ENGLISH ASSESSMENT

Paper 1- Reading (1 Hour)

Part 1
Questions 1-8
Read the text carefully. Choose the best answer A, B, or C by circling the correct letter.

1. What does “refining ignorance” mean?

A. Looking beyond what is known towards
what is left unknown
B. Offering an ultimate account of what has
been discovered
C. Informing students about a new field of
science

2. Choose the best headline for the text.

A. How to Reach Out a Hand to People in
Desperate Need
B. Power of Numbers: A Way of Classifying
Natural Disasters
C. Insensitivity to Mass Tragedy: We Are
Lost in Large Numbers
 People learn by doing. I have learnt that the best way for me to be happy in new surroundings is
to learn about them as soon as possible, and keep them busy. I have learnt that the fastest way is
to get out there and do it! Although I have always received compensation for the time I have
spent teaching, researching and writing articles, and visiting beautiful places to paint, the
monetary compensation is secondary to the psychic income derived. I have a group of ‘adopted’
children- who are present and former students too precious to be forgotten. About every six
weeks we go together.

3. The sentence that best summarizes the text above is …

A. Do not delay doing what you like most.
B. One can be happy with full commitment to what they like.
C. Doing what you like happily may not be lucrative enough for a living.

Extensive use of automation and new technologies that empower the customer

Automation and artificial intelligence, already an important part of consumer banking, will
penetrate operations far more deeply in the coming years, delivering benefits not only for a
bank’s cost structure, but for its customers. Digitizing the loan-closing and fulfillment
experience, for instance, will speed the process and give customers the flexibility and freedom
to view and sign documents online or with their mobile app. Typically, US consumers have to
wait at least a month to get approval for a mortgage—digitizing this process and automating
approvals and processing would shrink wait time from days to minutes.

Same for call centers. Instead of waiting on hold or being pinballed between different
representatives, customers could get instant, efficient automated customer service powered by
advanced AI.

AI and advanced analytics could also improve dispute resolution. Customers can contact their
bank any time through internet, mobile, or email channels and receive quick, real-time decisions.
On the back end, systems would perform almost instant data evaluation about the dispute,
surveying the customer’s history with the bank and leveraging historical dispute patterns to
resolve the issue.

4. Which of these can be performed by AI technology?

A. Develop mobile apps
B. Settle discrepancies
C. Answer customer’s calls
 (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIS61cIKyAI&t=23s)
5. Based on the text above, the following statements are true, except…
A. Syed Saddiq is a member of the Malaysian Junior World Schools Debate team.
B. Syed Saddiq continues his passion for debate.
C. Syed Saddiq was awarded the Youth Premier Award.

The best piece of advice I can give is always to be skeptical. Whenever anyone presents anything
as unquestionable fact, your first action should be to question it. If it’s true, it will hold up to
scrutiny; otherwise, you can expose both the information and whoever asserted it as frauds.
Dogma is extremely dangerous. It closes minds and eyes, and as we have seen, ignorance often
spells death. But in order to be truly open-minded, you also have to question yourself. The next
time someone says something you instinctively disagree with, take a moment to examine it
before you reject it. Ask why they think that way; try to see how they arrived at that conclusion.
Maybe they’re wrong.

And maybe I’m wrong. But in the act of trying, you may learn something. I assert that open-
mindedness is the most important human virtue. The best thing you can possibly do after reading
this column is doubt my words. Find where I went wrong, fix the mistakes and make a better
answer. The world depends on it. Source: The Trouble with Dogma

6. The word ‘dogma’ in the extract has a similar meaning to…

A. beliefs.
B. affirmation.
C. hedonism.
 The cause to create an equal society is undeniably a noble one. After all, all of us are
endowed with one transient human life which deserves every right to be lived to the fullest. Yet,
all societies, from the most ancient to the modern ones, seem to be separating people into groups
and labelling them- black and whites, working class and upper class, female and male, etc. Such
labels are rarely neutral. One is superior while the other- or in fact, all others- inferior. Forcibly
imposed on people, these labels divide society and create misery.

