PRACTICE TEST 4

I. You will hear an explorer called Richard Livingstone talking about a trip he made in the
rainforest of South America. Listen and indicate true (T) or false (F) statements.

Statements T F

1. They went all the way by boat. X

2. Richard said that during the walk, they were always both cold and wet. X

3. In a deserted camp, they found some soup made from unusual meat and X
vegetables.

4. After the meal, they began to feel worried about what they have done. X

5. Before leaving the camp, they left the sum of 50 dollars to thank the host. X

II. You will hear a radio report about Erik Weihenmayer, an adventurer. Complete the
summary, using the word or phrases you hear. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each
blank.
An American named Erik Weihenmayer standing out as an adventurer without the (1)…… sense of
sight……….… explains how he faces those challenges in today’s “Great Big Story”. He said the most exciting
part for him is in fact the movement, not the (2) …………summit…………….… .
At 4 or 5, he was diagnosed with an (3) …………incredibly rare…………….… disease and he went blind,
which he thought was a (4) ……………weird relief………….… as the worst thing had happened, so there’s
nothing else to lose. Then there was a (5) ……………recreational group………….… taking blind kids rock
climbing, which he thought he wouldn’t have as a blind person. 
When he got on to a rock face, he learned to do with his hands the things that (6) ……………sighted
people………….… learn to do with their eyes. When clipping a bolt to a carabineer, he felt it to make sure it
was correctly clipped or that carabineer was going to hold him. Unable to look up the rock to see the holds
and plan a route, he could only see as far as his hands, which he thought was  (7) …………
breathtakingly…………….… exciting. He loved the sound of emptiness, which was meditative, very much like
an (8) ……………inner mind sport………….… .
Being a blind climber is really hard and you just have to embrace that suffering. Blindness is just like all (9)
……………adversities………….… which you got to use as a catalyst to push you in new directions. It’s the
idea of (10) ……………turning bad things………….… into good things, and it’s something he thinks we all
could use.

SECTION B: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

I. Choose the word or phrase which best completes each sentence.
1. She gave a ______ performance of the concerto that had the audience on its feet.
A. matchless B. suitable  C. listless D. competent
2. I think you’ll find that the Americans are ______ ahead of us when it comes to space research.
A. kilometers B. streets  C. ages D. inches
3. I don’t like the way Dennis is trying to ______ trouble between us.
A. dish out B. rub up C. stir up D. spark out
4. The brothers remain ______ apart in terms of sporting achievement.
A. streets B. strips C. totally D. poles 

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5. As a poet, I think she ______ comparison with the greatest this century.
A. makes B. leads C. stands  D. matches
6. Everyone agrees that with ______ they shouldn’t have chosen pink.
A. retrospect B. fairness C. practice D. hindsight
7. When his parents are away, his eldest brother ______.
A. knocks it off B. calls the shots C. draws the line D. is in the same boat

8. After the concert, everyone had to ______ home through the snow.
A. trace B. tread C. trudge D. trickle
9. Mr. Discontent wanted to complain to the waiter but was afraid of making a(n) ______.
A. scene B.act C. play D. drama
10. Whoever they appoint will ______responsibility for all financial matters.
A. assemble B. assume C. assign D. assure

II. Fill in each gap with one suitable preposition or adverbial particle.
1. The police officer told the homeless man to move __away___ and he walked slowly and painfully down
the road.
2. Len has already left on foot, but if we take the car then maybe we can still head him __off___ before he
gets home.
3. Would you mind moving __along___ so that I can sit here?
4. A young man was riding his motorbike on the pavement and everyone was forced to step __aside____
to let him go past.
5. The area has been cordoned __off____ following a bomb threat.
6. As I leant on the table, it tipped __over___ and I fell over.
7. The news of her promotion went __down____ well with her colleagues.
8. Andy and I talked well ______ the night.
9. He lived ___by___ his wits and was involved with many shady characters.
10. In many countries, the law prevents criminals from cashing __in____ ___on___ their crimes by selling
their life stories to publishers and filmmakers.

III. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits in the space.
For some days after the earthquake, things seemed to be at a ___ standstill________ (1. STILL).
There had been an almost total ________breakdown______ (2. BREAK) in the country’s communications
systems and much of the infrastructure had suffered ______irreparable______ (3. REPAIR) damage. Fears
of a serious outbreak of disease were rising by the hour. Attempts to rescue, help and salvage had met
with ____unsurmountable __ (4. SURMOUNT) obstacles and each new initiative had encountered one
____setback______ (5. BACK) after another. And then the rains had come, making any rescue schemes
already underway quite ___unworkable____ (6. WORK). For some days television pictures relayed to the
world the epitome of an ___insoluble____ (7. SOLVE) problem, mothers clinging to their
___offspring________ (8. SPRING) in metre- high waters, homeless, and totally ___inconsolable____ (9.
CONSOLE). Etched on their faces was the certain knowledge that the ___onset_____ (10. SET) of killer
diseases was imminent.

IV. There are FIFTEEN mistakes in the following passage. Read the passage
carefully,underline these mistakes and correct them.
There are a number of tangible reasons not to travel on(by) public transport. There is the rigidity
of the timetable and the (in)flexibility of destination. Then there are concerns about getting a seat,
waiting at bus stops or train stations, having the correct changes, keeping our tickets. Yet there are
deeper reasons that(why) many of us shy away from public transport – our own set of perceiving
prejudices and opinions that private transport ownership symbolizes more than just convenience.
By varying(ied) degrees, we are all slaves to images sold to us by retailers. Car advertisements
enforce the notion of freedom, and motorcycles are offered for(by) a way to recapture our lost youth.
Our first reaction to(on/when) seeing a middle-aged man on a bus is not to think that he may not have
his own transport, but to assume that he has another motives for using public transport – his car is
being repaired, for example. The impact of advertising can also be seen when we see motorbikes.

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Admittedly, they are less common and less polluted(ing), but they are hardly practical. The rider is
opened to the elements and is in(at) great risk. But again, there are many who still see this as superior
to public transport. It is these reactions, these feelings so that we must have our own transport (what)
whenever the financial or environmental cost that is putting us right into the middle of a moral dilemma.
We have been warning(ed) and are aware of the increase in traffic pollution, yet very few people are
actually willing to change these habits.

CTION C:READING COMPREHENSION

I. Read the text below and select the best answer to fill in each blank.
THE INVENTION OF TELEVISION
Few inventions have had more scorn and praise (1) ……… them at the same time than television.
And few have done so much to unite the world into one vast audience for news, sport, information and
entertainment. Television must be (2) ………… alongside printing as one of the most significant inventions
of all time in the field of communications. In just a few decades it has reached (3) ……… every home in the
developed world and an ever- increasing proportion of homes in developing countries. It took over half a
century from the first suggestion that television might be possible before the first (4)……… pictures were
produced in laboratories in Britain and America.
In 1926 John Logie Baird’s genius for publicity brought television to the (5) ……… of a British
audience. It has since (6) ……… such heights of success and (7) ………. on such a pivotal function that it is
difficult to imagine a world (8) ……… of this groundbreaking invention.
1. A. taken over B. heaped upon C. picked on D. given over
2. A. awarded B. rated C. graduated D. assembled
3. A. simultaneously B. actually C. virtually D. substantially
4. A. flaring B. glimmering C. sparkling D. flickering
5. A. concentration B. initiation C. attention D. surveillance
6. A. reached B. found C. gained D. left
7. A. taken B. brought C. focused D. got
8. without B. shallow C. lacking D. bereft

II. Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each gap.
WHY DO WE STILL DICE WITH DEATH?
If asked, “What are health decisions?”, most of us would answer in terms of hospitals, doctors and
pills. Yet we are making a whole range of decisions about our health which go beyond this limited area; for
example, whether or not to smoke, exercise, drive a motorbike, drink alcohol regularly. The ways we reach
decisions and form attitudes about our health are only just beginning to be understood.
         The main paradox is why people consistently do things which are known to be very hazardous. Two
good examples of this are smoking and not wearing seat belts: addiction helps to keep smokers smoking;
and whether to wear a seat belt is only partly affected by safety considerations. Taken together, both
these examples underline elements of how people reach decisions about their health. Understanding this
process is crucial. We can then more effectively change public attitudes to hazardous, voluntary activities
like smoking.
         Smokers run double the risk of contracting heart disease, several times the risk of suffering from
chronic bronchitis and at least 25 times the risk of lung cancer, as compared to non-smokers. Despite
extensive press campaigns (especially in the past 20 years), which have regularly told smokers and car
drivers the grave risks   they are running, the number of smokers and seat belts wearers has remained
much the same. Although the number of deaths from road accidents and smoking are well publicised, the
have aroused little public interest.
         If we give smokers the real figures, will it alter their views on the dangers of smoking? Unfortunately
not. Many of the “real figures” are in the form of probabilistic estimates, and evidence shows that people
are very bad at processing and understanding this kind of information.

