The Dependencies in a Regional Resilience Proposal
About this practice test
A regional board examines how infrastructure, public services, ecosystems, labour, finance and local knowledge interact to sustain resilience during disruption.
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.
The Dependencies in a Regional Resilience Proposal
When the North Estuary Regional Board released its resilience proposal, the document looked, at first glance, like another catalogue of worthy intentions: raise embankments, plant shade trees, modernise substations, install sensors. What distinguished it was not the inventory but the grammar. Nearly every recommendation was written in terms of what depended on what. The authors were impatient with the ceremonial use of the word resilience to mean anything from sturdier concrete to optimistic press releases. In their account, resilience is not a feature of a single asset but the capacity of linked systems to stay usable when one part fails. That emphasis alters the politics of priority. A sea wall may protect the estuary frontage, yet the proposal notes that it does little for households inland if the evacuation road still floods upstream or if the substation serving the pumping stations sits in the same hazard zone. Reinforcing one bridge is thin comfort if the freight depot on the far side depends on a single access road and a timetable built around just-in-time deliveries. The paper resists visible monuments and asks instead what still functions, for whom, under which combinations of stress. The section on water is especially revealing. Debate in the region has circled for years around an additional reservoir, as though capacity alone were the deficiency. The proposal does not reject storage, but it demotes it from talisman to component. In dry summers, the sharper weakness has often been distribution: leaky feeder mains, pumps exposed to power cuts, and legal agreements that make it cumbersome to move water between districts before scarcity becomes acute. Building another basin without repairing those dependencies, the authors imply, would be buying a larger bucket for a cracked and badly shared system. Its enthusiasm for digital monitoring is similarly qualified. River gauges, heat alerts and soil-moisture sensors are praised, but only in a sentence that is easy to miss: data creates lead time only when someone is trusted to act on it, funded to maintain it, and trained to interpret it. The region has learned this expensively before. A pilot network in the eastern marsh delivered elegant dashboards but unreliable warnings because maintenance contracts expired, batteries failed in winter, and farmers who had not been consulted treated the devices as someone else's experiment. Information did not become intelligence simply by being uploaded. The proposal is strongest when it refuses the fantasy that emergency capacity can be stored, untouched, until the day of need. It recommends that libraries, schools and sports halls serve as resilience hubs, yet it explicitly prefers buildings that are busy in ordinary weeks. The logic is not sentimental. Places that people already know, can reach, and associate with routine civic use are more likely to remain staffed, supplied and legible during disruptions. By contrast, purpose-built centres that sit mostly locked may satisfy a capital budget and still fail the first social test: will anyone think to go there, and will anyone be able to open it? Energy planning receives the same treatment. The board supports neighbourhood microgrids and backup batteries, but it warns against describing decentralisation as independence. Smaller systems can reduce exposure to a region-wide outage while increasing dependence on overlooked chains: inverter specialists, replacement cells, secure communications and, in prolonged emergencies, fuel for the generators that stabilise the whole arrangement. The ambition is redundancy, not self-sufficiency in the heroic sense. One layer is meant to catch another, not to abolish the need for coordination. Financial measures are given equally sharp attention. The proposed regional insurance pool is presented less as a subsidy than as a discipline. Without conditions tying premiums to retrofit standards, drainage work and limits on rebuilding in repeatedly damaged sites, shared insurance would socialise losses while privatising risky decisions. Not every recommendation is engineered. A long section argues for restoring upstream wetlands and reopening side channels, even though these interventions are slower to commission and harder to photograph than a concrete barrier. Their virtue, the authors claim, is not that they prevent every flood. It is that they perform tolerably under several futures at once: heavier winter rain, hotter summers, biodiversity decline and tighter public finances. They also buy time. Water held upstream for even a few additional hours can make evacuation, pumping and traffic management less frantic downstream. Even here, though, the paper resists romance. Wetlands are described as a buffer, not a cure, and certainly not a reason to neglect dense neighbourhoods near the port. Perhaps the most unfashionable dependency it identifies is labour. Retrofitting homes for heat, damp and flood resilience sounds administratively straightforward until one asks who is expected to do the work at scale. The board argues that a regional training compact with colleges and small contractors is more urgent than another glossy strategy document. Imported crews may appear faster, but they raise accommodation costs, leave with