10 Cross-Text Multiple Matching Practice Questions with Answers | Cambridge C1 Advanced
Cross-Text Multiple Matching is Part 6 of the Reading and Use of English paper in Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE). You read four short extracts on the same topic by different writers, then answer four questions that compare their opinions. For each question you choose which writer (A-D) matches, for example who shares or differs from another writer's view. It tests how well you compare opinions and attitudes across texts. This post gives you 10 Cambridge C1 Advanced Cross-Text Multiple Matching practice sets with answers. Every answer comes with a short note that explains the match. Read the four extracts first, then open the answer under each question to check your work.
Passage 1
Should Community Classes End with an Assessment?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Beatrix Lowe
People join an evening class after work for many reasons, and a common test falsely suggests they share one destination. My final session includes a reflective conversation and a written plan for whatever each learner wants to try next. I keep teaching notes throughout the course, so feedback does not depend on one performance. There is no score, ranking or judgement against an external standard. Some participants initially ask for a certificate, but a document claiming that everyone has reached the same level would be misleading. The class should enlarge confidence and curiosity, not recreate the anxiety that may have kept adults away from education. A thoughtful account of progress can be rigorous without becoming an assessment.
B. Kamal Pryce
An optional project gives learners a reason to bring separate skills together. One person in a gardening class may design a planting plan; another may demonstrate taking cuttings. Each agrees the project with the tutor and receives formative comments, but there is no shared mark scheme and completion is not required. That freedom matters because adults have unequal time outside class. The work also helps tutors see whether explanations have transferred into practice. I would resist a single final task for everyone, since convenience for the provider is not evidence of fairness. A negotiated project is best understood as an invitation to consolidate learning, not a gate through which every participant must pass.
C. Jodie Rennick
If a course promises a practical skill, every learner should have a chance to demonstrate it under the same modest conditions. I use a brief common task in the last session, such as adjusting a bicycle brake or editing a digital photograph. It is not pass or fail, and nobody is compared publicly. The exercise reveals which step needs further explanation and gives the tutor evidence for improving the next course. Individual projects can be rewarding, but their variety makes it difficult to know whether a core procedure was taught clearly. Calling the task an assessment need not make it punitive. The important points are that it is proportionate, announced from the beginning and followed by useful feedback.
D. Tobin Elwin
Some learners need a recognised result for employment or further study. Where an appropriate external certificate exists, I offer an optional examination after the community course has finished. The examining body sets the standard, and we explain that attending the class does not guarantee success. Those who have no interest in the credential simply complete the ordinary final session. Tutor-designed projects may show progress, but they cannot honestly carry the same meaning as an independently verified award. Keeping the examination separate protects both purposes: the course remains open and exploratory, while learners who choose formal recognition receive a result that another institution can interpret.
Questions
1. Which educator shares Pryce's belief that assessment should be optional, but offers a standard set outside the class?
Show answer
D (Tobin Elwin). D is correct. Elwin offers an optional external examination, whereas Pryce offers a learner-negotiated project without a shared standard.
2. Which educator differs from Lowe by requiring every learner to complete the same short practical task?
Show answer
C (Jodie Rennick). C is correct. Rennick requires a common demonstration, while Lowe rejects a common end-point assessment.
3. Which educator shares Pryce's interest in practical evidence but makes the task common to the entire class?
Show answer
C (Jodie Rennick). C is correct. Rennick uses one practical brief for all learners; Pryce lets individuals choose different projects.
4. Which educator is most opposed to Elwin's use of a result measured against an external standard?
Show answer
A (Beatrix Lowe). A is correct. Lowe explicitly rejects external standards and formal certification, unlike Elwin's optional recognised examination.
Passage 2
Should Hotel Housekeeping Be Available Only on Request?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Corin Dale
Reducing unnecessary laundry can save water and energy, but 'housekeeping on request' often turns an environmental policy into a test the guest must remember to pass. Hotels should ask at check-in what level of service is wanted, explain the options neutrally and retain daily cleaning without penalty. A guest who declines a full room reset might still request towels or waste removal. Choice is credible only when the alternatives are easy to understand and obtain. Quietly changing the default, then celebrating the services not delivered, shifts responsibility while telling the hotel little about actual resource use. The hotel should also monitor whether guests from different language backgrounds understand the request system equally well.
