How an Institutional Review Defines Accountability
About this practice test
A demanding C2 institutional review examines how accountability depends on traceable decisions, evidence-sensitive responsibility, justified confidentiality, proportionate consequences, and measurable reform.
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:
12 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
- C2. 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
- Fill in the blank (dropdown)
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.
How an Institutional Review Defines Accountability
When Northbridge Research Institute commissioned an internal review after a delayed ethics report and a misplaced set of trial records, the board said it wanted accountability. The word sounded obvious in the meeting room, but the committee soon found that people meant different things by it. Some wanted names. Some wanted sanctions. Others wanted assurance that the institute would not repeat the failure. The review therefore began with a harder question: what does it mean for an institution to answer for itself, rather than simply point at the nearest employee and call the matter resolved? The first finding was almost unfashionable in its simplicity. Accountability, the committee wrote, is not a stage performance. It is a traceable chain of decisions, each one visible enough to be examined after the fact. If a form went unsigned, the review asked who designed the form, who was trained to use it, who was allowed to bypass it, and who noticed the gap but did nothing. The point was not to dilute responsibility until it disappeared. It was to make responsibility accurate, so that remedies would reach the place where the failure had actually entered the system. That meant the committee refused to treat every uncertainty as guilt. It said the institution must answer for what can be known, not for what can only be imagined. A supervisor may have been careless; a record may have been lost in transit; a warning may never have reached the right inbox. These are different matters, and a serious review should keep them distinct. Where evidence was missing, the report did not invent motives to fill the gap. It named the gap itself, because a missing explanation is sometimes as important as a confirmed one. The review also rejected the comforting idea that accountability belongs only to the last person who touched a file. People can be held to account only for powers they actually had. A junior coordinator who could not alter the software should not be judged as though she had designed it. By the same logic, a director who approved a faster workflow could not pretend that speed alone caused the problem, as if deadlines were weather and not policy. The committee kept returning to a severe but necessary distinction between individual error and structural permission. That distinction mattered because the institute had long preferred informal apologies to public reasons. The report argued that an apology may express regret, but it does not explain whether the institution understands its own failure. Accountability requires more than remorse; it requires a reasoned account that others can inspect. In practice, that meant publishing the sequence of approvals, exceptions, and delays, while protecting genuinely private information. Transparency was not treated as a theatrical confession. It was treated as a discipline: if a decision cannot be narrated clearly, it is unlikely to be governed well. At the same time, the committee warned against a crude transparency ethic that equates openness with virtue. Not every silence is concealment. Some details stay unwritten because they identify patients, students, or whistle-blowers who would be exposed by careless disclosure. The review therefore separated secrecy from confidentiality, and confidentiality from evasion. What mattered was whether the institution could show why a detail remained withheld. A blank space in the record was acceptable only if the report could justify it. The review wanted restraint to be intelligible, not mysterious. This approach altered the meaning of sanction as well. Accountability, the report said, does not begin and end with punishment. Punishment may be necessary when conduct is reckless or dishonest, but punishment alone can also be a shortcut around learning. The institution had to ask what consequences would repair trust, improve design, and prevent recurrence. In some cases, that meant formal discipline. In others, it meant retraining, redesigning forms, or changing the chain of approval. The central test was not whether the response looked stern, but whether it matched the nature of the failure. The most useful section of the report was the one that treated accountability as both retrospective and prospective. Retrospective, because the institution must understand how the failure happened. Prospective, because understanding is valuable only if it changes what happens next. The committee described the review as a mirror and a map: a mirror for facts already in view, a map for routes the institution had not yet taken. If the institute merely repeated its old habits with a more apologetic tone, then the review would have produced language rather than reform. Accountability had to be measurable in changed behaviour. For that reason, the committee resisted the familiar desire to close the case with a single culprit. It argued that blame can be emotionally satisfying while being operationally useless. A system that overstates certainty tends to punish the visible and miss the causal. A system that admits uncertainty can still act, but it does so without pretending certainty. That phrase became one of the report’s quiet principles. The aim was not to leave everyone innocent. It was to leave the institution unable to hide behind drama when the real work was procedural. In the end, the review defined accountability as a relational practice: the organisation owes explanations to those it affects, and it owes itself the courage to record its own hesitations. That last phrase mattered because hesitation is where many institutions hide. A culture that records its own hesitations can learn where it paused, what it feared, and why a warning was softened before it reached the board. Such a culture may feel less tidy than one built on instant certainty, but it is more honest. And in the report’s final judgment, honesty was the condition that made accountability worth having at all.
