Gap Text

TEST 1
You are going to read a newspaper article about a ship carrying goods across the Atlantic ocean. Six
paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphsA – G the one which fits
each gap (41-46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
The wind-lashed workers who battle the Atlantic in winter
Even at this stormy time of year in Britain there are thousands of oil workers and fishermen offshore, as
well as a scattering of seafarers manning the container ships and tankers that bring us almost everything
we need. So it was that in the depths of bitter winter, hoping to learn what modern sailors’ lives are like,
I joined the Maersk Pembroke, a container freighter, on her regular run from Europe to Montreal. She
looked so dreadful when I found her in Antwerp that I hoped I had the wrong ship.
1 ………..
Trade between Europe and North America is a footnote to the great west-east and north-south runs:
companies leave it to older vessels. Pembroke is battered and rusty, reeking of diesel and fishy
chemicals. She is noisy, her bridge and stairwells patrolled by whistling drafts which rise to howls at sea.
Her paintwork is wretched. The Atlantic has stripped her bow back to a rusted steel snarl.
2 ………
It felt like a desperate enterprise on a winter night, as the tide raced us down the Scheldt estuary and
spat us out into the North Sea. According to the weather satellites, the Atlantic was storms from coast to
coast, two systems meeting in the middle of our course. On the far side, ice awaited. We were behind
schedule, the captain desperate for speed. “Six-metre waves are OK; any bigger you have to slow down
or you kill your ship” he said. “Maybe we’ll be lucky!”
3 …….
Soon enough, we were in the midst of those feared storms. A nightmare in darkness, a north Atlantic
storm is like a wild dream by day, a region of racing elements and livid colour, bursting turquoise foam,
violent sunlight, and darkening magenta waves. There is little you can do once committed except lash
everything down and enjoy what sleep you can before it becomes impossible. Pembroke is more than
200 m long and weighs more than 38,000 tons, but the swells threw her about like a tin toy.
4………….
When they hit us squarely, the whole ship reared, groaning and staggering, shuddered by shocking
force. We plunged and tottered for three days before there was a lull. But even then, an ordinary day
involved unpleasant jobs in extreme conditions. I joined a welding party that descended to the hold: a
dripping, tilting cathedral composed of vast tanks of toxins and organophosphates, where a rusted hatch
cover defied a cheap grinder blade in a fountain of sparks. As we continued west, the wind thickened
with sleet, then snow as the next storm arrived.
5 ……….
All was well in that regard and, after the storms, we were relieved to enter the St Lawrence River. The
ice was not thick enough to hinder us; we passed Quebec City in a glittering blue dawn and made
Montreal after sunset, its downtown towers rising out of the tundra night. Huge trucks came for our
containers.
6………..
But without them and their combined defiance of the elements there could be nothing like what we call
‘life’ at all. Seafarers are not sentimental, but some are quite romantic. They would like to think we
thought of them, particularly when the forecast says storms at sea.
A Others felt the same. We were ‘the only idiots out here’, as several men remarked. We felt our
isolation like vulnerability; proof that we had chosen obscure, quixotic lives.
В Going out on deck in such conditions tempted death. Nevertheless, the ship’s electrician climbed a
ladder out there every four hours to check that the milk, cheese and well-travelled Argentine beef we
carried were still frozen in refrigerated containers.
C But it does not take long to develop affection for a ship, even the Pembroke — the time it takes her to
carry you beyond swimming distance from land, in fact. When I learnt what was waiting for us mid-
ocean I became her ardent fan, despite all those deficiencies.
D There were Dutch bulbs, seaweed fertilizer from Tanzania, Iranian dates for Colombia, Sri Lankan tea
bags, Polish glue, Hungarian tyres, Indian seeds, and much besides. The sailors are not told what they
carry. They just keep the ships going.
E Hoping so, we slipped down the Channel in darkness, with the Dover coastguard wishing us, “Good
watch, and a safe passage to your destination.” The following evening we left the light of Bishop Rock on
the Scilly Isles behind. “When we see that again we know we’re home” said the second mate.
F Huge black monsters marched at us out of the north-west, striped with white streaks of foam running
out of the wind’s mouth. The ocean moved in all directions at once and the waves became enormous,
charging giants of liquid emerald, each demanding its own reckoning.
G That feeling must have been obvious to the Captain. “She’s been all over the world”, proud Captain
Koop, a grey-bristled Dutchman, as quick and confident as a Master Mariner must be, told me. “She was
designed for the South Pacific” he said, wistfully.
KEY
1 G. To understand this paragraph it is important to know that sailors refer to their ships as if they were
a woman, therefore the pronoun “she” used by the captain refers to the freighter vessel. It is later
confirmed in the next paragraph.
2 C. Beginning the paragraph, author talks about how he came to like the ship despite its unappealing
look. The second part of the paragraph is focused on uneasy situation that made the author like the
ship.
3 E. “Hoping so” is a clear reference to the last part of the previous paragraph.
4 F. The beginning of next paragraph uses pronoun “they” to refer to the waves, mentioned at the end
of this paragraph.
5 В. “That condition” is clearly described in the previous paragraph. The beginning of the next paragraph
states that “all was well in that regard”, referring to the food supply that the electrician checked.
6 D. The paragraph names what were inside the container mentioned in the previous paragraph. The
beginning of the next paragraph refers to the sailors that make the sea navigation possible.
TEST 2
You are going to read a review about an art exhibition. Six paragraphs have been removed from the
article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra
paragraph which you do not need to use.
An exhibition of works by the artist John Craxton
‘A World of Private Mystery: John Craxton RA’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum is a small show, but it does full
justice to an artist whose career divides into two parts: the years before and during the Second World
War, and the work he did afterwards, when for long periods he lived outside England.
It begins with his small-scale landscapes in pen and ink, pastel, gouache and watercolour. His subject is
arcadia, but a distinctly English one in which poets and shepherds sleep and dream amid blasted
landscapes under darkening skies. Suffused with longing and foreboding, these works reflect the reality
of living in a rain-sodden country under constant threat of foreign invasion.
1 ………
Most of the early work is monochrome. In many landscapes, writhing branches and gnarled tree trunks
fill our field of vision. Beneath the surface of the self-consciously ‘poetic’ motifs, the country he shows in
these pictures feels claustrophobic and joyless.
2 …………..
As this exhibition makes clear, by the age of 25 Craxton’s artistic identity had matured. With his style,
subject matter and working method all fully formed, it is hard to imagine how he would have developed
had he remained in England after the war.
3 ………
On his first visit to Greece in 1946, Craxton was swept away by the light, colour, landscape, food and
people. The dark cloud that hung over the work he did in England lifts and overnight his palette changes
to clear blue, green and white.
4……….
Goats, fish, cats or a frieze of sailors dancing on the edge of the sea: in the Greek paintings beautiful
creatures move naturally across bare rocks and blue waters. The compressed joy you find in these
pictures doesn’t exist elsewhere in British post-war art. With a few interruptions, Craxton would spend
the rest of his life in Crete.
5 ………..
But if there is little exploration or discovery in Craxton’s later work, you find instead a sense of fullness
and completion, a feeling that in accepting his limitations, he remained true to himself. As he once said,
it can work best in an atmosphere where life is considered more important than art; then I find it’s
possible to feel a real person – real people, real elements, real windows – real sun above all. In a life of
reality, my imagination really works. I feel like an émigré in London and squashed flat.’
6 …….
It’s most noticeable in the works on canvas, especially in formal portraits like his 1946 ‘Girl with a Cock’
and it’s there too in the faceted geometric planes of Greek landscapes like his panoramic view of Hydra
of 1960-61.
Craxton wasn’t an artist of the first rank but he was inimitable. This show is just the right scale and it
comes with a beautifully illustrated book about his life and work.
It comes across this way even when he uses strong colour, as in one sunlit landscape in particular, where
the yellow is harsh and the red murky. It’s as though he’s painting something he’d heard about but
never actually seen: sunlight.
It was not only London that oppressed his spirit, I think, but the overwhelming power of the new art
being made in Paris by Picasso, Miro and Leger. In assessing Craxton’s work, you have to accept his debt
to these artists, and particularly Picasso.
And though he would paint large scale murals and design stage sets and tapestries, neither his subject
matter nor his style changed in any fundamental way during that period. It may sound harsh, but when
he decided to live there permanently, he elected to write himself out of the history of art.
Indeed, I well remember how I’d step into a large gallery, hung floor to ceiling with paintings, and out of
the visual cacophony a single picture would leap off the wall. It was always by John Craxton.
My guess is he’d have responded blindly to market forces and critical pressure to do new things. What
he needed was to develop at his own pace – even if at times that meant standing still. But to do that he
had to leave the country.
They do so through tightly hatched lines and expressive distortion which ratchet up the emotional
intensity, as in his illustrations for an anthology of poetry. In these, a single male figure waits and
watches in a dark wood by moonlight.
Gone are his melancholy self-portraits in the guise of a shepherd or poet – and in their place we find real
shepherds (or rather goat-herd) tending living animals. Now Craxton is painting a world outside himself,
not one that existed largely in his imagination.
KEY
1 F. The paragraph begins with ‘They do so …’ referring to the works mentioned in the end of previous
paragraph. The paragraph ends with the description of a dark wood in moonlight shine, which matches
the beginning of next paragraph, talking about monochrome pictures.
2 A. ‘Claustrophobic and joyless’ stays even when he uses strong colours (by strong here they mean
something other that white, black and grey).
3 E. The preceding paragraph asks a question on how artist’s talent would have developed if he were to
stay in England. The beginning of Paragraph E gives a probable answer to that. It ends with him having
to leave the country, and the next paragraph talks about his visit to Greece.
4 G. At the end of the previous paragraph artist’s transformation is mentioned, and this topic is
developed in Paragraph G. His pictures are no longer grim and devoid of colour, they become vivid.
5 C. Ending of Paragraph C mentions that Craxton stopped experimenting and developing his art, and
the following paragraph expands on that topic: ‘But if there is little exploration or discovery in Craxton’s
later work …’.
6 B. He mentions feeling like an émigré (a political emigrant) in London, and this notion is continued in
the paragraph after.
TEST 3
You are going to read a newspaper article about singing in choirs. Six paragraphs have been removed
from the article. Choose from the paragraphsA – Gthe one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one
extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Introducing choral music to children is like opening a door to a magical world
Here’s an important question. What’s calming, therapeutic, healthier than drugs, and could well prolong
your life? Answer: singing in a choir.
41
In fairness, there was a specific angle to this study, which compared the collective experience of choral
singing to that of taking part in team sports. Choirs apparently win hands down, because there is ‘a
stronger sense of being part of a meaningful group’, related to ‘the synchronicity of moving and
breathing with other people’. And as someone who since childhood has used singing as a refuge from
the sports field, I take no issue with that.
42
I know there are occasional initiatives. From time to time I get invited as a music critic to the launch of
some scheme or other to encourage more collective singing among school-age children. There are
smiles and brave words. Then, six months later, everything goes quiet – until the next launch of the next
initiative.
43
I know a woman who’s been trying hard to organize a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde
– perhaps the greatest work ever devised for young children to sing together – as a tribute to the
composer’s centenary this year. But has she found her local schools responsive? Sadly not: it was all too
much trouble.
44
We sang Herbert Howells’s Like as the Hart. And whatever it did or didn’t do for my cardiovascular
system, my emotional health, or any of the other things that turn up in research papers, it was the most
significant experience of my childhood. It opened a world to which 11-year-olds from unfashionable
parts of east London don’t generally get access. It was magical, transcendent. It spoke possibilities.
45
The other weekend I was in Suffolk, celebrating Britten, where in fact there were a lot of children
privileged enough to be pulled into the centenary events. There was a great Noye’s Fludde in Lowestoft.
And on the actual birthday countless hordes of infant voices piled into Snape Maltings to sing Britten’s
school songs, Friday Afternoons, part of a project that involved 100,000 others, internationally, doing
likewise.
46
Just think: if we could finally get Britain’s children singing, it would filter upwards. And we wouldn’t need
university researchers. We’d just do it, and be all the better for it.
A
It was an extraordinary experience that many of those children will carry with them all their lives, like
my experience all those years ago. There is a plan for it to be repeated every year on Britten’s birthday.
But that will only happen if there are resources and sustained commitment (for a change).
In fact, I have no argument with any of these piles of research – bring them on, the more the better –
because what they have to say is true. The only thing I find annoying is that such an endlessly repeated
truth results in relatively little action from the kind of people who could put it to good use.
One of my enduring life regrets is that I never got the chance to take part in such an event as a child. I
guess I went to schools where it was also too much trouble. But I did, just once, aged 11, get the chance
to go with a choir and sing at Chelmsford Cathedral.
But being there was even better. And as I was sitting near the choir – who were magnificent – I saw the
faces of the boys and thought how fabulously privileged they were to have this opportunity given to
them.
And that, for me, is what a choir can offer. All the physical and mental pluses are a happy bonus. But the
joy and thrill of access to that world of music is what counts.
It’s not a new discovery: there are endless dissertations on the subject, libraries of research, and
celebrity endorsements. But people have short memories. So every time another academic paper is
published, it gets into the news – which was what happened this week when Oxford Brookes University
came up with the latest ‘singing is good for you’ revelation.
The hard fact is that most state schools don’t bother much with singing, unless someone in the
hierarchies of government steps in to make it worth their while. They say they don’t have the resources
or the time. And even when a worthwhile singing project drops into their lap, they turn it down
KEY
41 F. Paragraph F continues the topic set by the first paragraph of that text and finishes mentioning a
study, dedicated to therapeutic effects of singing in choirs. The next paragraph starts with ‘there was a
specific angle to this study‘. Even though there are some paragraphs with fitting beginnings, their
endings do not fit the following paragraph.
42 B. ‘I take no issue’ and ‘I take no argument’ are followed one by another for emphatic (stronger)
effect. At the end of Paragraph B the author complains how this information about singing is never put
to good use, and the next paragraph states that there are occasional attempts to do so. Paragraph C fits
well here, but it’s ending is much better used later on.
43 G. The idea of schools not willing to host such events is expanded in this and the previous paragraph.
At the end of Paragraph G a ‘worthwhile singing project’ is mentioned —this is the project that starts the
next paragraph — ‘Noye’s Fludde’.
44 C. The ending of Paragraph C and the beginning of next paragraph talk about the author’s one-time
experience of singing in choir.
45 E. The main topic of this and the previous paragraph is access to ‘that world’ — the world of music,
the world of possibilities. The health benefits are only a ‘bonus’.
46 A. This paragraph is the only one where Britten is mentioned. The singing sessions, mentioned in the
paragraph above, are told here to be ‘extraordinary experience’ for all the children that participated.
TEST 4
You are going to read a newspaper article about a space programme. Six paragraphs have been removed
from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one
How I Became a British Astronaut
May 18, 2009 was a sunny evening – a night that I have good cause to remember. I had recently retired
from the Army Air Corps after an extremely rewarding career of nearly 18 years as a helicopter pilot and
the future looked good – I’d been fortunate to secure a dream job working as a senior test pilot for a
private firm. I had also just completed a year-long selection process for the European Astronaut Corps –
an incredible experience that had opened my eyes to the world of human spaceflight.
41
A privately funded multi-million dollar seat as a ‘spaceflight participant’ was unattainable for most. And
opportunities such as the commercially sponsored Project Juno, which launched the first Briton, Helen
Sharman, into space in 1989, were extremely rare.
42
This was designed to identify natural ability in various cognitive skills. In reality, this meant around eight
hours of individual computer-based exercises, becoming progressively harder and with only short breaks
in between. Skills such as memory retention, concentration, spatial awareness and coordination were
evaluated, alongside psychological questionnaires that were to become the benchmark of this selection
process – hundreds of repetitive questions, aimed at ensuring consistency of answers over a long
duration.
43
Historically, around 50 per cent of candidates fail the exacting medical requirements. Although good
physical fitness is a strong attribute, the medical selection was not looking for potential Olympians.
Instead, it was intended to select those individuals who pose the least risk of having a medical
occurrence during their career. Space is no place to become ill.
44
As it happens, the medical selection caused exactly 50 per cent attrition, with failure to meet
cardiovascular and eyesight requirements being the two main causes. Having endured the most
gruelling week of my life, I was delighted to be among the 22 remaining candidates.
45
The remainder of the selection process consisted of formal interviews, culminating in the final 10 being
invited to meet ESA’s Director General, Jean Jacques Dordain. That was one month before that sunny
evening in 2009, and I wondered who the lucky few would be. I suspected that I would not be one of
them: an ESA press release had already announced that the new candidates would be presented at ESA
headquarters in Paris on Wednesday. It was Monday night, I had not been contacted and time was
getting tight.
46
This was a decision that would affect not just me but also my family. Thankfully, there was no time to
dwell – I had to book a flight to Paris for the following day.
It was also good to find that there were five British people in the group. Considering that, at the time,
the UK was still in the shadow of a historical government policy not to participate in human spaceflight,
it was encouraging to see the high level of interest regarding this astronaut selection.
Other skills include being trained to perform spacewalks for external science and maintenance tasks and
to manipulate the robotic arm in order to capture and berth visiting resupply vehicles. Then there is the
medical training, communications skills training, emergency training – the list goes on.
So when the phone rang and I was offered an opportunity to join the European Astronaut Corps, there
was what can only be described as a wild mix of emotions – elation, excitement, shock and trepidation,
due to an overwhelming realization that I was about to take my first steps down one of life’s major forks
in the road.
It was interesting to meet the other candidates from all over Europe and to acknowledge the plethora of
diverse career paths that had led us to this common goal. While it is fair to say that the best chances of
success are to have a solid foundation in the core sciences or experience as a pilot, there really is no
single route to becoming an astronaut – it has more to do with being passionate about what you do and
being as good as you can be.
Yet that situation changed when the European Space Agency (ESA) announced a selection for a new
class of astronauts in 2008, and UK citizens were eligible to apply. My application joined the pile of
nearly 10,000 others, and soon there followed an invitation to Hamburg to begin the testing process.
During the previous five years working as a military test pilot, I had become much more involved in the
space sector – aviation and space are intrinsically linked and share many similar technologies. However,
I had not seriously contemplated a career as an astronaut, since the options to do so were extremely
limited.
Although the Soyuz spacecraft offers an emergency return to Earth in less than 12 hours from the
International Space Station, this is an absolute last resort. Also, it is not available once a spacecraft has
reached out beyond low Earth orbit.
KEY
41 F. The author looks back at the years of working as a test pilot. He also mentions the unique
opportunity of becoming an astronaut that he pointed out in the first paragraph.
42 E. ‘The situation changed’ refers to the extremely rare opportunities of joining a space flight — the
topic of the previous sentence. The final part of paragraph E mentions a ‘test process’ that is then
described in more detail in the following paragraph.
43 D. This paragraph is about variety of candidates and how having certain skills and qualities may help
you to be chosen for this position. The following paragraph continues this topic.
44 G. The previous paragraph mentions how getting ill in space is a difficult situation to deal with. This
paragraph mentions the only possible solution to such scenario, used as a last resort measure.
45 A. ‘It was also good …’ expands on the idea of remaining candidates. The selection was coming to an
end, and the author was happy to learn that more than half of the group consisted of his fellow
countrymen.
46 C. Last part of the previous paragraph states that there wasn’t much time left for the author to be
contacted. This paragraph mentions the telephone call and how the author was excited to get the news
of him being chosen for the programme
TEST 5
You are going to read an article about the making of a popular television detective series. Six paragraphs
have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-
46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Scott and Bailey
On Silver Street in Bury, Manchester, an old Barclays Bank building has been turned into the
headquarters of the Major Incident Team of the Manchester Metropolitan Police. They don’t actually
exist, the Manchester Metropolitan Police, but you would never know that if you looked around the
building.
41
This rigorous authenticity is one of the things that makes Scott and Bailey different from other police
dramas and extends further than office ephemera. This is largely down to the involvement of Di Taylor, a
retired CID detective inspector and co-creator of the series. And it helped it attract an audience of 9.4
million viewers last year.
42
It’s clever and it’s funny: Wainwright has a remarkable way of creating sprightly dialogue. The plots are
convincing and the characters are credible: it’s particularly good on the way women relate to each
other. There is the friendship between two female detectives and the more complicated friendship
between Scott and Murray, who is her contemporary and long-standing friend but also her boss.
43
The original idea belonged to Suranne Jonesand actress friend Sally Lindsay. It was given to Wainwright
to write. Wainwright had met Di Taylor through a mutual friend and wanted to take the female heroes
out of the regular police and put them onto the major incident team (MIT), ‘which is much more
interesting than burglaries and car theft’.
44
‘I find them very masculine and there’s little that entertains me.’ Wainwright is particularly bored with
the stereotype of the lone male detective who is brilliant but troubled. ‘I like to take people into dark
areas but I also like to make them laugh. Di is a born detective but she has a robust personality and she’s
deeply human as well. And very funny. I wanted to reflect that in the series.’
45
‘When I got talking to her, the penny began to drop,’ the actress says. ‘The Detective Chief Inspector I
play is a brilliantly shifting character, which is really good going on TV. She’s imperious, funny, larky,
annoying, beady, entertaining – it’s very unusual to get so many flavours.’
46
This is indicative of the feedback Scott and Bailey has received. Taylor says, ‘I’ve had people phoning me
whom I haven’t spoken to for years – people who’ve been really high up on murder cases, who
absolutely love it. The police all talk about it on their shifts the next day, which to me is the biggest
compliment anyone could pay.’
Why is it so popular? Well, the thing that resonates most strongly with its actors, creators and critics is
the script. Written by the acclaimed Sally Wainwright, the series concerns two female detective
constables, Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp) and Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones), their DCI, Gill Murray (Amelia
Bullmore), their intriguing personal lives and quite a lot of gruesome murder.
The director of this episode is Morag Fullarton. He is aware of striking a balance between what is
authentic and interesting and what is authentic and dull. ‘Are we going to do what is procedurally
correct and will be boring, or are we going to dispense with that and make it more interesting for the
viewer?’
As well as creating very believable people, authenticity is achieved in others ways, too. For one episode
they were allowed to shoot in a real prison. ‘I’ve been refused access there before, for another
programme,’ the locations manager says, ‘but the lady from the prison service loves Scott and Bailey
because it’s very true to life.’
Rachel Bailey is bright but rather chaotic, an instinctive detective who takes risks, both personally and
professionally; Janet Scott is her older colleague, with two daughters, a husband she’s bored with and a
colleague who’s in love with her. There’s a lot of chat and some very serious issues discussed in the
cafeteria. Alongside that are the crimes. This is television drama at its best: fresh and intriguing and very
compelling.
Posters urging the report of domestic abuse adorn the walls of the reception area and in the detectives’
office there is a scruffy, studenty atmosphere – jars of Coffee-mate on top of the fridge, Pot Noodles and
a notice urging ‘Brew fund due. You know who you are – pay up!’ The desks are strewn with cold and flu
medicine; the walls of the DCI’s office are hung with framed certificates.
So Wainwright created Gill Murray. When Amanda Bullmore was cast in the role, she had no idea that
her character was based on a real person. She read the script and then went up to Manchester to meet
Wainwright, who said, ‘We’re taking you out to dinner to meet Di who’s been very instrumental in all
this – just sit next to her and soak it all up.’
Talking to Taylor made Wainwright realise that she could write a cop show that was exciting and
different. Wainwright is not a fan of most police dramas. She doesn’t even like The Wire.
KEY
41. E The paragraph begins with the description of what is inside the building. This is the building
mentioned in the paragraph before this one. ‘The rigorous authenticity’ that is mentioned in the next
paragraph refers to the little details of paragraph E — the cough medicine, the certificates on the wall
and so on.
42. A The preceding paragraph ends with a viewership figure of over 9 million — and paragraph A
follows up with the question of why is this show so popular.
43. D The paragraph before starts describing characters of the show, and paragraph D carries on with
the task.
