Read the following passage.
A. In the spring of 1859, Lieutenant William Hobson, part of a search led by Francis McClintock, found a stone cairn at Victory Point on King William Island. Inside was a metal tube holding a single sheet of paper with two messages. The first, written in May 1847, ended cheerfully with 'all well'. The second, added in April 1848 and signed by the captains Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames, was very different. It reported that nine officers and 15 men had died, including Sir John Franklin, and that the 105 survivors had abandoned the ships and were heading south.
B. The expedition had left England on May 19, 1845, with 134 officers and crew aboard HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. Its aim was to chart the Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Both ships had been built as Royal Navy bomb vessels, whose strong frames made them more likely to survive pack ice. Each was fitted with a railway locomotive engine and carried three years of supplies. In July a supply ship turned back, taking home several crew members, and 129 men continued. Whalers who met them in late July 1845 were the last Europeans to see them.
C. The ships spent their first winter at Beechey Island and were trapped by ice off King William Island in September 1846. In 1847, after more than two years with no news, the first searches set out, and over 30 expeditions followed in the next decade. Lady Jane Franklin paid for several private searches herself. In 1854, the explorer John Rae learned from Inuit near Pelly Bay that a large party of white men had starved and that some had turned to cannibalism. The British public was shocked, and Lady Franklin and the writer Charles Dickens attacked his report, but Rae defended the accuracy of the Inuit accounts.
D. Inuit oral histories also guided the modern search. Parks Canada began a new series of searches in 2008, and on September 2, 2014, Erebus was found in an area where Inuit had reported seeing a wreck. Terror was located on September 3, 2016, in Terror Bay, after information from an Inuk from Gjoa Haven. Yet the cause of the men's deaths remains uncertain. Lead poisoning from tinned food was long suspected, but a 2018 study found that the men's lead had built up over their whole lives. Not all of the crew's remains have been found, and researchers say more work is needed.
E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.
Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.
AI explanationShows the answer. Tap to open.
Correct Answer: C
Why this is correct: The third paragraph says John Rae learned from Inuit what had happened to the men. Lady Franklin and the writer Charles Dickens then attacked his report. Dickens is the writer, and Rae is the searcher.
Passage Reference: The British public was shocked, and Lady Franklin and the writer Charles Dickens attacked his report, but Rae defended the accuracy of the Inuit accounts.
Tips: Inuit knowledge helps searchers more than once. Ask which time a writer spoke out against what was learned.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Look at paragraph A: it shows Hobson finding a written note. Nobody criticizes his discovery.
- B: Paragraph B is about the ships, the crew and the whalers. No writer or report appears.
- D: Notice that paragraph D also relies on Inuit knowledge, but there it helps the modern search and no one attacks it.
- E: Charles Dickens attacking Rae's report, which came from Inuit, is described in Paragraph C.
Correct Answer: A
Passage Reference: It reported that nine officers and 15 men had died, including Sir John Franklin, and that the 105 survivors had abandoned the ships and were heading south.
Why this is correct: The first paragraph describes the second message, added in April 1848. It reported that nine officers and 15 men had died, including Sir John Franklin. So Franklin was dead before that entry was written.
Tips: Several paragraphs mention deaths. Find the one that names Franklin himself.
Why the other options are wrong:
- B: The second paragraph shows the expedition setting out in 1845 with its full crew. No deaths are reported yet.
- C: Look at paragraph C: it tells of men who starved, from Inuit accounts, but Franklin's own death is not mentioned there.
- D: Paragraph D says the cause of the deaths is still uncertain. But it does not say when Franklin died.
- E: The second message in Paragraph A lists Sir John Franklin among those who had died.
Correct Answer: E
Passage Reference: It reported that nine officers and 15 men had died, including Sir John Franklin, and that the 105 survivors had abandoned the ships and were heading south.
Why this is correct: Notice that paragraph A says the 105 survivors had abandoned the ships and were heading south. It gives a direction only. No river or other goal is named anywhere in the passage.
Tips: A direction is not a destination. Check whether the passage names the place they were aiming for.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Paragraph A says the survivors left the ships and were heading south. It never says where they hoped to arrive.
- B: Paragraph B deals with the route the expedition hoped to chart, not where men went after leaving the ships.
- C: The third paragraph places Inuit near Pelly Bay and the ships off King William Island. No river is mentioned.
- D: The fourth paragraph names Terror Bay and Gjoa Haven, but it gives no plan by the survivors to reach a river.
Correct Answer: B
Passage Reference: Each was fitted with a railway locomotive engine and carried three years of supplies.
