Track the batch as well as the steps
Process texts often contain familiar verbs such as dry, heat and mix. Recognising those verbs is only the beginning. You also need to follow which batch receives which treatment and why a record matters. This lesson uses a fictional workshop to test sequence, comparison and the limits of a small experiment.
As you read, sketch a short route for the numbered samples. Circle words that refer back to an earlier batch, card or result. For completion tasks, find a noun phrase that fits the grammar of the gap. For multiple choice, reject an option if it turns a limited observation into a rule about every chocolate maker.
This is ORIGINAL IELTS-style practice written for this site. It is not an answer key to a Cambridge passage or another named published test. The short lesson develops evidence-finding skills; it is not a complete IELTS test and cannot estimate your band. Read the passage before opening any answer reveal.
- Skim once and give each paragraph a short purpose label in your own words.
- Read each task instruction, then mark the exact evidence for your answer. Keep uncertainty visible instead of guessing silently.
- Check the explanation after answering. If your answer was correct for the wrong reason, record the reasoning error too.
Original passage: The missing batch card
Paragraph A gives sourced botanical and processing background. The workshop, batch cards, labels and comparison in paragraphs B–E are fictional.
A. Chocolate begins with cacao beans, the seeds found inside the fruit of Theobroma cacao. Kew’s account of chocolate making describes fermentation, drying and roasting among the stages between fruit and finished chocolate. Fermentation contributes to flavour development, while later processing also matters. These broad stages do not mean that every maker follows an identical recipe. A fictional workshop called Lantern Chocolate used this distinction when designing an exhibition about how production records help explain differences between two finished bars.
B. The exhibition followed three numbered batches. For each one, a batch card travelled beside the beans and recorded when each processing stage began. Staff also wrote down any deliberate changes to the workshop’s usual procedure. Visitors initially saw only photographs of equipment, but the education team added the cards after noticing that people struggled to follow the same material from one room to the next. The number stayed constant even when the beans changed appearance and the container changed size.
C. For a comparison activity, two batches used beans from the same delivery. The team changed the roasting schedule for one batch but kept the later mixing procedure the same. The aim was to explore whether visitors could notice a difference between the finished samples, not to select a recipe for the whole industry. The samples were served under letter labels, and visitors did not see the batch cards until after recording their comments. This delayed disclosure was intended to limit expectations.
D. One group preferred sample B, but their comments did not identify a single reason for that preference. Some mentioned texture; others described aroma. The educator warned that preference and explanation were different questions. A popular sample did not prove which processing detail had produced its appeal. Moreover, the workshop had not repeated the comparison with beans from another delivery. Its display therefore reported the visitors’ observations without claiming that the same preference would appear under every production condition.
E. The most revealing problem came when a batch card went missing. The finished bar could still be tasted, but staff could no longer connect it confidently to its full processing history. They removed it from the comparison rather than invent a record from memory. A replacement system attached a duplicate card to the storage log. For visitors, the incident changed the purpose of record keeping: paperwork was not simply an administrative burden but a way to make a result interpretable.
Questions 1–9
Answer only from the passage. Outside knowledge may help you understand a topic, but it cannot fill a gap in the writer’s account.
Choose TRUE if the statement agrees with the passage, FALSE if it contradicts the passage, or NOT GIVEN if the passage does not decide it.
Complete each sentence with NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS copied exactly from the passage.
Choose the paragraph, A–E, that contains the specified information. You may use a letter more than once.
Choose the one best answer, A, B, C or D.
- A. To reduce the influence of knowing a sample’s processing history.
- B. To tell visitors which sample cost the most.
- C. To remove the need for production records permanently.
- D. To identify the recipe already chosen as the industry standard.
- A. It proves that all handmade chocolate tastes identical.
- B. It shows that tasting comments are never useful.
- C. It establishes that records matter only to accountants.
- D. It shows how records connect a finished result to its production history.
