The Davies Sisters: reading answers and analysis
Two Welsh sisters inherit a fortune built on mining and shipping and spend it on art, starting with safe choices and then buying French Impressionists at a time when almost nobody in Britain did. The war changes them, one of them stops buying, and the whole collection ends up in the National Museum Wales.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
Both blocks run in passage order, which makes this a friendly opener. The notes (1-7) walk through paragraphs A to H. The TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN statements (8-13) start again at A and finish in the last paragraph, J.
Questions 1-7
The note headings copy the passage's own structure: family, collecting, the war, reputation. Use them as a map. The notes paraphrase, so hunt for the idea, not the word. Question 1 names one of the grandfather's industries and asks for the other one. Questions 3 and 4 look alike, but they want two different records the sisters kept.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | mining | — |
| 2 | education | — |
| 3 | notes | — |
| 4 | journals | — |
| 5 | Venice | — |
| 6 | canteen | — |
| 7 | friends | — |
Questions 8-13
Three are TRUE, which is more than this question type usually gives you, so don't panic when TRUE keeps coming up. The NOT GIVEN pair are both 'extra detail' traps. The passage talks about the right paintings but never says where they were bought or how the public reacted.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | TRUE | — |
| 9 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 10 | FALSE | — |
| 11 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 12 | TRUE | — |
| 13 | TRUE | — |
The questions most people get wrong
Most people write 'notes' again because it answered question 3. The evidence for their taste in Old Masters comes from their journals (paragraph D), a different source from the gallery notes in B.
FALSE, not NOT GIVEN. Paragraph E says Blaker championed contemporary French art and had a hand in the decision. That is the opposite of opposing it.
The Cézanne paintings were the first of his shown in a British public gallery. 'First' is not 'popular'. Nothing is said about visitors, so NOT GIVEN.
Sit this test on Langujet, then come back
The full Cambridge 21 Test 1 reading paper: all three passages, 60 minutes, marked the second you finish with a review of every answer. Already done it? Take it again and see if the same traps still get you.
Cambridge IELTS 21, Test 1, Reading Passage 1. The passage name belongs to Cambridge University Press. No passage text or question wording is reproduced on this page. The answers are published for self-marking, and the analysis is our own.