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 5Book 2 · Section 1 · 5 / 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 5
READING TEXT
  1. Today the most universally known style of trousers for both men and women
  2. is jeans; these trousers are worn throughout the world on a variety of occasions.
  3. Also called levis or denims, jeans have an interesting history. The word jeans is
  4. derived from the name of the place where a similar style of pants developed. In
  5. the sixteenth century, sailors from Genoa, Italy, wore a unique type of cotton
  6. trousers. In the French language, the word for the city of Genoa and for the
  7. people from that city is Genes; this name became attached to the specific style
  8. of pants worn by the sailors from this city and developed into the word jeans
  9. that today describes the descendents of the Genovese sailors' cotton pants.
  10. Similar to the word jeans, the word denim is also derived from a place name.
  11. In the seventeenth century, French tailors began making trousers out of a
  12. specialized type of cloth that was developed in the city of Nimes, France and
  13. was known as serge de Nimes. This name for the cloth underwent some
  14. transformations, and it eventually developed into today's denim, the material
  15. from which jeans are made and an alternative name for these popular pants.
  16. The word levis came from the name of a person rather than a place. In the
  17. nineteenth century, immigrant Levi Strauss came to America and tried his hand
  18. at selling heavy canvas to miners taking part in the hunt for gold in northern
  19. California. Strauss intended for this canvas to be used by miners to make
  20. heavy-duty tents. This first endeavor was a failure, but Strauss later found
  21. success when he used the heavy canvas to make indestructible pants for the
  22. miners. Levi then switched the fabric from brown canvas to blue denim, creating
  23. a style of pants that long outlived him and today is referred to by his name.
QUESTION 1

The word unique in line 5 is closest in meaning to

QUESTION 2

All of the following are mentioned in the text about Genoa EXCEPT that it

QUESTION 3

The word denim was most probably derived from

QUESTION 4

It can be inferred from the text that, in order to develop the pants for which he became famous, Strauss did which of the following?

QUESTION 5

Where in the text does the author explain how Strauss' first attempt at creating a business with canvas turned out?