Class 9 CBSE English — Chapter 40: Reading Skills: Unseen Passages MCQs with Answers

Class 9 English Reading Skills: Unseen Passages MCQs with answers

12 solved questions across the difficulty levels this chapter is graded on — answer and explanation shown for each. The remaining 48 are timed and scored when you sign in.

1. Q1Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. The Sundarbans, spread across India and Bangladesh, is the largest mangrove forest on Earth. Its trees survive in salt water by pushing breathing roots up through the mud. These roots trap silt carried down by the rivers, and over centuries the forest has built the very land it stands on. The tangled roots also blunt the force of cyclones before they reach inland villages. Scientists estimate that a hundred metres of healthy mangrove can reduce wave height by more than half. Yet the forest is shrinking. Shrimp farms have cleared large stretches, and rising sea levels are pushing salt further inland than the trees can tolerate. Q. According to the passage, how do mangrove roots help build land?

   A.They trap silt carried down by the rivers.✓ Correct

   B.They absorb salt from the sea water.

   C.They grow downwards into solid rock.

   D.They release oxygen into the mud.

   Answer: A. They trap silt carried down by the rivers.

   Explanation: The passage states that the breathing roots trap river silt, which accumulates over centuries.

2. Q2Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Ravi had rehearsed the speech forty times. He knew where to pause, where to look up, where to let the silence do the work. But standing behind the curtain, listening to the hall fill, he found that his hands would not stay still. His teacher touched his shoulder. 'They came to hear you, not to judge you,' she said. It was not, he thought later, that the sentence solved anything. It simply moved the problem a little to one side, and left him room to walk out. Q. What was Ravi's difficulty just before his speech?

   A.He disliked the teacher who was helping him.

   B.He had rehearsed the speech only once.

   C.He was nervous despite being well prepared.✓ Correct

   D.He had forgotten the words of his speech.

   Answer: C. He was nervous despite being well prepared.

   Explanation: He had rehearsed forty times yet his hands would not stay still, which is nervousness rather than lack of preparation.

3. Q3Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. A school surveyed how its 400 students travel each day. Walk .............. 140 Bicycle ........... 100 School bus ......... 90 Private car ........ 70 The survey also asked how long each journey took. Students who walked averaged eighteen minutes; cyclists averaged twelve; bus users averaged thirty-five, because of the route the bus follows; car users averaged fifteen. When asked what would make them change their mode of travel, the most common answer among car users was 'a safer cycle lane'. Q. How many students travel by bicycle?

   A.70

   B.100✓ Correct

   C.140

   D.90

   Answer: B. 100

   Explanation: The table records 100 students travelling by bicycle.

4. Q4Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. For most of history, ice was a luxury that could not be moved. Then in the 1800s a New England merchant began cutting blocks from frozen lakes in winter, packing them in sawdust, and shipping them south. Sawdust is a poor conductor, so the blocks lost surprisingly little of their mass on the voyage. Whole cargoes reached Calcutta still frozen. The trade looked absurd to his contemporaries, who called the first shipment a folly. It made him wealthy, and it changed what people in hot cities could eat and drink. Q. What was packed around the ice blocks?

   A.Straw

   B.Salt

   C.Cotton

   D.Sawdust✓ Correct

   Answer: D. Sawdust

   Explanation: The passage states that the blocks were packed in sawdust.

5. Q5Easy

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Bees do not see red. Their eyes register ultraviolet light instead, which is why many flowers that appear plain to us carry vivid landing patterns visible only in that range. Photographers who use ultraviolet filters have shown that a common evening primrose, yellow to the human eye, displays a dark bullseye at its centre. The pattern guides the insect to the nectar and, in doing so, presses it against the pollen it will carry to the next flower. Neither party intends the arrangement. It is simply that flowers which advertised well left more descendants. Q. What colour are bees unable to see?

   A.Blue

   B.Ultraviolet

   C.Red✓ Correct

   D.Yellow

   Answer: C. Red

   Explanation: The passage opens by stating that bees do not see red.

6. Q6Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Antarctic expeditions once carried tinned food sealed with lead solder. The men grew irritable, then confused, then unable to make simple decisions — symptoms their doctors put down to isolation and the endless dark. Only much later did researchers examining preserved tins realise that the solder had leached into the food. The crews had been slowly poisoned by the very supplies meant to sustain them. It is a sobering example of how a hazard can hide inside a solution, and of how readily we explain a mystery with whatever cause is already on our minds. Q. In this passage, 'sobering' most nearly means:

   A.making one think seriously✓ Correct

   B.making one feel refreshed

   C.reducing the cost of something

   D.removing all doubt

   Answer: A. making one think seriously

   Explanation: It introduces a cautionary lesson, so it means thought-provoking in a serious way.

7. Q7Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. A library in Kerala lends out more than books. Its shelves hold sewing machines, carpentry tools, a telescope, and a set of drums. The idea came from a librarian who noticed that many things people needed were things they would use only two or three times a year. Buying them made little sense; borrowing them made a great deal. Membership has trebled since the scheme began. The most borrowed item is not a tool at all, but a large steel cooking vessel used for wedding feasts. Q. What reasoning led the librarian to start the scheme?

