ECAT English Chapter 8 Comprehension Online Test MCQs With Answers

Fleas are perfectly designed by nature to feast on anything containing blood. Like a shark in the water or a wolf in the woods, fleas are ideally equipped to do what they do, making them very difficult to defeat. The bodies of these tiny parasites are extremely hardy and well-suited for their job.

A flea has a very hard exoskeleton, which means the body is covered by a tough, tile-like plate called a sclerite. Because of these plates, fleas are almost impossible to squish. The exoskeletons of fleas are also waterproof of fleas are also waterproof and shock resistant, and therefore fleas are highly resistant to the sprays and chemicals used to kill them.

Little spines are attached to his plate. The spine the flea scurries through an animal’s fur in – search of grooming pet tries to pull a flea off through the hair coat, these spines will extend and stick to the fur like Velcro.

Fleas are some of the best jumpers in the natural world. A flea can jump seven inches, or 150 times its own length, either vertically or horizontally. An equivalent jump for a person would be 555 feet, the height of the Washington Monument. Fleas can jump 30,000 times in a row without stopping, and they are able to accelerate through the air at an incredibly high rate – a rate which is over ten times what humans can withstand in an airplane.

Fleas have very long rear legs with huge thigh muscles and multiple joints. When they get ready to jump. They fold their long legs up and crouch like a runner on a staring block. Several of their joints contain a protein called resilin, which helps catapult fleas into the air as they jump, similar to the way a rubber band provides momentum to a slingshot. Outward facing claws on the bottom of their legs grip anything they touch when they land.

The adult female flea mates after her first blood meal and begins producing eggs in just 1 to 2 days. One flea can lay up to 50 eggs in one day and over 2,000 in her lifetime. Flea eggs can be seen with the naked eye, but they are about the size of a grain of salt. Shortly after being laid, the eggs begin to transform into cocoons. In the cocoon state, fleas are fully developed adults, and will hatch immediately if conditions are favorable. Fleas can detect warmth, movement, and carbon dioxide in exhaled breath, and these three factors stimulate them to emerge as new adults. If the flea does not detect appropriate conditions, it can remain dormant in the cocoon state for extended periods. Under ideal conditions, the entire life cycle may only take 3 weeks, so in no time at all, pets and homes can become infested.

Because of these characteristics, fleas are intimidating opponents. The best way to control fleas, therefore, is to take steps to prevent an infestation from ever occurring.

The primary purpose of the passage is to

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.

Today, Mike and his mom are going to the library. Mike wants to find a book to read. His Mom wants to use a computer there. When they get ot the library. Mike finds a book about detectives. He also finds a book with chapters about a friendly ghost. Finally, he finds a book about a man who lives in the woods without food or water.He puts the books on the front desk and waits for his mom.Mike's mom sit at one of the computers in the library. She checks er email and looks at pictures of flowers on the internet. Then she reads a news article on a website. Mike's mom leaves the computer and walks over to Mike, holding up something out for him. Mike looks at her quizzically, It takes him a moment to recognize w that movie for us to watch tonight, " says Mike's mom"Sure,"Mike says, now holding the movie out in front of him. He reads the cover while walking back to the library entrance. He puts his books and the movie on the front desk to check out.A librarian stands behind the counter holding an electronic scanner. "How long can we keep them?"Mike asks her."Three weeks, "says the librarian."Cool,"says Mike.Suddenly, Mike is surprised. His mother is checking out something else that is too big to put on the desk. It's a picture of the ocean."What is that for?"Mike asks."To put on our wall at home, "says Mike's mom.:You can do that?"Mike asks.Mike's mom smiles at the librarian. "Yes, "she says, " but we have to return it in three months."According to the passage, how long can Mike and his mother use the books and the movie before they must return them to the library?

The history of literature really began was the earliest of the arts.Man danced for joy round his primitive camp fire after the defeat and slaughter of his enemy He yelled and shouted as he danced and gradually the yells and shouts became coherent and caught the measure of the dance and thus the first war song was sung As the idea of God developed prayers were framed The songs and prayers became traditional and were repeated from one generation to another each generation adding something of its own As man slowly grew more civilized he was compelled to invent some method of writing by three urgent necessities.There were certain things that it was dangerous to forget and which therefore had to be recorded it was often necessary to communicate with persons who were some distance away and it was necessary to communicate with persons who were some distance away and it was necessary to product ones property by making tools cattle and so on in some distinctive manner so man taught himself to write and having learned to write purely for utilitarian reasons he used this new method for preserving his war songs and his prayers of course among these ancient peoples there were only a very few individuals who learned to write and only a few could read what was written.

