4. In the context of paragraph 2, the word blockaded most nearly means

A) bombed.

B) kept others from entering.

C) surrendered.

D) surrounded.

4. The correct choice is B.

Substitute each of the choices in the sentence, and the only one that makes sense is “kept others from entering.” Note that the word “blockade” is similar to the word “stockade,” that means to form a barrier to restrict entry/exit.

Then the British blockaded German ports, and the German people suffered from the same privations the British had faced earlier.

This passage is used for Questions 1-5. It has two paragraphs.

The German navy made only one appearance in World War I at the battle of Jutland in 1916 against the British fleet in the North Sea. Even though the German losses were half that of the British, the German navy never came out in battle again during the war. Their sailors even mutinied in 1918, helping to touch off the German revolution that led Germany to seek Armistice in 1918.

Though German ships did not pose a threat, German submarines continued to menace the Allies during the War. In 1915, the British liner Lusitania was torpedoed, and a thousand lives, many of them Americans, were lost. When the Germans declared submarine warfare in 1917, they hoped to starve out the British by sinking all of the ships carrying supplies and food to that island nation. By the time the United States entered the war in 1917, the British were down to a month’s supply of food due to heavy attacks on merchant ships by German submarines. Then the British blockaded German ports, and the German people suffered from the same privations the British had faced earlier.