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         The kind of information that tends to be relied on both by the smoker and seat belt non-wearer i s
anecdotal, based on personal experiences. All smokers seem to have an Uncle Bill or an Auntie Mabel who
has been smoking cigarettes since they were twelve, lived to 90, and died because they fell down the
stairs. And if they don’t have such an aunt or uncle, they are certain to have heard of someone who has.
Similarly, many motorists seem to have heard of people who would have been killed if they had been
wearing seal belts.
         Reliance on this kind of evidence and not being able to cope with “probabilistic” data form the two
main foundation stones of people’s assessment of risk.A third is reliance on press-publicised dangers and
causes of death. American psychologists have shown that people overestimate the frequency (and
therefore the danger) of the dramatic causes of death (like aeroplane crashes) and underestimate the
undramatic, unpublicised killers (like smoking) which actually take a greater toll of life.
         What is needed is some way of changing people’s evaluations and attitudes to the risks of certain
activities like smoking. What can be done? The “rational” approach of giving people the “facts and figures”
seems ineffective. But the evidence shows that when people are frightened, they are more likely to change
their estimates of the dangers involved in smoking or not wearing seat belts. Press  and television can do
this very cost-effectively. Programmes like “Dying for a Fag” (a Thames TV programme) vividly showed the
death hazards of smoking and may have increased the chances of people stopping smoking permamantly.
         So a mass media approach may work. But it needs to be carefully controlled. Overall, the new
awareness of the problem of health decisions and behaviour is at least a more hopeful sign for the future.
1. The subject under discussion in this article is _______.
A. why people persist in running health risks
B. why people fail to make health decisions
C. how people estimate the dangers of smoking
D. how to use the mass media for health education
2. The writer suggests that the main reason that people don’t stop smoking is that _______.
A. they tend to imitate friends and relations who smoke heavily
B. they are unable to break the habit although they know the risks
C. they are unaware of the degree of danger involved in smoking
D. they don’t accept the statistical evidence against smoking
3. Publishing figures for health risks has been found to have little effect because people _______.
A. found them difficult to interpret B. considered them to be exaggerated
C. were too shocked to respond to them D. usually fail to read such reports
4. A reason given for using the mass media to publicise health risks is that they _______.
A. are known to be successful in changing people’s habits
B. can reach the widest cross- section of the population
C. are the only really effective means of frightening people
D. are an economical way to influence large numbers of people
5. The most optimistic aspect of this article is the fact that _______.
A. the media are having an increasing effect in health education
B. attention is being paid to how people assess health risks
C. people are becoming more concerned about their own health
D. precise figures are now available to underline health risks

III. Read this article about the way computers are affecting the English language. Six
paragraphs have been removed from the text. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which
fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
COMPUTERS AND LANGUAGE
One evening in 1945, a luckless moth flew into a huge government computer in Virginia, USA. Computers
were then largely mechanical, and the insect was crushed instantly between two metal blades, shutting
down the machine and providing English with its first widespread bit of computer slang: bug.
1. ______D_____
On the timeline of technology, computers are, if not exactly in their infancy, perhapsbarely in their teens.
Their real impact on English is yet to come: ultimately,computers will profoundly alter the way that
language itself is written. Before theflood tide of computers, however, only engineers and scientists came

