GED Reading Comprehension Practice Questions, Set 4

Use this passage for questions 1 to 3

“To the Editor: Your article last week called the plan to add a bus stop at Willow Creek Apartments ‘a waste of transit dollars,’ noting that only a few dozen riders a day are expected to use it. I am one of those riders, and I would like to add some facts your reporter left out. Willow Creek has 240 units, and the nearest stop is a mile away along a road with no sidewalk. Last winter, two residents were hit by cars while walking that road in the dark. Many of us work early shifts at the distribution center, which the bus already serves. Right now, those of us without cars pay $15 or more a day for rides or walk in the road. The stop would cost about $30,000, according to the transit agency. That is less than the agency spends each year repainting bus shelters downtown. A few dozen riders may not sound like much from a newsroom. From the shoulder of Route 12 at 5 a.m., it sounds like a lot of people. Sincerely, Tanya Brooks”

Use this passage for questions 4 to 7

“When Dr. Amina Sowe started at the Eastgate clinic, she noticed that her patients with diabetes often had excellent plans and poor results. They left with instructions to check their blood sugar, eat differently, and take new medicines. A month later, many had done none of it. The problem was rarely that they did not care. So the clinic hired three community health workers. These are not nurses or doctors. They are trained neighbors, often people who grew up on the same blocks as the patients, who visit homes, ride along to the pharmacy, and help families figure out how to cook on a tight budget. One worker learned that a patient skipped her insulin because her refrigerator was broken and she was afraid the medicine would spoil. A $40 cooler bag solved what months of appointments had not. Within a year, the share of the clinic’s diabetes patients whose blood sugar was under control rose from about four in ten to more than half. Emergency visits dropped as well. Funding is the weak point. Most insurance plans do not pay for community health workers, so Eastgate relies on a grant that ends next year. Dr. Sowe is now collecting cost data to show insurers that the workers save more than they cost. ‘Medicine assumes people go home to a kitchen, a ride, and a working fridge,’ she said. ‘Our health workers check whether that’s true.’”

Use this passage for questions 8 to 11

“Every renter in Fairmont deserves a home that is safe. Right now, the city has no way to know whether that is happening. Fairmont inspects rental units only when a tenant complains, and many tenants never do. They worry, with good reason, that a landlord will raise the rent or decline to renew a lease. A rental registry would change that. Under the plan before the council, landlords would pay $50 a year per building to register, and each unit would be inspected once every three years. Our neighbors in Carlton adopted a registry in 2019, and their housing office reports that the number of units with serious violations, such as missing smoke alarms or broken heat, fell by more than a third in four years. Some landlords say the fee will be passed on to tenants. Perhaps some of it will. But $50 spread across a building’s units comes to a few dollars per unit each year, far less than the cost of a single winter without heat. Critics also say most landlords already keep their buildings safe. I agree. Those landlords have nothing to fear from an inspection that takes less than an hour. The registry is not aimed at them. It is aimed at the buildings no one is looking at.”

Use this passage for questions 12 to 15

“The bakery’s ovens came on at four, and so did Bernice. She had opened Larkin’s for nineteen years, and in that time she had trained more new hires than she could count. Most lasted a season. Kayla had lasted three weeks so far, which put her somewhere in the middle. ‘You’re pressing it like it owes you money,’ Bernice said. ‘Fold it. Turn it. Let it rest.’ Kayla folded. Her loaves still came out flat on one end, like they were leaning away from something. She did not complain, but she checked the clock above the sink every few minutes, as if the morning might end faster if she watched it. At five-thirty, Mr. Larkin came in through the back and set a binder on the steel table. ‘Recipes,’ he said. ‘All of them, written down. In case.’ He did not finish the sentence, and nobody asked him to. Bernice wiped her hands and opened the binder. Her sourdough was there, measured to the gram, in handwriting that was not hers. She read it twice. It was correct, mostly. It did not say anything about the way the dough felt when it was ready, how it pushed back against your thumb like something alive. She closed the binder and slid it to the end of the table. Then she pulled Kayla’s bowl toward her. ‘Again,’ she said. ‘And this time, don’t watch the clock. Watch the dough.’”