their expertise, and cannot easily return for incremental maintenance. A resilient region, in this telling, is one that can repair itself with local hands. Governance, finally, is treated not as a noble preface but as an operational dependency. The proposal recommends a resilience office inside the combined authority, yet only on the condition that it can influence transport timetables, housing approvals, health planning and procurement rules. If it merely writes guidance while each department guards its own targets, cross-sector risk remains everybody's concern and nobody's task. The text is dryly aware of the genre to which it belongs. Regions are rarely defeated by a complete absence of plans; they are defeated by plans whose prerequisites lie in institutions that never agreed to change. The consultation model is recast in the same practical spirit. Residents are not praised abstractly for 'community voice'; they are valued because they know which underpass fills first, which tenant blocks lose lifts during short outages, which carers check on isolated neighbours, and which bus route quietly substitutes for ambulance access during snow. Such knowledge is not decorative local colour. It determines whether official maps describe lived vulnerability or merely administrative tidiness. For that reason, the board argues that consultation after designs have hardened is worse than tokenism: it filters out the very intelligence that could have revised the design. Taken as a whole, the proposal does not promise that careful planning will eliminate shocks. It insists instead that dependencies be made visible, diversified where possible, and governed honestly where they cannot be avoided. The cheapest line in a spreadsheet often proves the most expensive in a crisis, because it quietly assumes that everything around it will go on working.
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Question 1 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The proposal’s central definition of resilience implies that a measure should be judged primarily by whether it ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- strengthens the most visible asset despite nearby weaknesses
- keeps linked systems usable when one part fails
- adds capacity while leaving connected systems exposed
- creates an emergency facility independent of ordinary services
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- keeps linked systems usable when one part fails
The correct choice is "preserves useful functioning across linked systems when one part fails" because the proposal defines resilience through connected systems, not isolated assets, and repeatedly tests whether dependencies hold under stress. "strengthens the most visible asset regardless of surrounding weaknesses" conflicts with the criticism of monuments. "adds capacity to one system even if other systems remain exposed" ignores the proposal’s emphasis on dependencies. "provides a dedicated emergency facility that can operate without ordinary services" conflicts with the preference for familiar, connected civic buildings.
resilience is not a feature of a single asset but the capacity of linked systems to stay usable when one part fails
The ambition is redundancy, not self-sufficiency in the heroic sense. One layer is meant to catch another, not to abolish the need for coordination
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Question 2 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
According to the passage, a new sea wall would be insufficient if ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- freight deliveries were shifted to rail
- estuary households refused evacuation training
- embankments were raised in several phases
- inland routes and pumping power remained exposed
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- inland routes and pumping power remained exposed
The correct choice is "inland routes and pumping power remained exposed" because the passage says the sea wall does little for inland households if the evacuation road still floods or the relevant substation is in the same hazard zone. "freight deliveries were shifted to rail" is not the condition discussed here. "estuary households refused evacuation training" is not stated. "embankments were raised in several phases" is unrelated to the passage's criticism.
A sea wall may protect the estuary frontage, yet the proposal notes that it does little for households inland if the evacuation road still floods upstream or if the substation serving the pumping stations sits in the same hazard zone
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Question 3 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The proposal demotes an extra reservoir from a complete answer because water problems in dry summers often stem from ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- a lack of technical knowledge about basin design
- disagreement over whether water should be metered
- distribution failures and rigid transfer arrangements
- excessive demand for greener parks
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- distribution failures and rigid transfer arrangements
The correct choice is "distribution failures and rigid transfer arrangements" because the passage identifies leaky mains, power-exposed pumps and cumbersome legal agreements between districts as the sharper weakness. "excessive public demand for greener parks" is never mentioned. "a lack of technical knowledge about basin design" is not the argument. "disagreement over whether water should be metered" is also absent from the passage.
