLV special is that it can carry several satellites at once and place them in different orbits. In 2008 it launched ten satellites together. In 2016 it placed eight satellites in two different orbits in a single mission. And in one flight, known as PSLV-C37, it carried a Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 103 smaller satellites: 104 in all.
The rocket has also carried some of India's most important missions, including Chandrayaan-1 to the Moon, the Mars Orbiter Mission and the Aditya-L1 solar observatory. For a machine that must work perfectly the first time, every time, it has become one of the most trusted in the world.
What does the passage suggest makes the PSLV "special"?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · It can carry several satellites at once and place them in different orbits
The third paragraph begins "What makes the PSLV special is that it can carry several satellites at once and place them in different orbits", then gives examples.
Worth noting
The PSLV has four stages, not one. The passage never mentions astronauts.
A planet of extremes
Factual · 187 words · 5 questions
A planet of extremes
Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system, only a little bigger than our Moon, and the closest planet to the Sun. From its surface, the Sun would look about three times larger and seven times brighter than it does from the Earth.
You might expect such a planet to be the hottest of all. It is not; Venus is hotter. But Mercury is certainly a place of . During the day its surface can reach about 430 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt some metals. At night it can fall to about 180 degrees below zero.
The reason for this wild is partly that Mercury has almost no air. Instead of a proper atmosphere, it has only a very thin layer of atoms, off its surface by the solar wind and by small rocks from space. With no thick blanket of air to hold in heat, the warmth of the day escapes quickly into space once night falls.
Like the Earth, Mercury is a rocky planet with a solid surface, and that surface is covered in . It has no moons at all.
According to the passage, how many moons does Mercury have?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · None
The last sentence says "It has no moons at all."
Worth noting
The Moon mentioned in the first paragraph is the Earth's, used to compare sizes.
When coral turns white
Factual · 181 words · 5 questions
When coral turns white
A coral reef looks like rock, but it is alive. Corals are tiny animals, and many of them share their bodies with even tinier . The algae live inside the coral's , help feed it, and give it much of its colour.
This is . When corals are stressed by a change in their surroundings, most often water that is too warm, they push the algae out. Without them the coral loses its colour and turns completely white. This is called coral .
A bleached coral is not dead. If the stress is mild and does not last, corals can recover. But if the water stays too warm for too long and the algae do not return, the coral grows weaker and eventually dies.
The damage can be enormous. In 2005, a mass bleaching event in the Caribbean killed about half of the coral reefs belonging to the United States in that region in a single year. Warm water is not the only danger, either: in January 2010, unusually cold water in Florida also caused bleaching and killed some coral.
AnswerA · That cold water, as well as warm water, can cause bleaching
The last sentence says "Warm water is not the only danger": unusually cold water in Florida "also caused bleaching and killed some coral".
Worth noting
The example is introduced by "not the only danger", which signals a second cause.
A storm with a name
Factual · 197 words · 5 questions
A storm with a name
A hurricane is a kind of storm called a cyclone. It forms over warm tropical or subtropical waters, spins around an area of low pressure, and carries bands of thunderstorms.
Scientists sort tropical cyclones by the speed of their strongest steady winds. A storm with winds below about 63 km an hour is called a tropical depression. Once its winds reach about 63 km an hour, it becomes a tropical storm. And when they reach about 119 km an hour, it is called a hurricane.
Hurricanes themselves are from 1 to category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to their winds. The higher the category, the more damage a storm can do to buildings and property.
The name "hurricane" is used for such storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and parts of the Pacific. Each one is given a name from a list kept by the World Meteorological Organization, which makes it easier to warn people and to talk about more than one storm at a time.
In the Atlantic, the hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November, although storms can and do form outside those months.
Why are hurricanes given names, according to the passage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · To make it easier to warn people and to talk about more than one storm at a time
The fourth paragraph says the names make it "easier to warn people and to talk about more than one storm at a time".
Worth noting
The passage gives only this practical reason.
When the body overheats
Factual · 191 words · 5 questions
When the body overheats
The body cools itself mainly by sweating. But in very hot and weather, that cooling system can be . If the body heats up faster than it can cool down, or loses too much water and salt through sweating, its temperature rises, and a person can fall ill.
Heat illness often comes in stages. The first warning may be heat cramps: painful muscle cramps, usually in the legs or stomach, with heavy sweating. Resting, gently massaging the muscle and taking small sips of water can help.
If the body keeps heating, heat exhaustion can follow. The person may sweat heavily and feel weak, dizzy or sick, with cool, pale, skin and a fast, weak . They should be moved somewhere cooler, their clothing loosened, and cool, wet cloths put on their skin.
The most dangerous stage is heat stroke. The body's temperature rises above about 39.5 degrees Celsius. The person may have a throbbing headache, become confused, faint or lose consciousness, and their skin may be hot and red. Heat stroke is a medical emergency: the person must get to a hospital immediately, because delay can be .
Why does the passage call heat stroke "a medical emergency"?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Because it is life-threatening, and delay in getting help can kill
The passage says the person "must get to a hospital immediately, because delay can be fatal".
Worth noting
Unlike the earlier stages, the passage gives no home treatment for heat stroke, only urgent hospital care.
A day for space
Factual · 174 words · 5 questions
A day for space
On 23 August 2023, the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 made a safe, soft landing on the Moon, and soon afterwards the Pragyan rover rolled out onto the surface.
The landing was in two ways. It made India only the fourth country ever to land on the Moon. And it made India the first to do so near the Moon's south pole, a region no country had landed in before.
To celebrate the success, the Government of India declared 23 August "National Space Day". The day is meant to be more than a memory. Across the country, events in July and August are held to interest and young people in space science and technology.
The celebrations have reached some unexpected places. In 2024, the Department of Fisheries held in coastal states on how space technology helps fishermen, from satellite communication and navigation at sea to observations from space that help the fishing industry. A landing on the Moon, it turns out, can be connected even to a fishing boat at sea.
AnswerA · Chandrayaan-3's landing and the National Space Day it inspired
The passage describes the landing, why it was historic, the declaration of National Space Day, and how the day is celebrated.
Worth noting
Fishing appears only as one example of how the day is celebrated.
Fifty years of Project Tiger
Factual · 196 words · 5 questions
Fifty years of Project Tiger
In 1973, the Government of India launched Project Tiger, one of the most wildlife projects the country had ever attempted. Its aim was to protect the tiger and, with it, the forests and the many other living things that share its home.
The project began with nine tiger reserves covering about 18,000 square kilometres. Fifty years later, there were fifty-three reserves covering nearly 76,000 square kilometres, about 2.3 per cent of India's land. Today India is home to almost three-quarters of the world's wild tigers.
The journey was not smooth. The first phase, in the 1970s, brought a law to protect wildlife and set aside protected areas. But in the 1980s heavy , the illegal hunting of tigers, pushed numbers down again.
So in 2005 a second phase began, with a different approach. Instead of protecting only single reserves, it looked after whole landscapes, involved local communities, the law strictly, and used modern technology such as camera traps to count and watch tigers scientifically. This approach helped the tiger population to grow again, and it also helped identify new reserves and the that let tigers move safely between them.
What made the second phase different from the first?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · It looked after whole landscapes, involved communities, enforced laws strictly and used technology
The fourth paragraph says it worked "Instead of protecting only single reserves", looking after whole landscapes, involving communities, enforcing the law and using camera traps.
Worth noting
Protecting single reserves is what the second phase moved away from.
The sunshine vitamin
Factual · 225 words · 5 questions
The sunshine vitamin
Vitamin D has one main job: it helps the body take in calcium, the that bones are made from. Without enough of it, bones can become soft and weak. In children, a lack of vitamin D can cause a disease called rickets; in adults, it can lead to soft or thin bones that break easily.
