Updated 2026-08-23easy

TOEFL Reading Practice #008 — The Fire the Water Could Not Stop

Free TOEFL Reading practice: The Fire the Water Could Not Stop. 11 questions with a full passage and answer key.

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How to use this practice: Read the passage once without a dictionary, then answer the questions on your own. Tap “Answer” under each question to reveal just the correct letter — no explanations, so you can keep testing yourself.
1

Passage

Read the full passage. Bracketed letters like [A] mark the four positions for the insert-text question.

The Fire the Water Could Not Stop

¶1 By 1906, San Francisco was one of the busiest cities on the west coast. Nearly four hundred thousand people lived there, and its port linked the country to overseas trade. Streets were lined with wooden buildings built close together. One morning that year, a powerful earthquake shook the city. Most people assumed the shaking itself caused the disaster that followed. In fact, something else did far more damage.

¶2 Earthquakes do not just shake buildings. They also crack the pipes buried under city streets. Some of those pipes are water mains, large pipes that carry water to fire hydrants. Others carry gas used for heating and cooking. When the ground moves violently, both kinds of pipes can break at once. A broken gas line can easily spark a fire. Firefighters then rush to the nearest hydrant, only to find that the water main feeding it has cracked too. Without water, even a small fire can spread fast from block to block.

¶3 This chain of events is not limited to San Francisco. [A] Any city that has earthquakes can face the same risk. [B] Firefighters can stand right beside a river and still have nothing to pump. The very pipes that would carry that water into their hoses are already broken. [C] Some crews have even used dynamite to blow up buildings ahead of a fire. The goal was to create a gap the flames could not cross. [D] This method does not always work, and it has sometimes started new fires instead of stopping them.

¶4 Records later confirmed exactly how this played out. The earthquake broke dozens of water mains within the first few minutes. Firefighters found dry hydrants across large parts of the city. The fire that followed burned for three days, destroying far more of the city than the shaking had. In the end, more than twenty-eight thousand buildings were destroyed, leaving about two hundred twenty-five thousand people homeless. Officials later concluded that the earthquake had caused a small share of the damage, while the fire, spreading without control because the water system had failed, caused most of it. The city later rebuilt its water system with pipes built to bend rather than break.

  • water main: a large pipe under a street that carries water to fire hydrants
  • hydrant: a pipe on a street where firefighters connect a hose to get water
  • dynamite: a powerful explosive
2

Questions

11 questions — every TOEFL Reading question type, in test order.

Q1 · Vocabulary
The word assumed in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to
  1. A. denied
  2. B. believed
  3. C. proved
  4. D. reported
Answer
Correct: B
Q2 · Reference
The word it in paragraph 2 ("only to find that the water main feeding it has cracked too") refers to
  1. A. the fire
  2. B. the water main
  3. C. the gas line
  4. D. the nearest hydrant
Answer
Correct: D
Q3 · Essential Term
Based on the information in the passage, the term water main can best be explained as
  1. A. a large pipe that carries water to fire hydrants
  2. B. a small handheld hose firefighters use to spray water
  3. C. the pump that pushes water out of a fire hydrant
  4. D. a pipe that carries gas for heating and cooking
Answer
Correct: A
Q4 · Factual Information
According to paragraph 2, what can happen to underground pipes when the ground moves violently during an earthquake?
  1. A. Only the gas pipes are strong enough to survive the shaking
  2. B. Firefighters immediately repair the broken pipes before a fire starts
  3. C. Both water pipes and gas pipes can break at the same time
  4. D. The water inside hydrants becomes too hot to use
Answer
Correct: C
Q5 · Negative Fact
According to paragraph 1, all of the following are true of San Francisco in 1906 EXCEPT
  1. A. Nearly four hundred thousand people lived there
  2. B. Its port linked the city to overseas trade
  3. C. Most buildings were built from wood
  4. D. The earthquake struck in the middle of the night
Answer
Correct: D
Q6 · Sentence Simplification
Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in paragraph 4? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

Highlighted: "Officials later concluded that the earthquake had caused a small share of the damage, while the fire, spreading without control because the water system had failed, caused most of it."
  1. A. Officials found that most of the destruction came from the fire, which spread out of control after the water system failed, rather than from the earthquake itself.
  2. B. Officials found that the earthquake caused most of the destruction, while the fire caused only a small part.
  3. C. Officials were unable to determine whether the earthquake or the fire caused more damage.
  4. D. Officials concluded that the fire alone caused all of the destruction in the city.
Answer
Correct: A
Q7 · Inference
Based on the information in paragraph 3, what can be inferred about firefighting methods when hydrants have no water?
  1. A. Firefighters always let fires burn out on their own without trying to stop them
  2. B. Firefighters sometimes had to use risky methods, such as dynamite, because normal firefighting tools were not available
  3. C. Dynamite was the standard method used to put out most city fires before 1906
  4. D. Rivers and oceans provide enough water for firefighting even when pipes are broken
Answer
Correct: B
Q8 · Rhetorical Purpose
The author mentions the attempt to use dynamite to blow up buildings in order to
  1. A. explain how dynamite is manufactured
  2. B. argue that firefighters should always use dynamite during fires
  3. C. show how difficult it was to stop a fire once the water supply had failed
  4. D. compare San Francisco's fire department to those of other cities
Answer
Correct: C
Q9 · Paragraph Relation
How does paragraph 4 relate to the discussion in paragraph 2?
  1. A. It gives a real case that confirms the mechanism explained in paragraph 2
  2. B. It argues that the explanation given in paragraph 2 was incorrect
  3. C. It repeats the description of how gas pipes are used for heating
  4. D. It introduces a completely different cause of city fires
Answer
Correct: A
Q10 · Insert Text
Look at the four squares [■] in paragraph 3 that indicate where the following sentence could be added.

This shortage can turn a small fire into an uncontrollable one within hours.

Where would the sentence best fit?
  1. A. Square A
  2. B. Square B
  3. C. Square C
  4. D. Square D
Answer
Correct: C
Q11 · Prose Summary Select THREE · 2 pts
Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

The 1906 disaster in San Francisco showed that when a water system fails, the fire that follows an earthquake can do more damage than the shaking itself.

  1. A. A powerful earthquake struck San Francisco in 1906, but most of the damage that followed came from something other than the shaking itself.
  2. B. Earthquakes can crack water mains and gas pipes at the same time, leaving firefighters with no water just as a fire starts.
  3. C. Some fire crews used dynamite to try to create a gap that flames could not cross.
  4. D. The fire that followed the earthquake burned for three days and destroyed far more of the city than the shaking had.
  5. E. The city later moved its downtown away from the coastline to avoid future flooding.
  6. F. More than twenty-eight thousand buildings were destroyed in the fire.
Answer
Correct: A, B, D