Reading Comprehension Practice for Grade 10 Students

Reading Comprehension Practice

Gary had her GCE O’ level English paper the next day. She had no idea how to prepare for the reading comprehension paper. The passages were lengthy, and were full of difficult words. Moreover, there were questions that tested students’ knowledge in linguistic devices. Whenever they did reading comprehension practice in the class, Gary could not answer the questions that tested depth of knowledge in linguistic devices.

Gary asked her English teacher for help. Her English teacher, Mrs. Bernard, gave her a passage for reading comprehension practice. As usual, it was an excerpt from a book. Gary did not do much reading, but she had heard that often passages were taken from books written by famous authors. Anyhow, Gary hadn’t had much reading comprehension practice before that, so she jumped at the chance.

Excerpt from Hill Farm Story by R.J. Ruck

Once I turned our horse and cart over. Our fields were steeply sloping and dangerous to the inexperienced. I was leading the horse along a slope when the upper cart-wheel ran over a rock. The angle was just too great; the cart overbalanced and the old mare was thrown down on to her side. She was experienced in the problems of life and lay there quietly enough until I could get my father’s help. Together we unhitched her and she scrambled to her feet, unhurt. Then, with much heaving, we righted the cart. No serious damage had been done but the upset was frightening. Later I told John Williams, our neighbour of this alarm.

“You do have to turn the cart. Three times. Before you're a good carter,” he said with a laugh.

I answered that I would do no such thing again and even bet five pounds on it, but the old man only gave a disbelieving chuckle. He was right to be sceptical for not much later the same thing did happen again. I was leading Corwen, the mare, down the stony lane to fetch a few sacks of coal. At that time a horse and cart were our only means of transport and delivery lorries could get no further than the lower farm. I liked working with horses and enjoyed doing the carting jobs. Now I plodded along happily, holding the rein loosely in one hand and admiring the sweep of mountain scenery which rose from the other side of the valley, greeny-gold in the sunshine.

Corwen's hooves clopped on the stones and the unladen cart bounced behind with a roaring of iron-shod wheels on the gravel. A little stream tinkled and danced under a bridge over the road. Then the lane passed through a gap in a low stone wall. I must have failed to guide Corwen in the exact centre of the track for one wheel hit the wall on the right, ran up it easily and in a second the cart had overbalanced again, and crashed down on its side; the mare was thrown with it. I was shaken from my happy dream. Corwen lay with a shaft broken under her. The upper cart-wheel spun gently in a useless horizontal position. Larks went on singing high in a blue sky.

I had been cheerful, blissfully unaware of impending doom, but now I was upset and angry with myself for letting such a thing happen again. I had already found that there was not much margin for carelessness and wasted time in the tight economy of a hill farm. Here I was with a broken cart and perhaps an injured horse lying in the road on a sunny spring morning. I tried to unhitch the chains which anchored Corwen to the shafts but they had pulled tight and could not be freed. I tried to urge the mare to her feet or at least get her to move so that I could undo the hitches, but she would not budge. She lay there, half a ton of horse, with one eye staring at the sky, breathing snortily through soft whisker-fringed nostrils.

I tried to heave the cart up but it was much too heavy. Now I was in a pickle from which I could not get out. Then I remembered that there was sure to be help further on and I ran down the track, leaving my wrecked cart where it lay.

I found John Williams in the house. He laughed at the tale of my troubles.

“That is nothing,” he said. Then he added as an afterthought. “You’d better put that five pounds on the bill!”

He and Mary Alice, his daughter, came up the road with me. They were determined to help even though they had been busy at home. The mare still lay patiently on her side, waiting for help. The car-wheel had stopped spinning. Together, the three of us managed to free the mare and she scrambled to her feet, snorting but uninjured. Then we were able to heave the cart upright. John Willimas found a spare shaft among his treasures; it could be bolted into place and everything would be as right as rain again.

The two incidents eroded my confidence in myself as a carter. It seemed that I could not aspire, in any time in the near future, to be an active part of the farm. All around me there was hustle and bustle, and people moved like bees around. I seemed to occupy an island of calm and quiet. Often, I marveled at how life was moving in a whirl; the memories are hazy now. But I recall that I enjoyed the hurry and burry, but everything seemed to move very fast in a blur. I tried my best to integrate into the life at the farm, and I was sure that in course of time I would be able to do that.