Reading Comprehension — Class 10 MCQs with Answers

Reading Comprehension — important questions & MCQs with answers (Class 10 English)

6 solved questions from this chapter's difficulty levels, each with its answer and explanation. Tap an option to check yourself.

0 of 6 answered

1. Q1 of 6Easy

   Skimming means:

   AReading every word slowlyBQuickly reading to get the gistCMemorisingDTranslating
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   Answer: Quickly reading to get the gist

   Explanation: Skim = fast read for main idea.

2. Q2 of 6Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. India's monsoon arrives over Kerala in the first week of June and takes about six weeks to cover the country. Forecasting it has never been simple. The India Meteorological Department issues a long-range outlook in April, but the figure it gives is a national average, and a national average can hide a great deal. A season that ends at 100 per cent of normal rainfall may still have left one district flooded and the next in drought. Since 2021 the department has issued district-level forecasts alongside the national one, and it is these that farmers actually use when deciding what to sow. The national number, for all the attention it receives each April, tells a farmer almost nothing about their own field. Q. When does the India Meteorological Department issue its long-range outlook?

   AIn AprilBIn the first week of JuneCSix weeks after the monsoon arrivesDIn 2021
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   Answer: In April

   Explanation: The passage states the long-range outlook is issued in April.

3. Q3 of 6Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Internet users in a state, in millions: Year Urban Rural Total 2019 28.0 9.5 37.5 2021 31.5 18.0 49.5 2023 33.0 29.5 62.5 Over the same period the price of one gigabyte of mobile data fell from ₹19 to ₹9. Q. Which group grew faster between 2019 and 2023?

   ABoth grew at the same rateBNeither grew; the total only appears to riseCRural, which more than tripled while urban grew by under a fifthDUrban, because it still has more users
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   Answer: Rural, which more than tripled while urban grew by under a fifth

   Explanation: Rural went 9.5 → 29.5 (about 3.1x); urban 28.0 → 33.0 (about 1.18x).

4. Q4 of 6Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. A city is measurably hotter than the fields around it, often by four or five degrees after sunset. Concrete and asphalt absorb heat all day and release it slowly through the night, so the city never cools to the temperature at which a body rests easily. The effect is worst where there is least tree cover, which in most Indian cities means the neighbourhoods where the poorest people live. Heat, in other words, is not distributed the way weather is. It is distributed the way land is. Q. Why does the city fail to cool at night?

   ACities are built at higher altitudes.BConcrete and asphalt release the heat they absorbed during the day.CThere is no wind in cities after sunset.DAir conditioners run all night.
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   Answer: Concrete and asphalt release the heat they absorbed during the day.

   Explanation: The passage attributes it to slow release from built surfaces.

5. Q5 of 6Hard

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Louis Braille was fifteen when he finished the alphabet that bears his name, and he built it out of a rejected military code. A French army captain had devised a system of raised dots so that soldiers could read orders in the dark without a lamp; it was too complex for the soldiers and was abandoned. Braille, blind since a childhood accident, saw what the captain had not: the point was not to represent sound in the dark, but to make a letter small enough for a fingertip to take in at once. He cut the cell down to six dots. That single decision is why the system worked, and why nothing has improved on it in two hundred years. Q. What does 'take in at once' mean as used in the passage?

   APerceive as a single unit without moving the fingerBMemorise permanently on first contactCAccept without questioningDCopy accurately by hand
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   Answer: Perceive as a single unit without moving the finger

   Explanation: The context is a cell small enough for one fingertip to read in one touch.

6. Q6 of 6Hard

   Inference questions require you to:

   AFind a fact directly statedBRead between the lines / draw conclusionsCTranslateDCount words
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   Answer: Read between the lines / draw conclusions

   Explanation: Inference = unstated but implied meaning.

Reading Comprehension notes: key concepts (Class 10 English)

Section A gives you passages you have never seen, so there is nothing to memorise — this card is method. It covers the four reading skills the questions test, plus the data reasoning the case-based passages demand.

Skimming

Reading quickly to get the gist of a passage. Use it on the first pass, before you look at any question.

Scanning

Jumping to a specific piece of information — a date, a name, a figure — without reading everything. Use it once you know what the question wants.

Where the main idea sits

Usually in the topic sentence, most often the first sentence of a paragraph. That is where to look when asked for the central idea.

Vocabulary from context

Work out an unfamiliar word from the sentences around it rather than a remembered dictionary meaning — 'archive' becomes 'stores a record that can later be read' because the whole passage develops ice as a readable record.

Inference means reading between the lines

The answer is implied rather than stated. 'What the arrangement withholds is not freedom but predictability' answers a question the passage never asks outright.

Tone comes from word choice

The author's attitude — hopeful, sceptical, sombre — is carried by diction and style, not by any statement of opinion.

Answer from the text alone

Every correct option traces to a line in the passage. Outside knowledge that sounds right but is not stated is the standard distractor.

Case-based passages carry a table

Locate the exact figure first: the July rainfall column, the 2023 rural figure, the number of days above 200. Read before you compare.

Compare growth by ratio, not size

Rural internet users went 9.5 to 29.5 million — more than tripled — while urban went 28.0 to 33.0, about 1.18 times. The smaller number grew far faster, and the question asks which grew MORE.

A share can fall while the amount rises

Industry took 82% of 41 units and later 74% of 58. The percentage fell but the actual volume rose from about 33.6 to about 42.9 — always check the base before reading a falling percentage as a decline.

Count rows carefully

Some questions ask how many entries clear a threshold — three days above 200 on the air-quality table. Miscounting is the commonest avoidable error.

Prefer the hedged option

Where two options say nearly the same thing, the correct one is usually the more cautious. Passages rarely claim more than 'suggests' or 'appears to'.