Advanced Reading Comprehension Test 1

Advanced English Reading Comprehension Test 1 – Read the passage carefully and answer the comprehension questions!

Even though there have been truly significant advances in modern medicine, health problems still abound and cause untold misery. Although heart disease and cancer were rare at the beginning of the 20th century, today these two diseases strike with increasing frequency, in spite of billions of dollars in research to combat them, and in spite of tremendous advances in diagnostic and surgical techniques. In America, one person in three suffers from allergies, one in ten has ulcers and one in five is mentally ill. Every year, a quarter of a million infants are born with a birth defect and undergo expensive surgery, or are hidden away in institutions. Other degenerative diseases such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and chronic fatigue afflict a significant majority of Americans. Further learning disabilities make life miserable for seven million young people and their parents. These diseases were extremely rare only a generation or two ago. Today, chronic illness afflicts nearly half of all Americans and causes three out of four deaths in the United States.

1. As it is pointed out in the passage, most trade union members are entitled to ———————-.

 equal superannuation benefits regardless of their contribution rates

 take part in collective bargaining activities

 invest in state insurance schemes and usually do so

 free legal assistance in law cases in any way pertaining to their work

2. One point that is stressed in the passage about the American people is that —–.

 they are less liable to degenerative diseases than most other peoples

 in one way or another, a very large proportion of them have health problems

 there is an alarming lack of communication between parents and their children

 the rate of infant mortality among them is rising rapidly

3. According to the passage, cancer and heart diseases are on the increase ——————-.

 since research so far carried out in these fields has been quite inadequate

 due to problems of diagnosis which for the present seem insurmountable

 and most of the cures have serious sideeffects

 even though a great deal of money is being spent on research into them

4. The passage stresses that ill-health gives rise to a great deal of misery ———————.

 especially in the case of chronic illness

 especially when the symptoms are severe

 which is not confined to the patient alone

 which is largely associated with pain

5. The writer of this passage draws our attention to ———————–.

 the possibility that it is mental rather than physical health that is going to be the major problem of the future in the US

 the fact that it is young people who are the most affected by degenerative diseases

 the commonly-held view that cancer will, in a few decades, be completely eradicated

 the paradox that medicine today has improved remarkably, but more people are suffering from various diseases

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Question 1 of 5