Reading Comprehension Questions with Solution (Test 3)

Instruction for 1 to 5:

Studies of the factors governing reading development in young children have  achieved a remarkable degree of consensus over the past two decades. The  consensus concerns the causal role of ‘phonological skills in young children’s  reading progress. Children who have good phonological skills, or good  ‘phonological awareness’ become good readers and good spellers. Children  with poor phonological skills progress more poorly. In particular, those who  have a specific phonological deficit are likely to be classified as dyslexic by the  time they are 9 or 10 years old. Phonological skills in young children can be  measured at a number of different levels. The term phonological awareness is a  global one and refers to a deficit in recognising smaller units of sound within  spoken words. Development work has shown that this deficit can be at the  level of syllables, of onsets and rimes, or phonemes. For example, a 4-year-old child might have difficulty in recognising that a word like Valentine has three  syllables, suggesting a lack of syllabic awareness. A five-year-old might have  difficulty in recognising that the odd workout in the set of words fan, cat, hat,  mat is a fan. This task requires an awareness of the sub-syllabic units of the  onset and the rime. The onset corresponds to any initial consonants in syllable  words, and the rime corresponds to the vowel and to any following  consonants. Rimes correspond to rhyme in single-syllable words, and so the  rime in fan differs from the rime in cat, hat and mat. In longer words, rhyme and rhyme may differ. The onsets in val: en tine are /v/ and /t/, and the times correspond to the selling patterns ‘al’, ‘en’ and’ in. A six-year-old might have  difficulty in recognising that plea and pray begin with the same initial sound.  This is a phonemic judgement. Although the initial phoneme /p/ is shared  between the two words, in plea it is part of the onset ‘pl’ and in prayer, it is  part of the onset ‘pr’. Until children can segment the onset (or the time) such  phonemic judgements are difficult for them to make. In fact, a recent survey of  different developmental studies has shown that the different levels of  phonological awareness appear to emerge sequentially. The awareness of  syllables, onsets, and rimes appears to merge at around the ages of 3 and 4,  long before most children go to school. The awareness of phonemes, on the  other hand, usually emerges at around the age of 5 or 6, when children have  been taught to read for about a year. An awareness of onsets and rimes thus  appears to be a precursor of reading, whereas an awareness of phonemes at  every serial position in a word only appears to develop as reading is taught. The  onset-rime and phonemic levels of phonological structure, however, are not  distinct. Many onsets in English are single phonemes, and so are some rimes (e.g. sea, go, zoo). The early availability of onsets and rimes is supported by  studies that have compared the development of phonological awareness of  onsets, rimes, and phonemes in the same subjects using the same phonological  awareness tasks. For example, a study by Treiman and Zudowski used a  same/different judgement task based on the beginning or the end sounds of  words. In the beginning sound task, the words either began with the same  onset, as in plea and plank or shared only the initial phoneme, as in plea and  pray. In the end-sound task, the words either shared the entire rime, as in spit  and wit, or shared only the final phoneme, as in rat and wit. Treiman and  Zudowski showed that four- and five-year-old children found the onset-rime  version of the same/different task significantly easier than the version based on  phonemes. Only the six-year-olds, who had been learning to read for about a  year, were able to perform both versions of the tasks with an equal level of  success. 

Q1. The single-syllable words Rhyme and Rime are constituted by the exact  same set of  

1. rime(s)  
2. onset(s) 
3. rhyme(s)  
4. phonemes(s) 

Q2. The Treiman and Zudowski experiment found evidence to support which of  the following conclusions?

Q3. A phonological deficit in which of the following is likely to be classified as  dyslexia?

Q4.From the following statements, pick out the true statement according to  the passage. 

Q5. Which one of the following is likely to emerge last in the cognitive  development of a child?

Instruction for 6 to 9:

The conceptions of life and the world which we call ‘philosophical’ are a  product of two factors: one inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the  other, the sort of investigation which may be called ‘scientific’, using this word  in its broadest sense. Individual philosophers have differed widely in regard to  the proportions in which these two factors entered into their systems, but it is  the presence of both, to some degree, that characterizes philosophy.  ‘Philosophy’ is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some  narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to  explain. Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate  between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on  matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but  like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that  of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge so I should contend  belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs  to theology. But between theology and science there is a ‘No Man’s Land’,  exposed to attack from both sides; this ‘No Man’s Land’ is philosophy. Almost  all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science  cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so  convincing as they did in former centuries. Is the world divided into mind and  matter, and if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is the mind subject to  matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or  purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or  do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what  he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of carbon and water impotently  crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to  Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and  another that is based, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must  the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking  even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? Is there such a thing  as wisdom, or is what seems such merely the ultimate refinement of folly? To  such questions, no answer can be found in the laboratory. Theologies have  professed to give answers, all too definite; but their definiteness causes  modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these questions, if  not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy. Why, then, you may  ask, waste time on such insoluble problems? To this one may answer as a  historian, or as an individual facing the terror of cosmic loneliness. The answer  of the historian, in so far as I am capable of giving it, will appear in the course  of this work. Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions  in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to  the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is as true in  the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we  must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must  ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation:  the circumstances of men’s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but,  conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.  There is also, however, a more personal answer. Science tells us what we can  know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot  know we may become insensitive to many things of very great importance.  Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have  knowledge, where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind  of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of  vivid hopes and fears, is painful but must be endured if we wish to live without  the support of comforting fairy tales. It is good either to forget the questions  that philosophy asks or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable  answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being  paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age,  can still do for those who study it. 

Q6. The purpose of philosophy is to

Q7. Based on the passage, what can be concluded about the relation between  philosophy and science?

Q8. From reading the passage, what can be concluded about the profession of  the author? He is most likely not to be a

Q9. According to the author, which of the following statements about the  nature of the universe must be definitely true?