44. G Paragraph G and the previous one talk about the way the show was created. It ends with examples
of other TV shows, and paragraph after comments on them as being ‘too masculine’.
45. F The paragraph following this one starts with “When I talked to her, the penny dropped”. This refers
to the Murray and Bullmore — the actor and the real person and their meeting, that is mentioned in
paragraph F.
46. C The ‘indicative of the feedback’ from the beginning of last paragraph is the positive opinion of the
‘prison woman’ from paragraph C.
TEST 6
You are going to read an article about facial expressions. Six paragraphs have been removed from the
article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra
Do fleeting changes of facial expression show whether someone is telling lies?
Forty years ago, research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in
training when he was asked a question whose answer has kept him busy pretty much ever since.
Suppose you are working in a psychiatric hospital like this one and a patient who has previously been
aggressive comes to you. ‘I’m feeling much better now,’ the patient says. ‘Can I have a pass out for the
weekend?’
41
It set Ekman thinking. As part of his research, he had already recorded a series of twelve-minute
interviews with patients at the hospital. In a subsequent conversation, one of the patients told him that
she had lied to him. So Ekman sat and looked at the film. Nothing. He slowed it down and looked again.
Slowed it further. And suddenly, there, across just two frames, he saw it: a vivid, intense expression of
extreme anguish.
42
Over the course of the next four decades, Ekman successfully demonstrated a proposition first
suggested by Charles Darwin: that the ways in which we express anger, disgust, contempt, fear, surprise,
happiness and sadness are both innate and universal.
43
However, particularly when we are lying, ‘micro expressions’ of powerfully felt emotions will invariably
flit across our faces before we get a chance to stop them. Fortunately for liars, as many as ninety-nine
percent of people will fail to spot these fleeting signals of inner torment. But given a bit of training,
Ekman says, almost anyone can develop the skill.
44
The psychologist’s techniques, he concedes, can only be a starting point for criminal investigators
applying them. ‘All they show is that someone’s lying,’ he says. ‘You have to question very carefully
because what you really want to know is why they are lying. No expression of emotion, micro or macro,
reveals exactly what is triggering it.’ He gives an example.
45
Plus there are lies and lies. Ekman defines a lie as being a deliberate choice and intent to mislead, and
with no notification that this is what is occurring. ‘An actor or a poker player isn’t a liar,’ he says. ‘They’re
supposed to be deceiving you – it’s part of the game. I focus on serious lies: where the consequences for
the liar are grave if they’re found out.’
46
Just read micro expressions and subtle expressions correctly, however, and Ekman reckons your
accuracy in detecting an attempt at deception will increase dramatically. However, when it comes to
spotting really serious lies – those that could, for example, affect national security – he says simply that
he ‘does not believe we have solid evidence that anything else works better than chance.’ Is he lying? I
couldn’t tell.
But once he had spotted the first one, he soon found three more examples in that same interview. ‘And
that,’ says Ekman, ‘was the discovery of microexpressions; very fast, intense
expressions of concealed emotion.’
Ekman, incidentally, professes to be ‘a terrible liar’ and observes that although some people
are plainly more accomplished liars than others, he cannot teach anyone how to lie. ‘The ability to
detect a lie and the ability to lie successfully are completely unrelated,’ he says. But how can what he
has learned help crime-solving?
But how reliable are Ekman’s methods? ‘Microexpressions,’ he says, ‘are only part of a whole set of
possible deception indicators. There are also what we call subtle expressions. A very slight tightening of
the lips, for example, is the most reliable sign of anger. You need to study a person’s whole demeanour:
gesture, voice, posture, gaze and also, of course, the words themselves.’
D
You also know, of course, that psychiatric patients routinely make such claims and that
some, if they are granted temporary leave, will cause harm to themselves or others. But this particular
patient swears they are telling the truth. They look, and sound, sincere. So here’s the question; is there
any way you can be sure they are telling the truth?
Generally, though, the lies that interest Ekman are those in which ‘the threat of loss or punishment to
the liar is severe: loss of job, loss of reputation, loss of spouse, loss of freedom’.
Also those where the target would feel properly aggrieved if they knew.
‘Suppose,’ Ekman posits, ‘my wife has been found murdered in our hotel. How would I react when the
police questioned me? My demeanour might well be consistent with a concealed emotion. That could
be because I was guilty or because I was extremely angry at being a suspect, yet frightened of showing
anger because I knew it might make the police think I was guilty.’
The facial muscles triggered by those seven basic emotions are, he has shown, essentially the same,
regardless of language and culture, from the US to Japan, Brazil to Papua New Guinea. What is more,
expressions of emotion are involuntary; they are almost impossible to suppress or conceal. We can try,
of course.
KEY
41 D. The beginning of D starts with patients making “such claims” (mentioned at the very end of
previous paragraph) all the time, and if granted a leave, they are likely to cause trouble. At the end of
Paragraph D the author poses a question. The following paragraph continues the idea — it makes Ekman
think of the question.
42 A. The previous paragraph ends with Ekman going through a recording, trying to find a hidden
expression on patient’s face. Paragraph A talks about three more cases he managed to find while
browsing the recording.
43 G. “Seven basic emotions” mentioned in the previous paragraph are the beginning and the main idea
of this paragraph. At the end of the paragraph it is suggested that these emotions can be hidden, but
next paragraph says that it is very difficult to achieve.
44 B. The last question of this paragraph helps us to connect it to the next one. The way to apply these
techniques to crime-solving are mentioned in the next paragraph.
45 F. An easy question here, as the paragraph before clearly states that there is going to be an example
next. This paragraph illustrates a hypothetical situation of using the technique to see through a person’s
lie.
46 C. This and the next paragraph concentrate on the minor details that help to understand what really
is on person’s mind.
TEST 7
You are going to read an article about an advertising technique. Six paragraphs have been removed from
the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra
Windows of opportunity
Retail street theatre was all the rage in the 1920s. ‘Audiences’ would throng the pavement outside
Selfridge’s store in London just to gawp at the display beyond acres of plate glass. As a show, it made
any production of Chekhov seem action-packed by comparison. Yet Gordon Selfridge, who came to
these shores from the US and opened on Oxford Street exactly 100 years ago, was at the cutting edge of
what Dr Rebecca Scragg from the history of art department at Warwick University calls ‘a mini-
revolution’ in the art of window dressing.
41
“As Britain struggled to regain economic stability after the war, the importance of the new mass
commerce to the country’s recovery was recognised,” says Rebecca. “Finally understood was the need
to use the display windows to full advantage as an advertising medium to attract trade. The new style of
window dressing that came into its own after the armistice took inspiration from the theatre and the
fine and decorative arts. It involved flamboyant design and drew huge crowds.”
42
In the course of her research, Scragg spent some time in the British Library studying the growing number
of trade journals that sprang up between 1921 and 1924 to meet the market made up from this new
breed of professional. “I saw a picture in one of them of the Annual General Meeting of the British
Association of Display Men,” she says, “and there were only two women there”. The 1920s saw a big
growth in major department stores in the main cities and they would all have had a budget for window
dressing.
43
An elegant mannequin is positioned at the centre of a huge garland, sporting an off-the-shoulder

number and an enormous headdress that might have been worn by an empress in ancient Egypt. At her
feet are swathes of ruffled material and positioned around her any number of adornments.
44
Over eighty years on, and the economy is once again in recession. Retailers complain about falling sales.
But are they doing enough to seduce the passing customer? Scragg thinks not. “There are many high
street chains and independent shops whose windows are, by the standards of the 1920s,
unimaginative,” she maintains. “They’re passed over for more profitable but often less aesthetically
pleasing forms of advertising, such as the Internet.”
45
“I’m not making any claims that this is great or fine art” Scragg says. “My interest is in Britain finding
new ways of creating visual expression.” Scragg is about to submit a paper on her research into the
aesthetics of window dressing to one of the leading journals in her field.
46
So, although retail theatre may have been in its infancy, retail as leisure or therapy for a mass market
was still a long way in the future.
Some of the photographic evidence unearthed by Scragg after her trawl through the trade journals is
quite spectacular. One EJ Labussier, an employee of Selfridge’s, won the Drapers Record trophy for his
imaginative use of organdie, a slightly stiff fabric that was particularly popular with the dressmakers of
the day.
В
“Selfridge’s remains an exception,” she concedes, “even if it’s difficult today to imagine the store coming
up with a spectacular Rococo setting to display something as mundane as a collection of white
handkerchiefs.” No doubt it brought sighs, even gasps, from those with their noses almost pressed up
against the window but could it really be taken too seriously?
Scragg describes herself as “a historian of art and visual culture with an interest in the reception of art”.
“This interest in window displays evolved from my PhD on British art in the 1920s,” she says. “I started
by looking at exhibitions in shops and that led on to the way that the shops themselves were moving
into new forms of design.”
One of the illustrations she will include is a 1920s photograph of a bus proceeding towards Selfridge’s
with an advertisement for ‘self-denial week’ on the side. For many of those in the crowds on the
pavement, self-denial was a given. They couldn’t afford to spend.
The big department store continues to uphold the tradition of presenting lavish and eye-catching
window displays today and uses the best artists and designers to create and dress them. Advances in
technology have meant that the displays grow ever more spectacular.
“He was trying to aestheticise retailing,” she explains. “The Brits were so far behind the Americans, the
French and the Germans in this respect that it was another decade before they fully realised its
importance.”
“There was always a great concern for symmetry and harmony,” Scragg observes. “And a whole industry
grew up around the stands and backdrops, the ironmongery and architecture, needed to display these
things.” The displays were extravagant and bold, taking a great deal of time and imagination to perfect.
The glamour attracted attention and lifted people’s spirits at a difficult time
KEY
41 F. ‘He was trying to aestheticise retailing’ says Scragg, referring of course to Gordon Selfridge,
mentioned in the very first paragraph. Next paragraph starts with how the Britain recognized the
importance of commerce.
42 С. The next paragraph refers to ‘the course of her research’ — Scragg’s PhD on British art and the
academic work associated with it.
4З А. The following paragraph describes the “photographic evidence”, mentioned in paragraph A.

Present tense is used because the author describes the picture, the evidence.
44 G. The paragraph starts stating the importance of positioning, harmony and symmetry. This is what
concludes the previous paragraph. It then ends with how in difficult time people need support, and the
next paragraph continues the idea, pointing out that the economy is “once again in recession”.
45 В. “Selfridge’s remains an exception” — an exception to the trend of using other forms of advertising
such as the Internet mentioned in the previous paragraph. It is implied that they attract customers in an
old-fashioned ways — by making the shopping windows spectacular.
46 D. “One of the illustrations she will include” — refers to the publication in one of the popular journals
mentioned before.
TEST 8
You are going to read an article about the impact of the Internet on our lives. Six paragraphs have been
removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There
is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
How the Internet is altering your mind
Like most newspapers’ content, what you are about to read was written using a computer connected to
the Internet. Obviously, this had no end of benefits, mostly pertaining to the relative ease of my
research and the simplicity of contacting the people whose thoughts and opinions you are about to
read.
41
It often feels as if all this frantic activity creates a constant state of twitchy anxiety. Moreover, having
read a hotly controversial book about the effect of digital media on the human mind, I may have very
good reason to feel scared. Its thesis is simple enough: not only that the modern world’s relentless
informational overload is killing our capacity for reflection, contemplation and patience but that our
online habits are also altering the very structure of our brains.
42
The writer then argues that the Internet’s ‘cacophony of stimuli’ and ‘crazy quilt’ of information have
given rise to ‘cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning’ – in contrast to
the age of the book, when intelligent humans were encouraged to be contemplative and imaginative.
43
Dr Small, the director of the Memory and Ageing Research Centre at the University of California, Los
Angeles, is a specialist in the effects on the brain of the ageing process. ‘Even an old brain can be quite
malleable and responsive to what’s going on with technology,’ he tells me.
44
When I ask him how I might stop the Internet’s more malign effects on my own brain, he sounds slightly
more optimistic than Carr: ‘Try to balance online time with offline time,’ he tells me. ‘What’s happening
is, we’re losing the circadian rhythms we’re used to; you go to work, you come home, you spend time
talking with your kids.’
45
‘His argument privileges activities of the skimming and browsing kind. But if you look at research on kids
doing this, or exploring virtual worlds such as Second Life,the argument there is about immersion and
engagement.’
46
This all sounds both comforting and convincing, until I return to The Shallows and read a particularly
sobering sentence: ‘We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls.’ There’s something chilling about
those words and even twenty stupid minutes on YouTube and an impulse buy from Amazon cannot
quite remove them from my brain.
But here is the really important thing. Carr writes: ‘If, knowing what we know today about the brain’s
plasticity, you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly and
thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that looks and works a lot like
the Internet.’
The Shallows is a book by Nicholas Carr. It is an elegantly written cry of anguish about what one admirer
calls ‘the uneducating of Homo sapiens’ and a rewiring of neural pathways and networks that may yet
deprive the human race of the talents that, ironically enough, drove our journey from caves to PC
terminals.
‘The point is, to play successfully, you have to pay an incredible amount of attention to what your team-
mates are doing, to the mechanics of the game. You can set up a thesis for The Depths, just as much as
The Shallows. And it seems to me that to say that some neural pathways are good and some are bad –
well, how can you possibly say that?’
‘It’s a basic principle that the brain is very sensitive to any kind of stimulation. If you have repeated
stimuli, your neural circuits will be excited. But if you neglect other stimuli, other neural circuits will be
weakened.’ Carr argues that the online world so taxes the parts of the brain that deal with fleeting and
temporary stuff that deep thinking becomes increasingly impossible. As he sees it: ‘Our ability to learn
suffers and our understanding remains shallow.’
Among the people with walk-on roles in The Shallows is Scott Karp, the editor of a renowned American
digital media blog called Publish2, whose reading habits are held up as proof of the fact that plenty of
people’s brains have long since been rewired by their enthusiastic use of the Internet.
I get a more convincing antidote to the Carr thesis from Professor Andrew Burn of the University of
London’s Institute of Education. Equating the Internet with distraction and shallowness, he tells me, is a
fundamental mistake, possibly bound up with Carr’s age (he is fifty). ‘Is there anything in his book about
online role-playing games?’
G
But then there is the downside. The tool I use to write can also double as many other things. Thus, while
writing this, I was entertained by no end of distractions. I watched YouTube videos, bought something
on Amazon and at downright stupid hours of the day – 6 a.m. or almost midnight – I once again checked
my email on either my phone or computer.
KEY
41 G. The previous paragraphs mentions the advantages, and this one immediately introduces the
downside, so the narrative is easy to trace.
42 В. It is easier to have a look at a paragraph that follows this one — it starts with “The writer …”,
suggesting that the previous paragraph introduced a writer and possibly a book. Paragraph B is the only
one fitting this description.
4З А. The preceding paragraphs numbers the downsides of the Internet in contrast with the advantages
of more conventional reading from a book. Then this paragraph suggests that despite of all the
downsides, the web offers best possibility for quick and efficient learning: “… a medium that would
rewire our mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible… “
44 D. The paragraph before focuses on how a brain can me “malleable” — or able to change. Then
Paragraph D continues and expands the idea by explaining and giving examples. The next paragraph
starts with “When I ask him… “ it is clear that ‘he’ is Dr. Small.
45 F. At the very end of Paragraph F online games are mentioned. The paragraph that follows continues
this idea with the example of Second Life virtual world type of game.
46 C. The game talk continues and Dr. Small explains how playing a game can be beneficial for your
thinking: “you have to pay an incredible amount of attention to what your team-mates are doing, to the
mechanics of the game”
TEST 9
You are going to read an article about an outstanding individual. Six paragraphs have been removed
from the article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G
the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Jonah Lehrer: the prodigy who lights up your brain
There is a moment familiar to anyone who has ever frittered away innocent hours watching old
cartoons. It occurs when Wile E Coyote, Elmer Fudd, Popeye or any of dozens of animated characters
gets a sudden moment of insight. With a flash, a light bulb appears above their heads, shining brightly to
illuminate the darkness of whatever dilemma they faced. Aha!
41
That little nugget of information – blending culture and science – is the essence of the remarkable rise of
Jonah Lehrer. He is a contributing editor at Wired, has published three books, is a prolific blogger and
counts publications from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post as home. The New York Times
has called him a ‘popular science prodigy’ and the Los Angeles Times once hailed him ‘an important new
thinker’.
42
Lehrer’s own ‘aha moment’ came while he worked in the laboratory of acclaimed neuropsychiatrist Eric
Kandel. As Lehrer helped in Kandel’s lab on a project to study the molecular links between smell and
memory, he was well on his way to one important discovery. ‘What I discovered was that I was a terrible
scientist,’ he later told one interviewer.
43
That was the end of Lehrer’s prospects as a scientist but the beginning of a writing career acting as an
interpreter between two worlds: the sciences and the humanities. After he graduated from Columbia in
2003, he became a Rhodes scholar, travelling to Oxford. He arrived with a plan to study science but
rapidly changed it to literature and theology.
44
There is no doubt Lehrer is very smart. He was born on 25 June 1981 in the Los Angeles neighbourhood
of Los Feliz. His father, David, is a civil rights lawyer and his mother, Ariella, developed educational
software. It was a happy, middle-class home under sunny Californian skies with parents that encouraged
their son’s manic curiosity.
45
Prompted by a baffling moment trying to pick out a box of Cheerios on an aisle crowded with scores of
different cereal brands, Lehrer looked at human decision-making. He took dramatic individual decisions
– a pilot landing a stricken plane, a Superbowl pass, a poker playing physicist – and looked at the
neurology behind them. He examined how different parts of the brain took on different decisions and
how that made an impact on the world.
46
Art and human emotions — all our failures, foibles and triumphs – may just be chemicals and firing
neurons but Lehrer’s words make them sing all the same.
That tome was followed up by a third offering in the shape of Imagine, which looks at how neurology
and creativity interact. Far from showing how innovations come to one-off geniuses, he reveals how
solid science lies behind the creative process, which can be understood neurologically and thus
nurtured.
But no matter. For Lehrer had started reading Marcel Proust on his way to work; in particular, he
became engrossed with Proust’s explorations of how smell could trigger memory. Lehrer once described
the moment thus: “I realised that Proust and modern neuroscience shared a vision of how our memory
works.”
“I remember Mom patiently listening as I prattled on about my latest interests” Lehrer told me. An
interest in science was always there. He recalled stepping into a lab for the first time. “It seemed like a
magician’s lair” he said. He followed up on Proust by diving further into the borderland between
neurology and human experience in 2009’s How We Decide.
After shining at school, Lehrer went to Columbia, where he met his wife-to-be, Sarah Liebowitz, in a
Shakespeare class. She went with him to Britain, where she worked for the Boston Globe’s London
bureau. They have an eleven-month daughter called Rose and the family lives in the Hollywood Hills.
All of which is not bad for someone who is only thirty. Lehrer’s stock-in-trade is the boundary between
science and the humanities. He strives to link art and neurology: how chemical reactions within three
pounds of squidgy grey matter inside our skulls actually make us love, laugh and lead our lives.
F
He also ended up living in London. It was here he began to work on his first book, Proust was a
neuroscientist, which was published in 2007, and began a successful journalism career. Lehrer took a
look at numerous cultural figures and studied how their work foreshadowed the research of
neuroscience.
It is harmless fun. But, according to popular science wunderkind Jonah Lehrer, also literally true. There is
indeed a part of the brain associated with a sudden ‘aha moment’ of the type linked to key
breakthroughs of luminaries such as Isaac Newton and Archimedes. When you get a sudden insight, it
registers a huge spike in activity, just like that light bulb.
KEY
41 G. The paragraph talks about the light bulb effect being “literally true”, as some parts of our brains
activate whenever we get a bright idea. The next paragraph talks about blending science and culture —
a reference from old cartoons are examples from lives of famous scientists from paragraph G.
42 E. “All of which is not bad …” of course refers to the honorary titles mentioned before.
43 B. “But no matter” discards his own acknowledgement of being a bad scientists to continue the
narrative. The second part of paragraph B mentions how he got interested in Proust’s writing, and the
beginning of next paragraph states that this was the start of his writing career.
44 F. The end of previous paragraph concentrates on his life in the UK, and paragraph F continues this
narration.
45 С. This paragraph continues the narrative about his childhood, where he comes up with examples
from his past. The second part of paragraph C introduces his latest book, How We Decide.
46 A. Finally, he mentions his third book called Imagine which continues his series of books on science
and, this time, art.
TEST 10
You are going to read a newspaper article about a very young artist. Six paragraphs have been removed
Is Kieron Britain’s most exciting artist?
Peter Stanford watches an amazing seven-year-old artist at work.
All the time we are talking, Kieron Williamson is busy sketching on the pad in front of him with quick,
fluid movements of his pencil. He is copying from a book of pen and ink illustrations by Edward Seago,
the twentieth-century British artist, before he adds touches of his own to the sketches.
41
Kieron is clearly caught up in what he is doing, his blonde head a study in concentration as he kneels in
the from room of his family home. But he’s not so distracted that he doesn’t sometimes look me in the
eye and put me right. ‘You’ve added a bit more detail here,’ I say, as he is reproducing Seago’s sketch of
an old man in an overcoat. ‘Seago’s’, I explain, ‘is lighter.’ ‘Not lighter,’ Kieron corrects me. ‘You call it
looser. Loose and tight. They’re the words.’ Seven-year-olds don’t often give adults lessons in the
terminology of fine art.
42
Kieron actually can and does, and has been hailed as a ‘mini-Monet’, on account of his neo-impressionist
style, or the next Picasso. Recently, buyers from as far afield as South Africa and America queued up
outside his modest local art gallery – some of them camping out all night — to snap up 33 paintings in
just 27 minutes, leaving Kieron ?150,000 better off. How did it feel? ‘Very nice,’ he replies politely. ‘Did
you talk to any of the buyers?’ ‘Yes, they kept asking me what else I do.’ And what did you tell them?
‘That I go to school, that I play football for my school and that I am the best defender in the team .’
43
His exhibition, the second to sell out so quickly — has brought him a lot of attention. Several American
TV networks have filmed him in the family flat already and today a camera crew is squeezed into the
front room with me, Kieron’s mum, Michelle, his younger sister, Billie-Jo and two sleeping cats
44
“These are ones I did last night when I was watching the television with Billie-Jo,” he says, handing me a
sketchbook. It falls open on a vibrant fairground scene. Kieron finds the page in the Seago book that
inspired him. There is the same carousel, but he has added figures, buildings and trees in his drawing in
the sketchbook.
45
As accomplished as Kieron’s paintings are, part of their appeal is undoubtedly the story of precocious
talent that goes with them. If he’s doing similar work when he’s 28, it may prompt a different reaction.
46
But Kieron is having none of it. He looks up sharply from his sketching. “If I want to paint,” he says, “I’ll
paint.”
A An example is his pastel Figures at Holkham, an accomplished composition with big blues skies, a line
of sand dunes framing to either side and two figures, one with a splash of red in the centre to draw the
eye in. There is such an adult quality to his work that you can’t help wondering if someone older has
been helping him.
В Standard seven-year-old boy stuff there. Kieron, however, is being hailed as a child prodigy. ‘They only
come along once in a generation,’ artist Carol Pennington tells me later, as she explains how she helped
nurture this early-blooming talent, ‘and Kieron is that one.’
C Michelle Williamson is aware of this. ‘I fully expect Kieron in a few years’ time to focus on something
else as closely as he is focusing on art right now,’ she says. ‘Football or motor racing. There may well be
a lot more ahead for him than art.’
D Yet, in the centre of the melee, Kieron seems utterly oblivious and just gets on with what he does
every day, often rising at 6 a.m. to get on to paper a picture that is bursting to get out of his head. He
will be painting every day of the school holidays, relishing the freedom denied him during term time.
