ECAT English Chapter 8 Comprehension Online Test MCQs With Answers

The year 2006 was the golden anniversary, or the 50^th birthday, of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. This system, usually referred to as The Interstate Highway System, is a system of freeways named after the U.S. President who supported it. The system is the largest highway system in the world, consisting of 46,876 miles (75,440 km) of freeways. The construction of the interstate highway system is an important part of American history. It has played a major role in preserving and maintaining the America way of life.

The interstate highway system has several major functions. One of its major functions is to facilitate the distribution of US good. Because the intestate passes through many downtown areas, it plays an important role in the distribution of almost all goods in the United States. Nearly all products travel at least part of the way to their destination on the Interstate System. Another major function of the interstate is to facilitate military troop movement to and from airports, seaports, rail terminals and other military destinations. The Interstate highways are connected to route in the Strategic Highway Network, which is a system of highways that are vital to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Today, most of the Interstate system consists of newly constructed highways. The longest section of the Interstate system runs from Boston, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington. It covers 3,020.54 miles. The shortest two-digit interstate is from Emery, North Caroline to Greensboro, North Caroline. It covers only 12.27 miles. All state capitals except five are served by the system. The five that are not directly served are Juneau, AK, Dover, DE, Jefferson City, MO, Carson City, NV, and Pierre, SD. The Interstate Highway System serves almost all major U.S. cities.

EACH Interstate highway is marked with a red, white, and blue shield with the word “Interstate,” the name of the state, and the route number. Interstate highways are named with one or two-digit numbers. North-south highways are designated with odd numbers; east-west highways are named with even numbers. The north-south Interstate highways begin in the west with the lowest odd number; the east-west highways begin in the south with the lowest even numbers. There all mile markers at each mile of the interstate system, starting at the westernmost or southernmost point on the highway. Every Interstate highway begins with the number “0”. Interchanges are numbered according to their location on the highway in relation to mileage; an exit between milepost 7 and milepost 8 would be designated “Exit 7.” This system allows drivers estimate the distance to a desired exit, which a road is leading off the highway. Despite the common acceptance of the numbering system on the Interstate highways, some states have adopted different numbering systems. For example, a portion of the Interstate 19 in Arizona is measured in kilometers instead of miles since the highway goes south to Mexico.

Since the Interstate highways are freeways-highways that do not have signs and cross streets – they have the highest speed limits in the nation. Most interstate highways have speed limits between 65 – 75 miles per hour (105 – 120 kilometers per hour), but some areas in Texas and Utah have an 80 mile-per-hour (130 kilometer-per-hour) speed limit.

The federal government primarily funds interstate highways. However, they are owned and operated by the individual states or toll authorities in the states. The federal government generally funds up to 90% of the cost of an Interstate highway, while the states pay the remainder of the cost.

Which President supported the Interstate Highway System?

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.

Which of the following literary techniques does the author use in the passage?

I hyperbole, characterized by the use of exaggeration for effect

II foreshadowing, characterized by the use of hints that depict future events in the narrative or story

III flashback, characterized by the description of a scene set in a time earlier than the main story

When we are young, we learn that tigers and sharks are dangerous animals. We might be scared of them because they are big and powerful. As we get older, however, we learn that sometimes the most dangerous animals are also the smallest animals. In fact, the animal that kills the most people every year is one that you have probably killed yourself many times: the mosquito.

While it may seem that all mosquitoes are biters, this is not actually the case. Male mosquitoes eat plant nectar. One the other hand, female mosquitoes feed on animal blood. They need this blood to live and produce eggs. When a female mosquito bites a human being, it transmits a small amount of saliva into the blood. The saliva may or may not contain a deadly disease. The result of the bite can be as minor as an itchy bump or as serious as death.

Because a mosquito can bite many people in the course of its life, it can carry diseases from one person to another very easily. Two of the most deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes are malaria and yellow fever. More than 700 million people become sick from these diseases every year. At least 2 million of these people will die from these diseases.

