112 questionsShowing 57–112

Craft & Structure practice questions

Word meaning in context, the purpose a sentence or paragraph serves, and how two texts relate. Read the sentence around the blank before looking at any choice.

Read the method first Drill this area against a clock Multi-step sets

57Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "exhaustive" most nearly mean? The committee's report is exhaustive on procedure and silent on cost.
- AThorough
- BTiring
- CUsed up
- DFinal
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Answer: Thorough
The contrast with "silent" is what settles it: the report covers procedure completely and cost not at all. The everyday association with exhaustion is the trap.
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58Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "reserve" most nearly mean? Rainfall records before 1890 are patchy, so any trend drawn from them should be advanced with reserve.
- AA stored supply
- BRestraint
- CA protected area
- DConfidence
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Answer: Restraint
Patchy records are a reason to make a claim cautiously, so the word describes how the trend is advanced. The supply and land senses are commoner and neither fits a manner of speaking; confidence is the opposite of what the sentence asks for.
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59Text structure and purposeStandard
The first three paragraphs of a passage describe how a drug performed in trials. The fourth opens: "None of this tells us how it will behave in the people most likely to be prescribed it, who are older and take four other medicines." What is the function of that opening sentence?
- AIt summarises the trial results just described.
- BIt concedes that the trials were badly designed.
- CIt marks a limit on what the preceding evidence can establish.
- DIt introduces a rival drug for comparison.
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Answer: It marks a limit on what the preceding evidence can establish.
"None of this tells us" points backward at the evidence and names something it cannot reach. That is a limit on scope, not a summary, and not a complaint about the design — a well-run trial in younger patients still says nothing about older ones.
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60Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: The value of an archive lies in what it holds. A collection nobody has catalogued is still a collection. Text 2: An uncatalogued box is not an archive but a possibility. Until someone can find what is inside it, the material has no readers, and material with no readers does no work. The author of Text 2 would most likely characterise the position in Text 1 as
- Aright about cataloguing but wrong about value.
- Ba description of how archives are funded rather than of what they are for.
- Ca view that mistakes the cost of cataloguing for its benefit.
- Dmistaking the holding of material for access to it.
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Answer: mistaking the holding of material for access to it.
Text 2 turns on the difference between having something and being able to find it. Cost and funding appear in neither text, and Text 2 disagrees with Text 1 about value precisely because it disagrees about cataloguing.
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61Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "compromised" most nearly mean? Damp had compromised the beams long before the survey found it.
- AWeakened
- BSettled a dispute over
- CExposed
- DReplaced
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Answer: Weakened
Damp acts on timber by degrading it, and the sentence has the damp doing something to the beams over time. The negotiating sense is the one readers reach for first and the one that cannot be done by damp.
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62Text structure and purposeChallenge
An essay on urban trees spends two pages on the cooling effect of canopy cover, then turns to a single street where residents petitioned to have the lime trees removed because of the sap falling on their cars. What does the account of that street do in the essay?
- AIt supplies the measurement the earlier pages lacked.
- BIt sets a general benefit against a local cost that the benefit does not settle.
- CIt shows that the cooling effect had been overstated.
- DIt closes the essay by resolving the disagreement.
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Answer: It sets a general benefit against a local cost that the benefit does not settle.
Sap on a car is not an argument against cooling; it is a cost that falls on particular people while the benefit is spread. The example neither measures the cooling nor disproves it, and it opens a tension rather than settling one.
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63Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "economical" most nearly mean? The novel's structure is economical: four scenes, three of them in the same room, and nothing that does not bear on the ending.
- AInexpensive to produce
- BConcerned with money
- CAchieving its effect with little
- DReluctant to spend
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Answer: Achieving its effect with little
The colon supplies the definition: few scenes, one room, nothing spare. The word is being used of means rather than of money, which is the sense every other choice keeps.
