One long text and a set of multiple-choice questions on it: five at A2 Key and B1 Preliminary, six from B2 First upwards, where each is worth two marks. It is the most traditional reading task and the one most often lost to careless reading of the options.
| Exam | Paper and part | Questions | Marks | Counts towards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A2 Key | Reading and Writing, Part 3 | Q14-18 | 5 × 1 | Reading |
| B1 Preliminary | Reading, Part 3 | Q11-15 | 5 × 1 | Reading |
| B2 First | Reading and Use of English, Part 5 | Q31-36 | 6 × 2 | Reading |
| C1 Advanced | Reading and Use of English, Part 5 | Q31-36 | 6 × 2 | Reading |
| C2 Proficiency | Reading and Use of English, Part 5 | Q31-36 | 6 × 2 | Reading |
The text is an article, a story extract, a blog or, at C2, a piece of literary non-fiction. The questions follow the order of the text. At A2 Key each has three options; from B1 Preliminary there are four.
A complete long text multiple choice task at B2 First level. Work it with the answers closed, then open the key.
You are going to read an article in which a woman describes volunteering at a repair café. For questions 31–36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
What the repair café taught me
I have never thought of myself as a practical person. As a child, I was the one sent out of the room whenever anything needed mending, and as an adult I had got into the habit of simply replacing whatever broke. So when my neighbour Ruth suggested I help out at the repair café she runs in the church hall on Saturday mornings, my first reaction was to laugh. ‘I’d only make things worse,’ I told her. She looked at me as if I’d said something slightly foolish. ‘Nobody expects you to know anything,’ she said. ‘That’s rather the point.’
For anyone who hasn’t come across one, a repair café is exactly what it sounds like. People bring in broken objects – a lamp, a toaster, a jacket with a torn pocket – and volunteers try to fix them for free while the owners drink tea and watch. Some of the volunteers are retired engineers or electricians; others, like Ruth, a former primary school teacher, have simply picked up skills over the years. I agreed to go along for one morning, mainly, I suspect, so that she would stop asking.
My first visitor was an elderly man called Frank, carrying a radio that had belonged to his late wife. It had stopped working a few weeks earlier, and he told me, a little apologetically, that his son had offered to buy him a new one. I had no idea where to begin, and I must have looked it, because one of the other volunteers, a quiet man named Dev, pulled up a chair beside me. He didn’t take the radio from me. Instead, he asked questions. What did I notice? What might have changed since it last worked? Twenty minutes later, I found a wire that had come loose, and Dev showed me how to reconnect it. When the radio crackled into life, Frank clapped his hands like a small boy.
I would like to say that I never looked back, but the truth is more complicated. Over the following months I failed far more often than I succeeded. I spent an entire morning on a coffee machine that turned out to need a part nobody makes any more, and a woman once left in tears because we couldn’t save her grandmother’s sewing machine. What surprised me was how much those failures taught me. Dev had a phrase he repeated whenever something went wrong: ‘Now we know one more thing it isn’t.’ At first I found this irritating. Eventually, I realised it was simply an accurate description of how problems get solved.
The biggest change, though, has not been in my hands but in the way I look at the things I own. I now find it almost impossible to throw anything away without first opening it up to see what has gone wrong. My partner has had to get used to a kitchen table that is permanently covered in tiny screws. I have also become more careful about what I buy in the first place, choosing things that can be taken apart rather than sealed plastic boxes that are designed to be thrown away.
Perhaps the thing that has stayed with me most, however, is the conversation. People rarely bring in an object simply because it is broken; they bring it because it matters to them, and mending it gives them a reason to tell you why. I have heard about first jobs, long marriages and family holidays, all while holding a screwdriver. Ruth was right, of course. Not knowing anything was the point. It meant I had to listen.
When the writer said she would only make things worse, Ruth
Why did the writer agree to go to the repair café?
What does the writer say about Dev in the third paragraph?
What point does the writer make in the fourth paragraph?
The writer mentions the kitchen table in order to show
In the final paragraph, the writer suggests that
Answer key
31. B — Ruth looks at her ‘as if I’d said something slightly foolish’ and says that knowing nothing is ‘rather the point’, so she thinks the writer has misunderstood the idea. The other volunteers’ skills (C) are described by the writer in the next paragraph, not by Ruth.
32. C — She says she went ‘mainly … so that she would stop asking’. Retired engineers and electricians (A) are mentioned, but not as her reason for going.
33. B — Dev ‘didn’t take the radio’ but ‘asked questions’, and it is the writer who then finds the loose wire. Option A is the opposite of what happens, and there is nothing to suggest he was unwilling (D): he sat down beside her without being asked.
34. C — She says she was surprised ‘how much those failures taught me’ and came to see Dev’s phrase as ‘an accurate description of how problems get solved’. She found the phrase irritating only ‘at first’, so D is wrong, and she says she failed more often than she succeeded, which rules out A.
35. A — The table covered in screws is an example of how she now opens up everything she owns, and her partner ‘has had to get used to’ it. Getting used to something is not the same as disapproving of it (C).
36. D — People bring objects ‘because it matters to them’, and mending it ‘gives them a reason to tell you why’, followed by examples of personal stories. She says she ‘had to listen’, but she does not compare her listening and repair skills (B).
The same task type at other levels: B1 Preliminary, C1 Advanced, A2 Key, C2 Proficiency.
More practice at every level is on the Cambridge Reading samples page. The whole section in context is on the Cambridge Reading page, and how it is marked is on the scoring page.
Written by Kirill O'Nayd
English test expert and educator at TestSucceed. He has spent years preparing candidates for Cambridge English Qualifications from A2 Key to C2 Proficiency, and taking apart how each paper awards its marks. See all TestSucceed preparation materials.