PRACTICE TEST 1

LISTENING

SECTION 1 Questions 1 – 10

Questions 1 – 10
Complete the notes.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.

School Excursion
Day: Wednesday (Example)
Destination: 1 ________________
Weather: 2 ________________
Arrival time: 3 ________________
Activities Planned
See: 4 ________________
Eat: Catered lunch
Attend: 5 ________________
Return time: 6 ________________

Questions 7-10
Complete the table.
Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

Nationality %

7 ________________ 26

8 ________________ 25

9 ________________ 16

- Indonesian 15
10 ________________ 8

- Saudi 7

- Other 3

SECTION 2 Questions 11 – 26

Questions 11 - 15
Choose the correct letter, A, B, or C.
11 The company deals mostly with:
A big cities.
B nature holidays.
C Nepal.
12 The overseas consultants deal mostly with:
A Asia.
B North America.
C Europe.
13 For deserts and gorges, customers should come in the:
A morning.
B afternoon.
C night.
14 Trips to regional locations are good because:
A the buses are comfortable.
B there is storage for suitcases.
C they can be seen quickly.
15 SleekLine buses are particularly known for their:
A service.
B size.
C comfort.
Questions 16-20
Identify the rooms in the office plan.
Write the correct letter, A-G, next to the questions.
16 Local Tours
17 Interstate Tours
18 International Tours
19 Asian Region
20 General Office

SECTION 3 Questions 21 - 30

Questions 21 – 25
Complete the timetable.
Write the correct letter, A-H, for each answer.

Morning Afternoon

Monday Opening Lecture 21 ________________

Tuesday 22 ________________ Study Skills

Wednesday x 23 ________________

Thursday x x

Friday x 24 ________________

A BBQ

B Careers lecture

C Computer lab visit

D Dance

E Library tour

F Student Union induction

G University tour

H Legal rights lecture

Questions 25-30
Complete the labels.
Write ONE WORD OR A NUMBER for each answer.
 25 ________________
26 ________________
27 ________________
28 ________________
29 ________________
30 ________________

SECTION 4 Questions 31 - 40

Questions 31 - 33
Complete the sentences.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
Behaviour in parks is controlled by 31 ________________
Insect numbers are reduced by having 32 ________________
A wilderness park does not have any 33 ________________
Observing trees and lying in the grass are examples of 34 ________________
Questions 35-40
Complete the notes.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Parks

1000 years ago • sufficient wilderness

• large forests: people could 35 ________________
• desire to preserve nature began with 36
________________