Unusually for a vitamin, vitamin D does not have to come from food. The skin makes it when it is directly to sunlight. Very few foods contain much of it naturally. Fatty fish such as tuna, salmon and mackerel are among the best sources, while beef liver, cheese and egg yolks give small amounts. Some mushrooms contain more of it after they have been exposed to ultraviolet light. Because natural sources are so few, the vitamin is often added to foods such as milk, cereals and yoghurt, which are then called .
How much a person needs depends on age. Babies under one year need about 400 international units (IU) a day. Children, teenagers and adults up to the age of 70 need about 600 IU, and people over 70 need about 800 IU.
More is not always better. Too much vitamin D, usually from , raises the level of calcium in the blood. That can cause nausea, vomiting, weakness and confusion, and it can damage the kidneys.
AnswerA · Taking too much vitamin D, usually from supplements
"Too much vitamin D, usually from supplements, raises the level of calcium in the blood", which can harm the kidneys.
Worth noting
The warning is about supplements; sunlight is presented only as a way the body makes the vitamin.
A bite in the field
Factual · 225 words · 5 questions
A bite in the field
Every year about 5.4 million people around the world are bitten by snakes. In up to 2.7 million of these cases, the snake injects , and the result can be serious: between about 81,000 and 138,000 people die, and around three times as many are left with a permanent disability or lose a limb.
Snakebite is mostly a problem of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and it falls hardest where health care is weakest. Asia alone may have up to two million cases of a year. The people most at risk are farm workers in poor rural areas, who work in fields where snakes live. Children suffer more severe effects than adults, because the same amount of venom acts on a smaller body.
Venom can do several kinds of harm. Some venoms cause that can stop a person breathing. Others stop the blood from , causing dangerous bleeding. Some damage the kidneys, and some destroy the flesh around the bite.
The most effective treatment is antivenom, a medicine that can prevent or reverse most of these effects. It is on the World Health Organization's list of medicines, and the WHO wants it to be available in basic health centres wherever snakebites happen. Its target is to halve the number of deaths and disabilities caused by snakebite by 2030.
AnswerA · To show that snakebite is a large, often ignored problem that can be treated
The passage gives the size of the problem and who suffers, then names an effective treatment and the WHO's target to halve deaths.
Worth noting
It calls antivenom "the most effective treatment", so it does not argue against it.
Too loud, too long
Factual · 229 words · 5 questions
Too loud, too long
Our ears can be harmed by sound that is very loud, even for a short time, or by sound that is loud and goes on for a long time. The damage is called noise-induced hearing loss, and it can affect one ear or both.
Loudness is measured in . Sounds at or below 70 decibels are unlikely to harm hearing, even if you hear them for a long time. Repeated to sounds of 85 decibels or more can cause damage, and the louder the sound, the faster the damage happens. A motorcycle can reach 80 to 110 decibels, a concert 94 to 110, a siren 110 to 129, and fireworks 140 to 160. How close you are to the noise, and how long you hear it, both matter.
The damage happens deep inside the ear, to tiny hair cells that respond to sound. In birds and frogs these cells can grow back. In humans they cannot: once they are destroyed, they are gone for good. Because the loss is often , people may not notice it until it has become serious. Loud noise can also cause , a ringing or buzzing in the ears.
There is good news, though. Noise-induced hearing loss is the only kind of hearing loss that can be completely prevented, by avoiding very loud sounds, keeping a distance from them and wearing ear protection.
AnswerB · This kind of hearing loss can be completely prevented
"Noise-induced hearing loss is the only kind of hearing loss that can be completely prevented."
Worth noting
The passage says plainly that human hair cells do not grow back.
The fever a mosquito carries
Factual · 234 words · 5 questions
The fever a mosquito carries
Dengue is caused by a virus that passes to people through the bite of an female mosquito, mainly of the species Aedes aegypti. A mosquito picks up the virus by biting a person who already has it, and about 8 to 12 days later it can pass it on.
About half of the world's population now lives at risk of dengue, and there are an estimated 100 to 400 million infections every year. Most people who catch it have mild or none at all, and recover within one or two weeks. When symptoms do appear, usually 4 to 10 days after the bite, they include a high fever, a severe headache, pain behind the eyes, aching muscles and joints, and a rash.
A small number of people develop severe dengue, which often needs care in hospital. Its warning signs include severe stomach pain, vomiting that does not stop, fast breathing, and bleeding from the gums or nose. People who catch dengue for a second time are at greater risk of the severe form.
There is no medicine that cures dengue; treatment eases the pain. Paracetamol is advised, while painkillers such as ibuprofen and aspirin should be avoided, because they can make bleeding more likely. The best protection is to avoid bites, with covering clothes, nets and , and to empty or cover anything that holds standing water, where the mosquitoes .
"Covering clothes, nets and repellents" protect against bites. Repellents are
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · substances that keep insects away
They are listed among ways to "avoid bites", so they must stop mosquitoes coming near.
Worth noting
The passage says no medicine cures dengue, so repellents are not cures.
Icy visitors
Factual · 255 words · 5 questions
Icy visitors
Comets are icy objects made of dust and ice that travel round the Sun. They are from the birth of the solar system, about 4.6 billion years ago.
Most comets spend their lives far out in the cold. Short-period comets, which take less than 200 years to go round the Sun, come from the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies at the edge of the solar system. Long-period comets come from the even more distant Oort Cloud, and some take more than 250,000 years to complete one . Now and then the gravity of a planet or a passing star a comet onto a path that brings it towards the Sun.
The solid, frozen centre of a comet is called the , and it is usually less than about 16 kilometres across. Far from the Sun, that is all there is to see. But as a comet comes closer, the heat turns some of its ice into gas, and a huge, fuzzy cloud called the forms around the nucleus. The comet then grows two tails: a white, gently curving tail of dust, and a bluish tail of electrically charged gas. The tails can stretch for millions of kilometres, and they grow longer the nearer the comet comes to the Sun.
Some comets return on a regular timetable. Halley's Comet, the most famous, comes back about every 76 years. Spacecraft have even visited comets: NASA's Stardust mission collected dust from one, and the Rosetta spacecraft put a lander on another.
"Halley's Comet, the most famous, comes back about every 76 years."
Worth noting
200 and 250,000 years describe the two groups of comets, not Halley's.
Shooting stars
Factual · 245 words · 5 questions
Shooting stars
A meteor is a space rock, called a meteoroid, that enters the Earth's atmosphere. As it rushes through the air, the air it and the rock becomes extremely hot. What we see as a "shooting star" is the glowing hot air around the rock as it zips across the sky. Meteoroids range in size from specks of dust to , but they are almost always small enough to burn up quickly in the atmosphere.
Sometimes many meteors appear in a single night. This is a meteor shower, and it happens because of comets. As a comet travels on its path round the Sun, the Sun's heat makes it shed particles, and this gets spread out along the comet's path. Each year, as the Earth travels round the Sun, its orbit crosses the paths of some comets, and the Earth runs into a trail of their debris.
The meteors in a shower all seem to come from the same spot in the sky, and each shower is named after the in which that spot lies. The Orionids of October, for example, seem to come from near the constellation Orion the Hunter. Other well-known showers include the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December.
How many meteors you see depends on the shower, the time of night, the state of the sky and the phase of the Moon. A full or nearly full Moon can make many meteors too hard to see.
"This debris gets spread out along the comet's path." "Debris" means
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · scattered broken pieces
The debris is the particles the comet sheds as the Sun heats it.
Worth noting
The group of stars is a constellation, a different word in the passage.
India's orbiter at Mars
Factual · 228 words · 5 questions
India's orbiter at Mars
On 5 November 2013, a PSLV rocket, PSLV-C25, launched India's Mars Orbiter Mission. When the spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) became the fourth space agency in the world to send a spacecraft into orbit around the red planet.
The mission had two kinds of aim. The first was : to design and operate a spacecraft that could make the long journey and enter orbit around Mars, able to act on its own when needed. The second was scientific: to study the surface of Mars, the shapes of its land, its minerals and its , using five instruments, among them a colour camera and a sensor built to look for methane.
