Reading Comprehension Questions for Bank Exams: 20 Solved Questions with Answers

Reading Comprehension Questions for Bank Exams: Quick Answer

This set has 20 original reading comprehension questions with full step-by-step explanations, written for bank Prelims and Mains. Three original passages of about 280 words each — banking and the digital shift in a small town, technology in a village classroom, and a coastal town restoring its mangroves — carry six questions each, plus two standalone questions on short paragraphs. Every question type the exam asks is covered: main idea, detail, inference, vocabulary in context, tone, and the "which statement is NOT true" question that catches more candidates than any other. Every key has been checked against the exact lines it rests on, and every explanation quotes those lines, so you can see why the right answer is right and why the nearest wrong answer is wrong. As of 6 November 2026.

Reading comprehension is the biggest single block inside the English section of every bank exam. In the IBPS PO Mains, English is 40 questions for 20 marks in 35 minutes under the revised 2026 pattern; in the SBI PO Mains it is 40 questions for 20 marks in 40 minutes; in the IBPS PO Prelims, English is 30 questions in 20 minutes. One RC set in the Mains is usually five or six questions on one passage, so one careful reading can earn five or six marks. The candidates who score are not the fastest readers. They are the ones who read once, properly, and answer five questions without going back to the passage for every line. That is what this set trains.

Key takeaway: Answer from the passage, never from your own knowledge. If a statement is true in the real world but the passage does not say it, it is not the answer to a detail question. If a statement sounds reasonable but the passage says the opposite, it is the answer to a "NOT true" question. The passage is the only evidence that counts.

What This Set Covers

The answer key at the bottom spreads evenly across all five options — A 4, B 4, C 4, D 4, E 4 — so no option dominates, and no option repeats more than once in a row.

How to Use This Set

Give yourself 25 minutes for the 20 questions — about 75 seconds a question. Read each passage once, slowly, before looking at the questions. Do not read the questions first and hunt for answers line by line: that method feels fast and costs marks, because it makes you answer from single lines instead of from the passage as a whole, and the inference and tone questions punish exactly that. While you read, underline one line per paragraph — the line that says what the paragraph is doing — and nothing else. A passage with three underlined lines is a passage you have understood. Attempt the questions in order, because they are arranged to warm you up: main idea and detail first, inference and "not true" after you have already thought about the passage. Mark every question you guessed, and after the timer, rework the guessed ones before reading the explanations. A question you got right by guessing is still a gap. Keep a notebook of the exact step where you went wrong — answered from memory instead of the passage, picked the option that was true in the world but not in the passage, confused the author's view with a character's view — because the same three slips cause most RC losses. Finally, do the whole set a second time a week later, without looking at the answers.

How Reading Comprehension Works: One Method for Each Question Type

Main idea questions ask what the whole passage is about, not what one paragraph is about. The right answer covers the entire passage. The wrong answers are usually true of one paragraph but too narrow, or true of the whole passage with the conclusion reversed. Test it by deleting the first paragraph, then the last: the main idea survives both; the narrow option does not.

Detail questions ask for something the passage states directly, and they are the easiest marks in the set — if you answer from the passage. The trap is the option that is true in the real world but not stated in the passage, or the option stated in the passage that answers a different question. Read the question twice first: what exactly is it asking — why, or who, or when? Then find the one line that answers it. If no line supports an option, that option is wrong, however sensible it sounds.

Inference questions ask for something the passage implies but does not state directly. An inference is not a guess: it must follow from what the passage says. If a market knew about a payment by evening, you may infer that news travels fast there; you may not infer that every trader adopted the new method, because the passage never says that. Ask: could this be false while everything in the passage stays true? If yes, it is not a valid inference. In Q3, Q9, Q16 and Q19, only one option survives that test.

Vocabulary-in-context questions ask what a word means as it is used in this passage, not in a dictionary. The clue is always nearby: the sentence the word sits in, the sentence before it, or the contrast around it. Replace the word with each option in turn, and ask which replacement keeps the sentence true. The option that changes the meaning is wrong; the option that leaves it untouched is right.