Princes Park • land originally worth £ 37 ________________

• designed by Joseph Paxton
• in the middle was a 38 ________________

Neighbourhood • now regarded as a 39 ________________

Parks • satisfy a natural desire
• can be famous, e.g. in 40 ________________

READING

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.
Cutty Sark: the fastest sailing ship of all time
The nineteenth century was a period of great technological development in Britain, and
for shipping the major changes were from wind to steam power, and from wood to iron
and steel.
The fastest commercial sailing vessels of all time were clippers, three-masted ships
built to transport goods around the world, although some also took passengers. From
the 1840s until 1869, when the Suez Canal opened and steam propulsion was
replacing sail, clippers dominated world trade. Although many were built, only one has
survived more or less intact: Cutty Sark, now on display in Greenwich, southeast
London.
Cutty Sark’s unusual name comes from the poem Tam O’Shanter by the Scottish poet
Robert Burns. Tam, a farmer, is chased by a witch called Nannie, who is wearing a
‘cutty sark’ – an old Scottish name for a short nightdress. The witch is depicted in Cutty
Sark’s figurehead – the carving of a woman typically at the front of old sailing ships. In
legend, and in Burns’s poem, witches cannot cross water, so this was a rather strange
choice of name for a ship.
Cutty Sark was built in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1869, for a shipping company owned
by John Willis. To carry out construction, Willis chose a new shipbuilding firm, Scott &
Linton, and ensured that the contrast with them put him in a very strong position. In
the end, the firm was forced out of business, and the ship was finished by a competitor.
Willis’s company was active in the tea trade between China and Britain, where speed
could bring shipowners both profits and prestige, so Cutty Sark was designed to make
the journey more quickly than any other ship. On her maiden voyage, in 1870, she set
sail from London, carrying large amounts of goods to China. She returned laden with
tea, making the journey back to London in four months. However, Cutty Sark never
lived up to the high expectations of her owner, as a result of bad winds and various
misfortunes. On one occasion, in 1872, the ship and a rival clipper, Thermopylae, left
port in China on the same day. Crossing the Indian Ocean, Cutty Sark gained a lead of
over 400 miles, but then her rudder was severely damaged in stormy seas, making her
impossible to steer. The ship’s crew had the daunting task of repairing the rudder at
sea, and only succeeded at the second attempt. Cutty Sark reached London a week
after Thermopylae.
Steam ships posed a growing threat to clippers, as their speed and cargo capacity
increased. In addition, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the same year that Cutty
Sark was launched, had a serious impact. While steam ships could make use of the
quick, direct route between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the canal was of no
use to sailing ships, which needed the much stronger winds of the oceans, and so had
to sail a far greater distance. Steam ships reduced the journey time between Britain
and China by approximately two months.
By 1878, tea traders weren’t interested in Cutty Sark, and instead, she took on the
much less prestigious work of carrying any cargo between any two ports in the world.
In 1880, violence aboard the ship led ultimately to the replacement of the captain with
an incompetent drunkard who stole the crew’s wages. He was suspended from
service, and a new captain appointed. This marked a turnaround and the beginning of
the most successful period in Cutty Sark’s working life, transporting wool from
Australia to Britain. One such journey took just under 12 weeks, beating every other
ship sailing that year by around a month.
The ship’s next captain, Richard Woodget, was an excellent navigator, who got the
best out of both his ship and his crew. As a sailing ship, Cutty Sark depended on the
strong trade winds of the southern hemisphere, and Woodget took her further south
than any previous captain, bringing her dangerously close to icebergs off the southern
tip of South America. His gamble paid off, though, and the ship was the fastest vessel
in the wool trade for ten years.
As competition from steam ships increased in the 1890s, and Cutty Sark approached
the end of her life expectancy, she became less profitable. She was sold to a
Portuguese firm, which renamed her Ferreira. For the next 25 years, she again carried
miscellaneous cargoes around the world.
Badly damaged in a gale in 1922, she was put into Falmouth harbor in southwest
England, for repairs. Wilfred Dowman, a retired sea captain who owned a training
vessel, recognised her and tried to buy her, but without success. She returned to
Portugal and was sold to another Portuguese company. Dowman was determined,
however, and offered a high price: this was accepted, and the ship returned to
Falmouth the following year and had her original name restored.
Dowman used Cutty Sark as a training ship, and she continued in this role after his
death. When she was no longer required, in 1954, she was transferred to dry dock at
Greenwich to go on public display. The ship suffered from fire in 2007, and again, less
seriously, in 2014, but now Cutty Sark attracts a quarter of a million visitors a year.
Questions 1-8
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 Clippers were originally intended to be used as passenger ships.
2 Cutty Sark was given the name of a character in a poem.
3 The contract between John Willis and Scott & Linton favoured Willis.
4 John Willis wanted Cutty Sark to be the fastest tea clipper travelling between the
UK and China.
5 Despite storm damage, Cutty Sark beat Thermopylae back to London.
6 The opening of the Suez Canal meant that steam ships could travel between Britain
and China faster than clippers.
7 Steam ships sometimes used the ocean route to travel between London and China.
8 Captain Woodget put Cutty Sark at risk of hitting an iceberg.
Questions 9-13
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
9 After 1880, Cutty Sark carried ………………………… as its main cargo during its most
successful time.
10 As a captain and …………………………., Woodget was very skilled.
11 Ferreira went to Falmouth to repair damage that a …………………………. had caused.
12 Between 1923 and 1954, Cutty Sark was used for …………………………..
13 Cutty Sark has twice been damaged by ………………………… in the 21st century.

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.

What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?

