Reading the Menu He Already Knew
A B1 reading passage is a short restaurant review (about 220 words) with a star rating and three comments from diners. Question 4 asks: "What is the reviewer's main criticism of the restaurant?" The options are (A) the prices, (B) the waiting time, (C) the noise, (D) the location. The passage says the food was excellent and fairly priced, that the reviewer waited 40 minutes for a main course, and that the room was 'lively - which some might call loud'. A candidate, Yuki, chooses C. She explains: "It said loud, and 'criticism' means something bad, and loud is bad." She has no other errors in the section.
1. Explain why C is attractive but wrong, and identify the textual signal that points to B.
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C is a lexical trap: 'loud' is a negative-leaning word, and Yuki matched a single word to the idea of 'criticism' without checking whether the reviewer endorsed it. The phrase 'lively - which some might call loud' is hedged and attributed to others ('some might call'), so the reviewer is not committing to it as a fault. The dash construction also frames it as a concession, not the complaint.
B is supported by a concrete, unhedged fact: a 40-minute wait for a main course. In a review, an unexplained 40-minute wait is presented as a problem; the surrounding positives (excellent food, fair prices) make the wait the contrast the question is asking about. The signal is the specificity plus the absence of any softening language.
Rule for Yuki: for 'main criticism' items, prefer the option backed by an unhedged, specific statement, and distrust options built on a single negatively coloured word, especially one inside a hedge ('some might call...').
2. Yuki asks how to avoid this in future. Give her a two-step check she can apply to any 'main idea / main criticism' question.
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Step 1 - locate the evidence, not the word. For each option, find the exact sentence that would support it. If the only support is one adjective, flag it as weak.
Step 2 - test the hedge. Ask: does the writer assert this, or report/soften it? Markers like 'some might say', 'a bit', 'arguably', 'which some call' mean the writer is distancing themselves. A main criticism is normally asserted directly.
Applying it: (A) prices - passage says 'fairly priced', so the option is contradicted. (C) noise - hedged and attributed, so weak. (D) location - not discussed, so unsupported. (B) waiting time - asserted with a figure, so it survives. This also gives her a fallback: eliminate contradicted and unsupported options first, then compare what remains.