E Each one takes him only a few minutes – horses, figures huddling in a tent, men and women in unusual
costumes. ‘I’m going to do this one, then this one, then this one,’ he tells me, ‘but not this one – the
eves aren’t looking at anyone – or this one – it’s too messy.’
F This, it is clear, is no mechanical exercise in reproduction. To underline the point, Kieron takes it back
off me and adds a smudge of dark under one of the groups of people.
G But then Kieron Williamson is not your average boy. Aside from his precocious articulacy, he is
singlehandedly illustrating that familiar remark, made by many a parent when confronted with a prize-
winning work of modern art, that ‘my seven-year-old could do better than that
KEY
41 E. This paragraph gives more detail of what is mentioned in the previous paragraph — how Kieron is
engaged in drawing. ‘Each one’ can refer to either sketches or his own ‘touches’ — or alterations to the
original pictures.
42 G. Last sentence of the preceding paragraph helps us here. The authors mentions, that seven-year-
old boys don’t give advice to adults on terminology very often, and then Paragraph G explains the
situation — “But then Kieron Williamson is not your average boy”. Last sentence of this paragraph goes
“my seven-year-old could do better than that” and the following paragraph starts with “Kieron actually
can …”.
4З B. “Standard seven-year-old boy stuff there” refers to playing football and going to school. This is the
easiest anchor that could be used here.
44 D. World ‘melee’ is essential here to understand connection between the paragraphs. It means ‘a
noisy fight, a brawl’ and is used figuratively to describe the situation of immense attention directed
towards him.
45 F. “Kieron takes it back off me” helps to connect this paragraph with the previous one, where he
hands the book to the narrator.
46 C. “Michelle Williamson is aware of this” helps to the establish connection with the previous
paragraph. She then goes on to suggest how boy’s interests can change and develop as he gets older
TEST 11
You are going to read a magazine article about rock climbing. Six paragraphs have been removed from
the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra
Impossible Rock
On the northern coast of Oman, climbers test themselves against knife-edge cliffs
We’re standing on a pebble beach in northern Oman with a group of local men who are fishing. Behind
us rises a sheer 1,000-metre cliff that shimmers under a blistering midday sun. ‘Do you mind if I look
around?’ Alex asks. ‘You can do as you please’, says the elder. As Alex wanders off, we explain to the
Althouri fishermen that we’re professional rock climbers on an exploratory visit.
41
There are six of us in our team, including Alex, one of the best young climbers in the world. Suddenly
one of the men stops in his tracks, points up at the towering cliff, and starts shouting. A thousand feet
above us Alex is climbing, antlike, up the rock wall. The Althouris are beside themselves with a mix of
excitement and incredulity
42
In 28 years of climbing I’ve never seen rock formations as magical. In places the land rises straight from
the ocean in knife-edged fins. Proximity to the sea makes these cliffs perfect for deepwater soloing, a
specialized type of climbing in which you push up as far a wall as you can, then simply tumble into the
water. It sounds harmless enough, but an out-of-control fall can result in serious injury or even death.
43
Wasting no time, Alex laces up his climbing shoes, dives from the boat, and swims to a cliff where the
ocean has carved out a cavern with a five-metre overhang. Within minutes he has reached the cavern’s
ceiling, where he finds a series of tiny hand holds along a protruding rib of dark grey limestone. It’s
exactly the kind of challenge he has been looking for, with every move more difficult than the one
before.
44
‘Come on!’ I scream, urging him to finish his new route. Alex lunges over the lip, but his legs swing out,
and he peels off the rock and leaps into the water. That night we anchor in the bay at the base of a 150-
metre Gothic tower we dub the ‘sandcastle: Before joining Alex for the climb the next morning, I suggest
we take along safety gear. The young climber scoffs, saying that it’s nothing more than a hike. I think of
myself as a young 44-year-old, but trying to keep up with him makes me realise how old I’m getting .
45
And now I’m slightly annoyed again about his disregard for whether I’m comfortable. The rock here is
badly shattered, what climbers call choss. Clinging to the dead-vertical wall, I test the integrity of each
hold by banging it with the heel of my hand. Sometimes the rock sounds hollow or even moves. Staring
down between my legs, I see the boat bobbing in the bay far beneath us. By the time I plop down on the
ledge beside him, my nerves are frazzled.
46
As I turn to my youthful partner for his thoughts, I see he’s already packed up. For him the moment of
wonder has passed. ‘Let’s go’, Alex says impatiently. ‘If we hurry, we can get in another climb before
dark’.
A From there we sail toward the ‘Lion’s Mouth’, a narrow strait named for the fang-like red and orange
limestone pillars that jut from an overhang at its entrance. Alex spends the day working on a 60-metre
route up one of the pillars.
B ‘What are they saying?’ I ask our translator. ‘It’s hard to explain’, he replies. ‘But essentially, they think
Alex is a witch’. I can understand why. Even for me, Alex’s skills are hard to grasp. But so is this
landscape.
C The claw-like fingers of the Musandam Peninsula below glow orange with the setting sun. Looking
down at the tortuous shoreline, which fans out in every direction, we’re gazing at a lifetime’s worth of
climbing.
D One of the other places we thought would be perfect for visiting by boat is As Salamah, an island in
the Strait of Hormuz. We arrive in early afternoon and discover a giant rock rising from the sea. Since
there is nowhere to anchor, we drop the sails and use the engines to park the boat just offshore.
E I’d already had a similar moment of awareness earlier in the trip when Alex had scampered up a 500-
metre wall with our rope in his pack. ‘Hold on a second!’ I’d yelled. What if the rest of us needed it?
‘Don’t worry’, he’d replied. ‘I’ll stop when I think we need to start using the ropes.
F The men puff on the pipes and nod. The mountainous peninsula on which they live is an intricate maze
of bays and fjords. Few climbers have ever touched its sheer limestone cliffs. We had learned of the
area’s potential from some British climbers who visited ten years ago.
G Some defy belief. Hanging upside down, holding on to bumps in the rock no bigger than matchboxes,
Alex hooks the heels of his sticky-soled shoes over a small protrusion. Defying gravity, he lets go with
one hand and snatches for the next hold. Then the rock becomes too slick for a heel hook so he dangles
his legs and swings like a chimpanzee from one tiny ledge to the next.
KEY
41 F. ‘The men’ at the beginning of paragraph F are the Althouri fishermen mentioned at the end of the
first paragraph.
42 B. The man start shouting, and then Paragraph B develops this part: ‘What are they saying?’. Then,
Paragraph B is concluded with the author appreciating the landscape, the description of which is
continued at the beginning of the following paragraph.
43 D. ‘.. other places we thought would be perfect for visiting by boat..’ is the part of Paragraph D that
makes it more fitting that others. Note the description of cliffs in the previous paragraph – they are
surrounded by water. Paragraph D expands on this idea. Then in the following paragraph Alex is
mentioned jumping off the boat.
44 G. ‘Some defy belief’ in Paragraph G refer to the challenges from the previous paragraph.
45 E. ‘I’d already had a similar moment of awareness’ refers to the author’s imminent realisation of his
own age.
46 C. ‘Looking down at the tortuous shoreline…’ helps us to understand that the narrator and his friend
have finished their climbing.
TEST 12
You are going to read a magazine article about ways of reusing escaped heat. Six paragraphs have been
removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There
is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
City of Heat
Escaped heat costs us money and affects our climate. Chelsea Wald reports on a grand plan to capture it
and put it to good use.
Deep in the tunnels of London’s underground railway, as in many around the world, it’s so hot it can feel
very uncomfortable. And yet in the basement of a building only a few metres away from the station a
boiler is firing to heat water for someone’s shower.
41
Recapturing it wouldn’t just benefit our wallets. It would reverse some of the damaging effects on the
climate. The good news is that several cities have found a way to hunt down their surplus heat in some
unexpected places. These cities are building systems that deliver heat in much the same way that
suppliers handle electricity and water. Could they point the way to the next energy revolution?
42
It was also estimated that given the right technologies, we could reclaim nearly half of that energy,
although that’s easier said than done. ‘We often talk about the quantity of waste heat’, says David
MacKay, chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, ‘but not the
quality’. Most of what we think of as ‘waste heat’ isn’t actually all that hot; about sixty percent is below
230°C. While that may sound pretty hot, it is too cold to turn a turbine to generate electricity.
43
There, buildings tap into the system to warm their water supplies or air for central heating. Many
countries are encouraging such cogeneration, as it is called. A US initiative, for example, might save the
country $10 billion per year. And cogeneration allows power plants to bump up their efficiencies from
thirty percent to almost ninety percent.
44
As it happens, there is an existing technology that can siphon energy from such temperatures, although
applying it on a large scale to capture waste heat is as yet unachievable. Ground source heat pumps
have been helping homeowners save on heating bills since the 1940s, when US inventor Robert Webber
realised he could invert the refrigeration process to extract heat from the ground.
45
The mechanism for this is simple. A network of pipes makes a circuit between the inside of the
dwelling and a coil buried underground. These pipes contain a mix of water and fluid refrigerant. As the
fluid mixture travels through the pipes buried underground, it absorbs the heat from the 10°C soil.
46
This system is powerful enough to efficiently provide heat even in places as cold as Norway and Alaska.
It is also cheap. Scientists around the world are now working on the idea that the way ahead is to
develop city-wide grids using source-heat pumps to recycle waste on a grander scale, from sources such
as subways and sewers.
A But that’s not all it can do. Reverse the process and it can cool a home in summer. If the ground is cold
enough, it simply absorbs the heat from inside the building instead of from the ground.
B It’s an attractive proposition. A report in 2008 found that the energy lost as heat each year by US
industry equalled the annual energy use of five million citizens. Power generation is a major culprit; the
heat lost from that sector alone dwarfs the total energy use of Japan. The situation in other
industrialised countries is similar.
C Yet even this is just a drop in the ocean compared with the heat lost from our homes, offices, road
vehicles and trains. However, waste heat from these myriad sources is much harder to harness than the
waste heat from single, concentrated sources like power plants. What’s more, it’s barely warm enough
to merit its name. Reclaiming that would be an altogether more difficult proposition.
D A more successful way of using the heat is to move the heat directly to where it is needed. A number
of power plants now do exactly that. They capture some or all of their waste heat and send it – as steam
or hot water – through a network of pipes to nearby cities.
E The system takes advantage of the fact that in temperate regions – regardless of surface temperature
– a few metres underground, the soil always remains lukewarm and stable. These pumps can tap into
that consistent temperature to heat a house in the winter.
F While this is not what you might consider hot, it nonetheless causes the liquid to evaporate into a gas.
When this gas circulates back into the building, it is fed through a compressor, which vastly intensifies
the heat. That heat can then be used by a heat exchanger to warm up hot water or air ducts.
G Rather than stewing in that excess heat, what if we could make it work for us? Throughout our energy
system – from electricity generation in power plants to powering a car – more than fifty percent of the
energy we use leaks into the surroundings.
KEY
1 G. The paragraph opens up with the suggestion to make use of all that lost heat. ‘Recapturing it’ at the
beginning of the following paragraph refers to the leaking heat, mentioned at the end of Paragraph G.
42 B. ‘An attractive proposition’ mentioned at the beginning of Paragraph B refers to the ‘next energy
revolution’ part at the end of the previous paragraph.
43 D. A number of paragraphs fits this gap, but it is the ending of Paragraph D that helps connect it to
the following one, with the explanation of the suggested alternative system that exploits heat to warm
houses and water.
44 C. There’s a phrase ‘ What’s more, it’s barely warm enough to merit its name.’ in the bottom part of
Paragraph C that helps us connect it with the beginning of the following paragraph: ‘… there is an
existing technology that can siphon energy from such temperatures…’.
45 E. Pumps mentioned in the previous paragraph help us to choose Paragraph E which elaborates and
expands on the idea of heat pumps that make use of the ground warmth.
46 F. Paragraph F beings with ‘While this is not what you might consider hot…’ which refers to the 10
degree warmth mentioned in the previous paragraph. The concluding paragraph goes on the explain
how the system can be benefitted from.
TEST 13
You are going to read a magazine article about watching wildlife. Six paragraphs have been removed
Close encounters of the wild kind
The rise of wildlife-watching experiences.
Wildlife observation has always proved inspirational for humans, it led Charles Darwin to provide us with
a better understanding of how we evolved and it has inspired such everyday innovations as Velcro. US
author Peter Matthiessen wrote: ‘The variety of life in nature can be compared to a vast library of
unread books, and the plundering of nature is comparable to the random discarding of whole volumes
without having opened them and learned from them’.
41
‘What is interesting is how much people are willing to pay to be in a wilderness environment’, says Julian
Matthews, director of Discovery Initiatives, a company which takes people on small-group trips to more
than 35 countries. It’s still a small part of the tourism industry but it’s undoubtedly expanding. There are
definitely more and more people seeking wildlife experiences now’.
42
Matthews recognises the contribution that television has made to our knowledge of nature, but he says
‘there’s no way to compare seeing an animal in the wild with watching one on TV. While a filmmaker
may spend six months shooting an animal and will get closer to it than you ever will, there’s no greater
pleasure than seeing an animal in its own environment. On film, you’re only getting the visuals and the
sound. As impressive as they may be, it’s not the real thing.’ And the good thing is that tourists can now
watch wildlife ‘live’ while helping to protect it – a concept that comes under the broad label of
‘ecotourism’.
43
In practice, this means that many tour operators, guided by ethical policies, now use the services of local
communities, train local guides and have close ties to conservation projects. Tour operator Rekero, for
example, has established its own school – the Koyiaki Guide School and Wilderness Camp – for Maasai
people in Kenya.
44
Conservation organisations have also realised that tourism can help educate people and provide a
valuable source of revenue and even manpower. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, runs trips that
give donors the chance to see for themselves how their financial aid is assisting conservation projects in
the field, and some organisations even allow tourists to take part in research and conservation.
45
Similarly, Biosphere Expeditions takes about 200 people every year on what its field operations director,
Dr Matthias Hammer, calls an ‘adventure with a conscience’. Volunteers can visit six destinations around
the world and take part in various activities including snow leopard, wolf and bear surveys and whale
and dolphin research.
46
Of course, going in search of wildlife doesn’t always mean you will find it. That sightings of animals in
large wild areas don’t come automatically is a fact of life. Although potentially frustrating, it makes
sightings all the more rewarding when they are made. And the opportunity to do something to help
both the environment and local people can only add to the experience.
A He is confident that, if done properly, this combination of tourism and conservation can be ‘a win-win
situation’, ‘People have a unique experience while contributing to conservation directly. Local people
and habitats benefit through job creation, research and an alternative income. Local wildlife benefits
from our work.’
B While there is indeed much to learn from many species not yet known to science, it’s the already
opened texts that attract the majority of us, however. And we are attracted in ever increasing numbers.
C As people are able to travel to more extreme places in search of the ultimate wildlife experience, it’s
worth remembering that you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to catch rewarding glimpses of
animals. Indeed, some of the best wildlife-watching opportunities are on our doorstep.
D This growth has been stimulated by the efforts of conservation groups and natural history
documentaries. Greater awareness of the planet has led to an increased demand for wildlife tours or the
addition of a wildlife-watching component to traditional holidays. People want to discover nature at
first-hand for themselves – not just on a screen.
E Despite being an important part of the population there, they have largely been excluded from the
benefits brought to the region by tourism. This initiative is a concerted effort to enable them to take up
jobs and run programmes themselves.
F Earthwatch is a non-profit international environmental group that does just that. ‘Participation in an
Earthwatch project is a positive alternative to wildlife-watching expeditions, as we offer members of the
public the opportunity to be on the front line of conservation,’ says Claudia Eckardt, Earthwatch
programme manager.
G It is a term which is overused, but the principle behind it undoubtedly offers hope for the future of
many endangered species, as money from tourism directly funds conservation work. It also extends to
the consideration of the interests of people living in the places that tourists visit.
KEY
1 B. The preceding paragraph ends with the analogy of books and animals and how we could learn from
them. Then, Paragraph B continues the idea of things we could learn from various species.
42 D. This paragraph begins with ‘This growth…’ referring to the increasing number of people seeking
wildlife tourism programs. It then ends with the mention of people willing to experience all the thrill,
rather than watch it all on TV, and the following paragraph starts with the mention of TV contribution to
popularising wildlife tourism.
43 G. Starting with ‘It is a term which is overused…’, the term mentioned is ‘ecotourism’ that the
preceding paragraph ends with.
44 E. Beginning of Paragraph E: ‘Despite being an important part of the population there’ refers to the
Maasai people in Kenya.
45 F. ‘research and conservation’ mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph is exactly what
Earthwatch project does – to actively help with conservation of endangered species. Next paragraph
gives another example of a similar project.
46 A. The pronoun ‘he’ at the beginning of Paragraph A refers to Dr Matthias Hammer.

TEST 14
You are going to read a newspaper article in which a zoology student talks about her experience of doing
practical research in an area of rainforest. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose
from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra paragraph which you
do not need to use.
Fieldwork in the rainforest of Ecuador – the experiences of a zoology student
When I was at school, I was a huge fan of TV wildlife programmes, and at a certain point I realised that
somehow the natural world would have to be part of my life. So here I am a few years later, in the
tropical rainforest of eastern Ecuador, a novice field scientist. The word scientist evokes various images,
typically perhaps ones of laboratories and white coats, test tubes and lab rats. But what does it mean to
be a field scientist?
41
I am currently spending a year at a small scientific research station in a remote patch of the Ecuadorian
rainforest belonging to the Kichwa community of San Jose de Payamino. It is glorious – everything you
would expect a tropical rainforest location to be, and a world away from my university in the UK. The air
is hot and thick, the trees are densely packed, and everywhere is teeming with life.
42
The local people own the land and govern themselves, but the Ecuadorian government also provides for
them: a school complete with computer room and satellite internet, for instance. Each year, they vote
for a new president and vice-president, who organise the democratic community meetings. Each family
has a finca in the forest: a wooden home on stilts.
43
But my normal life here as a work experience student revolves mainly around my personal research,
which is a biodiversity study of frogs. I am trying to establish exactly which species are here, where and
when I can find them, and what condition they are in.
44
For most of the time, I am just crawling along looking at leaves. Much of field research is like this. It isn’t
all finding new species and being transfixed by exotic wildlife behaviour. Have you ever seen the behind-
the-scenes footage at the end of many nature documentaries, where it turns out a cameraman has been
sitting in a tree for three days waiting for a bird to dance? Research is like this – laborious and
monotonous – but it can be rewarding too.
45
Being a field scientist basically means being an academic, collecting data and publishing scientific papers.
It’s interesting but it doesn’t pay well, and getting started can be tough. When I was looking for work
experience, there were plenty of openings with pharmaceutical companies, but very few matching my
desire to explore and investigate wildlife.
46
This is one reason I count myself lucky to be involved in this project. It’s largely funded by my university,
so I can afford it. Then, by the end of this year, I will have acquired valuable skills, and I am hopeful that
the experience will facilitate my progression into postgraduate study.
A To do this, I walk slowly along several paths in the forest, accompanied by a local guide, and at night
equipped with a torch. When I spot what I’m looking for, I feel an intense adrenaline rush. Will I manage
to capture it? Have I collected this particular species yet?
В Because of this, and having experienced fieldwork, I’ve decided it’s definitely something I would like to
do as a career. Once this year is over, I will ask my lecturers to advise me what to do next.
C This morning, for example, a half metre square of mushrooms sprouted on the dirt floor of my kitchen.
My favourite time here is in the early evenings. It’s finally cool enough to be comfortable, and the
nocturnal creatures begin their nightly cacophony, while the setting sun paints the trees orange.
D The reality is, however, that to make your way you need to build up a range of contacts and a portfolio
of work. Many of the initial work opportunities that do exist are voluntary – in fact, you often have to
pay to join a scheme. A student job where you are paid expenses, let alone a basic salary, is quite rare.
E By and large, they work outdoors, and are interested in pretty much everything from discovering new
species to the effect of obscure parasites on ecosystems. They explore and investigate, aiming to
understand what they observe. Just two years into my undergraduate zoology degree, I don’t quite
qualify as one yet, but hopefully I’m heading that way.
F They have their own traditions, too. One day, a local lady was bitten by a lethal snake; whilst I
administered shots of anti-venom to her, the local traditional healer, was applying plant remedies to the
wound and attempting to suck the venom from it. At least one of the treatments must have worked
because she recovered.
G And the thing is to imagine being the person that has made a discovery – the person who first
questions something, investigates and then contributes to the vast catalogue of information that is
science. I find this concept inspirational.
KEY
1 E. ‘they work outdoors’ at the beginning of Paragraph E helps us to establish the connection with the
first paragraph and refers to the field scientists.
42 C. The preceding paragraph ends with ‘everywhere is teeming with life’ and then the idea is
developed at the beginning of Paragraph C with a literal example of a sprouting mushrooms.
43 F. The plural pronoun ‘they’ at the beginning of Paragraph F refers to the local community and carries
on to expand the topic of their lives. Then an example of a helping a local woman is needed, with the
beginning of the next paragraph contrasting with this event, giving a brief description of the author’s
regular activities.
44 A. A number of relative pronouns is used throughout this paragraph and as your read through it, you
understand that they refer to the ‘species’ from the previous paragraph. Then the following paragraph
continues this idea, stating that usually there are no species in sight, just crawling among leaves.
45 G. ‘Rewarding’ at the end of previous paragraph is the adjective referring to what is described in
Paragraph G. The thrill of discovery, the joy of sharing it with the scientific community.
46 D. This paragraph and the previous one both give brief description of the trouble of finding a job
position like the one author has
TEST 15
You are going to read a newspaper article about a project at a natural history museum. Six paragraphs
have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41-
46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Taking Dinosaurs Apart
Pulling apart limbs, sawing through ribs and separating skull bones are activities usually associated with
surgeons rather than museum staff. However, that is exactly what is going on at the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, USA. Renovations to the museum’s dinosaur
hall, which started recently, have necessitated the dismantling and removal of its collection of dinosaur
and extinct mammal skeletons, some of which weigh as much as five tons.
41
One particular specimen which curator Matthew Carrano can’t wait to get hold of is a meat-eating
Jurassic dinosaur called Allosaurus, which has been on display for 30 years. ‘Scientifically, this particular
Allosaurus is well-known,’ he explains, because ‘for a long time, it was one of the only Allosaurus
specimens that represented a single individual animal’.
42
The Smithsonian’s five-meter-long Allosaurus, however, is definitely one unique individual. So once
crystallized glue holding it together is removed, researchers and conservators can get a better sense of
how the creature’s joints actually fitted together in life
43
Another modification in the museum plans to make to its Allosaurus is removing a couple of centimeters
from its tail, which is not original fossil but casts of vertebrae. ‘The tail on the Smithsonian’s specimen is
too long’, says Peter May, owner and president of the company in charge of dismantling, conserving,
and remounting the 58 specimens in the museum’s dinosaur hall. He explains that the skeleton on
display has over 50 vertebrae, when it should have something closer to 45.
44
Slicing a thin cross-section out of a leg or rib bone can help with that. By placing a slice under a
microscope, researchers will be able to count growth rings on the bone, the number of which would
have increased throughout the creature’s life, very much like the rings on a cross-section of a tree trunk.
45
One example which Carrano wishes to investigate further is an apparent blow to the Allosaurus’s left
side. ‘The shoulder blade looks like it has healed improperly,’ he explains. If the damaged shoulder blade
can be fitted together with the ribs which are held in storage, paleontologists might be able to
determine the severity and cause of the damage.
Finally, Carrano hopes to be able to compare the Allosaurus with another dinosaur in the collection
called Labrosaurus. Labrosaurus is known only from a single bone – a lower jaw with a distortion which
is believed to have been caused by disease or injury. ‘The two front teeth are missing and there’s an
abscess there’, Carrano explains.
