Reading comprehension (Test 60)

Multiple-choice quiz; Answer the following questions according to the text.

(Note: The text below will disappear once you start answering the questions; so, understand the text fully before answering. Also, the technique in reading comprehension tests is to read the questions first before reading the text.)

Like so many other materials in Japan, paper too has come in for many hundreds of years of artistic consideration. At one period of the country’s history, the paper on which a poem was written was as important as the, poem itself. A thousand years ago there were whole towns actively engaged in making paper. Such towns still exist, but there were also many farming villages which then, as they do today, made paper to earn extra income during the winter. At present, about half of Japan’s farmers must add to their incomes with winter jobs. Although a large amount of winter employment is provided by construction companies, some farmers continue to work at such cottage industries as paper-making.

It is obvious from the passage that the art of a paper-making in Japan _____.
1. was such a trivial work
2. has disappeared owing to industrialization
3. was of no economic value at all in the past
4. was only practiced by the peasants in the country
5. has a long history
The passage emphasizes that approximately fifty per cent of the farming population in Japan _____.
1. is not satisfied with current farming policies
2. prefers town life to village life
3. engages in a secondary occupation in the winter
4. plans to give up farming and go into construction work
5. were poor people
It is suggested that paper-making _____.
1. encouraged the development of poetry in Japan
2. is still one of Japan’s cottage industries
3. has never been a significant commercial interest in Japan
4. has seldom been regarded as an art by the Japanese
5. and construction are the two major areas of employment in Japan

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