Bienvenidx! En esta entrada vamos a abordar cómo enfrentar la Parte 5 del C1 (CAE) de Cambridge.
La parte 5 del Reading del examen de Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) evalúa la comprensión de un texto largo. En concreto, en esta parte, se pone el foco en la comprensión de detalles, opiniones, tono, propósito, idea principal, implicación, actitud, y también características de organización del texto, como la ejemplificación, la comparación y la referencia.
Pues bien, en esta parte, el candidato deberá leer un texto y contestar a 6 preguntas sobre el contenido del mismo. Cada una de las preguntas ofrece cuatro opciones distintas (A, B, C, D) de las cuales se deberá escoger solamente una. Obviamente, la dificultad está en que las respuestas ofrecidas son bastante similares.
Protocolo de lectura
Nada te preparará mejor para la parte de las lecturas como leer un poco cada día. Los candidatos que a menudo leen en inglés encuentran que esta parte del examen es manejable. Por otro lado, es de vital importancia practicar las tareas propias del examen a fin de familiarizarse con el contenido y controlar tiempo y nervios.
A continuación, te proponemos una serie de pasos que te ayudarán a automatizar el proceso lector y a abordar la tarea 5 de lectura con más seguridad:
- Presta atención a las instrucciones: asegúrate de leer cuidadosamente las instrucciones para cada pregunta y responde en consecuencia.
- Identifica la estructura del texto: trata de identificar la estructura del texto, incluyendo la introducción, el desarrollo y la conclusión, para comprender mejor el propósito del texto.
- Lee el texto cuidadosamente: asegúrate de leer el texto varias veces para tener una comprensión completa del tema y los detalles importantes. Presta atención a los conectores y los marcadores de discurso que ayudan a relacionar las ideas.
- Identifica las palabras clave: busca las palabras clave en el texto que puedan ayudarte a responder las preguntas. Si es necesario, subraya o resalta estas palabras clave en el texto.
- Verifica tus respuestas: tómate el tiempo para verificar tus respuestas después de completar la sección. Asegúrate de que hayas respondido a todas las preguntas.
De la teoría a la práctica
¡Hora de pasar a la acción! Aquí te dejamos un texto extraído del Handbook for Teachers a fin de que entrenes y practiques todos los trucos y consejos que has aprendido. ¡Suerte!
Part 5
You are going to read the introduction to a book about the history of colour. For questions 31 – 36, choose the answer ( A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.
Introduction to a book about the history of colour
This book examines how the ever-changing role of colour in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, clothing, painting and popular culture. Colour is a natural phenomenon, of course, but it is also a complex cultural construct that resists generalization and, indeed, analysis itself. No doubt this is why serious works devoted to colour are rare, and rarer still are those that aim to study it in historical context. Many authors search for the universal or archetypal truths they imagine reside in colour, but for the historian, such truths do not exist. Colour is first and foremost a social phenomenon. There is no transcultural truth to colour perception, despite what many books based on poorly grasped neurobiology or – even worse – on pseudoesoteric pop psychology would have us believe. Such books unfortunately clutter the bibliography on the subject, and even do it harm.
The silence of historians on the subject of colour, or more particularly their difficulty in conceiving colour as a subject separate from other historical phenomena, is the result of three different sets of problems. The first concerns documentation and preservation. We see the colours transmitted to us by the past as time has altered them and not as they were originally. Moreover, we see them under light conditions that often are entirely different from those known by past societies. And finally, over the decades we have developed the habit of looking at objects from the past in black-and-white photographs and, despite the current diffusion of colour photography, our ways of thinking about and reacting to these objects seem to have remained more or less black and white.
The second set of problems concerns methodology. As soon as the historian seeks to study colour, he must grapple with a host of factors all at once: physics, chemistry, materials, and techniques of production, as well as iconography, ideology, and the symbolic meanings that colours convey. How to make sense of all of these elements? How can one establish an analytical model facilitating the study of images and coloured objects? No researcher, no method, has yet been able to resolve these problems, because among the numerous facts pertaining to colour, a researcher tends to select those facts that support his study and to conveniently forget those that contradict it. This is clearly a poor way to conduct research. And it is made worse by the temptation to apply to the objects and images of a given historical period information found in texts of that period. The proper method – at least in the first phase of analysis – is to proceed as do palaeontologists (who must study cave paintings without the aid of texts): by extrapolating from the images and the objects themselves a logic and a system based on various concrete factors such as the rate of occurrence of particular objects and motifs, their distribution and disposition. In short, one undertakes the internal structural analysis with which any study of an image or coloured object should begin.