Many scientists are working on safer and better ways to kill mosquitoes, but so far, there is no sure way to protect everyone in the world from their deadly bites. Mosquito nests can be placed over beds to protect people against being bitten. These nets help people stay safe at night, but they do not kill any mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have many natural enemies like bats, birds, dragonflies, and certain kinds of fish. Bringing more of these animals into places where mosquitoes live might help to cut down the amount of mosquitoes in that area. This is a natural solution, but is does not always work very well. Mosquitoes can also be killed with poisons or sprays. Even though these sprays kill mosquitoes, they may also harm other plants or animals.

Although mosquitoes may not seem as scary as larger, more powerful animals, they are far more dangerous to human beings. But things are changing. It is highly likely that one day scientists will find a way to keep everyone safe from mosquitoes and the diseases they carry.

Based on information in paragraph 3, it can be understood that if you get sick with malaria or yellow fever, your chances of survival are

Many people like to eat pizza, but not everyone knows knows how to make it. Making the perfect pizza can be complicated, but there are lots of ways for you to make basic version at home.

When you make pizza, you must begin with the crust. The crust can be hard to make. If you want to make the crust yourself, you will have to make dough using flour, water, and yeast. You will have to knead the dough with your hands. If you do not have enough time to do this, you can use a prepared crust that you buy from the store.

After you have chosen your crust, you must then add the sauce. Making your own sauce from scratch can take a long time. You have to buy tomatoes, peel them, and then cook them with spices. If this sounds like too much work, you can also purchase jarred sauce from the store. Many jarred sauces taste almost as good as the kind you make at home.

Now that you have your crust and your sauce, you need to add the cheese. Cheese comes from milk, which comes from cows. Do you have a cow in your backyard? Do you how to milk the cow? Do you know how to turn that milk into cheese? If not, you might want to buy cheese from the grocery store instead of making it yourself. When you have the crust, sauce, and cheese ready, you can add other toppings. Some people like to put meat on their pizza, while other people like to add vegetables. Some people even like to add pineapple! The best part of making a pizza at home is that you can customize it by adding your own favorite ingredients

As used in paragraph 1, which word means the opposite of “complicated”?

What are good parts of our civilization? First and fore-most there are order and safety. If today I have a quarrel with another man, I do not get beaten merely because I am physically weaker and he can knock me down. I go to law and the law will decide as fairly as it can between the two of us. Thus in disputes between man and man. Right has taken the place might. More-over, the law protects me from robbery and violence. Nobody may came and break into my house, steal my books or run off with my children. Of course, there are burglars, but they are very rare and the law punishes them whenever it catches them.

It is difficult for us to realize how much this safety means. Without safety those higher activates of mankind which make up civilization could not go on. The inventor could not invent, the scientist find out or the artist make beautiful things. Hence, order and safety, although they are not themselves civilization, are things without which civilization could be impossible. They are as necessary to our civilization as the air we breathe is to us; and we have grown so used to them that we do not notice them any more than we notice the air.

An artist can create beautiful things only if:

Lilly loves her town. She loves the mall. She loves the parks. She also loves her school. Most of all, though, Lilly loves the seasons. In her old town, it was hot all of the time.

Sometimes it is cold in Lilly’s new town. The cold season is in winter. Once in a while it snows. Lilly has never seen snow before. So far her, the snow is exciting as well as very beautiful. Lilly has to wear gloves to keep her hands warm. She also wear a scarf around her neck.

In spring, flowers bloom and the trees turn green with new leaves. Pollen falls on the cars and windowsills and makes Lilly sneeze. People work in their yards and mow their grass.

In summer, Lilly wears her old shorts and sandals- the same ones she used to wear in her old town. It is hot outside, and dogs lie in the shade. Lilly and her friends go to a pool or play in the water sprinkler. Her father cooks hamburgers on the grill for dinner.

Lilly’s favorite season is autumn. In autumn, the leaves on the trees turn yellow, gold, red, and orange. Halloween comes in autumn, and this Lilly’s favorite holiday. Every Halloween, Lilly wears a costume. Last year she wore a mouse costume. This year she will wear a fish costume.

One evening in autumn, Lilly and her mom are on sitting together on the porch. Mom tells Lilly that autumn is also called “fall”. This is a good idea, Lilly thinks, because in the fall all of the leaves fall down from the trees.

Based on information in paragraph 5, which of the following costumes is Lilly most likely to wear next year?

Many people like to eat pizza, but not everyone knows knows how to make it. Making the perfect pizza can be complicated, but there are lots of ways for you to make basic version at home.