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64Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: Standardised tests are defended on the ground that they are the same for everyone. That is true of the paper and false of everything around it — preparation, a quiet room, the chance of a second attempt. Text 2: Critics point to unequal preparation, and they are right to. The alternative on offer is assessment by teacher judgement, and every study of that finds it tracks a pupil's background more closely still. Which choice best describes the relationship between the two texts?
- AText 2 disputes the factual claim Text 1 makes about preparation.
- BText 2 offers evidence that standardised tests are the same for everyone.
- CThe two texts agree that teacher judgement is the fairer method.
- DText 2 accepts the objection in Text 1 and argues that the alternative does worse by the same measure.
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Answer: Text 2 accepts the objection in Text 1 and argues that the alternative does worse by the same measure.
Text 2 opens by granting the point about preparation, so it is not disputing it, and then applies the same test of fairness to the alternative. Neither text calls teacher judgement fairer; Text 2 says the opposite.
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65Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "sustained" most nearly mean? The scheme was sustained by a single donor for eleven years.
- AKept going
- BSuffered
- CArgued for
- DProved
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Answer: Kept going
A donor supporting a scheme over eleven years is keeping it in existence. The injury sense — sustained a fracture — is the one that arrives first and cannot be done by a donor to a scheme.
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66Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "discriminating" most nearly mean? She is a discriminating reader of maps, quick to see where a surveyor has guessed.
- APrejudiced
- BPerceptive about small differences
- CCritical of other people
- DReluctant to trust anyone
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Answer: Perceptive about small differences
The clause after the comma defines it: she notices where the surveying stops being measurement. The word carries its older sense of telling things apart, not the modern one of treating people unfairly.
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67Text structure and purposeStandard
A chapter on urban rivers opens with three pages of statistics on water quality, then gives a single paragraph to a man who has fished the same stretch for fifty years and says the fish came back in 2011. What does the paragraph about the fisherman most likely do in the chapter?
- AIt replaces the statistics with a more reliable kind of measurement.
- BIt concedes that the statistics were wrong.
- CIt gives the measured change a form the reader can picture.
- DIt introduces the chapter's main argument for the first time.
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Answer: It gives the measured change a form the reader can picture.
One person's fifty years on one stretch is not a better measurement than three pages of data, and the chapter does not present it as one. What it adds is a scale a reader can hold, which is a different job from measuring.
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68Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: A museum's first duty is to the object. Display, interpretation and access all follow from conservation, because an object that has not survived cannot be interpreted at all. Text 2: The argument from conservation proves too much. Taken strictly, it recommends a sealed vault, which is a form of survival nobody wants. What conservation buys is time, and time is worth buying only if something is done with it. How does Text 2 respond to Text 1?
- ABy denying that conservation extends the life of objects.
- BBy proposing that objects be displayed without protection.
- CBy agreeing with Text 1's priorities and adding a practical caveat.
- DBy accepting Text 1's premise and arguing that its conclusion is drawn from it too strongly.
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Answer: By accepting Text 1's premise and arguing that its conclusion is drawn from it too strongly.
"Proves too much" is the giveaway: the objection is that the same reasoning, followed all the way, reaches a conclusion nobody accepts. Text 2 grants that survival comes first and denies that everything else follows from it, which is more than a caveat.
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69Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: Remote working ended the commute for millions and, with it, the case for the office. Text 2: The office was never only a place to work. It was where people learned what nobody thought to write down. Remote work has not answered that, and the firms confident that it has tend to be the ones whose staff learned it in an office first. On which point do the two texts most clearly disagree?
- AWhether remote work supplies what the office provided beyond desk space.
- BWhether commuting takes time.
- CWhether offices are expensive to maintain.
- DWhether remote work is popular with employees.
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Answer: Whether remote work supplies what the office provided beyond desk space.
Text 1 treats the commute as the office's whole justification; Text 2 names something else the office did and says remote work has not replaced it. Cost and popularity are raised by neither.
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70Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "measured" most nearly mean? The report's tone is measured throughout; even the section on the collapse names no one.
