English Base

Test 017

Reading Practice: Repair or Replace

Reading Text

The toaster had been opened on the kitchen table, its shell beside a fan of screws, and for twenty minutes the fault had resisted every reasonable hypothesis. Then it announced itself: one strand of heating wire, no thicker than a hair, broken a centimetre from its terminal. The repair took eleven minutes and cost nothing. Yet the same fault, in another household, would have justified a new appliance — and the difference between those outcomes has almost nothing to do with the toaster.

What follows is less a calculation than a contest between two accounts of what an object is worth. The first is arithmetic: the price of a part, the hours of labour, the cost of replacement, weighed against one another on an envelope. The second is harder to itemise — the familiarity of a tool already learned, the reluctance to surrender a thing that still mostly works. Studies of household durables suggest that arithmetic explains less of the variation in repair rates than one might expect; what predicts it better is whether the necessary part can be obtained at all.

Parts, then, are the quiet constraint. A manufacturer who stocks spares for a decade makes repair thinkable; one who seals a battery into a casing makes it merely theoretical. Alongside the parts sits the skill, which has migrated from the high street to the kitchen table and from the paid technician to the amateur with a soldering iron and a video. That migration is unevenly distributed: the person who will rewire a lamp without hesitation will not open a microwave, and wisely so. Where skill is absent, the arithmetic is settled before it begins.

Why are some objects carried to the workbench, others straight to the bin? The first feature is modularity: a thing assembled from replaceable units invites intervention, whereas a seamless object discourages it. The second is the visibility of the fault — a broken hinge announces what must be done, a failing circuit board does not. The third is the object's capacity to accumulate meaning. A chair inherited from a grandmother is repaired almost regardless of cost; an identical chair bought last spring is not. What is preserved is not the chair.

None of this makes repair automatically virtuous, and the argument for it is weaker than its advocates allow. A repair that consumes more energy, or more scarce material, than replacement is a poor bargain dressed as thrift. Nor is a stockpile of half-mended objects an unmixed good: the drawer of awaiting parts merely postpones the bin. And the time repair demands is not equally available to everyone, which is why the practice flourishes where time is least monetised.

The toaster, reassembled, toasted unevenly for another four years before it was retired — not because it failed but because patience with uneven toast ran out first. Its repair was justified, though not by the arithmetic alone, and not permanently. What the episode illustrates is narrower than a slogan: repair survives where parts, skill, and attachment happen to coincide, and it is that coincidence, rather than any general virtue, which design and habit can either encourage or quietly foreclose.

Comprehension Test

Question 1. What does the final sentence of the first paragraph suggest about the two outcomes?

✗ IncorrectThe text explicitly calls it "the same fault", so quality of appliance is ruled out as the explanation. The sentence instead relocates the cause beyond the object altogether.

✓ CorrectThe phrase "has almost nothing to do with the toaster" deliberately shifts attention away from the appliance. The rest of the essay then unfolds precisely those circumstances — arithmetic, parts, skill, attachment.

✗ Incorrect"Cost nothing" is a detail of this one episode, not the point the closing sentence makes. Treating a local detail as the paragraph's lesson mistakes illustration for argument.

✗ IncorrectUneven toast belongs to the final paragraph, four years after the repair, and concerns retirement rather than the decision to mend. It cannot explain why one household repairs and another replaces.

Question 2. The statement that "the fault had resisted every reasonable hypothesis" implies that

✗ IncorrectNothing in the paragraph hints at deliberate damage; the break is described as a broken strand, a purely physical event. The phrase concerns the difficulty of diagnosis, not the origin of the fault.

✗ IncorrectNo substitution of parts is reported, and the repair is said to have "cost nothing". The resistance described is intellectual — hypotheses tested and discarded — not a sequence of failed replacements.

✗ IncorrectThe strand is eventually found and described as "no thicker than a hair", which indicates visibility, not invisibility. The obstacle was knowing where to look, not the sheer size of the break.

✓ CorrectTwenty minutes of rejected hypotheses precede the moment "it announced itself", so the phrasing marks delay and uncertainty. Diagnosis arrived late, and cheaply once it did.

Question 3. What is the function of the opening paragraph within the essay as a whole?