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into contact withcomputer terminology. Now, a large part of society is exposed to the jargon, either inthe
home, office, through schools, or in the media.
2. _____G______
Discoursing on RAM and ROM at social gatherings, of course, is in the end nodifferent from carrying on
about power-steering or carburetors. More compellingis the way computer jargon is increasingly applied to
other concerns. It is perhaps emblematic of technology that, as with bug, the most successful linguistic
crossovers thus far are all inspired by computer failure.
3. ______B_____
Other computer borrowings abound, not all originating from the idea of technicalfailure. Some, such as
programmed, to describe behaviour, have been enrichedby their computer association but are ultimately
not far from their pre-computermeanings. The business world, for instance, has appropriated words like
network andinterface. Such borrowing simply replaces existing words with rather graceless jargon.
4. _______F____
For example, computers offer fresh meaning for the word background. Whenpowerful computers are given
more than one job to do, they relegate the lesser taskto 'background' -processing that problem only when
the more important 'foreground'task is momentarily at rest. Computer buffs have found background an
attractivemetaphor for a certain level of thought. Instead of 'I'll sleep on it,' one may say, 'I'llkeep that in
the background' - implying that the thought will not only be stored butsome additional, probably
subconscious, thinking will be done.
5. ______A_____
Such obscure usages remain mostly confined to technical communities, such asSilicon Valley. At the same
time, some commentators are concerned that these andother computer metaphors are dangerous. In her
book The Second Self, a study ofcomputers and culture, sociologist Sherry Turkle warns that when children
takecomputers too literally as models of human thought, they may devalue the subtlety oftheir own minds.
6. ______E_____
In the end it is the very ubiquity of computers which will bring far more profoundchanges to language than
merely fresh vocabulary. Soon the computer willfundamentally alter the way people write. While the
current adult population haslargely adopted computers for writing, few will use the machines the same way
astheir children will, who have never known anything else.

A. Another new and exotic arrival which illustrates this link between thought and computers is munge. This
describes the state of being delayed while the computer performs a particularly complex task. Normally
delays are sources of irritation, but munge implies they are forgivable because of the difficulty of the task.
Munge is also applied to difficult human mental tasks, expressing regard for the difficulty of the task and at
the same time sympathy for the thinker.

B. Crash, which is a major system shutdown, has found broad acceptance. One story goes that crash arose
with the first student computer enthusiasts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, most of whom
also belonged to the MIT biking club, where crashes were of the conventional variety.

C. Broadening access to computers will place an additional premium on the ability of writers to create
original thought and diminish the value of well-schooled but merely glib expression. The most elegant,
evocative, and revolutionary creations of language will still spring directly from human inspiration.

D. Since that incident, computers have proliferated at an astounding rate, culminating in the past decade's
barrage of bits and bytes, servers and hosts, chat rooms and websites. Yet thus far, the computer's
influence on general language still lags quite considerably behind the jargon of, say, sports or commerce.

E. Though research has shown that conventional computers operate differently from the human brain, the
newer 'neural network' computers more closely imitate the brain's structure, and may well some day offer
even more enticing mental associations to those millions of people all over the world who use computers
as a fact of life.

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F. There is, however, a more intriguing class of computer-inspired language. This derives from the fact
that some aspects of computers seem so similar to human thought that they provide new words with
which to describe our own mental processes.

G. Even polite conversation is not immune: anyone trapped at dinner with voluble new computer owners
knows that the little machines can easily become an obsessive topic. Small wonder then, that tales abound
of hosts and hostesses who ban computer speak from the table altogether.

SECTION D:WRITING
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the
word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words,
including the word given.
1. So that he would be able to leave the room quickly, Matthew stood by the door. (POSITIONED)
Matthew positioned himself by the door so as to be able to leave the room quickly.
2. I don’t think it was reasonable of you to complain so much about the service. (JUSTIFIED)
I don’t think you were justified in making such a fuss about the service.
3. Laura was faced by a lot of problems during her childhood. (CONTEND)
Laura had a lot of problems to contend with during her childhood.
4. Despite her disappointment at his decision, Karen did not think badly of him. (BORE)
Although she was disappointed, Karen didn’t bore any bad feelings over his decision.
5. Rob’s teacher is very happy with him at the moment. (BOOKS)
Rob is in his teacher’s good books at the moment.
6. The company intends to reduce spending on staff training. (CUTBACKS)
The company has announced its intention to have cutbacks staff training.
7. My husband and I had a row about buying a car. (WORDS)
I and my husband had words about buying a car.
8. The firm went bankrupt after failing to win the contract. (LIQUIDATION)
The firm went into liquidation after failing to win the contract.
9.Russ’s opinions on the new management policies were very different from those of his fellow workers.
(ODDS)
Russ was at odds with his fellow workers over the new management policies.
10. I’ve always thought it’s best to stand your ground when there’s a dispute. (BELIEVED)
I’ve never believed that we should give ground of a dispute.

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