46
But in order to confirm their suspicion, Carrano and his colleagues will have to wait a while. ‘A lot of
what we hope to learn won’t be accessible to us until the exhibits have been taken down and we can
have a good look at them’, he says. So he won’t be able to get his hands on the Allosaurus quite yet.
A Dismantling the Allosaurus and removing the plaster and glue covering it can also reveal whether the
animal suffered any injuries when alive.
B The Smithsonian’s team should be able to take it apart in large chunks in a single day, but even once
they’ve dismantled it they’ll still have hours of work ahead of them, breaking the skeleton down further
into individual bones and cleaning them.
C These endeavors will modernize a space which has never seen a major overhaul. It will also give
researchers a chance to make detailed studies of the exhibits – some of which haven’t been touched in
decades.
D There are also plans to slim it down a little. When the museum first displayed the Allosaurus,
preparators decided to use plaster casts of the ribs instead of the actual specimens, which resulted in a
heavier-looking skeleton. Curators hope that the final, remounted skeleton will more closely resemble
the dinosaur’s natural shape.
E However, this dinosaur, previously classified as a separate species is now thought to be a type of
Allosaurus. Both of the specimens come from the same quarry, and what’s more the Allosaurus is
missing the exact same bone, so it’s entirely possible that it actually belongs to the Smithsonian
Allosaurus.
F In addition to correcting mistakes such as this, made when the specimens were first displayed, Carrano
would also like to determine the age of the Allosaurus.
G There are Allosaurus skeletons in museum collections across the world, but most consist of bones
from a number of different examples of the species. This has made it difficult for scientists to work out
how the entire skeleton fits together.
KEY
1 C. ‘These endeavors’ refers to the plans to renovate the dinosaur hall. The rest of the paragraph
continues the subject started in the previous sentence – the planned restoration of that particular
museum area.
2 G. Is it easier to pick the right paragraph if we look at the next one after the gap. Paragraph G talks
about multiple Allosaurus in different museum, then the following paragraph points out how
Smithsonian’s Allosaurus is a special one.
3 D. The preceding paragraph mentions plans to disassemble the skeleton, then Paragraph D brings up
the point of making the skeleton smaller and gives detailed explanation why and how they plan to
achieve that.
4 F. ‘Mistake’ is the keyword here. The mistake that is mentioned in Paragraph F is the length of the
dinosaur’s tail, which consist of too many bone segments. Same sentence continues with idea of finding
out the dinosaur’s age, which is then continued in the paragraph that follows.
5 A. Another keyword in the gapped paragraph is ‘injury’. Then the paragraph below the topic of
damages is expanded upon: ‘ … an apparent blow to the Allosaurus’s left side. ‘The shoulder blade looks
like it has healed improperly,’ he explains.’.
6 E. The word ‘suspicion’ in the last paragraph helps us to pick Paragraph E which focuses on a confusion
between two species.
TEST 16
You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the
extract.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.
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Beautiful music makes better materials
The hidden structures of music are universal patterns of nature - and they can help us create new
materials like artificial silk.
Our world consists of only about 100 different chemical elements. It is the arrangement of these
elements, or building blocks, into molecules that gives rise to the rich set of materials around us – from
the sugar molecules in the food we eat to the oxides in the Earth's crust.
1…………….
The properties of a piece of matter,however, are defined not by these basic building blocks themselves
but by the way they are arranged. For instance, spider silk is one of the most remarkable examples of
nature's materials, created from a simple protein but spun into fibres stronger than steel.
2---------
A composer uses a limited set of tones as the starting point for melodies, which in turn are arranged into
complex structures to create symphonies. Think of an orchestra, where each instrument plays a
relatively simple series of tones. Only when combined do these tones become the complex sound we
call classical music.
3……………..
Composers have made use of the idea of interconnecting patterns for thousands of years, but only
recently have these systems been understood mathematically.This maths shows that the principies of
musical composition are shared by many seemingly quite difterent systems in the natural world.
4………………………
The problem lies in our ignorance of the ways in which these are arranged . Sut in fact it is not the
building block itself that is limiting our ability to create better materials ,but rather our ignorance of the
way in which these building blocks are arranged.To try to understand this better, scientists are copying
the structure of silk fibres and turning it into musical compositions. This will help them create artificial
materials for medical and engineering applications.
5…………………..
Listening to the music that was produced in this way improved their understanding of the mechanism by
which the patterns of amino acids work together during the silk-spinning process. The patterns of amino
acids that formed silk fibres of poor quality, for example, translated into music that was aggressive and
harsh, while the ones that formed better fibres sounded softer and more fluid. In future work it is hoped
that the design of the silk can be improved by enhancing those musical qualities that reflect better
properties.
6---------
Using music as a tool to create better materials and to improve urban living may seem like an unusual
proposal, but when we appreciate that the underlying mathematics of the structure of music are shared
across many fields of study, it begins to make sense. Nature does not distinguish between what is art
and what is material, as all are merely patterns of structure in space and time .
A In essence, a musician's piece is just one example of a system where smaller patterns are found
inside larger acto ones - similar to the way characters form words, yo which form sentences, then
chapters and eventually a novel.
B Using this theory, we can discover universal patterns that formthe blueprints of our world. We may be
able to make everything we know - molecules, living tissues, music, the universe - by applying universal
patterns indifferent physical contexts. For example, a pattern of building blocks might be represented as
music, to create a certain melody, or might be represented as G DNA to create a certain protein.
C This approach has implications far beyond the design of new materials. In future, it might be possible
to translate melodies to design better sequences of DNA, or even to reinvent transportation systems for
cities.
D Similarly, in the living world, a Iimited set of building blocks of DNA and amino acids creates some of
the most remarkable materials we know of, the stuff that builds our bones and skin, and complex organs
such as the brain.
E In this translation from silk to music, they replaced the protein's building blocks with corresponding
musical building blocks (tones and melody). As the music was played, they could 'hear' the different
series of organic compounds they had used, and could then work out how certain qualities of the
material, such as its mechanical strength, appear in musical terms.
F As we begin to appreciate the importance of such patterns, engineers are applying this knowledge to
the design of synthetic materials. Doing so, they can gain inspiration from a surprising source: music.
G Even though nature uses this approach, people have failed to exploit the concept themselves when it
comes to developing new materials. We have created thousands of different materials, originating from
very different sources, such as plastics, metals or ceramics. But it seems we could benefit considerably
from learning more about how nature uses its building blocks.
KEY
1 D The sentence after gap 1 makes it c1ear that the missing paragraph must refer to the 'basic building
blocks' of a piece of matter. D fits here, and this can be confirmed by checking whether
'Similarly' at the beginning of D relates back in a sensible way to the paragraph before gap 1 . It does, in
that D develops the idea of the structure of inorganic matter presented in the first paragraph of the text,
making the point that living matter is structured in this way too.
2 F The paragraph before 2 is talking about the properties of scientific matter, while the paragraph after
42 is talking about music. The missing paragraph must make a link between these two themes and that
is what F does. 43 A Music is the theme both before and the gap and so must presumably be the primary
theme of the missing paragraph. The reference to the idea of patterns after the gap suggests that this
idea may be explained in that paragraph, and this is the case in A.
4 G The reference to 'the building block' immediately after gap 44 makes it clear that building blocks
must be referred to in the missing paragraph. They are mentioned in B, D and E as well as G,but none of
these other paragraphs fits the gap. Only G introduces the idea of creating better rnaterials, which is
taken up in the paragraph following gap 4.
5 E Looking before and after the gap, it becomes c1ear that the missing paragraph must be providing
sorne more information about the way in which the scientists created musical compositions. This
information is provided in E.
6 C It is clear from what follows the gap that the missing paragraph must refer to sorne aspect of
improving urban living.This is to be found in the phrase 'to reinvent transportation systems for cities' in
C.
TEST 17
extracto Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra
Yukon: Canada's Wild West
A modern-day minerals rush threatens one oi North America's last great wildernesses
Shawn Ryan recalls the hungry years,before his first big strike. The prospector and his family were living
in the Yukon, in a metal shack on the outskirts of Dawson ,the Klondike boomtown that had declined
to a ghostly remnant of its glory days. They had less than $300 and no running water or electricity. One
night, as wind sneaked through gaps in the walls , Ryan's wife, Cathy Wood, worried aloud that they and
their two children might even freeze to death.
1………………….
The minerals rush has reanimated Dawson's bars and hostels, whose facades glow in pastel hues during
midsummer's late-night sunset. The scene could be from more than a century ago, with bearded men
bustling along wooden sidewalks and muddy streets , stopping to chat and trade rumors of the latest
strikes and price spikes.
2…………….
It's well worth that investment in technology and people . The claim-staking boom may have cooled
since the price of gold has stabilized, but an ongoing high demand for minerals and the Yukon's industry-
friendly regulations continue to attract mining companies from as far away as China.Shawn Ryan's
business is as successful as any of them.
3……………………
In his small office , radios and bear-spray canisters surround a trio of computer screens atop a plywood
table. A self-taught geologist, Ryan uses the left-hand screen to display the colored maps he generates
from his ever-growing database of soil samples,looking for anomalies that might betray a hidden body of
precious ore. On the center sereen, a blue grid overlays a map of the Yukon, showing the claims he
currently owns; since 1996, he and his crews have staked more than 55,000 claims, enough locover a
landmass larger than Jamaica.Ryan uses the right-side screen to track his gold-related holdings, which
notch up in value whenever an economic jolt sends investors fleeing to precious metals.
4………………….
Trish Hume, for example, has expressed Concern. Though she is involved in mapping work that's mining
related, she worries that Ihe Yukon is reaching a tipping point where the environmental and cultural
costs of mining outweigh the benefits. "The people coming up and taking out minerals aren't asking
what happens to the animals we hunt, the fish we eat, the topsoil that holds it all together. And when
the boom is over,how does our tiny population afford to c1ean up the toxic mess?" The population is
small, but the area of the Yukon is enormous.
5…………………….
Walled off by some of the country's highest peaks and largest glaciers, the territory is almost completely
unsettled, its sparse population scattered over a few small communities and the capital, Whitehorse. It
is also rich in wildlife, an Arctic safari park whose extreme seasonal shifts beckon vast
herds of caribou and other animals into motion.
6……………………….
It is crucial that such a remarkable environment, as this c1early is, is not lost for ever, destroyed by the
businesses anxious to exploit its mineral wealth for their own ends.
A It is even larger than the state of California, but with only 37,000 inhabitants, it drives an immense
wedge between Alaska and the bulk of Canada. From its north coast, the Yukon stretches to the south
and south-east,taking in tremendous expanses of lake-dotted tundra,forests, mountains, wetlands, and
river systems.
B At his expanding compound at the edge of town,helicopters thump overhead, fetching GPS-equipped
prospectors to and from remote mountain ridges. Ryan is 50 years old, but he radiates the eagerness
and intensity of a much younger mano "This is the biggest geochemical exploration project on the planet
right now," he says, his grin revealing a couple of missing upper teeth, "and maybe in history."
C Today, the couple could buy-and heat-just about any house on Earth. Ryan's discovery of what would
eventually amount to billions of dollars' worth of buried treasure has helped reinfect the Yukon with
gold fever,and fortune seekers have stormed the Canadian territory in numbers not seen since the
1890s.
D In contrast, the Yukon's early inhabitants hunted bison,elk, caribou, woolly mammoths, waterfowl,
and fish,and they competed for resources with carnivores such as wolves and Beringian lions. Due to
c1imate warming and other factors, some of these animals died off. But others, such as the barren-
ground caribou, thrived in such numbers that native peoples adapted their own movements and
lifestyles to the animals' migrations.
E Such creatures are especially to be found in the Peel watershed, an immense wilderness which drains
an area larger than Scotland. "The Peel watershed is one of the few places left where you still have
large, intact predator-prey ecosystems," says a representative of the Yukon Conservation Society. "From
wolves and grizzlies and eagles on down, it's a wildlife habitat of global importance."
F As the material needs of the world's seven billion people continue to grow, the rush to exploit the
Yukon's exceptionally rich resources-gold, zinc, copper, and more- has brought prosperity to a once
forsaken corner of the continent. But the boom has brought to the fore a growing tension between
those who would keep one of North America's last great wildernesses unbroken and those whose
success depends on digging it up.
G But in other ways, things are different now. During the first Klondike stampede, prospectors plied
nearby creeks with picks and pans and shovels, and a bartender could sweep up a small fortune in
spilled gold dust at the end of a big night. Nowadays, mining's heavy lifting is done by a mechanized
army of bulldozers, drilling rigs, and flown-in workers.
KEY
1 The idea of paying for and heating living accommodation in the first paragraph of the text is taken up
by the tirst sentence in C.
2 G The tirst sentence of G makes it clear that the preceding paragraph must have referred to a way in
which the town had changed - as is the case with the paragraph before gap 42. The reference to 'that
investment' just after gap 42 shows that the missing paragraph must end by mentioning investment of
sorne kind in the mining industry, and it is there in G with 'rnechanized army of bulldozers, drilling rigs,
and flown-in workers'.
3 B The mention of Ryan at the end of the paragraph before gap 43 combined with the reference to 'his
small office' at the beginning of the paragraph after the gap suggests that Ryan was the focus of the
missing paragraph.
4 F The first sentence in the paragraph after gap 44 gives a c1ear indication that the missing paragraph
must have made sorne reference to people being concerned about the natural environment of the
Yukon. That is to be found in F in the discussion of the 'growing tension' before environmentatists and
developers.
5 A The paragraphs before and after the gap suggest that the content of the missing paragraph will be
focused on a description of the area. Paragraph A takes up the idea of 'enormous area' at the end of the
paragraph before the gap and so c1early fits well here.
6 E Animals are mentioned at the end of the paragraph preceding the gap and these are referred to by
'Such creatures' at the beginning of E. Although paragraph D also refers to animals, it does not relate in
any other logical way to the paragraphs before and after the gap and is ruled out by the introductory 'In
contrast'
TEST 18
extract. 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.
Cromford Mili, in the north of England, is now a museum,but when it was constructed in 1771, it was
the site of one of the most influential workplace experiments ever seen.This was where textile
entrepreneur Richard Arkwright set up shop. Cotton-spinning had been a cottage industry, but at
Cromford Mili, spinners from all around came together to use machines provided by Arkwright. It was
the world's first factory, and it was soon followed by many more.
1…………
There are good reasons why the model has flourished.Centralising production allowed for dramatically
greater efficiency. And bosses - then as now suspicious that workers were not always working hard -
could keep aneye on them.
2……………
Two of the biggest forces changing work and the nature of the company are technology and
demographic shifts.Unskilled work still exists, as does highly skilled work ,but the jobs in the middle have
to a large extent been automated or outsourced away. Furthermore, technology has made the move to
an economy based on knowledge,not skilis, possible.
3……………….
As a result of such changes, many of the old certainties are breaking down. You often hear it said that
people used to work for money - very much a hangover from the Industrial Revolution, when work was
viewed as a straight trade of time for money - but now it's claimed that we are more interested in
having rewarding work.
4…………….
In other words, what we mean by the workplace is changing - it's no longer always a grand (or
otherwise)building with the company's name on topo Increasingly, we can work anywhere - in a coffee
shop or at the kitchen table. The demand that employees work in more flexible ways is encouraging this
trend, with workers (especially younger generations) no longer expecting to be chained to a desk from
nine to five every day.
5…………………..
In a world of decentralised, non-hierarchical organisations,permanent full-time employment could

become the exception. So will the firm of the future be made up of loose groupings of self-employed
people, forming and re-forming on a project-by-project basis? Will workers effectively be their own chief
executives, usinq technology to sell their skilis to the highest bidder and with little attachment to a
place of work, each other or the firms that employ them? lt's tempting to think so, but reality is starting
to interfere with this picture.
6…………….
There is one particular reason why tomorrow might turn out to be not so different from today: human
nature. We are social creatures and tend to be at our best in groups rather than operating alone. Work
is where we bond, gossip,fight, love and hate - in short, it's where we live.So the prospects for at least
some of the familiar aspects of the old Arkwrightian corporate model may not be quite so bleakas
painted. Yes, things are changing, but the advocates of the brave new, networked world should
remember that work is not the only - or, arguably, even the most important - thing we do when we are
at work.
A In addition, we are all living longer and working for longer. In fact, in some countries there are now
reckoned to be four or even five distinct generations making up the workforce.
B For firms, this can seem a no-brainer - they save money on expensive office space while giving their
employees a valuable and appreciated perk. It can be tough to implement, though video conferencing
and private networks have improved things greatly.
C But times are changing, and the pace and uncertainty of the modern world demand more flexibility
and responsiveness than hierarchies like this can provide. Organisational structures need to be based on
serving the customer rather than preserving the rank and status of managers.
D This is true up to a point, but perhaps more significant is the erosion of the boundary between work
and other parts of life - education, leisure, play; between me-in- work and me-in-my-own-time.
E Above all, this format is popular because it works.Or rather, it worked, as, afier over 200 years, some
observers reckon that the end of employment as we have known it may be near. Are they right?
F Of course, we are living in a time of disruption, change and novelty, but the fact is that there are
also strong continuities with the pasto As a result, that unstructured form of work may remain a dream.
G This groundbreaking idea has become the norm of us to this day, whether we are architects or
economists, agronomists or oculists, because modern offices are based on exactly the same principies.
They are places where you go in order to work for specific hours, using facilities and equipment provided
by your employer to do a job, for a wage.
KEY
1 G 'This groundbreaking idea' refers to the intluential experiment of setting up 'the world's first
factory', which workers went to instead of working at home Ca cottage industry'). This idea is
picked up in describing modem offices as 'places where you go'.
2 E 'Above all' introduces the best of the 'good reasons why the model has tlourished' in the previous
paragraph, and 'popular'expresses a similar idea to 'has tlourished' . The following paragraph introduces
changes that might mean 'ernployrnent as we have known it' may be ending.
3 A The previous paragraph introduced 'technology and demographic shifts' as forces that are changing
work, and expanded on the effects of technology. In A, the writer explains the demographic shifts - 'we
are allliving longer and working for longer' .
4 D 'This is true up to a point' relates to what is c1aimed, according to the previous paragraph. The
following paragraph enlarges on 'the erosion of the boundary between work and other parts of life'.
5 B "They save money on expensive office space' relates to desks in the previous paragraph: workers 'no
longer expecting to be chained to a desk' implies that fewer desks, and therefore less office space, are
needed.
6 F '[T]he fact is' introduces the 'reality' mentioned in the previous paragraph, which mean s that what
people are tempted to think may be wrong. The 'continuities with the past' and idea that 'that
unstructured form of work' may not come into being are picked up in the following paragraph, which
gives a reason 'why tomorrow might turn out to be not so different from today'.
TEST 19
You are going to read an article about exploration of a glacier in the Alps. Six paragraphs have been
removed from the extracto 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.
Towering above the Alpine villages of Switzerland, Italy and France, the imposing peaks of the
Matterhorn and its neighbours have long been a desirable destination for mountaineers and explorers
alike. Today, while cable cars and a mountain railway transport hordes of tourists to the more accessible
areas, pioneering exploration continues, not on the surface, but far out of sight in the icy depths of the
second-Iargest glacier system in the Alps, on the eastern side of the tourist town of Zermatt.
1…………………..
At the end of October last year, I joined seven-person British team that was returning to the Gorner
Glacier for its second expedition exploring, mapping and photographing the sub-glacial world of moulins
- well-like shafts through which meltwater drains from the surface of the glacier - and the ice caves that
they help to create.
2…………………
The weather seemed calm and benign, but overnight,considerably more snow fell than had been
forecast and the next day, the Gornergrat mountain railway - the first stage in our journey up to the
glacier - was closed. The advance party, they later told us, was completely snowed in.
3………….
Thankfully, the weather eventually cleared, and the following day we began digging out a path from our
camp towards the glacier. Meanwhile, the advance team was heading back towards uso Eventually both
teams met up,shared a few jokes and plodded back up to our temporary camp for a meal and a good
night's sleep before we started the work we had come to do.
4……………
I flitted between both parties , desperately trying to capture as many images of this wonderful
environment as possible. The dramatically sculpted ice walls reminded me of shapesI'd seen before in
cylindrical caves formed in limestone. Looking up, I noticed rocks and pebbles of varying sizes emerging
from the roof of the ice caves.
5………………
Typically moving at about 15 metres ayear, the Gomer Glacier picks up speed due to meltwater falling
through these moulins and acting as a lubricant along its base. Although the glacier has a total area of
more than 50. square kilometres, making it the second largest glacial system in the Alps, it has receded
every year since 1892-since then it has shrunk by almost 2.5 kilometres, including a staggering 290
metres over the summer of 2007.
6…………..
Seeing how vast and extensive the glacier's moulins and ice-cave systems can be gives an indication of
just how much water flows through them during the summer. Sadly,this is also an indicator of the rate
at which the Alps' majestic rivers of ice are shrinking. One member of the team, Sam Doyle, a glaciologist
from the University of Aberystwyth,spends most of his time in Greenland, studying the rate
at which the ice sheet is moving . He was concerned to see many similarities between the moulins on
the Gomer Glacier and the movement of the ice sheet.
A So, a day later than planned, we travelled up the mountain to the station, the starting point for our
hike to the glacier. When we alighted, however, we discovered an expanse of knee-deep snow. lt was
too late to cover the three kilometres we still needed to travel, so we set up camp close to the station
B We arrived in Zermatt late in the evening, heavily laden with equipment and enough food for a week.
By now,the threemembers of the group who had already left to set up camp on the edge of the glacier
were probably tucked up in their sleeping bags, awaiting our arrival the next morning.
C AII these fascinating sights kept me engrossed in my photography. Meanwhile, members of the two
teams set about surveying the caves, while others rigged rapes around large areas of meltwater and
moulins lhatled to other levels of the system.
D Here, two big glaciers fall into the deep on either side of Monte Rosa, the highest mountain in
Switzerland.To the left is the Findelen Glacier and to the right is the 14-kilometre-longGorner Glacier.
E We set off to follow the advance party as best we could, given the difficult weather conditions, while
they waited in the shelter of their tents. There was great relief all round when we finally reached them.
F We had two great days exploring the spectacular world beneath the glacier's surface. More moulins
had opened up since last year's expedition, and the team split into two and began abseiling down into
those that looked the most encouraging.
G This was one reason why it was so important to identity what exactly was happening. We
discovered, surveyed and photographed three enormous ice caves. Descending through one moulin, we
followed an eight-metre-deep trench where the water had carved its way through the ice.
KEY
1 D 'Here' refers to 'the eastem side of the tourist town of Zermatt' , and the two glaciers that are
mentioned are part of the 'glacier system '.
2 B 'We' refers to the 'British team' , and we are told it is 'late in the evening'. The following paragraph
continues the time sequence with 'overnight' and 'the next day' . The small group 'who had already left
to set up camp on the edge of the glacier' are 'the advance party' mentioned in the following paragraph.
3 A The fact that the railway was closed (in the previous paragraph) explains 'a day later than planned';
'station' shows that they travelled on the mountain railway, 'the first stage in our joumey up to the
glacier' (previous paragraph); 'the three kilometres we still needed to travel' refers to the next stage of
the journey, from the station to the advance party 's camp by the glacier.
4 F [E]xploring' refers to 'the work we had come to do' in the previous paragraph (this is made clear in
the paragraph after 1).'[T[he team split into two ' looks ahead to 'both parties ' in the following
paragraph.
5 C 'AIl these fascinating sights' refers back to the description of the surroundings in the previous
paragraph, and 'rny photography 'refers to 'capture as many images ... as possible' . '[M]eltwater' is
referred to again in the following paragraph.
6 G 'This was one reason why it was so important to identify what exactly was happening' refers to the
shrinkage of the glacier,in particular the reduction by 'a staggering 290 metres over the summer of
2007'. The 'water' that is mentioned recurs in the following paragraph.
TEST 20
You are going to read part of a newspaper article about an Australian cycling champion. Six paragraphs
have been removed from the article. 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.