In dry summers, the sharper weakness has often been distribution: leaky feeder mains, pumps exposed to power cuts, and legal agreements that make it cumbersome to move water between districts before scarcity becomes acute
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Question 4 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
Taken together, the water and monitoring examples show that the proposal treats infrastructure as resilient only when ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- physical capacity is matched by systems that distribute, maintain and use it
- new equipment comes before institutional arrangements
- central storage and information replace local coordination
- technical systems become more visible to the public
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- physical capacity is matched by systems that distribute, maintain and use it
The correct choice is "physical capacity is matched by the arrangements that distribute, maintain and act on it" because the reservoir cannot solve distribution failures, while sensors cannot create lead time without maintenance, trusted decision-makers and interpretation. "new equipment is installed before institutional arrangements are settled" reverses both examples. "central storage and centralised information replace local coordination" is contradicted by the emphasis on transfer agreements, consultation and trusted action. "technical systems are made more visible to the public" mistakes dashboards and construction for operational resilience.
Building another basin without repairing those dependencies, the authors imply, would be buying a larger bucket for a cracked and badly shared system
data creates lead time only when someone is trusted to act on it, funded to maintain it, and trained to interpret it
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Question 5 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The passage says consultation becomes 'worse than tokenism' when it ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- asks about informal care networks
- focuses on transport rather than housing
- includes residents from several districts
- happens after key designs have been fixed
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- happens after key designs have been fixed
The correct choice is "happens only after key designs have already been fixed" because the passage says consultation after designs have hardened filters out intelligence that could have revised the design. "focuses on transport rather than housing" is too narrow and not the point being made. "includes residents from more than one district" is not criticised. "asks about informal care networks" would actually fit the kind of useful local knowledge the writer values.
For that reason, the board argues that consultation after designs have hardened is worse than tokenism: it filters out the very intelligence that could have revised the design
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Question 6 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The preferred resilience hubs are everyday public buildings because regular use makes them more likely to ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- need little routine use because their purpose is obvious
- remain staffed, supplied and recognisable during disruption
- be familiar even if staffing and access are uncertain
- work best when locked between emergencies
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- remain staffed, supplied and recognisable during disruption
The correct choice is "remain staffed, supplied and legible to the public during disruption" because the passage says familiar civic buildings are more likely to stay staffed, supplied and legible during disruptions. "be familiar to residents even if no one can readily staff or open them" is incomplete and conflicts with the text's insistence that opening and staffing matter. "work better when kept mostly locked between emergencies" reverses the contrast with purpose-built centres that sit locked. "need less routine civic use because their emergency purpose is obvious" also contradicts the passage, which explicitly prefers buildings that are busy in ordinary weeks.
Places that people already know, can reach, and associate with routine civic use are more likely to remain staffed, supplied and legible during disruptions
By contrast, purpose-built centres that sit mostly locked may satisfy a capital budget and still fail the first social test: will anyone think to go there, and will anyone be able to open it
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Question 7 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The discussion of microgrids and insurance reveals a shared principle: resilience measures should ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- aim to eliminate coordination and shared responsibility
- shift all risk to regional institutions
- reduce exposure while revealing remaining dependencies
- be judged mainly by apparent self-sufficiency
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- reduce exposure while revealing remaining dependencies
The correct choice is "reduce exposure while making their remaining dependencies explicit and governable" because microgrids still depend on specialists, communications and fuel, while insurance must impose conditions on risky decisions rather than merely spread their costs. "aim to eliminate coordination and shared responsibility" contradicts both sections. "shift all risk from private actors to regional institutions" describes the problem with unconditional insurance. "be judged mainly by whether they appear self-sufficient" reverses the proposal’s warning against heroic independence.
Smaller systems can reduce exposure to a region-wide outage while increasing dependence on overlooked chains
shared insurance would socialise losses while privatising risky decisions
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Question 8 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
In the proposal, the regional insurance pool is acceptable only if it ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- links shared cover to retrofit, drainage and rebuilding limits
- spreads costs without shaping future development
- allows repeated rebuilding if claims are shared
- treats retrofit and drainage as unrelated to premiums
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- links shared cover to retrofit, drainage and rebuilding limits
The correct choice is "links shared cover to retrofit, drainage and limits on rebuilding" because the scheme is presented as a discipline only when insurance conditions push people toward risk reduction. "spreads costs without affecting future development choices" is exactly what the passage warns against. "allows repeated rebuilding to continue so long as claims are shared" would socialise losses while leaving risky decisions private. "treats retrofit and drainage work as unrelated to premiums" directly contradicts the stated conditions.