The spacecraft was placed in a highly orbit, a path shaped like a stretched circle. When it was farthest from Mars, its camera could photograph the whole planet at once; when it swung close, it could capture fine detail.
The orbiter was designed to last six months. It went on working far longer, and on 24 September 2021 it completed seven years in orbit. Its camera took more than 1,100 images, which were used to publish a Mars , and the mission gave the first view of the far side of Deimos, one of the moons of Mars. It also became known for its low cost: about 450 crore rupees.
What made ISRO the fourth space agency in the world to achieve something?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · Sending a spacecraft into orbit around Mars
"When the spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, ISRO became the fourth space agency in the world to send a spacecraft into orbit around the red planet."
Worth noting
The mission was an orbiter: nothing landed on Mars.
What first did the mission achieve with one of the moons of Mars?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It gave the first view of the far side of Deimos
"The mission gave the first view of the far side of Deimos, one of the moons of Mars."
Worth noting
No landing or discovery of a new moon is mentioned.
The turtles that nest together
Factual · 233 words · 5 questions
The turtles that nest together
The olive ridley is one of the smallest sea turtles in the world. An adult weighs up to about 45 kilograms and is about 60 to 75 centimetres long. It takes its name from the olive-green colour of its heart-shaped shell. Olive ridleys live in the warm waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and are thought to live for between 30 and 50 years.
They are best known for the way they nest. On a few beaches, thousands or even tens of thousands of females come together to lay their eggs. This mass nesting is called an arribada, and only ridley turtles do it. A female nests one to three times a season, laying about 100 eggs each time. The temperature of the sand decides whether the young turtles will be male or female. When they hatch, the young head for the brightest , which on a natural beach leads them to the sea.
Olive ridleys eat both plants and animals, including algae, crabs and shellfish, and can dive to about 150 metres to feed on the seabed.
There may once have been about ten million of them; today there are far fewer. The biggest threat is being caught by accident in fishing gear, where they can drown. Turtles and their eggs are also taken by people, and nesting beaches are harmed by building, lights and rising seas.
AnswerB · From the olive-green colour of its shell
"It takes its name from the olive-green colour of its heart-shaped shell."
Worth noting
It eats algae, crabs and shellfish, not olives.
Why cities stay hot
Factual · 224 words · 5 questions
Why cities stay hot
Cities are often warmer than the countryside around them. Such a warm patch is called an heat island. By day, a city may be about 1 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than the land around it, and at night about 1 to 3 degrees warmer.
The main reason is what cities are made of. Buildings, roads and other soak up the Sun's heat and give it off again far more than fields and forests do. On a warm day, an ordinary roof can be as much as 37 degrees Celsius hotter than the air. Trees and water cool the air with their shade and by giving off water, but a city has fewer of them. Tall buildings close together form "urban " that block the wind and trap heat in the narrow streets between them. And cars, air-conditioners and factories add heat of their own.
The extra heat has a cost. People use more electricity for cooling: for a rise of about one degree Celsius, the electricity used for air-conditioning can grow by 1 to 9 per cent. Heat also speeds up the formation of ground-level ozone, a harmful , and heat islands add to illness and death in hot weather.
Cities can fight back by planting trees and other greenery, and by building green roofs, covered in plants, and cool roofs.
Which is given as a way for cities to reduce heat islands?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · Planting trees and building green and cool roofs
"Cities can fight back by planting trees and other greenery, and by building green roofs ... and cool roofs."
Worth noting
More air-conditioners would add heat, and tall buildings close together create urban canyons.
Land that stays wet
Factual · 210 words · 5 questions
Land that stays wet
A wetland is a place where water covers the soil, or lies at or near its surface, for all or part of the year. Swamps, marshes and bogs are all wetlands.
The water shapes everything else. Because the ground stays , wetlands develop their own kind of soil, known as hydric soil, and they support plants called hydrophytes, which are to grow in ground.
Wetlands fall into two broad groups. Coastal, or tidal, wetlands are found where rivers meet the sea and salt water mixes with fresh: salt marshes full of hardy grasses and, in the tropics, mangrove swamps. Inland wetlands lie on the flat land beside rivers, in hollows in the ground, at the edges of lakes and ponds, and wherever groundwater keeps the soil wet. They include marshes, wet meadows, and swamps of shrubs or trees.
Not every wetland is wet all the time. Many inland wetlands are and dry out for part of the year, especially in dry regions, and some pools fill with water only now and then. Yet even these provide vital homes for wildlife. Wetlands are found from the frozen to the tropics, on every continent except Antarctica, and they support animals of both land and water in one place.
Wetlands are found "on every continent except Antarctica".
Worth noting
The passage mentions the frozen tundra, which does have wetlands; Antarctica is the exception.
The temple named after its sculptor
Factual · 181 words · 5 questions
The temple named after its sculptor
At Palampet, in the Mulugu district of Telangana, not far from Warangal, stands a temple that is more than 800 years old. Its official name is the Rudreswara Temple, but almost everyone calls it the Ramappa Temple, after the who worked on it for 40 years.
The temple was built in 1213 CE, during the rule of the Kakatiya , by Recharla Rudra, a general of the Kakatiya king Ganapati Deva. The Kakatiyas built their temples in a style of their own, and the Ramappa Temple is one of its finest examples. It stands on a star-shaped platform about six feet high, and its walls, pillars and ceilings are covered with carvings. The gateways to Kakatiya temple complexes were also built in a special style found only in this region.
On 25 July 2021, at the 44th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, the temple was on the World Heritage List, becoming India's 39th World Heritage Site. It had been the government's only for the year 2019. A few days later, Dholavira in Gujarat became the 40th.
How did the temple become India's 39th World Heritage Site?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It was inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 44th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, on 25 July 2021
"On 25 July 2021, at the 44th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, the temple was inscribed on the World Heritage List."
Worth noting
2019 was the year of the government's nomination, not of the inscription.
Santiniketan
Factual · 216 words · 5 questions
Santiniketan
Santiniketan, in a rural part of West Bengal, is closely tied to the life and ideas of Rabindranath Tagore, the poet, artist, musician and philosopher who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
The place began as an , set up and given its name in 1863 by Tagore's father, Debendranath Tagore. In 1901, Rabindranath began to turn it into a school and a centre for the arts, based on the ancient Indian tradition of the gurukul, in which pupils live and learn with their teachers. His was of the unity of humanity, reaching beyond religious and cultural . In 1921 a "world university" was founded there, named Visva Bharati after that vision.
Santiniketan's buildings are as unusual as its ideas. Instead of following the British colonial style of the early twentieth century, or the modern style then spreading from Europe, they drew on ancient, medieval and folk traditions from across Asia.
In September 2023, Santiniketan was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List at a meeting of the World Heritage Committee held in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. It had been on UNESCO's list since 2010. A day later, the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas, a group of three temples in Karnataka, were also inscribed, bringing India's total to 42 World Heritage Sites.
How are Santiniketan's buildings different from others of their time?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · They drew on ancient, medieval and folk traditions from across Asia instead of colonial or European styles
"Instead of following the British colonial style of the early twentieth century, or the modern style then spreading from Europe, they drew on ancient, medieval and folk traditions from across Asia."
Worth noting
Both the colonial style and the European modern style are what the buildings avoided.
How many World Heritage Sites did India have after the inscriptions of September 2023?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · 42
The two inscriptions brought "India's total to 42 World Heritage Sites".
Worth noting
Santiniketan alone made 41; the Hoysala temples, inscribed a day later, made 42.
Railways up the mountains
Factual · 226 words · 5 questions
Railways up the mountains
Building a railway across flat land is hard enough. Building one up the side of a mountain is a far greater , and three of India's mountain railways are together listed as a single World Heritage Site: the Mountain Railways of India. All three are still running today.
The first and best known is the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. It opened in 1881 and is still considered the most example of a hill railway built to carry passengers. Its builders used bold and clever to lay a working line across difficult mountain country of great beauty.