Yellowstone National Park is the U.S. States of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. It became the first National Park in 1872. There are geysers and hot springs at Yellowstone. There are also many animals at Yellowstone. There are elk, bison, sheep, grizzly, black bears, moose, coyotes, and more.

More than 3 million people visit Yellowstone National Park year. During the winter, visitors can ski or go snowmobiling there. There are also snow coaches that give tours. Visitors can see steam (vapor water) come from the geysers. During other seasons, visitors can go boating or fishing. People can ride horses there. There are nature trails and tours. Most visitors want to see Old Faithful, a very predictable geyser at Yellowstone Visitors can check a schedule to see the exact time that Old Faithful is going to erupt. There are many other geysers and boiling springs in the area. Great Fountain Geyser erupts every 11 hours. Excelsior Geyser produces 4,000 gallons of boiling water each minute! Boiling water is 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit – that’s very hot! People also like to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. It is the largest hot spring in the park. It has many beautiful colors. The beautiful colors are caused by bacteria in the water. These are forms of life that have only one cell. Different bacteria live in different water temperatures. Visiting Yellowstone National Park can be a week – long vacation or more. It is beautiful and there are activities for everyone.

Boiling water 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 4, which is the best synonym for precarious?

This is the age of machine. Machines are everywhere, in the fields, in the factory, in the home, In the street, in the city, in the country, everywhere. To fly, it is not necessary to have wings; there are machines. To swim under the sea, it is not necessary to have gills; there are machines. To kill our fellowmen in over-whelming numbers, there are machines. Petrol machines alone provide ten times more power than all human beings in the world. In the busiest countries, each individual has six hundred human slaves in his machines.

What are the consequences of this abnormal power? Before the war, it looked as though it might be possible, for the first time in history to provide food and clothing and shelter for the teaming population of the world-every man, woman and child. This would have been the greatest triumphs of science. And yet, if you remember, we saw the world crammed, full of food and people hungry. Today, the leaders are bare and millions, starving. That’s more begin to hum, are we going to see again more and more food, and people still hungry? For the goods, it makes the goods, but avoids the consequences.

According to the passage, which of the following is not necessary to fly?

Gold used in jewelry is mixed with harder metals to add strength and durability. The metals added can also be used to change gold's color, giving it a for the natural yellow tone of pure gold. Mixtures like these, of less costly metals with more valuable ones, are called alloys. Copper and silver are the most common metals mixed with gold to make yellow gold jewelry. White gold is usually made with an alloy of gold and nickel.The measure of is called gold's purity is called a karat. The higher the karat rating, the higher the amount of pure gold. 24 karat is pure gold,18 karat is 75% pure gold, 14 karat is 58.5% pure gold,and 9 karat is 37.5% pure gold. All other things being equal, the higher the percentage of pure gold used in the alloy, the more valuable and expensive the jewelry will be.Gold jewelry pieces are usually stamped with a marking to identify the karat amount. White gold that is 24K is too soft for jewelry, 18K,14K and 9K gold are all appropriate for jewelry, and they all make pieces that look great and wear beautifully.

A great deal of discussion countries as to the real extent of global environmental degradation and its implicational. What few people challenge however is that the renewable natural resources of developing countries are today subject to stresses of unprecedented magnitude. These pressures are bought about, in part, by increased population and the quest for an ever expanding food supply. Because the healthy, nutrition and general well-being of the poor majority are directly depends on the integrity and productivity of their natural resources, the capability of governments to manage them effectively over the long term becomes of paramount importance.

Developing countries are becoming more aware of the ways in which present and future economic development must build upon a sound and sustainable natural resources base. Some are looking at our long tradition in environmental protection and are receptive to US assistance which recognizes the uniqueness of the social and ecological systems in these tropical countries. Developing countries recognize the need to improve their capability to analyze issues and their own natural resource management. In February 1981, for example AID funded a national Academy of Sciences panel to advise Nepal on their severe natural resource degradation problems. Some countries such as Senegal, India, Indonesia and Thailand, are now including conservation concerns in their economic development planning process.

Because so many governments of developing nations have recognized the importance of these issues, the need today is not merely one of raising additional consciousness, but for carefully designed and sharply focused activities aimed at management regimes that are essential to the achievement of sustained development.

