LanguageCert Academic Reading: a 50-minute plan for all five tasks

LanguageCert Academic Reading has 30 questions in 50 minutes, spread across five task types. The time is enough if you do not get stuck. Most candidates who run out of time spent too long on one sentence-insertion gap.

A timing plan

Part 1a: closest meaning

Each sentence has a highlighted word or phrase. Choose the option that could replace it without changing the meaning. Read the whole sentence: "attributes" in "The report attributes the decline to rising costs" means "explains it by", and the other options may fit the grammar but not the meaning.

Part 1b: gapped text

Five gaps, three options each. These are often grammar or linking words: than or as, although or because, during or since. Read the sentence after the gap too, because the logic often only becomes clear there.

Part 2: missing sentences

Six sentences have been removed from a longer text, and you choose from eight. The best clues are not topic words but reference and linking words:

• This, these, such, it point back to something just mentioned.
• However, instead and yet signal a contrast with the previous sentence.
• A sentence starting "The second problem is cost" needs a first problem in the sentences before it.

Do the gaps you are sure of first. With two extra sentences, eliminating clear matches makes the hard gaps easier. Check that each chosen sentence also connects to the sentence after the gap.

Part 3: four short texts

Four people write about one theme, and seven questions ask "Which text…". Questions paraphrase, so look for meaning, not matching words. A question like "doubts that the plan will work" might match a sentence saying "I can't see this ever happening in practice".

Read the questions first, then read each text once, noting in a few words what each writer believes. You can choose a text more than once, and some texts are used twice.

Part 4: the long text

Six four-option questions on an argument text. Questions usually follow the order of the text, and the last question often asks about the writer's overall view. Two tips:

• Separate the writer's opinion from opinions they report. "Some economists argue the tax is fair. Others disagree" is not the writer's own view.
• Watch for extreme options. Answers with always, never or proves are usually wrong in an argument text that weighs evidence.

A weekly practice routine

1. Read one academic article and summarise its argument in two sentences.
2. Underline every linking word in one paragraph and say what relationship it shows.
3. Do one timed Part 2 and one timed Part 4, then review every wrong answer and find the clue you missed.

Try a free Reading practice: Part 2 and Part 4, 11 questions in 20 minutes, with an estimated score.