Bring together the skills needed for Part 7: follow the development of an account, identify what a reference points to and check how a paragraph connects to the text on both sides. A matching topic is a starting point; a complete link requires the right stage, relationship and consequence.
Before filling gaps, identify the direction of the account. A proposal may lead to observation, a revised design, practical work, testing and a later assessment. Not every text follows that sequence, so establish it from the text rather than impose a familiar story.
Note what has already happened and what remains to be decided. A paragraph about ordinary use cannot automatically fit a stage where the group has not yet obtained a space.
A candidate must continue the paragraph before the gap and prepare the paragraph after it. Read the three-part sequence as a passage, not as isolated sentences.
Before: “The group had a layout, but did not know whether visitors could move through it comfortably.”
Candidate: “They marked the positions on the floor and invited people to walk between them, noting where movement became difficult.”
After: “Those observations led them to move the largest table away from the entrance.”
The candidate turns the unresolved practical question into a test and introduces the observations which cause the next change. A paragraph merely praising the layout would share the topic but fail to supply that link.
This arrangement, those requests, the discovery, both groups and such visits refer to particular material. Identify the noun or idea, its number and its role. The nearest noun is not always the right referent.
Check introductions: a record can introduce an item later called the record. A reference to a decision may point to the whole preceding proposal, rather than a single object mentioned in it. Confirm the meaning against the surrounding argument.
Connections often use a chain of related ideas: listing tasks → dividing duties → sharing responsibility, or watching use → recording difficulties → revising a layout. A candidate need not repeat the wording around the gap.
Equally, repeated vocabulary can mislead. An old photograph of a route does not establish present use of that route. A description of an opening event does not establish a dependable pattern of return visits.
| Relationship | What the missing paragraph needs to do |
|---|---|
| Problem → response | Address the particular obstacle already introduced |
| Discovery → consequence | Establish what was found before the text acts on it |
| Trial → assessment | Supply the test or observations used in the judgement |
| General claim → example | Give an instance that illustrates the stated claim |
| Earlier state → changed view | Explain the development without reversing its chronology |
Words such as before, afterwards, still, already and eventually can establish the stage. Distinguish planning an action from carrying it out, and a first trial from a later routine.
Ask exactly where a plausible candidate fails: does it assume a person or arrangement not yet introduced, give the wrong cause, skip a necessary decision, or leave the following reference unsupported?
“It sounds less suitable” is not a sufficient reason. A strong rejection identifies a conflict with the surrounding text. Check the unused paragraph against all gaps as well; it may share the setting while making an incompatible claim.
Part 7 is a gapped-text task with six missing paragraphs. It tests understanding of a text’s structure and development. In the practice below, choose from seven paragraphs A–G; one is extra.
Cambridge English exam format reference. This lesson uses original fictional material for independent practice.
Exercises 1: follow the development of a complete account (8 questions). Exercises 2: fill one clearly marked paragraph gap in each of six independent extracts (6 questions). Exercises 3: restore six gaps in one article using paragraphs A–G (6 questions).
In Exercises 2, both sides of each gap and all four candidate paragraphs are supplied. Each extract is separate. In Exercises 3, all seven candidates appear in the bank below the article, followed by six answer cards.
Choosing a card records an answer; it does not insert or remove text. Complete every answer in a block before selecting Check answers. Feedback gives exact quotations from both boundaries and the correct paragraph, with a reason for rejecting each alternative. Try again resets only that block and shuffles its cards. Paragraph letters keep their identity.
Read the complete account and choose the answer supported by its development. Complete all 8 questions before selecting Check answers.
You can refer to the text throughout. Click any part of an answer card.
An original fictional account.
Paragraph P1The bakery at the end of our street had been closed for eleven years. When a group of neighbours obtained permission to use its front room, I volunteered to help turn it into a reading space. Our first drawing contained shelves, bright chairs and a large table. It looked convincingly occupied. Yet the drawing answered how the room might look without asking how people would actually enter, spend time there and leave. I did not notice that difference until we invited neighbours to walk through the empty premises.
