Practice Test: Reading – Part 6 (Gapped Text) | C2 Proficient (CPE)

Level: C2

The task requires candidates to select from eight options the correct extract to fit in each of the seven gaps in the text. There is only one correct answer for each gap. There is no example answer. The task consists of a gapped text followed by the extracts from the text and one further extract which does not fit in any of the gaps. The text has a title and may also have a sub-heading.

Candidates need to read the gapped text first in order to gain an overall idea of the structure and meaning of the text, noticing carefully the information and ideas before and after each gap as well as their development throughout the whole of the gapped text. They should then decide which extract fits each gap, and write the appropriate letter in each gap. They should remember that each letter may only be used once and that there is one extract that they will not need to use.

C2 Proficient (CPE) Reading – Part 6 : Example Test

For each gap choose the correct sentence.
There is one extra sentence that you do not need to use.

The Farm

The unpredictable nature of growing crops has always pushed farmers to try the latest technology. Once, that involved switching from horse-drawn plows to gasoline-powered engines in tractors and combines.

Select

The setup provided accuracy within about a foot on the field. However, driving the combine past a metal barn would badly skew the location results, sometimes by miles. Today, the GPS he uses is accurate to the inch.

Select

Likewise, the spreaders apply more fertilizer in areas that are measurably more productive, in hopes of boosting yields further. Because the data is stored in the cloud, he can access analyses from an iPad in the fields.

Select

Sullivan is a very early adopter. Only a small number of farmers engage in similar precision agriculture. The USDA reports that in 2006, the most recent survey year, adoption of yield monitoring equipment was around 45 percent, but use of GPS and technology that applies fertilizer at variable rates was closer to 15 percent.

Select

Even farmers who use that combination of technology rely on a thumb drive to transfer data from the combines to computers in their homes, where they use local software to develop prescriptions for their planter and fertilizer machines.

Select

No one has a good count of how many farmers seed their fields from these cloud services, but many farmers are talking about it. The vendors say it can take some of the headache out of managing the technology required for the most sophisticated forms of precision agriculture.

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Some farmers are worried about the implication of buying data services from a multinational that sells an array of farm inputs, which is the term farmers use to describe goods they have to buy, such as seed, fertilizer, and pest-control products.

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That would allow the company to raise prices on inputs based on the data they’re seeing from farms. The farmers see things differently. They are prepared to share the data and see if the concept is feasible, but the first time they see a purposeful price increase around harvest time, they intend to bail.

There is some consternation amongst farmers that they will get locked in to one system, where they’re almost forced to buy what they need from them because that’s where the recommendations, based on the data, are coming from.The cloud-based technology Sullivan uses – taking some of the work out of analyzing the stream of measurements and allowing for real-time and ubiquitous access to the data – has only been around for about a year.Since farmers tend to work on a 20-year upgrade cycle, things might not have changed all that much, says Melissa Lloyd, a consultant who has been tracking technology and agriculture for Lloyd Advisors.Combined with yield information, that data could be valuable to competitors. In fact, some of the data-services companies are talking about aggregating and anonymizing the data they collect so that farmers can look at what their peers are doing.As much as farmers discuss the potential behind the new cloud-based services, they’re now also talking about the downsides, which mean that in some cases, the services require them to relinquish control of their data to huge agribusinesses.He’s able to collect a rich stream of data from his harvester about soil, elevation, moisture, and yield. He transfers information collected by the harvester to machines that spread fertilizer and seed, which adjust themselves to apply less in areas that consistently have a lower yield, saving money.Now, it includes big data, cloud computing, and iPads. Just ask Joe Sullivan. He’s in charge of technology for JR Farms. He started out 15 years ago collecting yield data from his combine. Back then, in order to connect the yield to a spot on the field, he had to use FM radio transmitters to try to improve the accuracy of GPS.This means he can stand in a problem area and look up what kind of seed he used and how much fertilizer he applied at that precise spot. Cloud storage also makes him less worried about a hardware failure on his home computer that could erase this valuable information.

FCE, CAE, CPE

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C2 Proficient (CPE) Reading – Part 6 : Tips & Strategy

Tips:

Tip 1: Be careful…

Sometimes there won’t be a clue in the sentence immediately before or after the gap.

You really do need to read the whole text to get its meaning – sometimes the ‘clue’ is the entire paragraph.

Tip 2: Underline reference words…

Underline the names of people, organisations or places. Also, underline reference words such as ‘this’, ‘it’, ‘there’, etc. They will help you see connections between sentences and paragraphs.

Strategy

Read the main text through first to get an idea of what it is about and how the writer develops his or her subject matter.
Use clues in the paragraphs before and after the gaps to help you choose the ones that fit.
Clues may lie in the grammar, punctuation and/or vocabulary.
Try to guess the sort of information that might be missing.
Check any phrases/short sentences which you have not used to see if they could fit in the gap.
When you have finished the task, read through the completed text to make sure it makes sense