A worked CLAT English passage, question by question

Reading about question types is useful. Watching one passage get taken apart, option by option, is more useful. This page does that with a passage of roughly CLAT length, then gives you a second one to try on your own.

How to use this page

1. Set a timer for seven minutes, which is about right for a 450-word passage with six questions. Read once at exam pace, labelling each paragraph in three or four words.
2. Answer all six questions without looking at the explanations.
3. For each answer, write the line of the passage that supports it.
4. Now check. For every question you got wrong, and every one you got right by feel, read why each wrong option fails.

The fourth step is where the learning happens. A right answer you cannot defend with a line is a guess that happened to land.

The passage

Students today type far more than they write by hand, and many schools have quietly reduced the time they spend on handwriting. The change seems sensible. Typing is faster, easier to edit and closer to the way most adults now work. A child who can produce a neat page of notes in half the time appears to have gained something.

Yet some classroom studies suggest that something is lost as well. Students who take notes by hand tend to write fewer words, but they summarise more. Because they cannot keep up with a speaker, they are forced to choose what matters and put it in their own words. Students who type often record a lecture almost word for word. In the studies, the typists had more notes but did no better, and sometimes worse, on questions that asked them to explain an idea rather than repeat it. The act of selection, not the pen itself, appears to be what helps memory.

Critics reply that the fault lies with the habit, not the keyboard. Teach typists to summarise, they argue, and the difference disappears. That is a fair point, and it may well be true. But it asks students to resist the very speed that makes typing attractive. The hand is slow whether or not the student wants it to be, and that slowness does the choosing for them.

None of this means that keyboards should be banned from classrooms. Typing has clear advantages for drafting long essays, for revising work, and for students who find handwriting physically difficult. The lesson is narrower: when the goal is to understand and remember, the slower tool may serve better. Schools might teach both, and help students choose between them according to the task.

A quick map before the questions: P1 gives the popular view (typing is better). P2 gives the counter-evidence and the mechanism (selection helps memory). P3 answers a criticism (fair, but speed tempts). P4 concludes with a qualified position (teach both, match tool to task).

Worked questions

Q1. Which of the following best expresses the main point of the passage?

(a) Handwriting should replace typing in classrooms.
(b) Typing damages students' memory.
(c) Schools have cut the time spent on handwriting.
(d) Because handwriting forces students to select, it may suit learning tasks better, so schools should teach both methods and match them to the task.

Answer: (d). It covers the evidence (P2), the reason (selection) and the conclusion (P4).

• (a) is too extreme. The author says keyboards should not be banned.
• (b) distorts the claim. Typists did "no better, and sometimes worse" on one kind of question. That is not damage to memory in general.
• (c) is true but is only the opening detail of P1. It is too narrow to be the main point.

Q2. According to the passage, the critics of the handwriting argument believe that:

(a) the classroom studies were badly designed
(b) typists who are taught to summarise would lose their disadvantage
(c) handwriting is too slow for modern schools
(d) typing improves understanding

Answer: (b). "Teach typists to summarise, they argue, and the difference disappears."

• (a) is never said. The critics accept the finding and dispute its cause.
• (c) is closer to the popular view in P1, not the critics' reply in P3.
• (d) goes beyond anything the critics are reported as saying.

Q3. The author's response to the critics is best described as:

(a) outright rejection
(b) complete agreement
(c) partial acceptance followed by a qualification
(d) indifference

Answer: (c). "That is a fair point, and it may well be true. But…" The author concedes, then adds that typing's speed works against the habit the critics want.

• (a) ignores "a fair point".
• (b) ignores the "But" sentence, which is where the author's own view returns.
• (d) does not fit a paragraph that engages with the criticism at length.

Q4. As used in the passage, "narrower" most nearly means:

(a) more limited in scope
(b) thinner
(c) stricter
(d) less important

Answer: (a). The lesson applies only "when the goal is to understand and remember", not to all school work.

