Which statement best captures the main idea?

A host who believed he broadcast to nobody discovers that quiet listeners were there all along. (The show 'almost nobody hears', then six listeners reveal themselves, and Aurelio concludes a quiet room is not an empty one. That arc is the main idea.)

When did Beatrix call the show?

At exactly three, for eleven months. (The second paragraph says that for eleven months she rang in at exactly three.)

What did the six phone calls make Aurelio realise?

That silent listeners had been there all along, each one thinking they were alone. (The callers said they had noticed the missing calls and had each assumed they were the only listener. That is why he stops thinking of the show as talking into the dark.)

In this passage, a segment is:

one part of the radio programme (He holds 'the last segment' for Beatrix and later 'fills it with music', so it must be a section of the show.)

Between Two And Four: Level 3 Reading Comprehension Questions

Every night between two and four, Aurelio hosts a radio show that almost nobody hears. The station gave him the shift because nothing happens in it. Truck drivers, hospital staff, bakers. That is his audience, and it suits him. People awake at that hour rarely want to be entertained. They want proof that someone else is up.

For eleven months, a caller named Beatrix rang in at exactly three. She never had a topic. She described the weather on her street, the sound of the freight trains, the cat that sat on the wall opposite. Aurelio began holding the last segment open for her, though he never said so on air.

Then, in March, the calls stopped. He waited three weeks before mentioning it. When he finally did, six listeners phoned to say that they had noticed too, and that each of them had assumed they were the only person listening.

Aurelio still leaves the segment open. He fills it with music if he must. But he has stopped thinking of the show as talking into the dark. A quiet room, he has decided, is not the same as an empty one.

Comprehension questions