Tone and attitude questions ask how the writer feels about the subject, and the answer is in the adjectives and verbs the writer chose, not in the facts. A writer who calls a change "slow, then sudden" is observing it with interest, not celebrating it and not condemning it. Look for the words that carry feeling. If the passage reports both sides and judges neither, the tone is neutral or observational, and the option that picks a side is wrong.

"NOT true" questions are detail questions asked backwards, and the most missed type in RC. Four options are true according to the passage; one is false, and the false one is the answer. Check each option against the passage and cross out every option you can prove true. Do not look for the false option first — look for the true ones and eliminate them. The option left standing is the answer. The classic trap is an option true of a different person, place or time in the passage.

Passage 1: Banking and the Digital Shift

When Meera took charge of a small bank branch in a hill town, she expected her hardest work to be counting cash and balancing ledgers. Instead, her hardest work turned out to be explaining a small screen. In her first month, the branch introduced a new way for customers to pay shopkeepers and send money to family using their phones, and the queue at the counter barely moved. The younger customers tried it at once. The older ones, sceptical of a screen they could not see into, did not. They stood in line as they always had, passbooks in hand, and asked the same question in different words: if the money leaves my phone, where does it go, and how do I know it has arrived? Meera's first answer was a leaflet. It failed. Her second answer was a table near the door, where a clerk sat every morning and walked each customer through one payment, step by step, on the customer's own phone. The change was slow, then sudden. A vegetable seller who had refused the new method for weeks used it to pay a supplier in another town, and by evening half the market knew the money had arrived before the vegetables did. Within a season, the morning queue had shortened, but it had not disappeared. Some customers still came in for the same reason they always had: they wanted a person to look at, a stamp on a page, and a voice that said the money was safe. The branch did not replace one with the other. It kept both, because the town needed both: speed for those who trusted the screen, and patience for those who trusted the person behind the counter.

Q1. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Digital payments have completely replaced cash in small towns. B. A small-town bank succeeds by keeping both digital payments and personal counter service, because different customers trust different things. C. Older customers are unable to learn how to use phones for payments. D. Leaflets are the most effective way for a bank to teach customers a new service. E. Bank branches in hill towns should stop offering counter service.

Answer: B — A small-town bank succeeds by keeping both digital payments and personal counter service, because different customers trust different things.

Explanation: The passage opens with the new payment method and the queue that "barely moved", follows Meera's two attempts to teach it, and closes with the sentence that states its point directly: the branch "did not replace one with the other. It kept both, because the town needed both: speed for those who trusted the screen, and patience for those who trusted the person behind the counter." Option B is the only option that covers the whole passage — the new method, the old counter, and the reason both survive. Option A contradicts the passage, which says the queue "had shortened, but it had not disappeared". Option C contradicts it too: the older customers learn the method at the table near the door. Option D is backwards: the leaflet "failed". Option E is the opposite of the passage's conclusion.

Q2. According to the passage, why did the morning queue at the counter shorten?

A. The branch printed more leaflets about the new payment method. B. The branch stopped serving customers who preferred the counter. C. The branch raised its charges for counter transactions. D. Customers began making payments on their phones after a clerk guided them through the process one by one. E. The vegetable seller ordered the market to stop using the counter.

Answer: D — Customers began making payments on their phones after a clerk guided them through the process one by one.

Explanation: The passage gives the sequence in order: the leaflet failed, then "a clerk sat every morning and walked each customer through one payment, step by step, on the customer's own phone", then "the change was slow, then sudden", and then "within a season, the morning queue had shortened". The shortening follows the guided help, not the leaflet. Option A is wrong because the leaflet is explicitly said to have failed. Options B and C are never mentioned in the passage. Option E invents an order the vegetable seller never gave — he simply used the method himself, and the market heard about it.

Q3. What can be inferred about the vegetable seller's payment?