7. What’s the author’s main argument in the text above?

A. Inequality causes problems
B. Attitude of the dominant group is reinforced while those from minority groups feel devalued
C. Using merit to judge people helps to eliminate inequality.

At the turn of the last century, humans ushered in the information age which was made
possible only through technology. With the invention of computers, which were later connected
to the internet, information become digitalized and was exchanged and accumulated at record
speed. With easier access to information, people could and can make better decisions, feed their
intellectual curiosity and create new knowledge more rapidly. On a more general scale,
information technology has been the enabler for the globalized world. Transactions performed
in one part of the world can be affected in another part of the world almost instantly. Project
teams with members located in different countries can meet through video conferencing, saving
the need to travel. Indeed, information technology had provided us with all the conveniences we
could have ever imagined and even greater possibilities could be seen on the horizon.

8. Which of these writing techniques are used by the author?

A. Starting with an observation and ending with an ideal.
B. Deduces that the globalized world has been enabled by information technology.
C. Provide unwonted instances where the information age had brought us into a new era.
Part 2
Questions 9-18
Read the text carefully. Choose the best word for each space by circling the correct letter A, B, C,
or D.

ADVENTURE TRAVEL

Wilfred Thesinger, the (9) ……….. explorer once said, ‘We live our lives second-hand’.
Sadly, his words are true for far too many of us, as we (10) …….... in front of the television,
(11) …….... in ‘reality’ television, living our adventures through the words and pictures of others.
But it does not have to be that way – there are more opportunities than ever for taking a break from
our increasingly sanitised lives and exploring not only some exotic (12) …….... of the globe, but
also our own abilities and ambitions. The kind of first-hand experience whose loss Thesinger
(13) ……… is still available for anyone willing to forsake the beaten (14) …….... , and put their
mind to (15) …….... into the less explored regions of this (16) ............planet. The (17) …….... in
travel in recent years has been towards what is known as adventure travel. But adventure doesn’t
have to involve physical exertion; be it haggling over a souvenir in Peru, or getting lost in the
labyrinthine passages of a Moroccan souk, it all (18) …….... .

9 A descriptive B imaginary C fabled D legendary

10 A droop B slump C sag D plunge
11 A captivated B gripped C engrossed D riveted
12 A corner B edge C angle D pocket
13 A laments B petrifies C argues D debates
14 A path B road C track D course
15 A turning out B taking off C making out D dropping off
16 A wide B diverse C mixed D different
17 A trend B direction C custom D inclination
18 A fits B belongs C counts D holds
Part 3
Questions 19-24
You are going to read an extract from a novel. For questions 19-26, choose the answer (A, B, C
or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Lucy gets a new job on a newspaper