- AQuantified
- BDeliberately restrained
- CUnhurried
- DEvasive
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Answer: Deliberately restrained
The semicolon offers the naming of no one as evidence of the tone, and restraint is what that evidences. Evasive would make the sentence an accusation, but it is offered as description; and a measured report can be entirely frank about what happened without assigning blame.
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71Text structure and purposeChallenge
An essay on translation ends: "Every version I have given here is wrong in a different way, which is the only honest thing I can say about the poem and the reason I have given six." What does the final sentence do?
- AIt apologises for the essay's failure to reach a conclusion.
- BIt withdraws the six translations offered earlier.
- CIt recasts the essay's method as its argument.
- DIt identifies which of the six versions is best.
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Answer: It recasts the essay's method as its argument.
The sentence says the six versions exist because no single one can be right, so the multiplicity is the point being made rather than a failure to make one. Nothing is withdrawn and no version is preferred.
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72Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: Wild swimming has grown from a minority pastime into a mass one within a decade, and rivers nobody entered are busy every weekend. Text 2: The growth is real. So is the sewage. The decade that brought swimmers to the rivers is the decade that produced the data on how often the rivers are unfit to swim in, and the two arrived together for a reason: people who swim in a river start asking what is in it. Both authors would agree that
- Arivers are cleaner than they were a decade ago.
- Bwild swimming should be discouraged until the water improves.
- Cthe sewage data caused the growth in swimming.
- Dwild swimming has become far more popular over the past decade.
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Answer: wild swimming has become far more popular over the past decade.
Text 2 opens by granting the growth, which is Text 1's only claim. It argues the causation ran the other way, from swimmers to data, and it neither says the rivers are cleaner nor recommends staying out of them.
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73Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "qualified" most nearly mean? The survey's findings are qualified at every turn: the sample was small, the season unusual, the method new.
- ALimited
- BMade eligible
- COfficially certified
- DImproved
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Answer: Limited
The colon lists the limits, so the word names what those limits do to the findings. The eligibility sense is the everyday one and would make the sentence say the opposite of what its own list supports.
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74Text structure and purposeStandard
An article on antibiotic resistance opens with one patient whose infection failed to respond to six drugs in turn, then moves to national prescribing figures. What does the opening story most likely do?
- AIt proves that prescribing habits cause resistance.
- BIt gives a scale the figures cannot convey on their own.
- CIt concedes that the national figures are unreliable.
- DIt introduces a disagreement between researchers.
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Answer: It gives a scale the figures cannot convey on their own.
One case cannot prove a national cause, and the article does not offer it as proof — it offers it as something a reader can hold before the numbers arrive. The figures are not questioned and no disagreement is raised.
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75Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: A cycle-hire scheme should be judged on journeys taken. Ours passed four million last year. Text 2: Four million is a real number and an incomplete one. Almost all those journeys replaced a walk or another bicycle rather than a car journey, which is what the scheme was funded to displace. On what do the two texts most clearly disagree?
- AHow many journeys the scheme carried.
- BWhether cycle hire is popular.
- CWhich measure the scheme should be judged on.
- DHow much the scheme cost to run.
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Answer: Which measure the scheme should be judged on.
Text 2 accepts the four million outright and argues that the count is the wrong test, proposing displaced car journeys instead. The disagreement is about the standard, not the number.
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76Text structure and purposeChallenge
A chapter on a famine ends by listing, over two pages, the price of a sack of rice in one market on each day of the crisis. What is the most likely purpose of that list?
- ATo display the author's access to unusual archives.
- BTo supply data that other researchers can reuse.
- CTo argue that traders caused the famine.
- DTo make a change described in general terms unavoidably concrete.
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Answer: To make a change described in general terms unavoidably concrete.
A daily series read across two pages does something a summary cannot: it makes the reader travel the rise at the speed the market did. Reuse and archive access are by-products, and no cause is being argued.
