Free TOEFL Reading Test 'current Trends In California Custody Law.'

Take a look at the last two sentences of this paragraph: "Nonetheless, the Mom seeks an order from the court for a hair sample to confirm he was using marijuana. The Court of appeal denied to issue this order because of constitutional privacy issues."

The phrase "this order" is defined in the previous sentence: (which order?) the order for a hair sample (whose? the father's) to confirm he (who? the father) was using marijuana.

ANSWER C is by far the best choice.

Elimination is a powerful technique with multiple choice questions. Let's first take a look at all options in order to discard any choices which clearly cannot be the correct answer to this question. In other words, which of the following four phrases is NOT similar to the phrase "child custody".

ANSWER A
Child imprisonment would suggest that the child in question is sent to jail. This in itself seems to be a gross exaggeration. What is more, we need to look at the phrase "child custody" in the context of paragraph 1 - this is what the question clearly states. There is nothing in paragraph 1 that would imply that the child was, is or will be sent to prison. This is why, option A should be eliminated.

ANSWER B
The phrase "child welfare” is not that bad actually and cannot be easily eliminated so let's keep it for now as a possible choice. Let's move on to answers 3 & 4 to look for more obvious eliminations.

ANSWER C
The phrase "child care" in the context of paragraph 1 is also quite similar in meaning to the phrase "child custody". It cannot be easily eliminated either so let's stick to it for now.

ANSWER D
The phrase "child legal rights" is tempting as the whole passage is about the legal solutions adopted in cases involving children and their parents. However, this phrase means more or less that the child in question is entitled to some rights while the passage focuses on the rights of the parents to taking care of their children when the parents divorce. This is why, option D can be discarded.

ANSWERS B & C
Which of the following is closer in meaning to "child custody" in the context of paragraph 1? Is it "child welfare" or "child care"? The phrase "child welfare" means the wellbeing of a given child and seems quite broad and general in its scope. The phrase "child care", on the other hand, can be understood as the right to take CARE of the child in question. Whose right is it? The parents’ right of course. This is why, the phrase “child care” seems to be most coherent with the phrase "child custody", paragraph 1 and the entire passage, too. Answer choice C is the best choice, then.

The last sentence of this paragraph: "The Court of appeal denied to issue this order because of constitutional privacy issues" is the key to this question and it means that some guarantees of personal privacy are defined by the constitution. This is why, ANSWER D is the best choice here.

Additionally, answers A, B and C can be easily eliminated because there is nothing in this paragraph indicating that any of them is true. The paragraph does not mention anything about the mother’s place of residence (eliminate A), father’s addiction to marijuana (eliminate B) or technical possibilities to detect marijuana using a hair sample (eliminate C).

Which of the following terms (A, B, C, D) is closest in meaning to the term "mandate"?

Even if you do not know this word, from the context of the paragraph, you should be able to deduce that the father wanted the court to decide that the child would bear the father's name. There clearly was a dispute between the mother and the father as to whose name the child would have (the mother's or the father's) and the only institution which could settle the dispute was the court. In other words, the father asked the court to "decide", "rule", "make a decision" in his favour.

Now, knowing the general meaning of the word "mandate" from the context, let's take a look at all the answer choices and eliminate all those which are NOT similar to "decide":

ANSWER A
prohibit vs. decide = clearly, these two have different meanings so ELIMINATE A

ANSWER B
reject vs. decide = again, the meanings do not overlap so ELIMINATE B

ANSWER C
justify vs. decide = well, this one is not all that bad but the verb "justify" seems to lack the authority of the institutions which can take binding decisions such as the courts for example

ANWER D
this is why, "order" is much better that "justify" as a synonym to “mandate” because “order” does express the authority and importance of a decision taken by a body such as a court for example and this is why ANSWER D should be chosen here

Reading this paragraph, it is quite clear that option B, C and D have been mentioned, i.e. the court took all of these factor into account when making its decision. The only factor not mentioned in the paragraph is the child's own preference so ANSWER A is the correct choice here.

The word "it" is defined in the previous sentence:

"The court of appeal affirmed, holding that the Schiffman case was not controlling. While the court did not approve of the hyphenated name it recognized that the trial court had the authority to make such an order."

"It" refers to the "court" and the "court" refers back to "the court of appeal" in the previous sentence.

This is why, ANSWER B should be chosen.

Let's take a closer look at the last sentence of this paragraph"

"The court decided that children should be able to have the experience of both parents even if one parent is immature, unless said immaturity is "detrimental" to their safety."