B. Nyla Wynn
Daily servicing should no longer be the automatic assumption for a short stay. A clearly stated schedule, perhaps every third day with extra visits readily available, can reduce routine linen changes and room entries that many guests do not want. The environmental claim must be measured, however: hotels should report laundry, energy and waste outcomes rather than count declined visits, and they must not use sustainability language to disguise staffing cuts. A reduced default is defensible when service remains responsive and the claimed savings are demonstrated rather than merely asserted. The calculation should include transport and heating associated with replacement linen, not just water use, and should publish the baseline.
C. Stefan Quill
The argument is wrongly framed as a choice between a complete daily reset and no entry at all. Cleanliness depends on particular risks and tasks: waste may need removing, a bathroom may need attention, while an untouched bed does not require remaking. Guests also differ in their tolerance for staff entering a private room. Hotels should establish task-specific standards and offer predictable windows for necessary work. This protects confidence in hygiene without repeating every visible ritual of service. The useful question is what condition must be maintained, not how often a traditional checklist is performed in full. This approach makes service frequency a consequence of standards rather than a superficial symbol of quality.
D. Asha Merton
An entirely demand-led system creates erratic peaks that are difficult for housekeeping teams to staff safely. When many guests request late service at once, workers face compressed schedules and rooms that may require more effort after several untouched days. Some choice is desirable, but I would retain daily servicing as the staffing baseline and let guests decline or limit it within clear request deadlines. Environmental savings achieved by transferring uncertainty and intensity to staff are not genuine improvements. A predictable daily schedule allows workloads, supplies and training to be organised without making every visit demand-led. It also gives supervisors a realistic basis for assigning physically demanding rooms across a shift.
Questions
1. Which specialist shares Dale's rejection of an all-or-nothing choice, while focusing more on the condition of particular parts of a room?
Show answer
C (Stefan Quill). C is correct. Dale separates a full reset from limited requests; Quill develops this into task-specific standards for waste, bathrooms and other conditions rather than one complete service.
2. Which specialist is most critical of making reduced service the default and presenting the result as an environmental achievement?
Show answer
A (Corin Dale). A is correct. Dale argues that an on-request default transfers responsibility to guests and that counting undelivered service does not establish genuine resource savings.
3. Which specialist shares Merton's concern that an entirely demand-led system transfers responsibility, but focuses on the burden placed on guests rather than staff?
Show answer
A (Corin Dale). A is correct. Merton describes unpredictable demand transferring intensity to housekeeping staff, while Dale identifies the parallel burden placed on guests who must remember and navigate a request system.
4. Which specialist is more willing than Merton to accept a reduced default frequency, provided that service remains available and environmental outcomes are measured?
Show answer
B (Nyla Wynn). B is correct. Wynn supports a clearly communicated reduced schedule with responsive extra visits, whereas Merton insists that guest choice remain bounded by predictable planned service days.
Passage 3
What Should Happen During Conference Questions?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Mara Telford
The live question period is where a prepared presentation becomes accountable to the room. I retain an open microphone but ask a moderator to insist on one concise question rather than a second speech. Questions that require data the speaker cannot recall are logged and answered on the conference website afterwards. This preserves spontaneity without pretending every issue can be settled immediately. Selection is unavoidable when time is short, so the moderator should explain the principle used, such as giving priority to clarification and genuine challenge. A difficult unscripted exchange is not a failure of the programme; it is evidence that the audience was treated as more than a backdrop. The chair also publishes how many questions could not be heard.
B. Keir Lumen
A public queue rewards confidence, mobility and the ability to seize the final minutes. We collect questions anonymously through a digital tool, then a facilitator groups similar concerns and reads a representative selection. Simple popularity ranking is not enough, since a specialist objection may matter even when few people recognise it. The system also accepts paper submissions for anyone without a suitable device. Anonymity can encourage rudeness, so contributions are screened against published rules rather than displayed automatically. The aim is to widen participation while keeping the question visible as an argument, not to turn the session into a vote on which audience member performs best. Afterwards, the complete grouped queue is published with the speaker responses.
C. Sona Brice
Saving every question until the end protects the speaker's sequence but often produces a detached ritual after attention has faded. I build two short pauses into longer talks. Early questions expose an assumption before it shapes the rest of the presentation, and the speaker can adapt later examples in response. A final period still gathers broader challenges. This structure requires firm timing and does not suit a brief ceremonial address, but serious conferences should value intellectual responsiveness over theatrical smoothness. The audience sees not only what the speaker prepared but how an expert thinks when the direction of explanation changes. Those interruptions must be announced in advance so neither speaker nor audience experiences them as disorder.
