READTHEORY

TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ AND THINK CRITICALLY

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"Biographies"
Reading Comprehension Assessment

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© Copyright Read Theory LLC, 2012. All rights reserved.

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 READTHEORY Passage and Questions

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

Biographies
Most biographies are unnecessary. After all, most are
collections of rehashed tales, anecdotes, and occasional analysis
about a few hundred people. And those few hundred people already
have a few hundred biographies written about them. Go to any
bookstore, and you’ll see what I mean. The biographies section is a
couple shelves littered with a dozen books about Napoleon, Winston
Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, William Shakespeare, and other
supposed “Great Men.” Sure, occasionally one biography relies on new
evidence, but, by and large, these books are interchangeable.
However, not all biographies are. A biography is an attempt at
explaining a life, and typically the kinds of lives people like to explain
are those lives that were larger than life. What have been overlooked by biographers are those lives not
deemed important by or even paramount to society. Thus, we see dozens of books on T.S. Eliot but few
on Vivienne Eliot, his wife. Or we see hundreds of biographies of Abraham Lincoln but few about Tad
Lincoln, his son. And, of course there are thousands of books on the Roman Caesars but few about the
millions who gave them their power.
It is these lives that exist in the cracks and margins of importance that interest me as a
biographer. A good biographer has the power of making someone immortal. But a great biographer can
also make a person not just live forever but also be understood forever. Women especially have been so
misunderstood in the history books, as men in their own times labeled them and stripped them of their
selves. I think of those patients of Sigmund Freud’s case studies, these women stripped of even their
names and made to be clinical definitions of illness. If I can find those women’s true lives, I can make
them live now for us, not as maniacs but as women.

1) Based on information in the passage, it can be understood that most biographies have focused on

A. the wives and children of famous men

B. men who have led nations in history
C. men who lived in revolutionary times
D. men deemed important to history

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

A. pivotal
B. coupled
C. meager
D. plausible

3) The main function of paragraph 3 is to

A. argue for societal changes

B. refute an accepted viewpoint
C. explain the author’s own project
D. include the author’s main subject

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 READTHEORY Questions

4) The author apparently believes that

A. powerful men have been exhausted as a subject in history

B. history has overlooked the contributions of many people
C. biography sections at bookstores should be more inclusive
D. most women in history were considered to be insane

5) Think of most of the biographies you have read or seen in your life. Do you agree with the author’s
assertion that most of these have been about men? Why or why not? Which biographies of women
have you ever seen or read?

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6) Reread paragraph 1. Summarize the author’s argument in your own words below and then comment
on it. Do you agree or disagree with the author’s claims? Why?

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 READTHEORY Questions

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7) Based on the information in the passage, what kinds of biographies do you believe the author writes?
Can you think of any people he or she might write about? Who and why?

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8) Would you personally be interested in reading the types of biographies that this author would write?
Why or why not?

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 READTHEORY Answers and Explanations

1) D
Question Type: Global
In the first paragraph, the author discusses “most biographies.” He or she discusses them as being “unnecessary” because most
have focused on “supposed ‘Great Men,’” and most have been about the same “few hundred” important men. Thus, he or she
suggests that most biographies have focused on men deemed important to history, making choice (D) correct. In fact, the author
makes it clear that most biographies have not discussed the wives and children of famous men. In the second paragraph, he or she
states that there are few biographies about T.S. Eliot’s wife or Abraham Lincoln’s son. Therefore, choice (A) is incorrect. Though the
author does suggest that there are several biographies about men who led nations (like Napoleon, Churchill, and Roosevelt), the
author also implies that several biographies have been about other types of important men. He or she specifically lists the authors
William Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot as subjects of “most biographies.” Because of this, choice (B) is incorrect. The author never
discusses revolutionary times or revolutions at all. Instead, he or she implies only that “most biographies” have focused on the
“supposed ‘Great Men’” of history, regardless of the eras in which they lived. As such, choice (C) is incorrect.

2) A
Question Type: Vocabulary
paramount (adjective): more important than anything else.
In paragraph 2, the author states that most biographies have not been about “those lives not deemed important by or even
paramount to society.” In using the adverb even to modify paramount, the author implies that paramount is a more extreme form of
the adjective important that prefaces it. Thus, it is implied that paramount means extremely important, making it clear that it is
closest in meaning to pivotal (which also means extremely important or crucial). Therefore, choice (A) is correct. Coupled means
paired, but there is no indication in the passage that paramount means paired, even though its first syllable sounds like “pair.” Thus,
choice (B) is incorrect. Meager means lacking in quality. Though the passage implies that people deemed meager by biographers or
historians have not had biographies written about them, the passage uses paramount to describe those who have had biographies
written about them, as it suggests those who have not been deemed paramount have not had biographies written about them.
Therefore, choice (C) is incorrect, as it has the opposite meaning of the correct choice. Plausible means reasonable or probable.
The passage gives no indication that paramount and plausible are synonyms, as it does not suggest that biographies have not
focused on people not deemed to be probable by society. This would make no sense, so choice (D) is incorrect.

3) C
Question Type: Inference
In paragraph 3, the author explains what interests him or her “as a biographer.” The author explains that his or her goal is to bring
life to subjects who have been forgotten or misunderstood by history, particularly the “patients of Sigmund Freud’s case studies.”
Thus, the primary purpose of the paragraph is to explain the author’s own project in biography, so choice (C) is correct. The author
implicitly suggests that history has not been as kind to women as it could be, but he or she does not necessarily call for societal
change at any point in the passage. Paragraph 3 primarily describes the author’s work “as a biographer,” so it could be argued that
he or she wishes to change biographies but not society at large, making choice (A) incorrect. The passage opens by refuting an
implicitly accepted viewpoint (that biographies are necessary), but paragraph 3 moves away from that argument and into the works
done by “a good biographer.” As such, choice (B) is incorrect. The author’s main subject is introduced in the first paragraph. There,
he or she brings up the subject of biographies. Therefore, choice (D) is incorrect.

4) B
Question Type: Inference
The author argues in the second paragraph that, “what have been overlooked by biographers are those lives not deemed important
by or even paramount to society.” This implies that biographies and history have overlooked the contributions of many people, and
the author goes on to list some of those people: T.S. Eliot’s wife, Abraham Lincoln’s son, and the people who lived in the Roman
Empire. Therefore, choice (B) is correct. The author does suggest that there are too many biographies about the “supposed ‘Great
Men’” of history, but he or she does not outright say they have been exhausted as a subject. After all, he or she makes exceptions in
his or her arguments about biographies being “unnecessary” for biographies that rely “on new evidence.” As such, choice (A) is
incorrect because it is too extreme. The author does suggest that biography sections at bookstores are limited in their varieties, but
he or she implies that this is a problem caused by biographers’ limited scopes of subject matter, not the bookstores themselves.
Thus, while he or she might believe that biographers should be more inclusive, he or she is not critical of bookstores for not being
more inclusive. Therefore, choice (C) is incorrect. The author does mention women in history who were labeled as “insane,” but he
or she does not go so far as to imply that a majority of women in history were considered to be insane. Thus, choice (D) is incorrect.

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