Nonfiction Reading Practice

Which event happened last?

• Lycos released their search engine

• Yahoo! released their search engine

• Google released their search engine

• Xerox released their copy machine

Which statement would the author of this text most likely disagree with?

• Part of Google's success is due to the design of their homepage

• Google succeeded by following examples of others in their field

• Google wasn't the first search engine, but is was the best

• Google's success may not have been possible without Larry Page

Which best expresses the main idea of the third paragraph?

• There are lots and lots of websites connected to the internet

• Google created a better way to organize search results

• Many smart people have worked on search engines over the years

• Older search engines used unreliable methods to order results

What is the author's main purpose in writing this article?

• To explain how Google overtook its rivals

• To compare and contrast Google and Xerox

• To persuade readers to use Google for internet searches

• To discuss how companies can influence language over time

Which statement would the author most likely agree with?

• Google became successful because its founders were well-connected

• Google was the world's first and best search engine

• Google changed the world by solving an old problem in a new way

• Google's other products are now more important to its success than search engines

Which best expresses the main idea of the fourth paragraph?

• Links allow people to surf from one website to the next

• Larry Page's ideas about links helped Google get to the top

• Larry Page contributed to the internet by inventing the link

• Google is a website that serves important links to users

Which best explains why the author discusses Xerox in this text?

• He is discussing big companies that came before Google

• He is explaining how companies must change with the times

• He is showing how companies can affect our language

• He is comparing and contrasting Google and Xerox

How did Google improve search quality in 1998?

• They counted how many times queries appeared on each page

• They looked more closely at the words in the search queries

• They linked to more pages

• They studied the relationships of links

Which was cited as a reason why Google became so popular?

• Google's homepage was clean

• Google provided catchy news stories on their homepage

• Google's homepage loaded quickly

• Google provided useful stock quotes on their home page

Which title best expresses the author's main purpose in writing this text?

• Xerox vs. Google: Battle of the Titans

• Search Engines: How They Work and Why They're Important

• A Better Way: How Google Rose to the Top

• Search Engines: A Short History of Important Tools