✓ CorrectThe paragraph ends by declaring that the difference "has almost nothing to do with the toaster", explicitly inviting a wider account. Everything that follows expands that gap between an incident and its meaning.

✗ IncorrectThe order is the reverse: an anecdote comes first and the argument emerges from it. No thesis is stated in the opening paragraph at all.

✗ IncorrectOnly ordinary words appear — "shell", "screws", "heating wire" — and no term is defined. Definitions of the analytical kind never occur in the passage.

✗ IncorrectThe objection to repair appears much later, in the paragraph beginning "None of this makes repair automatically virtuous". The opening presents an example, not a counter-argument.

Question 4. In the second paragraph, the "second account" consists of

✗ IncorrectThe cost of replacement is listed among the items of "the first" account, the arithmetic. Assigning it to the second account reverses the paragraph's own division.

✗ IncorrectRepairers are mentioned nowhere in this paragraph, which speaks only of arithmetic and of things "harder to itemise". Expertise enters the essay later, as a skill that has migrated away from the high street.

✓ CorrectAfter the dash the author lists "the familiarity of a tool already learned" and "the reluctance to surrender a thing that still mostly works". Both are offered as things that cannot be entered on the envelope.

✗ IncorrectEnergy and scarce material appear only in the fifth paragraph, where they qualify the case for repair. They form no part of the second account described here.

Question 5. The words "on an envelope" suggest that the arithmetic is

✗ IncorrectAn envelope is the opposite of an official document; the image points to something scribbled in a kitchen. Nothing formal or published is implied.

✓ CorrectThe image of figures "weighed against one another on an envelope" domesticates the calculation and marks it as approximate. It belongs to the same kitchen-table setting as the toaster.

✗ IncorrectSecrecy is not suggested anywhere; the envelope is a surface for writing, not a means of concealment. The phrase concerns method, not privacy.

✗ IncorrectThe paragraph immediately reports that this arithmetic "explains less of the variation in repair rates than one might expect". It is demoted, not presented as dependable.

Question 6. According to the second paragraph, research on household durables indicates that repair rates are best predicted by

✗ IncorrectIncome is never mentioned; the passage avoids monetary explanation beyond the price of a part. What it foregrounds is acquisition of the component, not the buyer's budget.

✗ IncorrectAge is not offered as a predictor; the inherited chair and the new chair are distinguished by meaning, not by years. The sentence names a single stronger predictor instead.

✗ IncorrectShop access belongs to the following paragraph, where skill is said to have migrated away from the high street. The prediction clause here is narrower and concerns parts alone.

✓ CorrectThe clause reads "what predicts it better is whether the necessary part can be obtained at all". Availability of the component, not the sum on the envelope, does the explanatory work.

Question 7. By calling parts "the quiet constraint", the author means that their role is

✓ Correct"Constraint" carries the force, "quiet" its invisibility: parts settle the matter without attracting attention. The paragraph illustrates this with spares that are either stocked for a decade or sealed out of reach.

✗ IncorrectThe battery sealed into a casing makes repair "merely theoretical", which is the reverse of easily overcome. The constraint is quiet because unspoken, not because it is slight.

✗ IncorrectThe paragraph makes no price comparison between parts and labour, and the toaster repair "cost nothing". Cost is discussed earlier, in the arithmetic of the envelope.

✗ IncorrectSealing a battery into a casing is a design decision, not a policy of concealment, and the author does not allege intent. "Quiet" describes the constraint's absence from debate, not secrecy.

Question 8. The remark that a person "will not open a microwave, and wisely so" conveys

✗ IncorrectThe tone is approving, not scornful: the same person is praised for rewiring a lamp "without hesitation". The clause sets a boundary, not a judgement of ability.

✗ IncorrectNo comment is made on the design quality of any particular appliance. The author is describing where competence sensibly stops, not assessing products.

✓ Correct"And wisely so" explicitly endorses the refusal, immediately before the claim that skill is "unevenly distributed". The author treats a recognised boundary as a form of competence.

✗ IncorrectThe pairing of the lamp and the microwave is offered as an illustration of unevenness, not as an expression of surprise. No astonishment is marked in the sentence.

Question 9. What does the third paragraph say about the migration of repair skill?