It was a precarious period for her where her own fortunes were concerned. She had to rely on
freelance work for six months after the quality weekly magazine folded. The regular salary cheque
had always seemed derisively small, but now it was like lost riches. Doggedly, she wrote letters
and telephoned and peppered editors with unsolicited articles and suggestions. Sometimes she
struck lucky and got a commission. She wrote a profile of a woman politician who appreciated her
fair-minded approach and tipped her off about a local government row in a complacent cathedral
town. Lucy went there, investigated, talked to people and wrote a piece exposing a rich cauldron
of corruption which was snapped up by a national daily newspaper. This in turn led to a commission
to investigate the controversial siting of a theme park in the north of England. Her article was
noticed by the features editor in search of something sharp and bracing on the heritage industry in
general. She was getting a name for abrasive comment, for spotting an issue and homing in upon
it. Anxiously, she scoured the press for hints of impending issues. In this trade, she saw, you needed
not so much to be abreast of things as ahead of them, lying in wait for circumstance, ready to
pounce.
But an article sold every week or two did not pay the bills. She began to contemplate, bleakly, a
return to the treadmill of proofreading and copy-editing. And then one day she walked into the
offices of the national daily which had taken her cauldron of corruption piece and whose features
editor had since looked kindly upon her. Having handed over a speculative piece on the latest
educational theories she’d written, she fell into conversation with an acquaintance and learned that
one of the paper’s regular columnists had fallen foul of the editor and departed in a cloud of dust.
The column, traditionally addressed to matters of the moment and written so as to provoke attention
and controversy, was untethered, so to speak. Lucy made the necessary phone call before her nerve
went.
She was asked to submit a piece as a trial run which they published. ‘Great,’ they said. ‘We’ll let
you know,’ they said. ‘Soon,’ they assured her, ‘really very soon.’ She chewed her nails for a
fortnight; a seasoned hack was given a trial run after her; she read his contribution which, she saw
with absolute clarity, was succinct, incisive and original. Or just possibly anodyne, banal and
plodding.
And then, the phone call came. She’d have a weekly column with her own by-line and her
photograph, postage-stamp size, next to it. There’d be a salary cheque, and perhaps fame and
success to follow that. Thinking more pragmatically, she realised that the job presented her with
not only a wonderful opportunity but also the inevitable pressure of keeping up with the twists and
turns of events to which she must supply a perceptive commentary.
‘A start,’ she said to her mother, Maureen, and Bruce, her step-father. ‘It’s a start anyway, but they
could fire me at any moment.’
‘Just let them try,’ said Maureen belligerently. ‘I think you’re better with your hair a bit shorter. Or
maybe that’s not a very flattering picture. I think you’re very clever. You did some lovely essays
at school. I wonder if I’ve still got any of them somewhere.’
Later, when she was alone, Lucy thought that her appointment had probably been a piece of good
fortune. She refused to allow the word luck. She was young yet, and this was something of a plum.
She must have got the job on her merits, she told herself, along with whatever assistance there may
have been from the inadequacies of others considered for the appointment, or the failure of further
rivals to apply. What she was never to know was that in fact the editor had been on the verge of
offering the column to the seasoned hack – had been about to pick up the phone – when the
colleague he most disliked had walked into his office and spoken with satisfaction of the prospect
of closer association with this old crony of his. The editor listened with some indignation, first at
the assumption that this would be his decision, and then at the notion of these two ganging up under
his nose. As soon as the colleague was out of the room he reached for the phone. And rang Lucy.
And so it began, that time during which she was so feverishly hitched to the affairs of public life
that in retrospect it was to seem as though she hurtled from day to day with the onward rush of the
news, denied any of the lethargy of individual existence.

19 After losing her job, how did Lucy feel about the salary she used to earn?
A She had been foolish to give it up.
B It had given her a sense of security.
C She should have appreciated it more.
D It represented a fair return for her work.

20 Lucy thinks the secret of success as a freelance journalist is to

A keep yourself informed about current affairs.
B adopt a controversial style of writing.
C identify future newsworthy situations.
D make as many contacts as possible.

21 What made Lucy decide to apply for a job on the national daily?
A She had a friend who worked there.
B She had impressed the features editor.
C She had gained a reputation for effective reporting.
D She had discovered some information about a vacancy.
22 It is suggested that Lucy’s mother Maureen
A is forgetful and absent-minded.
B understands little about Lucy’s job.
C has good critical judgement about writing.
D expects Lucy will have trouble with the editor.

23 On reflection, how did Lucy account for the fact that she got the job?
A She hoped it was because she deserved it.
B She was unable to understand how it happened.
C She thought her age had given her an advantage.
D She knew she was better than the many applicants.

24 The impression given of the editor is that he is

A anxious to please his colleagues.
B unable to make up his mind.
C prone to act on impulse.
D quick to take offence.

Part 4
Questions 25-26
For questions 25-26, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the
lines to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning.

