e· ExamHubENGLISH WORKBOOK TRAINER
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SECTION 01 · Reading: separate texts

Reading

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

40 texts
Text 23Book 2 · Section 1 · 23 / 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 23
READING TEXT
  1. The French Quarter is the oldest section of the city of New Orleans. The
  2. influences from a number of different cultures can be spotted in it.
  3. The city of New Orleans was first colonized by the French in 1718. The
  4. French planned and laid out what is today called the French Quarter as a walled
  5. town. The plan of the French Quarter was created by the French in the
  6. eighteenth century. It shows the formal organization that was popular in France
  7. at the time. Though very few buildings that are purely French in design remain,
  8. the overall design of the area is completely French.
  9. Spain took possession of New Orleans from France in 1762. During the
  10. period that Spain was in control of New Orleans, there were Spanish influences
  11. in the architecture of the French Quarter. Spanish-style courtyamrds, which were
  12. full of plants and flowers, were added to houses, and wrought iron was used to
  13. decorate the houses in the Spanish style of the time.
  14. Another influence on the architecture of New Orleans came from the West
  15. Indies. Wealthy planters from the West Indies began opening houses in the
  16. French Quarter of New Orleans in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The
  17. weather in the West Indies is very hot, and houses in the West Indies were built
  18. in ways that would help keep them cool. Planters. who came to the French
  19. Quarter from the West Indies influenced the architecture of the French Quarter
  20. by making their houses there more able to keep the people living in them cool.
  21. Two ways that planters from the West Indies influenced houses in the French
  22. Quarter to make them cooler in the heat was to build ground floors out of the
  23. stone and to add wide veranadas, or covered porches, on second stories.
QUESTION 1

It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that the French Quarter

QUESTION 2

The word spotted in line 2 can best be replaced by

QUESTION 3

According to paragraph 2, it is NOT true that

QUESTION 4

The word purely in line 7 could best be replaced by

QUESTION 5

It is stated in paragraph 3 that Spain

QUESTION 6

The phrase was in control of in paragraph 3 could best be replaced by

QUESTION 7

A home in Spain in the. late 18th century would most likely

QUESTION 8

Why does the author say that “The weather in the West Indies is very hot” in the text on the French Quarter?

QUESTION 9

The word built in line 17 is closest in meaning to

QUESTION 10

The word them in line 18 refers to