ECAT English Chapter 8 Comprehension Online Test MCQs With Answers

First introduced in 1927, The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories are a series of books about the adventures of brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, teenaged detectives who solve one baffling mystery after another. The Hardy Boys were so popular among young boys that in 1930 a similar series was created for girls featuring a sixteen-year-old detective named Nancy Drew. The cover of each volume of The Hardy Boys states that he author of the series is Franklin W. Dixon; the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories are supposedly written by Carolyn Keene. Over the years, though, many fans of both series have been surprised to find out that Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene are not real people. If Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene never existed, then who wrote The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries?

The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew books were written through a process called ghostwriting. A ghostwriter writes a book according to a specific formula. While ghostwriters are paid for writing the books, their authorship is not acknowledged, and their names do not appear on the published books. Ghostwriters can write books for children or adults, the content of which is unspecific. Sometimes they work on book series with a lot of individual titles, such as The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew series.

The initial idea for both The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew series was developed by a man named Edward Stratemeyer, who owned a publishing company that specialized in children’s book.

Stratemeyer noticed the increasing popularity of mysteries among adult, and surmised that children would enjoy reading mysteries about younger detectives with whom they could identify. Stratemeyer first developed each book with an outline describing the plot and setting. Once he completed the outline, Stratemeyer then hired a ghostwriter to convert it into a book of slightly over 200 pages. After the ghostwriter had written a draft of a book, he or she would send it back to Stratemeyer, who would make a list of corrections and mail it back to the ghostwriter. The ghostwriter would revise the book according to Stratemeyer’s instructions and then return it to him. Once Stratemeyer approved the book, it was ready for publication.

Because each series ran for so many years, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys both had a number of different ghostwriters producing books; however, the first ghostwrites for each series proved to be the most influential. The initial ghostwriter for The Hardy Boys was a Canadian journalist named Leslie McFarlane. A few years later, Mildred A. Wirt, a young writer from lowa, began writing the Nancy Drew books. Although they were using prepared outlines as guides, both McFarlane and Wirt developed the characters themselves. The personalities of Frank and Joe Hardy and Nancy arose directly from McFarlane’s and wirt’s imaginations. For example, Mildred Wirt had been a star college athelete and gave Nancy similar athletic abilities. The ghostwriters were also responsible for numerous plot and setting details. Leslie McFarlane used elements of his small C fictional hometown.

Although The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books were very popular with children, not everyone approved of them. Critics thought their plots were unrealistic and even far-fetched, since most teenagers did not experience the adventures Frank and Joe Hardy or Nancy Drew did. The way the books were written also attracted criticism. Many teachers and librarians objected to the ghostwriting process, claiming it was designed to produce books quickly rather than create quality literature. Some libraries – including the New York Public Library – even refused to include the books in their children’s collections. Ironically, this decision actually helped sales of his books, because children simply purchased them when they were unavailable in local libraries.

Regardless of the debates about their literary merit, each series of books has exerted an undeniable influence on American and even global culture. Most Americans have never heard of Edward Stratemeyer, Leslie McFarlane, or Mildred wirt, but people throughout the world are familiar with Nancy Drew and Frank and Joe Hardy.

Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?

Educational planning should aim at meeting the educational needs of the entire population of all age group. While the traditional structure of education as a three layer hierarchy from the primary stage to the university represents the core, we should not overlook the periphery which is equally important. Under modern conditions, workers need to rewind, or renew their enthusiasm, or strike out in a new direction, or improve their skills as much as any university professor. The retired and the age have their needs as well. Educational planning, in their words, should take care of the needs of everyone.

Our structures of education have been built up on the assumption that there is a terminal point to education. This basic defect has become all the more harmful today. A UNESCO report entitled ‘learning to Be’ prepared by Edgar Faure and others in 1973 asserts that the education of children must prepare the future adult for various forms of self – learning. A viable education system of the future should consist of modules with different kinds of functions serving a diversity of constituents. And performance, not the period of study, should be the basis for credentials. The writing is already on the wall.