With his glasses taped to his head and a heavy, bone- shaking push bike for a ride, the lanky 18-year-old
seemed an unlikely prospect when he turned up for his first club cycling race one day in 1946. Yet, when
he died 12 years later, there was a feeling that Russell Mockridge had not yet reached his full potential.
1……………..
Someone who achieved this degree of success throughout his cycling career was likely to be self-
confident, and might even be forgiven for arrogance . Yet, with his two feet on the pavement,
Mockridge was a retiring and painfully shy mano He couldn't handle the 'roughness' of most other
cyclists, who referred to him in his young days as 'The China 0011'. For his part, Mockridge preferred to
spend time with English literature.
2………………….
Officials looked at the skinny Mockridge, at his do-it- yourself bike shoes and at his battered roadster
with its handlebars turned down, and wondered what they were seeing. The disbelief grew when
Mockridge innocently asked if it would be all right if he stayed out in front all the way - he was
concerned that his poor eyesight might cause an accident and endanger other cyclists.
3……………
The official was amazed. 'Well, you certainly won the race and probably have the fastest time , but we
don't actually know what your time for the distance is, so we can't give you that one,' he told
Mockridge. However impressed he might have been, he could hardly have foreseen that this was just
the start of Mockridge's run of victories.
4……………
At the Australian 200km road championship, Mockridge was the sole member of his team left riding
when it carne down to the last few hundred metres. The pack was well ahead and beginning their final
sprint while Mockridge,whose appetite was astounding, lagged behind finishing off a snack from his food
bago
5…………………..
Another of Mockridge's mad final dashes, on the last day of the 1957 Sun Tour, was one of the most
memorable rides of his career. Neck and neck with George Goodwin, Mockridge threw himself into the
wending steep hillsides.Goodwin then found himself desperately hanging onto Mockridge's back wheel
as the champion unleashed aride that simply destroyed 28 of Australia's best riders.
6…………….
Goodwin crossed the finish line in a final sprint just ahead of Mockridge - a very rare defeat that Mocka
suffered in what can only be considered a brilliant and inspirational career. He deserves to be
remembered as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.
A How fast were the pair pedalling? About 100km/h or more. In fact, they were travelling so quickly
that the two police motorcycle escorts had sparks shooting up from their footrests hitting the bitumen
as they negotiated the treacherous curves.
B This impression of weakness that Mockridge gave was reinforced by his weak vision - he couldn't
see the other side of the road without glasses. It was a defect that barred him from most sports,
particularly his belovedAustralian Rules Football. He was 18 when he entered the weekly Geelong
Amateur Cycling Club 40km road race because he was suffering from lack of exercise.
C The next week, and the next, Mockridge again won, and a cycling legend was born. In the
following few months, he won eight of his 11 starts. Mockridge was hailed as an emerging champion and
his rise from club rider to Olympic champion was meteoric.
D Despite his disappointment, it was during this tour that Mockridge set his sights on making the
Australian team for the next Olympic Games. In the lead-up to selection, he won all ten Olympic
qualifying races in Australia, then left for Europe.
E Any laughter died when Mockridge settled down to his machine-like rhythm and burned off other
competitors.Alex McPherson , who was timing the cyclists for the club, waved them past the halfway
mark, and hopped into his car to greet the finishers. When he arrived, he found Mockridge waiting and
puzzled.
F His coaches and teammates had given up on him, as Mockridge still trailed well in the rear, but once
he was ready to get back to the matter in hand, he settled into some serious pedalling. Ken Graves was
being acclaimed the winner by announcers just as Mockridge burst through the pack and cut him down ,
snatching victory out of almost certain defeat.
G By then 'Mocka', a freakish and courageous talent, had won two Olympic and two Empire gold
medals and countless world records. In his day, his feats were as acclaimed as those of other Australian
sporting icons , such as cricketer Don Bradman.
KEY
1 G 'By then' refers to when Mockridge died, and summarises his achievements, which are referred to in
the foLlowing paragraph -'this degree of success'.
2 B "This impression of weakness' refers to Mockridge's shyness and difficulty with handling 'roughness'.
3 E 'Any laughter' is part of the officials' wonder and disbelief when they met Mockridge . 'Alex
McPherson, who was timing the cyclists for the club' is mentioned again in the following paragraph
4 C "The next week, and the next, Mockridge again won' gives more detail about 'this was just the start
of Mockridge's run of victories' in the previous paragraph.
5 F The phrase 'trailed we\l in the rear' means the same as 'Iagged behind' in the previous paragraph,
and 'get back to the matter in hand' refers to him starting to pedal again.
6 A '[T]he pair' refers to Mockridge and Goodwin.
TETS 21
You are going to read an article about a woman who invented the concept of computer software. 8ix
paragraphs have been removed from the extracto 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.
In 1842, more than a century before the start of the information age, in a brilliant flash of penetrating
insight,Ada Lovelace had a glimpse of the future. She saw that with suitable modifications, Charles
Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine would be capable of much more than its intended purpose of
simple mathematical calculation. Ada Lovelace was born in London in 1815, the daughter of the poet
Byron. She never met her father: her parents separated a month after her birth , he left England four
months later and eventually died abroad. Her upbringing was unusual for the period , in that her mother
was determined she should have a thorough grounding in logic, mathematics and the sciences. To that
end, Ada was províded with a succession of tutors.
1…………………..
Among their number was the mathematician, philosopher,inventor and Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Cambridge, Charles Babbage, one of several people credited with being 'the father of
the computer'. His importance líes in the fact that he invented several devices which paved the way for
modern computers. Lovelace was introduced to him while still in her late teens, and soon afterwards
visited his workshop to see his 'Difference Engine'.
2……………………
Thedevice was incomplete,weighed over aton and was not yet working. Despite these limitations,
Lovelace grasped its true significance; whereas Babbage saw it purely being used to increase the
accuracy of mathematical processes,it was Lovelace who saw its far greater potential.
3……………….
At this event, Babbage described his proposal for a more advanced computing machine, his Analytical
Engine. A mathematician who was present subsequently wrote up the ideas in a memoir in French, and
Babbage asked Lovelace to translate it. Because she understood the machine so well, at his request she
added a comprehensive set of notes to her translation, much longer than the memoir itself. It was these
notes that have established her importance in the development of computers.
4…………….
In this insight , she anticipated the development of both modern computing and artificial intelligence by
more than a hundred years. Again, she saw that the Analytical Engine could be used to do much more
than even Babbage perceived.
5………………
The memoir, and Lovelace's notes, attracted little attention at the time, but that does not detract from
her achievement,the essence of which is that she grasped how to create physical instances of wholly
abstract concepts. In any computer, it is the software which gives the hardware the ability to perform its
wonders, a totally new, and very strange, idea for the time.
6-------------------
Although her insight is astonishing, that is not all that Lovelace should be remembered foro She also
demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt that wornen could attain the highest levels of scientific
understanding and achievement - something that seemed remarkable in her lifetime. She helped to
blaze a trail for later generations of women to become scientists.
A Neither this prototype nor his later devices were completed in his lifetime, although working versions
have since been built. However, his eftorts to construct them aroused widespread interest, particularly
when he attended a scientific conference in Italy and presented his work.
B Of course, the same could be said of many scientists: Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, designed flying F
machines several centuries before they became a reality, but at least he had the advantage of having
seen birds flying.
C Unlike him, Lovelace realised that it could be set to execute any logically coherent sequence of
instructions. This in ef1ect made her the world's first computer programmer, as she demonstrated in the
document.
D In them, as well as describing the revolutionary implications of Babbage's ideas, Lovelace wrote out
the first computer program and made the sensational suggestion that such a device should be able to
compose music if a suitable set of rules could be devised.
E One of these was Augustus de Morgan, a leading mathematician of the time. De Morgan soon
confirmed Ada's outstanding mathematical ability and, importantly, communicated his admiration to his
scientific friends. As a result, long befare women were eligible to study for degrees, Ada came to more
than hold her own with the leading scientists of the day.
F This realisation, that the right instructions could enormously increase the capabilities of the device,
is extraordinary for such an early stage in the history of the computer. Lovelace could see beyond the
relatively rudimentary nature of Babbage's machines to the immense possibilities opened up by
programmable computers.
G This mechanical calculator was Babbage's first invention. He, like others before him, had realised
that logarithmic tables - at that time produced by human 'calculatars', and notoriously full of errors -
could be generated by machinery.
KEY
1 E 'One of these ... a leading mathematician' can only refer to one of a number of people, that is, Ada's
'succession of tutors' . '[T]he leading scientists of the day' is picked up by 'Among their number' and the
introduction of Babbage in the following paragraph.
2 G 'This mechanical calculator' in G and the device ' in the following paragraph both refer to the
Difference Engine . As this is 'Babbage's first invention', the calculator can 't be the later and more
advanced Analytical Engine.
3 A '[T]his prototype' refers to Babbage's first invention, the Difference Engine, and the scientific
conference in Italy is picked up by 'this event' in the next paragraph.
4 D '[T[hem' refers to the notes which Lovelace wrote . '[T[his insight' relates to her suggestion that the
device should be able to compose music.
5 C 'Unlike him' contrasts what 'Lovelace realised ' - what 'she saw' in the previous paragraph - with
Babbage 's more limited insight. The document' is her translation of the memoir, mentioned earlier and
also in the next paragraph.
6 F The explanation of this realisation' adds to the statement in the previous paragraph conceming
software . This idea is new and strange 'for the time', that is, 'for such an early stage in the history of the
computer.'
TETS 22
THE FOOTBALL CLUB CHAIRMAN

Bryan Richardson greeted me warmly, and ushered me into his modest office, somewhat larger than the
others along the corridor, but without pretensions of any kind. He returned to his desk, which had two
phones and a mobile on it, and a lot of apparently unsorted papers, offered me a chair, and said it was
nice to see me again. I rather doubt he remembered me at all, but it had the effect of making me feel a
little less anxious.
1……….
‘I want to talk to you about an idea I have,’ I said. ‘I have supported this club since the 2010, and I’m
starting to get frustrated by watching so much and knowing so little.’ He gazed at me with a degree of
interest mixed with incomprehension. ‘What I mean,’ I added, ‘is that every football fan is dying to know
what it is really like, what’s actually going on, yet all we get to see is what happens on the field.’
2……….
And I didn’t wish to be fobbed off. ‘They all make it worse, not better. They all purvey gossip and
rumours, and most of what they say turns out to be either uninteresting or incorrect. Your average
supporter ends up in the dark most of the time.’
3………….
‘Now that,’ I said, ‘is just the sort of thing I want to know about. I’d like to write a book about the club
this coming season, to know about the deals, the comings and goings, all the factors involved. To get to
know how a Premiership football club actually works.’ As I said this, I feared that it was a futile request,
but I’d drawn a little hope from the fact that he had just been so open, as if he had already decided to
consider the project. ‘I want to know about buying and selling players, how the finances work, to go
down to the training ground, travel with the team, talk to the players and the manager.’
4………..
So I continued with it. ‘Let me tell you a little about myself.’ He leaned back to make himself
comfortable, sensing that this might take a while. ‘By training I’m an academic. I came here from
America in the 1960s, got a doctorate in English at Oxford, then taught in the English Department at
Warwick University for fifteen years. Now I run my own business, dealing in rare books and manuscripts
in London, and do some freelance writing. But I’m not a journalist.’
5…………
I was starting to babble now, and as I spoke I was aware of how foolish all this must be sounding to him.
At one point he put his hands quietly on his lap, under the desk, and I had the distinct, if paranoid,
impression that he was ringing some sort of hidden alarm, and that three orange shirted stewards would
shortly come in and escort me from the ground (By Order of the Chairman).
6………
‘But a book is certainly a good idea,’ he said. ‘Let me think it over and I’II get back to you.’ He stood up
and we shook hands. ‘I’II be in touch,’ he said. And a few weeks later, in mid-August, he was. ‘There’s a
great story here,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and do it next season. I’II introduce you to the people up here at
the club. Go everywhere, talk to everybody, you’ll find it fascinating.’ I was surprised, and delighted, but
tried not to gush. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s very open-minded of you.’
7………….
‘Yes, sure,’ he said. ‘But I mean something more than that, something more complicated.’ ‘What’s
that?’ I asked. He smiled. ‘You’ll see.’
A) The disappointment must have registered on my face, because he quickly added: ‘I came to all this
relatively late in my career, and it’s a fascinating business. I find it more so all the time, and I don’t have
any doubt that people would be interested to read an account of it.’
B) ‘We’ve got nothing to hide,’ he said, ‘but you’ll be surprised by what you learn. It’s an amazingly
emotional business.’ ‘It must be,’ I said, ‘the supporters can see that. So many of the games are like an
emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes the whole season is.’
C) He nodded gently. ‘Good,’ he said firmly. ‘That’s part of the point,’ I went on. ‘I want to write about
the club from the point of view of the supporters, a sort of fan’s eye view. Getting behind the scenes is
every fan’s dream – whether it’s here or somewhere else. I’ve never written anything like this, although I
have written a couple of books. And I am trained, as an academic, in habits of analysis, in trying to figure
out how things work. And I’m a supporter of the club, so I don’t think there is anything to fear.’
D) As I was speaking, the mobile phone rang, and he answered it with an apologetic shrug. A brief and
cryptic one-sided conversation ensued, with obscure references to hotels and phone numbers. When he
hung up, he explained: ‘We’re trying to sign a full-back. Good player. But there are three agents
involved, and two continental sides want to sign him, so we’ve got him hidden in a hotel. If we can keep
them away from him for another couple of days, he’ll sign.’
E) He considered this for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there is the Clubcall line, the match-day
programmes, and the articles in the local and national papers. There’s lots of information about.’ He
sounded like a politician trying to claim for his party the moral authority of open government, while at
the same time giving nothing away
F) Not at all. ‘It’s funny you should ask,’ he said, ‘because you’re the second person this week who has
come in with a request to write a book about the club. And I’ve just been approached by the BBC with a
proposal to do a six-part documentary about the club. ‘Are you going to let them do it?’ I asked. ‘I don’t
think,’ he said wryly, ‘that a six-part series on what a nice club Coventry City is would make good
television.’
G) ‘So, what can I do for you?’ He made it sound as if he were interested. Poised and well dressed,
though without foppishness, he had that indefinable polish that one often observes in people of wealth
or celebrity. By polish I do not mean good manners, though that frequent accompanies it, but something
more tangible: a kind of glow, as if the rich and famous applied some mysterious ointment (available
only to themselves) every morning, and then buffed their faces to a healthy sheen.
H) There, I’d done it. The worst that he could do was to tell me to get lost. Part of me, to tell the truth,
would have been just a little relieved. But he didn’t do anything. He sat quite still, listening, letting me
make my pitch.
KEY
1. Đáp án đúng là G
Ở đoạn đầu, tác giả gặp chủ tịch ở văn phòng và chủ tịch khá thân thiện với anh, “greeted me warmly“
(chào đón tôi một nồng thắm,) “ushered me into“ (đẩy tôi vào..). Điều này cho thấy người chủ tịch đã
từng gặp tác giả trước đây. Thế nhưng tác giả nghi ngờ liệu ông ta có thực sự nhớ đến việc đã gặp anh.
“I rather doubt he remembered me at all” (Tôi khá nghi ngờ liệu ông ta có nhớ tôi không).
Ở đầu đoạn G, cuộc đối thoại giữa hai người bắt đầu bởi câu hỏi của vị chủ tịch “So, what can I do for
you?” (Tôi có thể giúp được gì cho anh ?). Nói cách khác, chủ tịch đang muốn hỏi về mục đích của
chuyến viếng thăm của tác giả.
Đoạn sau đoạn trống thứ nhất, bắt đầu bởi câu đáp “I want to talk to you about an idea I have,” (Tôi
muốn nói với ông về ý tưởng của tôi). Câu đáp này trả lời cho câu hỏi ở câu G của chủ tịch.
2. Đáp án đúng là E
Đoạn trước ô trống số 2, tác giả thể hiện sự hâm mộ đối với đội bóng “I have supported this club since
the 2010” (Tôi đã theo câu lạc bộ từ năm 2010) và mong muốn biết thêm thông tin, “dying to know what
it is really like, what’s actually going on” (rất muốn biết nó như thế nào, chuyện gì đang xảy ra).
Câu đầu đoạn E, “this” thay thế cho điều tác giả nói, về việc muốn biết thêm nhiều thông tin về đội
bóng. Chủ tịch cân nhắc về điều này một lúc.
Đoạn văn sau ô trống ố 2, tác giả không muốn bị đánh lừa “didn’t wish to be fobbed off”. Cụm từ “fob
off” ở đây có nghĩa là lừa dối, đánh lừa. Ở cuối đoạn E, chủ tịch lại không hề tiết lộ điều gì “giving
nothing away”. “They” được lặp lại hai lần, thay thế cho nguồn thông tin mà chủ tịch liệt kê ở đoạn E
“match-day programmes, and the articles in the local and national papers”. Và tác giả đã khẳng định
nguồn thông tin đó không cần thiết,”most of what they say turns out to be either uninteresting or
incorrect” (Những gì mà họ nói lại hoặc là không thú vị lắm hoặc là sai.
3. Đáp án đúng là D
Ở đoạn trước ô trống 3, tác giả có nói về việc thông tin được cung cấp không đúng như mong đợi của
người hâm mộ cho nên đa phần họ sẽ bị “in the dark”, không có biết gì cả.
Ở đầu đoạn D, phần nói của tác giả bị cắt ngang bởi tiếng chuông điện thoại. Phần nói này cho thấy việc
thông tin cung cấp không đúng, không chính xác ở đoạn trước đó. Sau đó, chủ tịch có giải thích với tác
giả về việc mua cầu thủ của đội bóng.
Đoạn D hợp mạch với đoạn sau ô trống 3. Từ “that” ở câu đầu đoạn đó, ám chỉ vấn đề mua bán cầu thủ
là việc tác giả muốn biết. Và tác giả trình bày về việc viết một cuốn sách trong mùa tới, về thương lượng
(deals),…
4. Đáp án đúng là H
Trong đoạn trước ô trống số 4, tác giả trình bày nguyện vọng về việc viết cuốn sách về câu lạc bộ. Theo
đó, tác giả muốn được tiếp cận với việc chuyển nhượng cầu thủ, vấn đề tài chính, thậm chí đi tới buổi
huấn luyện, đi du lịch với đội bóng, nói chuyện với cầu thủ và quản lí.
Trong phần đầu đoạn H, “There, I’d done it”, (Rồi, tôi đã làm xong rồi), tác giả đã hoàn thành việc mình
muốn làm; là nói những gì tác giả muốn nói. Đó chính là việc viết cuốn sách về câu lạc bộ.
Ở đoạn kế đoạn H tác giả “continued with it”. It này chính là “my pitch”. Đoạn H có kể về thái độ của
người chủ tịch khi nghe tác giả trình bày về cuốn sách “He sat quite still, listening, letting me make my
pitch” – vẫn ngồi đó và lắng nghe. Ở câu thứ hai của đoạn sau đoạn H, chủ tịch có sự thay đổi tư thế
ngồi, ngả người ra sau cho thoải mái hơn. “He leaned back to make himself comfortable” Và lúc này, tác
giả tiếp tục “make my pitch”, đưa ra một số thông tin cá nhân để thuyết phục chủ tịch.
5. Đáp án đúng là C
Ở trước đoạn C, tác giả kể rằng cậu là một giáo sư, có làm chủ, hiện giờ đang là một người viết tự do.
Đoạn C cho thấy chủ tịch phản ứng với lời kể của anh. Ông gật đầu nói “Được” He nodded gently.
‘Good,’ Đây có vẻ phản ứng tích cực với câu thú nhận rằng anh không phải là nhà báo, “But I’m not a
journalist”
Tác giả lại nói tiếp “That’s part of the point”, “that” chỉ việc anh không phải là nhà báo. Và sau đó anh có
lí giải nguyên nhân anh không làm nhà báo, vì muốn viết ở dưới góc độ của người hâm mộ….
“I want to write about the club from the point of view of the supporters”. Ở đoạn này cũng có nhắc lại
nghề nghiệp, anh ta từng đề cập trước đó”And I am trained, as an academic”.
Trong đoạn kế tác giả nhận ra mình đang lảm nhảm “I was starting to babble now”. Có thể thấy ở các
đoạn trên, tác giả đã trình bày rất nhiều trong khi đó ông chủ tịch chỉ im lặng lắng nghe.
6. Đáp án đúng là F
Ở đoạn trước ô trống số 6, tác giả lo sợ bị bảo vệ đuổi ra ngoài “impression that he was ringing some
sort of hidden alarm, and that three orange shirted stewards would shortly come in and escort me from
the ground” (có cảm giác rằng ông có một cái chuông bị giấu ở đâu đó, và rồi có ba người bảo vệ mặc áo
cam sẽ nhanh chóng tiến vào và đuổi tôi ra ngoài)
Có thể thấy, trong câu đầu đoạn F, “Not at all” (Không có gì cả) ám chỉ điều tác giả lo sợ, bị túm cổ ra
ngoài, không xảy ra. Tiếp đó, ông chủ tịch kể về việc có người cũng đã yêu cầu viết sách như tác giả,
thậm chí là làm series 6 phần. Và ông nhận định điều này không ổn lắm.
Nhưng với đoạn sau đoạn F, ngay câu đầu ‘But a book is certainly a good idea,’ (Nhưng một cuốn sách
chắc chắn là một ý tưởng tốt) Chữ “but” này thể hiện sự trái ngược trong quan điểm của chủ tịch về
cuốn sách và series. Bởi vì trong đoạn trước, chủ tịch cho rằng series không tốt, tiếp đó ông cho rằng
cuốn sách ổn và sẽ cân nhắc rồi liên lạc sau với tác giả.
7. Đáp án đúng là B
Trong đoạn văn trước đoạn B, chủ tịch có nói sẽ cân nhắc và liên lạc với tác giả, thậm chí cho tác giả tiếp
cận với đội bóng. Điều tác giả cảm kích thậm chí còn khen ngợi chủ tịch là “open-minded”.
Ở đoạn B, chủ tịch đáp lại lời khen “open-minded” của tác giả với câu “we’ve got nothing to hide”
(Chúng tôi không có gì để giấu diếm cả). Ngoài ra, chủ tịch cũng nói rằng tác giả sẽ học được nhiều điều
từ việc viết sách đó. Ông cũng đề cập bóng đá là một ngành kinh doanh cảm xúc kì diệu “amazingly
emotional business”. Tác giả cũng đồng tình với nhận định đó bằng việc so sánh cảm xúc của người hâm
mộ về trận đấu hay cả mùa giải đều giống như đang ở trên tàu cao tốc.
Với đoạn sau đoạn B, chủ tịch hồi đáp nhận định của tác giả về “những trận đấu như tàu siêu tốc cảm
xúc thậm chỉ là cả mùa giải luôn” là có ý nghĩa nhiều hơn, phức tạp hơn nữa.
“But I mean something more than that, something more complicated.” Và tác giả hỏi đó là gì, ”that” ở
đây chính là điều còn phức tạp hơn cả tàu siêu tốc cảm xúc – cảm xúc của người hâm mộ. Và chủ tịch kết
lại bằng nụ cười tác giả sẽ tự hiểu đó khi làm cuốn sách.
TEST 23
In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 1-7, read the
passage and choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There is ONE
extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered box provided.
Living in a Dream World

Daydreaming can help solve problems, trigger creativity, and inspire great works of art and
science. By Josie Glazier.
Most people spend between 30 and 47 per cent of their waking hours spacing out, drifting off,
lost in thought, wool-gathering or building castles in the air. Yale University emeritus
psychology professor Jerome L. Singer defines daydreaming as shifting attention “away from
some primary physical or mental task toward an unfolding sequence of private responses” or,
more simply, “watching your own mental videos.” He also divides daydreaming styles into two
main categories: “positive-constructive,” which includes upbeat and imaginative thoughts, and
“dysphoric,” which encompasses visions of failure or punishment.