Use this passage for questions 16 to 19

“Your pay stub is more than a receipt. It is a record of how your earnings were figured, and mistakes are more common than many workers think. Reading it each payday takes about two minutes. Start at the top with the pay period dates and your hours. If you worked overtime, it should appear on its own line at a higher rate. Missing hours are the most frequent error, especially after a holiday or a shift swap. Next, look at gross pay, which is the total you earned before anything was taken out. Below it are deductions. Some are required by law, such as federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. Others are voluntary, such as health insurance or a retirement plan, and you agreed to them when you signed up. If a voluntary deduction appears that you never chose, ask your payroll office about it right away. Net pay, at the bottom, is what actually reaches your bank account. It is always smaller than gross pay, sometimes by a quarter or more. Finally, check the year-to-date column. It adds up everything since January and is a useful way to catch a deduction that has quietly changed. Keep your stubs until you file your taxes and can compare them with your W-2 form.”

Use this passage for questions 20 to 22

“Until the 1890s, a farm family in the United States who wanted mail usually had to travel to the nearest post office to get it. For families living miles from town, that could mean a long wagon trip, often made only once a week or less. City residents, meanwhile, had enjoyed free delivery to their doors since the 1860s. Farm groups argued that this was unfair. In 1896, the Post Office Department began testing Rural Free Delivery on a handful of routes in West Virginia. The service proved popular, and it became permanent in 1902. The effects reached well beyond letters. Farm families could now receive daily newspapers, so they followed crop prices and news as closely as people in town. Mail-order catalogs, such as those from Sears, Roebuck and Company, could reach almost any home. Because carriers needed passable roads, many counties began improving their dirt roads, sometimes because a route would not be approved without them. Not everyone welcomed the change. Some small-town shopkeepers feared that catalogs would take their customers, and some rural post offices closed as routes replaced them. But for millions of rural Americans, a mailbox at the end of the lane meant the outside world arrived every day.”

Use this passage for questions 23 to 25

“Every Thursday, Mr. Pruitt from 4B left his trash bag outside his door instead of carrying it to the chute, and every Thursday, Lena carried it for him on her way to work. She had never mentioned it, and neither had he. This Thursday, there was no bag. Lena stood in the hallway with her keys in her hand. The building was quiet except for a television somewhere below, turned up too loud. She knocked. Nothing. She knocked again, harder, and heard a slow shuffle and then the chain sliding back. Mr. Pruitt looked smaller than she remembered, in a robe that hung off his shoulders. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, before she had asked anything. ‘Bit of a cold.’ ‘I’m going by the pharmacy,’ Lena said, which was not true. ‘Do you need anything?’ He studied her for a moment, the way a person studies a price tag. Then he opened the door a little wider. ‘Soup,’ he said. ‘If it’s no trouble.’ She was twenty minutes late to work. She did not mention that to anyone either.”

Use this passage for questions 26 to 29

“At Westbrook Community Health Center, some prescriptions are filled with carrots. Patients with diabetes or high blood pressure who also report trouble affording groceries can be referred to the center’s food pharmacy, a converted supply room stocked with fresh produce, beans, whole grains, and low-sodium canned goods. Each patient may visit twice a month and leave with about two bags of food, along with a recipe card written by the center’s dietitian. The program grew out of frustration. Dr. Rafael Ortiz kept telling patients to eat more vegetables, and patients kept telling him, politely, that vegetables cost money. “I was giving advice that I knew some of them could not follow,” he said. In its first year, the food pharmacy served 230 patients. Among those who visited at least six times, the average blood sugar reading dropped, and fewer missed their follow-up appointments. Ortiz is careful about what those numbers mean. The patients who came often may have been the most motivated to begin with, and the center did not compare them with a matched group who received no food. Even so, the center plans to expand. A regional grocery chain has agreed to donate produce each week, and a local farm will supply squash and greens in the summer. Ortiz hopes the next step is a study that can show whether the food itself made the difference.”