Read the passage: At the start of term, the new teacher at the village school asked her pupils to write down one thing they wanted to learn. Most wrote ordinary answers: fractions, English spelling, the names of planets. One boy, Imtiaz, handed in a blank sheet. The teacher said nothing. The next day she brought a small radio to class and asked who could explain how it worked. Imtiaz's hand shot up before anyone else's. That afternoon she lent him a book about electricity, and for the rest of the term he arrived early every morning.
Correct answerA. She noticed Imtiaz's interest and found a way to encourage it
Read the passage: Traditional crafts such as hand-block printing, brass work and carpet weaving are under pressure in many towns. Machine-made goods are cheaper and quicker to produce, and young people often prefer office jobs to the long apprenticeship that crafts demand. Yet some artisans are finding new ways to survive. They sell directly to customers through online shops, teach short workshops to tourists, and work with designers to create modern products using old techniques. These efforts show that a craft need not disappear simply because the world has changed; it may instead adapt and find a new audience.
Correct answerC. Traditional Crafts Adapting to Survive
Read the passage: Rina's first job after university was at a travel agency in Kolkata. Her manager gave her an unusual training task: for one month, she had to answer every customer call without using a script. At first Rina found this terrifying, as she had to think quickly and admit when she did not know something. But she gradually learned to listen carefully, ask useful questions and promise to call back with accurate information. By the end of the month, customers were asking for her by name, and her manager made the no-script method part of training for all new staff.
Correct answerB. Answering customer calls without a script for one month
Read the passage: Imagine a city where every child can walk safely to school. Pavements are wide and shaded by trees, crossings are clearly marked, and cars slow down near school gates. Such a city is not a dream; several towns have already achieved it by making small, affordable changes. A painted crossing costs less than a single traffic accident. A row of trees costs less than the medical bills of children breathing polluted air. Our city council has the power to begin these changes this year. It should not wait for another tragedy before it acts.
Correct answerB. To urge the city council to make streets safer for children
Read the passage: Nadia had always been the quietest member of her office team. During meetings she listened, took notes and rarely spoke. When the company's biggest client threatened to cancel their contract because of repeated errors, the manager called an emergency meeting. Everyone offered excuses. Then Nadia opened her notebook and calmly listed every error, its cause and a possible fix, all dated from previous meetings. The room was silent. The next week, the manager asked her to lead the team that would manage the client's account.
Correct answerC. It allowed her to identify the causes of the problem when others could not
Read the passage: The new bus route between the university and the industrial estate was meant to help factory workers reach their jobs. For the first few weeks, however, the buses ran almost empty in the mornings. The transport office was puzzled until a survey revealed that most factory shifts began at six, while the first bus left the depot at seven-thirty. After the timetable was changed, morning buses were so crowded that two extra vehicles had to be added. Students, meanwhile, continued to use the later services, which suited their lecture times perfectly.
Correct answerC. The original timetable did not match the workers' shift times
Read the passage: Sunil wanted to learn pottery, but the only class in his town met on weekday mornings, when he was at work. Instead of giving up, he wrote to the teacher, an elderly potter named Mr Dasgupta, and asked whether he could help clean the studio on Sunday in return for advice. Mr Dasgupta agreed, on one condition: Sunil had to make one bowl every week and bring it for inspection, however badly it turned out. For months the bowls were lopsided and cracked. Then, one Sunday, Mr Dasgupta silently placed Sunil's latest bowl on the shelf beside his own work.
Correct answerA. Sunil had to make one bowl a week and bring it for inspection
Read the passage: I have attended many wedding receptions, and I confess I have enjoyed almost all of them. Yet I cannot help feeling that the modern habit of spending a family's savings on a single evening deserves to be questioned. The lights, the stage and the twelve-course dinner are forgotten within weeks, while the loans taken to pay for them can linger for years. Celebration is a precious part of our culture, and no one should wish it away. But a joyful gathering need not be an extravagant one. Simplicity, after all, has its own beauty.
Correct answerD. Thoughtful concern about their cost while valuing celebration
Read the passage: Volunteering is often described as a gift from the volunteer to the community. But those who volunteer regularly frequently say they receive as much as they give. A retired engineer who teaches mathematics to village children in Sindh says the lessons give his week a purpose he had lost after leaving his job. A university student who helps at a blood donation camp says the work has taught her to stay calm under pressure, a skill she now uses in examinations. In this sense, volunteering is less a one-way gift than an exchange that benefits both sides.
Correct answerC. Volunteering: An Exchange That Benefits Both Sides
Read the passage: The night market in Lahore's old quarter opens only after the evening heat has eased. Its most famous corner is a row of stalls run by three brothers who sell grilled corn, each claiming his own spice mix is the best. Locals say the eldest brother uses lemon and red chilli, the middle one prefers black salt and mint, and the youngest adds a secret powder that he refuses to name. Customers often buy one cob from each stall and argue about the winner. The brothers do not mind; they share a single cart for carrying coal and go home together at midnight.