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77Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "underwrite" most nearly mean? The paper's central claim is advanced with a confidence that its single experiment cannot underwrite.
- ASupport
- BInsure financially
- CSign at the bottom
- DContradict
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Answer: Support
The sentence sets the confidence against the evidence, so the word names what evidence does for a claim. The financial sense is where the word comes from, and it has nothing to do here.
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78Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: Museums should return objects taken under duress. Who can care for them best is a separate question, and answering it first has too often been a way of never answering the first one. Text 2: Nobody disputes the principle. The difficulty is that "taken under duress" covers a purchase from a colonial administration, a battlefield seizure and a gift to an occupying governor, and those are not one case. Text 2 responds to Text 1 by
- Adenying that any object was taken under duress.
- Bgranting the principle and questioning whether the category it turns on is single.
- Carguing that museums care for objects better than their countries of origin would.
- Dproposing that the objects be sold instead.
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Answer: granting the principle and questioning whether the category it turns on is single.
"Nobody disputes the principle" concedes Text 1's claim, and the three examples are offered to show that one phrase is covering several different situations. Text 2 raises no view on care, which is the question Text 1 set aside.
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79Text structure and purposeStandard
A profile of a composer gives its final paragraph to a piece she abandoned after four bars, quoting those four bars in full. What does the final paragraph most likely do?
- AIt corrects an error made earlier in the profile.
- BIt ranks the abandoned piece above her finished work.
- CIt uses an unfinished fragment to show what the finished work was reaching for.
- DIt explains why she stopped composing altogether.
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Answer: It uses an unfinished fragment to show what the finished work was reaching for.
A fragment placed last, and quoted rather than described, is being used to say something about everything before it. Four abandoned bars are not offered as her best work, and abandoning one piece is not giving up.
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80Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: Reading aloud to children is the best-supported intervention in early literacy. Text 2: The evidence is strong and the framing is not. Reading aloud is easy to measure and travels with a dozen things that are not — books in the house, time, a parent not working a second shift. It may be the best-supported intervention because it is the easiest to study. Both authors would agree that
- Areading aloud is what causes gains in literacy.
- Bthe evidence on reading aloud is weak.
- Cbooks in the house matter more than reading aloud does.
- Dreading aloud is well supported by evidence.
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Answer: reading aloud is well supported by evidence.
Text 2 opens by calling the evidence strong, which is common ground. What it disputes is what that support shows — whether the reading itself is doing the work, or the circumstances that travel with it.
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81Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "candid" most nearly mean? The evidence for the earlier date is thin, and the author is candid about it.
- AFrank
- BKind
- CUncertain
- DApologetic
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Answer: Frank
Being candid about weak evidence means saying so plainly. The word describes the author's openness, not the state of the evidence, which the first half of the sentence has already given.
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82Text structure and purposeStandard
A history of the postal service gives a paragraph to the weight of a Victorian letter carrier's bag and the distance walked in a shift, then returns to legislation. What does that paragraph most likely do?
- AIt argues that carriers were underpaid.
- BIt grounds an administrative history in the physical work being administered.
- CIt corrects a figure given earlier in the chapter.
- DIt signals that the legislation was ineffective.
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Answer: It grounds an administrative history in the physical work being administered.
A weight and a distance are not an argument about pay or a verdict on a law; they are what the legislation was about, given in a form a reader can feel. The paragraph is placed between two legislative passages for exactly that reason.
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83Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: A city's tree canopy should be measured by cover, which is what shades a street. Text 2: Cover counts leaves, and leaves are seasonal. A street of planes stands bare for five months of the year, which is precisely when the wind and rain the trees are meant to buffer arrive. On what do the two texts most clearly disagree?
- AWhether trees provide shade.
- BWhether canopy cover can be measured at all.
- CWhether a single summer measure captures what trees do across a year.
- DWhether plane trees should be planted in cities.
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Answer: Whether a single summer measure captures what trees do across a year.
