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Selecting and Using Evidence for a Purpose: Question 7

Syllabus R5

Multiple choice 1 mark

Read the passage, then answer the question that follows.

While cataloguing a box of unsorted correspondence donated to the town archive, Mr Okafor found a letter dated 1889 from the foreman of the old rope-works, addressed to the parish council. Local memory had always assumed the clock tower on the square was built simply to mark the town's incorporation as a borough that same year, a fact repeated on the small brass plaque at its base. The foreman's letter told a different story.

Six months earlier, the letter explained, two workers leaving a night shift had climbed onto a moving conveyor belt in near-darkness, misjudging the time because their pocket watches had drifted out of agreement with one another by almost twenty minutes. One worker was seriously injured. The foreman wrote that every workshop in the town kept its own approximate time, and that a single, unmistakably visible clock, audible and lit at night, would let every shift change safely at the same true moment, rather than relying on watches that no two men in the yard ever quite agreed on.

The council minutes from the following spring, which Mr Okafor located afterwards, approved funds for a public clock of sufficient size to be read from the rope-works yard, months before the incorporation was even confirmed. The elegant ironwork and the Latin inscription came later, added by the borough's first mayor, who was fond of grand civic gestures.

Which sentence BEST summarises, using only relevant evidence from the letter and the council minutes, why the town decided to build the clock tower? [1]

Choose an answer to check it, then compare with the worked solution below.
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Worked solution

Assessment focus

This question tests whether a candidate can synthesise several pieces of relevant evidence spread across a passage into ONE accurate summary sentence, rather than choosing a sentence built from a popular but inaccurate belief, from a detail added after the real decision, or from only part of the true reasoning.

Why B is correct

The letter gives the actual causal chain: workshops kept their own approximate time, watches had “drifted out of agreement… by almost twenty minutes,” this contributed to an accident, and the foreman argued a single visible, audible clock would let “every shift change safely at the same true moment.” The council minutes confirm this reasoning was acted on before the incorporation was even confirmed. Option B is the only sentence that captures this full, accurate reasoning.

Why the distractors are wrong

  • A repeats the belief on the plaque, which the passage explicitly says is not the real reason: “The foreman’s letter told a different story.” It is the myth the question is testing whether candidates will reject.
  • C describes the ironwork and Latin inscription, which the passage states were added “later, added by the borough’s first mayor”. After the tower’s purpose had already been decided, not part of the original reasoning.
  • D is a genuinely true detail (the accident happened) but is incomplete: it omits the letter’s actual stated reason for the tower, mismatched watches undermining safe shift changes, and so does not accurately summarise why the council acted, only that something went wrong beforehand.

Mark scheme

  • 1 mark for selecting B.
  • 0 marks for any other option. No partial credit, since this is a discrete single-answer selection question.