Read a short passage, then answer questions on finding information, inference, word meaning and the writer’s methods.
What you practise
Finding information in the text
Inferring what is not stated
Explaining the effect of language
Starts with simple stories and ends with essays and layered narrative. Practice moves up a level when a round goes well and down when it does not.
Sample questions
Each sample comes with the method and the reason every wrong option is wrong. Real practice rounds are ten questions at your level.
Sample question, level 2 of 5
Passage: The Number 9
Every morning at exactly seven fifteen, Mr Hadley’s bus pulled up at the corner of Mill Lane. He had driven the same route for thirty years, and he knew every passenger by name. “Morning, Mrs Chen! Morning, Joe! Mind the puddle, Aisha!” he called, in a voice as warm as a toasted teacake.
He kept a tin of boiled sweets by the steering wheel for anyone who looked glum, and on cold days he turned the heating up so high that the windows steamed over. Some passengers grumbled about the delays caused by his chatting. Others said they would miss it dreadfully if he ever retired.
When he finally did, on a rainy Friday in June, forty people stood at the stop with flowers, and several of them were crying.
Why did Mr Hadley keep a tin of boiled sweets?
To sell to schoolchildren
To give out at the end of the week
To keep himself awake
To stop passengers grumbling about delays
To cheer up passengers who looked glum
Show the answer and method
Answer: E, To cheer up passengers who looked glum
The method: The passage says: “a tin of boiled sweets by the steering wheel for anyone who looked glum”. So the answer is: To cheer up passengers who looked glum.
Why the other options are wrong:
A, To sell to schoolchildren: The passage does not say he sold them.
B, To give out at the end of the week: The passage says they were for anyone who looked glum.
C, To keep himself awake: The passage says they were for passengers who looked glum.
D, To stop passengers grumbling about delays: The sweets were for glum passengers, not for the grumblers.
Sample question, level 4 of 5
Passage: In Defence of Handwriting
It is easy to dismiss handwriting as a relic, like the abacus or the quill. Typing is faster, after all, and a screen never smudges. Yet something quietly valuable happens when a pen meets paper. Because writing by hand is slower, the writer must choose which words matter before committing them. Studies of students taking notes have suggested that those who write by hand tend to understand and remember more than those who type, precisely because they cannot record everything.
There is a personal dimension too. A handwritten letter carries the shape of its author, in the hurried loops of excitement and the careful capitals of apology. No font, however elegant, can imitate that. None of this means we should abandon keyboards; it means we should be wary of abandoning the pen without noticing what we have lost.
Why does the writer begin by agreeing that typing is faster?
To show that handwriting is dead
To argue that everyone should type
To change the subject
To admit a fair point, then reply
To make the reader laugh
Show the answer and method
Answer: D, To admit a fair point, then reply
The method: The passage says: “Typing is faster, after all, and a screen never smudges. Yet something quietly valuable happens”. So the answer is: To admit a fair point, then reply.
Why the other options are wrong:
A, To show that handwriting is dead: The writer says something valuable happens with a pen.
B, To argue that everyone should type: The writer goes on to defend handwriting.
C, To change the subject: The point leads directly into the argument.
