Online Reading Comprehension Test - Text - Page 1 of 4
Storm in Townsville

Townsville is a tropical city in North Queensland. The summer is hot and humid but the winter is mild and enjoyable. This part of the country often has big storms and sometimes also cyclones. (Paragraph 1)

A couple of months ago, Townsville was hit by a number of severe storms. They usually begin in the same way each time. In the afternoon, after a hot day, the sky is clouded over with huge black clouds. Then the storm develops and comes over the town. Heavy rain pours down, the wind blows strongly and lightning and thunder come with the advancing storm. (Paragraph 2)

When the worst of these storms hit the town, Judy was looking out of her kitchen window. The wind was blowing so strongly down her street and around her garden she couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. The lightning was frightening but also exciting for her. She noticed two different kinds of lightning. Sheet lightning, which spread out across the sky and lit up the clouds but didn’t hit the ground and also forked lightning which hit the ground is several places at once and was shaped like a kitchen fork. (Paragraph 3)

The storm passed in about twenty minutes and Judy could see all the leaves and branches that had been torn off the trees now covered her lawn and the street outside. Judy was very lucky, as her house and garden had no serious damage done by the storm. However, some power lines had been blown down and her whole suburb was blacked out for several hours. (Paragraph 4)

The next day, on her way to the shops, Judy saw that a large old tree at the end of her street had been blown down. As it fell, it had pulled down the power lines, blocked the footpath and completely destroyed the front fence of the house on the corner. Luckily, it had just missed the house. The tree remained across the path for several days and people had to go onto the road to get around it. The council workers, who had been very busy, finally managed to cut up the tree and remove all the fallen rubbish - but the fence was still damaged and when they walked by, it reminded residents of the terrible storm that had hit their suburb. (Paragraph 5)

Online Reading Comprehension Test - Questions - Page 2 of 4

1. Townsville is hot in summer.

2. There was more than one
storm in Townsville.

3. This was the worst storm
Judy had ever seen

4. People in Townsville can
see when a storm is coming.

5. Cindy’s suburb doesn’t have
many trees.

6. Electricity supplies were
maintained during the storm

7. The house at the end of the
street was badly damaged.

8. The first storm was one
of the worst.

9. The fence was fixed several
days after the storm.

10.The council workers were
worried about people walking on
the road .

Online Reading Comprehension Test - Questions - Page 4 of 4

Place these sentences at the end of the appropriate paragraph:
Eg However, this was a storm they would not easily forget - Paragraph 5

16. The locals in these areas usually do is lock up their
homes, wait and hope for the best.

17. This pattern of events is what just what happened quite
recently after a protracted heat wave.

18. The state emergency service worked late into the night
to restore services to the affected suburbs.

19. This is all very intense and ferocious, but such storms
are usually short-lived.

20. It also prompted stories from old –time residents of when
one of Australia’s worst cyclones, half a century earlier,
had nearly destroyed the whole town.

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