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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 27Book 2 · Section 1 · 27 / 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

Read the questions first, so you know what to look for.
Skim the whole text once for its topic and the author's purpose.
For each question find the exact place in the text (line numbers help) and read the sentence before and after it.
Choose the option that says the same thing in other words — not the one that copies the most words.
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 27

READING TEXT

When the United States went to war against England in 1812, the US navy
was much weaker than the British navy. In fact, the British navy at the time had
over 800 warships. The entire US navy had only 16 warships in its fleet, so
it was almost nonexistent.
To increase its naval power, the United States tried to convert merchant
ships into warships. When a merchant ship was converted into a warship, two
big changes were made. First, the cargo hold was emptied. Then heavy cannons
to fight the enemy were added to the top of the deck. This type of conversion of
merchant ships into warships was not always successful, for a very good reason.
The changes that were made to convert a ship from a merchant ship to a
warship made the ship much less stable. A heavy cargo in the hold at the bottom
of a merchant ship allowed the ship to stay balanced in the water. When the
cargo was removed, the ship became less stable. Then, when the heavy metal
cannons were added to the deck of the ship, the ship became even less stable. As
a result, a number of these converted merchant ships tipped over and sank.

QUESTION 1

It is stated in the text that the US navy was

a)not as strong as the British navyb)stronger than the British navyc)as weak as the British navyd)equal in strength to the British navy

QUESTION 2

The word entire in line 3 could best be replaced by

a)tinyb)tiredc)evend)whole

QUESTION 3

The word it in line 4 refers to

a)the British navyb)timec)the US navyd)its fleet

QUESTION 4

The word nonexistent in line 4 is closest in meaning to

a)not realb)non-finitec)non-natived)non-count

QUESTION 5

The word convert in line 5 is closest in meaning to

a)buyb)buildc)change ad)sell

QUESTION 6

According to paragraph 2, what was added to a merchant ship when it was converted?

a)a cargo holdb)cannonsc)a deckd)the enemy

QUESTION 7

Paragraph 3 states that

a)it is understandable why a certain change did not work wellb)there were good reasons why warships were changed into merchant shipsc)trying to change warships into merchant ships was not a successd)putting merchant ships into a war zone was successful

QUESTION 8

According to paragraph 3, all of the following made a merchant ship less stable EXCEPT

a)being converted into a warshipb)having a heavy cargo in the holdc)having heavy cannons on deckd)having an empty cargo hold

QUESTION 9

According to the text, what happened to many converted merchant ships?

a)They became part of the British navyb)They went to the bottom of the oceanc)They carried large cargoesd)They filled their holds with cannons

QUESTION 10

The expression “as a result' in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to

a)howeverb)alsoc)afterwardsd)therefore