CELPIP READING · PART 4
Reading for Viewpoints
Compare viewpoints and infer tone or implication.
A useful approach
Track the writer’s claim separately from quoted opinions and counterarguments.
A common trap
A quoted position is not necessarily the author’s position.
Reading for Viewpoints: separate the writer and the commenter
This original passage and reader comment let you practise attribution: deciding whose view a statement represents.
Article: a better trial for Market Street
The city's weekend car-free trial has made Market Street quieter and given cafés room for outdoor tables. Some shop owners say fewer drivers means fewer customers, but the council has not yet published sales figures. Ending the experiment now would be premature. I would extend it for one month, add a shuttle from the outer car park and measure both visitor numbers and sales before making a permanent decision.
Reader comment from Nora
I support giving people more space to walk, but my mother cannot manage the long walk from the outer car park. A shuttle could help, provided it runs often enough and is affordable. Another month of the trial would be useful only if the city addresses access first. The café tables are pleasant, but they do not solve that problem.
Which statement would both the writer and Nora most likely support?
- The trial has already proved that all shops are losing customers.
- Outdoor tables are a sufficient reason to make the change permanent.
- Improving transport access would make an extended trial more useful.
- The city should end the trial before collecting more evidence.
Answer and reasoning
C is correct. The writer proposes a shuttle as part of an extension; Nora also sees a possible benefit, with conditions about frequency, cost and access.
A belongs to neither speaker: the article reports a concern from some shop owners and says sales figures are missing. B goes beyond the writer's cautious proposal and ignores Nora's reservation. D reverses the writer's explicit position.
Notice the strength of each claim
“Could help, provided…” expresses conditional support. It is weaker than “will solve the problem”. Check whether a wrong answer changed a cautious possibility into certainty or treated a quoted opinion as the author's own conclusion.
Original CELPIP Studio teaching example. Independent preparation, not an official CELPIP question or an examiner-rated response.
Try a focused drill
Make the feedback useful
After answering, find the exact evidence for the correct option. Explain which condition or assumption made your chosen distractor wrong. Save the mistake and retry a related task after a short interval.
These are CELPIP Studio preparation suggestions. Official test format and rules are published by CELPIP. Practice material is original and does not predict future questions.
Keep building this skill with all Reading task types and worked examples.