D. Felix Arden
The conventional question period frequently becomes a display of status: senior participants advertise knowledge, while the speaker improvises beyond reliable evidence. I prefer questions submitted with registration and a facilitated workshop after the talk. The speaker can prepare sources, and participants test ideas in smaller groups rather than compete for a microphone. Written responses remain available to everyone. There is still room for a tightly bounded clarification at the event, but I do not regard maximum spontaneity as a democratic virtue. Thoughtful exchange sometimes depends on slowing the response and distributing authority beyond one public encounter. Workshop notes should record minority objections rather than compressing every table into a false consensus.
Questions
1. Which organiser shares Brice's belief that audience questioning is part of intellectual dialogue, but keeps it mainly after the prepared talk?
Show answer
A (Mara Telford). A is correct. Both value responsive exchange; Telford retains a chiefly post-talk live period, whereas Brice inserts questioning pauses within the presentation.
2. Which organiser differs from Telford by replacing a public microphone queue with anonymous collection and thematic selection?
Show answer
B (Keir Lumen). B is correct. Lumen uses digital and paper submission with facilitator grouping, while Telford keeps an openly moderated microphone.
3. Which organiser is more positive than Arden about the value of an unscripted public challenge to the speaker?
Show answer
A (Mara Telford). A is correct. Telford treats difficult spontaneous exchange as accountability; Arden prefers advance questions and slower workshop discussion.
4. Which organiser develops Telford's emphasis on responsiveness by allowing questions to alter the later part of a talk?
Show answer
C (Sona Brice). C is correct. Brice schedules questions during the presentation so assumptions can be exposed and subsequent examples adjusted.
Passage 4
Should Libraries Abolish Overdue Fines?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Mira Selby
Daily fines should end. Evidence from our branches suggests that small debts do little to bring books back but cause people, especially families with limited incomes, to avoid the library long after the item has been found. We send reminders, renew automatically when nobody is waiting and charge for replacement only after sustained non-response. Returns have not declined. The language of responsibility is important, yet a growing monetary penalty is poorly connected to the actual inconvenience caused. A library can protect shared stock without turning a late novel into a barrier to computers, study space and future borrowing. We review reminder wording as carefully as the point at which replacement is charged.
B. Otis Crane
A modest overdue fine expresses a useful norm: a borrowed item is unavailable to someone else. Abolition treats every delay as costless and leaves conscientious borrowers wondering why they returned promptly. I would cap charges, waive them readily for hardship and remove fines on children's accounts, but retain a small consequence for adults after reminders. Replacement billing addresses loss, not the ordinary week of avoidable delay that frustrates another reader. The system must be humane and proportionate; that does not require making the due date purely advisory. Fairness includes both the late borrower and the person waiting. Published criteria for waivers would also prevent compassion depending on which staff member is asked.
C. Hana Vick
The fine debate begins too late in the process. Libraries should first use automatic renewal when demand is absent, then issue a clear recall when another reader requests the book. Only a missed recall represents a concrete conflict between users. At that point we suspend further loans of popular items until the book returns, rather than allowing a charge to accumulate. This design distinguishes harmless lateness from withholding something needed. Whether a small administrative fee remains is less important than aligning the consequence with real demand and giving borrowers messages that explain why the date has changed. It also prevents staff from chasing items that no other reader currently needs.
D. Leon Fair
We abolished daily fines but did not pretend that reminders alone would recover every item. An account with a substantially overdue book cannot borrow another physical item until the first is returned or discussed with staff; digital resources and library spaces remain available. Regular amnesty weeks invite people back without interrogation, and staff can resolve loss or hardship individually. This is more direct than debt: the borrowing restriction ends as soon as the shared item comes back. We also publish return rates so abolition can be judged by outcomes rather than by the comforting existence of a penalty. Restrictions are reviewed quickly so an unresolved administrative error does not become another barrier.
Questions
1. Which manager shares Selby's opposition to daily fines but favours a direct restriction on further physical borrowing?
Show answer
D (Leon Fair). D is correct. Fair agrees that accumulating monetary penalties should end, but blocks additional physical loans until the overdue item is returned or discussed.