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, in Tamil Nadu, was first proposed in 1854. The mountains made it so hard to build that work began only in 1891, and the line was finished in 1908. It is a single-track line 46 kilometres long, on metre , and it climbs from 326 metres above sea level to 2,203 metres, using the latest technology of its day.
The third is the Kalka–Shimla Railway, a single-track line 96 kilometres long, built to serve the hill town of Shimla. It stands for the great effort, in skill and in materials, that went into ending the of mountain people by bringing the railway to them.
The three railways were added to the World Heritage List one by one, in 1999, 2005 and 2008.
How were the three railways added to the World Heritage List?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · One by one, in 1999, 2005 and 2008
"The three railways were added to the World Heritage List one by one, in 1999, 2005 and 2008."
Worth noting
1881 is the year the Darjeeling railway opened.
Three wild places
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
Three wild places
Not all of India's World Heritage Sites were built by people. Some are natural places, protected for their wildlife and landscapes. Three of the best known were listed in the 1980s.
Kaziranga National Park, in the heart of Assam, became a World Heritage Site in 1985. It is one of the last areas in eastern India left by people. It is home to the world's largest population of one-horned rhinoceroses, as well as tigers, elephants, panthers, bears and thousands of birds.
Keoladeo National Park, in Rajasthan, was listed in the same year. It was once a duck-hunting of the Maharajas. Today it is one of the major winter homes for large numbers of water birds that fly in from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China and Siberia. Some 364 kinds of birds have been recorded there, among them the rare Siberian crane.
The Sundarbans National Park followed in 1987. The Sundarbans, in the of the Ganga, cover about 10,000 square kilometres of land and water, a little more than half of it in India and the rest in Bangladesh. They contain the largest area of forest in the world, and they shelter many rare or species, including tigers, water mammals, birds and reptiles.
What do the three places in the passage have in common?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · They are natural World Heritage Sites protected for their wildlife
The passage opens by saying some sites "are natural places, protected for their wildlife and landscapes", and describes three of them.
Worth noting
Only the Sundarbans has mangroves, and only Keoladeo has a link with the Maharajas.
Every other breath
Factual · 246 words · 5 questions
Every other breath
When we think of the plants that give us oxygen, we usually picture forests. Yet about half of the Earth's oxygen comes from the ocean.
Most of it is made by : plants, algae and some bacteria that, like plants on land, use sunlight to make food and give off oxygen as they do so. One of them, a bacterium called Prochlorococcus, is the smallest living thing on Earth that makes food from sunlight. Tiny as it is, it may produce up to 20 per cent of all the oxygen in the , more than all the world's tropical rainforests put together.
Scientists cannot count these organisms one by one, so they how much the plankton are producing using images taken by satellites. The amount of plankton rises and falls with the seasons and changes with the nutrients in the water, its temperature and other conditions.
Not all the oxygen made in the ocean reaches the air. Roughly as much is used up by sea life, because fish and other sea animals breathe, just as land animals do, and oxygen is also used up when dead plants and animals . When a large bloom of algae dies, its decay can use up oxygen faster than it is replaced. The water then holds so little oxygen that most sea life cannot survive, and such places are called dead zones.
The oxygen we breathe today built up in the air over hundreds of millions of years.
AnswerD · Though it is the smallest living thing that makes food from sunlight, it may make more oxygen than all tropical rainforests together
It "is the smallest living thing on Earth that makes food from sunlight", yet "may produce up to 20 per cent of all the oxygen in the biosphere, more than all the world's tropical rainforests put together."
Worth noting
The surprise is the contrast between its tiny size and its huge output.
Why does not all the ocean's oxygen reach the air?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Sea animals breathe it and decay uses it up, taking roughly as much as is made
"Roughly as much is used up by sea life, because fish and other sea animals breathe ... and oxygen is also used up when dead plants and animals decay."
Worth noting
The passage names breathing and decay as the two users of the oxygen.
AnswerB · Water with so little oxygen that most sea life cannot survive
When dead algae decay and use up oxygen, "the water then holds so little oxygen that most sea life cannot survive, and such places are called dead zones."
Worth noting
The name describes what happens to life there, not to ships.
A preventable death
Factual · 195 words · 5 questions
A preventable death
Every year about 300,000 people around the world die by drowning. The rate has fallen by 38 per cent since 2000, but drowning is still a leading cause of death, and 92 per cent of these deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries.
Young children are most at risk. Children under five make up nearly a quarter of all drowning deaths, and drowning is the fourth leading cause of death for children aged one to four, and the third for those aged five to fourteen. Males drown at more than twice the rate of females. Drowning also takes the lives of people who work on the water, such as fishermen, and it causes about three-quarters of all deaths in floods.
Most of these deaths can be prevented, and the are often simple. Covering wells, putting gates across doorways and fencing pools keep small children away from water. day care for children too young for school keeps them safe while their parents work. Teaching school-age children to swim and to stay safe in water gives them skills for life. Safe rules for boats and , and plans for floods, protect everyone else.
"The global rate has fallen by 38 per cent since 2000, but drowning is still a leading cause of death." What does this sentence suggest?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · Things have improved, but the problem remains serious
"Has fallen" shows progress; "but ... still a leading cause of death" shows the problem is far from over.
Worth noting
A fall in the rate means fewer drownings for the population, not more.
Speed, helmets and seat-belts
Factual · 229 words · 5 questions
Speed, helmets and seat-belts
About 1.16 million people die in road crashes every year, and between 20 and 50 million more are injured, many of them left with a . Road crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young people aged 5 to 29. Low- and middle-income countries have about 60 per cent of the world's vehicles, but 92 per cent of the world's road deaths.
More than half of those killed are , cyclists and motorcyclists, the road users with the least protection. Men are about three times as likely as women to die in a crash.
Speed is one of the biggest dangers. Every 1 per cent rise in average speed raises the risk of a crash by 4 per cent. For a pedestrian hit by a car, the risk of death rises four and a half times between 50 and 65 kilometres an hour. Drivers who use a mobile phone are about four times more likely to crash.
Simple protection works. Wearing a helmet correctly can cut a motorcyclist's risk of death by more than six times. Wearing a seat-belt can reduce the risk of death for people in a car by up to half, and child seats reduce the deaths of babies by 71 per cent.
The United Nations has set a of halving the number of road deaths and injuries by 2030.
AnswerD · Simple protection such as helmets, seat-belts and child seats saves lives
It opens with "Simple protection works" and gives figures for helmets, seat-belts and child seats.
Worth noting
Mobile phones are discussed in the paragraph before, as a danger.
Measuring with light
Factual · 192 words · 5 questions
Measuring with light
A light-year sounds like a measure of time, but it is a measure of distance: the distance that light travels in one Earth year. Light is the fastest thing there is, moving at about 300,000 kilometres every second, so in a year it covers about 9 trillion kilometres.
need such a large because the distances in space are so . Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach us from the Sun, which is about 150 million kilometres away. The nearest star beyond the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light-years away. The Pole Star, Polaris, is about 320 light-years away, and the centre of our own , the Milky Way, is about 26,000 light-years away.
Because light takes time to travel, looking far into space means looking back in time. The Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large neighbouring galaxy, is 2.5 million light-years away, so we see it as it was 2.5 million years ago. One very distant galaxy, called GN-z11, is about 13.4 billion light-years away; its light shows us the universe as it was only about 400 million years after the Big Bang.
The passage says Polaris is about 320 light-years away. What does this tell us about the light we see from it tonight?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · It left Polaris about 320 years ago
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, so light from 320 light-years away has been travelling for about 320 years.
Worth noting
The light is already here; it set out about 320 years ago.
The ice dwarf
Factual · 215 words · 5 questions
The ice dwarf
Pluto was once counted as the ninth planet. In 2006 it was as a planet, together with Ceres, Makemake, Haumea and Eris.