✗ IncorrectThe paragraph notes a shift away from "the paid technician" but claims no redundancy; the author had just restricted amateur work at the microwave. That is an unwarranted generalisation of a partial trend.

✗ IncorrectNo geographical contrast is drawn anywhere in the passage. "High street" names a kind of shop, not an urban setting opposed to a rural one.

✗ IncorrectPrices of parts are not at issue in this paragraph, which is about who holds the skill and where it is exercised. Availability, not cheapness, is the theme.

✓ CorrectThe skill travels "from the paid technician to the amateur with a soldering iron", and the following sentence insists that "that migration is unevenly distributed". Both halves of the claim are stated outright.

Question 10. According to the fourth paragraph, modularity matters because

✗ IncorrectReplacement cost plays no part in this paragraph, which concerns the structure of the object. Expensive replacement would belong to the arithmetic discussed earlier.

✓ CorrectThe sentence contrasts a thing "assembled from replaceable units" with "a seamless object", which "discourages" repair. Modularity is presented as an invitation inherent in the design.

✗ IncorrectVisibility of the fault is listed separately as the second feature, so it cannot be attributed to modularity. Conflating two of the three features produces this error.

✗ IncorrectAccumulated meaning is the third, independent feature, illustrated by the inherited chair. "Guarantees" also overstates what the paragraph claims about any design.

Question 11. Why does the author set a broken hinge against a failing circuit board?

✗ IncorrectNo comparison of cost is made; the pair illustrates legibility of the fault. Reading the contrast as a price comparison imports a claim the passage never makes.

✗ IncorrectThe author claims only that such a fault "does not" announce itself, not that repair is pointless. A limited observation about diagnosis is inflated here into a verdict on a whole category of objects.

✓ CorrectThe hinge "announces what must be done", whereas the circuit board keeps silent; visibility of the fault is the second of the three features. Where the fault is apparent, intervention becomes imaginable.

✗ IncorrectThe passage avoids nostalgia and never compares the durability of old and new parts. The contrast is about what the owner can diagnose, not about standards of manufacture.

Question 12. The chair inherited from a grandmother is introduced in order to illustrate

✓ CorrectThe chair "is repaired almost regardless of cost", while an identical one bought recently is not. Since the two chairs are physically alike, the difference must lie in what the object means to its owner.

✗ IncorrectThe example cancels this reading by calling the second chair "identical": construction cannot explain the difference. Quality of manufacture is not at issue in the paragraph.

✗ IncorrectMonetary worth is precisely what the phrase "regardless of cost" sets aside. The passage is interested in value of another kind, and "identical" forbids a market explanation.

✗ IncorrectSale is never mentioned, and it would contradict the emphasis on meaning rather than price. The concluding sentence of the paragraph rules out the chair itself as what is being kept.

Question 13. "What is preserved is not the chair" means that

✗ IncorrectThe paragraph states the opposite — that the inherited chair is repaired. The chair "bought last spring" is a different object, the one left unrepaired.

✗ IncorrectDurability of repairs is discussed elsewhere and in different terms. Here the sentence concerns what the owner is trying to keep, not how long the work will last.

✗ IncorrectLoss of value is nowhere suggested, and it would undermine the point that the chair is repaired "regardless of cost". The sentence is about continuity, not depreciation.

✓ CorrectThe sentence caps the third feature, "the object's capacity to accumulate meaning", and shifts the object of preservation away from the furniture itself. Attachment, not timber, is what the repair secures.

Question 14. The phrase "dressed as thrift" suggests that some repairs

✗ IncorrectThe sentence describes "a poor bargain", so the repair costs more than the alternative, not less. The phrase criticises a disguise, not a pleasant surprise.

✓ Correct"Dressed as" implies a costume worn over something else: the repair looks like thrift while consuming more energy or scarce material than replacement would. The metaphor carries the author's scepticism about the virtue of mending.

✗ IncorrectSaving in advance is a different idea and appears nowhere; the toaster repair cost nothing at all. The phrase concerns appearance, not household budgeting.

✗ IncorrectThe phrase evaluates the repair, not the character of the repairer. Reading it as a comment on personal frugality mistakes an attribute of an action for an attribute of a person.