The proposed regional insurance pool is presented less as a subsidy than as a discipline
Without conditions tying premiums to retrofit standards, drainage work and limits on rebuilding in repeatedly damaged sites, shared insurance would socialise losses while privatising risky decisions
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Question 9 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The passage values wetland restoration partly because, despite its limits, it ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- can be commissioned faster than concrete barriers
- lets authorities neglect evacuation and pumping
- makes port neighbourhoods safe without further measures
- performs tolerably under several future pressures
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- performs tolerably under several future pressures
The correct choice is "performs tolerably across several different future pressures" because the passage praises wetlands for working reasonably well under several futures at once. "makes dense port neighbourhoods largely safe without further measures" is excluded by the statement that wetlands are a buffer, not a cure. "can be commissioned faster and photographed more easily than concrete barriers" reverses the text, which says these interventions are slower and harder to photograph. "allows downstream authorities to neglect evacuation, pumping and traffic management" is also wrong, since wetlands buy time for those measures rather than replacing them.
It is that they perform tolerably under several futures at once: heavier winter rain, hotter summers, biodiversity decline and tighter public finances
Wetlands are described as a buffer, not a cure, and certainly not a reason to neglect dense neighbourhoods near the port
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Question 10 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The proposal ranks a training compact above another strategy document because ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- colleges can replace regional coordination
- implementation and continuing repair require a locally renewable workforce
- written strategies have no value after construction begins
- imported crews are unable to complete major works
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- implementation and continuing repair require a locally renewable workforce
The correct choice is "implementation and continuing repair require a locally renewable workforce" because the argument links large-scale retrofitting to local contractors, retained expertise and incremental maintenance. "Imported crews are unable to complete major works" is too strong: the passage says they may appear faster. "Colleges can replace the need for regional coordination" is not stated. "Written strategies have no value once construction begins" overstates the criticism of glossy documents.
Retrofitting homes for heat, damp and flood resilience sounds administratively straightforward until one asks who is expected to do the work at scale
Imported crews may appear faster, but they raise accommodation costs, leave with their expertise, and cannot easily return for incremental maintenance
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Question 11 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The proposed resilience office would matter only if it ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- operated outside the combined authority
- published guidance in a clearer style
- could influence decisions beyond its own department
- coordinated voluntary groups during storms
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- could influence decisions beyond its own department
The correct choice is "could influence decisions beyond its own department" because the passage says the office is worthwhile only if it can affect transport, housing, health and procurement. "published guidance in a clearer style" is insufficient, since mere guidance is criticised. "coordinated voluntary groups during storms" is too narrow and not the stated condition. "operated outside the combined authority" contradicts the proposal.
The proposal recommends a resilience office inside the combined authority, yet only on the condition that it can influence transport timetables, housing approvals, health planning and procurement rules
If it merely writes guidance while each department guards its own targets, cross-sector risk remains everybody's concern and nobody's task
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Question 12 · Fill in the blank (dropdown)
Choose the correct option for each blank.
The proposal exposes the assumption that measures appearing cheap on paper rely on ___.
Return to the passage, recording or visualChoices for blank 1
- the dependencies outside the budget will keep working
- visible construction is politically unpopular
- consultation necessarily delays every project
- maintenance matters less than new construction
Check answers and explanations
- Blank 1
- the dependencies outside the budget will keep working
The correct choice is "the dependencies left outside the budget will continue to work" because the final warning identifies an unpriced assumption about surrounding systems. "Visible construction is always politically unpopular" is not argued. "Consultation necessarily delays every project" conflicts with the proposal’s practical use of local knowledge. "Maintenance is less valuable than new construction" reverses the passage’s emphasis on upkeep.
The cheapest line in a spreadsheet often proves the most expensive in a crisis, because it quietly assumes that everything around it will go on working
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.