A. His successful payment convinced other traders to try the new method, because news of it spread through the market the same day. B. He was paid by the bank to demonstrate the new method to the market. C. His supplier refused to accept payment made on a phone. D. He stopped visiting the branch entirely after that day. E. He taught the clerk how to use the new payment method.

Answer: A — His successful payment convinced other traders to try the new method, because news of it spread through the market the same day.

Explanation: The passage says the seller "used it to pay a supplier in another town, and by evening half the market knew the money had arrived before the vegetables did". The same-day spread of the news, followed in the next sentence by the queue shortening "within a season", supports the inference that his example encouraged others. Option B has no support: nothing says he was paid or asked to demonstrate anything. Option C contradicts the passage — the money "had arrived". Option D goes beyond the passage, which never says he stopped visiting. Option E reverses the roles: the clerk guided customers, not the other way round.

Q4. In the passage, the word "sceptical" is closest in meaning to:

A. enthusiastic B. indifferent C. confident D. knowledgeable E. doubtful

Answer: E — doubtful.

Explanation: The sentence is "The older ones, sceptical of a screen they could not see into, did not [try it]". The clause after the comma explains the attitude: they could not see into the screen, so they did not trust what happened inside it — and their question, "how do I know it has arrived?", is the question of people who doubt, not of people who are enthusiastic (A), indifferent (B), confident (C) or knowledgeable (D). Replace "sceptical" with "doubtful" and the sentence keeps its meaning exactly; replace it with any other option and the sentence contradicts itself.

Q5. Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?

A. Angry and accusatory, blaming customers for resisting change B. Mocking, treating the older customers as foolish C. Warm and observational, describing how one branch adapted to its customers D. Alarmed, warning that digital payments are unsafe E. Formal and technical, explaining payment systems in detail

Answer: C — Warm and observational, describing how one branch adapted to its customers.

Explanation: The writer describes Meera's problem and her solution without blaming anyone: the older customers' question is reported sympathetically, the leaflet's failure is stated plainly ("It failed"), and the ending praises patience rather than speed. There is no anger (A), no mockery (B) — the older customers are shown as careful, not foolish — no warning that payments are unsafe (D), and no technical explanation of how the system works (E). The tone is that of an observer who likes the branch's answer: make room for both.

Q6. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Meera's first attempt to teach the new payment method was a leaflet, and it did not work. B. A clerk sat near the door every morning and guided customers through a payment on their own phones. C. The morning queue shortened within a season but did not disappear entirely. D. Some customers continued to visit the branch because they wanted personal reassurance. E. The branch closed its counter service once phone payments became common.

Answer: E — The branch closed its counter service once phone payments became common.

Explanation: Check each option against the passage. A is true: "Meera's first answer was a leaflet. It failed." B is true: "a clerk sat every morning and walked each customer through one payment, step by step, on the customer's own phone". C is true: "Within a season, the morning queue had shortened, but it had not disappeared." D is true: some customers still came because "they wanted a person to look at, a stamp on a page, and a voice that said the money was safe". E is the false one: the passage says the exact opposite — "The branch did not replace one with the other. It kept both."

Passage 2: Technology in a Village Classroom

When the village school received a dozen tablets, the head teacher, Arif, did not hand them out on the first day. He kept them in a locked cupboard for a week while he watched how his pupils used the single shared computer. What he saw worried him more than it pleased him. The children were quick with their fingers and slow with their questions. They could open any application in seconds, but when a page of text appeared, most of them skimmed the first lines and declared the reading finished. Arif's fear was simple: the tablets would make the children faster at finding answers and worse at understanding them. So he made a rule. For the first month, the tablets could be used only in pairs, and only after the pair had read a printed page together and written down one question it had raised. The children grumbled. Then something unexpected happened. The questions got better. A pair reading about rivers asked why their own village well ran dry every summer. Arif wrote the best question of each week on the blackboard, and the class spent Friday trying to answer it. By the end of the term, the number of children who skipped to the end of a page before finishing it had dwindled to almost none — nearly every child finished what they started. The tablets had become the second step, not the first. Arif's conclusion was not that technology harms learning, and not that it saves it. It was that a tool is only as good as the habit that comes before it, and the habit his pupils needed most was the oldest one in the school: read it fully, then ask what it means.

