Cómo mejorar tu reading y

Blue Parrot School

writing de APTIS

A continuación, pasamos con los ejercicios para practicar la parte del reading de
APTIS. Los ejercicios que te encontrarás el día del examen serán similares a
estos, por lo que practica mucho y… ¡ve a por la mejor nota!

Reading Part 1: Sentence Comprehension

In this task you have to complete a sentence by choosing the correct word from
three options A, B or C. An example has been done for you.

Hello Gary,

I (0) __HOPE___ you are OK. I need to (1) _______ you a favour. Please can you
(2) ________ some coffee from the shop? I forgot to (3) ______ to the shop
before work. Make sure you don’t (4) _______ or we will have none for
tomorrow!
See you at (5) _______ past nine tonight!

Love,
Jessica

0. A. HOPE B. LOVE C. SEE

1. A. REMIND B. WANT C. ASK

2. A. GET B. SELL C. DRAW

3. A. DRIVE B. GO C. REMEMBER

4. A. LIE B. FORGET C. GIVE

5. A. FORTY-FIVE B. O’CLOCK C. HALF

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 Cómo mejorar tu reading y
Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

Reading Part 2: Text Cohesion

In this part you have to order the sentences so that they make a complete,
coherent text. The first answer is already done for you.

Text 1
A. English has 11 basic colour words: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue,
pink, grey, brown, orange and purple.

B. Of course, we describe colours with other words, too.

C. Also, we may say something is coffee-coloured or lime green, etc.

D. If we want to describe a colour more exactly, we often use ‘light’ or ‘dark’, for
example light blue.

E. Some don’t have lighter or darker tones, like lilac, for example, because this is
the name of a plant.

F. However, in Russian, light blue and dark blue are different colours with
completely different names.

Text 2
A. We spent a week at Jade’s Hostel in Cornwall and really enjoyed ourselves.

B. Overall, it was amazing but it would be perfect if it were a bit closer to the
beach!

C. The beds are not great and if you need everything to be very comfortable,
maybe this is not the best place for you.

D. The hostel is in a beautiful forest and it is really quiet but also fun because of
the other guests.

E. We met lots of them at the hostel café. Jade is always friendly and makes sure
her guests are happy.

F. Jade’s likeable husband, Jamie, picked us up at the station, which was good
because there’s no public transport near the hostel.

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 Cómo mejorar tu reading y
Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

Part 3: Opinion Matching

To complete this task, you need to match four people’s opinions (Person A-D) to
seven questions. Read their comments and answer the questions (1-7).

A beginner in winter sports

PERSON A
As a skateboarder, I assumed I’d be pretty good at snowboarding: I have great
balance and I’m used to moving at speed downhill. It was therefore
discouraging, to discover that this gave me no advantage over the others in my
beginners’ class in the Italian mountains. I spent a lot of time sitting in the snow!
After three long days, I finally managed to stay upright and get down a short,
gently sloping run, much to my delight. Is snowboarding something I’d do again?
Definitely – though I’d probably make sure my technique is better before
booking myself another winter holiday.

PERSON B
Having been useless at roller-skating as a kid, I didn’t expect to do any better at
ice skating. When my friend bought me the lesson as a gift, I didn’t exactly jump
up and down in excitement. In fact, I initially refused to go anywhere near the
ice rink for fear of embarrassing myself in front of spectators. Fortunately, the
rink was almost empty, and once the skates were on, there was no going back.
My instructor was encouraging, and my confidence given a huge boost when
I realised I was actually doing OK. I doubt I’ll take it any further, but it was more
fun than I expected.

PERSON C
Living in Sweden, you’d think I’d have tried every winter sport there is, but there
was one I hadn’t even considered before last winter: Nordic skiing. I’d avoided it
for the same reason I avoid walking in the mountains: I’d rather glide easily
down a hill than push myself up one! One cold January morning, I joined a
Nordic skiing group knowing there were a few kilometres ahead of me. The
technique isn’t too tricky, but you certainly need strong muscles. The views were
spectacular and the company was very pleasant, but I’ve never felt so relieved to
see the end point come into sight in my life!

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 Cómo mejorar tu reading y
Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

PERSON D
Skiing’s always looked exciting to me but living in London, there wasn’t much
opportunity to give it a go. Then I went on a winter holiday and my dream
became a reality. At first, I hated it: boots felt tight and the minute I got the skis
on, my legs slid in different directions. Against advice, I went up the ski lift on my
own. The beginner slope looked almost flat until I reached the top and basically
fell off the lift. From the top it looked much steeper. I couldn’t go back, so I
managed to keep the skis straight for the first few metres and then collapsed on
the snow. After a while, I started to get the hang of it. It’s difficult – but I’m
definitely going back next year.