1.
Such humdrum concerns figured prominently in one study that rigorously measured how much
time we spend mind wandering in daily life. In a 2009 study, Kane and his colleague Jennifer
McVay asked 72 students to carry Palm Pilots that beeped at random intervals eight times a day
for a week. The subjects then recorded their thoughts at that moment on a questionnaire. The
study found that about 30 per cent of the beeps coincided with thoughts unrelated to the task at
hand and that mind wandering increased with stress, boredom or sleepiness or in chaotic
environments and decreased with enjoyable tasks. That may be because enjoyable activities tend
to grab our attention.
2.
We may not even be aware that we are daydreaming. We have all had the experience of
“reading” a book yet absorbing nothing—moving our eyes over the words on a page as our
attention wanders and the text turns into gibberish. “When this happens, people lack what I call
‘meta-awareness,’ consciousness of what is currently going on in their mind,” he says. But
aimless rambling can be productive as they can allow us to stumble on ideas and associations
that we may never find if we intentionally seek them.
3.
So, why should daydreaming aid creativity? It may be in part because when the brain is floating
in unfocused mental space it serves a specific purpose. It allows us to engage in one task and at
the same time trigger reminders of other, concurrent goals so that we do not lose sight of them.
There is also the belief that we can boost the creative process by increasing the amount of
daydreaming we do or replaying variants of the millions of events we store in our brains.
4.
The mind's freedom to wander during a deliberate tuning out could also explain the flash of
insight that may coincide with taking a break from an unsolved problem. A study conducted at
the University of Lancaster in England into this possibility found that if we allow our minds to
ramble during a moderately challenging task, we can access ideas that are not easily available to
our conscious minds. Our ability to do so is now known to depend on the normal functioning of a
dedicated daydreaming network deep in our brain.
5.
It was not until 2007, however, that cognitive psychologist Malia Fox Mason, discovered that the
default network — which lights up when people switch from an attention-demanding activity to
drifting reveries with no specific goals, becomes more active when mind wandering is more
likely. She also discovered that people who daydream more in everyday life show greater
activity in the default network while performing monotonous tasks.
The conclusion reached in this ground-breaking study was that the more complex the mind
wandering episode is, the more of the mind it is going to consume. This inevitably leads to the
problem of determining the point at which creative daydreaming crosses the boundary into the
realms of compulsive fantasising. Although there is often a fine dividing line between the two,
one question that can help resolve the dilemma relates to whether the benefits gained from
daydreaming outweigh the cost to the daydreamer’s reputation and performance.
7.
On the other hand, there are psychologists who feel that the boundary is not so easily defined.
They argue that mind wandering is not inherently good or bad as it depends to a great extent on
context. When, for example, daydreaming occurs during an activity that requires little
concentration, it is unlikely to be costly. If, however, it causes someone to suffer severe injury or
worse by say, walking into traffic, then the line has been crossed.
A Although these two findings were significant, mind wandering itself was not measured during
the scans. As a result, it could not be determined exactly when the participants in her study were
“on task” and when they were daydreaming. In 2009 Smallwood, Schooler and Kalina Christoff
of the University of British Columbia published the first study to directly link mind wandering
with increased activity in the default network. Scans on the participants in their study revealed
activity in the default network was strongest when subjects were unaware they had lost focus.
B However, intense focus on our problems may not always lead to immediate solutions. Instead
allowing the mind to float freely can enable us to access unconscious ideas hovering underneath
the surface — a process that can lead to creative insight, according to psychologist Jonathan W.
Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara
C Yet to enhance creativity, it is important to pay attention to daydreams. Schooler calls this
“tuning out” or deliberate “off-task thinking.”, terms that refer to the ability of an individual to
have more than just the mind-wandering process. Those who are most creative also need to have
meta-awareness to realise when a creative idea has popped into their mind.
D On the other hand, those who ruminate obsessively—rehashing past events, repetitively
analyzing their causes and consequences, or worrying about all the ways things could go wrong
in the future - are well aware that their thoughts are their own, but they have intense difficulty
turning them off. The late Yale psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema does not believe that
rumination is a form of daydreaming, but she has found that in obsessive ruminators, the same
default network as the one that is activated during daydreaming switches on.
E Other scientists distinguish between mundane musings and extravagant fantasies. Michael
Kane, a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, considers
“mind wandering” to be “any thoughts that are unrelated to one's task at hand.” In his view, mind
wandering is a broad category that may include everything from pondering ingredients for a
dinner recipe to saving the planet from alien invasion. Most of the time when people fall into
mind wandering, they are thinking about everyday concerns, such as recent encounters and items
on their to-do list.
F According to Schooler, there are two steps you need to take to make the distinction. First,
notice whether you are deriving any useful insights from your fantasies. Second, it is important
to take stock of the content of your daydreams. To distinguish between beneficial and
pathological imaginings, he adds, “Ask yourself if this is something useful, helpful, valuable,
pleasant, or am I just rehashing the same old perseverative thoughts over and over again?” And if
daydreaming feels out of control, then even if it is pleasant it is probably not useful or valuable.
G Artists and scientists are well acquainted with such playful fantasizing. Filmmaker Tim
Burton daydreamed his way to Hollywood success, spending his childhood holed up in his
bedroom, creating posters for an imaginary horror film series. Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist
who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, imagined “another world,” to which he retreated
as a child, Albert Einstein pictured himself running along a light wave—a reverie that led to his
theory of special relativity.
H Like Facebook for the brain, the default network is a bustling web of memories and streaming
movies, starring ourselves. “When we daydream, we're at the center of the universe,” says
neurologist Marcus Raichle of Washington University in St. Louis, who first described the
network in 2001. It consists of three main regions that help us imagine ourselves and the
thoughts and feelings of others, draw personal memories from the brain and access episodic
memories.
KEY
1E
“Yale University emeritus psychology professor Jerome L. Singer defines daydreaming as”
connects with “Other scientists distinguish between mundane musings and extravagant
fantasies”
“Most of the time when people fall into mind wandering, they are thinking about everyday
concerns, such as recent encounters and items on their to-do list” connects with “Such
humdrum concerns”
2B
“That may be because enjoyable activities tend to grab our attention.” connects with
“However, intense focus on our problems may not always lead to immediate solutions.”
“The study found that about 30 per cent of the beeps coincided with thoughts unrelated to the
task at hand and that mind wandering increased with stress, boredom or sleepiness or in chaotic
environments” connects with “Instead allowing the mind to float freely can enable us to access
unconscious ideas hovering underneath the surface — a process that can lead to creative insight”
3G
“But aimless rambling can be productive as they can allow us to stumble on ideas and
associations that we may never find if we intentionally seek them.” connects with “Artists and
scientists are well acquainted with such playful fantasizing. Filmmaker Tim Burton
daydreamed his way to Hollywood success, spending his childhood holed up in his bedroom,
creating posters for an imaginary horror film series. Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist who
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, imagined “another world,” to which he retreated as
a child, Albert Einstein pictured himself running along a light wave—a reverie that led to his
theory of special relativity.”
4C
“So, why should daydreaming aid creativity?” connects with “Yet to enhance creativity, it is
important to pay attention to daydreams.” and “The mind's freedom to wander during a
deliberate tuning out could also explain the flash of insight that may coincide with taking a
break from an unsolved problem.”
5H
“Our ability to do so is now known to depend on the normal functioning of a dedicated
daydreaming network deep in our brain.” connects with “Like Facebook for the brain, the default
network is a bustling web of memories and streaming movies” and “It consists of three main
regions that help us imagine ourselves and the thoughts and feelings of others, draw personal
memories from the brain and access episodic memories.”
6A
“Marcus Raichle of Washington University in St. Louis, who first described the network in
2001” and “It was not until 2007, however, that cognitive psychologist Malia Fox Mason,
discovered that” connect with “Although these two findings were significant, mind wandering
itself was not measured during the scans.”
7F
“This inevitably leads to the problem of determining the point at which creative daydreaming
crosses the boundary into the realms of compulsive fantasising. Although there is often a fine
dividing line between the two, one question that can help resolve the dilemma relates to
whether the benefits gained from daydreaming outweigh the cost to the daydreamer’s reputation
and performance.” connects with “
“To distinguish between beneficial and pathological imaginings” and “On the other hand,
there are psychologists who feel that the boundary is not so easily defined. They argue that
mind wandering is not inherently good or bad”
TEST 24
HELP GUIDE US THROUGH THE UNIVERSE
Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, launches this year's Young Science Writer competition
If you ask scientists what they're doing, the answer won't be 'Finding the origin of the universe',
'Seeking the cure for cancer' or suchlike. It will involve something very specialised, a small piece
of the jigsaw that builds up the big picture.
1.
So, unless they are cranks or geniuses, scientists don't shoot directly for a grand goal - they focus
on bite-sized problems that seem timely and tractable. But this strategy (though prudent) carries
an occupational risk: they may forget they're wearing blinkers and fail to see their own work in
its proper perspective.
2.
I would personally derive far less satisfaction from my research if it interested only a few other
academics. But presenting one's work to non-specialists isn't easy. We scientists often do it
badly, although the experience helps us to see our work in a broader context. Journalists can do it
better, and their efforts can put a key discovery in perspective, converting an arcane paper
published in an obscure journal into a tale that can inspire others.
3.
On such occasions, people often raise general concerns about the way science is going and the
impact it may have; they wonder whether taxpayers get value for money from the research they
support. More intellectual audiences wonder about the basic nature of science: how objective can
we be? And how creative? Is science genuinely a progressive enterprise? What are its limits and
are we anywhere near them? It is hard to explain, in simple language, even a scientific concept
that you understand well. My own (not always effective) attempts have deepened my respect for
science reporters, who have to assimilate quickly, with a looming deadline, a topic they may be
quite unfamiliar with.
4.
It's unusual for science to earn newspaper headlines. Coverage that has to be restricted to crisp
newsworthy breakthroughs in any case distorts the way science develops. Scientific advances are
usually gradual and cumulative, and better suited to feature articles, or documentaries - or even
books, • for which the latent demand is surprisingly strong. For example, millions bought A
Brief History of Time, which caught the public imagination.
5.
Nevertheless, serious hooks do find a ready market. That's the good news for anyone who wants
to enter this competition. But books on pyramidology, visitations by aliens, and suchlike do even
better: a symptom of a fascination with the paranormal and 'New Age' concepts. It is depressing
that these are often featured uncritically in the media, distracting attention from more genuine
advances.
6.
Most scientists are quite ordinary, and their lives unremarkable. But occasionally they exemplify
the link between genius and madness; these 'eccentrics' are more enticing biographees.
7.
There seems, gratifyingly, to be no single 'formula' for science writing - many themes are still
under-exploited. Turning out even 700 words seems a daunting task if you're faced with a clean
sheet of paper or a blank screen, but less so if you have done enough reading and interviewing on
a subject to become inspired. For research students who enter the competition, science (and how
you do it) is probably more interesting than personal autobiography. But if, in later life, you
become both brilliant and crazy, you can hope that someone else writes a best-seller about you.
A. However, over-sensational claims are a hazard for them. Some researchers themselves 'hype
up' new discoveries to attract press interest. Maybe it matters little what people believe about
Darwinism or cosmology. But we should be more concerned that misleading or over-confident
claims on any topic of practical import don't gain wide currency. Hopes of miracle cures can be
raised; risks can be either exaggerated, or else glossed over for commercial pressures. Science
popularisers perhaps even those who enter this competition - have to be as sceptical of some
scientific claims as journalists routinely are of politicians.
B. Despite this there's a tendency in recent science waiting to be chatty, laced with gossip and
biographical detail. But are scientists as interesting as their science? The lives of Albert Einstein
and Richard Feyman are of interest, but is that true of the routine practitioner?
C. Two mathematicians have been treated as such in recent books: Paul Erdos, the obsessive
itinerant Hungarian (who described himself as 'a machine for turning coffee into theorems') and
John Nash, a pioneer of game theory, who resurfaced in his sixties, after 30 years of insanity, to
receive a Nobel prize.
D. For example, the American physicist Robert Wilson spent months carrying out meticulous
measurements with a microwave antenna which eventually revealed the 'afterglow of creation' -
the 'echo' of the Big Bang with which our universe began. Wilson was one of the rare scientists
with the luck and talent to make a really great discovery, but afterwards he acknowledged that its
importance didn't sink in until he read a 'popular' description of it in the New York Times.
E. More surprising was the commercial success of Sir Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New
Mind. This is a fascinating romp through Penrose's eclectic enthusiasms - enjoyable and
enlightening. But it was a surprising best seller, as much of it is heavy going. The sates pitch
'great scientist says mind is more than a mere machine' was plainly alluring. Many who bought it
must have got a nasty surprise when they opened it.
F. But if they have judged right, it won't be a trivial problem - indeed it will be the most difficult
that they are likely to make progress on. The great zoologist Sir Peter Medawar famously
described scientific work as 'the art of the soluble'. 'Scientists,' he wrote, 'get no credit for failing
to solve a problem beyond their capacities. They earn at best the kindly contempt reserved for
utopian politicians.'
G. This may be because, for non-specialists, it is tricky to demarcate well-based ideas from
flaky speculation. But its crucially important not to blur this distinction when writing articles for
a general readership. Otherwise credulous readers may take too much on trust, whereas hard-
nosed skeptics may reject all scientific claims, without appreciating that some have firm
empirical support.
H. Such a possibility is one reason why this competition to encourage young people to take up
science writing is so important and why I am helping to launch it today. Another is that popular
science writing can address wider issues. When I give talks about astronomy and cosmology, the
questions that interest people most are the truly `fundamental' ones that I can't answer: 'Is there
life in space?', Is the universe infinite?' or 'Why didn't the Big Bang happen sooner?'
KEY
1. F
In the first sentence of F, the first it refers back to the phrase what they're doing in the opening
paragraph, which it at the beginning of the second sentence in the opening paragraph also refers
to. The writer continues with this point in the first sentence of the paragraph after the gap.
2. D
In D For example, links the paragraph before the gap with the example of Robert Wilson, who
the writer believes was 'wearing blinkers' and “not seeing his work in its proper perspective'.
In the paragraph after the gap, having made the point that scientists can become too absorbed in
their work and not relate it to other people, the writer says that personally he wants his work to
be of interest to non-specialists rather than only a few other academics.
3. H
At the start of H, Such a possibility refers back to the possibility of someone 'converting an
arcane paper' into something inspiring for other people, mentioned at the end of the paragraph
before the gap. At the start of the paragraph after the gap, on such occasions refers back to the
writer's talks mentioned at the end of H and means 'when I am giving talks'.
4. A
In the first sentence of A, them refers back to the science reporters mentioned in the last
sentence of the paragraph before the gap. The writer says that a problem they face is over-
sensational (exaggerated in order to surprise and attract attention) claims on the part of scientific
researchers. In the paragraph after the gap, the writer moves on to a new aspect of his subject -
the lack of coverage (the extent to which something is present or discussed) that science gets in
newspapers,
5. E
In the first sentence of E, More surprising refers back to the success of the book mentioned at
the end of the paragraph before the gap. The writers says that the success of the book he
mentions in E was more surprising than the success of the other book, and he then describes the
second book. In the paragraph after the gap Nevertheless refers back to what he says about the
second book at the end of E.
6. G
At the beginning of G, This refers back to the `depressing' fact he describes at the end of the
paragraph before the gap, of certain scientific matters being given more publicity than others he
regards as “more genuine'. In the paragraph after the gap, the writer moves on to another aspect
of the subject the characteristics of most scientists.
7. C
In the first sentence of C, have been treated as such refers back to what he says about certain
scientists in the paragraph before the gap, and means have been treated as eccentrics'. He then
gives examples of two scientists who fit into this category. In the final paragraph, the writer
moves on to another aspect of the subject and talks about the topic of science writing from the
point of view of people who may be considering entering the competition.
TEST 25
Rainmaker with his Head in the Clouds
Critics dismissed Craeme Mather' s attempts to make clouds rain. But now recent experiments
appear to have vindicated him. Anjana Ahuya reports.
Dr. Craeme Mather lived his life with his head in the clouds, as a documentary film to be shown
this week shows. Against the advice of almost everybody else in the meteorological community,
the Canadian scientist devoted his professional life to trying to make clouds rain.
1.
Before Dr. Mather became involved, the science of weather modification had already claimed
many reputations. The idea that clouds could be manipulated first circulated in the 1940s, and
efforts gathered pace soon after the Second World War.
2.
However, the entire discipline fell into disrepute when commercial companies hijacked the idea,
took it around the world, and then failed to deliver on their promises. Cloud-seeding, as the
process was known, became the preserve of crackpots and charlatans.
3.
Scientists theorized that if they could inject the cloud with similarly shaped crystals, these
imposter crystals would also act as frames around which droplets would clump. The cloud would
then be tricked into raining. Silver iodide, whose crystals resemble those of ice, seemed the best
bet. Sadly, none of the experiments, including Dr. Mather's, which had been going for more than
five years, seemed to work. Dr. Mather was about to admit defeat when serendipity intervened.
Dr. Mather was convinced that something that the place was spewing into the atmosphere was
encouraging the downpour. Subsequent experiments confirmed that hygroscopic salts pouring
into the sky from them were responsible. Hygroscopic salts attract water - once in the
atmosphere, the particles act as magnets around which raindrops can form.
He was wary; Dr. Mather was known to be a smooth-talking salesman. 'He was charming and
charismatic, and many scientists don't trust that; he says. 'He was also not well-published
because he had been working in the commercial sector. Overall, he was regarded as a maverick.
On that occasion, he presented results that I was convinced were impossible. Yet the statistical
evidence was overwhelming, which I couldn't understand.
'If those findings can be reproduced there, it will be the most exciting thing to have happened in
the field for 20 years. It will be remarkable because some of the results are not scientifically
explainable.’ He adds, however, that scientists must exercise caution because cloud-seeding is
still mired in controversy. He also points out that, with water being such a precious resource,
success will push the research into the political arena.
7
Dr. Cooper says: 'With the paper mill, he saw something that other people wouldn't have seen. I
am still uncomfortable with his idea because it throws up major puzzles in cloud physics. But if
Dr. Mather was right, it will demonstrate that humans can change clouds in ways that were once
thought impossible.'
A Dr. Mather refused to be daunted by this image. After all, the principle seemed perfectly
plausible. Water droplets are swept up to the top of the clouds on updrafts, where they become
supercooled (i.e., although the temperature is below freezing, the water remains liquid). When a
supercooled droplet collides with an ice crystal, it freezes on contact and sticks. Successive
collisions cause each ice crystal to accumulate more water droplets; the crystals grow until they
become too heavy to remain suspended in the atmosphere. As the crystals fall through the cloud,
they become raindrops. The ice crystals, therefore, act as frames to 'grow' raindrops.
B Dr. Mather, unfortunately, will not be involved in the debate about such matters. He died aged
63, shortly before the documentary was completed. It will ensure that this smooth-talking
maverick is given the recognition he deserves.
C He and a colleague decided to collect a last batch of data when they flew into a tiny but
ferocious storm. That storm, Dr. Mather says in the film, changed his life. Huge droplets were
spattering on the tiny plane's windscreen. No such storm had been forecast. Back on the ground,
they discovered the storm was located directly above a paper mill.
D A trial in Mexico has been running for two years, and the signs are promising. 'We were
sufficiently encouraged in the first year to continue the seeding research. But the results are
preliminary because we have only a very small sample of clouds at the moment. We need to
work over two more summers to reach a proper conclusion.
E He arranged to fly to South Africa 'with the full intention of explaining what was wrong with
the experiment'. Instead, he came back convinced that Dr. Mather was on to something. He is
now running two experiments, one in Arizona and one in northern Mexico to try to verify the
South African results. The experiments use potassium chloride, which is similar to table salt
(sodium chloride) and, it is claimed, non-polluting.
F The scientific community remained sniffy in the face of this apparent proof. Foremost among
the skeptics was Dr. William Cooper, of the United States National Centre for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR). Dr. Cooper, regarded as one of the world's finest cloud scientists, saw Dr.
Mather present his astonishing claims at a cloud physics conference in Montreal.
G They involved weather experts firing rockets into clouds to stop them from producing hail,
which damages crops. The clouds, it was hoped, would dissolve into a harmless shower.
H The desire to do so led him to set up a project in South Africa, which was ultimately to
convince him that it was possible. As the program reveals, experiments around the world appear
to prove his faith was justified.
KEY
1. H: In the opening paragraph, we learn that Dr Mather tried to make clouds rain and that almost
everyone else in the meteorological community (people involved in the study of the earth's
atmosphere and the weather) advised him not to. We also learn that a film has been made about
him. The opening sentence is a play on words - if you 'have your head in the clouds', you have
unrealistic aims or ideas, which some people thought was true of Dr Mather, who was also
involved in the study of actual clouds.
In H, the phrase “to do so” refers back to the end of the opening paragraph and means 'to make
clouds rain'. As a result of his desire to make clouds rain, he set up a project. A film has been
made which shows that various experiments have proved that he was right to think it could be
done.
The paragraph after the gap gives some information about what had happened regarding weather
modification (causing the weather to change) before Dr Mather got involved in it.
2. G: In the paragraph before the gap, we learn that the science of weather modification had
claimed many reputations, which means that many scientists had lost their good reputations as
a result of getting involved in it. We also learn that the idea began in the 1940s and grew after
the Second World War.
In G, they at the beginning refers back to the efforts made after the Second World War that are
mentioned at the end of the paragraph before the gap. The paragraph then describes efforts to
prevent clouds from producing hail (frozen rain that fails as little balls of ice) that would damage
crops and make them produce rain instead.
In the paragraph after the gap, we are told that the entire discipline (the whole field of weather
modification) then acquired a bad reputation.
3. A: In the paragraph before the gap, we learn that the science of weather modification got a bad
reputation because commercial companies “hijacked the idea” (took it over for their own
purposes) and “failed to deliver on their promises” (failed to do what they had promised to do -
this must mean they did not prove that cloud-seeding was possible, as they had promised to). As
a result, the process became the preserve (an activity exclusively done by) of crackpots (crazy
people) and charlatans (cheats who make false claims about being experts to something in order
to make money).
In A, we are told that Dr Mather refused to be daunted by this image. This image refers back
to the image that people had of weather modification, or cloud-seeding, which was that it was the
preserve of crackpots and charlatans. Dr Mather was not discouraged by the fact that people
had this image of weather modification because the principle (the basic idea on which a theory
is based) seemed perfectly plausible (believable). The rest of the paragraph consists of a
detailed explanation of what that principle is with regard to what happens in clouds.
In the paragraph after the gap, this explanation is continued, moving on from what happens in
clouds to what scientists believed they could do to change what naturally happens in clouds.
4. C: In the paragraph before the gap, we learn that none of the experiments which were carped
out to prove the theory that clouds could be affected by scientists worked. Dr Mather had no
success himself in this, and so he was about to admit defeat (accept that success was impossible
and give up), but then serendipity (the ability to make fortunate discoveries completely by
chance) intervened (entered into the situation and changed it).
In C, we are told what happened when serendipity intervened. The last batch of data refers
back to the experiments he made that are mentioned in the paragraph before the gap and means
that he collected a last batch of data before giving up these experiments. When he was collecting
this, there was an unexpected storm, which he discovered was directly above a paper mill (a
factory for processing paper).
In the paragraph after the gap, the place and from there both refer back to the paper mill
mentioned at the end of C. We learn in this paragraph that Dr Mather thought that the paper mill
had caused the storm.
5. F: In the paragraph before the gap, we !earn that Dr Mather decided that there was a direct
link between the hygroscopic salts coming from the paper mill and the storm and that
subsequent experiments he connected proved that rain could be caused by certain substances
being put into clouds.
