Proper English Grammar
General Training Reading Longer texts13 questionsSuggested: 15 minutes

Longer texts: a general-interest feature

The kind of longer, general-interest article you meet in Section 3 of the General Training Reading paper, the closest GT gets to the Academic module.

How to use this. Read the article, then answer all thirteen questions. When you're done, press Check answers for your score, an approximate band, and an explanation of every answer. Section 3 is the longest and densest GT text, so skim for structure first, then scan for the detail each question needs. New to General Training? See the General Training track.

·Reading text

The science of a good night’s sleep

A longer, general-interest article of the kind that appears in Section 3 of the paper.

A

Why we sleep. For a long time, sleep was thought of as a passive state, a simple switching-off of the body at the end of the day. Research over recent decades has shown the opposite. While we sleep, the brain is highly active: it consolidates memories, clears out waste products that build up during waking hours, and restores the body’s energy. Far from being wasted time, sleep is when much of the day’s learning is made permanent.

B

The stages of sleep. A night’s sleep is not uniform. It moves through repeated cycles, each lasting roughly ninety minutes and made up of several stages. These range from light sleep, from which a person is easily woken, to deep sleep, during which the body carries out most of its physical repair. Later in the night comes REM sleep, the stage most associated with vivid dreaming. A healthy adult passes through four or five of these cycles each night.

C

What gets in the way. Modern life offers many obstacles to good sleep. The blue light from phones and tablets can suppress melatonin, the hormone that signals to the body that it is time to rest, which is why experts advise against screens in the hour before bed. Caffeine, taken too late in the day, can remain in the system for many hours. Irregular hours, such as those worked by night-shift staff, disrupt the body’s internal clock and are among the hardest patterns to adjust to.

D

The cost of too little. The effects of poor sleep go well beyond feeling tired. In the short term, concentration and mood suffer and reaction times slow, which is why driving while sleep-deprived is so dangerous. Over longer periods, a persistent lack of sleep has been linked to a weakened immune system and to a higher risk of several serious health conditions. Sleep, researchers now argue, is not a luxury but a necessity.

E

Building better habits. The good news is that sleep can usually be improved without medication. Specialists recommend a consistent routine: going to bed and getting up at the same time each day, even at weekends. A cool, dark and quiet bedroom helps, as does avoiding heavy meals late in the evening. For those who lie awake worrying, keeping a notebook by the bed to jot down concerns can help clear the mind. These simple measures are together known as sleep hygiene.

·Questions 1–13

Answer the questions.

The Section 3 question types: True/False/Not Given, paragraph matching and sentence completion. Nothing is sent anywhere, your answers stay in your browser and are marked on this page.

Questions 1–5

True / False / Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information in the article? Choose True if the statement agrees, False if it contradicts, or Not Given if there is no information.

  • 1Sleep was once regarded as a period of inactivity.

  • 2The brain does very little while a person is asleep.

  • 3One sleep cycle lasts exactly sixty minutes.

  • 4Most physical repair takes place during deep sleep.

  • 5Adults need at least eight hours of sleep each night.

Questions 6–9

Which paragraph contains the information?

The article has five paragraphs, A–E. Which paragraph contains the following information? Choose the correct letter.

  • 6advice to avoid phone screens shortly before bed

  • 7a set of habits together known as sleep hygiene

  • 8a link between poor sleep and serious illness

  • 9what the brain does with memories during sleep

Questions 10–13

Sentence completion

Complete each sentence using no more than two words or a number from the article.

  • 10The hormone that tells the body it is time to rest is called .

  • 11During sleep the brain clears out that build up while we are awake.

  • 12A single sleep cycle lasts about minutes.

  • 13Someone who worries at night is advised to keep a by the bed.

13 questions · not yet marked
·Scoring

Approximate band equivalence

This is a thirteen-question section, so the band shown is an approximation. General Training Reading needs a higher raw score than Academic for the same band, and a full paper has forty questions across three sections, so your band on the day depends on the whole test.

Score (/13)13121110987≤6
Band8.5+8.07.56.56.05.55.0<5.0
→Reading, under timed conditions

Marks lost on Reading are usually technique, not vocabulary.

Knowing the answer and scanning a busy workplace text to find it fast are different skills.

True/False/Not Given, matching, and the traps built into the distractors catch out strong readers who've never been shown the method. In a lesson we work through where your marks are actually going, and how to read for the answer rather than reading the whole passage twice. Lessons are £20 for fifty minutes, one to one, in proper British English; the first step is a free 25-minute introduction.

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