Comprehension: Literal questions for Primary 5 English
10 questions to work through online, 3 of them written out the way the paper asks. Answer and you get the working straight away, then a score at the end. No sign-up, and you can retake it as often as you like.
Finding a detail
Applying information from the passage
Finding a reason
Reading a comparison
Answering in your own words
0 of 10 answered
Question 1 of 10Finding a detail
1 There is an order to a kopitiam order, and it is shorter than it sounds. Kopi is coffee with condensed milk. Kopi-O is coffee with sugar and no milk. Kopi-C swaps the condensed milk for evaporated milk, and the C has nothing to do with the word coffee — it comes from the Hainanese word for fresh.
2 After that come the modifiers. Add siew dai and you get less sugar; add gao and the drink is made stronger; add peng and it is served over ice. They stack, so kopi-C siew dai peng is a real order and a common one.
3 What holds the system together is that nobody writes anything down. An uncle at a stall in Chinatown told a researcher in 2019 that he could hold eleven orders in his head, and that the limit was not memory but the counter: once the cups outnumbered the space, he had to start again.
4 Younger stallholders are the ones keeping it. A 2021 survey of 400 stalls found the vocabulary almost unchanged in fifty years, with one addition — kosong, meaning nothing added, which older stallholders said they had not heard until the 1990s.
Question 2 of 10Applying information from the passage
Same text as the question above.
Question 3 of 10Finding a reason
Same text as the question above.
Question 4 of 10Finding a detail
Same text as the question above.
Question 5 of 10Finding a detail
1 The Cavenagh Bridge is the oldest bridge across the Singapore River that still stands where it was built. It arrived in pieces from Glasgow in 1869 and was put together on site by convict labour.
2 It was built for horses and carts, and within thirty years it was already too weak for them. Rather than pull it down, the government built the Anderson Bridge alongside it in 1910 and turned the Cavenagh into a footbridge.
3 A sign bolted to one end still forbids cattle and horses from crossing. It is the original sign, not a copy, and it is the reason most people photograph the bridge at all.
4 The bridge was never widened, never rebuilt and never moved. That is unusual: of the eight bridges across the river, six have been replaced at least once, and one twice.
Question 6 of 10Finding a reason
Same text as the question above.
Question 7 of 10Reading a comparison
Same text as the question above.
Question 8 of 10Answering in your own words
1 There is an order to a kopitiam order, and it is shorter than it sounds. Kopi is coffee with condensed milk. Kopi-O is coffee with sugar and no milk. Kopi-C swaps the condensed milk for evaporated milk, and the C has nothing to do with the word coffee — it comes from the Hainanese word for fresh.
2 After that come the modifiers. Add siew dai and you get less sugar; add gao and the drink is made stronger; add peng and it is served over ice. They stack, so kopi-C siew dai peng is a real order and a common one.
3 What holds the system together is that nobody writes anything down. An uncle at a stall in Chinatown told a researcher in 2019 that he could hold eleven orders in his head, and that the limit was not memory but the counter: once the cups outnumbered the space, he had to start again.
4 Younger stallholders are the ones keeping it. A 2021 survey of 400 stalls found the vocabulary almost unchanged in fifty years, with one addition — kosong, meaning nothing added, which older stallholders said they had not heard until the 1990s.
Question 9 of 10Answering in your own words
1 The Cavenagh Bridge is the oldest bridge across the Singapore River that still stands where it was built. It arrived in pieces from Glasgow in 1869 and was put together on site by convict labour.
2 It was built for horses and carts, and within thirty years it was already too weak for them. Rather than pull it down, the government built the Anderson Bridge alongside it in 1910 and turned the Cavenagh into a footbridge.
3 A sign bolted to one end still forbids cattle and horses from crossing. It is the original sign, not a copy, and it is the reason most people photograph the bridge at all.
4 The bridge was never widened, never rebuilt and never moved. That is unusual: of the eight bridges across the river, six have been replaced at least once, and one twice.
Question 10 of 10Answering in your own words
Same text as the question above.
Answers and explanations for all 10 questions
Every answer with the reasoning behind it. Worth reading after you have tried the set — or on its own, if you are a parent marking it.
According to paragraph 1, what does the C in kopi-C stand for?
Answer: a Hainanese word meaning fresh
Paragraph 1 says the C comes from the Hainanese word for fresh, and rules out the connection to coffee.
What would you be served if you ordered kopi-O gao peng?
Answer: strong black coffee with sugar, over ice
Kopi-O is coffee with sugar and no milk, gao makes it stronger and peng puts it over ice. The modifiers stack.
What limited how many orders the uncle in Chinatown could take?
Answer: the space on his counter, not his memory
Paragraph 3 says the limit was not memory but the counter: once the cups outnumbered the space, he had to start again.
What did the 2021 survey find had been added to the vocabulary?
Answer: kosong
Paragraph 4 names the single addition as kosong, which older stallholders had not heard until the 1990s.
Where was the Cavenagh Bridge made?
Answer: Glasgow
Paragraph 1: it arrived in pieces from Glasgow and was assembled on site.
Why was the Anderson Bridge built?
Answer: The Cavenagh had become too weak for horses and carts.
Within thirty years the Cavenagh was too weak for the traffic it was built for, so a new bridge went up beside it.
How many of the eight bridges across the river have never been replaced?
Answer: 2
Eight bridges with six replaced leaves 2 that have not been.
Write one word for the blank.
A drink ordered siew dai is made with less ______ than usual.
Answer: sugar
Paragraph 2 gives it directly: add siew dai and you get less sugar.
Write one word for the blank.
The Cavenagh Bridge is now used only by people on ______ .
Answer: foot
Paragraph 2 says it was turned into a footbridge, which is a bridge for people on foot.
Write one word for the blank.
The sign bolted to the bridge is the ______ one, not a copy.
Answer: original
Paragraph 3 says it is the original sign, not a copy.