Q7. According to the passage, what did Arif observe about his pupils before handing out the tablets?

A. They could not open any application on the shared computer. B. They refused to use the shared computer. C. They read every page carefully from start to finish. D. They were quick with their fingers but skimmed text instead of reading it fully. E. They already knew how to write good questions about what they read.

Answer: D — They were quick with their fingers but skimmed text instead of reading it fully.

Explanation: The passage states it directly: "The children were quick with their fingers and slow with their questions. They could open any application in seconds, but when a page of text appeared, most of them skimmed the first lines and declared the reading finished." Option D restates that observation. Option A contradicts it — they could open any application. Option B contradicts it — they used the shared computer. Option C is the opposite of what he saw. Option E is the opposite too: the good questions only appeared after his rule, not before it.

Q8. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Tablets should be banned from village schools because they harm reading. B. Technology helps learning only when it follows the habit of reading fully and asking questions, as one teacher's rule showed. C. Village children are naturally better at using technology than at reading books. D. Charities should give printed books to schools instead of tablets. E. Teachers should never let pupils use tablets in pairs.

Answer: B — Technology helps learning only when it follows the habit of reading fully and asking questions, as one teacher's rule showed.

Explanation: The passage ends with Arif's conclusion stated directly: "a tool is only as good as the habit that comes before it, and the habit his pupils needed most was the oldest one in the school: read it fully, then ask what it means." Option B covers the whole passage — the tablets, the rule, the better questions, and that conclusion. Option A contradicts the ending: Arif's conclusion was "not that technology harms learning". Option C is not claimed anywhere. Option D goes beyond the passage, which never says charities should give books instead. Option E reverses the rule: the tablets could be used only in pairs.

Q9. What can be inferred about the pair who asked why their village well ran dry every summer?

A. Reading had led them to connect the text with their own lives, which was exactly the habit Arif wanted to build. B. They had been told the answer by Arif before they asked the question. C. They were the only pair in the class who read the printed page. D. They asked the question because they wanted to avoid using the tablets. E. Their question was written on the blackboard because it was the easiest one that week.

Answer: A — Reading had led them to connect the text with their own lives, which was exactly the habit Arif wanted to build.

Explanation: The passage presents the two example questions — the dry well and the moon near the horizon — as evidence that "the questions got better" after Arif's rule, and it says he wrote "the best question of each week on the blackboard". A question that connects a reading about rivers to the village's own dry well is a question born of understanding, not of skimming, and it matches the habit the passage defines at the end: "read it fully, then ask what it means". Options B, C, D and E have no support in the passage: nothing says Arif gave them the answer, that other pairs did not read, that they wanted to avoid tablets, or that the question was chosen for being easy — it was chosen for being the best.

Q10. In the passage, the word "dwindled" is closest in meaning to:

A. increased suddenly B. stayed the same C. moved to another place D. became complicated E. decreased gradually

Answer: E — decreased gradually.

Explanation: The sentence is "the number of children who skipped to the end of a page before finishing it had dwindled to almost none — nearly every child finished what they started". The dash explains the direction: the number fell until almost none were left, and the passage has spent the whole second half describing a slow improvement over a term, not a sudden change. Replace "dwindled" with "decreased gradually" and the sentence keeps its meaning; "increased suddenly" (A) reverses it, "stayed the same" (B) contradicts the dash, and C and D have nothing to do with numbers falling.

Q11. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Arif kept the tablets locked away for a week before deciding how to use them. B. For the first month, pupils could use the tablets only in pairs and only after reading a printed page and writing a question. C. The children welcomed Arif's rule at once and never complained about it. D. Arif wrote the best question of each week on the blackboard for Friday discussion. E. By the end of the term, nearly every child finished the pages they started.