Read the passage: When Kavita took over the family tea stall, she made only one change: she placed a small shelf of second-hand books beside the benches, with a sign saying 'Read here, return here'. Her uncle thought it was a waste of space. Within months, however, college students began spending whole afternoons at the stall, ordering cup after cup while they finished novels. Retired men who had once stopped for five minutes now stayed for an hour. Kavita never raised her prices, yet by the end of the year she was able to repaint the stall and buy a second kettle.
Correct answerB. The book shelf led customers to stay longer and buy more tea
Read the passage: Learning a second language in childhood brings benefits that go beyond being able to order food abroad. Children who grow up speaking two languages often become skilled at switching attention between tasks, because their minds constantly choose which language to use. They also tend to be more aware of how language works, noticing patterns of grammar and sound that others overlook. Perhaps most importantly, a second language opens a window onto another culture, its jokes, songs and ways of thinking. For these reasons, many educators argue that language teaching should begin in primary school rather than waiting until later years.
Correct answerA. Learning a second language early has mental and cultural benefits, so it should start in primary school
Read the passage: For years the residents of Green Town complained that their park was dirty and unsafe. Little changed until a group of retired teachers decided to act. Each morning they collected litter, planted flowers and painted the broken benches. Their efforts were contagious. Soon schoolchildren joined them at weekends, shopkeepers donated paint and the local council sent a gardener twice a month. Within two years the park had become the pride of the neighbourhood, and evening walkers filled its paths until well after dark.
Read the passage: Zubair, a young software developer from Peshawar, was offered two jobs on the same day. The first, at a large company in Islamabad, paid well but required him to move away from his ageing parents. The second, at a small start-up that allowed remote work, offered a lower salary but flexible hours. After a week of discussion with his family, Zubair chose the start-up. He explains that the deciding factor was not money or location alone but the promise of learning: at the start-up, he would work directly with the founders on every part of the product.
Correct answerD. The opportunity to learn by working closely with the founders
Read the passage: A modern wind turbine works rather like an electric fan in reverse. Instead of using electricity to turn blades, it uses moving air to turn blades and produce electricity. The wind pushes against the long, carefully shaped blades, making them rotate around a central hub. This motion turns a shaft connected to a generator inside the housing at the top of the tower. Because winds are usually stronger and steadier higher above the ground, turbines are built on tall towers, and many of the largest stand in open seas where few obstacles slow the air. Turbines produce no smoke while running, but they generate power only when the wind blows, so they are usually combined with other sources of electricity.
Correct answerB. Turning Moving Air into Electricity
Read the passage: I still remember the large wooden radio that sat on a shelf in my grandfather's house in Comilla. Every evening after dinner he would switch it on, wait for the valves to warm up and slowly turn the dial until the crackling gave way to the news. We children were expected to sit quietly, though we usually giggled at the strange whistles between stations. On Friday nights there was a drama serial, and the whole family would gather round as if the actors were in the room with us. Today I can listen to any station in the world on my phone, yet somehow none of them sounds quite as warm as that old radio did.
Read the passage: James Watt is often wrongly credited with inventing the steam engine. In fact, steam engines designed by Thomas Newcomen had been pumping water out of mines since the early eighteenth century. In the 1760s, while repairing a model of a Newcomen engine at the University of Glasgow, Watt realised that it wasted a great deal of fuel. The engine's cylinder had to be heated and then cooled with every stroke. Watt's solution was a separate condenser, a chamber where the steam could be cooled while the cylinder stayed hot. He patented the idea in 1769. His engines used far less coal than Newcomen's, which helped steam power spread to factories during the Industrial Revolution.
Read the passage: Asif sells umbrellas, raincoats and plastic shoe covers from a small stall in Mumbai. In April his stall is quiet, and he spends most afternoons chatting with neighbouring traders. In late May, however, he travels to the wholesale market and buys as much stock as his savings allow, often borrowing a little extra from his cousin. When the first heavy rains arrive in June, customers crowd around his stall, and some days he sells more than in the whole of April. By the end of September he has repaid his cousin and put aside enough money to support his family through the drier months, when he sells cheap sunglasses and caps instead.
Correct answerC. His income depends heavily on the timing of the rainy season.
Read the passage: Many bats hunt insects in complete darkness using a skill called echolocation. As a bat flies, it produces a rapid series of high-pitched calls, most of which are too high for human ears to detect. When these sound waves strike an object, such as a moth or a branch, they bounce back as echoes. By listening carefully to the returning echoes, the bat can work out the size, shape, distance and even movement of the object. As it closes in on its prey, the bat speeds up its calls, sometimes producing a burst of sounds in a fraction of a second, which gives it ever more precise information in the final moments before it catches the insect.
Read the passage: Kashif bought his motorcycle new when he started university in Bahawalpur, and for the first year he looked after it carefully, changing the oil on time and checking the tyre pressure every week. Later, busy with exams and a part-time job, he began to neglect it. The chain grew dry and noisy, the brakes started to squeal, and the engine became harder to start on cold mornings. A mechanic warned him that if he continued to ignore these signs, the machine's condition would deteriorate further and repairs would become far more expensive. Alarmed, Kashif set aside one Sunday morning each month for basic maintenance, and the motorcycle soon ran smoothly again.
Correct answerD. A Little Care Prevents Costly Repairs
