Summarising a Study of Institutional Trust
About this practice test
A research report examining how residents judge institutional trust through repeated experiences, explanations, and visible follow-through.
What you’ll practice
Finding detail
Locate specific information and evidence.
Interpreting ideas
Connect main points and inferences.
Evaluating arguments
Assess claims, evidence, and limitations.
What to expect:
2 questions with explanations to review after submission.
Study the questions and tasks
Work through the material below, or start the interactive practice above to complete an attempt. Try the exercises before opening any answer or transcript sections, then use them to review your work.
- Practice level
- C1. Try this level if you can follow the instructions and understand most of the language; choose an earlier level if you need more support.
- Question formats
- Cloze (text)
How to approach this practice
Read the passage for its main idea, then return to the relevant sentence or paragraph for each question. Base answers on the passage.
Summarising a Study of Institutional Trust
In the spring of one year, Mira Elston and her small research team began visiting a mid-sized town after hearing residents complain about local services. They did not set out to measure trust as a single score. Instead, they wanted to know what people meant when they said an institution was “reliable” or “worth listening to.” The phrase appeared in discussions of schools, the local council, hospitals, police, and banks, but it was used in different ways. Some speakers meant honesty, others competence, and others a sense that officials would not dismiss ordinary people. The team combined short surveys with longer interviews. They spoke to 84 adults in public libraries, community centres, and one retirement club, then returned two months later to ask a smaller group what, if anything, had changed. The aim was not to compare institutions by popularity alone. Rather, the researchers tracked the reasons people gave for shifting their confidence after specific encounters: a delayed repair, a hospital appointment, a missed payment, or a conversation with a caseworker. In other words, the study tried to connect a general attitude with actual experiences. The clearest pattern was that trust rarely depended on grand promises. Residents often praised the council after ordinary but visible actions, such as fixing a broken footpath or answering emails within a few days. When these actions happened, people talked about “competence” and “fairness” together, as if one without the other was incomplete. A road repaired late but explained carefully was judged less harshly than a quick repair accompanied by silence. The same logic applied to schools: parents did not expect perfection, but they did expect staff to explain decisions in language that felt honest. Hospitals produced a similar, though not identical, response. Several interviewees described long waits, yet still defended particular clinics because nurses had given clear reasons for the delays and had treated them with patience. By contrast, banks were often discussed in colder terms. Even when customers had not lost money, they resented hidden fees and automated replies that seemed designed to discourage questions. In these accounts, trust was less about whether an institution delivered a pleasant result and more about whether it allowed people to understand what was happening and to believe that the rules were being applied consistently. The researchers were struck by how selective memory could be. A highly publicised scandal in another city was mentioned often, but it did not automatically destroy trust in local services. Most participants separated distant headlines from their own experience unless they already felt personally vulnerable. This distinction mattered because it showed that trust was not a simple reaction to news volume. People did not absorb every failure equally; they filtered events through place, habit, and whether they had ever met the staff involved. The team therefore avoided treating distrust as a fixed mood. Another finding was that respondents distinguished between systems and people, even when they used the same institution name. Someone might distrust “the council” as a bureaucracy yet still praise a named officer who returned calls and remembered details. Others trusted the hospital as an idea but worried about being lost in the process once admitted. This suggests that institutional trust is partly relational: it grows through repeated encounters, not only through policy documents or public statements. Face-to-face contact was especially important when decisions were inconvenient or hard to explain. The study had limits, and the team said so plainly. The sample came from one region, during a period of budget cuts, so the findings could not be treated as universal. People in wealthier districts might describe trust differently, and another moment of crisis could shift the balance again. Even so, the researchers argued that the pattern they observed was strong enough to be useful. It pointed to a gap between how institutions often present themselves and how residents actually judge them: not by slogans, but by repeated evidence of care, clarity, and follow-through. In the final report, Mira suggested that institutions wishing to rebuild trust should make decisions more visible, explain constraints without sounding evasive, and invite ordinary feedback before problems hardened into resentment. She did not claim that transparency alone would solve everything. If the service was slow or unfair, a polished explanation would not be enough. Yet the report concluded that trust is easier to sustain when people can see why a decision was made and when they believe someone will answer if the decision causes trouble. That conclusion was modest, but practical.
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Question 1 · Cloze (text)
Complete each blank with the missing word or phrase.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each gap. Complete the summary below. At the outset, the researchers refused to treat trust as 1___. Instead, they linked it to 2___ and followed the reasons people gave after concrete encounters. Residents judged the council most positively when it showed 3___, while schools benefited when staff used language that felt 4___. Hospitals were defended when delays came with 5___, but banks were criticised for hidden fees and 6___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualCheck answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- a single score / single score
- Blank 2
- actual experiences
- Blank 3
- competence and fairness
- Blank 4
- honest
- Blank 5
- clear reasons
- Blank 6
- automated replies
Gap 1: The researchers did not measure trust as “a single score.” Gap 2: They connected general attitudes with “actual experiences.” Gap 3: Residents associated positive council experiences with “competence” and “fairness.” Gap 4: Parents expected school decisions to be explained in language that felt “honest.” Gap 5: Patients defended clinics when nurses gave “clear reasons” for delays. Gap 6: Customers criticised banks for “automated replies.”
They did not set out to measure trust as a single score
the researchers tracked the reasons people gave for shifting their confidence after specific encounters
people talked about “competence” and “fairness” together
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Question 2 · Cloze (text)
Complete each blank with the missing word or phrase.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each gap. Complete the summary below. The team also found that trust depended on 1___, which meant people did not absorb every failure equally and filtered events through place, habit, and whether they had ever met the staff involved. Many participants separated distant scandals from their own lives unless they felt 2___. They could distrust 3___ yet still praise a named officer, which showed that trust was partly 4___ and built through repeated encounters. Because the sample came from 5___ during budget cuts, the findings were limited, but the final advice was that institutions should make decisions 6___ and invite feedback.
Return to the passage, recording or visualCheck answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- selective memory
- Blank 2
- personally vulnerable
- Blank 3
- the council
- Blank 4
- relational
- Blank 5
- one region
- Blank 6
- more visible
Gap 1: The researchers found that trust was affected by “selective memory.” Gap 2: Distant scandals did not automatically destroy trust unless participants already felt “personally vulnerable.” Gap 3: A person might distrust “the council” as a bureaucracy while praising an individual officer. Gap 4: This showed that trust was partly “relational.” Gap 5: The sample came from “one region” during budget cuts. Gap 6: The final advice was to make decisions “more visible” and invite feedback.
People did not absorb every failure equally; they filtered events through place, habit, and whether they had ever met the staff involved
Someone might distrust “the council” as a bureaucracy yet still praise a named officer who returned calls and remembered details
The sample came from one region, during a period of budget cuts, so the findings could not be treated as universal
What to review next
Find the words that support each answer. For a mistake, compare the question with the evidence and identify the detail or inference you missed.
A focused practice result shows how you did on these tasks. Use several activities across skills to decide what to study next; one practice score does not certify an overall CEFR level.
Before you practise: a worked example
Look for evidence in the text. Separate what the writer says from what you already know about the topic.
The library normally closes at six, but on Fridays it stays open until eight. When does it close on Friday?
The answer is eight. But introduces an exception to the normal closing time, so the first time mentioned is not the answer.
This teaching example is separate from the scored questions. After your test, compare any mistakes with the explanation and revisit the topic before trying again.