A
Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient
human statues – the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the
Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources that went
into the moai – some of which are ten metres tall and weigh over 7,000 kilos – came
from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed in 1722, they met a Stone Age
culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, then transported for many kilometres,
without the use of animals or wheels, to massive stone platforms. The identity of the
moai builders was in doubt until well into the twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer, thought the statues had been created by
pre-Inca peoples from Peru. Bestselling Swiss author Erich von Daniken believed they
were built by stranded extraterrestrials. Modern science – linguistic, archaeological and
genetic evidence – has definitively proved the moai builders were Polynesians, but not
how they moved their creations. Local folklore maintains that the statues walked,
while researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues
somehow, using ropes and logs.
B
When the Europeans arrived, Rapa Nui was grassland, with only a few scrawny trees.
In the 1970s and 1980s, though, researchers found pollen preserved in lake
sediments, which proved the island had been covered in lush palm forests for
thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived did those forests disappear. US
scientist Jared Diamond believes that the Rapanui people – descendants of Polynesian
settlers – wrecked their own environment. They had unfortunately settled on an
extremely fragile island – dry, cool, and too remote to be properly fertilised by
windblown volcanic ash. When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and
farming, the forests didn’t grow back. As trees became scarce and they could no longer
construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop
yields. Before Europeans arrived, the Rapanui had descended into civil war and
cannibalism, he maintains. The collapse of their isolated civilisation, Diamond writes, is
a ’worst-case scenario for what may lie ahead of us in our own future’.
C
The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets them as
power displays by rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island, lacked other
ways of asserting their dominance. They competed by building ever bigger figures.
Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over log rails, but that
required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To feed the people, even more land
had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war began, the islanders began
toppling the moai. By the nineteenth century none were standing.
D
Archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State
University agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it was an ‘ecological
catastrophe’ – but they believe the islanders themselves weren’t to blame. And the
moai certainly weren’t. Archaeological excavations indicate that the Rapanui went to
heroic efforts to protect the resources of their wind-lashed, infertile fields. They built
thousands of circular stone windbreaks and gardened inside them, and used broken
volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist. In short, Hunt and Lipo argue, the prehistoric
Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable farming.
E
Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep the peace
between islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few people and no
wood, because they were walking upright. On that issue, Hunt and Lipo say,
archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui folklore. Recent experiments indicate that
as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of practice, easily
manoeuvre a 1,000 kg moai replica a few hundred metres. The figures’ fat bellies tilted
them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to roll and rock them side to
side.
F
Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly responsible
for the loss of the island’s trees. Archaeological finds of nuts from the extinct Easter
Island palm show tiny grooves, made by the teeth of Polynesian rats. The rats arrived
along with the settlers, and in just a few years, Hunt and Lipo calculate, they would
have overrun the island. They would have prevented the reseeding of the slow-
growing palm trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui’s forest, even without the settlers’
campaign of deforestation. No doubt the rats ate birds’ eggs too. Hunt and Lipo also
see no evidence that Rapanui civilisation collapsed when the palm forest did. They
think its population grew rapidly and then remained more or less stable until the
arrival of the Europeans, who introduced deadly diseases to which islanders had no
immunity. Then in the nineteenth century slave traders decimated the population,
which shrivelled to 111 people by 1877.
G
Hunt and Lipo’s vision, therefore, is one of an island populated by peaceful and
ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of the land, rather than by reckless
destroyers ruining their own environment and society. ‘Rather than a case of abject
failure, Rapa Nui is an unlikely story of success’, they claim. Whichever is the case,
there are surely some valuable lessons which the world at large can learn from the
story of Rapa Nui.

Questions 14-20
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Evidence of innovative environment management practices
ii An undisputed answer to a question about the moai
iii The future of the moai statues
iv A theory which supports a local belief
v The future of Easter Island
vi Two opposing views about the Rapanui people
vii Destruction outside the inhabitants’ control
viii How the statues made a situation worse
ix Diminishing food resources
14 Paragraph A
15 Paragraph B
16 Paragraph C
17 Paragraph D
18 Paragraph E
19 Paragraph F
20 Paragraph G

Questions 21-24
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 21-24 on your answer sheet.
Jared Diamond’s View
Diamond believes that the Polynesian settlers on Rapa Nui destroyed its forests,
cutting down its trees for fuel and clearing land for 21……………. Twentieth-century
discoveries of pollen prove that Rapu Nui had once been covered in palm forests,
which had turned into grassland by the time the Europeans arrived on the island.
When the islanders were no longer able to build the 22…………… they needed to go
fishing, they began using the island’s 23…………….. as a food source, according to
Diamond. Diamond also claims that the moai were built to show the power of the
island’s chieftains, and that the methods of transporting the statues needed not only a
great number of people, but also a great deal of 24……………….
Questions 25 and 26
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
On what points do Hunt and Lipo disagree with Diamond?
A the period when the moai were created
B how the moai were transported
C the impact of the moai on Rapa Nui society
D how the moai were carved
E the origins of the people who made the moai