Answer: C — The children welcomed Arif's rule at once and never complained about it.

Explanation: Check each option against the passage. A is true: "He kept them in a locked cupboard for a week". B is true: "the tablets could be used only in pairs, and only after the pair had read a printed page together and written down one question". D is true: "Arif wrote the best question of each week on the blackboard, and the class spent Friday trying to answer it." E is true: "nearly every child finished what they started". C is false: "The children grumbled." They disliked the rule at first, and only later did the questions improve.

Q12. Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?

A. Sarcastic and dismissive towards teachers who use technology B. Bitter, arguing that village schools are beyond help C. Neutral and purely factual, reporting events without any attitude D. Cautious and hopeful, showing a teacher's worry and then the improvement that followed E. Hostile towards the charity that donated the tablets

Answer: D — Cautious and hopeful, showing a teacher's worry and then the improvement that followed.

Explanation: The passage opens with worry — "What he saw worried him more than it pleased him" and "Arif's fear was simple" — and ends with improvement: the questions "got better" and "nearly every child finished what they started". That arc, worry followed by hope, is the tone. Option A is wrong: the passage admires Arif, it does not mock teachers. Option E is wrong: the charity is mentioned once, without criticism. Option B is wrong: the ending is hopeful, not bitter. Option C is wrong because the passage is full of feeling words — worried, feared, grumbled, unexpected — and a purely factual report would not carry them.

Passage 3: A Coastal Town and Its Mangroves

On the edge of a coastal town stood a forest that most people walked past without noticing. The mangroves were not tall, and they were not beautiful in the way a garden is beautiful. Their roots rose out of the mud, and at high tide the lower branches stood in salt water. They were resilient in a way that surprised every visitor: they lived in salt water that would kill most trees, and they came back after every storm. For years the town treated them as wasteland: builders filled in parts of the forest for warehouses, and fishermen cut the branches for firewood. Then a storm struck. The wind tore roofs from houses near the shore, and the sea pushed far into the streets. But the houses behind the mangroves stood almost untouched: the tangled roots had slowed the water, and the branches had broken the wind. The council, which had once approved every request to fill in the mud, now refused them. Schoolchildren planted seedlings, tying each one to a bamboo stake and returning every week to check which had survived. The fishermen, who had once cut the branches, now guarded them, because they had noticed something the scientists had been saying for years: the fish returned to the places where the roots were thickest, and the catch near the forest was better than the catch in the open water. The forest did not grow back in a year, or even in five. But the town had learned the lesson the storm had taught it. A forest that looks like wasteland can be the wall that saves a town, and the cheapest protection a coastal town can buy is the one that grows by itself, if it is left alone long enough to grow.

Q13. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Storms always destroy coastal towns, whatever protection they have. B. A coastal town learned that its mangrove forest protects it from storms and supports fishing, and began to protect the forest in return. C. Schoolchildren are better at planting trees than fishermen are. D. Warehouses should be built on filled-in mangrove land. E. Mangrove trees are beautiful in the same way a garden is beautiful.

Answer: B — A coastal town learned that its mangrove forest protects it from storms and supports fishing, and began to protect the forest in return.

Explanation: The passage follows one arc: the town ignores the forest, the storm shows its value ("the houses behind the mangroves stood almost untouched"), and the town changes — the council refuses filling, children plant seedlings, fishermen guard the branches. Option B covers that whole arc, including the fishing benefit in the second half. Option A contradicts the passage: the houses behind the mangroves survived. Option C is never claimed. Option D is the old policy the town abandoned. Option E contradicts the second sentence: the mangroves "were not beautiful in the way a garden is beautiful".

Q14. According to the passage, how did the mangroves protect the houses behind them during the storm?

A. Their tangled roots slowed the water and their branches broke the wind. B. Their roots held the roofs of the houses in place. C. They absorbed all the rain before it reached the town. D. They blocked the river from meeting the sea. E. Their seedlings grew into full trees during the storm.