In view of the fact that the significance of a commitment of lifelong learning and lifetime education is being discussed only in recent years even in educationally advanced countries, the possibility of the idea becoming an integral part of educational thinking seems to be a far cry. For, to move in that direction means such more than some simple rearrangement of the present organization of education. But a good beginning can be made by developing Open University programs for older learners of different categories and introducing extension services in the conventional colleges and schools. Also these institutions should learn to cooperate with the numerous community organizations such as libraries. Museums, municipal recreational programs, health services etc.

According to the author, the concept of ‘lifetime education’ is

On January 3, 1961, nine days after Christmas, Richard Legg, John Byrnes, and Richard McKinley were killed in a remote desert in eastern Idaho. Their deaths occurred when a nuclear reactor exploded at a top-secret base in the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS). Official reports state that the explosion and subsequent reactor meltdown resulted from the improper retraction of the control rod. When questioned about the events that occurred there, officials were very reticent. The whole affair, in fact, was discussed much, and seemed to disappear with time.

In order to grasp the mysterious nature of the NRTS catastrophe, it help to know a bit about how nuclear reactors work. After all, the generation of nuclear energy may strike many as an esoteric process. However, given its relative simplicity, the way in which the NRTS reactor functions is widely comprehensible. In this particular kind of reactor, a cluster of nine-ton uranium fuel rods are positioned lengthwise around a central control rod. The reaction begins with the slow removal of the control ro, which starts a controlled nuclear reaction and begins to heat the water in the reactor. This heat generates steam, which builds pressure inside the tank. As pressure builds, the steam looks for a place to escape. The only place this steam is able to escape is through the turbine. As it passes through the turbine on its way out of the tank, it turns the giant fan blades and produces energy.

On the morning of January 3, after the machine had been shut down for the holidays, the three men arrived at the station to restart the reactor. The control rod needed to be pulled out only four inches to be reconnected to the automated driver. However, records indicate that Byrnes yanked it out 23 inches, over five times the distance necessary. In milliseconds the reactor exploded. Legg was impaled on the ceiling; he would be discovered last. It took one week and a lead-shielded crane to remove his body. Even in full protective gear, workers were only able to work a minute at a time. The three men are buried in lead-lined coffins under concrete in New York, Michigan, and Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.

The investigation took nearly two years to complete. Did Byrnes have a dark motive? Or was it simply an accident? Did he know how precarious the procedure was? Other operators were questioned as to whether they knew the consequences of pulling the control rod out so far. They responded “Of course! We often talked about what we would do if we were at a radar station and the Russians came.

“We’d yank it out.”

Official reports are oddly ambiguous, but what they do not explain, gossip does. Rumors had it that there was tension between the men because Byrnes suspected the other two of being involved with his young wife. There is little doubt than he, like the other operators, knew exactly what would happen when he yanked the control rod.

As used In paragraph 1, which is the best antonym for reticent?

Q.5 Recent advances is science and technology have made it possible for geneticists to find out abnormalities in the unborn foetus and take remedial action to rectify some defects which would otherwise prove to be fatal to the child Though genetic engineering is still at its infancy.scientist can now predict with greater accuracy a genetic disorder it is not yet an exact science since they are not in a position to predict when exactly a genetic disorder will set in While they have not yet been able to change the genetic order of the gene in germs they are optimistic and are holding out that in the near future they might be successful in achieving this feat they have however acquired the ability in manipulating tissue cells However genetic mis-information can sometimes be damaging for it may adversely affect people psychologically Genetic information may lead to tendency to brand some people as inferiors Genetic information can therefore be abused and its application in deciding the sex of the foetus and its subsequent abortion is now hotly debated on ethical lines but on this issue geneticists cannot be squarely blamed though this charge has often been leveled at them it is mainly a societal problem At present genetic engineering is a costly process of detecting disorders but scientists hope to reduce the costs when technology becomes more advanced this is why much progress in this area has been Possible in scientifically advanced and rich countries like the U.S.A U.K and japan it remains to be seen if in the future this science will lead to the development of a race of supermen on will be able to obliterate disease from this world.