In F, we learn that the scientific community did not believe this apparent proof - that clouds
could be made to produce rain by putting certain substances into them, as described in the
paragraph before the gap. The scientific community remained sniffy (contemptuous) and
Foremost among the skeptics (one of the main people to be extremely doubtful) was Dr
Cooper. He saw Dr Mather present his astonishing claims - this refers back to his claims
concerning the effect of hygroscopic salts on clouds in the paragraph before the gap - at a
conference.
At the beginning of the paragraph after the gap. He is Dr Cooper and the first sentence means
that Dr Cooper was wary (cautious, suspicious) when he heard the claims referred to at the end
of F. In this paragraph, we learn that he was wary because Dr Mather was considered to be a
smooth-talking salesman (someone who tried to convince others of something that is probably
not true by means of speaking persuasively), because scientists don't trust other scientists who
are charming and charismatic (having a great personal charm that makes them have influence
over other people because other people are impressed by them), because Dr Mather had been
working in the commercial sector (this implies that Dr Mather's conclusions might have been
influenced by commercial considerations) and because Dr Mather was considered to be a
maverick (someone in a particular field of work with unconventional views and methods which
are often disapproved of). The phrase On that occasion refers back to Dr Mather's appearance at
the conference, mentioned at the end of F.
6. E: In the paragraph before the gap, we learn that Dr Cooper considered Dr Mather's results
impossible but felt that the statistical evidence for them was overwhelming (enormous) and as a
result was confused.
In E, Dr Cooper goes to South Africa to prove Dr Mather wrong but comes back believing that
Dr Mather was on to something (had discovered something that could have important
consequences). Dr Cooper is now conducting two experiments himself - in Arizona and in
Mexico - to verify (to confirm, to make sure that they are what they seem) the results so far
obtained in South Africa, using a kind of salt.
In the paragraph after the gap, Dr Cooper is speaking about the experiments referred to in E. In
the first sentence, those findings refers back to the South African results in E and there refers
back to Arizona and Mexico in E. He talks shout how significant it would be if his experiments
have the same results as those already conducted in South Africa, since this would prove that
clouds can be made to produce rain if certain substances are put into them.
7. B: In the paragraph before the gap, we learn that, although it might have been proved that
cloud - seeding is possible, scientists must exercise (use) caution on the matter because it is a
subject that is still mired in (prevented from making progress because of) controversy. Another
reason why caution is necessary is that because water is such a precious resource, the possibility
that it can be produced from making clouds rain puts the subject into the political arena (the
world of politics).
In B, such matters refer back to the controversy surrounding cloud-seeding and the fact that it
could become a political issue, both of which are mentioned in the paragraph before the gap. Dr
Mather won't be involved in discussing these issues because he died shortly before the film about
him had been completed. However, we are told that the film will result in Dr Mather getting the
recognition he deserves.
In the paragraph after the gap, we are told why Dr Mather deserves such recognition.
TEST 26
GANGS: the new tribes
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ a class of fresh-faced 12-year-olds were asked
upon commencing secondary school. Their new English teacher – Mrs Marcus – asked this
question every year and it seemed to fire the imagination of every child. Usually, there was a
smattering of professions, vocations and trades, along with some interesting surprises. This lot
did not disappoint.
It turns out they were a highly varied lot: doctor, nurse, lawyer, judge, electrician, archaeologist,
businesswoman, vet, police officer, hairdresser, actor, shop assistant. There was trouble
containing their enthusiasm, with some throwing out more than one idea. A few had non-specific
ambitions, ‘I don’t know. I want to travel’, and ‘ I just want to go to university.’ All of them had
opinions, some stronger than others, but opinions nonetheless.
I’m particularly interested in the differences between that generation and the current one. ‘Hopes
and dreams,’ she replies immediately. ‘Whether your classmates achieved those things or not is
irrelevant. The important thing is you had ideas about your future; you had aspirations. When I
have asked that question in recent years, instead of setting their sights on becoming a scientist, a
lawyer or an artist, the best some children could think of was going on the dole, being famous, or
being the boss of a gang,’ she says.
3.
It is a vicious circle that becomes increasingly difficult to break. It was crucial for my peers and
me that we knew people who worked and we could make decisions about our ambitions based on
some knowledge. We had the benefit of seeing our parents, relatives, and neighbors going to
work, returning from work, talking about their jobs, or their time at university. These experiences
informed our ideas, ambitions and, let’s face it, our expectations, too. We wouldn’t have dreamt
of alternative. After all, work and study were our means to get ahead and make our way in life.
4
This lies at the very core of a gang’s appeal. The aimlessness of some youths’ experience is
replaced by the rigid system of rules, rituals, and codes of behavior that members follow, and
which gives them a purpose and adds much – needed structure to their lives. In many cases, the
gang becomes a surrogate family, providing security, camaraderie and a sense of belonging.
These powerful inducements exert a strange power over vulnerable teenagers.
5.
I ask Margaret what it is that can drive such a change. ‘I’ve known many young boys who have
turned over a new leaf,’ she says. ‘The key is intervention at the grassroots level. Community
programs that keep kids off the streets and involve them in pro-social activities are great
deterrents. Strong after-school programs that meet children’s needs for supervision are also
successful in reducing attraction to gang-related activities. These cost money, though, and
authorities are often not willing to spend,’ she explains, ‘and sadly, some kids fall through the
cracks.’
What chance for rehabilitation do they have, I wonder, when they cling to their gangs even in
these circumstances? Admittedly, the need for survival plays a role since those in prison rely on
their fellow gang members for protection. After all, prison is no picnic and is possibly more
dangerous in an environment than the outside world. But even in here, there is hope.
‘You can’t make anyone succeed, but you can help them to see that success in life is possible
outside of the narrow confines of the gang,’ says Margaret. ‘If we give young people
opportunities to bring about a change in their circumstances, they can build a happy future.’
Let’s hope that the next time Margaret asks 'the questions', there will be some scientists,
entrepreneurs, and plumbers in the group.
A. Success, however, can be measured in a myriad of ways, and for those without traditional
role models, gang culture becomes increasingly alluring as a way to make something of
themselves. ‘They’re not inherently bad kids,’ says Marcus, ‘they just have no direction and no
one to look up to. Were they to attach value to work and education, their whole outlook on life
would change and they wouldn’t need what gang membership provides.’
B. Though there is no conclusive evidence, many critics of popular media believe exposure to
violent films and song lyrics, particularly rap music, has a negative influence; glamorizing gang
life and encouraging at-risk youths to join gangs or to participate in gang-related crime as a
means of gaining a sense of belonging and empowerment.
C. Those who do join a gang inevitably end up in a downward spiral, losing any moral
foundation they had and hurtling headlong into a life of violence and crime. And yet, even when
they are placed in juvenile detention centers, or worse – in adult prisons – some maintain their
allegiance to the gang and look upon their membership as a badge of honor; a mark of success,
not failure.
D. Thick and fast came the replies. ‘Teacher,’ said a bespectacled girl in the front row. Mrs
Marcus smiled to herself. The prospective teachers always sat as close as possible to the board,
eager and serious. ‘Football player!’ shouted a tall lad from the back, raising his arms in victory
as though he’d just scored a winning goal against Argentina at the World Cup. Mrs Marcus knew
he’d be a live wire in class. ‘Prime Minister’, said another, garnering a round of applause as well
as ridicule from his classmates.
E. How has it come to this? A recent report has found that children in some areas of the country
have so little contact with working people that the concept of employment is almost foreign.
They live in the so-called ‘welfare ghettos’ where more than half of the working-age population
depends on out-of-work benefits. In many families, unemployment is intergenerational with
grandparents and parents living on the dole.
F. Thankfully, in many cases the lure is temporary. It becomes nothing more than a phase that
plays to their fantasies of rebellion and desire for high drama, in part fueled by pop culture
through music and films that glamorize thug life. In time, these wannabe gangsters find other
interests and reject the values of the gang.
G. Fast forward twenty years and Mrs Margaret Marcus is now teaching at an inner-city school
in a large metropolis. Hoping to get some insight from this forty-year veteran of the education
system, I’m interviewing her about the challenges faced by young people today. ‘So you became
a journalist instead of a teacher,’ she says with a twinkle in her eye. Yes, I was that child in the
specs long ago. Before getting down to business, we reminisce for a few moments about my
classmates.
H. There are many organizations that are working positively with young people in gangs, both
inside and outside of detention, and helping them through some very difficult times in their lives.
With this help, they can stop their slide into crime and violence, and make the tough transition of
evolving into productive, responsible and law-abiding members of society.
KEY
1. D
“Their new English teacher – Mrs Marcus – asked this question every year and it seemed to fire
the imagination of every child.” connects with “Thick and fast came the replies. ‘Teacher,’ said
a bespectacled girl in the front row.”
2. G
“Before getting down to business, we reminisce for a few moments about my classmates.”
connects with “' Hopes and dreams,' she replies immediately. 'Whether your classmates
achieved those things or not is irrelevant. The important thing is you had ideas about your future;
you had aspirations. When I have asked that question in recent years, instead of setting their
sights on becoming a scientist, a lawyer or an artist, the best some children could think of was
going on the dole, being famous, or being the boss of a gang,’ she says.”
3. E
“When I have asked that question in recent years, instead of setting their sights on becoming a
scientist, a lawyer or an artist, the best some children could think of was going on the dole,
being famous, or being the boss of a gang,’ she says.” connects with “How has it come to
this?”
4. A
‘They’re not inherently bad kids,’ says Marcus, ‘they just have no direction and no one to look
up to. Were they to attach value to work and education, their whole outlook on life would change
and they wouldn’t need what gang membership provides.’ connects with “This lies at the very
core of a gang’s appeal. The aimlessness of some youths’ experience is replaced by the rigid
system of rules, rituals, and codes of behavior that members follow, and which gives them a
purpose and add much – needed structure to their lives.”
5. F
“In many cases, the gang becomes a surrogate family, providing security, camaraderie and a
sense of belonging. These powerful inducements exert a strange power over vulnerable
teenagers.” connects with “Thankfully, in many cases the lure is temporary.”
6. C
“And yet, even when they are placed in juvenile detention centres, or worse – in adult prisons –
some maintain their allegiance to the gang and look upon their membership as a badge of
honor; a mark of success, not failure.” connects with “What chance for rehabilitation do they
have, I wonder, when they cling to their gangs even in these circumstances?”
7. H
“But even in here, there is hope.” connects with “There are many organizations that are working
positively with young people in gangs, both inside and outside of detention, and helping them
through some very difficult times in their lives.”
TEST 1
Part 9. In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 119-125,
read the passage and choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There is
ONE extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the corresponding
WELCOME TO ECO-CITY
The world has quietly undergone a major shift in balance. According to UN estimates, 2008
marked the first year in history when more than half of the world's population lived in cities.
There are now around 3.4bn human beings stuffed into every available corner of urban space,
and more are set to follow. At a time when humanity has woken up to its responsibility to the
environment, the continuing urban swell presents an immense challenge. In response, cities all
over the world are setting themselves high targets to reduce carbon emissions and produce clean
energy. But if they don't succeed, there is another option: building new eco-cities entirely from
scratch.
119.
`Rather than just design a city in the same way we'd done it before, we can focus on how to
minimise the use of resources to show that there is a different way of doing it', says Roger Wood,
associate director at Arup. Wood is one of hundreds of people at Arup, the engineering and
architecture giant, hired by Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation to set out a master plan
for the Dongtan eco-city.
120.
When the first demonstrator phase is complete, Dongtan will be a modest community of 5000.
By 2020, that will balloon to 80,000 and in 2050, the 30km2 site will be home to 500,000. Arup
says that every one of those people will be no more than seven minutes' walk from public
transport. Only electric vehicles will be allowed in the city and residents will be discouraged
from using even those because each village is planned so that the need for motorised transport is
minimal.
121.
That's a big cornerstone of Arup's design for Dongtan. The aim is that the city will require 66
percent less energy than a conventional development, with wind turbines and solar panels
complementing some 40 percent that comes from biological sources. These include human
sewage and municipal waste, both of which will be controlled for energy recovery and
composting. Meanwhile, a combined heat and power plant will burn waste rice husks.
122.
Work on Dongtan had been scheduled to begin in late 2008 with the first demonstration phase
completed by 2010. Unfortunately, problems resulting from the complicated planning procedures
in China have led to setbacks. Dongtan's rival project in Abu Dhabi has suffered no such hold-
ups. Engineers broke ground on the Masdar eco-city in March 2008. Although it will take a
different approach in terms of design, like Dongtan, the city is planned to be a zero-carbon, uber-
efficient showcase for sustainable living.
123.
In the blistering desert of the Gulf state, where it's almost too hot to venture outdoors for three or
four months of the year, the big question for Masdar is how to keep cool without turning on the
air-conditioning. In this equation, insulation and ventilation suddenly become more important
than the performance of solar panels. To maximise shade, I the city's streets are packed closely
together, with limits of four or five storeys set on the height of most buildings.
124.
The other major design feature for Masdar is that the whole city is raised on a deck. The
pedestrian level will be free of vehicles and much of the noisy maintenance that you see in
modern cities. Cars are banned from Masdar entirely, while an underground network of `podcars'
ferries people around the city.
125.
Given that this concern is legitimate, developers of both cities would do well to incorporate both
a range of housing and jobs to make them inclusive to everyone. This will be difficult, obviously,
but then just about everything is difficult when you're completely reinventing the way we build
and live in a metropolis. And supposing these sustainable and super-efficient cities are
successful, could they even usher in a new world order?
A. The city will be built on a corner of Chongming Island in the mouth of the Yangtze River. It
will be made up of three interlinked, mixed-use villages, built one after the other. Each will
combine homes, businesses and recreation, and a bridge and tunnel link will connect the
population with Shanghai on the mainland.
B. The skin of each building will be crucial. Thick concrete would only soak up heat and release
it slowly, so instead engineers will use thin walls that react quickly to the sun. A thin metal layer
on the outside will help to reflect heat and stop it from penetrating the building. Density is also
critical for Masdar. The city is arranged in a definite square with a walled border. Beyond this
perimeter, fields of solar panels, a wind farm and a desalination plant will provide clean energy
and water, and act as a barrier to prevent further sprawl.
C. 'If you plan your development so people can live, work and shop very locally, you can quite
significantly reduce the amount of energy that's being used', Wood says. `Then, not only have
you made the situation easier because you've reduced the energy demand, but it also means that
producing it from renewable sources becomes easier because you don't have to produce quite as
much'.
D. Arup's integrated, holistic approach to city planning goes further still. Leftover heat from the
power plant will be channelled to homes and businesses. Buildings can be made of thinner
materials because the electric cars on the road will be quiet, so there's less noise to drown out.
Dongtan will initially see an 83 per cent reduction in waste sent to landfill compared to other
cities, with the aim to reduce that to nothing over time. And more than 60 per cent of the whole
site will be parks and farmland, where food is grown to feed the population.
E. Developers at Masdar and Dongtan are adamant that each city will be somewhere that people
want to live. Critics do not question this but they do, nevertheless, wonder if these cities will be
realistic places for people on a low income. They say that it would be easy for places like these
to become a St Tropez or a Hamptons, where only rich people live.
F. Funded by a 12bn (euro) investment from the government in Abu Dhabi, it has not passed the
attention of many observers that Masdar is being built by one of the world's largest and most
profitable producers of oil. Even so, under the guidance of architects as Foster and Partners, the
city is just as ambitious as its Chinese counterpart and also hinges on being able to run on low
power.
G. Since cars and other petrol-based vehicles are banned from the city, occupants will share a
network of ‘podcars' to get around. The 'personal rapid transit system' will comprise 2500
driverless, electric vehicles that make 150,000 trips a day by following sensors along a track
beneath the pedestrian deck. Up to six passengers will ride in each pod: they just hop in at one of
83 stations around the city and tap in their destination.
H. Incredibly, this is already happening. Two rival developments, one in China and one in the
United Arab Emirates, are progressing in tandem. Work on Masdar, 17km from Abu Dhabi,
began in 2008, while Dongtan, near Shanghai, will eventually be home to half a million people.
The aim for both is to build sustainable, zero-carbon communities that showcase green
technology and demonstrate what smart urban planning can achieve in the 21st century.
KEY
119. H
“But if they don't succeed, there is another option: building new eco-cities entirely from
scratch.” connects with “Incredibly, this is already happening.”
“The aim for both is to build sustainable, zero-carbon communities that showcase green
technology and demonstrate what smart urban planning can achieve in the 21st century.”
connects with “Rather than just design a city in the same way we'd done it before, we can focus
on how to minimise the use of resources to show that there is a different way of doing it”
“Work on Masdar, 17km from Abu Dhabi, began in 2008, while Dongtan, near Shanghai, will
eventually be home to half a million people.” connects with “Wood is one of hundreds of people
at Arup, the engineering and architecture giant, hired by Shanghai Industrial Investment
Corporation to set out a master plan for the Dongtan eco-city.”
120. A
“Wood is one of hundreds of people at Arup, the engineering and architecture giant, hired by
Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation to set out a master plan for the Dongtan eco-city.”
connects with “The city will be built on a corner of Chongming Island in the mouth of the
Yangtze River”
“It will be made up of three interlinked, mixed-use villages, built one after the other.” connects
with “Only electric vehicles will be allowed in the city and residents will be discouraged from
using even those because each village is planned so that the need for motorised transport is
minimal.”
121. C
“Then, not only have you made the situation easier because you've reduced the energy demand,
but it also means that producing it from renewable sources becomes easier because you don't
have to produce quite as much” connects with “That's a big cornerstone of Arup's design for
Dongtan. The aim is that the city will require 66 percent less energy than a conventional
development, with wind turbines and solar panels complementing some 40 percent that
comes from biological sources.”
122. D
“These include human sewage and municipal waste, both of which will be controlled for
energy recovery and composting. Meanwhile, a combined heat and power plant will burn
waste rice husks” connects with “Arup's integrated, holistic approach to city planning goes
further still”
123. F
“Although it will take a different approach in terms of design, like Dongtan, the city is planned
to be a zero-carbon, uber-efficient showcase for sustainable living.” connects with “Even so,
under the guidance of architects as Foster and Partners, the city is just as ambitious as its
Chinese counterpart and also hinges on being able to run on low power”
124. B
“In the blistering desert of the Gulf state, where it's almost too hot to venture outdoors for three
or four months of the year, the big question for Masdar is how to keep cool without turning on
the air-conditioning” connects with “The skin of each building will be crucial. Thick concrete
would only soak up heat and release it slowly, so instead engineers will use thin walls that
react quickly to the sun”
125. E
“They say that it would be easy for places like these to become a St Tropez or a Hamptons,
where only rich people live” connects with “Given that this concern is legitimate, developers
of both cities would do well to incorporate both a range of housing and jobs to make them
inclusive to everyone”
TEST 2
Part 9. In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 119-125,
read the passage and choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There is
ONE extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the corresponding
The Rise of Silicon Valley
On January 11, 1971, an article was published in the trade newspaper Electronic News about the
companies involved in the semiconductor and computer industries in Santa Clara Valley at the
southern end of San Francisco Bay Area in California, USA. The article was entitled 'Silicon
Valley USA', a reference to the fact that silicon is the most important substance used in
commercial semiconductors and their applications. The name stuck, and in light of the
commercial success of the companies there, 'Silicon Valley' is now used as a metonym for the
high-tech sector.
119.
One such new business was the one founded by two graduates of the nearby Stanford University
called Bill Hewlett and David Packard. In 1938 the pair had $538, and along with Dave's wife
Lucile, decided to rent a property at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto. For $45 a month they got a
ground floor apartment for Dave and Lucile, a garden shed where Bill slept, and a garage from
which to run the business, a garage which has more recently been dubbed 'The birthplace of
Silicon Valley'.
120.
As time passed, the 200A was improved and developed, resulting in the 200B. Eight of these
improved oscillators were bought by The Walt Disney Company, for use in testing and certifying
the Fantasound surround-sound systems installed in cinemas for the 1940 movie Fantasia.
Success was beginning to come.
121.
Although they are often considered to be the symbolic founders of Silicon Valley, they did not
deal in semiconductor devices until the 1960s. From then onwards, the semiconductor devices
they made were mostly intended for internal use, for such products as measuring instruments and
calculators. Today, however, Hewlett-Packard is the largest manufacturer of personal computers
in the world.
122.
Terman also had a more direct influence through his role at Stanford University. The University
had been established in 1891 in the north-western part of the Santa Clara Valley, and from the
start, its leaders aimed to support the local region. The result was that the University played an
important part in establishing and developing local businesses, and indeed its alumni went on to
found some major companies, not just Hewlett-Packard, but such household names as Yahoo!
and Google.
123.
Terman's proposal was taken up by Stanford University, and in 1951 Stanford Industrial Park
was created. The first tenant in the Park was Varian Associates, founded by Stanford alumni in
the 1930s to make components for military radars. Hewlett-Packard moved in two years later.
The Park still flourishes to this day, although it is now known as Stanford Research Park. Current
tenants include Eastman Kodak, General Electric and Lockheed Corporation.
124.
The 1950s were also a time of great development in electronics technology. Most importantly,
the development of the transistor continued. Research scientist William Shockley moved to the
Santa Clara Valley region in 1956, when he formed Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. There
his research team started constructing semiconductors from silicon, rather than germanium, as
did most other researchers. The silicon transistors proved to perform much better, and started to
be used in radios and the early computers.
125.
Since the 1970s, however, the most important developments pioneered in Silicon Valley have
been in software and Internet services rather than hardware. So even though Hewlett-Packard
remains the largest producers of computers in the world, the future of Silicon Valley might well
lie elsewhere.
A. Throughout their early years, Hewlett and Packard were mentored by one of their university
professors, Frederick Terman. Terman was Stanford University's dean of engineering and
provost during the 1940s and 1950s, and had a positive influence on many of the successful
companies in Silicon Valley. Indeed, his influence was such that he has been dubbed 'the father
of Silicon Valley'. Terman encouraged his students to form their own companies and personally
invested in many of them, and in this way nurtured many highly successful companies, including
not just Hewlett-Packard, but others such as Varian Associates and Litton Industries.
B. Hewlett-Packard was arguably the first company to offer a mass-produced personal

computer, namely the 9100A. For marketing reasons, however, the 9100A was sold as a 'desktop
calculator'. It simply did not resemble what was then considered a 'computer', namely the large
machines being sold by IBM. The 9100A fitted comfortably on a desk, and possessed a small
screen and a keyboard. In fact, it was more like an oversized and over-expensive precursor of a
pocket calculator than a modern PC, since its keyboard lacked letter keys.
C. Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, universities in the United States were
experiencing enormous enrolment demands from the returning military personnel. Terman
proposed launching a scheme which would kill two birds with one stone. The idea was to lease
out land owned by Stanford University to high-technology companies for their offices. This
scheme would firstly finance the University's growth requirements and thereby facilitate a larger
student intake, and secondly provide local employment opportunities for graduating students.
D. The beginnings of Silicon Valley can be traced back to the early twentieth century. At that
time, Santa Clara Valley was known for its orchards which flourished in California's balmy
climate. There were nevertheless a number of experimenters and innovators in such fields as
radio, television and military electronics, and several people were trying to take advantage of any
business opportunities that might arise.
E. It was also in Silicon Valley that other revolutionary electronic components were developed.
The silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor and the microcomputer were all invented
by companies there, as well as such electronic devices as the mouse and the ink-jet printer.
Indeed, Silicon Valley has been the world's most important site of electronic innovation over the
past 50 years.
F. In those early years, Hewlett-Packard was a company without a focused direction. They made
a whole range of electronic products, with diverse customers in industry and agriculture. In the
1940s, their principal products were test equipment, including such devices as voltmeters,
oscilloscopes and thermometers. They aimed to provide better quality products than their
competitors, and made a big effort to make their products more sensitive and accurate than their
rivals.