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Question 1 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The committee treats accountability as tracing how decisions travelled through the organisation, not as a hunt for ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- a public apology
- a lone culprit
- an extra audit
- a new policy draft
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- a lone culprit
The passage presents accountability as a system-wide tracing of decisions and responsibilities, so the missing idea is a single convenient person to blame. The other choices shift the focus to paperwork, procedure, or apology, which do not capture the review’s rejection of scapegoating.
what does it mean for an institution to answer for itself, rather than simply point at the nearest employee and call the matter resolved
a public apology: An apology is discussed later as insufficient, but it is not the point of this sentence.
a lone culprit: This fits the passage’s rejection of blaming only one visible person.
an extra audit: An audit may follow the review, but it is not the contrast being made here.
a new policy draft: The review is not about drafting new rules as the target of blame.
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Question 2 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The report rejects a version of accountability that is mainly about ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- keeping errors hidden
- replacing managers immediately
- performing blame for an audience
- publishing every private detail
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- performing blame for an audience
The committee is criticising accountability that is performed for display, where looking serious matters more than explaining what actually happened. The correct option captures that theatrical kind of blame. The other choices describe other possible institutional responses, but none matches the passage’s complaint about performance without analysis.
Accountability, the committee wrote, is not a stage performance
keeping errors hidden: The committee criticises concealment elsewhere, not as the main contrast in this sentence.
replacing managers immediately: The report does not define accountability as instant replacement of staff.
performing blame for an audience: This matches the passage’s rejection of accountability as showy theatre rather than careful inquiry.
publishing every private detail: The passage later warns against excessive disclosure, so this is not the target here.
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Question 3 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
Where the evidence stops, the review does not fill the space with speculation; it records ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- a quick apology
- the absence itself
- the nearest employee
- a likely motive
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- the absence itself
The report’s point is that an unexplained gap can matter more than a guessed explanation. It does not invent a story when evidence is missing; it marks the absence as part of the finding. The other options shift the focus to blame or reassurance, which is exactly what the review avoids.
Where evidence was missing, the report did not invent motives to fill the gap. It named the gap itself
a quick apology: An apology is not the same as accounting for what cannot be shown.
the absence itself: This captures the report’s refusal to disguise uncertainty with invented motives.
the nearest employee: The review rejects this kind of shortcut to blame.
a likely motive: The passage explicitly says the review did not invent motives.
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Question 4 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The committee’s treatment of the junior coordinator and the director shows that accountability should follow actual ___ rather than assumed control.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- formal status alone
- actual authority
- personal intention
- institutional visibility
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- actual authority
The two examples establish a shared principle: responsibility depends on what each person could genuinely influence. The coordinator lacked control over the software, while the director had approved the workflow; neither case can be judged accurately by assuming powers that were absent or by ignoring powers that were exercised.
People can be held to account only for powers they actually had
A junior coordinator who could not alter the software should not be judged as though she had designed it
formal status alone: The report does not treat rank as sufficient evidence of responsibility.
actual authority: This captures the principle illustrated by both examples.
personal intention: Intentions do not determine the scope of a person’s authority.
institutional visibility: Being visible in the case is not the standard for assigning responsibility.
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Question 5 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The contrast between informal apologies and published reasons implies that the institution must make its account of decisions ___ to others.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- emotionally reassuring
- publicly irreversible
- reasoned and inspectable
- legally confidential
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- reasoned and inspectable
An apology may signal regret, but the review requires an account that can be examined. The contrast therefore concerns whether the account is reasoned and inspectable, not the speed, tone, or privacy of the response.
an apology may express regret, but it does not explain whether the institution understands its own failure
it requires a reasoned account that others can inspect
emotionally reassuring: Regret may reassure, but reassurance is not the review’s standard.
publicly irreversible: The report does not require decisions to be impossible to revise.
reasoned and inspectable: This follows from the demand for an account that others can examine.
legally confidential: Confidentiality may protect some details, but it does not define accountability here.
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Question 6 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The review insists that withheld information is not automatically dishonest if the withholding can be justified as ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- protecting confidentiality
- keeping control
- escaping scrutiny
- hiding a mistake
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- protecting confidentiality
The passage allows some information to remain unwritten when disclosure would expose vulnerable people. That means withholding can be legitimate when it protects confidentiality rather than conceals wrongdoing. The other options turn justified restraint into secrecy or evasion, which the report explicitly separates.
Not every silence is concealment
protecting confidentiality: This reflects the passage’s distinction between secrecy and legitimate restraint.
keeping control: Control is not the criterion given for legitimate withholding.
escaping scrutiny: The report criticises concealment, not justified restraint.
hiding a mistake: This is the kind of concealment the passage rejects.
