e· ExamHubENGLISH WORKBOOK TRAINER
All books› Book 2› Section 1
SECTION 01 · Reading: separate texts

Reading

Choose a text number. Its questions will appear on its own page.

40 texts
Text 20Book 2 · Section 1 · 20 / 40
How to solve: ReadingA text with several questions: main idea, details, word meaning and inference.

What it tests

Careful reading: finding the main idea, locating details, understanding a word from its context and drawing conclusions the text supports.

In the exam: part I, 10 tasks.

Step by step

  1. Read the questions first, so you know what to look for.
  2. Skim the whole text once for its topic and the author's purpose.
  3. For each question find the exact place in the text (line numbers help) and read the sentence before and after it.
  4. Choose the option that says the same thing in other words — not the one that copies the most words.
  5. For “main idea” questions pick the option that covers the whole text, not one paragraph.

Watch out for

  • An option that is true in real life but not stated in the text.
  • An option that repeats words from the text but changes the meaning (“always” instead of “often”, wrong date or person).
  • A detail that is correct but too narrow for a “main idea” question.

Example

Text: “It took 800 men seven years to build the bridge.” — The bridge was built in: a) one year b) seven years c) 800 days

b) The text says “seven years”; 800 is the number of men, not days.

Text 20
READING TEXT
  1. Some cities are located by chance. A wagon breaks down, the driver spends
  2. sometime in repairs, he finds that he is in a congenial spot, and settles down.
  3. Later another person builds a house nearby, and later someone adds an inn.
  4. Someone else starts selling farm products there. Soon there is a little market,
  5. which grows to a town, and later to a city.Other places were destined by nature
  6. to become cities. London, for example, is on what iscalled the head of
  7. navigation - the point where it becomes too difficult for ocean-going ships
  8. to continue upriver, and must transfer their cargoes. As with London, the head of
  9. navigation is also the point where the river can be conveniently bridged. In fact,
  10. the location of a bridge is often the reason for the birth of a town - as Cambridge
  11. or Waybridge in England show. Again, a good harbour will generally lead to a
  12. city growing up about it. New York and San Francisco began life as ports, as did
  13. Cape Town in South Africa.
  14. Some places were created mainly for military purposes, such as Milan, and the
  15. host of English cities finishing with - cester, which is derived from castra which
  16. means camp in Latin. Chester itself, created to guard the Welsh border is a very
  17. good example. Other such military bases are Manchester, Doncaster, and of
  18. course, Newcastle. A few cities are not created by accident, but by intention.
  19. This was the case with Milton Keynes in England, but the most famous
  20. examples of such cities are capitals. Brasilia, Canberra and Washington
  21. are capitals created in modern times, but even their greatest admirers will admit
  22. that they lack a certain character. It is no co-incidence that there are famous pop
  23. songs about New York, ("New York, New York"), Chicago ("My kind of
  24. Town"), San Francisco (Going to San Francisco") and many other US cities,
  25. but none about the nation's capital. On the other hand any Londoner can give
  26. you at least three songs about the place.
QUESTION 1

This text is about

QUESTION 2

London owes its origin to

QUESTION 3

The writer feels that

QUESTION 4

The word congenial in line 2is closest in meaning to

QUESTION 5

Which is NOT given as a reason for a new city?