At the time Jane Austen’s novels were published – between 1811 and 1818 – English literature was not part of any academic curriculum. In addition, fiction was under strenuous attack. Certain religious and political groups felt novels had the power to make so-called immoral characters so interesting that young readers would identify with them; these groups also considered novels to be of little practical use. Even Coleridge, certainly no literary reactionary, spoke for many when the asserted that “novel-reading occasions the destruction of the mind’s powers.”

These attitudes towards novels help explain why Austen received little attention from early nineteenth-century literary cities. (In any case a novelist published anonymously, as Austen was, would not be likely to receive much critical attention.) The literary response that was accorded to her, however, was often as incisive as twentieth-century criticism. In his attack in 1816 on novelistic portrayals “outside of ordinary experience,” for example. Scott made an insightful remark about the merits of Austen’s fiction.

Her novels, wrote Scott, “present to the reader an accurate and exact picture of ordinary everyday people and places, reminiscent of seventeenth-century Flemish painting.” Scott did not use the word ‘realism’, but he undoubtedly used a standard of realistic probability in judging novels. The critic Whately did not use the word ‘realism’, either, but he expressed agreement with Scott’s evaluation, and went on to suggest the possibilities for moral instruction in what we have called Austen’s ‘realistic method’ her characters, wrote Whately, are persuasive agents for moral truth since they are ordinary persons “so clearly evoked that we feel an interest in their fate as if it were our own.” Moral instruction, explained Whately, is more likely to be effective when conveyed through recongnizably human and interesting characters than when imparted by a sermonizing narrator. Whitely especially praised Austen’s ability to create character who “mingle goodness and villainy, weakness and virtue, as in life they are always mingled. “Whitely concluded his remarks by comparing Austen’s art of characterization to Dickens’, starting his preference for Austen’s.

Yet, the response of nineteenth-century literary critics to Austen was not always so laudatory, and often anticipated the reservations of twentieth-century literary critics. An example of such a response was Lewes complaint in 1859 that Austen’s range of subject and characters was too narrow. Praising her verisimilitude, Lewes added that, nonetheless her focus was too often only upon the unlofty and the commonplace. (Twentieth-century Marxists, on the other hand, were to complain about what they saw as her exclusive emphasis on a lofty upper middle class.) In any case having being rescued by literary critics from neglect and indeed gradually lionized by them, Austen steadily reached, by the mid-nineteenth century, the enviable pinnacle of being considered controversial.

The author mentions that English literature “was nor part of any academic curriculum” in the early nineteenth century in order to

Elephants on the coast of Thailand are acting strange. They stamp their feet and motion toward the hulls. The sea draws back from the beaches. Fish flop in the mud. Suddenly, a huge wave appears. This is no ordinary wave. It is a tsunamiTsunami (pronounced "soo-nah-mee") waves are larger and faster than normal surface waves. A tsunami wave can travel as fast as a jet plane and can be as tall as a ten-story building. Imagine dropping a stone into a pond. The water on the surface ripples. A tsunami is like a very powerful ripple. Tsumais begin when the ocean rises or falls very suddenly. Large amounts of seawater are displaced. This movement causes huge waves.For a tsunami to occur, there must be some kind of force that causes the ocean water to become displaced. Most trunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes. however,volcanoes, landslides, large,icebergs, and even meteorites are capable of causing one of these mighty waves.Trunamis are extremely powerful. Ordinary waves lose power when they break. Tsunami waves can remain powerful for several days. Because tsunami waves are so strong, they can kill people, damage property , and completely ruin an ecosystem in just one hour.Scientist have no way of predicting when a tsunami will hit. However, if a powerful enough earthquake occurs,scientists can issue a warning or a watch. A warning means that a tsunami will very likely hit soon. A watch means that conditions are favorable for a tsunami. When people are notified about a watch or a warning, they have more time to prepare. It is best not to get caught unaware when a tsunami is on the way. In paragraph, the elephants are most likely acting strange because they

