All books› Book 3› Section 1

SECTION 01 · Reading: separate texts

Reading

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

35 texts

Text 35Book 3 · Section 1 · 35 / 35

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 35

READING TEXT

We spend about four years, or twenty percent of the sleep time of our lives,
dreaming. There are many ideas about why we dream and what dreams do to us.
Some researchers feel that everyone needs to dream. An experiment was conducted
with two groups of people. With the first group, each time a sleeping person
appeared to begin dreaming, the researchers would wake him. After a few days,
that person became uneasy and upset. a
With the second group of people, interruptions were made during non-dreaming
sleep, and these people did not seem to change. When the first group was allowed
to sleep uninterrupted, they seemed to have more dreams than the second group. It
was as if the first group was catching up on lost dreams.
It has been found that people who go without sleep for days have hallucinations
and even show signs of mental illness. They believe this is because they can't
have their usual number of dreams. Sigmund Freud said dreams protect us from
our inner conflicts. a
Many people in the Western world think of dreams as interesting but of no
value. Others think that they come from the unconscious mind. Whatever their
real worth, the fact remains that everybody dreams.

QUESTION 1

According to the text, people spend

a)four years of their lifetime sleepingb)twenty percent of their lifetime sleepingc)twenty percent of their life dreamingd)twenty percent of their lifetime sleep dreaming

QUESTION 2

We can understand from the text that

a)some researchers think that we don't need to dreamb)an experiment was held with some researchersc)people who go without sleep for days become mentally illd)people who go without sleep for days see mirages

QUESTION 3

The word uneasy in line 6 is NOT synonymous to

a)restlessb)nervousc)peacefuld)anxious

QUESTION 4

The word protect in line 13 means

a)detectb)defendc)defined)decline

QUESTION 5

According to Paragraph 3, lines 11—14,

a)people can go without sleep for many daysb)people have hallucinations because of bad dreamsc)dreams can arouse inner conflictsd)people need to have their usual number of dreams

QUESTION 6

The experiment proved that people felt irritated when

a)they were being examinedb)they began dreamingc)their sleep was interruptedd)their dream was interrupted

QUESTION 7

According to the text, many people think that dreams

a)can cause mental diseasesb)come from conscious mindc)are interesting but insignificantd)are of great value

QUESTION 8

According to Sigmund Freud, dreams

a)can cause hallucinationsb)help people overcome inner conflictsc)are the result of inner conflictsd)arouse a lot of conflicts

QUESTION 9

The word unconscious in line 16 means

a)instinctiveb)rationalc)sensibled)reasonable

QUESTION 10

According to the text,

a)it's dangerous to hold experiments on dreaming peopleb)non-dreaming sleep causes mental illnessc)interruptions during dreaming sleep affect peopled)interruptions during dreaming sleep influence people positively