Some of the developing countries of Asia and Africa have

Right now, I am looking at a shelf full or relics, a collection of has-beens, old-timers, antiques, fossils. Right now I am lolling at a shelf full of books. Yes that’s right. If you have some spare cash (the doing rate is about $89) and are looking to enhance your reading experience, then I highly suggest you consider purchasing an e-reader. E-readers are replacing the books of old, and I welcome them with open arms (as you should).

If you haven’t heard of an e-reader and don’t know what it is, then please permit the following explanation. An e-reader is a device that allows you to read e-books. An e-book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary or English defines the e-book as “an electronic version of a printed book, “but e-book can and do exist without any printed equivalent.

So now you know what an e-reader is. But you still may be wondering why they put printed books to shame. E-readers are superior to printed books because they save space, are environmentally friendly, and provide helpful reading tips and tools that printed books do not.

E-readers are superior to printed books because they save space. The average e-reader can store thousands of digital book, providing a veritable library at your fingertips. What is more, being the size and weight of a thin hardback, the e-reader itself is relatively petite. It is easy to hold and can fit in a pocketbook or briefcase easily. This makes handling ponderous behemoths such as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Les Miserables a breeze. Perhaps the only drawback to the space-saving aspect of an e-reader is that it requires you to find new things to put on your shelves.

In addition, e-readers are superior to books because they are environmentally friendly. The average novel is about 300 pages long. So, if a novel is printed 1000 times, it will use 300,000 pieces of paper. That’s a lot of paper! If there are about 80,000 pieces of paper in a tree, this means it takes almost 4 trees to make these 1000 books. Now, we know that the average bestseller sells about 20,000 copies per week. That means that it takes over 300 trees each month to sustain this rate. And for the super bestsellers, these figures increase dramatically. For example, the Harry Potter book series has sold over 450 million copies. That’s about 2 million trees! Upon viewing these figures, it is not hard to grasp the severe impact of printed books on the environment. Since e-reader use no trees, they represent a significant amount of preservation in terms of the environment and its resources.

Finally, e-reader are superior to books because they provide helpful reading tips and tolls that printed books do not. The typical e-reader allows its user to customize letter size, font, and line spacing. It also allows highlighting and electronic bookmarking. Furthermore, it grants users the ability to get an overview of a book and then jump to a specific electronic bookmarking. Furthermore, it grants users the ability to get an overview of a book and then jump to a specific location based on that overview. While these are all nice features, perhaps the most helpful of all is the ability to get dictionary definitions at the touch of a finger. On even the most basic e-reader, users can conjure instant definitions without having to hunt through a physical dictionary.

It can be seen that e-readers are superior to printed books. They save space, are environmentally friendly, and provide helpful reading tips and tools that printed books do not. So what good are printed books? Well, they certainly make nice decorations.

According to the author, which of the following reading tips and tools are offered by the e-reader?

I line spacing customization

II the ability to quickly jump to the end of a book

III access to an online thesaurus at the touch of a finger

Q.2 The public distribution system which provides food at low prices is a subject of vital concern There is a growing realization that though Pakistan has enough food to feed its masses three square meals a day the monster of starvation and food insecurity continues to haunt the poor in our country Increasing the purchasing power of the poor through providing productive employment leading to rising income and thus good standard of living is the ultimate objective of public policy.However till then there is a need to provide assured supply of food through a restructured more efficient and decentralized public distribution system (PDS).Although the PDS is extensive it is one of the largest such systems in the world it has yet to reach the rural poor and the far off places it remains an urban phenomenon with the majority of the rural poor still out of its reach due to lack of economic and physical access the poorest in the cities and the migrants are left out for they generally do not possess ration cards The allocation of PDS supplies in big cities is larger than in rural areas  in view of urgently needs to be streamlined.In addition considering the large food grains production combined with food subsidy on one hand and the continuing slow starvation and dismal poverty of the rural population on the other there is a strong case for making PDS target group oriented.The growing salaried class is provided job security regular income and percent insulation against these gains of development have not percolated down to the vast majority of our working population.If one only dearness allowance to the employees in public and private sector and looks at its growth in the past few years the rising food subsidy is insignificant to the point of inequity The food subsidy is a kind of D.A to the poor the self-employed and those in the unorganized sector of the economy.It is true that subsidies should not become a permanent feature except for the destitute disabled widows and the old it is also true dependence and hence is habit-forming killing the general initiative of the people by making PDS target group oriented not only the poorest and neediest would be reached without additional cost but it will actually cut overall costs incurred on large cities and for better off localities when the food and food subsidy are limited the rural and urban poor should have the priority in the PDS supplies The PDS should be closely linked with programs of employment generation and nutrition improvement.