• (b) is the physical meaning, which makes no sense for a lesson.
• (c) confuses scope with severity. The author is not tightening a rule.
• (d) is wrong because the author clearly thinks the lesson matters. It is smaller, not less important.

Q5. With which of the following would the author most likely agree?

(a) A student who finds handwriting physically difficult should still take all notes by hand.
(b) Typing is of little use in school.
(c) Any note-taking method works equally well for a hard-working student.
(d) A student preparing to explain concepts in a test may gain from summarising lecture notes by hand.

Answer: (d). This applies the P4 conclusion to a specific case: an understanding task, so the slower tool may help.

• (a) contradicts P4, which names such students as a reason to keep keyboards.
• (b) contradicts the list of typing's "clear advantages".
• (c) contradicts the whole of P2, where the method made a difference.

Q6. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's explanation of why handwriting helps?

(a) In a later study, students who copied a lecture word for word by hand remembered it as well as students who summarised it by hand.
(b) Typists record more words than students who write by hand.
(c) Most adults type at work.
(d) Some students find handwriting difficult.

Answer: (a). The author's explanation is that selection, not the pen, helps memory. If copying by hand works as well as summarising by hand, selection is not doing the work.

• (b) agrees with P2. It cannot weaken it.
• (c) is already conceded in P1 and does not touch the mechanism.
• (d) is conceded in P4 and is about who should type, not why handwriting helps.

What the six questions tested

Your turn: a practice passage

Give yourself five minutes.

A generation ago, a broken radio went to the repair shop at the corner of the street. Today it more often goes into a drawer, and then into the bin. Part of the reason is price: many small appliances now cost less to replace than to fix. Part is design. Parts are glued rather than screwed together, and spare parts can be hard to find at all.

In some neighbourhoods, volunteers have started monthly "repair days", where residents bring broken items and learn to mend them with help. Supporters say these events cut waste and pass on skills. Sceptics reply that a handful of volunteers cannot fix a problem created by the way goods are made, and that makers should be required to supply parts and manuals.

The two positions are less opposed than they seem. Repair days show that people want to repair; rules on parts would make that wish easier to satisfy. A town that has one without the other gets only half the benefit.

P1. The main idea of the passage is that:

(a) repair days can solve the problem of waste on their own
(b) manufacturers alone are to blame for waste
(c) volunteer repair and rules on spare parts work best together
(d) appliances are cheaper today than a generation ago

P2. The "sceptics" in the passage are people who:

(a) doubt that volunteer events alone can solve the problem
(b) oppose repairing old appliances
(c) manufacture appliances
(d) organise repair days

P3. Which of the following is NOT given as a reason that fewer items are repaired?

(a) Replacing an item can cost less than fixing it.
(b) Parts are glued together.
(c) Spare parts can be hard to find.
(d) People have lost interest in owning old things.

P4. The author's attitude to the debate is best described as:

(a) dismissive of both sides
(b) balanced and constructive
(c) nostalgic and bitter
(d) indifferent

Answers and reasons

1. (c). The last paragraph joins the two positions: "one without the other gets only half the benefit". (a) is the supporters' view taken to an extreme. (b) is closer to the sceptics' view and ignores the author's synthesis. (d) is a detail from the first paragraph.
2. (a). They say volunteers "cannot fix a problem created by the way goods are made". (b) is contradicted: they want parts and manuals, which make repair easier. (c) and (d) name the wrong group.
3. (d). Price, gluing and missing parts are all named. Loss of interest is never mentioned, and the repair days suggest the opposite.
4. (b). The author finds value in both views and proposes combining them. (a) is wrong because neither side is dismissed. (c) mistakes the opening "a generation ago" for nostalgia; there is no bitterness. (d) does not fit an author who takes a clear position.

What to do next

• Redo both passages in three days without looking at this page, and check that you can still defend each answer with a line.
• For your next five practice passages, write a one-line map before you look at the questions, as in the map above.
• Read inference questions next, since Q5 and P3 both depend on the must-be-true test.