Do you live in a house? You might be surprised to learn that there are many, many kinds of houses. Most people in the United States are used to houses made of wood or bricks.But many people around the word live in houses made of grass, dirt, or cloth.In the Great Rift Valley of Eritrea, the nomadic people who are in the Atr tribe build their houses of straw. Their houses are shaped like domes - half spheres. The homes are small and cool. The people can move their houses when they want to move. Since the people are nomads, they move often. They take their animals to new places in order to find food.People whi belong to the Uros tribe of Lake Titicaca. Peru build their houses of reeds. Not only that - they also live on islands that are made of reeds .Their boats are made of reeds too. About 2,000 people live on these man-made islands. They started to build their own islands about 500 years ago.In Andalusia, in the south of Spain, some people live in underground houses.This kind of house is called a cueba.During the winter, the houses stay warm. During the summer, the houses stay cool.In Sana'a, Yemen, some people live in tall houses made of bricks. These bricks are made of clay, straw and soil.The bricks last many years - maybe as long as 500 years. The modern houses in Sana'a are made to look like the older,traditional houses, but they are made of concrete instead of bricks.In Mindadanao in the Philippines, some people still live in tree houses. The tree houses are made of bamboo with grass roofs. The houses are good lookout for snakes and wild animals. The air is cool and the houses stay dry. Now, most people use these tree houses as meeting places.The fisherman of Sabah, Malaysia build their houses on the water. They use wood from mangrove trees.This wood stays strong in the water.The houses receive official addresses form the government.Fujian, China has many townhouses that are made of hard-packed soil. The dirt becomes as strong as bricks when it is packed hard. One large family group lives in a townhouse. The townhouses were built around 300 years ago. A group of townhouses is protected by a thick dirt-packed wall.In the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, some nomadic people live in homes called gels. These homes are made of cloth. The cloth is filled with animal hair. Two poles in the center of the house hold the house up. The people move often to find food for their animals. The houses are easy to move and set up.Some American Indians live in teepees. These homes are made of cloth or buffalo hide. There are wooden poles used to hold the teepee up. Now some people use teepees only for special ceremonies, but people used to live in them all the time.The traditional houses of Chitos, Greece, are made of stone. They have arched doorways and indoor courtyards.They have outdoor dining rooms which are decorated with tile and rock. This means they are ornamented, and made to look more beautiful.The Dayak people of Indonesia build some of their houses on stilts, several feet the ground. The frame of the house is made of iron. The walls are made of tree bark. The floors are made of wooden planks which are placed side by side.The houses are decorated with pictures of water snakes and rhinoceros birds. These animals are part of the people's story of creation, or how the world was made.People build their houses to fit the needs of their lives. The houses are different, but one thing is the same wherever you go. There's no place like home

The Baxter house is located at the end of the street. This house sits farther back from the curb than the other houses. It is almost difficult to see from the road without peering behind the deformed oak tree that has obscured it for years. Even so, the Baxter house stands out from the other houses on the street. It is tall and white. However, this white is no longer pristinely white, but a dingy grayish cram color. Long vines hang from the tattered roof. The Baxter house is two stories tall and has a large yard in the back that has never been mowed. The other houses on the street are a mere one story and have been painted a variety of colors. The newer, single story properties all appear to have been built around the same time; the yards mostly being of the same size, and the houses appearing to be clones of one another. Aside from the Baxter house at the end, this street is a perfect slice of middle America. The inhabitants of the other houses wonder who lives in the ancient, dilapidated house at the end of the street.

The inhabitants of the other houses

Speech is great blessings but it can also be great curse, for while it helps us to make out intentions and desires known to our fellows, it can also if we use it carelessly, make our attitude completely misunderstood. A slip of the tongue , the use of unusual word, or of an ambiguous word, and so on, may create an enemy where we had hoped to win a friend. Again, different classes of people use different vocabularies, and the ordinary speech of an educated may strike an uneducated listener as pompous. Unwittingly, we may use a word which bears a different meaning to our listener from what it does to men of our own class. Thus speech is not a gift to use lightly without thought, but one which demands careful handling. Only a fool will express himself alike to all kinds and conditions to men.

