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This is your second CEM 11+ English and Verbal Reasoning practice paper. This time the passage is non-fiction — a style commonly used in CEM exams. Remember: CEM interleaves question types, so stay alert as you switch between comprehension, vocabulary, and verbal reasoning.
Read the following passage carefully.
For centuries, scientists believed that trees were solitary organisms — each one competing independently for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Recent research has overturned this view entirely. We now know that beneath the forest floor lies a vast underground network of fungal threads, connecting the roots of neighbouring trees in what scientists have nicknamed the "Wood Wide Web."
Through this network, trees can share resources with one another. A large, well-established tree — sometimes called a "mother tree" — can send sugars and nutrients through the fungal threads to smaller, struggling saplings nearby. Research by Professor Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia has shown that mother trees can recognise their own offspring and send them larger shares of nutrients than they send to unrelated neighbours.
The network also serves as a communication system. When a tree is attacked by insects, it can release chemical signals through the fungal threads to warn neighbouring trees. Those neighbours then produce defensive chemicals in their leaves before the insects even arrive. In this way, the forest acts less like a collection of individuals and more like a single, cooperative community.
However, the Wood Wide Web is under threat. Logging, pollution, and climate change are damaging the fungal networks that hold forests together. When mother trees are removed, the saplings that depended on them often fail to survive. Professor Simard has argued that sustainable forestry must protect these ancient hub trees, because losing them is like removing the heart of the forest.
Q1. What did scientists used to believe about trees, and how has this view changed? (2 marks)
Q2. Explain what the "Wood Wide Web" is in your own words. (2 marks)
Q3. How do mother trees show a preference for their own offspring? (2 marks)
Q4. "The forest acts less like a collection of individuals and more like a single, cooperative community." What evidence from the passage supports this statement? (3 marks)
Q5. Why does Professor Simard say that removing mother trees is "like removing the heart of the forest"? (2 marks)
Q6. Choose the word closest in meaning to "solitary" as used in the passage. (1 mark)
(a) Strong (b) Alone (c) Ancient (d) Dangerous
Q7. Complete the analogy: Root is to tree as foundation is to ___. (1 mark)
Q8. Which is the odd one out: oak, elm, pine, rose, birch? (1 mark)
Q9. Rearrange NOUFGL to make a word meaning "a type of living thing that is not a plant or animal". (1 mark)
Q10. Which two words are most opposite in meaning: connect, separate, protect, threaten, survive? (1 mark)
Q11. Find the three-letter word hidden across two words in this sentence: "She saw the beautiful forest on Monday." (1 mark)
Q12. In the sequence Z, W, T, Q, ___, what letter comes next? (1 mark)
Q13. Complete both words with the same letter: NETWOR( ? ) and ( ? )ING (1 mark)
Q14. If each letter shifts back by 3 (D becomes A, E becomes B), what does WUHH decode to? (1 mark)
Q15. Using the code A=1, B=2, C=3... what word is 12, 5, 1, 6? (1 mark)
Q16. What word goes after UNDER and before WORK? (1 mark)
Q17. Which word means the same as VAST? (1 mark)
(a) Small (b) Empty (c) Enormous (d) Flat
Q18. Which word is the odd one out: nutrient, vitamin, mineral, furniture, protein? (1 mark)
Fill in each gap with the most suitable word. (6 marks)
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