   A.Members had stopped borrowing books altogether.

   B.The tools were donated and had to be given away.

   C.Many needed items are used only a few times a year, so buying them is wasteful.✓ Correct

   D.The library had run out of space to store its books.

   Answer: C. Many needed items are used only a few times a year, so buying them is wasteful.

   Explanation: The passage gives exactly this reasoning: buying made little sense, borrowing made a great deal.

8. Q8Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. My grandmother kept every letter she ever received, in a trunk that smelled of camphor. She could not read English, so the ones from my uncle abroad were read aloud to her, once when they arrived and many times afterwards. She knew them by heart. Years later I found the trunk and opened a letter at random, and realised I was reading it for the first time and she had heard it perhaps forty. The paper was worn soft at the folds. It had been handled far more than it had been read. Q. What does 'worn soft at the folds' suggest?

   A.The letter had been folded incorrectly by the writer.

   B.The letter had been opened and handled very many times.✓ Correct

   C.The letter had been damaged by water in the trunk.

   D.The paper used was of very poor quality.

   Answer: B. The letter had been opened and handled very many times.

   Explanation: Wear at the folds comes from repeated handling, which the last sentence confirms.

9. Q9Medium

   Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Four crops were trialled on the same plot over three seasons. The figures show yield in quintals per hectare and water used in thousand litres per hectare. Yield Water Millet ...... 18 220 Rice ........ 42 1650 Maize ....... 31 700 Pulses ...... 14 310 The district faces falling groundwater. An agricultural officer has been asked to recommend a crop for farmers whose wells run dry by March. Q. Which crop gives the most yield for each unit of water used?

   A.Rice

   B.Maize

   C.Pulses

   D.Millet✓ Correct

   Answer: D. Millet

   Explanation: Millet returns 18 quintals on 220 units, a far better ratio than rice at 42 on 1,650.

10. Q10Hard

    Read the passage and answer the question that follows. The coach did not praise the winning goal. He praised the pass before it — a simple sideways ball that nobody in the stands had noticed. 'Anyone can see the shot,' he told the team afterwards. 'The shot is the last thing that happens. Somebody made it possible four seconds earlier, and if you only ever applaud the last thing, you will build a team of people who wait for the last thing.' The player who had made the pass did not say anything, but he played differently for the rest of the season. Q. What does the final sentence imply about the player?

    A.Being noticed changed how he valued his own contribution.✓ Correct

    B.He resented the coach for singling him out publicly.

    C.He decided to try scoring more goals himself.

    D.He had not understood what the coach meant.

    Answer: A. Being noticed changed how he valued his own contribution.

    Explanation: He says nothing but plays differently, which points to a changed sense of what his work is worth.

11. Q11Hard

    Read the passage and answer the question that follows. A hospital recorded waiting times in its outpatient department before and after adding a second reception desk. Before After Monday ......... 64 min 38 min Wednesday ...... 41 min 32 min Friday ......... 72 min 35 min Mondays and Fridays are the days on which patients from surrounding villages travel in, because those are the days the shared transport runs. The hospital is now considering whether to keep the second desk open on all five days or only on the two busiest. Q. Which argument for opening the desk only on Mondays and Fridays is best supported?

    A.The shared transport could be rescheduled to run on Wednesdays.

    B.A second desk always halves the waiting time on any day.

    C.Those days show by far the largest reductions, so the benefit is concentrated there.✓ Correct

    D.Wednesday patients do not mind waiting as long as others do.

    Answer: C. Those days show by far the largest reductions, so the benefit is concentrated there.

    Explanation: The data supports concentration of benefit; the other options add claims the passage does not make.

12. Q12Hard

    Read the passage and answer the question that follows. Cartographers of the sixteenth century filled the blank parts of their maps with sea monsters and speculative coastlines. This was not mere decoration. An empty space invited a rival power to claim the territory, whereas a drawn one implied knowledge, and knowledge implied a prior claim. The monsters were a kind of bluff. Later mapmakers began, with some reluctance, to leave the unknown genuinely blank — an admission of ignorance that turned out to be the more useful map, because a sailor could now tell the difference between a charted danger and an unexplored one. Q. Why was the blank map ultimately more useful?

    A.It could be filled in by the sailor during the voyage.

    B.It let a sailor distinguish a known danger from an unexplored area.✓ Correct

    C.It cost far less to print than a decorated map.

    D.It discouraged rival powers from making any claims.

    Answer: B. It let a sailor distinguish a known danger from an unexplored area.

    Explanation: The passage gives exactly this reason in its final clause.

Reading Skills: Unseen Passages — FAQs

More Class 9 English chapters

• 01How I Taught My Grandmother to Read
• 02The Pot Maker
• 03Winds of Change
• 04Vitamin-M
• 05The World of Limitless Possibilities
• 06Twin Melodies