True/False with justification: the repair café item
Lucía is working through a timed practice paper in Ciudad Real. The reading text - about 380 words, adapted from a British newspaper - describes 'repair cafés', where volunteers help people mend broken appliances. She has ten minutes left for five items worth two points each. Item 3 reads: 'The writer suggests that saving money is the main reason people visit repair cafés. Answer True or False and justify with words from the text.' She writes 'False' and justifies it with 'Because people go there to meet others and feel useful.' The relevant lines are: 'The saving is welcome, though volunteers insist the real draw is the company and the chance to learn.' Item 5, a vocabulary item, asks for a word in the text that means 'attraction' in that same line; Lucía leaves it blank because she only knows 'draw' as a verb meaning to sketch.
1. Item 3 carries two points: one for the True/False choice and one for the justification. Would Lucía score both? Give the justification you would write instead and state the rule that decided it.
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One point out of two. The 'False' choice is correct, so the first point is safe. The justification is the problem: it offers a different reason for going but never contradicts the word main in the statement. Set against the line 'The saving is welcome, though volunteers insist the real draw is the company and the chance to learn', her sentence can be read as 'money matters, and so does company' - which does not falsify the claim.
Full-mark justification (quote): 'The saving is welcome, though volunteers insist the real draw is the company and the chance to learn.'
Or paraphrase: 'The text says saving money is welcome, but volunteers say the real attraction is the company and learning.'
Rule applied: the justification must come from the text, must be in English, and must attack the exact claim (money as the main reason) rather than merely add information. When time is short, quote the decisive sentence and cut with '...' - a precise quotation is always accepted, whereas a vague paraphrase is where marks disappear.
2. 'Draw' in 'the real draw is the company' answers a vocabulary item asking for a word meaning 'attraction'. Lucía leaves it blank. Show how grammar and surrounding words identify the word, and say what she should do with a blank item in the final minute.
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Grammar first. After 'the real ___ is', the slot is a noun, so the verb sense 'to draw a picture' is excluded - and there is no object for a verb anyway. Meaning from the predicate: whatever the noun is, it 'is the company and the chance to learn', i.e. the thing that pulls people in. Answer: 'draw' (noun = attraction, pull).
Other senses of draw - a tie in a match, a lottery draw, a sketch - share the same spelling, which is exactly why context, not the dictionary, decides.
Blank items: never leave one empty. A wrong guess scores the same as a blank, and a right one gains a point. She should also check the rubric wording: if it says 'find a word in the text', copy the spelling exactly as printed; if it says 'give a synonym', 'attraction' or 'pull' would be accepted. Two seconds re-reading the line would have shown her the word was a noun.