Is an example for practicing the reading exam of the TOEFL, but you can use this for preparing your Cambridge exam. There are multiple examples of reading exams in this document.
Hotels were among the earliest facilities that bound the United States together. They
were both creatures and creators of communities, as well symptoms of the frenetic
quest for community. Even in the first part of the nineteenth century, Americans were
Line already forming the habit of gathering from all corners of the nation for both public and
(5) private, business and pleasure, purposes. Conventions were the new occasions, and
hotels were distinctively American facilities making conventions possible. The first
national convention of a major party to choose a candidate for President (that of the
National Republican party, which met on December 12, 1831, and nominated Henry
Clay for President) was held in Baltimore, at a hotel that was then reputed to be the
(10) best in the country. The presence in Baltimore of Barnum's City Hotel, a six-story
building with two hundred apartments, helps explain why many other early national
political conventions were held there.
In the longer run, American hotels made other national conventions not only
possible but pleasant and convivial. The growing custom of regularly assembling from
(15) afar the representatives of all kinds of groups – not only for political conventions, but
also for commercial, professional, learned, and avocations ones – in turn supported
the multiplying hotels. By the mid-twentieth century, conventions accounted for over a
third of the yearly room occupancy of all hotels in the nation; about eighteen thousand
different conventions were held annually with a total attendance of about ten million
(20) persons.
Nineteenth-century American hotelkeepers, who were no Ionger the genial,
deferential "hosts" of the eighteenth-century European inn, became leading citizens.
Holding a large stake in the community, they exercised power to make it prosper. As
owners or managers of the local "palace of the public,” they were makers and shapers
(25) of a principal community attraction. Travelers from abroad were mildly shocked by this
high social position.
1. The word "bound" in line 1 is closest 2. The National Republican party is
in meaning to mentioned in line 8 as an example
of a group
(A) led
(B) protected (A) from Baltimore
(C) tied (B) of learned people
(D) strengthened (C) owning a hotel
(D) holding a convention
, 3. The word "assembling" in line 14 is 6. It can be inferred from the passage
closest in meaning to that early hotelkeepers in the United
States were
(A) announcing
(B) motivating (A) active politicians
(C) gathering (B) European immigrants
(D) contracting (C) professional builders
(D) influential citizens
4. The word "ones" in line 16 refers to
7. Which of the following statements
(A) hotels about early American hotels is NOT
(B) conventions mentioned in the passage?
(C) kinds
(D) representatives (A) Travelers from abroad did not
enjoy staying in them.
(B) Conventions were held in them.
5. The word "it" in line 23 refers to (C) People used them for both
business and pleasure.
(A) European inn (D) They were important to the
(B) host community
(C) community
(D) public
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