2. Which manager differs from Selby by arguing that a limited monetary consequence still communicates an important obligation to other borrowers?
Show answer
B (Otis Crane). B is correct. Crane regards a capped, waivable fine as a signal that delay affects waiting readers, while Selby considers growing debt ineffective and exclusionary.
3. Which manager is most concerned that overdue debt can deter people from using unrelated library services in the future?
Show answer
A (Mira Selby). A is correct. Selby explicitly links small debts with families avoiding computers, study space and later borrowing even after the item has been found.
4. Which manager shares Vick's preference for encouraging return without accumulating debt, but applies a borrowing restriction more generally rather than only after a demand-based recall?
Show answer
D (Leon Fair). D is correct. Both use non-monetary restrictions; Fair applies one to substantially overdue physical items, whereas Vick triggers it after another reader requests the book.
Passage 5
How Much Choice Should a Restaurant Menu Offer?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Selin Moor
An extensive menu often promises freedom while relying on the same prepared ingredients rearranged under many headings. A shorter list lets a kitchen buy fresher produce, train staff thoroughly and establish what it does well. This need not mean a rigid sequence chosen by the chef; diners may still select among several dishes. The important reduction is in nominal variety that the kitchen cannot execute consistently. I would rather see six distinct main courses than twenty that differ chiefly in sauce. Restaurants should publish changes confidently instead of preserving unpopular dishes because somebody once ordered one. Choice has value, but beyond a point it becomes a claim about abundance rather than a set of meaningful alternatives.
B. Owen Latt
Calls for smaller menus frequently assume that every diner can choose from the same core dishes. A group may include allergies, religious requirements, sensory preferences and different budgets. Simply removing items can leave one person with a token plate assembled without care. Kitchens need not maintain dozens of separate recipes; a modular design can offer well-tested bases, sides and sauces that combine in clearly explained ways. Staff must know which changes are safe, and prices should remain visible after substitutions. In this form, variety is not theatrical abundance. It is the capacity to produce an equally considered meal for people whose needs differ. Efficiency should reduce hidden complexity, not reduce who can participate.
C. Kara Venn
The popular claim that long menus create 'decision fatigue' is too simple. Diners struggle when categories are inconsistent, descriptions conceal the main ingredient or visually dominant boxes push items without explaining them. Forty choices organised by occasion and style may be easier than twelve scattered ones. Before cutting dishes, restaurants should test whether headings, comparison and staff guidance allow people to form a shortlist. Digital menus can filter dietary needs, but they should not force every diner through a sequence of questions before revealing prices. The relevant measure is not how many lines a menu contains. It is how readily a person can understand the differences that matter to them and reach a confident decision.
D. Ewan Joss
A compact seasonal menu can make change visible: asparagus appears briefly, a fish disappears when supply is poor, and returning diners encounter the kitchen's present circumstances. I share the preference for fewer dishes, but not because chefs should perfect a permanent signature list. The list should move. Nor should the tasting menu become the automatic solution; it transfers all choice to the restaurant and may suit neither appetite nor budget. A small number of flexible courses, with portion and price stated clearly, can combine coherence with agency. The aim is not minimalism as a mark of seriousness. It is to make each available choice responsive to ingredients rather than maintain a large catalogue through frozen preparation and substitution.
Questions
1. Which specialist shares Moor's preference for a shorter menu while giving a different main reason for it?
Show answer
D (Ewan Joss). D is correct. Moor links a shorter menu to freshness and consistent execution; Joss also favours a compact list but chiefly because it can respond visibly to seasonal supply.
2. Which specialist develops Joss's support for retaining diner choice by explaining how dishes can be recombined?
Show answer
B (Owen Latt). B is correct. Joss wants flexible courses rather than a chef-controlled tasting menu, and Latt provides the explicit modular model of bases, sides and sauces that diners can combine.
3. Which specialist, unlike Latt, argues that apparent menu variety may not represent genuinely different dishes?
Show answer
A (Selin Moor). A is correct. Latt values variety as a way to include differing needs, whereas Moor argues that a long list may merely rearrange the same prepared ingredients and therefore offer only nominal variety.
4. Which specialist most strongly challenges Moor's assumption that a long menu is itself an obstacle to meaningful choice?
Show answer
C (Kara Venn). C is correct. Moor sees excessive length as nominal rather than meaningful variety, while Venn argues that organisation and clarity, rather than the number of choices, determine whether decisions are difficult.
