READTHEORY Passage and Questions

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• Reading Comprehension Assessment
Directions: Read the passage. Then answer the questions below.

The Game Show Audition

Entering the TV studio, Rory looked around for the first time at
people as smart as she was. And for the first time in her life, she
questioned whether she was intelligent enough.
Rory always had a knack for trivia. Whenever she watched TV
trivia shows, she always played along, talking to the contestants on the
TV. “How could you not know that Polk was the president during the
Mexican-American War?” or “Everyone knows Genesis is the first book
of Torah.” Thus, when she saw the ad for Triviatastic Explosion, she was
intrigued.
The ad had been forwarded to her email by one of her friends. It
read: “Do you know seemingly everything about useless information? Do
you, for example, know the names of every vice president? Or the
winners of every Academy Award for Best Picture? Or the names of all the moons of Jupiter? If you do,
write back to us about why you deserve to be on Triviatastic Explosion, TV’s newest game show, with
cash prizes in the hundreds of thousands!”
Rory responded instantly, and the show’s producers called her in for an audition a week later.
Now, here she was, waiting in line to do mock games with other potential trivia experts. She stood around
nervously.
The producers told her to use her “big TV voice” and to smile for the camera. They paired her off
with another contestant, a middle-aged science teacher named Chuy. Then the producers asked them
questions in rapid-fire succession. She and Chuy used electronic buzzers to chime in when they knew the
answers.
Rory missed the first three questions, each of which was about science (she would later remark
about how unfair it was, given her background). However, after that, she got into a rhythm. She answered
fourteen straight questions correctly (they were about films, authors, history, and current events—all
subjects she knew well). She and Chuy split the remaining questions, and in the end, she had won the
mock game.
“Great job, both of you,” one of the producers told them. “Rory, you were the first contestant to
know what the FAA acronym stood for, and Chuy, you seem to know your science.” Everyone exchanged
pleasant goodbyes on their way out of the studio, and Rory drove home anxiously.
A week later, she received a call. She was invited to be an actual contestant on the show. Finally,
she would have the chance to show off how smart she was to the world. She only hoped she didn’t get as
nervous on the actual show as she did at the audition!

1) Which of the following best describes trivia, as it is used in the passage?

A. useless information
B. complicated questions
C. uncertain opinions
D. self-doubt

2) According to the passage, Rory was nervous at the audition because

A. she had never auditioned for a game show before

B. she was surrounded by other trivia experts
C. she missed most of the questions asked
D. she was paired with a science teacher
 READTHEORY Questions

3) As used in paragraph 2, the word knack most nearly means

A. blind faith
B. deep interest
C. complete inability
D. natural skill

4) It can be supposed from the passage that Rory believed the first three questions she was asked were
unfair because

A. they were not questions usually asked on the show

B. she did not know how to correctly answer them
C. her opponent would clearly know the answers to them
D. the questions were not phrased using clear language

5) In paragraph 3, we learn that the game show recruitment ad called for people who know “useless”
facts. On the other hand, in paragraph 1, we learn that Rory considers herself “intelligent” for knowing
these facts. In your opinion, is trivia knowledge a display of intelligence, or is it a waste of time? Are
people with lots of trivia knowledge necessarily smart? Why or why not?

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 READTHEORY Answers and Explanations

1) A
Question Type: Vocabulary
trivia (noun): pieces of information of little importance or value.
The passage uses trivia many times, but the best definition for it comes in the third paragraph, where the narrator describes the ad
for Triviatastic Explosion. It asks if the reader knows “seemingly everything about useless information.” As the game being
advertised is clearly a trivia game, it follows that trivia is useless information. This means that choice (A) is correct. Though the
passage does associate trivia with questions that Rory and Chuy are asked, the passage does not imply that trivia itself has to be
questions. In fact, the game show producers ask them trivia questions, and it would not make sense to say they ask Rory and Chuy
“complicated questions.” Therefore, choice (B) is not correct. The passage never discusses opinions or suggests that trivia is related
to uncertain opinions. Therefore, choice (C) is not correct. Though the passage suggests Rory has self-doubt about the trivia game
audition, it does not suggest that trivia is the same as self-doubt. Because of this, choice (D) is not correct.

2) B
Question Type: Detail
To answer this detail question, we need to find where in the passage the narrator describes Rory being nervous. This happens in
the first paragraph where the passage states that Rory “questioned whether she was intelligent enough” after stating that she
realized she was competing against “people as smart as she was.” The final sentence of the passage makes it clear that she was
“nervous… at the audition,” so, together, these pieces of information make it clear that choice (B) is correct. The passage does not
provide any information about whether or not Rory had auditioned for a game show before. As such, choice (A) is not correct
because there is no evidence to support it. Although Rory missed the first three questions of the mock competition. She then "got
into a rhythm" and "answered fourteen straight questions correctly." Rory actually ended up answering most of the questions
correctly, beating her opponent. Therefore, choice (C) is not correct. Though Rory did struggle against the science teacher she
auditioned against, that is not why she was nervous. The passage suggests she is nervous upon arriving at the audition, not during
the game show portion of it. Therefore, choice (D) is not correct.

3) D
Question Type: Vocabulary
knack (noun): a natural skill for performing a task.
In the second paragraph, the narrator states that “Rory always had a knack for trivia.” It then goes on to say that she screamed “at
the contestants on the TV” trivia shows and lists examples of the sorts of questions she could answer. This implies that Rory was
skilled when it came to answering trivia questions, suggesting that a knack is a natural skill at something. It also means choice (D) is
correct. The passage states that Rory “had a knack for trivia.” Trivia is not something someone could logically have blind faith in, as
it is not something someone would believe in or not believe in. This means choice (A) is not correct. The passage states that Rory
“had a knack for trivia.” This could mean she is interested in it, except that the passage goes on to suggest Rory already knows a lot
of trivia. Having an interest in something would imply that she needed to learn more about it, not that she is already good at it.
Therefore, choice (B) is not correct. The passage states that Rory “had a knack for trivia” before explaining how good at answering
trivia questions she is. This means she did not have a complete inability at something but, instead, a complete ability at it. Therefore,
choice (C) is not correct.

4) C
Question Type: Inference
In paragraph 5, we learn that Rory's opponent was "a middle-aged science teacher named Chuy." In the sixth paragraph, the
narrator writes in parenthesis that Rory “would later remark how unfair it was” to be asked three science questions, “given her
background.” Her background was science (she was a science teacher), so it follows that she thought the first three questions were
unfair because her opponent would likely know the answers to them, as they were science questions. Therefore, choice (C) is
correct. The passage never describes the types of questions usually asked on the show, so there is no evidence to suggest that the
first three questions Rory and Chuy were asked were either typical or unusual for the show. Because of this, choice (A) is not
correct. The passage actually does not say whether or not Rory knew the answers to the first three questions. It only states that her
opponent got them right and, presumably, rang in before she did. Therefore, there is no evidence to support choice (B), making it
not correct. The passage does not describe the phrasing of Rory’s first three questions, nor does it describe the phrasing of any
other questions. This means choice (D) is not correct, as there is no evidence to support it.