Pluto is small, only about half as wide as the United States. It lies in the Kuiper Belt, a region full of icy bodies and other dwarf planets at the edge of the solar system, almost 40 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is. There it is cold, about 240 degrees Celsius below zero. Its gravity is weak: a child who weighs 30 kilograms on Earth would weigh only about 2 kilograms on Pluto.
Pluto has five moons. The largest, Charon, is about half the size of Pluto itself, which makes it the largest moon in the solar system compared with the body it goes round. Pluto's orbit is unusual too. It is an oval, path with the Sun nowhere near its centre, and one trip round the Sun takes 248 Earth years. A day on Pluto lasts about 6.5 Earth days, the same time that Charon takes to circle it. Pluto even spins in the opposite direction to most of the planets.
In 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto and sent back pictures that showed a large, light-coloured heart shape on its surface.
A child weighing 30 kilograms on Earth would weigh about 2 kilograms on Pluto. What does this show?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Pluto's gravity is much weaker than the Earth's
The passage introduces the example with "Its gravity is weak". Weighing far less means a far weaker pull.
Worth noting
The child still has some weight, so Pluto does have gravity, only much less.
Cool, cover, don't
Factual · 232 words · 5 questions
Cool, cover, don't
Burns are grouped by how deep they go. A , or first-degree, burn affects only the outer layer of the skin and causes pain, redness and swelling. A partial-thickness, or second-degree, burn reaches the layer beneath as well, and also causes . A full-thickness, or third-degree, burn damages the deep layers of the skin, which may look white or blackened. Pain is not a guide: some of the most serious burns hurt very little.
For a minor burn, the first step is to cool it. Run cool water over the area, or soak it in cool water, for 5 to 30 minutes, but do not use ice water. Calm the person, and once the burn has cooled, cover it with a clean, dry bandage and protect it from pressure and rubbing.
Just as important is what not to do. Do not put butter, oil, ice, creams or any household on a burn. Do not break blisters or peel away dead skin, and do not try to remove clothing that is stuck to the burn. A large, severe burn should not be put in cold water, because this can cause .
Some burns need emergency help at once: burns about the size of the person's palm or larger, deep burns, burns caused by chemicals or electricity, and any burn where the person shows signs of shock or has breathed in smoke.
Why should a large, severe burn not be put in cold water?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · It can cause shock
"A large, severe burn should not be put in cold water, because this can cause shock."
Worth noting
Cooling is advised for minor burns; the warning applies only to large, severe ones.
Where rivers meet the sea
Factual · 163 words · 5 questions
Where rivers meet the sea
Where a river meets the sea, fresh water flowing down from the land mixes with salty seawater. The result is water, and the bodies of water where this happens are called estuaries. Similar places are found along large lakes, where river water mixes with lake water.
Estuaries are among the most natural places in the world. They serve as nurseries for young fish: about three-quarters of the fish that people catch depend on them. Many birds and other animals feed and breed in estuaries, and stop there to rest on their long .
Estuaries also work for us in quieter ways. The marshes and sea grasses that grow in them filter the water that flows out to the ocean, and estuaries act as a , protecting the coast from storms.
People have always been drawn to estuaries, for food, for work, for and for the shelter they give. Of the 32 largest cities in the world, 22 stand on estuaries.
What does the fact that 22 of the world's 32 largest cities stand on estuaries suggest?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · People have long been drawn to settle beside estuaries
The sentence before says "People have always been drawn to estuaries, for food, for work, for recreation and for the shelter they give."
Worth noting
The figure supports that point; it does not suggest estuaries are dangerous.
What makes a wave
Factual · 198 words · 5 questions
What makes a wave
A wave is made by energy passing through water. As the energy passes, it makes the water move round in circles.
The most common waves are made by the wind. As wind blows across the surface of the sea or of a lake, the between the moving air and the water keeps the surface and builds up a crest. Storms such as hurricanes, with their very strong winds and changes in pressure, can create dangerous waves, including the long waves of a storm , which grow as they near the shore.
Other waves have other causes. Earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions under the sea can suddenly push aside huge amounts of water, setting off a tsunami, a series of very long waves. The pull of the Sun's and the Moon's gravity on the Earth creates waves too: the tides. Although people sometimes call tsunamis "tidal waves", the two have nothing to do with each other.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about waves is that the water itself does not travel with them. A wave carries energy, not water, across the ocean, and a wave that meets nothing in its way can cross a whole ocean .
A ball floats on the sea as a wave passes under it. Based on the passage, what will most likely happen to the ball?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It will move round in a small circle and stay in roughly the same place
The water "does not travel with" the wave; the energy passes and "makes the water move round in circles".
A ball resting on that water will rise and fall in a circle and be left behind.
Worth noting
The wave's energy travels on; the water, and the ball, mostly stay where they are.
A change in the light
Factual · 235 words · 5 questions
A change in the light
Every year on 28 February, India celebrates National Science Day. The date marks the discovery of the Raman Effect in 1928 by the Sir C. V. Raman, while he was working in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata. For this discovery he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.
The Raman Effect is about what happens to light as it passes through a substance. When a beam of light goes through a clear, dust-free sample of a chemical , a small of the light comes out in directions different from that of the incoming beam: it is . Most of this scattered light keeps its original . But a small part of it comes out with a different wavelength, caused by the molecules that the light meets, and the presence of this changed light is the Raman Effect. The discovery belongs to spectroscopy, the branch of science that studies substances by means of light.
The idea of a National Science Day came from the National Council for Science and Technology Communication, which in 1986 asked the Government of India to name 28 February for it. The government agreed, and the first National Science Day was held on 28 February 1987. Its aim is to spread the message of how important science is in people's daily lives, and every year it has its own theme.
AnswerD · A small part of the light scattered by a substance comes out with a changed wavelength
Most scattered light "keeps its original wavelength. But a small part of it comes out with a different wavelength ... and the presence of this changed light is the Raman Effect."
Worth noting
The sample is "dust-free", so dust is not the cause.
AnswerB · The National Council for Science and Technology Communication
The idea "came from the National Council for Science and Technology Communication, which in 1986 asked the Government of India to name 28 February for it."
Worth noting
Raman made the discovery; he did not ask for the Day.
"A small fraction of the light comes out in directions different from that of the incoming beam." "Fraction" means
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · a small part
Only some of the light is scattered; a fraction is a part of a whole, and "small" stresses how little.
Worth noting
Most of the light is not scattered, so the fraction cannot be large.
A constitution written by hand
Factual · 217 words · 5 questions
A constitution written by hand
On 26 November 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India the Constitution of India. It came into force two months later, on 26 January 1950. Today 26 November is celebrated every year as Constitution Day, or Samvidhan Divas.
When it came into force, it was the longest written constitution in the world, with 395 Articles, 22 Parts and 8 Schedules. Remarkably, it was not printed. The original was written out by hand, in beautiful , in both English and Hindi, and it ran to about 90,000 words. The calligraphy was done by Prem Behari Narain Raizada in Delhi, and artists from Santiniketan, guided by Nandalal Bose, decorated it. Each Part begins with a picture of a scene from India's history, from Mohenjo-daro and the Vedic age to the freedom movement. The original copies are kept in special cases filled with nitrogen in the Library of Parliament.
The making of the Constitution was watched by the people. Over nearly three years, more than 53,000 citizens sat in the visitors' of the Constituent Assembly to follow its . Fifteen of the Assembly's members were women, among them Sarojini Naidu, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Hansa Mehta, Sucheta Kripalani and G. Durgabai. On 24 January 1950 the Assembly met for the last time, and 284 members signed the Constitution.
What does the figure of more than 53,000 visitors suggest?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · Ordinary citizens took a close interest in the making of the Constitution
The paragraph begins, "The making of the Constitution was watched by the people", and the number of visitors shows how many came to follow the debates.
Worth noting
A visitors' gallery open to over 53,000 citizens is the opposite of secrecy.
