Reading: Long Texts, Cohesion and Inference
What the Reading component tests
Aptis Advanced Reading works with long, fairly dense texts - articles, reports, reviews and opinion pieces - through several task types: matching headings to paragraphs, gapped text (inserting sentences or paragraphs into a passage), multiple matching (tying statements or opinions to speakers, sections or sources), four-option comprehension questions, and short sentence-completion tasks with a word limit.
Four abilities carry most of the marks. Skimming for gist, purpose and audience from the title, opening paragraph and topic sentences. Scanning for specific detail, names and figures without reading every word. Reading for organisation - recognising how a paragraph works (claim, evidence, concession, conclusion) so you can choose a heading that describes its function, not just its topic. Following cohesion - how pronouns, demonstratives, substitution, ellipsis, lexical chains and linkers bind sentences together.
Traps
- Word-matching distractors: an option recycles vocabulary from the text but reverses cause and effect or swaps who did what.
- Headings that are true of one sentence but too narrow for the whole paragraph, or so general they would fit any paragraph.
- Gapped-text options that are topically relevant yet break a reference chain.
- Absolute quantifiers in options (all, only, never) where the text hedges (tends to, in most cases, appears to).
- Ignoring a stated word limit in completion items.
Rule of thumb
For gapped text, read the sentence immediately before and after the gap, then test each option for links in both directions: pronoun and number agreement backwards, logical or time connection forwards. An option that only matches the topic is almost always the distractor.