Reading item 1: honey, grants and the wrong inference
An Extremadura PAU candidate is working through the reading-comprehension section of a mock paper. The text is an original article on a school project in Trujillo: 'Last September, twelve secondary schools in Cáceres province installed wooden insect hotels on their roofs. The scheme was funded by a regional biodiversity grant, not by agricultural subsidies, and its stated aim was to record pollinator species rather than to produce honey. Pupils monitored the hotels twice a month and uploaded photographs to a shared database. The organisers admit that the first year produced little usable data, mainly because the hotels were placed in full sun; they now recommend shaded walls.' The candidate must answer three items: (1) a True/False statement, with a justification quote; (2) a reference question about 'they'; (3) a synonym question for 'admit'. The candidate has marked item 1 as True, writing: 'Because the schools got money to keep bees and make honey.' The teacher needs to diagnose the error and model the correct reasoning.
1. The candidate marked the statement 'The project aimed mainly to increase honey production' as True. Using the passage, explain why this is wrong and give the exact words that justify False.
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The statement is False. The passage contrasts funding and aim: the grant came from a biodiversity budget, not agricultural subsidies, and the stated aim was 'to record pollinator species rather than to produce honey'. The phrase 'rather than' explicitly rules out honey production as the purpose. The candidate has associated 'bees' with 'honey' and has ignored the contrast structure. A reliable procedure is to locate the exact sentence, underline the contrast marker, and check whether the statement matches the stated aim. The words 'rather than to produce honey' are the justification quote.
2. What does 'they' refer to in 'they now recommend shaded walls'? How would you teach the candidate to resolve this reference without guessing?
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'They' refers to 'the organisers'. The preceding clause says 'The organisers admit that...'; the next clause continues with 'they now recommend', and recommending is an action performed by people, not by hotels, photographs or data. To resolve it, the candidate should test each plural noun in the previous two sentences by substituting it: 'The hotels now recommend shaded walls' is semantically impossible; 'Pupils now recommend' is grammatically possible but would need a new subject and is not the nearest coherent antecedent. The nearest plural noun that can perform the verb is 'organisers'. Teaching point: use grammatical number plus semantic role, not proximity alone.
3. Which word in the passage could replace 'acknowledge' in 'The organisers acknowledge that the first year produced little usable data'? Justify the choice from the sentence structure and meaning.
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'Admit' is the synonym. In 'The organisers admit that the first year produced little usable data', 'admit' introduces a concession and takes a that-clause, exactly like 'acknowledge'. 'Recommend' would change both meaning and syntax; 'record' and 'monitor' do not fit the concessive frame. The candidate should check the grammatical pattern (verb + that-clause) and the rhetorical function (conceding a weakness), not just a dictionary list.