The third set of problems is philosophical: it is wrong to project our own conceptions and definitions of colour onto the images, objects and monuments of past centuries. Our judgements and values are not those of previous societies (and no doubt they will change again in the future). For the writer-historian looking at the definitions and taxonomy of colour, the danger of anachronism is very real. For example, the spectrum with its natural order of colours was unknown before the seventeenth century, while the notion of primary and secondary colours did not become common until the nineteenth century. These are not eternal notions but stages in the ever-changing history of knowledge.
I have reflected on such issues at greater length in my previous work, so while the present book does address certain of them, for the most part it is devoted to other topics. Nor is it concerned only with the history of colour in images and artworks – in any case that area still has many gaps to be filled. Rather, the aim of this book is to examine all kinds of objects in order to consider the different facets of the history of colour and to show how far beyond the artistic sphere this history reaches. The history of painting is one thing; that of colour is another, much larger, question. Most studies devoted to the history of colour err in considering only the pictorial, artistic or scientific realms. But the lessons to be learned from colour and its real interest lie elsewhere.
C Colours can have different associations in different parts of the world. (The first paragraph discusses how colour can have different meanings in different cultures and therefore, poses a challenge for historians trying to understand the historical use of colour.)
A The author states that one reason for the lack of academic work on the history of color is the «problems of reliability associated with the artifacts available.» This suggests that there are limitations to the historical evidence available to researchers, which makes it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about the history of color. In other words, there are challenges associated with studying color historically, and these challenges have contributed to a lack of academic work on the topic.
C Find some way of organising the mass of available data. (The third paragraph highlights the challenges of dealing with the vast amount of available information related to colour, and suggests that historians should focus on organizing the data in a meaningful way.)
D When using certain terms and concepts. (The fourth paragraph emphasizes the importance of being careful when using certain terms and concepts related to colour, as their meanings may have changed over time or may be culturally specific.)
D The relationship between artistic works and the history of colour. (The fifth paragraph calls for further research to be conducted on the ways in which artists have used colour throughout history and how this relates to the history of colour itself.)
C Found it difficult to be fully objective. (Throughout the text, the writer suggests that the study of colour is often subjective and influenced by cultural and personal biases, making it difficult to approach the topic with complete objectivity.)
Más consejos
Debes recordar también que, en el caso de que dos de las cuatro opciones dadas te resulten similares o prácticamente idénticas, entonces debes sospechar de que, tal vez, ninguna de las dos sea la respuesta.
- Practica con exámenes pasados: practica con ejemplos similares a los del examen para familiarizarte con el formato y el tipo de preguntas que se te pueden hacer.
- Amplía tu vocabulario: es importante tener un buen vocabulario para comprender y responder a las preguntas de la sección 5. Trata de leer en inglés regularmente y aprende nuevas palabras y frases para aumentar tu vocabulario. Recuerda llevar registro de todas las palabras y expresiones nuevas.
Un libro muy recomendable para practicar esta parte del examen es CAE Test builder. Tiene 4 exámenes dentro, pero la mejor parte es que explica por qué las respuestas correctas son correctas y por qué las respuestas incorrectas son incorrectas.
Esperamos que con estos consejos, junto a una buena preparación, consigas la Certificación Cambridge! Quedamos a tu disposición!
Manuela Mena
LANGUAGE TEACHER – Blog & Content Writer
direccion@feelthelanguage.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuela-mena-b39067205/
Manuela Mena es Licenciada en Traducción e Interpretación, Máster en Neuropsicología, Experta en Docencia Online & Qualified CELTA Teacher. Actualmente trabaja como directora académica de la escuela de idiomas The Language House y CEO de la consultora educativa feelthelanguage.com.
Asimismo, imparte clases en la Universidad Antonio de Nebrija y el SDI de Múnich, además de examinar para los diferentes niveles de Cambridge ESOL.