Gaganyaan
Factual · 208 words · 5 questions
Gaganyaan
Gaganyaan is India's programme to send into space. Its aim is to show that India can launch a crew into orbit and bring them back safely to Earth.
The plan is to carry a crew of three into an orbit about 400 kilometres above the Earth for a mission of three days, and then to bring them home with a landing in Indian sea waters. The rocket will be a version of ISRO's heavy-lift LVM3, rebuilt to meet the much stricter safety needs of carrying people and so called the Human Rated LVM3. It carries a Crew Escape System, powered by quick-acting solid rocket motors, which can carry the crew away from the rocket in an .
The spacecraft has two main parts: a Crew Module, which gives the astronauts a living space with conditions like those on Earth, and a Service Module. Before anyone flies, ISRO plans a series of flights without a crew, including drop tests, a test of escaping from the launch pad and flights of a special test vehicle, so that the safety and of every system is proved first.
The astronauts train at a facility in Bengaluru, using and getting used to . The Human Spaceflight Centre leads the programme.
The rocket is called "Human Rated". This means it has been
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · rebuilt to meet the stricter safety needs of carrying people
The LVM3 was "rebuilt to meet the much stricter safety needs of carrying people and so called the Human Rated LVM3".
Worth noting
"Rated" here means certified as fit for a use, not given a score.
India's own map in the sky
Factual · 216 words · 5 questions
India's own map in the sky
When a phone shows your position on a map, it is working out where you are from the signals of satellites. For a long time, most of the world on satellite systems run by a few other countries. India decided to build a system of its own: the Indian Navigation Satellite System, better known as NavIC.
As the word "regional" suggests, NavIC is not meant to cover the whole globe. Its service area is India itself and the region up to 1,500 km beyond India's borders. Within that area, it is designed to give a position accurate to better than 20 metres.
The system offers two kinds of service. The first, the Standard Positioning Service, is open to everyone. The second, called the Restricted Service, is and available only to users.
The possible uses are wide. NavIC can guide vehicles on land, ships at sea and aircraft in the air, help manage disasters, track of lorries, and give travellers and hikers a way to find their route. It can be built into mobile phones, and it can supply precise timing, which matters to many modern systems. Having a system of its own also means that India does not have to rely on another country's satellites for any of this.
AnswerC · India's own satellite navigation system and what it offers
After a short opening about phones and satellites, every paragraph describes NavIC: why it was built, the area it covers, its two services and its uses.
Worth noting
The opening sentence about phones only leads into the topic. It is not the topic.
Why does the writer draw attention to the word "regional" in the second paragraph?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Because it shows that NavIC covers only India and the area around it, not the whole world
The writer says "As the word 'regional' suggests, NavIC is not meant to cover the whole globe", and then describes its area: India and up to 1,500 km beyond its borders.
"Regional" means belonging to one region, not the whole world.
Worth noting
The passage says nothing about NavIC being run by states or being less accurate than other systems.
The writer begins the passage with a phone showing a position on a map in order to
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · connect the topic to something familiar before explaining NavIC
Almost every reader has seen a phone show their position. Starting there makes the idea of satellite navigation familiar before the passage turns to NavIC.
The second sentence then moves from the familiar example to the need that led India to build its own system.
Worth noting
The opening is not a complaint: it simply states a fact about dependence, which the passage explains later.
Why the sky is blue
Factual · 232 words · 5 questions
Why the sky is blue
Sunlight looks white, but it is really a mixture of all the colours of the rainbow, as anyone who has seen light pass through a knows. Light travels in waves, and the colours differ in the length of their waves: red light travels in long, lazy waves, while blue light travels in short, ones.
Light goes in a straight line unless something gets in its way. It may be , as by a mirror; bent, as by a prism; or , sent off in all directions. When sunlight enters the Earth's atmosphere, it meets the tiny of the gases that make up the air, and these scatter it. Blue light, with its shorter waves, is scattered far more than the other colours. So when you look at any part of the sky away from the Sun, what reaches your eyes is mostly this scattered blue light.
Near the , the sky looks paler, almost white. Light arriving from low in the sky has passed through much more air, and has been scattered again and again until the colours are mixed together once more.
The same idea explains a red sunset. When the Sun is low, its light has to cross a great thickness of air to reach you. By then, most of the blue has been scattered away, and the reds and yellows are left to come straight through.
Based on the passage, why does the sky near the horizon look paler than the sky overhead?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Light from low in the sky has crossed more air and been scattered so often that its colours mix again
The third paragraph says light from low in the sky "has passed through much more air, and has been scattered again and again until the colours are mixed together once more".
Mixed colours look white, so the sky near the horizon looks pale.
Worth noting
The reason is more air, not less. An option that reverses the passage's explanation is a common trap.
Which of the following would the passage's explanation lead you to expect?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · At sunset, the sky near the Sun turns reddish because its light crosses more air
The last paragraph says that when the Sun is low, its light crosses "a great thickness of air", most of the blue is scattered away, and the reds and yellows come through.
So at sunset, the light we see from the Sun's direction is reddish.
Worth noting
At midday the Sun is high and its light crosses the least air, so the passage's idea would lead us to expect a blue sky, not a red one.
Weather from the Sun
Factual · 211 words · 5 questions
Weather from the Sun
The Sun is about 150 million km away, but what happens on its surface can still reach us. Scientists call it space weather.
The Sun is always throwing gas and tiny out into space, a steady stream known as the solar wind. These particles come from the Sun's hot outer atmosphere, the corona, and they carry an electric . The solar wind can carry them towards the Earth at more than a million kilometres an hour.
We are protected by two shields. The Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field, an area of magnetic force, and by a jacket of gases, the atmosphere. Together they most of the solar wind. The charged particles crash into the magnetic field and flow around it, squashing the side that faces the Sun and stretching the far side into a long tail.
Some particles get caught in the magnetic field, gain energy there, and then rush into the atmosphere near the North and South Poles. When they do, they make the sky glow with colours: the auroras.
Space weather is not always so beautiful. During strong solar storms, the solar wind becomes much more powerful, and at its worst it can damage satellites and cause electrical on the Earth.
The third paragraph says the Earth is surrounded by "a magnetic field" and "a jacket of gases, the atmosphere", which "Together… turn aside most of the solar wind".
Worth noting
The poles are where auroras appear, not the shields themselves.
According to the passage, why do auroras appear near the North and South Poles?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerB · Because particles caught in the magnetic field rush into the atmosphere there
The fourth paragraph says some particles get caught in the magnetic field and "then rush into the atmosphere near the North and South Poles", making the sky glow.
Worth noting
The passage never connects auroras to cold. The cause it gives is the path of the charged particles.
Which statement is best supported by the last paragraph?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · Strong solar storms can affect technology on and around the Earth
The paragraph says that during strong solar storms, the solar wind "can damage satellites and cause electrical blackouts on the Earth".
Worth noting
The paragraph opens with "Space weather is not always so beautiful", which contrasts the harm with the auroras. It does not say auroras cause the harm.
How a storm makes lightning
Factual · 244 words · 5 questions
How a storm makes lightning
A thunderstorm often begins on a sunny day. The Sun heats the air near the ground, and of warm air start to rise. When they reach a certain height, fluffy cumulus clouds form. As the heating goes on, the clouds grow upwards into tall towers, one of the first signs that a storm is on its way, and in the end the top of the cloud spreads out into the flat shape of an .
Inside the growing cloud, water freezes and falls. The top holds mostly tiny ice crystals; the middle, a mixture of ice crystals and small hail; the bottom, rain and melting hail. In the middle of the cloud these pieces crash into one another, and the give them an electric . The light ice crystals become positively charged and are carried up by the rising air, while the heavier hail becomes negatively charged and stays lower down. The cloud ends up with a positive charge at the top and a negative charge in the middle and lower parts.
At first the air acts as an , keeping the charges apart. But when the difference between them becomes too great, the air can no longer hold them back, and the electricity rushes across in a single giant spark. That spark is lightning.
