Module 5 Reading. Tips & Practice

🔑 Tips for Every Part: Social Problems & Inequality

Task 1: Multiple Choice Cloze (Precise Lexis)

• Touted vs. Hailed: In Question 1, touted is used because it implies that social mobility is being "marketed" or "promoted" as a benefit, whereas "hailed" is more about spontaneous praise.

• Relegated: In Question 7, we use relegated to describe human dignity being pushed into a lower category (a statistical variable). This is a common C2 verb for loss of status.

  
  

Task 2: Long Reading (Metaphor & Synthesis)

• The "Bandage" Metaphor: Question 4 asks about the "bandage" critique. In C2 texts, metaphors are used to criticize tokenism. Arthur is arguing that corporate charity (the bandage) does nothing to fix the system that creates poverty (the machinery).

• Abstract Paraphrasing: When the text mentions Arthur’s father's "embittered bewilderment," it is a prompt to identify his lack of understanding of systemic shifts (globalization).

  
  

Task 3: Open Cloze (Inversions & Relative Clauses)

• Whose (Gap 2): This tests the possessive relative pronoun. "Those whose boats are anchored."

• Were (Gap 5): This is a high-level inverted conditional.

  • Standard: If meaningful reform were to be enacted...

  • Inverted: Were meaningful reform to be enacted...

• At the mercy of (Gap 4): This is a fixed idiomatic expression.

  
  

Task 4: Structural Synthesis (Lexical Chains)

• Paragraph C (ii): Neoliberal Ontology. Students must connect the description of citizens as "consumers of services" to the term ontology (the study of being).

• Paragraph D (vii): Allostatic Load. This paragraph uses highly scientific language (cortisol, physiological spectrum) to describe how inequality "attacks" the body.

• Paragraph F (vi): Legislative Obstacles. Keywords like "zoning law," "NIMBY lobbies," and "enforcement mechanisms" lead directly to this heading.