Four factual paragraphs and nine full-statement matches
Part 3 presents a four-paragraph informational text about a person, place, event, or process. It is formal, educational, descriptive, and generally written for non-specialists rather than experts. The official study pack describes about ten minutes for nine questions.
Each question is a statement. Choose the paragraph that contains the information: A, B, C, or D. Choose E when the information is not stated anywhere in the reading. A paragraph can support more than one statement, and an answer depends on meaning rather than repeated vocabulary.
Paragraph purpose, paraphrase, and complete evidence
Part 3 tests whether you can map the topic of each paragraph, locate a likely evidence area, recognize the same idea in different words, and verify every element of a claim. The statement may compress two sentences or express an outcome that the paragraph describes through cause and result.
Not stated is an evidence decision, not a feeling that the wording looks unfamiliar. A statement can be contradicted by the text, partly supported, or absent. In all three cases, it is not a valid match to that paragraph. Select E only after no paragraph supports the complete claim.
Use topic, target, proof, and elimination
- Map four paragraph topics.Write two to five words beside A–D: origin, construction, current use, protection plan. This becomes your search index.
- Break the statement into claims.Mark subject, action, time, cause, comparison, and degree. Words such as first, only, more, and because must be proved.
- Predict the paragraph.Use the topic map and stable keywords to choose where to scan first. Expect important language to be paraphrased.
- Read for complete proof.Check the sentence around the match. Confirm every claim and reject a paragraph that supplies only part.
- Use E after a controlled search.If the likely paragraph fails, check the other topic rows. Choose Not stated only when the full information appears nowhere.
Keep contradiction separate from absence in your reasoning. Both can lead to E in this matching task, but naming the difference stops you from accepting a partial truth. If the text says the centre expanded in 2024, a claim that it first opened in 2024 is contradicted, not merely unstated.
Test the complete statement against each paragraph
This original mini-text is not an official CELPIP passage.
A — Origin: Cedar Point’s weather station opened in 1948 to help fishing crews receive local storm warnings. Volunteers recorded wind and rainfall by hand.
B — New system: Automated instruments arrived in 1996. They sent readings every hour, but volunteers continued checking the equipment after severe weather.
C — Current use: The station now shares live data with schools and emergency planners. A small exhibit beside the station explains how forecasts have changed.
D — Access: The exhibit opens on weekend afternoons from May through September. The instrument enclosure remains locked, although visitors can view it from the marked path.
Statement: The station stopped using volunteers when automated equipment was installed.
- Paragraph A
- Paragraph B
- Paragraph C
- Paragraph D
- Not stated
Evidence path: Paragraph B addresses both automation and volunteers, but it says volunteers continued checking the equipment. The statement reverses that fact, so no paragraph supports it. Choose E, Not stated.
Why topic matching creates false confidence
- Reading without a paragraph map. Every question triggers a new scan of the entire passage.
- Matching one repeated noun. The paragraph shares a topic but assigns a different action, time, cause, or person.
- Accepting partial support. The text confirms the first half of the statement but never supplies the added reason or comparison.
- Missing a reversal. Continued becomes stopped, or a benefit is assigned to a group that raised the concern.
- Avoiding paraphrase. The learner chooses E because the statement uses different words from the passage.
- Over-searching for E. Time disappears trying to prove information the text simply does not contain.
Spot the unsupported extra detail
Paragraph C: A riverside garden now grows herbs used in the centre’s cooking classes. Students water the beds, and a local restaurant collects excess herbs each Friday.
Statement: The restaurant pays students for the extra herbs.
- Paragraph C
- Not stated
Reveal the answer
B, Not stated. Collection is supported, but payment is added. The statement must be proved as a whole.
Check every match as a proof decision
- Did I write a short topic or function for Paragraphs A–D?
- Did I break the statement into subject, action, time, reason, and degree?
- Did I use keywords only to locate evidence, not to prove the answer?
- Could I paraphrase the exact lines supporting my match?
- Did the paragraph support the entire statement rather than one part?
- Did I distinguish contradiction, partial support, and absent information?
- Did I use Not stated only after a bounded check of all paragraph topics?