Text 2 accepts that cover can be measured and that trees shade streets; its objection is that the measure is taken when the leaves are there and the need is greatest when they are not.
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84Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "couched" most nearly mean? The report is exhaustive on procedure, but its recommendations are couched so carefully that nobody is obliged to act.
- AHidden
- BRested
- CShortened
- DExpressed
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Answer: Expressed
The word governs how the recommendations are worded, and "so carefully" describes a manner of expression. They are present rather than hidden — that is what makes their caution the problem.
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85Text structure and purposeChallenge
A biography gives its opening chapter not to its subject but to the town he left at nineteen and never returned to. What is the most likely purpose of that chapter?
- ATo establish what the rest of the life was measured against.
- BTo argue that the subject should have stayed.
- CTo fill out a biography with insufficient material.
- DTo describe the town for its own sake.
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Answer: To establish what the rest of the life was measured against.
A place left at nineteen and never revisited earns an opening chapter only if the leaving organises what follows. Describing it for its own sake would put the chapter anywhere, and biographies do not usually open on a thesis about what the subject ought to have done.
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86Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: Requiring the source code to be published would let anyone check an algorithm used in sentencing. Text 2: Publishing the code shows what the system computes, not what it learned. The behaviour lives in the training data, and it is the data that is not being published. Text 2 responds to Text 1 by
- Adenying that sentencing algorithms should be open to checking.
- Baccepting the aim and arguing that the proposed measure does not reach it.
- Carguing that source code is too complex for anyone to read.
- Dproposing that sentencing be carried out without algorithms.
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Answer: accepting the aim and arguing that the proposed measure does not reach it.
Text 2 never questions that the algorithm should be checkable; it says the code is the wrong place to look. Complexity is not its objection either — its point is about which artefact carries the behaviour.
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87Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "detached" most nearly mean? Her account of the expedition is detached, recording the deaths in the same register as the weather.
- AUninterested
- BPhysically separated
- CEmotionally uninvolved
- DBrief
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Answer: Emotionally uninvolved
The clause after the comma shows what the word means here: no change of tone between a death and a rainfall. Someone uninterested would not have written the account at all, which is why that near-synonym fails.
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88Text structure and purposeStandard
A report on flood defences gives each chapter to one town that adopted the scheme, and gives its final chapter to a town that declined it. What does the final chapter most likely do?
- AIt concludes that the scheme was unnecessary.
- BIt lists the towns that took part.
- CIt apologises for the report being incomplete.
- DIt supplies the comparison the other chapters could not provide on their own.
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Answer: It supplies the comparison the other chapters could not provide on their own.
Chapters about towns that all did the same thing cannot show what difference the thing made. The town that declined is the only case that can, which is why it is given a chapter rather than a footnote.
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89Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "arrested" most nearly mean? A band of clay arrested the water well before it reached the foundations.
- ADetained
- BHalted
- CCaptured
- DSlowed slightly
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Answer: Halted
Clay stopping water is a physical blockage, and "well before it reached" indicates the water did not get through at all rather than merely losing pace. The legal sense cannot apply to water.
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90Text structure and purposeStandard
A chapter on the invention of the safety lamp devotes its central pages to two men who each claimed it, and returns repeatedly to the fact that neither could have read the other's notebooks. What does that repeated detail do?
- AIt establishes that one of the two men was dishonest.
- BIt proves that the lamp was invented earlier than either claimed.
- CIt keeps open the possibility that both invented it independently.
- DIt shows that notebooks are unreliable historical evidence.
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Answer: It keeps open the possibility that both invented it independently.
If neither could have seen the other's work, neither needs to have copied, and a priority dispute stops requiring a villain. The detail is returned to because it is what holds that possibility open.
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91Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: Open data has transformed transport planning. Anyone can now audit how a network performs. Text 2: Anyone with the software, the statistical training and a month to spare can audit it. "Anyone" is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence, and the people whose journeys the data describes are mostly not in it. How do the two texts differ?
