C2 Proficiency gapped text and matching practice

• Cohesion: pronouns, demonstratives and substitution that point backwards or forwards.
• Logical sequencing: whether a paragraph introduces, develops, qualifies or concludes.
• Paraphrase recognition, where the answer shares no vocabulary with the question.
• Distinguishing a writer’s own view from a view they report in order to reject.
• Comparing attitudes across texts, including partial agreement and agreement for different reasons.
• Summarising noun phrases such as this shift or such claims, which stand in for whole arguments.
• Time and place reference that fixes a paragraph to one point in a narrative and no other.
• Tone: irony, understatement and hedging, which change what a sentence actually asserts.
• Elimination under time pressure, since the options form a closed set.
• Holding four short texts in mind at once without rereading them.

1. Step 1: 1

   Read the main text with the gaps first

   Read straight through without looking at the options, so you build the argument in your head. If you read the options first, you will match vocabulary rather than meaning, which is exactly what the distractors are built for.

2. Step 2: 2

   Mark the edges of every gap

   For each gap, note the last sentence before it and the first sentence after it. The missing paragraph must fit both edges, and almost every wrong answer fits one edge only.

3. Step 3: 3

   Chase the reference words

   This shift, such claims, the latter, he did so: every one of these points at something specific. Find the referent in the surrounding paragraph and the gap usually fills itself.

4. Step 4: 4

   Check the chronology

   In a narrative or a biography, names, dates and ages fix each paragraph to one slot. If a paragraph calls someone by a first name only, the text before it has already introduced them.

5. Step 5: 5

   Do the certain gaps first

   Fill the two or three you are sure of, cross those options off, then return. A closed set shrinks fast, and the hardest gap is often trivial once six options are gone.

6. Step 6: 6

   For cross-text matching, build a grid

   Write the four texts across the top and the question topics down the side, then note each writer’s position in three words. Answer from the grid, not by rereading, or you will lose the comparison in the detail.

7. Step 7: 7

   Watch for reported views

   Writers at C2 regularly state a common view in order to demolish it. Before you credit a writer with an opinion, check whether the sentence begins It is often claimed or We are told.

8. Step 8: 8

   Answer the question that was asked

   Which writer differs, which writer shares, which writer is alone in doubting: these are three different questions and candidates routinely answer a neighbouring one. Underline the comparison word before you look at the texts.

• Not thisChoosing a paragraph because it repeats a key word from the text before the gap.

  ThisChoosing the paragraph whose reference words point back to that text and whose last line leads into the text after the gap.

  Lexical repetition is the bait. Distractor paragraphs are written with the same topic vocabulary and the wrong logical connection.

• Not thisTreating 'Writer A mentions X' as 'Writer A agrees with X'.

  ThisChecking whether the mention is endorsement, concession or rejection.

  Cross-text matching asks about attitude, not coverage. Two writers can discuss the same point and hold opposite views of it.

• Not thisLeaving a gap blank because none of the options seems right.

  ThisPlacing the remaining options by elimination once the confident gaps are done.

  The task is a closed set. Every gap you fill correctly narrows the others, and a blank scores nothing while a considered guess often scores.

• Not thisAnswering a matching question after reading only the text that looked most relevant.

  ThisChecking all four texts before committing, because the answer is the one that is unique.

  The question usually asks which writer differs from the others, so the answer cannot be decided from one text in isolation.

• Not thisReading 'Few would dispute that the collection matters' as a minority opinion.

  ThisReading it as the writer treating the point as common ground.

  Few would dispute is an assertion dressed as a concession. Candidates read the negative quantifier and invert the meaning.

• Not thisAssuming two writers who reach the same conclusion must have given the same reason.

  ThisRecording conclusion and reason separately in the grid.

  Items often distinguish agreement on a conclusion from agreement on the grounds, and a grid with one column cannot answer that question.

the latter / the former

the second and the first of two things already mentioned

this shift

a summarising noun phrase pointing back to a change just described

such claims

refers back to assertions reported earlier, often before criticising them

in doing so

while performing the action just mentioned

conversely

signals a reversal of the preceding relationship

to that end

in order to achieve the purpose just stated

be that as it may

concedes a point before setting it aside

not least because

an especially important reason among several

for all its

despite its (introduces a concession about a quality)

a case in point

an example that illustrates the claim just made

by the same token

for the same reason, applied to a second case

that is to say

introduces a restatement in clearer terms

worse still

adds a more serious problem to one already mentioned

on the contrary

denies the previous statement and asserts its opposite

quite the reverse

the opposite of what has just been suggested is true

few would dispute

presents a claim as common ground rather than as an opinion

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