TOEFL Questions

---

Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the four alternatives.

But the war did not cease; though friend and foe alike were almost drowned in blood. It seemed as powerful as eternity, and in time Tony Vassall too went to battle and was killed. The country gave Patience a widow's pension, as well a touching inducement to marry again; she died of grief. Many people died in those days, it was not strange at all. Nathan and his wife got so rich that after the war they died of overeating, and their daughter Olive came into a vast fortune and a Trustee.

The writer says war is

Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the four alternatives.

All art is, in an important sense, an escape. There is a sense in which the capacity to escape from his present experience, to use his accumulated consciousness of the past to project a vision of the future, is man's greatest and distinguishing ability. We must not forget the force of Aristotle's argument that poetry is valuable precisely because it shows men not simply as they are, but as they ought to be or (in terms more sympathetic to us today) as they are capable of becoming.

The author believes that man's greatest and distinguishing ability is

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

The news has always ____________ predicated on informing the consumer. It speaks of — apart from the day’s most ____________ upheavals — the best and the worst that _____________ has managed to accomplish each day. This includes the medal-winners, the laureates, the record-breakers, the deal-makers _________the criminals, the villains, the corrupt. The news regales us ________ the highlights, a reel of the most provoking ones that made it into a window of a half-an-hour.

the deal-makers _________ the criminals,

In the following question, a sentence has been given in Direct/Indirect speech. Out of the four alternatives suggested, select the one which best expresses the same sentence in Indirect/Direct speech.

The boss said to the secretary, "Bring the file that I had given to you yesterday."

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

The English language is ___________ complex in character that it can scarcely be learned by rule, and can __________ be mastered by the study of such idioms and phrases as are provided in this book; but just as care must be taken to place every accent or stress _________ the proper syllable in the ______________ of every word it contains, so must the stress or emphasis be placed on the proper word in ___________ sentence spoken.

accent or stress _________ the proper

In the following question, out of the given four alternatives, select the one which best expresses the meaning of the given word.

Reminisce

A passage with three blanks, followed by five options, each containing one word, is given. Choose the word that can fill all the three blanks.
In finance, a __________ is an instrument of indebtedness of the issuer to the holders. The ___________ is a debt security, under which the issuer owes the holders a debt and is obliged to pay them interest (the coupon) or to repay the principal at a later date, termed the maturity date. Interest is usually payable at fixed intervals (semi- annual, annual, sometimes monthly). Very often it is negotiable, that is, the ownership of the instrument can be transferred in the secondary market. This means that once the transfer agents at the bank medallion stamp the same, it is highly liquid on the secondary market. Thus, a __________ is a form of loan or IOU.

In the following question, a passage is given which describes a situation. From the given options, mark the correct inference that can be drawn from the passage. If none of the inferences follow, mark option 5, “None of these” as the answer.
In nearly all human populations a majority of individuals can taste the artificially synthesized chemical phenylthiocarbonide (PTC). However, the percentage varies dramatically-- from as low as 60% in India to as high as 95% in Africa. That this polymorphism is observed in non- human primates as well indicates a long evolutionary history which, although obviously not acting on PTC, might reflect evolutionary selection for taste discrimination of other, more significant bitter substances, such as certain toxic plants.