- AThey disagree about whether transport data has been published.
- BThey disagree about whether transport planning has improved.
- CThey disagree about who owns the data.
- DThey disagree about how far publication amounts to access.
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Answer: They disagree about how far publication amounts to access.
Text 2 accepts that the data is public and objects to what "anyone" conceals — the skills and time an audit actually takes. Both agree the data was released; they part over what release achieves.
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92Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "novel" most nearly mean? The technique was novel enough that no established procedure covered it, and the committee had to write one.
- ANew
- BFictional
- CElaborate
- DExperimental in outcome
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Answer: New
The clause after the comma explains the sense: nothing established covered it because nothing like it had been done. The literary meaning is the commonest use of the word and is not available for a technique.
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93Text structure and purposeChallenge
An article about a disputed border opens with a two-page description of a single farm whose fields lie on both sides of it. What is the most likely purpose of that opening?
- ATo argue that the border should be moved to follow the farm.
- BTo show what the dispute costs at the scale where it is actually lived.
- CTo establish the author's familiarity with the region.
- DTo suggest that the farm is the only property affected.
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Answer: To show what the dispute costs at the scale where it is actually lived.
A border argued over between governments is met, in the opening, as a fence through one person's fields. That is a change of scale rather than a proposal, and an opening of that length is not there to establish credentials.
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94Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: A dictionary should record how people use words, not rule on how they ought to. Its authority comes from describing accurately. Text 2: Every dictionary decides which uses are frequent enough to record and which are errors not worth the space, and it publishes the result as a single volume that readers consult to settle arguments. A description that is used as a ruling is a ruling. Text 2 responds to Text 1 by
- Adenying that dictionaries record usage.
- Bclaiming that dictionaries should issue explicit rulings.
- Carguing that the distinction Text 1 relies on does not survive in practice.
- Dproposing that dictionaries be published more frequently.
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Answer: arguing that the distinction Text 1 relies on does not survive in practice.
"A description that is used as a ruling is a ruling" attacks the description-versus-prescription line itself, not the claim that dictionaries record usage. Text 2 makes no recommendation about what dictionaries should do next.
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95Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "economy" most nearly mean? The drawing achieves its effect with striking economy: four lines and no shading.
- AA financial system
- BThrift with money
- CSmall size
- DEfficiency of means
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Answer: Efficiency of means
The colon supplies the definition — four lines, no shading — so the word describes how little was used to do the work. The financial senses are the everyday ones and have no application to a drawing.
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96Text structure and purposeStandard
A review of a long biography spends its first three paragraphs on what the book does well and its last sentence on a factual error in the index. What does the proportion between them most likely signal?
- AThat the error is real but does not affect the reviewer's overall judgement.
- BThat the error is the review's main charge.
- CThat the reviewer had nothing substantial to praise.
- DThat the biography should not have been published.
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Answer: That the error is real but does not affect the reviewer's overall judgement.
A fault given one sentence after three paragraphs of praise is being recorded rather than pressed. Proportion is how a review says how much weight it wants a criticism to carry.
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97Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "reserve" most nearly mean? The surveyor set aside a strip along the river as a reserve against future flooding.
- ARestraint
- BSomething kept back for later use
- CA protected area for wildlife
- DA doubt
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Answer: Something kept back for later use
"Against future flooding" makes it land held back for a purpose that has not yet arisen. The wildlife sense is a special case of the same idea and is not what the sentence describes; restraint and doubt are the senses used of people.
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98Text structure and purposeStandard
A study of a shipwreck spends its opening chapter on the cargo manifest — barrels, bolts of cloth, quantities and owners — before any account of the sinking. What does that opening chapter most likely do?
- AIt argues that the cargo caused the sinking.
- BIt corrects errors in the manifest.
- CIt establishes what was at stake before describing what was lost.
- DIt demonstrates that the ship was overloaded.
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Answer: It establishes what was at stake before describing what was lost.