When you make pizza, you must begin with the crust. The crust can be hard to make. If you want to make the crust yourself, you will have to make dough using flour, water, and yeast. You will have to knead the dough with your hands. If you do not have enough time to do this, you can use a prepared crust that you buy from the store.

After you have chosen your crust, you must then add the sauce. Making your own sauce from scratch can take a long time. You have to buy tomatoes, peel them, and then cook them with spices. If this sounds like too much work, you can also purchase jarred sauce from the store. Many jarred sauces taste almost as good as the kind you make at home.

Now that you have your crust and your sauce, you need to add the cheese. Cheese comes from milk, which comes from cows. Do you have a cow in your backyard? Do you how to milk the cow? Do you know how to turn that milk into cheese? If not, you might want to buy cheese from the grocery store instead of making it yourself. When you have the crust, sauce, and cheese ready, you can add other toppings. Some people like to put meat on their pizza, while other people like to add vegetables. Some people even like to add pineapple! The best part of making a pizza at home is that you can customize it by adding your own favorite ingredients

Which of the following conclusions would work best at the end of this passage?

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

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?

When you imagine the desert, you probably think of a very hot place covered with sand.Although this is a good description for many deserts. Earth's I with ice:Antarctica. In order for an area to be considered a desert, it must receive very little rainfall. More specifically, it must receive an average of less than ten inches of precipitation - which can be rain, sleet, hail , or snow - on the ground every year. Antarctica, the coldest place on earth, has an average temperature that usually falls below the freezing point. And because cold air holds less moisture than warm air, the air in Antarctica does not hold much moisture at all. This is evident in the low precipitation statistics recorded for Antarctica. For example , the central part of Antarctica receives an average of less than 2 inches of snow every year. The coastline of Antarctica receive a little bit more-between seven and eight inches a year. Because Antarctica gets so little precipitation every year, it is considered a desert. When precipitation falls in hot deserts, it quickly evaporates back into the atmosphere. the air over Antarctica is too cold to hold water vapor, so there is very little evaporation. Due to this low rate of evaporation, most of the snow that falls to the ground remains there permanently, eventually building up into thick ice sheets. Any snow that does not freeze into ice sheets becomes caught up in the strong winds that constantly blow over Antarctica. These snow-filled winds can make it look as if it is snowing. Even though snowfall is very rare there, blizzards are actually very common on Antarctica.Question:Which is the best definition for precipitation?

When her grandmother’s health began to deteriorate in the fall of 1994, Mary would make the drive from Washington, DC to Winchester every few days.

She hated highway driving, finding it ugly and monotonous. She preferred to take meandering back roads to her grandmother’s hospital. When she drove through the rocky town of Harpers Ferry, the beauty of the rough waters churning at the intersection of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers always captivated her.

Toward the end of her journey, Mary had to get on highway 81. It was here that she discovered a surprising bit of beauty during one of her trips. Along the median of the highway, there was a long stretch of wildflowers. They were thin and delicate and purple, and swayed in the wind as if whispering poems to each other.

The first time she saw the flowers, Mary was seized by an uncontrollable urge to pull over on the highway and yank a bunch from the soil. She carried them into her grandmother’s room when she arrived at the hospital and placed them in a water pitcher by her bed. For a moment her grandmother seemed more lucid than usual. She thanked Mary for the flowers, commented on their beauty and asked where she had gotten them. Mary was overjoyed by the ability of the flowers to wake something up inside her ailing grandmother.

Afterwards, Mary began carrying scissors in the car during her trips to visit her grandmother. She would quickly glide onto the shoulder, jump out of the car, and clip a bunch of flowers. Each time Mary placed the flowers in the pitcher, her grandmother’s eyes would light up and they would have a splendid conversation.

One morning in late October, Mary got a call that her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. Mary was in such a hurry to get to her grandmother that she sped past her flower spot. She decided to turn around head several miles back, and cut a bunch. Mary arrived at the hospital to find her grandmother very weak and unresponsive. She placed flowers in the pitcher and sat down. She felt a squeeze on her fingers. It was the last conversation they had.

In the final paragraph, the author writes. “She felt a squeeze on her fingers. It was the last conversation they had.”

Which best describes what the author is trying to communicate in these sentences?