It means that a parent can visit his / her children, even if they are immature, unless this immaturity is detrimental to the safety of the children. In other words, the immature parents can continue visiting the children unless their immaturity is somehow "relevant", "significant", "valid" or has some "meaning".

Now, which of the following 4 answer choices is closest to our reading of the last sentence and the word "detrimental"? It is of course the phrase "of primary importance" and so ANSWER D is the correct choice to this question.

We need to decide which of the four spots given (A, B, C or D) is the best one for our bolded sentence. Let's then take a look at the bolded sentence itself.

“It is thus quite likely that in future fathers’ pleas for custody will be looked at more favorably by the courts.”

The sentence contains the word "thus" which is similar to the word "therefore" and is used when we conclude or sum up the thoughts and arguments presented before. This means that we really cannot place this sentence anywhere at the beginning so spots A and B can be eliminated. This, in turn, leaves us with the final spots: C and D.

If we inserted our bolded sentence in spot C, we would break up a logical chain between the two sentences, on the two sides of spot C which we should not do (both of these sentences talk about the same case and constitute one logical chain). The bolded sentence, when added to the paragraph, should blend in well with the rest of the passage both as far as the meaning and the structure are concerned.

This is why, the only spot into which we can add our bolded sentence is D.

Paragraph 2 describes a change in the approach adopted by the courts which used to favour the mothers as far as children custody rights are concerned. However, as we can read in this paragraph, these days the courts seem to be more open to the changing roles mothers and fathers play within a family. Additionally, the father in this paragraph is referred to as the "caretaker" - someone providing care (to the children as the whole passage is about who should take care of the children). This is why, ANSWER A seems best in this case.

This question is a bit complicated. First we read that "the trial court “split the baby” by ordering a hyphenated name". Then we find out that the court of the appeal "did not approve of the hyphenated name but it (the court of appeal) recognized that the trial court (the court of first instance) had the authority to make such an order (to order a hyphenated name)".

Then, all the way at the end, we read that the decision (most likely the final one) is left within Judge's (the trial court judge most likely) discretion (he has the power to decide) because the child is unborn and the best interest rule cannot yet be used.

All of this, when combined, suggests that the child will most likely, as ordered by the trial court judge, bear a hyphenated name and ANSWER A is the correct one.

Let's take a close look at this question:

"The word "reversed" in paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to all of the above EXCEPT..."

It means that among the 4 answer choices there will be 3 words which are similar to the word "reversed" and 1 word which is different from "reversed".

This in turn means that we can eliminate any answer choice which is similar to any other answer choices. For example if A is similar to D, both can be eliminated. This is because we want to find a word which is different from the word "reversed" and also different from the 3 of the 4 answer choices given.

So let us take a look at our choices:

"reversed"

A. changed back
B. annulled
C. reaffirmed
D. rejected

Even if you are not familiar with the meaning of all of these terms, you should be able to notice that 3 of them mean "throwing something away" while only 1 means "approving of something". Three option define a “negative” action while only one is “positive” in its meaning. The positive one is of course “reaffirm” so ANSWER C is the only one which is NOT close to the word “reversed” and ANSWER C is the correct choice here.

This question asks you to choose THREE sentences which, together with the bolded headline, will best summarise the passage. As stated in the instructions, we can eliminate sentences:

1) which are NOT true, according to the passage
2) which express ideas of MINOR importance or DETAILS and as such would not help us to sum up this text.

In other words, to sum up this rather lengthy piece of text we should look for the "widest-reaching" sentences which are also "on point". This means that we should choose the sentences which show that a NEW TREND has emerged as a result of which fathers and mothers are treated SIMILARLY in the custody law these days.
Let’s try to eliminate some sentences. Let us take a look at sentence B:
“The US Supreme Court decided that child custody is a sole prerogative of state legislatures.”
While this in itself is quite interesting, it is not related to our headline (bolded) sentence and because it is irrelevant to our summary, it can be easily eliminated.

Next, sentence C:
“Maddis Hetherington approach has been favored by California and Florida courts.”
This sentence is quite narrow and focuses on one approach (the Maddis Hetherington approach) and talks about California and Florida courts only. This is why, it should be an easy elimination.

Sentence D:
“The courts usually decide to awarded hyphenated names to unborn children.”
Again, this is an interesting observation in itself but in no way does it help us to build our summary in which we want to show that a new trend has emerged in the application of custody law, the trend that gives the mother and the father equal chances in child custody cases. Please eliminate D.

Having eliminated B, C and D, we pick A, E and F. If you read those sentences, you should see that they are better suited to be used as summary points in this case, even though they may not be entirely perfect in this role.