Question 15. In the fifth paragraph, the author's attitude towards advocates of repair is best described as

✗ IncorrectThe paragraph opens by denying that repair is "automatically virtuous", which signals reservation rather than agreement. The author's stance is qualified throughout.

✗ IncorrectIndifference is incompatible with three sentences of closely argued qualification, including the remark that the case is "weaker than its advocates allow". The author is engaged, and engaged critically.

✓ CorrectThe author writes of "advocates" without hostility but declares the argument for repair "weaker than its advocates allow". The paragraph corrects the case rather than dismissing it, listing energy, stockpiling and time as limits.

✗ IncorrectThe final paragraph still calls the toaster's repair "justified", so the author cannot be opposed to repair in principle. The critique targets exaggeration, not the practice.

Question 16. The statement that repair "flourishes where time is least monetised" concerns

✓ CorrectThe sentence says the time repair demands "is not equally available to everyone" and links this to where the practice flourishes. Distribution here is distribution of hours, not of goods.

✗ IncorrectMoney is not what the clause measures: time that is "least monetised" is time that goes unpaid, not a reference to poorer households. Reading it as an income comparison substitutes a familiar debate for the actual claim.

✗ IncorrectQuality of parts is never discussed; the earlier paragraph asks only whether a part can be obtained at all. A question about quantity of time is misread here as one about standards of manufacture.

✗ IncorrectNeighbours and tool-sharing appear nowhere in the passage, which stays with the single household at its kitchen table. The phrase refers to time, and the sentence says so plainly.

Question 17. Why was the toaster finally retired?

✗ IncorrectThe text denies this in so many words: "not because it failed". The four years measure how long the mended appliance kept working, not when the mending stopped working.

✗ IncorrectParts were the constraint for objects generally, and here the fault was mended at no cost. Availability plays no role in the toaster's eventual retirement.

✗ IncorrectSafety is not mentioned; the only complaint recorded is that it "toasted unevenly". Inventing a hazard fills a gap the text leaves closed.

✓ CorrectThe clause reads "because patience with uneven toast ran out first", which locates the cause in tolerance rather than in the machine. The object outlived its welcome, not its usefulness.

Question 18. "Narrower than a slogan" implies that the lesson of the episode is

✗ IncorrectNarrowing a claim limits its scope, not its use: the closing clause still hands design and habit something to act on. The phrase praises precision rather than withdrawing the lesson.

✓ CorrectWhat follows names three conditions that must "happen to coincide", which is the opposite of a universal precept. A slogan would travel further and say less.

✗ IncorrectThe contrast is between a slogan and a lesson, not between brevity and length; the author is in fact elaborating. Compression is what a slogan offers, and it is being declined here.

✗ IncorrectThe final clause generalises to "parts, skill, and attachment" and to design and habit at large. Restricting the lesson to one appliance takes "narrower" far beyond what is written.

Question 19. What does the last sentence suggest about the prospects for repair?

✗ IncorrectRegulation is never named; the sentence credits "design and habit". Substituting law for the two forces actually listed broadens the claim well past the text.

✗ IncorrectThe sentence offers two possible directions, "encourage or quietly foreclose", and predicts neither. An outcome left deliberately open is closed here by the reader.

✓ CorrectThe closing clause states that the coincidence of parts, skill and attachment is what "design and habit can either encourage or quietly foreclose". The fate of repair is thus contingent, not settled.

✗ Incorrect"Design" points to manufacturers, so responsibility is split rather than assigned to consumers. The sentence also speaks of conditions coinciding, which no single party controls.

Question 20. Which of the following claims would the author most likely reject?

✓ CorrectThe author insists that "none of this makes repair automatically virtuous" and that the case for it is "weaker than its advocates allow". A blanket preference is exactly the slogan the essay dismantles.

✗ IncorrectThis is precisely the third feature, "the object's capacity to accumulate meaning", illustrated by the inherited chair. The author asserts it, so it cannot be the rejected claim.

✗ IncorrectThe essay treats cost as the first of two accounts and then demotes it: arithmetic "explains less of the variation" than expected. A factor among several is the author's own position.

✗ IncorrectThe phrase "that migration is unevenly distributed" states it directly, and the lamp and microwave example demonstrates it. Since the author affirms this, rejecting it is impossible.
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