Topics Covered
Contents
Topic Overview — What & Why
The syllabus for this unit is one sentence: a passage is given, and questions are asked from it. Nothing is to be learnt by heart. What is tested is careful reading: finding what the passage says, what it implies, and what it does not say. The answer is always in the passage, never in your own knowledge of the subject; a choice that is true in the world but not supported by the passage is wrong.
- Read the questions first, then the passage, so you know what to look for.
- Six kinds of question come up again and again: main idea, detail, inference, vocabulary, tone, and the author's purpose.
- Eliminate: wrong options are usually too broad, too narrow, too extreme, out of scope, or a distortion of what was said.
1. How to Answer a Passage
- Skim the questions (not the options) first: they tell you what to look for.
- Read the passage once, steadily, noting in a word or two what each paragraph does: states a problem, gives an example, objects, concludes.
- Find the main idea: usually in the first or last sentences, and often signalled by words such as therefore, in short, the point is.
- Watch the signal words. However, but, yet turn the argument; moreover, further add to it; because, since give a reason; therefore, thus give a conclusion.
- Answer each question from the passage: go back to the lines it concerns before choosing.
- Do not bring in outside knowledge, and do not choose an option because it sounds wise.
2. The Six Kinds of Question
| Kind | Typical wording | How to answer |
|---|---|---|
| Main idea or title | "The passage is mainly about"; "The best title is" | The option that covers the whole passage, not one paragraph, and no more than the passage |
| Detail | "According to the passage" | Find the line; the right option restates it, often in other words |
| Inference | "It can be inferred"; "The author would agree" | Must follow from what is said, with no extra assumption |
| Vocabulary in context | "The word … most nearly means" | Replace the word in its sentence with each option; keep the meaning of that sentence, not the dictionary's first sense |
| Tone or attitude | "The author's tone is" | Judge from the words chosen: critical, appreciative, neutral, ironic, cautious |
| Purpose or structure | "The author mentions … in order to"; "The second paragraph" | Ask what the sentence or paragraph does in the argument: example, objection, contrast, conclusion |
A question may also ask which statement is not supported, or which weakens the author's claim. For a "not" question, check every option against the passage and choose the one you cannot find.
3. Eliminating Wrong Options
Four options, one right. The three wrong ones are usually wrong in one of these ways:
- Too broad: claims more than the passage covers.
- Too narrow: true of one paragraph only, offered as the main idea.
- Too extreme: words like always, never, all, only, completely, where the passage was qualified.
- Out of scope: about something the passage does not discuss.
- Distortion: uses the passage's words but changes the meaning, often reversing cause and effect.
- True but irrelevant: a correct statement that does not answer the question asked.
4. Worked Passage 1: Open Data
Governments now publish much of the data they collect, from rainfall records to school enrolment, on open portals that anyone may use. The argument for this is simple: data paid for by the public should be available to the public, and a thousand outside analysts will find uses that no department would have thought of. A transport dataset, released for planners, has been used by start-ups to tell commuters when the next bus will arrive.
Yet publication alone does not make data useful. Tables released without definitions, with codes nobody explains, or months after the period they describe, are open only in name. Worse, data about individuals, even with names removed, can sometimes be linked back to the people it describes when combined with other sources. Openness, then, is a beginning and not an end: it asks of governments a discipline of documentation, timeliness and privacy that is harder than simply putting files online.
Q1. The passage is mainly about
(A) how start-ups use transport data (B) the benefits and the demands of open government data (C) why governments should stop publishing data (D) the methods of removing names from data
Answer: (B). The first paragraph gives the case for open data; the second, what it demands. (A) is one example, too narrow. (C) is a distortion: the author calls openness "a beginning", not a mistake. (D) is one point in the second paragraph.
Q2. The bus example is given in order to
(A) show that outside users find uses departments did not foresee (B) criticise transport planners (C) show that data is often released late (D) prove that all open data is useful
Answer: (A). It follows "a thousand outside analysts will find uses that no department would have thought of". (D) is too extreme; the second paragraph says some open data is not useful.
Q3. "Open only in name" most nearly means
(A) published under a name (B) available but not usable in practice (C) secret (D) free of charge
Answer: (B). The sentence describes tables that are released but cannot be understood or are out of date.
Q4. Which can be inferred from the passage?
(A) Removing names always protects privacy (B) Removing names does not always protect privacy (C) Governments should never publish data about individuals (D) Privacy matters less than openness
Answer: (B). The passage says such data "can sometimes be linked back". (A) contradicts it; (C) and (D) go beyond it.
Q5. The author's attitude to open data is best described as
(A) dismissive (B) uncritically enthusiastic (C) supportive but cautious (D) indifferent
Answer: (C). The author accepts the case for openness ("simple") and then sets out what it demands.
5. Worked Passage 2: The Lecture
The lecture has been declared dead many times: by the printing press, by radio, by television, and now by the online video. Each time it has survived. Part of the reason is cost: one teacher can speak to two hundred students at once. But cost is not the whole story. A good lecture is not a reading aloud of the textbook; it is a demonstration of a mind at work, showing which questions matter, where the difficulty lies, and how an expert moves from evidence to conclusion.
The weakness of the lecture is the student's silence. Studies of attention suggest that it falls away after the first quarter of an hour unless something changes. The remedy most teachers now use is not to abandon the lecture but to break it: a question to the class every fifteen minutes, a problem worked in pairs, a two-minute written summary at the end. The lecture that survives will be one in which the students, too, are working.
Q1. According to the passage, the lecture has survived because
(A) it is cheap and it can show how an expert thinks (B) students prefer it to video (C) it has no weaknesses (D) the printing press failed
Answer: (A). Both reasons are given: cost, and "a demonstration of a mind at work". (C) contradicts the second paragraph.
Q2. The main weakness of the lecture, in the author's view, is that
(A) it is expensive (B) students are passive and their attention falls (C) it repeats the textbook (D) it is old
Answer: (B). "The weakness of the lecture is the student's silence", followed by the point about attention. (C) is what a good lecture is not, not its weakness.
Q3. The author would most likely agree that
(A) lectures should be replaced by online videos (B) a lecture should include short activities for students (C) students learn nothing from lectures (D) a lecture should last at most fifteen minutes
Answer: (B). The remedy "is not to abandon the lecture but to break it". (D) is a distortion: fifteen minutes is when to change activity, not how long to lecture.
Q4. The word "declared" in the first sentence most nearly means
(A) announced (B) hidden (C) proven (D) taxed
Answer: (A). People announced the lecture's death; since it survived, they did not prove it, which rules out (C).
Q5. The best title for the passage is
(A) The Death of the Lecture (B) Why Lectures Survive, and How They Must Change (C) The History of the Printing Press (D) Attention Spans of Students
Answer: (B). It covers both paragraphs. (A) states the view the passage rejects; (C) and (D) are too narrow.
- The answer is in the passage. If you need outside knowledge to justify an option, it is probably wrong.
- For the main idea, choose the option that fits every paragraph.
- Distrust always, never, all, only when the passage was qualified.
- For vocabulary, test the option in the sentence, not in the dictionary.
- Watch but, however, yet: what follows them is often what the author really thinks.
Final Revision Checklist
- Read the questions first; read the passage once, steadily; note what each paragraph does.
- Know the six kinds of question and how each is answered.
- Know the six ways a wrong option is wrong.
- Practise with the four passages in the Unit III model MCQs, timing yourself at about a minute a question.