Module 9 Reading. Tips & Practice

🔑 Tips for Every Exercise: Vintage & Modernity

Task 1: Advanced Multiple Choice Cloze

• Ascribed vs. Attributed: In Question 1, ascribed is the most precise. While they are synonyms, we ascribe a quality or value to something more abstractly, often in a sociological sense.

• Evanescence: In Question 4, evanescence describes the quality of lasting for a very short time, which perfectly fits the context of "modern life" compared to the permanence of vintage goods.

  
  

Task 2: Long Reading (Character & Theme)

• The "Mechanical Heartbeat": Silas’s father is embittered because he believes the loss of physical books is an "indictment of the physical weight of knowledge." This means he thinks that if knowledge has no weight, it has no value.

• Tactile Resistance: Clara argues that "frictionless" living (too much convenience) is a trap. She believes we need the tactile resistance of old tools (like typewriters) to actually think deeply.

  
  

Task 3: Open Cloze (Syntactic Focus)

• Seldom (Gap 2): This is a Negative Inversion. Seldom is it the case = It is rarely the case.

• It (Gap 5): This is a Cleft Sentence. It is the [noun] that [verb] is used to provide emphasis.

  • Standard: They find the tactile nature compelling.

  • Cleft: It is the tactile nature that they find compelling.

• At a loss (Gap 8): A common fixed idiom meaning "to be unable to explain or understand."

  
  

Task 4: Structural Synthesis (Headings)

• Paragraph C (ii): Heirloom Ontology. If the text mentions viewing objects as "repositories of memory," it is discussing ontology (how we define the being of the object).

• Paragraph F (vi): Legislative Obstacles. Keywords like "patent law," "tech-industry lobbying," and "Right to Repair" lead directly to this heading.

• Paragraph D (vii): Digital Displacement. This paragraph describes how global content creates a "sameness" that destroys local "craftsmanship"—this is a cultural assault.