Passage 6
Should Public Parks Close After Dark?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Tessa Blythe
A park is not merely an outdoor corridor. Plants recover from heavy use, nocturnal animals feed, and maintenance teams need periods in which paths are empty. In densely used central parks, a regular overnight closure should therefore be the starting point, with opening hours adjusted seasonally so that winter commuters are not excluded simply because darkness arrives early. Exceptions can be made for a clearly defined route across a large site, but keeping every entrance open all night makes supervision and repair unnecessarily difficult. Gates are sometimes criticised as symbolic barriers. They are also a practical way to give a shared landscape a rhythm of use and recovery that a pavement does not require.
B. Cole Nery
People working late shifts, caring for relatives or travelling before dawn should not lose their safest walking route because their timetable differs from the majority's. Closing a park may send them beside faster roads or through poorly observed streets. I favour a lit route that remains open continuously, with clear sightlines and emergency contact points, while quieter sections can receive less lighting. The claim that gates create safety is often based on incidents counted inside the park, without counting what happens after users are diverted elsewhere. Public space earns the name only if access is not tied to conventional working hours. Maintenance can close a path temporarily; it should not justify exclusion as the nightly norm.
C. Nadi Fosse
Debate is distorted by treating a park as one indivisible area. A riverside path, a children's garden and a reed bed have different users and ecological needs. Timed zones allow a through-route to remain open while play areas close and habitats stay dark. Such boundaries can change across seasons and after monitoring, rather than becoming permanent assumptions fixed when the gates are installed. This approach costs more to explain, because signs and maps must make the pattern legible, but it avoids choosing between unrestricted access and complete closure. The relevant question is not whether the park is open at night. It is which functions should continue, in which places, and with what evidence of their effects.
D. Bram Ulen
A locked gate can improve the appearance of safety statistics without resolving the conditions that make people uneasy. Difficult activity may move to the next unstaffed square, while residents still avoid the surrounding streets. I would invest first in evening staff, nearby transport, active ground-floor uses and regular programmes that bring a varied public into the park. Lighting helps when it reveals routes, but excessive brightness can create glare and erase the quieter character people value. Some small sites will still need closing where staffing is impossible. What I oppose is using a fence as a substitute for observing how the wider area works. Safety is produced by relationships and presence, not simply by the absence of people behind gates.
Questions
1. Which specialist takes the clearest opposing view to Nery by supporting regular overnight closure as the normal starting point?
Show answer
A (Tessa Blythe). A is correct. Nery rejects nightly closure as the norm, while Blythe explicitly says that regular overnight closure should be the starting point for heavily used central parks.
2. Which specialist is most concerned that closing parks disadvantages people whose routines fall outside standard working hours?
Show answer
B (Cole Nery). B is correct. Nery specifically identifies late-shift workers, carers and early travellers, arguing that public access should not depend on conventional working hours.
3. Which specialist develops Nery's concern that closure may move rather than solve safety problems?
Show answer
D (Bram Ulen). D is correct. Nery says diversion may expose users to poorly observed streets; Ulen likewise argues that difficult activity can simply move to another unstaffed place.
4. Which specialist most explicitly rejects treating the entire park as subject to one opening-hours policy?
Show answer
C (Nadi Fosse). C is correct. Fosse rejects the idea of a park as one indivisible area and proposes different timed arrangements for paths, play spaces and habitats.
Passage 7
How Should Lost Property Be Returned?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Leena Roff
A lost-property catalogue can help genuine owners, but photographs of distinctive items also provide a script for false claims. We ask people to describe an object before showing them possible matches, including a mark or item inside it that only the owner is likely to know. Staff then record which details established ownership. This may seem slower than letting everyone browse images, yet it protects personal objects and makes decisions consistent. Remote claims are possible through a secure form; privacy does not require an unnecessary journey. The system should reveal enough for someone to recognise the category and location of a loss, but not every feature needed to acquire it. Convenience without verification merely transfers the inconvenience to the rightful owner.
