Reading Passage Question

Road congestion has grown by 37 percent, and as people switch from private cars to public transport, the total distance traveled by rail is expected to increase 60 percent. Despite the obvious increase in demand for space on our roads and trains, governments are failing to match forecast growth with investment in either mode of transport. In the 10 worst areas, the problems are already chronic, with immediate investment needed if sufficient capacity is to be created to cope with future demand. In these areas, new roads and tracks and longer platforms that can handle longer trains are already needed to relieve bottlenecks, congestion and severe overcrowding during peak hours. Despite demand, there are no plans to expand road and rail networks significantly and, indeed, closures and cuts in funding are on the agenda. The paucity of public investment raises considerable doubts that those few projects that are currently supported by government will ever be completed because ministers are refusing to say how much public money they will receive.

“Road congestion has grown by 37 percent”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 5 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

Question 1
Which of the following statements can you infer to be true?

1. People are giving up their cars to undertake journeys by train.
2. Rail passengers face a bleak future of overcrowding and more expensive journeys.
3. Road use has grown by 37 percent and rail use by 60 percent.
4. Despite increased demand there are no plans to increase road and rail networks significantly.
5. As road congestion has grown, the total distance traveled by rail has increased.

Question 2
It is hard to arrive at any other conclusion than travelers face a bleak future of:

1. overcrowded networks, slower journey times and higher fares
2. congestion, bottlenecks and overcrowding
3. congestion, overcrowded networks and higher fares
4. overcrowding, congestion and even slower journey times
5. slower journey times and higher fares

Question 3
In the context of the passage, the word paucity means:

1. the small amount of rail investment
2. the diminutive public investment in the expansion of the railway
3. the presence of something in only immense quantities
4. the low level of public investment
5. the presence of something in only diminutive quantities

Question 4
In the worst 10 areas, immediate investment is already needed:

1. because the problem there is already chronic
2. because during peak periods they suffer bottlenecks, congestion and severe overcrowding
3. if the infrastructure is to cope with future demand
4. if they are to build the extra rail tracks, roads and longer train platforms
5. before people can switch from private to public transport

Question 5
It can be inferred from the passage that:

1. There was a greater demand for rail travel than travel by private car.
2. Governments were in favor of people switching from cars to public transport.
3. There is every indication that governments were against people switching modes of transport.
4. Governments were undermining the switch from private to public transport by failing to invest in transport networks.
5. Governments were doing little in practical terms to encourage people to switch from cars to public transport.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• Traditional economic theory and its partisans have long maintained that increasing the minimum wage GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Consider these factors crucial to success in any new business endeavor GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Unmaintained areas of contiguous stands of forest are particularly vulnerable to hard-to-control wildfires GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Because human anatomy does not change, knowledge acquired a century ago is still accurate today GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Many observers believe that middle-class Americans are dogged by debt GMAT Reading Comprehension
• I submit that impact of solid bodies is the most fundamental of all interstellar processes GMAT Reading Comprehension
• A science fiction writer coined the useful term ‘cyberspace’ in 1982 GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Some modern anthropologists hold that biological evolution has shaped not only human morphology but also human behavior GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Cartilage is a specialized connective tissue whose flexibility and resilience enable it to function as a shock absorber GMAT Reading Comprehension
• In 1901, an assortment of artifacts was recovered from a 2,000-year-old shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The intensive work of materials scientists and solid-state physicists has given rise to a class of solids known as amorphous metallic alloys, or glassy metals GMAT Reading Comprehension
• In most earthquakes the Earth’s crust cracks like porcelain. Stress builds up until a fracture forms at a depth of a few kilometers and the crust slips to relieve the stress GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The recent, apparently successful, prediction by mathematical models of an appearance of El Nino GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Over the last 150 years, large stretches of salmon habitat have been eliminated by human activity GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The United States Hospital Industry is an Unusual Market GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Mercury is only present in small amounts in marine ecosystems, yet it still presents a potential danger to fish eaters GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Many United States Companies Believe that the Rising Cost of Employees' Health Care Benefits GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Dendrochronology, The Study of Tree-Ring Records to Glean Information About the Past GMAT Reading Comprehension
• What kinds of property rights apply to Algonquian family hunting territories GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Although the Industrial Union Organizations that Emerged GMAT Reading Comprehension