A list of goods and owners placed before the sinking gives the loss a size and a set of people. Any claim about cause or overloading would need the manifest to be argued from, and the chapter only sets it out.
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99Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: Naming a species is the first step in protecting it. What has no name cannot be listed, funded or defended in law. Text 2: Naming is also how a population becomes two populations. Split a species in the literature and each half is rarer, more threatened and more fundable than the whole was. The incentive runs one way, and the taxonomy follows it. How do the texts differ?
- AThey disagree about whether naming affects protection.
- BThey disagree about whether species can be split.
- CThey disagree about how funding decisions are made.
- DThey differ over whether the link between naming and protection is entirely benign.
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Answer: They differ over whether the link between naming and protection is entirely benign.
Text 2 accepts Text 1's claim that names unlock protection and points out that the same link creates a reason to name more. Both agree naming matters; they part over what follows from that.
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100Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "commanded" most nearly mean? The corner site commanded a view of both approaches to the bridge.
- AGave a wide outlook over
- BOrdered
- CControlled by force
- DDeserved
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Answer: Gave a wide outlook over
A site cannot issue orders, and the object is a view. The word carries the older sense of overlooking from a dominant position, which is why it is used of hills and windows.
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101Text structure and purposeChallenge
A history of vaccination gives its penultimate chapter to a village that refused it, told without comment, and its final chapter to the disease's eradication. What does the penultimate chapter most likely do?
- AIt argues that refusal was justified.
- BIt shows what the final chapter's success was achieved in spite of.
- CIt concedes that the vaccine was ineffective.
- DIt provides comic relief before a sombre conclusion.
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Answer: It shows what the final chapter's success was achieved in spite of.
Placing refusal immediately before eradication makes the resistance part of the story of the success rather than a counter-argument to it. Told without comment is how a book presents evidence rather than a verdict.
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102Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: Anonymous peer review protects junior researchers, who can criticise a senior figure's work without consequence. Text 2: It protects the reviewer from consequence, which is not the same as protecting the junior. Anonymity also covers the senior reviewer who buries a rival's paper, and the junior author has no way to say so. Text 2 responds to Text 1 by
- Adenying that anonymity has any protective effect.
- Bproposing that reviews be signed.
- Carguing that the same protection covers a case Text 1 has not considered.
- Dclaiming that junior researchers do not criticise senior work.
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Answer: arguing that the same protection covers a case Text 1 has not considered.
Text 2 grants that anonymity shields the reviewer and points out who else that includes. It stops short of recommending signed reviews, which would be a different argument.
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103Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "affect" most nearly mean? He affected an indifference to the result that nobody in the room believed.
- ATo influence
- BTo be moved by
- CTo damage
- DTo put on
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Answer: To put on
"That nobody believed" makes it a pose rather than a feeling. The influence sense is much commoner and cannot take "an indifference" as its object in this way.
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104Text structure and purposeStandard
An article on a new bridge quotes the engineer, the city treasurer and a resident whose view it blocks, and gives each the same amount of space. What does that equal allocation most likely signal?
- AThat the article is presenting a decision as a balance of competing claims.
- BThat the article regards the three positions as equally well supported.
- CThat the resident's objection is the article's real subject.
- DThat the article has no view of its own on any question.
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Answer: That the article is presenting a decision as a balance of competing claims.
Equal space marks the three as parties with standing rather than as claims of equal evidential weight — those are different things. Allocating space is how an article says what kind of question it takes this to be.
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105Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "sustained" most nearly mean? The argument is sustained over four chapters and never repeats itself.
- ASuffered
- BKept up
- CSupported financially
- DProved
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Answer: Kept up
An argument running across four chapters without repeating is being maintained at length. The injury sense is the commonest use of the word and cannot apply to an argument.
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106Text structure and purposeStandard
A study of a famine opens with the price of grain, moves to the weather, then to the roads, and only in its final chapter to the government's decisions. What does that ordering most likely accomplish?