B. Gavin Holt
People often do not know which organisation received an item lost during a journey involving a station, bus and shopping centre. Separate desks force them to repeat searches. I favour a shared online catalogue with dates, broad locations and photographs, searchable across participating services. Images can omit serial numbers and contents, while claimants supply those privately. Some managers fear that visibility invites fraud, but an invisible storeroom guarantees failure for owners who cannot visit several counters. The catalogue should also show the stage of each report so people stop receiving contradictory answers. Our task is not to preserve an immaculate inventory. It is to make the route from loss to recognition short enough that an owner will actually complete it.
C. Priya Dace
Most systems wait for owners to discover the correct form. We can do more. A travel card beside a scarf, a labelled instrument case or a device with an emergency contact may provide a lawful route to its owner. Staff should use such clues carefully and record contact attempts rather than merely assigning shelf numbers. This extends the principle behind shared online searches: ownership should not depend on returning physically to the place of loss. Performance measures must count verified reunions and the time owners spend navigating the process, not how rapidly staff log an item. A perfectly catalogued umbrella that remains in storage is an administrative success and a service failure.
D. Hugo Marn
Even an excellent search ends with objects that cannot be returned. Policies become evasive at that point, allowing storerooms to fill while staff repeatedly move items nobody has claimed. Retention periods should be published when a loss is reported and vary by value and personal sensitivity. After that period, reusable goods can go to named charities, recyclable materials to appropriate processors and documents to secure destruction. Revenue, if items are sold, should support the service rather than become a hidden incentive to shorten searches. I agree that reunification is the first purpose, but responsible disposal is part of the same public promise. A system that never decides an item's final status has not treated it carefully; it has postponed the decision.
Questions
1. Which manager extends Holt's view that recovery should not require physical visits by proposing that staff actively contact likely owners?
Show answer
C (Priya Dace). C is correct. Holt wants a shared remote search across services; Dace explicitly extends that principle by using available clues to contact likely owners, so return does not depend on a physical visit.
2. Which manager concentrates on what should happen when the reunification prioritised by Dace has not succeeded?
Show answer
D (Hugo Marn). D is correct. Dace defines success as verified return, while Marn addresses the later stage in which an owner cannot be found and sets out retention and disposal rules.
3. Which manager has a different view from Roff on how much visual information should be publicly searchable?
Show answer
B (Gavin Holt). B is correct. Roff withholds distinctive images until a claimant supplies private details, whereas Holt advocates a public catalogue containing photographs, with only selected identifying details omitted.
4. Which manager's procedure most directly addresses the risk of false claims acknowledged by Holt?
Show answer
A (Leena Roff). A is correct. Holt notes the possibility of fraud; Roff provides the clearest response by requiring undisclosed descriptive details before showing a possible match and recording the evidence of ownership.
Passage 8
Do Office Workers Still Need Assigned Desks?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Nina Carrow
An assigned desk is not simply territory. It preserves ergonomic settings, keeps frequently used materials available and gives colleagues a dependable place to find one another. Hybrid schedules do leave seats empty, so teams can share a smaller neighbourhood on agreed attendance days rather than remove individual bases altogether. The modest inefficiency buys continuity and a sense that the office belongs to its workers, not just to a booking algorithm. People should be able to leave a project safely between sessions and return without reconstructing their working environment each morning. Space data matters, but it should inform provision rather than erase stable arrangements by default. A stable base can still be cleared when the team deliberately changes its working pattern.
B. Basil Kemp
Personal ownership of a workstation is an expensive response to habits formed when everyone attended daily. A well-run unassigned system gives people a clean, equipped desk where their work requires it, with lockers for personal items and reliable booking for busy days. Occupancy evidence lets the organisation convert surplus rows into meeting rooms and quiet areas. Complaints often reflect poor implementation: missing equipment, uncertain availability or inconsistent cleaning, not an inherent need for one person's name on one surface. The office should support varied attendance and changing teams; fixed allocation freezes space around yesterday's organisation. Management must nevertheless publish availability data so employees can trust the booking promise.
C. Orla Dean
The choice between assigned and unassigned desks ignores what work is being done. Our offices provide quiet focus rooms, collaborative tables, short-stay touchdown seats and adjustable workstations reserved for documented access needs. Most people choose among these rather than receive a permanent desk. This is not random hot-desking: equipment and booking information identify the conditions of each place. Kemp is right that every employee need not own a surface, but wrong if efficiency assumes that all surfaces and bodies are interchangeable. A useful workplace offers dependable types of setting, including personalised adjustments where equality requires them. The mix should change only after observing how people actually use each type of setting.
