CELPIP Reading Diagram Questions: Test 13

Part 2 of CELPIP Reading is the only part built around a diagram rather than a passage, and candidates consistently under-rate it. It carries 8 of the 38 marks in 8 minutes, it is pure comparison, and the answer is usually hiding in a condition rather than in a price.

The diagram on this test

Reading Test 13 compares four moving and storage packages from Harvest Moon Movers. Truck and Driver is $560 per move with four hours included, a five-tonne truck and one driver, and you and your own helpers do all the carrying; damage is covered by weight alone, at $0.60 for each kilogram. Full Service Move is $1,180 with seven hours included and three movers, and broken items are replaced up to $40,000 with no claim fee. Storage Only is $145 a month for a heated locker at the Lindsay yard, rented for three months at the least, with no movers attending. Packing Help Add-On is $220 per booking for three hours.

Notice what separates them. Overtime is $95 an hour on one option and $150 on another, damage cover is by weight on one and by value on another, and one of the four supplies no labour at all. Any question that turns on those rows is answerable in seconds and unanswerable if you only read the headline prices.

How to answer diagram questions

• Read the email first. List what the writer needs before any number is in your head.
• Eliminate rather than select. Three options will fail one condition each, which is faster to spot than the one that passes all of them.
• Read the whole feature list, not the price row. Storage Only has a three month minimum and Truck and Driver leaves the carrying to you, and either of those can decide a question.
• Answer the pure lookup questions immediately and give the leftover time to the comparison ones.
• Eight minutes for eight questions. If two options are still tied after a minute, pick one and move on.

The rest of Reading Test 13

Part 1, Reading Correspondence is a letter to Tobias from a friend just home from three weeks on the water with a sunburn shaped like a life jacket and some news: he and Amara are getting married on the second Saturday of September at his grandmother cabin on Buckhorn Lake, and there is no plan beyond a date, a lake and about thirty people. Part 3, Reading for Information is a passage on the wild blueberry barrens, where nothing was ever planted, the unit of management is two years rather than one, and the whole system bottlenecks in the fortnight when the flowers are open. Part 4, Reading for Viewpoints reports on the Marsden River in Antigonish County, where a contractor took apart a hundred and sixty year old dam in eleven days and gaspereau were counted above the old site the following spring.

CELPIP Reading format: parts, questions and time

How your reading is scored

One correct answer per question, no penalty for a wrong one, and no subjective judgement anywhere in the section. You are scored the moment you submit, with the correct option shown on every question, and the CELPIP reading score chart turns your raw score out of 38 into a CLB level.