To prevent (0) disorientation on awakening, power naps should last about 25 ORIENTATE
minutes. Falling asleep so quickly takes practice, but is in fact a habit which is
(25) ________ easy to acquire. Initially, it is more important to relax for a COMPARE
while than actually fall asleep, and power-napping is not a good idea if you
find it difficult to wake up at the (26) __________ time. DESIGN
Part 5
Questions 27-32
You are going to read an extract from an article. Six sentences have been removed from the extract.
Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (27-32). There is one extra paragraph
which you do not need to use.

Superiority complex?
People who claim superior beliefs exaggerate their own knowledge

No one likes smug know- it-all friends, relatives or co-workers who believe their knowledge and
beliefs are superior to others. But now these discussions at the dinner table, bar or office might
be less annoying. (27)

Even after getting feedback showing them how much they didn’t know relevant political facts,
these people still claimed that their beliefs were objectively more correct than everyone else’s.
On top of that, they were more likely to seek out new information in biased ways that confirm
their sense of superiority.

The study focused on people who profess “belief superiority”— or thinking their views are
superior to other viewpoints—as it relates to political issues. The researchers noted that people
also claim belief superiority in a variety of other domains besides politics, such as the
environment, religion, relationship conflicts, and even relatively trivial topics such as etiquette
and personal preferences.

The research used several studies to answer two key questions about political belief superiority:
Do people who think that their beliefs are superior have more knowledge about the issues they
feel superior about? And do belief-superior people use superior strategies when seeking out new
knowledge?

(28) Researchers asked them how much they thought they knew about these topics and then had
them complete quizzes testing their actual knowledge about those issues.

Across six studies and several political topics, people who were high in belief superiority thought
that they knew a great deal about these topics. (29)

“Whereas more humble participants sometimes even underestimated their knowledge, the belief
superior tended to think they knew a lot more than they actually did,” said Michael Hall, a
psychology graduate student and the study’s lead author.

For the second question, researchers presented participants with news articles about a political
topic and asked them to select which ones they would like to read. Half of the articles supported
the participants’ own point of view, whereas the other half challenged their position.

Belief-superior people were significantly more likely than their modest peers to choose
information that supported their beliefs. (30)
“We thought that if belief-superior people showed a tendency to seek out a balanced set of
information, they might be able to claim that they arrived at their belief superiority through
reasoned, critical thinking about both sides of the issue,” Hall said.

Instead, researchers found that these individuals strongly preferred information that supported
their views, indicating that they were probably missing out on opportunities to improve their
knowledge. (31) Researchers suggest that while some people insist that they are always right, all
of us feel good when the beliefs we think are important are confirmed.

(32) “Having your beliefs validated feels good, whereas having your beliefs challenged creates
discomfort, and this discomfort generally increases when your beliefs are strongly held and
important to you,” said Kaitlin Raimi, U-M assistant professor of public policy and the study’s
co-author.

A There is compelling evidence that instigation of a process against the superiority complex
isn’t just one of the courses of actions that were taken to combat bigotry.
B However, when comparing this perceived knowledge to how much people actually knew,
they found that belief-superior people were consistently overestimating their own
knowledge.
C To answer the first question, participants reported their beliefs and feelings of belief
superiority about several political topics.
D Furthermore, they were aware that they were seeking out biased information: when the
researchers asked them what type of articles they had chosen, they readily admitted their
bias for articles that supported their own beliefs.
E A new University of Michigan study indicates what many people suspect: these know-it-
all people are especially prone to overestimating what they actually know.
F So why do people seem to shun opposing viewpoints?
G In other words, when a belief is strongly held, is tied to one’s identity or values, or is held
with a sense of moral conviction, people are more likely to distance themselves from
information and people that challenge their belief.
Part 6
Questions 33-40
Read the four sections of a text below and answer the questions that follow.

Photography
A historical background
A
Regarded as a machine that could provide a fixed Over the past one and a half centuries,
photography has been used to record all aspects of human life and activity. During this relatively
short history, the medium has expanded its capabilities in the recording of time and space, thus
allowing human vision to be able to view the fleeting moment or to visualise both the vast and the
minuscule. It has brought us images from remote areas of the world, distant parts of the solar system,
as well as the social complexities and crises of modern life. Indeed, the photographic medium has
provided one of the most important and influential means of capturing the essence of our being
alive. Nonetheless, the recording of events by means of the visual image has a much longer history.
The earliest creations of pictorial recording go as far back as the Upper Palaeolithic period of about
35,000 years ago and, although we cannot be sure of the exact purposes of the early cave paintings,
pictorial images seem to be inextricably linked to human culture as we understand it.
B
Throughout the history of visual representation, questions have been raised concerning the
supposed accuracy (or otherwise) of visual images, as well as their status in society. Ideas and
debates concerning how we see the world and the status of its pictorial representations have been
central political, philosophical and psychological issues from the time of Ancient Greece to the
present-day technical revolution of the new media communications. Vision and representation have
pursued interdependent trajectories, counter-influencing each other throughout history. The
popular notion that ‘seeing is believing’ had always afforded special status to the visual image. So
when the technology was invented, in the form of photography, the social and cultural impact was
immense. Not only did it hold out the promise of providing a record of vision, but it had the capacity
to make such representation enduring.
C
In the mid-nineteenth century, the invention of photography appeared to offer the promise of
‘automatically’ providing an accurate visual record. It was seen not only as the culmination of
visual representation but, quite simply, the camera was image. And this image was considered to
be a very close approximation to that which we actually see. Because of the camera’s perceived
realism in its ability to replicate visual perception, it was assumed that all peoples would ‘naturally’
be able to understand photographs. This gave rise to the question of whether photography
constituted a ‘universal language’. For example, a photograph of the heavens, whether it showed
the sun and moon or the constellations, would immediately be understood in any part of the world.
In the face of the rapid increase in global communications, we do need at least to ask to what extent
the photographic image can penetrate through cultural differences in understanding.
 D
There are other questions that arise concerning the role of photography in society that have aimed
to determine whether the camera operates as a mute, passive recorder of what is happening or
whether it possesses the voice and power to instigate social change. We may further speculate
whether the camera provides images that have a truly educational function or if it operates primarily
as a source of amusement. In provoking such issues, the photographic debate reflects polarised
arguments that traditionally have characterised much intellectual thought.

Questions 33-36
In which sections (A-D) the following are mentioned?
33. The ability of photography to provide images that will last for a long time.
34. Uncertainty as to whether the main purpose of photography is to inform or to entertain.
35. The potential of photography to epitomise the human condition.
36. The view that photography was the greatest achievement in the history of visual images.

Questions 37-40
Complete the notes below from the text using no more than two words from the passage for each
answer.
History of Photography
- The precursor of photography includes (37) from the Upper Palaeolithic period.
- The popular notion “seeing is believing” testifies that photographs are popular because it has the
capability to facilitate the documentation of (38).
- Although photography has allowed us to vision the world, understanding between (39) divisions
need to be contemplated.
- The camera can be used by mankind to initiate (40) reforms.
Paper 2- Writing (40 Minutes)

Part 3- Write between 220 and 260 words.

3. You see this notice in an in-flight magazine:

Does your home match your lifestyle?

We are hoping to publish a series of articles about how satisfied people are with their
homes.

Write us an article

• describing your house or flat

• outlining at least two changes you would like to make to it
• explaining how these changes would improve your way of life

Write your article.

4. You see this announcement in an international magazine called Cinefilia.

THE MOST UPLIFTING AND THE BIGGEST DOWNER. It’s sometimes hard to choose a
film that fits your mood purely on the basis of the poster or the description on the
cover of the DVD. That’s why we want to publish reviews of the most uplifting and the
most depressing films our readers have seen, so that others know what to watch and
what to avoid. Send in a review which describes the most uplifting film you’ve ever
seen and the one you found the biggest downer. Make sure you give reasons for your
choices.

5. Write a story that begins with the following words:

The reception area of the hotel was strangely silent, and even though he rang the
bell several times, nobody answered.