Paragraph P2One visitor stopped at the entrance because the proposed table would leave little space for her walking frame. Another asked where a child could sit without disturbing someone reading alone. These questions did not reveal hostility to our plan. They gave the attractive objects on the drawing consequences which we had not considered. We moved the table to one side and separated a quiet corner from a small area for reading aloud. The shelves stayed; what changed was our understanding of the room around them.
Paragraph P3Finding somewhere for all the shelves was easier than filling them appropriately. A large donation arrived from someone clearing an office: manuals, old directories and several boxes of duplicate textbooks. We were grateful, but the quantity threatened to become our measure of success. A former librarian suggested asking prospective readers what they wanted to find. That question redirected the work from obtaining as many books as possible to building a collection people might return to use.
Paragraph P4The room's past also entered the discussion. An old customer wanted the bakery counter kept, while someone else thought it would obstruct the new use. We had initially treated those wishes as incompatible. Measuring the room showed that part of the counter could remain against the wall, holding a small display of photographs, while the central space stayed clear. The decision was not a compromise in which everyone lost half of what they wanted. It arose from checking what the actual space allowed rather than debating two imagined versions of it.
Paragraph P5We opened for an afternoon with cakes, borrowed lamps and more visitors than we expected. I was ready to describe the event as proof that the reading room had found its audience. Then a neighbour asked when she could return with a book she had not finished. We had planned an occasion, but had not yet made a reliable arrangement for ordinary visits. Her question shifted the discussion from how to draw people in once to what would allow them to come back.
Paragraph P6At first, the same two organisers unlocked the room, put out chairs and stayed until everyone left. Their enthusiasm made the routine look easier than it was. When one went away, the other could not cover every opening. We began recording the separate tasks and inviting people to take one of them, rather than asking vaguely for more help. Someone unable to stay all afternoon could still prepare the room. The work became shareable when its parts were visible.
Paragraph P7That change had an effect beyond staffing. A regular reader who began arranging chairs suggested placing one beside the window for people waiting for a friend. Others tried the position and kept it. The room's users were no longer merely choosing among arrangements the original group had supplied. By taking part in ordinary work, they gained occasions to shape the place. Their suggestions did not have to arrive as a complaint or compete for attention at a formal meeting.
Paragraph P8A year later, the front window contained fewer announcements than on opening day, but the room was used more predictably. The photographs still recalled the bakery, and the chair by the window had acquired a small circle of regular users. I now thought of bringing a place back to life as an unfinished practice rather than a completed makeover. Clearing and furnishing had made use possible. Returning, adjusting and sharing responsibility were what allowed that possibility to become part of the street's everyday life.
One paragraph is missing from each independent extract. Read both sides of the marked gap, then choose the paragraph that fits between them. The four options apply only to that extract. Complete all 6 questions before selecting Check answers.
You can refer to the text throughout. Click any part of an answer card.
Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from paragraphs A–G the one which fits each gap (1–6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Use each paragraph at most once. Complete all 6 questions before selecting Check answers. Suggested practice time: 15 minutes; this is a practice target, not a separate official exam time limit.
You can refer to the text throughout. Click any part of an answer card.
A fictional neighbourhood project.
Paragraph R1The strip of ground behind Bell Street's flats appeared on a neighbourhood plan as 'unused space'. A group of residents wanted to turn it into a small garden, and the first working day was advertised as a chance to clear it completely. Before ordering materials, one organiser, Salma, suggested watching the site for a few mornings. She wanted to know whether the plan's label described what actually happened there.
Paragraph R2Those crossings changed the brief. A route through the site had to remain open, even while planting gave people a reason to stay. At the next meeting, some residents asked for beds where they could grow herbs; others wanted somewhere to sit and talk. The narrow ground could not simply be filled with both. The group needed an arrangement that respected the passage through it as well as these two proposed uses.
