Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting…
2023
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate option.
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies (grasslands) with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon from many miles afar. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.
Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar — except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trapdoor in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the ploughed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of long blades until they were the same gray colour to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
Which of the following statements are true (T) and which ones are false (F) ?
A. The fear of a cyclone loomed large on the family.
B. They had built a shelter for protection against wind and rain.
C. Around the house there was nothing to reduce the impact of a storm.
D. Their drawing room had only three or four chairs.
Choose the correct option :
Answer: A. T F T F — Concept In a True/False reading-comprehension question built on several statements, each statement is checked independently against what the passage…
- A.
T F T F
- B.
F T F T
- C.
T T T F
- D.
F F T T
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept
In a True/False reading-comprehension question built on several statements, each statement is checked independently against what the passage explicitly states — its exact wording, including qualifiers such as "built" versus "dug," or a named hazard versus a general one — rather than against a paraphrase that merely sounds similar or an outside assumption about what such a household would typically have.
Application
Statement A: the passage states there was "no cellar — except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path." Maintaining this dedicated escape hole for whirlwinds shows the family took cyclone danger seriously, so statement A is supported by the text.
Statement B: the same passage describes this refuge as "a small hole dug in the ground," reached by a trapdoor and a ladder, kept specifically for whirlwinds rather than for wind and rain in general. A dug hole purposed against one named hazard is not the same as a built structure raised for protection against wind and rain broadly, so statement B is not supported by the text.
Statement C: the passage states, "Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions." With no trees, buildings, or other features nearby, there is nothing around the house to soften an approaching storm, so statement C is supported by the text.
Statement D: the passage describes "four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds." The house has a single multipurpose room holding all the furniture together, not a separate room set aside as a drawing room, so statement D is not supported by the text.
Cross-check
Reading the four verdicts together — true, false, true, false — accounts for every quoted detail in the passage without requiring any assumption beyond what is written, and this exact sequence corresponds to only one of the four listed combinations.
"F T F T" would require treating the cyclone cellar as an unremarkable detail rather than a sign of real concern, and treating that same dug hole as itself a built shelter against wind and rain generally, both of which run against the passage's own wording.
"T T T F" keeps statement A's and C's readings above but would require the dug cyclone hole to also count as a general shelter against wind and rain, setting aside that the passage ties it specifically to whirlwinds and describes it as dug rather than built.
"F F T T" keeps statement C's reading above but would require both the cyclone cellar to be read as unremarkable and the single all-purpose room to be read as a separate drawing room, neither of which the passage supports.
All four verdicts are therefore true, false, true, false — the combination "T F T F."