D. Sami Holt
Team neighbourhoods offer a practical middle course. Each group has a recognisable area and several anchor desks for equipment, but individuals reserve from a shared pool according to attendance. This preserves the informal contact Carrow values without maintaining one empty station per absent employee. Quarterly occupancy data changes the size of each neighbourhood, and nobody is moved from week to week merely to maximise a percentage. The model accepts that belonging can attach to colleagues and a familiar zone rather than a single chair. It also leaves room for permanent allocation when a role or adjustment genuinely demands it. This compromise is more durable than alternating between full allocation and unrestricted hot-desking.
Questions
1. Which designer shares Holt's emphasis on team continuity but gives stronger support to an individual worker retaining a stable base?
Show answer
A (Nina Carrow). A is correct. Both value familiar colleagues and locations; Carrow preserves individual bases within team areas, while Holt mainly shares desks inside a neighbourhood.
2. Which designer develops Carrow's concern with team identity while using occupancy data to reduce the number of permanently allocated desks?
Show answer
D (Sami Holt). D is correct. Holt retains recognisable team neighbourhoods but adjusts their size and uses a shared reservable pool rather than one desk per person.
3. Which designer differs from Kemp by warning that efficiency must not treat every workstation or worker as interchangeable?
Show answer
C (Orla Dean). C is correct. Dean accepts broad sharing but insists on task-specific settings and personalised accessible workstations, qualifying Kemp's more universal unassigned model.
4. Which designer is least persuaded that booking, lockers and reliable equipment can fully replace a personally stable workstation?
Show answer
A (Nina Carrow). A is correct. Carrow argues that continuity, ergonomic settings and project materials justify an individual base despite the efficiencies claimed for booking systems.
Passage 9
How Should Public Swimming Pools Divide Their Space?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Jory Densley
A timetable is fair only if swimmers can understand it before making the journey. I divide the pool into fast, steady, leisure and teaching areas at published times, and I do not routinely move the lane ropes halfway through a session. A sudden crowd in one section can look like proof that the plan is wrong, but it may merely reflect a short-lived rush. Stability lets families, regular swimmers and instructors make reliable arrangements. It also prevents confident customers from negotiating extra space at the expense of quieter ones. We record occupancy at fixed intervals and revise the next month's timetable when a pattern persists. Emergency closures are unavoidable, of course, but ordinary changes should be made through an announced review rather than an unexplained decision on the poolside.
B. Hiba Lockett
A fixed diagram is usually out of date within minutes of opening. The duty manager should be able to add a lane when serious swimmers arrive or create more open water when families fill the shallow end. Flexibility need not mean guesswork. Staff count users, note waiting at the edge and record every alteration, while a screen in reception shows the current layout. The manager also explains a change before moving any rope. Published schedules still matter for lessons, but protecting empty water because a category was forecast is difficult to justify. Evidence is most useful while it can improve the session people are actually attending. The real safeguard against favouritism is a visible rule for responding to demand, not a refusal to respond at all.
C. Fenna Cadell
Some activities cannot depend on whoever happens to arrive first. Physiotherapy groups, disability sessions and clubs training for an event need water of a known depth and width. I therefore allow defined groups to reserve particular lanes, with a limit on how much any organisation may hold. Unconfirmed bookings are released, and repeated non-attendance reduces future priority. The rest of the pool remains available without reservation, so this is not a general booking system for individuals. Critics say protected access leaves water unused, but an apparently empty lane may be essential to someone who cannot safely share it. Fairness is not always achieved by treating every swimmer's needs as interchangeable. It requires precise eligibility rules and honest publication of unused bookings.
D. Lucan Broome
Lane ropes make a generous pool feel like a collection of narrow corridors. Apart from scheduled lessons, I prefer open water with clear guidance about direction, overtaking and consideration for slower swimmers. Staff intervene when behaviour becomes unsafe, and at busy times we may mark a slow area along one side, but permanent categories encourage people to defend territory rather than negotiate space. This approach is not suitable for a competitive training centre, yet a community pool serves many visitors who are neither training nor counting lengths. They should not be squeezed into whatever water remains after specialists have divided it. Good supervision and shared etiquette can often accommodate mixed purposes more naturally than an elaborate allocation plan.
Questions
1. Which manager differs from Lockett by refusing routine changes to lane allocations during a session?
Show answer
A (Jory Densley). A is correct. Densley keeps a stable published arrangement during ordinary sessions, whereas Lockett changes the layout in response to live demand.
