4.1 Cohesion

What cohesion is asking

On the combined Academic and Quantitative Literacy (AQL) paper, Academic Literacy (AL) is the larger share. The official CEA/NBTP AQL booklet describes each AL sitting as about 75 multiple-choice questions within roughly 125 AQL items. Quantitative Literacy (QL) occupies the remaining AQL share; Mathematics (MAT) is a separate NBT domain. AL results are reported separately from QL. AQL items are MCQ, with no dictionary, on passages that mirror tertiary reading. This OpenExamPrep section is independent teaching of cohesion: how a later word points back to an earlier stretch—through pronouns, this/these, and lexical chains. You are being asked: what does this word stand for? If you attach a pronoun to the nearest noun without checking number, sense, and the writer's claim, you will pick a fluent wrong option.

Pointing back: the basic mechanism

A pointer borrows its meaning from an antecedent—the earlier stretch it stands for.

Three pointer families dominate AL-style items:

1. Personal pronouns: it, they, them, he, she. Number and animacy must match. They cannot point to a single policy; it cannot point to a plural pair of rooms.
2. Demonstratives: this, these, that, those. This/these often point to a whole preceding claim or event, not only to the last noun. This finding typically points to a result just stated; these delays points to a plural situation already on the table.
3. Lexical chains: a later noun that repeats, synonymises, or narrows an earlier idea—the policy, the same rule, that restriction, the measure. The chain is cohesive even when no pronoun appears.

A cohesion item is solved by substitution. Replace the pointer with each candidate antecedent. Keep the candidate that (a) matches grammar, (b) keeps the writer's claim true, and (c) is already in the text.

Worked passage: residence quiet hours

Read the extract as you would a first-year reading pack. Track what each numbered pointer stands for.

(1) A quiet-hours rule is a residence policy that limits amplified sound after 22:00 on weeknights. (2) Wardens introduced it after noise complaints clustered around first-year corridors. (3) This did not, however, reduce the number of written warnings in the first month. (4) Students argued that the restriction ignored communal kitchens, where conversation, not music, ran late. (5) Wardens still locked the TV rooms and the games hall at 22:00; residents said these were the spaces where group work actually happened. (6) The warden's office rejected a kitchen exemption, citing fairness across floors.

• It in (2) points back to the quiet-hours rule in (1), not to “amplified sound” and not to “22:00.” A time and a type of sound were not “introduced” as policies.
• This in (3) points back to the introduction of the quiet-hours rule (the event in sentence 2). The verb phrase did not reduce warnings needs an action or policy as its subject, not “first-year corridors” and not “noise complaints” treated as if complaints were the intervention.
• The restriction in (4) is a lexical chain back to the quiet-hours rule, not a new object and not the kitchens.
• These in (5) is plural. It points to the TV rooms and the games hall, the spaces named immediately before the semicolon. It cannot point to “22:00” (a singular time) or to “residents” (the people speaking).

this/these versus the last noun

AL traps often put a tempting last noun immediately before this or these. The last noun is correct only when number, sense, and the following verb all fit.

This is not a synonym of it. It wants a noun phrase. This can stand for a sentence-level event. In quiet-hours sentence (3), This did not reduce warnings is true of adopting the rule, not of leftover objects in sentence 2. After a result, this finding recovers that result, not a leftover date; the classifying noun finding tells you what kind of antecedent to hunt.

Lexical chains: repetition with a shift in dress

A lexical chain is a sequence of expressions that keep the same referent while changing form: quiet-hours rule → it → the restriction → the policy. Each link points back. If sentence 1 introduces load-shedding interruptions, sentence 3 may call them these outages only if that later term still covers the same set. Prefer the antecedent that the later sentence still makes true. Exact repetition (the policy) is still cohesion when it names the same rule.

A substitution method for test day

Circle the pointer; list candidates from the previous one or two sentences (and, for this/that, whole claims); check number and whether substitution keeps the writer's claim true; reject nouns that never appeared.

Exam traps on cohesion

• Nearest-noun grab. The closest noun is often a distractor, especially after a prepositional phrase (after noise complaints clustered around first-year corridors—it is not the corridors).
• Number blindness. These cannot recover a singular exemption. It cannot recover TV rooms and the games hall.
• This = last noun. When this is followed by a verb of result (reduced, caused, failed), the antecedent is often the action or finding, not a leftover object.
• Chain break. A later noun that looks related (the complaint, the corridor) is not automatically the same referent as the rule.

Independent OpenExamPrep practice: cohesion is a tracking skill. Name the pointer, name the antecedent, and only then look at the options. Because you cannot open a dictionary, you need the referent already on the page, not a rare synonym.