Answer: A — Their tangled roots slowed the water and their branches broke the wind.

Explanation: The passage states the mechanism in one sentence: "the tangled roots had slowed the water, and the branches had broken the wind". Option A repeats it exactly. Option B invents a role for the roots. Option C overstates the claim — the passage never says the forest absorbed all the rain. Option D describes the geography of the town, not a protective act. Option E is impossible on the passage's own timeline: the forest "did not grow back in a year, or even in five".

Q15. In the passage, the word "resilient" is closest in meaning to:

A. easily damaged by salt water B. quick to grow tall C. beautiful to look at D. difficult to find E. able to recover quickly after damage

Answer: E — able to recover quickly after damage.

Explanation: The sentence is "They were resilient in a way that surprised every visitor: they lived in salt water that would kill most trees, and they came back after every storm." The colon introduces the explanation: living in salt water and coming back after storms. That is recovery, not height (B), beauty (C) or rarity (D), and it is the opposite of being easily damaged (A). Replace "resilient" with "able to recover quickly after damage" and the sentence keeps its meaning exactly.

Q16. What can be inferred about the fishermen's change of attitude?

A. They stopped fishing entirely after the storm. B. They were ordered by the council to guard the forest. C. They began protecting the branches because they saw for themselves that fishing was better where the roots were thickest. D. They planted the seedlings along the empty stretches. E. They had always believed the scientists and never cut the branches.

Answer: C — They began protecting the branches because they saw for themselves that fishing was better where the roots were thickest.

Explanation: The passage says the fishermen "now guarded them, because they had noticed something the scientists had been saying for years: the fish returned to the places where the roots were thickest, and the catch near the forest was better than the catch in the open water". The word "noticed" matters: they saw it themselves, and that observation changed them. Option A has no support — they still fished. Option B has no support — no order is mentioned. Option D gives them the children's job: the schoolchildren planted the seedlings. Option E contradicts the passage: the fishermen "had once cut the branches for firewood".

Q17. Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?

A. Dismissive, treating the forest as worthless B. Admiring and hopeful, praising a forest the town once ignored and the slow recovery now under way C. Fearful, warning that another storm will destroy the town D. Ironic, mocking the town for changing its mind E. Detached and technical, listing the species of mangrove trees

Answer: B — Admiring and hopeful, praising a forest the town once ignored and the slow recovery now under way.

Explanation: The writer calls the forest "the wall that saves a town" and "the cheapest protection a coastal town can buy", and ends on the hopeful condition "if it is left alone long enough to grow". That is admiration, not dismissal (A) — the dismissal was the town's old view, which the passage criticises. There is no warning of a coming storm (C), no mockery of the town's change of mind (D) — the change is presented as a lesson learned — and no technical listing of species (E). The tone admires the forest and hopes for its recovery.

Q18. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. The council once approved requests to fill in parts of the mangrove forest. B. Schoolchildren planted seedlings and returned each week to check which had survived. C. The catch near the forest was better than the catch in the open water. D. The forest grew back fully within a year of the storm. E. Houses near the shore lost their roofs in the storm.

Answer: D — The forest grew back fully within a year of the storm.

Explanation: Check each option against the passage. A is true: the council "had once approved every request to fill in the mud". B is true: children planted seedlings "and returning every week to check which had survived". C is true: "the catch near the forest was better than the catch in the open water". E is true: "The wind tore roofs from houses near the shore." D is false: "The forest did not grow back in a year, or even in five. It grew back slowly, one seedling at a time."

Standalone Questions: Questions 19–20

Read each short paragraph, then answer the question on it.

The town library in Rampur lends more books in the rainy season than in any other part of the year. The librarian, who has kept the lending register for twenty years, says the pattern has never changed: when the rain begins, the queue at the desk grows longer, and the most borrowed books are novels and story collections. She does not believe the rain makes people want to read. She believes the rain keeps people indoors, and indoors, with the day's work finished early, a book is the easiest company to keep.

