True/False Justification with a Near-Miss Quotation
An exam candidate is working on the reading comprehension section of a Cantabria PAU English paper. The text, adapted from a local news report, states: 'In 2022, the coastal town of Suances launched a bike-share scheme with 60 bicycles at six docking stations. The council reported 8,400 trips in the first eight months, but a follow-up audit found that 37% of users had not used the service again and that two stations were out of service for 11 weeks. The scheme's coordinator said the data would inform a second phase, not cancel it.' The item asks candidates to decide whether this statement is true or false and to justify with evidence from the text: 'The bike-share scheme will definitely be expanded next year.' The candidate writes 'True' and copies: 'The scheme's coordinator said the data would inform a second phase.' The teacher must score the item and give feedback before the mock exam review. The marking scheme allots 1 point for the correct true/false choice and 1 point for a justification that logically supports it.
1. Should the candidate receive the true/false point and the justification point? Justify your scoring decision using the text.
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No. The candidate should receive 0/1 for the true/false choice and 0/1 for the justification.
- The statement says the scheme will definitely be expanded next year. The text contains no commitment to expansion, no timeframe ('next year'), and no decision. The coordinator says the data would inform a second phase, not cancel it. 'Would inform' is tentative and only means the data will be considered; 'not cancel it' merely denies cancellation. Neither phrase proves a definite expansion.
- The candidate's quotation therefore does not support 'True'. In fact, it weakens the statement: a second phase may be discussed, but the text stops short of announcing it.
- The correct choice is False, because the text does not state that expansion is definite or scheduled for next year. A justification could point to the conditional wording or to the audit problems, which make an immediate expansion unlikely.
The key exam skill is matching the strength of the claim to the modality of the source text, not simply finding a related sentence.
2. Rewrite the candidate's justification so that it would earn the justification point for a False answer. Keep it to one sentence and use the text.
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A correct one-sentence justification could be: 'False: the coordinator only said the data would inform a second phase, and the text never states that an expansion has been decided or that it will happen next year.'
Why this works:
- It states the correct choice explicitly, which makes the marker's job easy.
- It quotes the relevant part of the text ('would inform a second phase') but also explains the gap between that wording and the claim ('never states that an expansion has been decided').
- It addresses the two problematic elements of the statement: definitely and next year. A justification that omits one of these may still be accepted, but covering both shows precise reading.
- It does not over-interpret the audit. The audit could be mentioned as supporting context, but the decisive evidence is the modal 'would' and the absence of a decision.
3. What reading skill does this item mainly test, and what classroom follow-up would address the candidate's error?
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The item mainly tests detailed understanding of modality and claim strength, not global comprehension. The candidate has located a relevant sentence but has not noticed that 'would inform' is weaker than 'will definitely be expanded'.
A useful follow-up has three steps:
- Underline hedges and modals in three short news extracts: would, could, may, is expected to, has announced that. Students rank each claim from most to least certain.
- Paraphrase matching task: give statements with 'definitely', 'probably', 'may' and ask students to find whether the text supports, contradicts or is silent. Insist on evidence for the exact strength.
- Rewrite the candidate's justification as a class, then compare a 'True' version and a 'False' version. This makes visible that the same quotation can be relevant but insufficient.
The aim is to move the candidate from 'word matching' to 'claim checking'.