Exam Practice 2 Reading


Exam tip: In the Reading test, there are three sections: social survival, training survival and general reading. Each section can have more than one passage, so there will be between four and six passages to read. There are 40 questions in total. You have one hour to read the passages and to write answers on a separate answer sheet. The passages gradually become more difficult. The text below is written at your level and there are 12 questions. You should try to complete the task in about 20 minutes.


A Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. Are A Levels Just Too Easy?


Text A Students all over Britain are getting very good A level* results. They should be happy and their parents should be proud. However, that is not so easy when everyone is telling you that the exam is too easy and that your results do not mean anything.


Text B The number of passes has increased every year for 21 years, and now more than 20% of students are getting an A grade** in the exam. In the 1970s, only 10% got an A grade, while 20% failed the exam with an E grade. Now those percentages are reversed. Important people in education and business say that A level results have no value. They are worried that the exam does not show which students should be going to the top universities.


Text C Other people say that the number of passes is increasing because students are improving and studying harder. They say that teaching has improved and that teachers know how to train students to pass the exam. Most students study five A level subjects but then only take the exam in the three subjects they are best at. Experts have studied exam questions and exam results, and they say that recent exams are not easier than the exams of twenty years ago.


Text D It seems that the situation is like that in some sports events. Every year, a record is broken because athletes are becoming faster and stronger. In the long jump***, for example, the sandpit was made longer because athletes were jumping out the end of it. Some people in education believe that it is time to make questions in the A level exam more difficult so that questions really test the strongest students. This would provide better information to universities about who should get onto courses and better information to businesses about who should get the best jobs.


* A levels are advanced exams. Students stay on at school or go to college to study for A levels. Students take between two and five A levels, usually when they are 17 or 18 years old.


** An A grade is the highest grade you can get. *** A sports event where athletes try to jump as far as possible.


32 Pathway to IELTS 1


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