Answers with passage evidence
Open these after attempting all nine questions. The paragraph references let you check each judgement against the original wording rather than trusting a bare key.
1. Reveal answer and explanation
TRUE. Paragraph B states that the number stayed constant despite changes in appearance and container size. The stable identifier helped visitors follow the same batch through different processing stages rather than treating each photograph as an unrelated sample.
2. Reveal answer and explanation
FALSE. Paragraph C says the cards were withheld until after comments were recorded. The order is deliberately reversed in the question. The temporary letter labels did not reveal the processing histories beforehand.
3. Reveal answer and explanation
NOT GIVEN. The passage reports preferences and several processing decisions, but gives no production costs. A changed roasting schedule might affect costs in real life; that possibility is not evidence of a price comparison in this text.
4. Reveal answer and explanation
delivery. Paragraph C identifies a shared delivery. This is the single word needed after “same”. Do not write “batch”: the comparison deliberately involved two batches, so that tempting word would reverse an important distinction.
5. Reveal answer and explanation
storage log. Paragraph E names the storage log as the location of the duplicate. “Batch card” identifies the missing record, not the destination requested by the question. The two-word noun phrase fits the instruction.
6. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph D explicitly separates preference from explanation. Visitors used different descriptions, and the educator refused to treat popularity as proof of a particular cause. The question asks for that distinction, not the tasting procedure itself.
7. Reveal answer and explanation
E. The missing card in paragraph E prevented staff from confidently identifying the full history, so they removed the sample. Nothing suggests the bar was excluded because visitors disliked its taste or because its appearance was unusual.
8. Reveal answer and explanation
A. Paragraph C connects delayed disclosure with limiting expectations. Letter labels concealed the processing record temporarily. They did not identify the most expensive sample, permanently replace records, or announce a winning recipe.
9. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph E uses the incident to show that a visible result needs a reliable history to be interpreted. A bar remained available for tasting, but its link to the process was uncertain. The argument values traceability, not paperwork for its own sake.
Rewrite without changing the claim
A careful paraphrase preserves the difference between a result and a causal explanation. You can report a preference confidently while remaining cautious about why it occurred.
Rewrite: “A popular sample did not prove which processing detail had produced its appeal.” Use the word “although” and keep the original limitation.
Compare a possible rewrite
Although visitors liked the sample, their preference did not establish which part of the production process made it appealing.
The concessive clause reports the positive result, while the main clause keeps the limit on causal explanation. Avoid “the roasting made it popular”: that selects a cause the educator explicitly refused to establish. “No one liked it” would contradict the observation rather than paraphrase it.
There is more than one good rewrite. Check meaning before vocabulary: keep the same people, time, comparison, and degree of certainty. A sophisticated synonym is a poor choice if it changes what the passage claims. This writing extension is for learning; the sentence-completion questions above still require exact words from the passage.
Make the next attempt more accurate
Return to the three labels in this lesson: batch number, tasting letter and processing record. Explain what each one identifies. If you confused them, annotate the passage with “material”, “blind sample” and “history”. This habit is useful when a process text gives the same object several names at different stages.
Keep a three-part error note: the answer you chose, the words you overlooked, and one action for next time. For a NOT GIVEN error, name the missing information. For a completion error, check the word limit and grammar. For a multiple-choice error, explain why the strongest distractor fails, rather than only repeating the correct option.
Continue with process and flow-chart tasks, table completion, matching sentence endings.
Sources and scope
Kew supports the brief factual background on cacao and the broad processing stages in paragraph A. The comparison and preferences are invented for reading practice, not experimental findings. The page is not a food-processing recipe or safety guide.
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: From bean to bar: Cacao as the source of chocolate and fermentation, drying and roasting as processing stages.
Public factual sources checked on 15 October 2026. The passage wording, teaching scenario, questions and explanations are original. Fictional people, decisions and results are not evidence about real organisations or populations.