Q19. What can be inferred from the paragraph?

A. The rise in borrowing in the rainy season is caused by people spending more time indoors with little else to do, not by the rain creating a love of reading. B. The librarian has worked at the library for less than a year. C. Novels are the only books the library lends in the rainy season. D. People in Rampur read only during the rainy season. E. The rain damages the library's books, so fewer books are available.

Answer: A — The rise in borrowing in the rainy season is caused by people spending more time indoors with little else to do, not by the rain creating a love of reading.

Explanation: The librarian states her view directly: "She does not believe the rain makes people want to read. She believes the rain keeps people indoors, and indoors, with the day's work finished early, a book is the easiest company to keep." Option A restates that view. Option B contradicts the paragraph — she has kept the register "for twenty years". Option C overstates it: novels and story collections are "the most borrowed", not the only ones lent. Option D goes beyond the paragraph, which says borrowing is highest in the rainy season, not that it stops otherwise. Option E is invented: no damage to books is mentioned.

A workshop supervisor named Dev inspects every finished chair before it leaves his workshop. He runs his hand along each joint, checks that every screw sits flush with the wood, and measures the legs twice, because a chair that wobbles by a finger's width today will be returned by an angry customer tomorrow. His workers call him meticulous, and they mean it as praise: the workshop has never had a chair returned in fifteen years, and the supervisor's own chair, the one he sits on at his desk, is the oldest in the building.

Q20. In the paragraph, the word "meticulous" is closest in meaning to:

A. careless and hurried B. strict and unfriendly C. very careful and precise about small details D. slow and unwilling to finish work E. skilled at repairing broken chairs

Answer: C — very careful and precise about small details.

Explanation: The paragraph shows Dev's behaviour before it gives the word: he inspects "every finished chair", checks "every screw", and "measures the legs twice" because a wobble "by a finger's width" matters. That is care about small details, and the result — no chair returned in fifteen years — is presented as praise. Replace "meticulous" with "very careful and precise about small details" and the paragraph keeps its meaning. Option A is the opposite of the behaviour shown. Option B adds unfriendliness the paragraph never suggests. Option D confuses care with slowness. Option E is about repairing, and Dev is shown inspecting, not repairing.

Answer Key

Key spread: A 4, B 4, C 4, D 4, E 4. No option is correct more than four times out of twenty, and no option repeats more than once in a row anywhere in the key.

Common Mistakes

The first and most expensive mistake in RC is answering from your own knowledge instead of the passage. In Q2, the leaflet feels like it should have worked, but the passage says it failed. In Q11, it feels natural to assume the children liked a rule that helped them, but the passage says they grumbled. The exam writes options that are true in the world and false in the passage on purpose. The second mistake is answering a detail question from a single line when the question needs the whole paragraph. In Q3, the vegetable seller's story is one line, but the inference needs the next sentence too — the queue shortening "within a season" is what turns a single payment into a persuasion. The third mistake is choosing the option that is true of one paragraph as the main idea. In Q13, the storm is dramatic, but an option about the storm alone leaves out the fishing, the planting and the council's change of policy. The fourth mistake is treating "NOT true" questions like ordinary questions and picking the option that looks most true. In Q6, Q11 and Q18, four options are true and the true-looking ones are the traps; prove four options true and take the one that is left. The fifth mistake is answering vocabulary questions from the word's most familiar meaning. "Resilient" in Q15 and "dwindled" in Q10 both have passage clues — the colon after "resilient", the dash after "dwindled". The sixth mistake is confusing a character's view with the author's view on tone questions. In Passage 2, Arif is worried, but the passage's tone is worried and then hopeful, because it also reports the improvement. The ending usually fixes the tone. Finally, never spend more than 3 minutes on a Prelims set or 6 minutes on a Mains set. If a set is stuck, mark it and move on.

