Reading comprehension

Below is a set of sample reading comprehension questions similar to those found in the verbal section of the GMAT. Due to the relatively small number of questions that we have published here, we strongly recommend that you use these only to augment your GMAT preparations.

The recent news that local hospitals have had to reroute seriously ill patients because the community’s critical-care beds are full is worrisome. Earlier this week, four of the six local hospitals ran out of space for the critically ill and had to turn people away.

Federal law requires hospitals to treat anyone who walks in. As a result of having to treat large numbers of uninsured patients, the emergency rooms often become an economic drain on their hospitals. Doctors now want to set up their own free-standing ambulatory surgical facilities and diagnostic centers. Critics contend this would leave hospitals with less revenue and the same number of indigents to treat.

A bill was recently introduced to phase out the need for a “certificate of public need” for non-hospital-based facilities, provided those facilities met stringent regulations and requirements. This would have made it easier to set up alternative facilities to help indigent patients. The finance committee balked at the hefty price and killed the bill, another casualty of a failed legislative session.

Unfortunately, the problem of access to medical care for those of limited means is not going to go away anytime soon and, despite the well-intended regulations, too-full hospitals compromise everyone’s welfare. Healthy competition with small neighborhood surgical and diagnostic centers may be what is necessary to help dampen rising medical costs. But under no circumstances should the hospitals be forced to care for everybody without health insurance while competitors operate free of the burden of caring for those unable to pay.

1) Which of the following is a conclusion supported by the passage?

1. If doctors want to run their own facilities, they should be required to take in at least some of the indigents.
2. The government should provide health insurance for those unable to buy their own.
3. Voters should tell the finance committee members that they will not be reelected if they do not pass some new legislation.
4. Emergency rooms that turn patients away due to overcrowding are derelict in their duty .
5. The fundamental problem facing hospitals now is that health care costs have risen dramatically in recent years.

2) Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?

1. neutral
2. positive
3. persuasive
4. angry
5. reverential

3) Which of the following is cited as a factor which has contributed to the overburdening of hospitals?

1. Failure to pass legislation which would have mitigated the problem
2. Limited access to medical care for the poor
3. Federal law

1. I only
2. II only
3. III only
4. I and II
5. I, II, and III

4) The author cites the failed legislation in order to show that

1. the legislature will never resolve this issue.
2. the finance committee does not care about the uninsured citizens.
3. there will always be uninsured hospital patients.
4. the legislature recently attempted to resolve this issue.
5. the doctors successfully lobbied the finance committee.