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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63132 Easy Château Frontenac in Quebec City

Read the following passage.

A. The Château Frontenac stands on Cap Diamant, a large cape above the St. Lawrence River, on ground with a long past. It sits over the archaeological remains of the Saint-Louis Forts, and it was built near the Citadel that Frontenac had begun in the late 17th century. The hotel takes its name from Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, who was governor of New France from 1672 to 1682 and again from 1689 to 1698. In October 1864, delegates planning Confederation met privately in a grand building that stood on this spot.

B. Construction began in 1892 for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, headed by William Van Horne, and the hotel opened in 1893. The railway's directors wanted to encourage luxury travel and hoped the hotel would draw wealthy tourists onto their trains. The New York architect Bruce Price, inspired by French castles, based its fortress-like design on the medieval chateaux of the Loire Valley. It was the first of many Chateau-style hotels that Canadian railway companies went on to build, and the model for the rest.

C. The hotel kept growing. The Citadel Wing was added in 1899, later work gave it a central tower, and in 1993 the Claude-Pratte Wing opened with an indoor swimming pool and a fitness centre. During the Second World War the hotel hosted the two Quebec Conferences, in August 1943 and September 1944. Almost all the Allied delegates stayed there, and Canada's prime minister, Mackenzie King, met Britain's Winston Churchill and the American president, Franklin Roosevelt. In 1945 the Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in the hotel.

D. Today the Château Frontenac, run by Fairmont, is still a working hotel. A 75-million-dollar renovation finished in 2014 rebuilt about three-fifths of the rooms, expanded the meeting space and changed the restaurants. As of 2026, the hotel's website lists 610 rooms and suites, four restaurants, a spa and a heated indoor pool with a view of Old Quebec. Its concierge team arranges city tours for guests. In 2018 the roof held four beehives with about 70,000 bees, whose honey is harvested twice a year for cocktails and dishes.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

 - 1. Insects living up top make something that goes into the meals and drinks served at the hotel.

 - 2. The rail company wanted rich visitors to use its trains.

 - 3. The hotel's name comes from a man who was twice in charge of New France.

 - 4. Two important meetings were held at the hotel during the war.

 - 5. The hotel welcomed its first guests a year after work on it began.

 - 6. Its own web page shows the hotel with more than six hundred places for guests to stay.

 - 7. It was the earliest of a group of hotels in the same style put up by rail companies.

 - 8. The pool in the newer section was paid for by the provincial government.

 - 9. A new section with a place to swim was added in the early 1990s.

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