Altri test   -  English TEST HUMANITIES

Structure and syllabus of the English TEST HUMANITIES

The English test Humanities consists of 30 questions divided into 3 sections. The sections are: Reading and comprehension, Clues and inductive reasoning, Reasoning on texts and data.

Reading and comprehension

The questions in this section are designed to test the ability to read and understand texts written in English (B2 - upper intermediate level). In addition to English language command, the test aims to assess the ability to abstract, to grasp the formal and semantic relationships between the elements of a text, and to decode the implicit and the implied.

The texts proposed are of three types: non-fiction, literary and journalistic. Those of the first and second types are selected from volumes and magazines published since the last decade of the 19th century. The texts of the third type relate to current affairs and are taken from newspapers or magazines published in the last ten years. No specific preparation is required to answer the questions in this section.

Clues and inductive reasoning

This section tests the candidate’s ability to draw general conclusions from specific observations and decode the implications and assumptions within a given text. The candidate will need to focus on seemingly minor details, as they often hold the key to understanding the passage. The texts are of three types: literary (contemporary international fiction), non-fiction (academic writings published since the second half of the 20th century), and journalistic (news articles from newspapers or periodicals from the last ten years). No specific preparation is required to answer the questions in this section.

Reasoning on texts and data

The questions in this section are designed to test the abilities of argumentation, logical reasoning and interpretation and use of data. The questions proposed are related to topics, contexts and situations of general interest or that may arise in the study of the humanities and in everyday life.

Questions testing argumentative skills may concern short narrative, non-fiction or journalistic texts and require in particular the ability to:

• recognise the logical steps of an argument
• identify the premise of an argument
• identify the reasons used to support the thesis in an argument
• identify the thesis or the conclusion of an argument
• assess the relevance and usefulness of an argument to support or refute a thesis.

Questions related to logical reasoning require the ability to:

• understand common language words that function as logical connectives (negation, conjunction, disjunction) and the expressions ‘every’, ‘all’, ‘each’, ‘none’, ‘at least’
• negate a given proposition
• establish in which cases a given proposition is verified or not
• understand and use the concepts of necessary condition, sufficient condition, necessary and sufficient condition.

Questions related to the interpretation and manipulation of data may contain numbers, tables and/or graphs (histograms, pie charts, line charts) and require the ability to:

• understand texts that use different types of languages and representations
• extract numerical information from texts
• extract information from tables and graphs
• draw conclusions from a certain set of data
• determine whether a certain statement is supported by the data
• understand and use different criteria for sorting data
• recognise the process required to obtain a certain piece of information from a data set
• move from one type of representation to another.

The use of calculators of any kind is not permitted during the test. All calculations that may be necessary do not require a specific mathematical preparation, as they are part of elementary mathematical knowledge and skills (calculate or estimate the result of simple operations; sort and compare numbers; understand and use the concepts of percentage, ratio, proportionality, arithmetic mean).

Evaluation of English TEST HUMANITIES

For the English TEST HUMANITIES evaluation a maximum of thirty (30) points is assigned, based on the number of correct, unanswered, and incorrect responses.

• 1 point for each correct answer
• 0 points for each unanswered question
• 0 points for each incorrect answer.