What the exam asks
- Three passages, about 2,150–2,750 words in total, getting harder from Passage 1 to Passage 3. There are 40 questions, usually 13, 13 and 14.
- Text types: descriptive, narrative and discursive/argumentative. At least one passage develops a logical argument.
- Extras: some passages include a diagram, graph or table, and technical terms may be explained in a short glossary after the text.
- Band 7 needs about 30/40, and Band 8.5 needs about 37/40. At the top end you can afford only two or three errors across the whole test, so accuracy on the hard argumentative items matters most.
Core ideas
Three text types, three kinds of question set
| Text type | Typical content | How it is organised | Questions it usually attracts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | how a system, process or organism works | parts, stages, causes and effects | TFNG, diagram/flow-chart labelling, summary completion, matching headings |
| Narrative | the history of an invention, discovery or career | chronology: dates, people, turning points | sentence completion, matching features (people and dates), TFNG |
| Argumentative | a debate, theory or controversy | claim, counter-claim, evidence, concession, conclusion | YES/NO/NOT GIVEN, multiple choice on purpose or opinion, matching features (who said what), headings |
Your skim tells you the type within 90 seconds: dates point to a narrative, layers or stages to a description, and researchers who argue or concede to an argument.
The anatomy of an argument
An argumentative passage is built from a small set of moves. Label them as you read: