Cumulative Skills Test Units 1–10 Test B

Name: ___________________________________________

Everyday English
1 Complete the dialogue with phrases A–E.
1
Tom ____________ what happened at the party last night? Someone stole my guitar!
2
Tara Oh no! ____________ ! You loved that guitar, didn't you?
3
Tom I did. ____________ I should do? Should I buy a new one, or do you think it might be found?
4
Tara ____________ put some posters around the school to see if anyone had found it.
5
Tom ____________ ! Will you help me with them?
Tara Yes, of course, Tom. Let’s hope we can find it!

A That’s a shame
B If I were you, I’d
C That’s a good idea
D Have you heard
E What do you think

Mark: ___ / 5

1
Listening
2  Listen to the radio programme. Circle the correct answers.
1 The radio programme is about
a unusual sportspeople.
b people who have success in life.
c future sporting events.
2 Fauja Singh is famous for being the oldest
a marathon runner in the world.
b father in the world.
c person to be in a sports advert.

3  Listen again. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?

1 Fauja Singh holds many running records for his age group. ___
2 He has been in an advert with David Beckham. ___
3 He was the oldest child in a big family. ___
4 He began running before he started working as a farmer. ___
5 When he heard that a marathon was 42 km long, he was even more determined to succeed. ___
6 He was 99 years old when he finished his first marathon. ___
7 He left his birth certificate in India, so he couldn’t show it to the Guinness World Records . ___
8 He thinks a vegetarian diet and lots of tea are good for you. ___

Mark: ___ / 10

2
Reading
The man who climbed Everest
These days, climbing up to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, has become so popular
that it is often crowded with teams of climbers. Fifty years ago, only a few people had reached its summit.
Nowadays, more than a hundred people a year do the climb up Mount Everest. However, in 2006, one of the
many people who reached the top was different. His name was Mark Inglis, he came from New Zealand, and
his successful climb was unusual because Mark doesn’t have any legs.
If you know anything about the history of climbing Mount Everest, you’ll know that Mark wasn’t the first
New Zealander to reach the summit. In 1953, Edmund Hillary was not only the first New Zealander to climb
the world’s highest mountain, but also one of the first two men on earth to do so. He reached the summit along
with his climbing partner, a Nepalese mountain climber called Tenzing Norgay. However, Mark’s
achievement was a first for someone with his disability. Other disabled climbers, including a blind American
man and a Nepalese man with no hands, had succeeded in climbing Everest before Mark, but what Mark
managed to do was perhaps more incredible. He wore artificial legs during the climb, which had been made
especially for him, but the strength and effort he needed to achieve his goal was amazing.
After the climb, Mark told reporters that he had decided to go up Everest because he was a mountain climber
and had always dreamed of climbing Everest, and not because he wanted to set records as a disabled person.
He had lost his legs when he was in his twenties. At the time, he was working as a mountain rescue worker
and during a climb, bad weather meant that he and a friend had to find shelter in an ice cave. When they were
rescued, two weeks later, their legs had frozen and doctors had had to cut them off. Despite this personal
disaster, Mark continued to love climbing, and never stopped dreaming about reaching the top of Everest one
day.
As well as achieving a personal goal, Mark climbed Everest to raise money to help other people. On his
website, he says that you don’t see many disabled people in Tibet, one of the countries where Mount Everest is
situated, because life is hard there, and there is very little support for people with disabilities. By raising
money, he hoped to be able to provide artificial arms and legs for disabled Tibetan people, as well as for
people who had lost arms and legs in other poor countries, such as Cambodia. Mark’s successful climb was
both an important personal achievement and an act that helped give other people hope and support.

3
4 Read the text. Circle the correct answers (a–d).
1 Which of the following sentences about climbing Everest is false?
a Not many people had climbed Everest fifty years ago.
b About a hundred people have climbed Everest in the last fifty years.
c A lot of people reached the summit of Everest in 2006.
d More and more people are climbing Everest these days.
2 What was special about Edmund Hillary’s climb up Everest?
a He was the first man with a disability to climb Everest.
b No one believed that it was possible to climb to the top of Everest.
c He was the first man to climb the mountain alone.
d No one had climbed to the top of the mountain before.
3 What reason does Mark give for climbing Mount Everest?
a It was to remember his friend who died.
b He wanted to show that disabled people could climb well.
c He had always had a dream of climbing Everest.
d He wanted to set a new record.
4 What do we find out about the time when Mark lost his legs?
a It happened twenty years ago.
b He was lost in the mountains by himself.
c He fell down a mountain.
d Bad weather caused him to spend a long time on a mountain.
5 Who has Mark raised money for?
a He has only raised money for disabled Tibetan people.
b He has raised money for people in poor countries with disabilities.
c He has raised money for people who have lost arms and legs while climbing.
d He has raised money for poor children whose life is hard.

Mark: ___ / 10

4
Writing
5 Write an opinion essay on this topic.
'The media have too much of a negative influence on the world today.' Do you agree?

Use the plan to help you.

Paragraph 1: Introduce the topic and say what other people think about it.

Paragraph 2: Give your opinion and your main argument to support it.

Paragraph 3: Give other arguments in support of your opinion.

Paragraph 4: Summarize the main points.

Mark: ___ / 15
TOTAL MARKS: ___ / 40

5
Speaking
6 You are going to give a presentation to your class. Work in pairs or small groups. Choose
one of the topics below and use the questions to help you.
1 Our least favourite meals
What are they called? Which country are they originally from? What are the main ingredients?
How are they made? Why don’t you like them? Give an opinion.
2 Yesterday’s news
Think of an international news story. What happened? When did it happen? Where did the event
take place? Who was involved? What do you think will happen next? Give your opinion.

Challenge!
7 Complete the text with the correct words (a–d).
A history of newspapers
Newspapers have existed 1___ a lot longer than most people think. In fact, the first newspaper 2___ in Rome in
59 BC! In the seventeenth century, the first real newspapers appeared in most European capitals, including
Stockholm, 3___ capital city of Sweden, where they published a newspaper called Post-och Inrikes Tidningar
for the first time in 1645. It 4___ today, which means that it’s the oldest newspaper in the world.
By the early eighteenth century, daily newspapers 5___ popular and common. In Britain, the first daily
newspaper was called the Daily Courant. The newspaper had already been sold as a monthly publication on
the streets of London for over eighty years before its owners decided 6___ it a daily newspaper in 1702.
Reading the news was becoming more popular because more and more people were learning to read.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, newspapers were a way of life for many people. However, recently,
things have changed. There are now 7___ different ways of 8___ the news, so newspapers aren’t as popular as
they were fifty years ago.
1 a than b when c for d since
2 a was publishing b published c had published d was published
3 a a b an c the d -
4 a is still being published b still publishes c is still publishing d still published
5 a were become b has become c had become d becomes
6 a to make b make c to making d making
7 a much b a little c a lot of d any
8 a hear b hearing c to hear d to hearing