Paragraph R3Both groups could now see a place for their activity without claiming the whole site. The volunteers marked the layout with string and began removing weeds from the proposed planting area. This seemed the most straightforward stage of the project. However, what lay just beneath the surface was different from the open soil they had expected.
Paragraph R4The buried paving changed the work, but did not make it pointless. Sound blocks were lifted and reused to form the sitting area, while the broken material was removed from the planting strip. That took longer than the first weekend. Tools would need to stay on site between sessions, and a neighbour offered an empty storage cupboard in his ground-floor entrance. He was happy to keep them there but travelled frequently for work.
Paragraph R5That arrangement made the equipment available without tying every working day to the cupboard owner's presence. When the garden first opened, the organisers photographed new beds, clean seats and a busy path. They had completed something visible, and the photographs made it tempting to regard the main work as over. During the following weeks, people continued using the site, but the work needed to keep it welcoming was much less visible.
Paragraph R6The record gave that continuing effort a shape the opening photographs could not show. Residents divided the watering, litter collection and small repairs into manageable turns. They also changed the arrangements when a task proved heavier than expected. With the routine less dependent on a few enthusiasts, the group could notice more than whether the beds were tidy. Over the next season, people began using the garden in ways nobody had put into the original plan.
Paragraph R7These unplanned uses mattered precisely because they were ordinary and repeated. The group's first drawing could show planted ground and seats, but not the habits that might form around them. The route across the site remained open, so the new activities had not required erasing its older everyday role. Bell Street had gained a place to linger while keeping a place to pass through. Bringing it back to life had meant learning what was there, making room for different uses and continuing to care for the result.
Choose one paragraph for each gap. Use each letter at most once; one paragraph is extra. The letters stay attached to the same paragraphs when answer cards shuffle.
The neighbour agreed that two other residents could also hold keys. They established a simple record of which tools had been taken out and returned, so access would not rely on him being at home. Keeping the cupboard and coordinating use of its contents became separate responsibilities. The offer of storage could then support the project without making its owner responsible for attending every session.
Rather than choose one request and reject the other, Salma drew a planting strip along one boundary and a narrow sitting area along the opposite side. Between them, the existing crossing would stay clear. The residents who had asked for herbs and those who wanted seats agreed to test the arrangement on the ground. Each proposal had gained a defined place within a shared layout.
Salma began noting what happened after a busy afternoon: cups left behind, dry containers and a loose seat needing attention. The notes showed that the same three people were quietly dealing with most of these tasks. Visitors were still arriving, but their presence did not perform the upkeep. She brought the list to the next meeting as a basis for sharing work, rather than a complaint about who had enjoyed the garden.
A parent and child regularly stopped there to read before walking home. Two neighbours began meeting over tea, bringing a flask instead of asking for a café. These small practices were not additional events for the organisers to programme. They were reasons people gave themselves to return, using the space in a way that gradually became familiar to others who passed through it.
She saw people cut diagonally across it on their way to the shops and children use the same line after school. Weeds along the edges had made the whole strip look abandoned, but a worn track remained in daily use. Clearing and planting over that line would have removed a practical connection. The apparent vacancy concealed a function the residents had not initially included in their proposal.
The first spade struck a flat block. Further clearing revealed a patchwork of old paving under the weeds, with some pieces intact and others cracked. The team could not treat the planting strip as ready ground or remove everything in one quick sweep. They stopped to sort what could be used again from what would need taking away, and reconsidered how to prepare the surface.
An old photograph showed a diagonal passage between the buildings, used when the shops had a rear entrance. That entrance had been blocked for years, and residents confirmed that nobody now crossed the strip. The group agreed that the former route could be recalled in a small display without reserving ground for it. Preserving its history would not require keeping it open as a present-day connection.
Each numbered card corresponds to the gap with the same number. Your selection marks the card without changing the article.