Why this is correct: The second paragraph says each ship was fitted with a railway locomotive engine. A locomotive engine is machinery designed for trains, and this was part of how the ships were prepared.
Tips: Find where the ships are made ready for the voyage. Check what was put into each one, and where that kind of machine usually worked.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Notice that paragraph A is about a metal tube and a note found in 1859. The ships' equipment is not described.
- C: The third paragraph tells how the ships were trapped by ice, but it says nothing about what powered them.
- D: Notice that paragraph D reports where the wrecks were found, not what was installed in them.
- E: The railway locomotive engine in each ship is part of the description in Paragraph B.
Correct Answer: D
Passage Reference: Terror was located on September 3, 2016, in Terror Bay, after information from an Inuk from Gjoa Haven.
Why this is correct: Look at paragraph D: it says Terror was found in 2016 after information from an Inuk from Gjoa Haven. Erebus had been found first, in 2014, so Terror was the second one.
Tips: Inuit help appears twice. Check which time it led to a wreck, and which wreck came second.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Notice that paragraph A reports a note found by Hobson in a cairn, not a shipwreck found with local help.
- B: Look at paragraph B: it mentions whalers who met the ships, but they did not help find a wreck.
- C: The third paragraph also uses Inuit accounts, but they told Rae about starving men, not where a ship lay.
- E: Look at paragraph D: it ties the finding of Terror to information from an Inuk from Gjoa Haven.
Correct Answer: B
Passage Reference: In July a supply ship turned back, taking home several crew members, and 129 men continued.
Why this is correct: The second paragraph says that in July a supply ship turned back, taking home several crew members, while 129 men continued. The expedition had left in May, so July was its first summer.
Tips: The number of crew drops at more than one point. Decide which mention says some men went home, not that they died.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Notice that paragraph A also shows the crew getting smaller, but through deaths reported in 1848, not men going home.
- C: The third paragraph covers the first winter and the searches. Nobody returns home from the expedition.
- D: Notice that paragraph D speaks of crew remains still missing, not men who left the voyage early.
- E: Look at paragraph B: it reports the supply ship taking several crew members home in July.
Correct Answer: E
Passage Reference: The British public was shocked, and Lady Franklin and the writer Charles Dickens attacked his report, but Rae defended the accuracy of the Inuit accounts.
Why this is correct: Notice that paragraph C says Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens attacked Rae's report. It does not explain why she did so, and no reward is mentioned anywhere in the passage.
Tips: Paragraph C tells us what Lady Franklin did. Look for any word such as 'because' that gives her reason.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Paragraph A names Franklin only as one of the dead. His wife and her opinions do not appear.
- B: The second paragraph covers the ships and crew before the disappearance, long before any report existed.
- C: Look at paragraph C: it is the tempting one, since Lady Franklin attacks Rae there, but her reason is never given.
- D: Paragraph D discusses modern searches and research. Lady Franklin is not part of it.
Correct Answer: D
Passage Reference: Lead poisoning from tinned food was long suspected, but a 2018 study found that the men's lead had built up over their whole lives.
Why this is correct: Notice that paragraph D says lead poisoning from tinned food was long suspected. A 2018 study then found that the lead had built up over the men's whole lives. This weakens the old idea, and the cause remains uncertain.
Tips: Look for an old idea about 'why the men died'. Then check that newer 'research' questions it.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Notice that paragraph A counts the dead in 1848 but offers no explanation of what killed them.
- B: The second paragraph mentions the supplies the ships carried, yet no one questions them as a cause of death there.
- C: Look at paragraph C: it reports that men starved, from Inuit accounts, but no later research challenges an older theory.
- E: The 2018 study that questioned the lead poisoning idea is reported in Paragraph D.
Correct Answer: A
Passage Reference: The second, added in April 1848 and signed by the captains Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames, was very different.
Why this is correct: The first paragraph describes two messages on one sheet. The first, from May 1847, ended with 'all well'. The second, from April 1848, was very different. That is almost a year apart, with a sharp change in mood.
Tips: Look at paragraph D: it also has two dates. The statement is about written entries on one paper.
Why the other options are wrong:
- B: Look at paragraph B: it gives dates in 1845 for leaving England and meeting whalers, but no written messages.
- C: Notice that paragraph C mentions Rae's report and the Inuit accounts, not two notes on one sheet.
- D: The fourth paragraph has two dates for finding the wrecks, two years apart, but they are not written entries.
- E: The first paragraph contrasts the cheerful message of May 1847 with the very different one of April 1848.
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