G. Another bond between the University and the local high-technology businesses was
established in 1954, with the creation of the Honors Cooperative Program. This programme
allowed employees of the businesses to pursue part-time graduate degrees at the University
whilst continuing to work full-time in their jobs. In this way, key workers in the electronics
industry were able to hone their skills and knowledge, creating the foundation for the
development of Silicon Valley.
H. Of the many products Hewlett and Packard worked on, the first financially successful one
was a precision audio oscillator, a device for testing sound equipment. This product, the 200A,
featured the innovative use of a small light bulb as a temperature-dependent resistor in a critical
section of the circuit, which allowed them to sell it for $54.40, only a quarter of the price of their
competitors' audio oscillators.
KEY
119. D
“The name stuck, and in light of the commercial success of the companies there, 'Silicon Valley'
is now used as a metonym for the high-tech sector.” connects with “The beginnings of Silicon
Valley can be traced back to the early twentieth century”.
“There were nevertheless a number of experimenters and innovators in such fields as radio,
television and military electronics, and several people were trying to take advantage of any
business opportunities that might arise.” connects with “One such new business was the one
founded by two graduates of the nearby Stanford University called Bill Hewlett and David
Packard”
120. H
“One such new business was the one founded by two graduates of the nearby Stanford
University called Bill Hewlett and David Packard” connects with “Of the many products
Hewlett and Packard worked on, the first financially successful one was a precision audio
oscillator, a device for testing sound equipment.”
121. F
“Eight of these improved oscillators were bought by The Walt Disney Company, for use in
testing and certifying the Fantasound surround-sound systems installed in cinemas for the 1940
movie Fantasia.” connects with “In those early years, Hewlett-Packard was a company without
a focused direction”
122. A
“Terman was Stanford University's dean of engineering and provost during the 1940s and
1950s, and had a positive influence on many of the successful companies in Silicon Valley.”
connects with “Terman also had a more direct influence through his role at Stanford
University”
123. C
“Terman proposed launching a scheme which would kill two birds with one stone.” connects
with “Terman's proposal was taken up by Stanford University, and in 1951 Stanford Industrial
Park was created.”
124. G
“Another bond between the University and the local high-technology businesses was established
in 1954, with the creation of the Honors Cooperative Program.” connects with “The 1950s were
also a time of great development in electronics technology.”
125. E
“The silicon transistors proved to perform much better, and started to be used in radios and the
early computers.” connects with “It was also in Silicon Valley that other revolutionary
electronic components were developed”
TEST 3
THE ORIGIN OF ADVERTISING

Advertising has become a major force in our modern world. Through our airwaves, up in the
skies, on walls, streets and along motorways, almost nowhere can we go and not be bombarded
by adverts. It has become so prevalent that scientists and researchers have analyzed its
sociological effect extensively – how it influences buying habits, desensitizes consumers and in
some cases even repels them.
119.
Such rudimentary content is also believed to be present in the first printed adverts, used by
ancient Egyptians to communicate sales messages through the use of papyrus. In contrast with
the ephemeral nature of today’s advertising, they would also carve messages of commerce into
stone or on steel plates, which would remain visible for a lifetime.
120.
Naturally, we cannot know for sure, but one would guess that the power of persuasion was
present in the spoken adverts of ancient times. You could suppose that the loudest, most colorful,
most entertaining crier garnered the most business. Although we do not experience this form of
advertisement often today, sellers in public markets in Europe and the Middle East still employ
this method.
121.
The specific message on the printing plate was ‘We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-
quality needles to be ready for use at home in no time', and the seller also placed a rabbit logo
and the name of his shop in the center. The plate, made of copper and dating back to the Song
dynasty of the 10th-century China, was used to print posters the dimensions of which were nearly
perfect squares roughly the size of a window frame.
122.
It was not until the rise of newspapers did advertising makes its next big leap. During this time,
targeted slogans and catchphrases became popular. The first such instance of a paid newspaper
advert appeared in the French newspaper La Presse in 1836 and what was so revolutionary about
it was that the seller paid for its placement, allowing the newspaper to charge its readers less.
123.
Known as quackery, such messages boasted cures for common ailments that went above and
beyond what traditional remedies could provide. Naturally, an unsuspecting and undereducated
public was particularly susceptible to such fabrications. Much as how quackery would be
dispelled today, doctors went out of their way to publish medical journals debunking the claims
made by these adverts.
124.
In the advert, a painting of a child blowing bubbles – a work of art literally entitled Bubbles, by
English artist Sir John Everett Millais – was used as the background of a poster, with the product
visible in the foreground. The visual immediately linked the product with high – class society
and it is a tactic that is undeniably still very much used today.
125.
Along with the staggering investment is the use of a broad range of tactics to maximize impact,
such as focus groups, evocative imagery, storytelling, and seemingly boundless product
placement. So psychological is the effect that it has given rise to the belief that companies know
everything about you. Nevertheless, with such creativity poured into the field, one can still
appreciate its art form and its place in history.
A. One need look no further than failed advertising campaigns. Some went too far in their shock
value, had to be apologized for and hurt the brand more than they helped. In one example, a
game manufacturer, in order to promote the carnal violence visible in the game, held an event
which showcased an actual deceased goat.
B. For better or worse, there was no stopping the budding advertising industry. Agencies started
to spring up and with that came campaigns. The first successful campaign was for the British
soap manufacturer Pears. With the help of chairman Thomas James Barratt, the company
successfully linked a catchy slogan with high culture.
C. In contrast to the adverts being produced for the literate populace of this region, text was
largely absent from adverts that proliferated in the towns and cities of medieval Europe. To
circumvent this obstacle, adverts used commonly recognizable imagery such a boot for a cobbler
or a diamond for a carver to promote products and services. And still, criers remained the go-to
medium for relaying the sellers’ messages to the public.
D. Also entering the industry was the vast sums of money that companies would splash out on
campaigns. A little over one hundred American companies in 1893 spent 50,000 US dollars on
advertising campaigns. That equates to over one million US dollars today, still a fraction of what
today’s companies spend at nearly 500 billion pounds globally.
E. In this era, though, the medium with the greatest prevalence was oral. Public criers would
circulate messages in urban centers to passers-by advertising various products. There is evidence
of written adverts and for more than just selling wares. In one such advert found at the ruins of
Thebes dated 1,000 BC, a man was offering a reward for a runaway slave. But oral messages
were the main method of delivery until the invention of the printing press in 1450.
F. But there was a time when an advert was a rare occurrence and its effect on society amounted
to no more than its core function; that is, to connect seller and buyer. We know that the written
word began around 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian civilization that existed in
modern-day southern Iraq. The make – up of this early scrawling consisted of grain inventories,
from what historians and linguists can make of it.
G. Adverts in ancient times did contain an element of sophistication which essentially lured
buyers, albeit less obviously. On the other side of the world, in ancient China, the language of
adverts contained selling points and friendly imagery, such as in an advert to coax people into
using a craftsman’s services. This particular advertising medium is considered the oldest
example of printed advertising.
H. That formula was soon copied by other publishers looking to increase their profits while
expanding their circulation. British newspapers, which had been using newspaper advertising
since the 18th century, used adverts to promote books and newspapers themselves. The printing
press had made their production much more affordable and advertising content expanded to
include medicines, in what would prove to be the first instances of false advertising.
KEY
119. F
"We know that the written word began around 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian
civilization that existed in modern-day southern Iraq. The make – up of this early scrawling
consisted of grain inventories, from what historians and linguists can make of it.” connects
with “Such rudimentary content is also believed to be present in the first printed adverts, used
by ancient Egyptians to communicate sales messages through the use of papyrus.”
120. E
“In one such advert found at the ruins of Thebes dated 1,000 BC, a man was offering a reward
for a runaway slave. But oral messages were the main method of delivery until the invention of
the printing press in 1450.” connects with “Naturally, we cannot know for sure, but one would
guess that the power of persuasion was present in the spoken adverts of ancient times.”
121. G
“Although we do not experience this form of advertisement often today, sellers in public markets
in Europe and the Middle East still employ this method.” connects with “On the other side of
the world, in ancient China, the language of adverts contained selling points and friendly
imagery, such as in an advert to coax people into using a craftsman’s services.”
122. C
“And still, criers remained the go-to medium for relaying the sellers’ messages to the
public.” connects with “It was not until the rise of newspapers did advertising makes its next big
leap.”
123. H
“The first such instance of a paid newspaper advert appeared in the French newspaper La
Presse in 1836 and what was so revolutionary about it was that the seller paid for its
placement, allowing the newspaper to charge its readers less.” connects with “That formula
was soon copied by other publishers looking to increase their profits while expanding their
circulation.”
124. B
“The first successful campaign was for the British soap manufacturer Pears. With the help
of chairman Thomas James Barratt, the company successfully linked a catchy slogan with high
culture.” connects with “In the advert, a painting of a child blowing bubbles – a work of art
literally entitled Bubbles, by English artist Sir John Everett Millais – was used as the
background of a poster, with the product visible in the foreground.”
125. D
“Also entering the industry was the vast sums of money that companies would splash out
on campaigns.” connects with “Along with the staggering investment is the use of a broad
range of tactics to maximize impact, such as focus groups, evocative imagery, storytelling and
seemingly boundless product placement.”
TEST 4
Where to next?
Are travelers selfish?
Travel, when you think about it, is largely a selfish pursuit. It’s all about me, me, me. Places I
can go to, people I can meet, things I can see, food I can try, my bucket list, my experiences. Are
you a self-absorbed traveler? Let’s look at some common scenarios, starting with the plight of
traveler seeking to discover something unique.
119.
Your first reaction is to blame the guide book, regardless of the fact that it’s probably the way
you found out about it, too. And it’s true, that book in your hand has a bit to answer for. But
that’s a simplistic notion. In an age of mass tourism, of backpacker grapevines, of internet and
travel blogs, it’s inevitable that what was once a pristine paradise will be seething with tourists
before long.
120.
You can direct a little blame at the locals, too. Without their efforts, that which seems to offend
you would not exist. They like the money and they want more – although it’s a bit hard to blame
them for that. If tourist cash spent at beach bars and souvenir shops can ease poverty and raise
living standards it would be selfish to begrudge the locals their chance at a better life.
121.
Honestly, either accept a place as it is, even if it doesn't live up to your expectations or go
elsewhere if the trappings of the progress are too offensive for your sensibilities. Don’t blame the
guide books, the internet, the Trip Advisor. Don’t blame your fellow tourists. And definitely
don’t blame the locals for trying to improve their lives – that would be the height of selfishness.
122.
They say money makes the world go round. So how do you spend your hard-earned cash on
holiday? Do you shop locally? If you stay, eat and shop in places owned by locals, your money
will stay in the community and help generate jobs. Foreign-owned resorts or hotel chains may
offer a higher level of comfort and extra facilities, but very little of what you pay actually trickles
down into the local economy. If there’s a beach nearby, do you really need a swimming pool?
123.
And last but not least where money’s concerned, bargain fairly. Saving an extra dollar on that T-
shirt or souvenir will hardly make a dent in your budget, but it can make a huge difference to the
seller. Once, I was disgusted to witness a shameful exchange in which a well-fed foreigner
haggled hard to get a novelty toy for less than half price. The saving? Fifty measly cents. Adding
insults to injury, he boasted about it to his companions. He felt great because he’d put one over
on the locals. Don’t be that person!
124.
People say there’s something about lending a hand that lifts voluntourism above the average
travel experience. But I think there's still an element of selfishness even to the noble volunteers
who help build homes or teach art to children. You do these things because it downsizes to all
this goodwill, however, is that voluntourism is actually quite expensive. Most companies that
organize volunteer trips will charge you plenty for the experience – often far more than it would
cost you to just visit those countries on your own.
125.
Well, that’s it. Some of you will disagree with my views, but I’m up for a good debate. Are you a
selfish traveler?
A. Maybe you’re not the kind of travelers who thinks hell is other people. Maybe you’re happy
to discover and share the world with others. That’s commendable. But while you’re roaming the
planet, think about your personal impact on the people and the places around you. Are you
contributing in positive ways that can be of benefit to others, or are you exacerbating problems?
Are you causing harm to satisfy selfish needs?
B. You get to an exotic destination expecting to find an untouched and unspoiled paradise, a
secluded fantasyland just for you, far from the well-worn tourist path….and the place is crawling
with other travelers. There are loud and obnoxious backpackers, huge speakers thumping out the
most awful dance music, and tour buses spewing their human cargo.
C. One last thing before I get off my soapbox: voluntourism. It’s a novel concept, and, to those
whose idea of travel is a secluded resort and a day spa, a somewhat frightening one. The idea is
simple: as a traveler from the first world, you’re usually in a far more privileged position than
those who live in the countries you’re visiting. But, rather than just comfort yourself with the
knowledge that your money is helping their economy, why not do something tangible to help
out, even for just a few days?
D. There is something imperialistic about not allowing – or wanting – less developed countries to
develop along the lines of our own cultures. After a recent trip to Nepal, a member of our group
was complaining about locals in a village, and how the place was spoilt because there was an
internet café. I couldn’t believe in my ears. Why can’t these Nepalese people enjoy the web if
they so choose?
E. Stay calm and don’t get angry if you think you’ve been charged a bit more for your transport,
hotel or food. Perhaps it’s just an honest mistake. Try to point out the discrepancy in a polite and
respectful way, and don’t accuse anyone of dishonesty. Yes, it’s your hard-earned cash, but don’t
assume that people want to rob you of it just because they have less.
F. Be careful about what you’re buying, too. In countries with lax environmental regulations, or
where authorities turn a blind eye to illegal trade, it’s not difficult to find products made from
endangered species such as shell, coral and certain woods. It never fails to shock me when I hear
of anyone buying ivory products, like carving or jewellery. And then there’s medicine made
from parts of endangered animals. Don’t even think about it! The tiger population in Asia has
been drastically reduced, and for what? Some crackpot cure that doesn’t work.
G. Isn’t this concept of an exclusive paradise selfish? Not only that, but the arrogance implicit in
it is astonishing too. Without wishing to state the obvious, the second you decide to go to a place
because it is paradise, you are part of the problem. The blaring speakers, international sport on
big screen TVs, karaoke, fish and chips – it’s all there because it’s what the tourists want.
H. Yes, that’s right – you pay the organization to go and work for free. The money is supposed to
go into the community, but often, shady operators pocket the profits. As if that wasn’t bad
enough volunteers could be taking jobs from locals. Think about it. If there’s free labor, i.e. you,
why would anyone employ a local? That’s probably what I find most disturbing about the whole
concept. It’s not ethical or responsible, and in my humble opinion, best avoided.
KEY
119. B
“Let’s look at some common scenarios, starting with the plight of traveler seeking to discover
something unique.” connects with “You get to an exotic destination expecting to find an
untouched and unspoiled paradise, a secluded fantasyland just for you, far from the well-
worn tourist path….and the place is crawling with other travelers.”
120. G
“But that’s a simplistic notion. In an age of mass tourism, of backpacker grapevines, of internet
and travel blogs, it’s inevitable that what was once a pristine paradise will be seething with
tourists before long.” connects with “ Isn’t this concept of an exclusive paradise selfish? Not
only that, but the arrogance implicit in it is astonishing too.”
121. D
“After a recent trip to Nepal, a member of our group was complaining about locals in a
village, and how the place was spoilt because there was an internet café. I couldn’t believe in
my ears. Why can’t these Nepalese people enjoy the web if they so choose?” connects with
“Honestly, either accept a place as it is, even if it doesn’t live up to your expectations, or go
elsewhere if the trappings of the progress are too offensive for your sensibilities.”
122. A
“Are you contributing in positive ways that can be of benefit to others, or are you
exacerbating problems? Are you causing harm to satisfy selfish needs?” connects with “They say
money makes the world go round. So how do you spend your hard-earned cash on holiday?
Do you shop locally?”
123. F
“Be careful about what you’re buying, too.” connects with “And last but not least where
money’s concerned, bargain fairly.”
124. C
“One last thing before I get off my soapbox: voluntourism.” connects with “People say there’s
something about lending a hand that lifts voluntourism above the average travel experience.”
125. H
“Most companies that organize volunteer trips will charge you plenty for the experience –
often far more than it would cost you to just visit those countries on your own. “ connects with
“Yes, that’s right – you pay the organization to go and work for free. The money is supposed
to go into the community, but often, shady operators pocket the profits.”
TEST 5
. In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 119-125, read the
Disposable Buildings?
Look at a building, any building. What can it tell you? Few would dispute that architecture
reflects the taste and style of the period that gave rise to it.
119.
Today’s architectural landmarks tend to be secular rather than religious. For the present purpose,
however, it is less important to acknowledge a building’s patronage than it is to carefully
scrutinize its form. So, observe a contemporary building. What stands out? Discord? A
hodgepodge of odd shapes and garish colours that jar? What about the next? The same? Seeing
one modern building does little to prepare the viewer for the next one; uniformity is negligible.
120.
In the larger scheme of things, these differences are minor and it is safe to say that uniformity of
appearance is a major factor that differentiates between the buildings of the past and those of the
present. Another important distinction and one so obvious that it may seem to go without saying,
is that modern buildings do not look like old buildings, (unless they are built in imitation, like
neoclassical architecture, for example).
121.
This is more than a comment on the quality of the respective building materials. The pyramids
were built to last; the Millennium Dome most assuredly was not. This is not to say that the
intention for modern structures is that they should last a certain amount of time and then fall
down – as a kind of disposable building. Nevertheless, they are undeniably designed and built
with only the most immediate future in mind.
122.
The people of the past, on the other hand, looked ahead. It is clear that they intended a building
to be there for future generations. This is corroborated by the fact that, in countries where the
climate allows it, they planted trees. Consider this: planting a tree, especially one that will
someday grow to be very big, is the ultimate in altruistic behaviour. When a man plants an oak
sapling, he knows very well that he will not see the tree that it will become.
123.
There is a third element particularly relevant to contemporary architecture – the aesthetic

element. Aesthetics pose a challenge because they are inherently subjective. Beauty is, indeed, in
the eye of the beholder; we all have likes and dislikes, and they are not the same. Even allowing
for this, however, most would probably agree that ‘beautiful’ is not the most apt way to describe
the majority of modern buildings.
124.
With most modern buildings, we certainly are. Without interventions, these words inevitably
take on a negative connotation, yet it can be constructive to be confronted with something
completely different, something a bit shocking. A reaction is provoked. We think. All art evolves
with time, and architecture, in all its varied manifestations, is, after all, a form of art.
125.
As a result, we have been left with much material for study from past eras. What will we leave
behind us, in turn? If our culture still places a value on the past and its lessons or a belief that we
carry our history with us, in continuity, to the future, then this view has not been reflected in our
architecture. The generations of the future may not be able to benefit from us as we have
benefited from the generations of the past.

A The fact remains, though, that until the present day, art forms have been made to last.
Countless paintings and sculptures, as well as buildings, bear witness to this. The artists and
architects of the past strove to impart their creations with attributes that would stand the test of
time. It was part and parcel of the successful execution. It was an expression of pride; a boast. It
was the drive to send something of themselves to live on into the future, for reasons selfless and
selfish both.
B For architecture, patronage has always been important. While this method of financing a work
of art is as old as the idea of art itself, it gathered huge momentum during the Renaissance.
During this period, wealthy and powerful families vied with each other in a competition for the
creation of the breathtakingly beautiful and the surprisingly different. It was a way of buying into
their own immortality, and that of the artist or the architect to boot.
C Indeed, it is rare to see a modern building that has worn well, that is free from leaks or rising
damp, that is without bits of its outer structure falling off. It is hard to call to mind an edifice
built in the last fifty years which is not like this or will not soon be. These days, we are not
interested in posterity: if a building serves our purpose and that of our children, that seems to be
enough.
D However, neither of these distinctions reveal much about the builders, apart from their
aesthetic and their fondness for visual conformity. Now, take a look at some old buildings. The
fact that you can see them at all, that they are intact and relevant, is what opens up the chasm
between the present and the past. We do not know how long today’s architectural heritage will
last, but the chances are that it will not stand the test of time.
E Why is this? Do we not require our buildings to be beautiful any longer? Perhaps beauty has
become architecturally superfluous, or just plain old-fashioned. It could be that the idea of beauty
is too sentimental and sugary for the contemporary taste. Maybe the modern psyche demands
something more stimulating and less easy than beauty. Perhaps we yearn to be challenged.
F Historic buildings from a common era, on the other hand, resemble each other. Take the
example of the Gothic cathedral. To the non-specialist, one Gothic cathedral looks much like the
next; if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. This view, while extreme, is correct in the sense
that there is a uniformity of style in every Gothic cathedral ever built. Anyone can see it. It takes
an enthusiast, however, to spot and appreciate the myriad subtleties and differences.
G In contrast, any tree-planting that takes place today is largely commercial, motivated by the
quest for immediate gain. Trees are planted that will grow quickly and can be cut down in a
relatively short space of time. The analogy between tree planting and the construction of
buildings is a good one; both activities today show thinking that is essentially short-term and
goal driven; we want an instantaneous result and, on top of that, we want it to be profitable.
H Buildings, however, can reveal considerably more than that. They give us a unique insight into
the collective mind and culture of those responsible for their construction. Every building was
conceived with an objective in mind, to serve some purpose or assuage some deficiency, and
someone was responsible for commissioning them. Throughout the course of history, buildings
have generally been constructed at the instigation of the rich and powerful – products of politics,
religion or both. This is what makes them so revealing.
Your answers
119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125.
119. H
“Few would dispute that architecture reflects the taste and style of the period that gave rise to
it.” connects with “Buildings, however, can reveal considerably more than that. They give us
a unique insight into the collective mind and culture of those responsible for their construction.”
“Throughout the course of history, buildings have generally been constructed at the instigation
of the rich and powerful – products of politics, religion or both.” connects with “Today’s
architectural landmarks tend to be secular rather than religious. For the present purpose,
however, it is less important to acknowledge a building’s patronage than it is to carefully
scrutinize its form.”
120. F
“Seeing one modern building does little to prepare the viewer for the next one; uniformity is
negligible.” connects with “Historic buildings from a common era, on the other hand, resemble
each other.”
“It takes an enthusiast, however, to spot and appreciate the myriad subtleties and differences.”
connects with “In the larger scheme of things, these differences are minor and it is safe to say
that uniformity of appearance is a major factor that differentiates between the buildings of the
past and those of the present.”
121. D
“Another important distinction and one so obvious that it may seem to go without saying, is
that modern buildings do not look like old buildings, (unless they are built in imitation, like
neoclassical architecture, for example).” connects with “However, neither of these distinctions
reveal much about the builders, apart from their aesthetic and their fondness for visual
conformity.”
“We do not know how long today’s architectural heritage will last, but the chances are that it will
not stand the test of time.” connects with “This is more than a comment on the quality of the
respective building materials.”
122. C
“Nevertheless, they are undeniably designed and built with only the most immediate future in
mind.” connects with “ Indeed, it is rare to see a modern building that has worn well, that is
free from leaks or rising damp, that is without bits of its outer structure falling off.”
“These days, we are not interested in posterity: if a building serves our purpose and that of our
children, that seems to be enough.” connects with “The people of the past, on the other hand,
looked ahead.”
123. G
“Consider this: planting a tree, especially one that will someday grow to be very big, is the
ultimate in altruistic behaviour.” connects with “In contrast, any tree-planting that takes place
today is largely commercial, motivated by the quest for immediate gain.”
124. E
“Even allowing for this, however, most would probably agree that ‘beautiful’ is not the most apt
way to describe the majority of modern buildings.” connects with “Why is this? Do we not
require our buildings to be beautiful any longer? Perhaps beauty has become architecturally
superfluous, or just plain old-fashioned. It could be that the idea of beauty is too sentimental
and sugary for the contemporary taste.”
125. A
“The artists and architects of the past strove to impart their creations with attributes that would
stand the test of time.” connects with “As a result, we have been left with much material for
study from past eras.”

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