It is also why weather experts give one simple warning: if you can hear thunder, even far away, you are already close enough to be in danger.
What finally causes the lightning, according to the passage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · The difference between the charges becoming too great for the air to hold back
The third paragraph says that "when the difference between them becomes too great, the air can no longer hold them back, and the electricity rushes across in a single giant spark".
Worth noting
The Sun's heat starts the storm, but it is not what finally sets off the spark.
AnswerC · Lightning can strike well away from where the storm seems to be, so hearing thunder means you are close enough to be at risk
The warning says that if you can hear thunder "even far away, you are already close enough to be in danger".
Thunder is the sound of lightning, so hearing it means lightning is within reach.
Worth noting
The danger is lightning, not the thunder itself; the thunder is only the sign.
Where the sea gets its salt
Factual · 209 words · 5 questions
Where the sea gets its salt
Rivers run into the sea all the time, and river water tastes fresh. So why is the sea salty? The answer is that most of the ocean's salt began on land.
Rainwater is very slightly . As it falls on rocks, it slowly wears them away, releasing tiny amounts of minerals. Streams and rivers carry these minerals down to the ocean. River water contains too little of them to taste salty, but the ocean has been collecting them for a very long time. Some are used by sea creatures and removed from the water again; others are not, and they have built up over the .
There is a second source, under the sea itself. Sea water into cracks in the ocean floor, where it is heated by hot rock below. The heat sets off chemical reactions, and the water picks up metals such as iron, zinc and copper from the rocks around it. It then comes back out through openings in the sea floor, carrying these minerals with it.
Undersea volcanoes add a little more, releasing minerals directly into the water when they erupt. Taken together, the salt of the ocean is the slow work of rain, rivers and the fire under the sea floor.
According to the passage, where does most of the ocean's salt come from?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · Rocks on land, worn away by rain and carried by rivers
The first paragraph says "most of the ocean's salt began on land", and the second explains how rain wears rocks and rivers carry the minerals to the sea.
Worth noting
Volcanoes "add a little more", so they are a smaller source.
The last sentence describes the ocean's salt as "the slow work of rain, rivers and the fire under the sea floor". This sentence
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · sums up the sources the passage has described
Rain and rivers are the land source in the second paragraph; "the fire under the sea floor" stands for the heated vents and the volcanoes in the third and fourth.
The sentence gathers them together as a summary.
Worth noting
No new source is added; every item in the sentence has already been explained.
The little boy of the Pacific
Factual · 214 words · 5 questions
The little boy of the Pacific
The Pacific is the largest ocean on the Earth, and what happens to its water can change the weather far away from it.
In normal years, steady winds called blow westward along the equator. They push warm surface water from the coast of South America across the ocean towards Asia. Cold water rises from the depths near South America to take its place, a process known as .
Every few years this pattern breaks. In an El Niño, the trade winds weaken, and warm water spreads back east towards the Americas. In a La Niña, the opposite happens: the winds grow stronger, and more warm water is pushed towards Asia. Scientists treat the two as parts of one cycle.
Each usually lasts nine to twelve months, and sometimes longer. They come every two to seven years on average, but not on a fixed , and El Niño happens more often than La Niña. Both can affect weather, wildfires, the natural world and the economies of countries around the globe.
The name is old. Fishermen in South America noticed of unusually warm water in the Pacific as early as the 1600s. Because the warming tended to peak around December, they called it El Niño de Navidad, the little boy of Christmas.
AnswerB · Because the warming tended to peak around December, near Christmas
The last paragraph says "Because the warming tended to peak around December, they called it El Niño de Navidad, the little boy of Christmas."
Worth noting
The "little boy" is the meaning of the name, not the person who found it.
Where even light cannot escape
Factual · 228 words · 5 questions
Where even light cannot escape
A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so strongly that nothing can get out, not even light. The pull is so great because a large amount of has been into a very small space. This can happen at the end of a star's life, when a dying star collapses.
Since no light can escape, a black hole cannot be seen directly. Scientists find black holes in another way: with special instruments on space telescopes, they watch how gas and stars behave close to one. Material swirling round an invisible point, or stars moving as if pulled by something unseen, can .
Black holes come in a range of sizes. The smallest, called black holes, may be as small as a single atom but as heavy as a large mountain. The most common medium-sized ones are called stellar black holes. One of these can hold up to twenty times the mass of the Sun, packed into a ball only about sixteen kilometres across, and there may be dozens of them in our own , the Milky Way.
The largest are the supermassive black holes. They have the mass of more than a million Suns and would fill a ball about the size of the solar system. Scientists believe that almost every large galaxy has one at its centre.
How do scientists find black holes, according to the passage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · By watching how gas and stars behave close to them
The passage says scientists "watch how gas and stars behave close to one", looking for material swirling round an invisible point or stars pulled by something unseen.
Worth noting
Ordinary photographs cannot work, because no light escapes the black hole itself.
Which type of black hole is described as the most common?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · Stellar
The third paragraph says "The most common medium-sized ones are called stellar black holes."
Worth noting
"Invisible" describes all black holes, not one type.
The edge of the solar system
Factual · 195 words · 5 questions
The edge of the solar system
Where does the solar system end? The question is harder than it sounds.
Close in are the Sun, the eight planets and their moons, the belt and many comets. Beyond Neptune, the farthest planet, lies the Kuiper Belt, an almost empty ring around the Sun in which icy bodies, nearly all smaller than Pluto, travel slowly on their orbits. Pluto is the best known of them.
Beyond even that, scientists believe, lies the Oort Cloud. Most of the solar system is flat, like a disk: the planets and the Kuiper Belt all circle the Sun in roughly the same . The Oort Cloud is different. It is thought to be a giant round shell surrounding everything else, like a huge bubble with thick walls. It is made of icy pieces of space the size of mountains, and sometimes larger, and it is where some comets are believed to come from.
The distances are almost impossible to imagine. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, one of the fastest objects ever built, took about thirty-five years just to leave the region where the Sun's is strongest. Reaching the Oort Cloud would take it many centuries more.
The first sentence asks "Where does the solar system end?", and the passage then moves outwards from the planets to the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.
Worth noting
Comets and Voyager 1 are mentioned on the way, but the question is about the edge of the solar system.
How is the Oort Cloud different from the rest of the solar system?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · It is thought to be a round shell around everything, while the rest is flat like a disk
The third paragraph says most of the solar system "is flat, like a disk", but the Oort Cloud "is thought to be a giant round shell surrounding everything else".
Worth noting
The Oort Cloud is made of icy rubble, not gas, and it is the farthest part, not the closest.
Why does the writer mention Voyager 1 in the last paragraph?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · To help the reader grasp how enormous the distances are
Even one of the fastest spacecraft took about thirty-five years to leave the Sun's main region, and would need "many centuries more" to reach the Oort Cloud.
The example turns an unimaginable distance into a length of time.
Worth noting
The passage says Voyager 1 has not reached the Oort Cloud; it would take centuries more.
The ocean's changing chemistry
Factual · 197 words · 5 questions
The ocean's changing chemistry
For more than two hundred years, since the , people have been burning coal, oil and gas and changing the way land is used. As a result, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has been rising.
The ocean takes in about thirty per cent of the carbon dioxide released into the air. That might sound like a good thing, and in one way it is, since it keeps some of the gas out of the atmosphere. But it changes the sea. When carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, a chain of chemical reactions makes the water more . This slow change is called ocean acidification.
The change matters most to creatures that build shells and . Oysters, clams, sea urchins and corals all use substances called carbonate ions as building blocks. In more acidic water there are relatively fewer of these, so building and keeping a shell becomes harder.
Even animals without shells can be affected. In more acidic water, some fish become worse at sensing the that hunt them. And when the creatures at the bottom of a are in trouble, everything that eats them may be in trouble too.