- AIt exonerates the government by leaving it until last.
- BIt signals that the roads were the principal cause.
- CIt establishes the conditions before assigning any responsibility.
- DIt follows the order in which the events occurred.
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Answer: It establishes the conditions before assigning any responsibility.
Prices, weather and roads are the situation the decisions were taken in, and a reader who meets them first can judge the decisions against what was known. Leaving something until last is not the same as excusing it, and the order is analytical rather than chronological.
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107Cross-text connectionsStandard
Text 1: A museum label should be short. Visitors read for eleven seconds on average, and a long label is one that goes unread. Text 2: Eleven seconds is what visitors give a label written to be skimmed. The measurements come from galleries full of short labels, so what they record is a habit the labels themselves created. How do the two texts differ?
- AThey disagree about how long visitors spend reading labels.
- BThey disagree about whether museums should have labels.
- CThey disagree about how many visitors read labels at all.
- DThey disagree about whether the measured reading time is a fixed constraint or a consequence.
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Answer: They disagree about whether the measured reading time is a fixed constraint or a consequence.
Text 2 accepts the eleven seconds and denies that it is a fact about visitors, arguing it is a fact about the labels they have been given. The figure is common ground; what it licenses is not.
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108Words in contextChallenge
As used in the following sentence, what does "temper" most nearly mean? The later editions temper the claim without withdrawing it.
- ATo moderate
- BTo harden by heating
- CTo lose patience
- DTo tune
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Answer: To moderate
"Without withdrawing it" tells you the claim survives in a weakened form, which is moderation. The metallurgical and musical senses are real and have nothing to do with a claim in a book.
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109Text structure and purposeChallenge
An article on machine translation quotes the same paragraph rendered by a system in 1997, 2010 and 2023, and prints them without comment before the analysis begins. What does that opening most likely do?
- AIt demonstrates that the 2023 system is flawless.
- BIt lets the reader form a judgement the analysis will then have to answer to.
- CIt establishes the author's technical credentials.
- DIt argues that translation quality has not improved.
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Answer: It lets the reader form a judgement the analysis will then have to answer to.
Printing evidence before any commentary invites the reader to reach a view first, which the analysis must then meet rather than lead. Three versions across twenty-six years neither prove perfection nor deny improvement.
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110Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Text 1: A university should admit the applicants with the strongest results, whatever school they came from. Anything else asks admissions tutors to guess at potential. Text 2: Nobody is guessing. A given grade from a school where it is the top result predicts degree performance better than the same grade from a school where it is ordinary, and that is a measurement rather than a hunch. Text 2 responds to Text 1 by
- Adenying that results should matter in admissions.
- Barguing that all schools should be treated identically.
- Cdisputing the characterisation of contextual admission as guesswork.
- Dproposing that interviews replace examinations.
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Answer: disputing the characterisation of contextual admission as guesswork.
Text 1 frames the alternative as guessing at potential; Text 2 answers that the alternative rests on a measured predictive relationship. It never suggests results should be ignored, which is why the first choice overstates it.
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111Words in contextStandard
As used in the following sentence, what does "arrested" most nearly mean? A cold spring arrested the growth just as the buds opened.
- ADetained
- BCaptured
- CAccelerated
- DHalted
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Answer: Halted
Cold weather stopping growth is a physical check. The legal sense cannot apply to a spring acting on buds, and the sentence rules out the opposite meaning.
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112Text structure and purposeStandard
A profile of an engineer devotes one paragraph to a bridge she designed that was never built, quoting the calculations in full. What does that paragraph most likely accomplish?
- AIt shows the standard of her work independently of what was constructed.
- BIt argues the bridge should have been built.
- CIt explains why her career ended.
- DIt corrects an error in the published record.
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Answer: It shows the standard of her work independently of what was constructed.
An unbuilt design lets a profile assess the engineering without the accidents of funding and politics that decide what gets built. Quoting calculations is evidence of quality rather than an argument about a decision.
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