What is the main point of the passage?

A plain word like sameness can stand for two different tests. (The third paragraph states the point directly: the word for sameness hides two tests, same material and same continuing pattern.)

According to the passage, what was the second ship built from?

The old planks that had been removed and thrown away. (The text says someone collected every discarded plank and built a second ship out of them.)

The passage suggests a person is like the repaired ship because

the body's material is replaced while memories and habits continue. (The passage compares the two tests of sameness to a person: material changes, but the pattern of memory and habit keeps going.)

In this passage, discarded means

thrown away as no longer wanted. (The discarded planks are the rotted ones the workers had already pulled out and replaced, so they were thrown away.)

The Ship That Was Rebuilt: Level 3 Reading Comprehension Questions

An old story from Greece describes a wooden ship kept in a harbor as a monument. Every year, workers pulled out the planks that had rotted and put new ones in their place. After many years, not one original piece was left. The ship still had the same shape, the same name, and the same spot at the dock. But was it still the same ship?

Later thinkers made the puzzle harder. Suppose someone collected every discarded plank and built a second ship out of them. Now two ships float in the harbor. One has continuity of place and use. The other has the original material. Each has a fair claim to the name.

The point is not to find the winning answer. The point is that a plain word like sameness hides two different tests. Sometimes we mean the same stuff. Sometimes we mean the same pattern, kept going through steady repair. A person is like the ship. The body's material is replaced over the years, yet memories and habits continue. Philosophy calls this a problem of identity, and the story shows how an ordinary word can carry a hidden question.

Comprehension questions