Sum up each writer's point in a few words first, so the texts never get swapped.
Practice test 1 is free. No card needed.
Comparing texts questions ask where two writers on one topic agree, where they differ, and how one would answer the other. Children in Year 7 now meet them in Year 8, in the exam expected in June 2027.
Checked by the SelectiveReady team on 12 October 2026 · Updated 27 October 2026 · How we check facts
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ACER says Reading tests finding information in texts, and linking, interpreting, reflecting on and judging their ideas. Comparing two short texts practises the linking and the judging: your child holds two views at once and weighs them.
The questions below are ours and share two short texts, Hands Off, or Hands On?, about touching objects in museums. Each one shows the answer and the working, so read them together. If a wrong option tempts your child, check first whether the texts got mixed up; that slip looks like a reading problem but isn't.
Text 1: Why we ask you not to touch
Visitors are sometimes puzzled, even offended, when a museum asks them not to touch. Surely one fingertip can do no harm? The difficulty is that a museum does not have one visitor; it has hundreds of thousands. Human skin leaves behind oils, salts and moisture. On a polished bronze statue, a single touch is invisible, but a hundred thousand touches wear a bright patch into the metal and help it to corrode. On old paper or cloth, the damage comes faster still. A conservator's job is to make sure that an object will still be here, and still be readable, in two hundred years. That means saying no to some of the people who love it most today. Where we can, we offer something in return: replicas, digital models that can be turned on a screen, and handling sessions with objects chosen because they are tough enough to be held.
Text 2: Let them hold something
My most vivid memory from primary school is not a lesson but a rock. On an excursion, a museum guide placed a piece of meteorite in my hand and told me it was older than the Earth's oceans. It was heavier than it looked, and cold, and I have never forgotten it. Museums are right to protect fragile treasures, but I worry that too many visits now take place behind glass. Children learn with their hands as much as with their eyes, and a room full of 'Do not touch' signs can tell them that the past belongs to someone else. The answer is not to put priceless paintings at risk. It is to give touch a proper place: more handling tables, more objects set aside specifically to be held, and more guides with the time to put something remarkable into a small, careful hand.
What do the writers of both texts agree about?
Answer: C
Answer: C
Find a point each writer accepts. Text 1's whole purpose is protecting objects, and Text 2 says 'Museums are right to protect fragile treasures' and should not 'put priceless paintings at risk'. Option D is the opposite of Text 2, which says children learn with their hands.
How does the main concern of Text 1 differ from that of Text 2?
Answer: A
Answer: A
Sum up each text in a few words first. Text 1 is about objects lasting 'two hundred years'; Text 2 is about a child learning by holding a rock. Option C reverses the texts, since it is Text 2 that asks for 'more handling tables'. Option D mistakes single examples for the main concern.
How would the writer of Text 1 most likely respond to Text 2's claim that 'Do not touch' signs 'can tell them that the past belongs to someone else'?
Answer: D
Answer: D
Use what Text 1 says about its rules. Its writer protects objects so they 'will still be here' in two hundred years, keeping the past for future visitors too, and already offers replicas and handling sessions. B is ruled out because Text 1 mentions objects 'tough enough to be held'. C goes too far: digital models are offered, not called better.
Keep the texts apart before bringing them together. A short summary of each writer's point, made before the options, anchors every question that follows.
These steps are ours, drawn from the working in the answers above.
After reading, say each writer's main point in a few words. Text 1: keep objects safe. Text 2: let children hold things.
Look for a line where one writer accepts the other's point. In these texts the agreement sits in a single sentence.
Check which text each option is about. Swapping them is the easiest mistake to make.
For a question about how a writer would respond, use only what that writer says and offers, not your own view.
Options with all, every or never go too far here. Neither writer takes an all-or-nothing view.
These traps are the wrong options in the questions above. Ask your child which one looked right at first, then ask which text the right answer came from.
Find two short opinion pieces on the same topic, such as letters to the editor, and ask where they agree.
After a family debate, ask your child to sum up each side in a sentence.
Ask, "What would the first writer say to the second?" Then look for the line that shows it.
Two texts take longer to read than one, and in Victoria Reading shares its 55-minute sitting with Verbal Reasoning. If a comparing question stalls, ACER suggests your child make an informed guess and come back to it at the end if there is time.
Three questions show the method; a full sitting shows whether your child keeps the writers apart under time. Start with Practice test 1: one full practice test with results, with a free account. Afterwards you'll see results by skill, so you know which kinds of question cost the most marks.
For more passages with worked answers, see VIC selective entry reading questions, or the guide to VIC main idea questions.
Practice test 1 marks every answer and shows results by skill: what your child already does well and the three skills to work on next.
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