PERSON QUESTION
1.Who says they did not want to be watched?
2.Who says they were bad at a similar sport before trying it?
3.Who says that knowing a similar sport did not help them?
4.Who says they could not do the activity where they live?
5.Who says you need to be fit to do this activity?
6.Who says they should have listened to other people?
7.Who says that it took them a few days to get used to the activity?

Reading Part 4: Paragraph Heading

To complete the task, you need to match 7 headings (titles) to the correct
paragraphs in the text. Choose from the list (A-I) and match it to a paragraph
(1-7). There is an extra sentence and an example given (0).

0. People have been saying that papers were going to die out for the last 50
years. First, it was TV that was supposed to kill it, but it did not really have an
effect on it. It’s true that the sale of newspapers began to decrease slowly in the
1950’s and a few even went out of business.

1. Having said that, there were other newspapers that prospered and various
new ones started to grow in popularity, selling millions of copies a day.
Therefore, we have proof that those who thought television would destroy the
newspaper industry were wrong. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about
the newspaper’s new and coming adversary: the internet.
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 Cómo mejorar tu reading y
Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

2. It is safe to say that this is something that the industry has never had to face
before. There is not a single daily or weekend national newspaper that is
currently selling more copies than in 2016. In some cases, the amount of papers
sold has dropped dramatically. The internet, of course, is not the only reason for
this. Most of the natural markets and sectors that these papers are aimed at,
especially for industrial workers, was already declining since the end of the last
century and has picked up speed since the beginning of this one.

3. The internet has been the death sentence to those papers that were already
struggling to survive, up to such a point that it has started affecting the very
healthy and lucrative ones. The consequence of this is that there has been an
overwhelming and general attempt to make as many savings in the sector as
possible. So, is it time for editors, publishers, and journalists to finally abandon
ship?

4. Some say that the decline in physical sales is not important to most of us. This
is because although the sales are going down, many of us, especially those lucky
enough to be under 30, have simply changed the newspaper for the tablet. If we
add up the readers that are online to those that still go to the newsagent’s every
morning, there may easily be as many, if not more, people reading the national
press as there were at the beginning of the millennium.

5. The editors confirm that there will maintain true to their idea of having a wide
variety of publications on lots of different subjects so as to give plenty of
opportunities to writers. Additionally, the world’s most successful media boss
recently came out and commented to the press that the newspaper industry
could become, in a matter of years, more popular than ever. Adding that “The
format we use might change, in one way or another, but our overall goal is
always going to be the same and because of that we’re looking at a larger
possible audience than before”.

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Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

6. This sounds sensible, and as a writer myself, I hope he’s right. That said,
I cant help but think that he is doing what all bosses do: be very optimistic about
results. The main problem is that no one really knows how to make the money
the newspapers generate per purchase in a digital form yet. Let me explain this a
little better, An online reader of a newspaper is worth around 10 cent per month
to the publisher, whereas someone who buys the same news in its physical form
at a newsagent’s every day, generates up to 30 or even 40 times more income.
Also, the hard copies of newspapers are still more well known, meaning that
they attract more advertising companies than the internet versions.

7. At this moment in time, around 95% of newspapers get 50% of their income
from selling their newspapers on a daily basis. In other words, digital
newspapers are living off their newsprint parents. Newsprint is still, for now at
least, where the money is. It seems logical therefore that, as more and more
switch to reading online short and catching articles instead of buy a full paper
copy, the amount and quality of what they read will eventually go down as well.
This can be seen in how newspapers have cut back on reporters in the last 10
years. If you buy a newspaper from your local newsagent’s, you support
expensive, creative, and ambitious journalism; it seems now that if you read the
same newspaper online, you are no longer doing this.

Paragraph Letter: Paragraph Title options

0 A A The death of newspapers

1 B An ambitious future

2 C Show me the money!

3 D Eco-advertising

4 E Paying for true journalism

5 F The newcomer to news

6 G Less than before

7 H Age is important

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 Cómo mejorar tu reading y
Blue Parrot School
writing de APTIS

Para que puedas prepararte mejor tu examen de APTIS, te compartimos las

soluciones de los ejercicios de reading, para que así puedas revisar los aciertos y
los fallos que has cometido y no volverlos a cometer el día del examen.

ANSWER KEY Part 1: ANSWER KEY Practice 3:

1. C 1. B
2. A 2. B
3. B 3. A
4. B 4. D
5. C 5. C
6. D
ANSWER KEY Part 2: 7. A
Text 1:
1. A ANSWER KEY Part 4:
2. D 1. F
3. F 2. I
4. B 3. G
5. E 4. H
6. C 5. B
6. C
Text 2: 7. E
1. A
2. F
3. D
4. E
5. C
6. B

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