Have you ever wondered what keeps a hot air balloon flying? The same principal that keeps food frozen in the open chest freezers at the grocery store allows hot air balloons to fly. It's very basic principle: Hot air rises and cold air falls. So while the super-cooled air in the grocery store freezer settles down around the food , the hot air in a hot air in a hot air balloon pushes up, keeping the balloon floating above the ground. In order to understand more about how this principal works in hot air balloons, it helps to know more about hot air balloons themselves.A hot air balloon has three major parts: the basket, the burner, and the envelope. The basket is where passengers ride. The basket is usually made of wicker. This ensures that it will be comfortable and add little extra weight. The burner is positioned above the passenger's heads and produced a huge flame to heat the air inside the envelope. The envelope is the colorful fabric balloon that holds the hot air. When the air inside the envelop is heated, the balloon rises.The pilot can control the up-and-down movements of the hot air balloon by regulating the heat in the envelope. To ascend, the pilot heats the air in the envelope. When the pilot is ready to land, the air in the balloon is allowed to cool and the balloon becomes heavier than air. This make the balloon descend.Before the balloon is launched, the pilot knows which way the wind is blowing. This means that she has a general idea about which wau the balloon will go. But, sometimes the pilot can actually control the direction that the balloon flies while in flight. This is because the air above the ground is sectioned into layers in which the direction of the wind may be different. So even though the pilot can't steer the balloon, she can fly higher or lower into a different layer of air. Some days the difference between the directions of the wind between layers is negligible. But other days the difference is so strong that it can actually push the balloon in a completely different directionAs used in paragraph, which is the best antonym for 'descend'?

Chocolate – there’s nothing quite like it, is there? Chocolate is simply delicious. What is chocolate? Where does it come from?

Christopher Columbus was probably the first to take cacao beans from the New World to Europe in around 1502. But the history of chocolate goes back at least 4,000 years! The Aztecs, who lived in America, through that their bitter cacao drink was a divine gift from heaven. In fact, the scientist Carolus Linnaeus named the plant Theobroma, which means “food of the gods”

The Spanish explorer Hernando Cortex went to America in 1519. He visited the Mexican emperor Montezuma. He saw that Montezuma drank cacao mixed with vanilla and spices. Cortez took some cacao home as a gift to the Spanish King Charles. In Spain, people began to drink Cortez’s chocolate in drink with chili peppers. However, the natural taste of cacao was too bitter for most people. To sweeten the drink, Europeans added sugar to the cacao drink. As a sweet drink, it became more popular. By the 17^th century, rich people in Europe were drinking it.

Later, people started using chocolate in pastries, like pies and cakes. In 1828, Dutch chocolate makers started using a new process for removing the fat from cacao beans, and getting to the center of the cacao bean. The Dutch chocolate maker Conrad J. Van Houten made a machine that pressed the fat from the bean. The resulting powder mixed better with water than cacao did. Now, some call van Houten’s chocolate “Dutch chocolate.”

It was easy to mix Dutuch chocolate powder with sugar. So other chocolate makers started trying new recipes that used powdered chocolate. People started mixing sweetened chocolate with cocoa butter to make solid chocolate bars. In 1849, an English chocolate maker made the first chocolate bar. In the 19^th century, the Swiss started making milk chocolate by mixing powdered milk with sweetened chocolate. Milk chocolate has not changed much since this process was invented.

Today, two countries – Brazil and Ivory Coast – account for almost half the world’s chocolate. The United States imports most of the chocolate in the world, but the Swiss eat the most chocolate per person. The most chocolate eaten today is sweet milk chocolate, but people also eat white chocolate and dark chocolate.

Cocoa and dark chocolate are believed to help prevent heart attacks, or help keep from happening. They are supposed to be good for the circulatory system. On the other hand, the high fat content of chocolate can cause weight gain, which is not good for people’s health. Other health claims for chocolate have not been proven, but some research shows that chocolate could be good for the brain.

Chocolate is a popular holiday gift. A popular Valentine’s Day gift is a box of chocolate candies with a card and flowers. Chocolate is sometimes given for Christmas and birthdays. Chocolate eggs are sometimes given at Easter.

Chocolate is toxic to some animals. An ingredient in chocolate is poisonous to dogs, cats, parrots, small rodents, and some livestock. Their bodies cannot process some if the chemicals found in chocolate. Therefore, they should never be fed chocolate.

When you prevent something, you