100 Practice Questions
for the TOEFL® Reading Section
Table of contents
- Vocabulary Questions 5
- Rhetorical Purpose Questions 31
- Inference Questions 44
- Sentence Simplification Questions 57
- Insert Text Questions 70
- Factual Information Questions 84
- Negative Factual Information Questions 110
- Reference Questions 124
- Summary Questions 132
- Bibliography 140
Human Anatomy
Human anatomy is the scientific study of the body’s structures. Some of these structures are very small and can only be observed and analyzed with the assistance of a microscope. Other larger structures can readily be seen, manipulated, measured, and weighed. The word “anatomy” comes from a Greek root that means “to cut apart.” Human anatomy was first studied by observing the exterior of the body and observing the wounds of soldiers and other injuries. Later, physicians were allowed to dissect bodies of the dead to augment their knowledge. When a body is dissected, its structures are cut apart in order to observe their physical attributes and their relationships to one another. Dissection is still used in medical schools, anatomy courses, and in pathology labs.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.5
Q. The word augment is closest in meaning to …
a. Prove
b. Increase
c. Validate
d. Spread
Types of Pressure
Pressure is a force exerted by a substance that is in contact with another substance. Atmospheric pressure is pressure exerted by the mixture of gases (primarily nitrogen and oxygen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Although you may not perceive it, atmospheric pressure is constantly pressing down on your body. This pressure keeps gases within your body, such as the gaseous nitrogen in your blood fluids, dissolved. If you were suddenly ejected from a spaceship above Earth’s atmosphere, you would go from a situation of normal pressure to one of very low pressure. The pressure of the nitrogen gas in your blood would be much higher than the pressure of nitrogen in the space surrounding your body. As a result, the nitrogen gas in your blood would expand, forming bubbles that could block blood vessels and even cause cells to break apart.
Atmospheric pressure does more than just keep blood gases dissolved. Your ability to breathe—that is, to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide—also depends upon a precise atmospheric pressure. Altitude sickness occurs in part because the atmosphere at high altitudes exerts less pressure, reducing the exchange of these gases, and causing shortness of breath, confusion, headache, lethargy, and nausea. Mountain climbers carry oxygen to reduce the effects of both low oxygen levels and low barometric pressure at higher altitudes.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.6
Q. The word perceive in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to …
a. Realize
b. Believe
c. Desire
d. Portray
Tissue and Aging
According to poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The surest poison is time.” In fact, biology confirms that many functions of the body decline with age. All the cells, tissues, and organs are affected by senescence (the process of deterioration) with noticeable variability between individuals owing to different genetic makeup and lifestyles. The outward signs of aging are easily recognizable. The skin and other tissues become thinner and drier, reducing their elasticity, contributing to wrinkles, and high blood pressure. Hair turns gray because follicles produce less melanin, the brown pigment of hair, and the iris of the eye. The face looks flabby because elastic and collagen fibers decrease in connective tissue and muscle tone is lost. Glasses and hearing aids may become parts of life as the senses slowly deteriorate, all due to reduced elasticity. Overall height decreases as the bones lose calcium and other minerals. With age, fluid decreases in the fibrous cartilage disks intercalated between the vertebrate in the spine. Joints lose cartilage and stiffen. Many tissues, including those in muscles, lose mass through a process called atrophy. Lumps and rigidity become more widespread. As a consequence, the passageways, blood vessels, and airways become more rigid. The brain and spinal cord lose mass. Nerves do not transmit impulses with the same speed and frequency as in the past. Some loss of thought clarity and memory can accompany aging. More severe problems are not necessarily associated with the aging process and may be symptoms of underlying illness. As exterior signs of aging increase, so do the interior signs, which are not as noticeable.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.4
Q. The word variability is closest in meaning to …
a. Similarity
b. Indifference
c. Difference
d. Adaptability
Fixed and Wandering Stars
Ancient Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian astronomers knew the approximate length of the year. The Egyptians of 3000 years ago, for example, adopted a calendar based on a 365-day year. They kept careful track of the rising time of the bright star Sirius in the predawn sky, which has a yearly cycle that corresponded with the flooding of the Nile River. The Chinese also had a working calendar; they determined the length of the year at about the same time as the Egyptians. The Chinese also recorded comets, bright meteors, and dark spots on the Sun. Later, Chinese astronomers kept careful records of “guest stars”—those that are normally too faint to see but suddenly flare up to become visible to the unaided eye for a few weeks or months. We still use some of these records in studying stars that exploded a long time ago.
The Mayan culture in Mexico and Central America developed a sophisticated calendar based on the planet Venus, and they made astronomical observations from sites dedicated to this purpose a thousand years ago. The Polynesians learned to navigate by the stars over hundreds of kilometers of open ocean—a skill that enabled them to colonize new islands far away from where they began.