AnswerD · How rising carbon dioxide is making the ocean more acidic, and why that matters
The passage explains how the ocean takes in carbon dioxide, how that makes it more acidic, and how the change harms shell-builders and other creatures.
Worth noting
Oysters are one example of the creatures affected, not the subject.
AnswerB · Harm to small creatures can spread to the animals that depend on them
The sentence says that when creatures at the bottom of a food chain are in trouble, "everything that eats them may be in trouble too".
Harm at the bottom can spread upwards.
Worth noting
The sentence begins with the creatures at the bottom, which rules out the idea that only the top is affected.
India's eye on the universe
Factual · 190 words · 5 questions
India's eye on the universe
On 28 September 2015, a PSLV rocket lifted off from Sriharikota carrying AstroSat, India's first space to astronomy. It was placed in an orbit about 650 km above the Earth.
Stars, galaxies and other objects in space give off light of many kinds, not only the light our eyes can see. Some of the most interesting objects glow brightly in light or in X-rays, which the Earth's atmosphere blocks. To study them properly, a telescope has to be above the air.
What makes AstroSat unusual is that it can watch the same object in several kinds of light at the same time: ultraviolet, some visible light and X-rays. Many observatories study only one kind, so scientists often have to combine observations taken at different times by different telescopes. AstroSat can gather them all at once, from one satellite.
Among its aims is to understand violent processes in pairs of stars that include and black holes, some of the most extreme objects in the universe. The data it collects is sent down to a control centre in Bengaluru, where it is processed and shared with scientists.
Why is observing in several kinds of light at once an advantage?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · Scientists do not have to combine observations taken at different times by different telescopes
The passage says many observatories study only one kind of light, "so scientists often have to combine observations taken at different times by different telescopes".
AstroSat gathers them "all at once, from one satellite", which avoids that problem.
Worth noting
The last paragraph says the data is still processed in Bengaluru.
A rising sea
Factual · 226 words · 5 questions
A rising sea
Around the world, the level of the sea is rising, and it is rising faster than before. As the oceans and the air continue to warm, the sea is likely to keep rising for centuries, at a faster rate than in the current century.
This matters to a great many people. Eight of the world's ten largest cities stand near a coast. Where many people live close to the sea, the level of the water plays a part in flooding, in the wearing away of the , and in the damage done by storms.
But the sea does not rise by the same amount everywhere. Just as the land is not flat, neither is the surface of the ocean. In some places the sea rises more than the average, and in others less. The land itself may be slowly sinking or rising, rivers may be controlled , the coast may be wearing away, and ocean currents may push water towards or away from a shore.
That is why scientists measure sea level in two ways. Tide stations along the coast record how high the water is at one place, compared with a fixed point on land. Satellites, measuring from above, give a picture of the whole ocean at once. Together, they show both the global and what is happening on each stretch of coast.
"Together, they show both the global trend and what is happening on each stretch of coast." Here "trend" means
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · the general direction of change
The passage contrasts the overall picture, how sea level is changing worldwide, with local changes.
A trend is a general direction of change.
Worth noting
"Trend" can also mean a fashion, but here it describes the overall movement of the sea level.
When medicines stop working
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
When medicines stop working
Antibiotics and the other medicines that fight germs have saved millions of lives, but they are losing their power. Antimicrobial happens when bacteria, viruses, fungi and stop responding to the medicines meant to kill them. Infections then become hard, or even impossible, to treat, and the risk of spread, severe illness, disability and death goes up.
The problem is already large. In 2021, resistant bacteria were linked to more than 4.7 million deaths around the world. In 2023, about one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections did not respond to antibiotics, and between 2018 and 2023 resistance rose in more than 40 per cent of the combinations of germ and medicine that were being watched.
The main cause is the and overuse of these medicines. Poor and hygiene help resistant germs spread, and few new antibiotics are being developed to take the place of the old ones.
The danger reaches beyond hospitals. Resistant infections in farm animals and crops threaten the food supply, and longer illnesses mean higher costs for families and for health systems. Part of the answer lies with each of us: using antibiotics only in the right way, when they are needed, and preventing infections in the first place.
Why does the writer say "The danger reaches beyond hospitals"?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerA · Resistance also threatens the food supply and raises costs for families and health systems
The paragraph goes on to name resistant infections in farm animals and crops, and the higher costs of longer illnesses.
Worth noting
The sentence widens the problem; it does not say hospitals are free of it.
The Moon's stronger pull
Factual · 206 words · 5 questions
The Moon's stronger pull
The rise and fall of the sea along a coast is caused by gravity: the pull of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth and its oceans. Tides are really very long waves that move through the ocean. When the of one of these waves reaches a coast, the water is at high tide; when the arrives, it is low tide. The difference in height between the two is called the tidal range.
You might expect the Sun to be the stronger of the two. It is about 27 million times more than the Moon, and its pull on the Earth is more than 177 times as strong. Yet it is the Moon that has the bigger effect on the tides.
The reason is distance. The pull of gravity weakens with the square of the distance, but the force that raises tides weakens faster still, with the cube of the distance. The Sun is about 390 times farther from us than the Moon, so its tide-raising force is cut by 390 × 390 × 390, or about 59 million times. Weighing its great mass against its great distance, the Sun's tide-raising force works out at only about half of the Moon's.
How does the Sun's tide-raising force compare with the Moon's?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · It is about half as strong
"The Sun's tide-raising force works out at only about half of the Moon's."
Worth noting
177 times describes ordinary gravitational pull, not the tide-raising force.
A city that saved every drop
Factual · 253 words · 5 questions
A city that saved every drop
In the Rann of Kutch, in Gujarat, lie the remains of one of the great cities of the Harappan . Dholavira was lived in for about 1,500 years, from around 3000 BCE, and it is one of the very few well-preserved towns in South Asia from that distant age. Of the more than 1,000 Harappan sites found so far, it is the sixth largest. In July 2021 it became India's 40th World Heritage Site.
The city was carefully planned. A walled city stood beside a cemetery to its west. Inside the walls were a castle with a ground beside it, a fortified middle town and a lower town, the areas perhaps set apart for people of different occupations. Unlike most Harappan towns, which were built near rivers, Dholavira stood on the island of Khadir, close to sources of copper, shell, semi-precious stones and other raw materials, and well placed for trade that reached as far as Oman and Mesopotamia.
Its most remarkable feature is the way it saved water in a dry land. The people collected water from seasonal streams, from the little rain that fell and from the ground, and stored it in large cut into the stone along the city's eastern and southern walls. They also dug wells into the rock, among the oldest examples known; the most impressive is in the . This system is counted among the most efficient of the ancient world, and it was built, like much of the city, of stone.
Why was the city's water system so important, and so remarkable?
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerC · In a dry land, it collected and stored every source of water in stone reservoirs and rock-cut wells
The people took water "from seasonal streams, from the little rain that fell and from the ground" and stored it in large stone reservoirs, and also dug rock-cut wells.
The system is "counted among the most efficient of the ancient world".
Worth noting
The passage stresses that Dholavira was not beside a river, so canals from rivers are not part of the picture.
"A fortified castle ... a fortified middle town." "Fortified" means
Show the explanationHide the explanation
AnswerD · protected by strong walls
The city was "walled", and its castle and middle town were fortified: protected by walls for defence.
Worth noting
The passage says much of the city was built of stone, not wood.
NTA's English syllabus is one page. It names two skill areas: Reading Comprehension, with three kinds of passage of at most 300 words each (factual, narrative and literary), and Verbal Ability, with four item types (rearranging the parts, match the following, choosing the correct word, synonyms and antonyms). It says the questions are not limited to these, and prints no chapters and no split of the 50 questions. So the chapters here are ours. Reading is split by the kind of passage, because a poem is not read the way a report is. Verbal Ability is split into three areas of our own: Vocabulary, Sentence & paragraph order, and Grammar & usage. Where a chapter covers something past NTA's short list, it says so, and it is there because the papers since 2022 have asked it.