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Question 7 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
When choosing consequences, the committee gives priority to whether the response is ___ the nature of the failure, not to whether it appears severe.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- indifferent to
- matched to
- more severe than
- separate from
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- matched to
The report evaluates consequences by how well they fit the kind of failure and support repair or prevention. A response may look severe yet still be unsuitable if it does not match the underlying problem. The other choices conflict with this source-specific criterion.
punishment alone can also be a shortcut around learning
whether it matched the nature of the failure
indifferent to: The report insists that consequences should respond to the nature of the failure.
matched to: This directly reflects the committee’s criterion that the response match the nature of the failure.
more severe than: The report rejects severity as the main test of a suitable response.
separate from: The committee requires consequences to address the failure, not remain separate from it.
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Question 8 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The mirror-and-map image means the review must be both ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- a confession and a closure
- a diagnosis and a guide
- a verdict and a punishment
- a warning and a delay
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- a diagnosis and a guide
The metaphor combines looking back at what happened with pointing forward to what should change. The correct choice therefore describes diagnosis plus guidance. The other options are narrower or more ceremonial, and they miss the passage’s two-part function for the review.
a mirror for facts already in view, a map for routes the institution had not yet taken
a confession and a closure: The review is not presented as a private confession or a way to end discussion.
a diagnosis and a guide: This matches the passage’s backward-looking and forward-looking functions.
a verdict and a punishment: The passage is broader than judgment and punishment alone.
a warning and a delay: Delay is the opposite of the report’s practical purpose.
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Question 9 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The report’s willingness to recommend action despite incomplete facts depends on maintaining a clear distinction between acting and claiming ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- that no response is necessary
- that every cause is structural
- that the evidence is conclusive
- that reform will be immediate
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- that the evidence is conclusive
The committee does not equate uncertainty with inaction. It permits decisions while requiring the institution to acknowledge the limits of its evidence rather than present a confident conclusion as established fact.
A system that admits uncertainty can still act
it does so without pretending certainty
that no response is necessary: The report explicitly allows action when facts remain incomplete.
that every cause is structural: The committee distinguishes individual error from structural permission rather than choosing one explanation automatically.
that the evidence is conclusive: This is the unsupported certainty the report warns against.
that reform will be immediate: The report requires changed behaviour but does not promise instant reform.
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Question 10 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
If the institute only sounded sorry, the review says the result would be ___ instead of real change.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- words without reform
- a firmer hierarchy
- more detailed records
- a complete apology
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- words without reform
The passage warns that apologetic language without altered practice is empty. The correct choice captures that contrast between words and change. The other options are possible organisational outputs, but they do not express the report’s criticism of verbal appearance without reform.
the review would have produced language rather than reform
words without reform: This matches the report’s warning that language alone is not enough.
a firmer hierarchy: Hierarchy is not the contrast made in the passage.
more detailed records: The problem here is not record-keeping but the absence of reform.
a complete apology: The report argues that apology alone is insufficient, so this does not fit.
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Question 11 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
In the final definition, accountability is presented as an ongoing ___ between the organisation and the people it affects.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- competition for sympathy
- promise of secrecy
- relational practice
- escape from oversight
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- relational practice
The conclusion explicitly calls accountability a relational practice: the organisation owes explanations to those it affects. The other choices conflict with this continuing duty to explain and remain answerable.
the organisation owes explanations to those it affects
competition for sympathy: The passage does not cast accountability as a struggle for pity or approval.
promise of secrecy: Secrecy is discussed as a problem or an exception, not the point of accountability.
relational practice: This is the source's final definition of accountability as an ongoing relationship of explanation.
escape from oversight: This is the opposite of what the review is advocating.
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Question 12 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The report suggests an institution becomes more honest when it keeps track of the moments when it hesitated, because those moments reveal ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- which forms were unsigned
- its reasons for wavering
- how to avoid all delay
- who should be blamed first
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- its reasons for wavering
The source says that documenting hesitation shows where the institution paused and what it feared, revealing the reasons behind its wavering. The other choices focus on forms, eliminating delay, or assigning blame, none of which captures the conclusion.
A culture that records its own hesitations can learn where it paused, what it feared
which forms were unsigned: Unsigned forms are an earlier example, but not the meaning of hesitation here.
its reasons for wavering: This matches the passage's idea that hesitation exposes how decisions were formed.
how to avoid all delay: The report values understanding hesitation, not eliminating every pause.
who should be blamed first: The report warns against reducing the issue to a single culprit.
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.