The plague that killed 100,000 Londoners – C1 Reading Test

C1 English Reading Test

Read the text about the Great Plague of London. For questions 1–7, choose the correct answer(s) (A, B, C or D).

The plague that killed 100,000 Londoners

It’s September 1665. A weekly sheet of figures confirms what London’s deserted streets already suggest: 7,165 people have died of plague in just seven days. The total exceeds the previous record by more than fifty. Behind that number lie sealed houses, tolling bells and carts collecting bodies after dark. Yet alarming as it is, the figure captures only part of the catastrophe.

Plague was hardly new to London. Serious outbreaks had struck in 1603 and 1625, but the city’s rapid expansion had made it particularly vulnerable. Its population had grown from roughly 200,000 in 1600 to more than 350,000 fifty years later. Much of that increase was concentrated in overcrowded districts where sanitation was poor and people lived in close proximity to rats. We now know that bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and is usually transmitted by infected fleas. Londoners at the time variously blamed poisonous air, comets and contaminated goods.

As reports multiplied, those with the means to leave did so. King Charles II and his court withdrew to Oxford, while a sizeable proportion of poorer residents were unable to leave. Leaving the city was difficult, as residents needed a certificate of health, and neighbouring communities were reluctant to admit Londoners. If plague entered a household, every resident could be confined inside for forty days. The door was marked with a red cross and guarded by a watchman.

The policy was intended to contain infection, but it also gave families a powerful incentive to conceal it. The weekly Bills of Mortality were compiled from parish burial records, with elderly female ‘searchers’ commonly employed to determine causes of death. Few had medical knowledge, and some were susceptible to bribery. A number of plague deaths were probably registered under other causes, such as fever or vomiting. Deaths among religious minorities were also omitted from parish records, further widening the gap between the official count and reality.

Even so, the surviving data reveal the speed of the epidemic. In June, deaths attributed to plague amounted to around a quarter of all recorded deaths; by August, the proportion stood at approximately three quarters. Deaths peaked in the week ending 26 September. The official annual toll was about 68,600, but many historians place the true figure nearer 100,000—roughly one fifth of London’s inhabitants. The precise margin of error is impossible to establish.

Comparison with the Black Death of 1348 exposes the limitations of absolute numbers. About 35,000 Londoners are thought to have died during the earlier outbreak, meaning that the victims of 1665 may have outnumbered them by almost three to one. Per capita, however, the medieval epidemic was considerably worse: it killed more than half of a much smaller population. Whether an outbreak appears ‘greater’ therefore depends on whether we examine absolute numbers or proportions.

Plague deaths were already declining during the winter of 1665, months before the Great Fire swept through London. The popular claim that the fire ended the epidemic is therefore difficult to sustain; many of the worst-affected districts were not burned at all. The Bills of Mortality fall far short of modern statistical standards, but their weekly breakdown provides something rare: a numerical record of a city watching disaster unfold. What the figures cannot fully convey is what each addition to the total represented—a household sealed, a street emptied and another Londoner lost.

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Page 1 of 7

1 Which TWO ideas are conveyed in the first paragraph?

A. The weekly total was calculated from bodies collected after dark.

B. The recorded figure does not convey the full magnitude of the tragedy.

C. A previous weekly total had been almost as high.

D. Sealing infected houses was the main reason London’s streets were deserted.

Page 2 of 7

2 What can be inferred about London's expansion before the 1665 outbreak?

A. It had poisoned the air and led to goods becoming contaminated.

B. It had outpaced improvements in housing and sanitation.

C. It had been driven largely by people escaping earlier outbreaks.

D. It had reduced the population's exposure to infected animals.

Page 3 of 7

3 What does the third paragraph suggest about a Londoner's ability to escape the outbreak?

A. It depended partly on their resources and acceptance by other communities.

B. It became easier once certificates of health were introduced.

C. It was restricted only after plague was detected in their household.

D. It was available mainly to people employed by the royal court.

Page 4 of 7

4 How might some families have concealed plague deaths?

A. By pretending they belonged to a religious minority.

B. By trying to keep their relatives' deaths out of the burial records.

C. By preventing parish clerks from issuing mortality records.

D. By paying off searchers to register a different cause of death.

Page 5 of 7

5 What do the figures for June and August indicate?

A. By August, three quarters of London's population had died from plague.

B. Plague accounted for a substantially larger share of recorded deaths in August.

C. Deaths from causes other than plague had fallen by half.

D. The official annual death toll had reached 68,600 by August.

Page 6 of 7

6 What broader point does the comparison with the Black Death illustrate?

A. Historical death tolls are unreliable unless official records survive.

B. Absolute totals are generally more informative than per capita figures.

C. Population growth inevitably causes infectious diseases to become more deadly.

D. Comparing the severity of different outbreaks is not straightforward.

Page 7 of 7

7 What is the writer's overall assessment of the Bills of Mortality?

A. They give us a picture of how the epidemic developed but not its full human impact.

B. Their inaccuracies make them little more than historical curiosities.

C. They show that the Great Fire was responsible for the epidemic's decline.

D. They represented an important step towards modern statistical analysis.

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