In Britain, before the widespread use of writing, ancient people used stones to keep track of the motions of the Sun and Moon. We still find some of the great stone circles they built for this purpose, dating from as far back as 2800 BCE. The best known of these is Stonehenge.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.0
Q. The phrase corresponded with is closest in meaning to …
a. Dealt with
b. Measured
c. Accounted for
d. Aligned with
Light as a Photon
The electromagnetic wave model of light (as formulated by Maxwell) was one of the great triumphs of nineteenth-century science. In 1887, when Heinrich Hertz actually made invisible electromagnetic waves (what today are called radio waves) on one side of a room and detected them on the other side, it ushered in a new era that led to the modern age of telecommunications. His experiment ultimately led to the technologies of television, cell phones, and today’s wireless networks around the globe.
However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, more sophisticated experiments had revealed that light behaves in certain ways that cannot be explained by the wave model. Reluctantly, physicists had to accept that sometimes light behaves more like a “particle”—or at least a self-contained packet of energy—than a wave. We call such a packet of electromagnetic energy a photon.
The fact that light behaves like a wave in certain experiments and like a particle in others was a very surprising and unlikely idea. After all, our common sense says that waves and particles are opposite concepts. On one hand, a wave is a repeating disturbance that, by its very nature, is not in only one place, but spreads out. A particle, on the other hand, is something that can be in only one place at any given time. Strange as it sounds, though, countless experiments now confirm that electromagnetic radiation can sometimes behave like a wave and at other times like a particle.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 10.5
Q. The word sophisticated in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to …
a. Refined
b. Basic
c. Intelligent
d. Serious
Mass Extinction
The best-documented large impact took place 65 million years ago, at the end of what is now called the Cretaceous period of geological history. This time in the history of life on Earth was marked by a mass extinction, in which more than half of the species on our planet died out. There are a dozen or more mass extinctions in the geological record, but this particular event (nicknamed the “great dying”) has always intrigued paleontologists because it marks the end of the dinosaur age. For tens of millions of years, these great creatures had flourished and dominated. Then, they suddenly disappeared, and thereafter mammals began the development and diversification that ultimately led to all of us.
The object that collided with Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period struck a shallow sea in what is now the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. Its mass must have been more than a trillion tons, determined from a study of a worldwide layer of sediment deposited from the dust cloud that enveloped the planet after its impact. First identified in 1979, this sediment layer is rich in the rare metal iridium and other elements that are relatively abundant in asteroids and comets, but exceedingly rare in Earth’s crust. Even though it was diluted by the material that the explosion excavated from the surface of Earth, this cosmic component can still be identified. In addition, this layer of sediment contains many minerals characteristic of the temperatures and pressures of a gigantic explosion.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.3
Q. The word intrigued is closest in meaning to …
a. Occupied
b. Guided
c. Confused
d. Interested
Chemistry: The Central Science
Chemistry is sometimes referred to as “the central science” due to its interconnectedness with a vast array of other STEM disciplines (STEM stands for areas of study in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields). Chemistry and the language of chemists play vital roles in biology, medicine, materials science, forensics, environmental science, and many other fields.
The basic principles of physics are essential for understanding many aspects of chemistry, and there is extensive overlap between many subdisciplines within the two fields, such as chemical physics and nuclear chemistry. Mathematics, computer science, and information theory provide important tools that help us calculate, interpret, describe, and generally make sense of the chemical world. Biology and chemistry converge in biochemistry, which is crucial to understanding the many complex factors and processes that keep living organisms (such as us) alive. Chemical engineering, materials science, and nanotechnology combine chemical principles and empirical findings to produce useful substances, ranging from gasoline to fabrics to electronics. Agriculture, food science, veterinary science, and brewing and winemaking help provide sustenance in the form of food and drink to the world’s population. Medicine, pharmacology, biotechnology, and botany identify and produce substances that help keep us healthy. Environmental science, geology, oceanography, and atmospheric science incorporate many chemical ideas to help us better understand and protect our physical world. Chemical ideas are used to help understand the universe in astronomy and cosmology.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 14.4
Q. The word interconnectedness is closest in meaning to …
a. Association
b. Interrogation
c. Dependence
d. Togetherness
The Periodic Table
As early chemists worked to purify ores and discovered more elements, they realized that various elements could be grouped together by their similar chemical behaviors. One such grouping includes lithium (Li), sodium (Na), and potassium (K): These elements all are shiny, conduct heat and electricity well, and have similar chemical properties. A second grouping includes calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), and barium (Ba), which also are shiny, good conductors of heat and electricity, and have chemical properties in common. However, the specific properties of these two groupings are notably different from each other.
Dimitri Mendeleev in Russia (1869) and Lothar Meyer in Germany (1870) independently recognized that there was a periodic relationship among the properties of the elements known at that time. Both published tables with the elements arranged according to increasing atomic mass. But Mendeleev went one step further than Meyer: He used his table to predict the existence of elements that would have properties similar to aluminum and silicon but were yet unknown. The discoveries of gallium (1875) and germanium (1886) provided great support for Mendeleev’s work. Although Mendeleev and Meyer had a long dispute over priority, Mendeleev’s contributions to the development of the periodic table are now more widely recognized.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 12.6
Q. The word dispute is closest in meaning to …
a. Conversation
b. Argument
c. Experiment
d. Disassociation