Memory Tricks

Three fast methods cover most RC questions, and they are worth practising until they are automatic. First, the one-line-per-paragraph rule: after reading a passage, you should be able to say what each paragraph does in one short sentence — "leaflet fails", "guided help works", "branch keeps both". If you can say those sentences, you can answer the main idea, the tone and the inference questions without re-reading. If you cannot, you have not understood the passage yet. Second, the elimination habit for "NOT true" and inference questions: cross out every option you can prove, and answer from what is left. In Q18, four options fall to a single line each, and the survivor is the answer. Third, the substitution test for vocabulary: put each option into the sentence in place of the word and read the sentence in your head. The right option leaves the sentence true; the wrong options make it false or silly. In Q20, "careless and hurried" makes Dev's careful inspection absurd, and the absurdity is the signal. A fourth trick is specific to tone: circle the feeling words as you read — worried, grumbled, unexpected, almost untouched — and the tone is usually the sum of those words. A fifth, for time: read the passage in 2 minutes, answer the six questions in 3 minutes, and never re-read a whole passage to answer one question.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many RC questions come in the IBPS PO Mains?

The English Language section of the IBPS PO Mains is 40 questions for 20 marks in 35 minutes under the revised 2026 pattern, and reading comprehension is the largest block inside it — usually one or two passage sets of five or six questions each.

How many RC questions come in the SBI PO Mains?

The English Language section of the SBI PO Mains is 40 questions for 20 marks in 40 minutes, with RC again the largest block. The Prelims English section is 40 questions in 20 minutes, so the Prelims RC set is shorter and faster.

Is reading comprehension asked in the Clerk Mains as well?

Yes. Both SBI Clerk Mains and IBPS Clerk Mains have an English section built the same way — RC sets, cloze test, error spotting and fillers — and the RRB Clerk and PO Mains include an English or Hindi language section with RC as well.

Should I read the questions before the passage?

No — not for RC. Reading the questions first makes you hunt for answers line by line, and the inference and tone questions punish exactly that, because they need the passage as a whole. Read the passage once, slowly, underline one line per paragraph, and then answer the questions in order.

How do I solve "NOT true" questions without getting confused?

Check each option against the passage and cross out every option you can prove true. Do not look for the false option first. In Q6, Q11 and Q18, four options fall to a single line each, and the option left standing is the answer.

How do I improve my vocabulary for RC?

Do not memorise word lists in isolation. Learn each new word in a sentence, the way Q4, Q10, Q15 and Q20 test it — with the clue in the sentence around it. When you meet a new word, read the sentence before and after it first.

How much time should one RC set of six questions take?

About 5 to 6 minutes in the Mains — roughly 2 minutes to read the passage and 3 to 4 minutes to answer — and about 3 minutes in the Prelims. If a set is taking more than 7 minutes in the Mains, you are re-reading too often; use the one-line-per-paragraph summary instead.

Practice Next

• Reading comprehension tricks for bank exams — the method behind this set.
• Cloze test tricks for bank exams — the other big passage-based question type in bank English.
• Error spotting rules for bank exams — the grammar rules for the non-RC half of English.
• SBI Clerk English questions — Mains-level English practice for SBI Clerk.
• Fillers for bank exams — sentence completion that builds vocabulary in context.
• One-word substitution for SSC and bank exams — vocabulary for RC passages.
• Idioms asked in SSC CGL — idioms that appear in RC passages.
• Homophones for SSC CGL — commonly confused words in RC passages.
• IBPS PO reading comprehension test 01 — timed RC practice at IBPS PO level.
• SBI PO reading comprehension test 01 — timed RC practice at SBI PO level.
• IBPS Clerk reading comprehension test 01 — timed RC practice at IBPS Clerk level.

Sources: IBPS PO and SBI PO Mains English patterns for the 2026 cycle as published in the official notifications and summarised by Shiksha, Adda247 and PrepMatic; all passages, paragraphs and questions in this set are original and written for this page. As of 6 November 2026.