Question 4: An unseen prose passage of about 500 words will be given. Uncommon items of vocabulary, or structure will be avoided. A question will be set to test vocabulary. Candidates will be required to show an understanding of the words/phrases in the context in which they have been used.
A number of questions requiring short answers will also be asked on the passage. These questions will test the candidates' ability to comprehend the explicit content and organisation of the passage and to infer information, intention and attitude from it.
The last question will consist of a summary that will test the candidates' ability to distinguish main ideas from supporting details and to extract salient points to re-write them in the form of a summary. Candidates will be given a clear indication of what they are to summarise and of the length of the summary.