Practice Test: Reading Comprehension - 12 | 100 RCs for GMAT PDF Download

Directions: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions as follows:

In the 1950s, reading was taught to young children primarily through the use of simple primers depicting the middle-class non-adventures of “Dick and Jane.” Rudolph Fletch’s bestselling 1955 book Why Johnny Can’t Read attacked these primers, calling them “horrible, stupid, insipid, … tasteless little readers” and asserting that such boring stories gave no incentive for children to read on their own and learn to “sound out” each word phonetically. Fletch also bemoaned the fact that there was not a single book in bookstores that first and second graders could read by themselves.
In response, a publisher commissioned Theodore Geisel, who wrote children’s books under the pen name “Dr. Seuss,” to write a book that “a first grader can’t put down.” Geisel was given a list of a few hundred words considered important and asked to make a book out of them. Nine months later, Geisel, using only 220 different words, delivered The Cat in the Hat, a whimsical story about two bored children left at home with their talking fish who are suddenly visited by a havoc-creating six-foot-tall talking cat. In addition, Geisel wrote the entire book in a rhyming verse, making it fun to read aloud. The Cat in the Hat was a tremendous success and vaulted Geisel into instant celebrity. Another publisher bet Geisel that he could not write an entire book using only 50 different words. Geisel won the bet by publishing the classic Green Eggs and Ham.
The Dr. Seuss books revolutionized the children’s book industry by proving that it was possible to create engaging books with a limited vocabulary. Geisel has been credited with killing off “Dick and Jane,” replacing them with clever rhymes, plot twists and rebellious heroes who do the unexpected. Now one in four American children receives a Dr. Seuss title as his or her first book.