Conclusievraag

34 of our 291 B2 reading items. This is the only reading question type where the correct answer may be a sentence that is not in the text, which makes it the type where inventing is both tempting and fatal. A conclusion must be carried by the text — not merely compatible with it, and not merely true of the world. The difficulty is telling those three apart in about ninety seconds.

About 35–36 multiple-choice questions over roughly 6 texts in 100 minutes, computer-marked. The question is phrased "Welke conclusie kan uit de tekst worden getrokken?" or "Wat kan op grond van alinea 4 worden geconcludeerd?". The options are built from the gap between support and compatibility: one repeats a sentence from the text (true, but a quotation is not a conclusion), one goes further than the evidence allows, one is reasonable but rests on something the text never establishes, and one follows. The over-reaching option is the one most often chosen, because it sounds like a conclusion — conclusions are supposed to add something.

Staat het er letterlijk?

Then it is not a conclusion, it is a detail. This option appears in nearly every set.

alle, altijd, iedereen, nooit

A conclusion this absolute needs evidence about every case. B2 texts almost never give it.

zal, zou … worden, is te verwachten

A prediction. Only a conclusion if the text argued about the future; a text about the present does not license it.

daarom, dus, hieruit volgt

The text drawing its own conclusion. Where it does, the answer is close to those words.

waarschijnlijk, vermoedelijk, mogelijk

A hedged conclusion is usually the safe one at B2, because the evidence is usually partial.

• In drie grote steden daalde het aantal nieuwbouwwoningen, terwijl de vraag toenam.

  ✗De woningnood neemt in heel Nederland toe.

  What follows is a widening gap in those cities. "De woningnood neemt in heel Nederland toe" is reasonable and is not supported — three cities are not the country, and the option is built from exactly that step.

• De regeling geldt sinds januari. Het aantal aanvragen is sindsdien niet gestegen.

  ✗De regeling is mislukt.

  The supported conclusion is that the scheme has not yet had the intended effect. That it has failed is a further step: the text gives no time frame in which it should have worked.

• Werkgevers noemen het tekort aan personeel hun grootste zorg. Tegelijk investeren zij minder in opleiding dan vijf jaar geleden.

  Two facts placed side by side, and the conclusion is the tension between them — employers' actions do not match their stated concern. Neither sentence alone is the answer, and both appear as options.

• +Exception 1

  Where the text draws its own conclusion — after daarom, dus or hieruit volgt — the answer is a paraphrase of that sentence and nothing further. Reasoning past a conclusion the writer already stated is how a correct reading becomes a wrong answer.

• ✗Choosing the option that goes one step further than the text. It is the strongest-sounding option and it is the designed trap in this type.
• ✗Generalising from the cases the text names. Three cities, one sector or one year is evidence about three cities, one sector or one year.
• ✗Accepting an option because you cannot find anything in the text that contradicts it. Not contradicted is not the same as supported, and one option per set is exactly that.
• ✗Bringing in what you know about the subject. A conclusion here is drawn from this text, not from the topic.