英検1級の長文読解練習｜オリジナル英文と4択5問

2026年10月2日 ／ 士心塾 オンライン校

英検1級の長文読解に向けて、この教材では518語のオリジナル英文と4択5問で、答えの根拠を本文から見つける練習をしましょう。人物・時間・理由を整理し、選択肢の意味を本文と照らします。

英検の単語テスト（無料・4択）：5級／4級／3級／準2級／2級／準1級

出典：日本英語検定協会「1級の試験内容」。引用：「パッセージの内容に関する質問に答える。」https://www.eiken.or.jp/eiken/exam/grade_1/solutions.html。長さの参考：「2026年度第1回 問題冊子」https://www.eiken.or.jp/eiken/exam/kakomon/2026-1-1ji-1kyu.pdf

本文語数は上記の問題冊子の説明文から数えた参考値です。教材の問題数と長さは、読み直しながら学ぶために設定しています。

1. 本文と選択肢を3段階で照らす

2. オリジナル英文と4択5問

What Makes an Unsuccessful Experiment Useful?（本文518語）

The fictional Carrow Research Foundation had long awarded grants to projects whose proposals promised a clearly identifiable result. This made decisions easier to explain to donors, but an internal review exposed an unintended consequence. Applicants increasingly presented exploratory work as though its outcome were already predictable. Projects challenging established assumptions were difficult to justify because their potential value depended on discovering something that could not yet be specified. The foundation therefore introduced a small experimental fund. Its purpose was not to reward failure, as some critics alleged, but to support investigations in which a well-designed test could be informative even when the anticipated effect did not appear.

Under the new scheme, applicants had to describe the uncertainty they intended to address, explain how their methods could distinguish between competing explanations, and state what evidence would cause them to revise their initial judgment. Reviewers would assess the quality of these commitments rather than the confidence with which a favorable outcome was predicted. This distinction mattered: a project yielding no useful information because its equipment was unsuitable would not be equivalent to one that carefully ruled out a plausible hypothesis. The absence of a desired result was therefore neither an automatic justification for further funding nor, by itself, proof that the original investment had been wasted.

The scheme also required recipients to submit a concise account of their methods and findings, including inconclusive results. Supporters argued that such reports could prevent later applicants from repeating an investigation without realizing that it had already encountered difficulties. Several researchers nevertheless objected that obligatory reporting would consume time and expose preliminary ideas to competitors. In response, the foundation introduced a limited delay before public release and required reviewers to explain why each requested detail was necessary. Reports would still be published, but sensitive methodological information could be withheld temporarily under specified conditions. Transparency was retained as an objective without being treated as a demand for immediate, indiscriminate disclosure.

After the first year, the foundation resisted producing a league table of grants ranked by the number of publications. One project had produced no journal article but had identified a measurement problem that affected two other investigations. Another generated several papers that left its central uncertainty unresolved. These cases did not establish that publications were unimportant. They showed instead that counting them could obscure the particular contribution the experimental fund was designed to make. Evaluators examined whether the projects had reduced uncertainty, whether their reports were usable by others, and whether the questions remaining open had been stated honestly.

The review also acknowledged a limitation. Describing useful uncertainty reduction requires judgment, and applicants might learn to adopt that language as readily as they had learned to promise success. Independent scrutiny of methods would therefore remain essential. The foundation decided to retain the fund on a provisional basis, alongside grants with more conventional objectives. Its argument was deliberately modest: some research deserves support because it improves the grounds for a later decision, even if it does not supply the result originally hoped for. This does not eliminate accountability; it changes what researchers must be accountable for.

本文の内容に最も合う答えを1〜4から一つ選びましょう。根拠の英文を見つけてから解答を開きます。

問題1

What prompted the foundation to establish the experimental fund?

1. Donors required the foundation to support only unsuccessful projects.
2. An internal review proved that all previous grants had been ineffective.
3. Its existing criteria discouraged work whose value could not be expressed as a predictable outcome.
4. Applicants could no longer design investigations with identifiable objectives.

問題2

Which project would best satisfy the reasoning described in the second paragraph?

1. A carefully designed test that rejects a plausible explanation despite producing no desired effect.
2. A test using unsuitable equipment that produces no interpretable evidence.
3. An application that predicts success confidently but gives no basis for revising its judgment.
4. An investigation that receives renewed funding solely because its first attempt failed.

問題3

How did the foundation respond to concerns about reporting?

1. It abandoned reporting whenever researchers regarded their results as inconclusive.
2. It required immediate publication of every methodological detail without explanation.
3. It guaranteed that recipients could keep all findings permanently confidential.
4. It preserved publication requirements while allowing conditional delays in disclosure.

問題4

Why does the passage contrast the two projects in the fourth paragraph?

1. To demonstrate that producing more papers always reduces more uncertainty.
2. To illustrate how publication totals can conceal differences in the information gained.
3. To justify withdrawing support from every project that publishes a journal article.
4. To establish that measurement problems are the only legitimate subject of research.

問題5

Which statement best captures the foundation’s concluding position?

1. Research accountability should be removed whenever outcomes are unpredictable.
2. Conventional grants should be replaced entirely by the experimental fund.
3. Exploratory grants can be justified by better-informed decisions, provided their methods remain subject to scrutiny.
4. Describing uncertainty reduction makes independent assessment unnecessary.

3. 選択肢の違いを説明する

4. 4週間の復習計画

4週間は復習計画の一例です。試験までの日数と読める量に合わせて調整しましょう。

関連：準1級の長文読解 ／ 準1級のライティング ／ 準1級のリスニング