2. Which manager shares Cadell's belief that advance certainty matters, but provides it through a public timetable rather than group reservations?
Show answer
A (Jory Densley). A is correct. Densley offers predictable access through scheduled zones, while Cadell protects certainty through restricted lane bookings.
3. Which manager gives pre-booked priority to specified groups while also penalising repeated non-attendance?
Show answer
C (Fenna Cadell). C is correct. Cadell reserves lanes for defined specialist users and releases or restricts bookings when groups fail to attend.
4. Which manager most closely shares Densley's interest in evidence about use, but applies it to immediate changes instead of later planning?
Show answer
B (Hiba Lockett). B is correct. Lockett uses live counts to alter the current session; Densley records occupancy to revise a future timetable.
Passage 10
How Should Universities Use Course Feedback?
Read the four extracts below. For each question, choose the extract (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once.
A. Elin Marlow
Course feedback becomes a cynical ritual when students submit it into silence. Each department should publish what it heard, what it will change and what it cannot change, with reasons. Yet a single end-of-term rating is thin evidence: response rates differ, and a dissatisfied minority may be unusually motivated. I would combine a short common survey with representative student panels and evidence about learning. This is not an attempt to dilute criticism but to locate it. Students are entitled to see a response, while teachers are entitled to know whether a comment describes an isolated preference or a recurring obstacle. Nor should popular requests automatically outweigh evidence about what a course is meant to teach.
B. Rufus Keane
Anonymous forms promise candour but remove the conditions of useful conversation. An insult and a thoughtful criticism arrive with equal status, while the teacher cannot ask what experience produced either one. I favour facilitated discussion with elected student representatives, followed by a written account that participants can correct. A confidential route must remain available for sensitive concerns, but the standard anonymous questionnaire should not dominate routine evaluation. Dialogue may yield fewer comments than a mass survey; it also requires students to explain priorities and hear that their requests sometimes conflict. The process is slower, but it exposes trade-offs that an anonymous comment box makes altogether easy to ignore.
C. Talia Voss
Comparable scores have a legitimate, limited purpose. A common set of questions can reveal whether a problem persists across several years, which an informal conversation may miss. The figures must be broken down by course stage, attendance and teaching mode, however, and small numerical shifts should never become a league table of staff. I would retain free-text comments and locally chosen questions beside the common core. Quantitative evidence is not a verdict on teaching; interpreted carefully, it is one signal that tells a department where a closer qualitative inquiry should begin. Used this way, the score prompts investigation rather than pretending to complete it. It also keeps local context visible when senior managers compare departments.
D. Nikhil Drewe
The conventional survey arrives when the students who supplied the evidence have already left. That timing turns improvement into a promise made chiefly to a future cohort. I use a brief questionnaire a third of the way through a course, discuss its main findings in class and identify one adjustment that can be tested immediately. A final evaluation still has a place in accountability, but it should not be the first occasion on which a difficulty becomes visible. Feedback becomes credible when students can observe a considered response, including an explanation when a requested change would undermine the course's aims. That exchange also shows students that disagreement with a suggestion is not the same as disregarding it.
Questions
1. Which researcher is least persuaded by Marlow's proposal to retain a common anonymous survey alongside other evidence?
Show answer
B (Rufus Keane). B is correct. Marlow keeps a short common survey within a mixed system, whereas Keane argues that the standard anonymous questionnaire should not dominate and prefers accountable discussion.
2. Which researcher differs from Voss by giving priority to changes that current students can experience rather than comparisons over several years?
Show answer
D (Nikhil Drewe). D is correct. Voss values common scores partly for longitudinal comparison, while Drewe prioritises early evidence and an adjustment that the present class can test.
3. Which researcher develops Marlow's concern about representativeness by explaining how numerical results should be broken down and interpreted?
Show answer
C (Talia Voss). C is correct. Marlow warns that response patterns can distort a rating; Voss develops that concern by requiring disaggregation and rejecting small score changes as staff rankings.
4. Which researcher shares Drewe's view that feedback should produce a visible response, while placing less emphasis on collecting it before a course ends?
Show answer
A (Elin Marlow). A is correct. Drewe stresses mid-course action, while Marlow also requires departments to publish what they heard and how they will respond, but does not make timing her central concern.