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The idea that we are ignorant of our true selves surged in the 20th century and
became common. It’s still a commonplace, but it’s changing shape. These days, the
bulk of the explanation is done by something else: the ‘dual-process’ model of the
brain. We now know that we apprehend the world in two radically opposed ways,
employing two fundamentally different modes of thought: ‘System 1’ and ‘System 2’.
System 1 is fast; it’s intuitive, associative and automatic and it can’t be switched off. Its
operations involve no sense of intentional control, but it’s the “secret author of many of
the choices and judgments you make” and it’s the hero of Daniel Kahneman’s alarming,
intellectually stimulating book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
System 2 is slow, deliberate and effortful. Its operations require attention. (To set it
going now, ask yourself the question “What is 13 x 27?”). System 2 takes over, rather
unwillingly, when things get tricky. It’s “the conscious being you call ‘I'”, and one of
Kahneman’s main points is that this is a mistake. You’re wrong to identify with System
2, for you are also and equally and profoundly System 1. Kahneman compares System
2 to a supporting character who believes herself to be the lead actor and often has
little idea of what’s going on.
System 2 is slothful, and tires easily (a process called ‘ego depletion’) – so it usually
accepts what System 1 tells it. It’s often right to do so, because System 1 is for the
most part pretty good at what it does; it’s highly sensitive to subtle environmental
cues, signs of danger, and so on. It does, however, pay a high price for speed. It loves
to simplify, to assume WYSIATI (‘what you see is all there is’). It’s hopelessly bad at
the kind of statistical thinking often required for good decisions, it jumps wildly to
conclusions and it’s subject to a fantastic range of irrational cognitive biases and
interference effects, such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias, to name but two.
The general point about our self-ignorance extends beyond the details of Systems 1
and 2. We’re astonishingly susceptible to being influenced by features of our
surroundings. One famous (pre-mobile phone) experiment centred on a New York City
phone booth. Each time a person came out of the booth after having made a call, an
accident was staged – someone dropped all her papers on the pavement. Sometimes a
dime had been placed in the phone booth, sometimes not (a dime was then enough to
make a call). If there was no dime in the phone booth, only 4% of the exiting callers
helped to pick up the papers. If there was a dime, no fewer than 88% helped.
Since then, thousands of other experiments have been conducted, all to the same
general effect. We don’t know who we are or what we’re like, we don’t know what
we’re really doing and we don’t know why we’re doing it. For example, Judges think
they make considered decisions about parole based strictly on the facts of the case. It
turns out (to simplify only slightly) that it is their blood-sugar levels really sitting in
judgment. If you hold a pencil between your teeth, forcing your mouth into the shape
of a smile, you’ll find a cartoon funnier than if you hold the pencil pointing forward, by
pursing your lips round it in a frown-inducing way.
In an experiment designed to test the ‘anchoring effect’, highly experienced judges
were given a description of a shoplifting offence. They were then ‘anchored’ to
different numbers by being asked to roll a pair of dice that had been secretly loaded to
produce only two totals – three or nine. Finally, they were asked whether the prison
sentence for the shoplifting offence should be greater or fewer, in months, than the
total showing on the dice. Normally the judges would have made extremely similar
judgments, but those who had just rolled nine proposed an average of eight months
while those who had rolled three proposed an average of only five months. All were
unaware of the anchoring effect.
The same goes for all of us, almost all the time. We think we’re smart; we’re confident
we won’t be unconsciously swayed by the high list price of a house. We’re wrong.
(Kahneman admits his own inability to counter some of these effects.) For example,
another systematic error involves ‘duration neglect’ and the ‘peak-end rule’. Looking
back on our experience of pain, we prefer a larger, longer amount to a shorter, smaller
amount, just so long as the closing stages of the greater pain were easier to bear than
the closing stages of the lesser one.

Questions 27-31
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27 The dual process model of the brain is
A The common practice of thinking about two things at the same time.
B The conflicting impulses pushing the brain to make both more and less effort,
C The feeling of liking and not liking something simultaneously.
D The natural tendency to make sense of the world in two different ways.
28 System 2 takes charge of decision-making when
A When the brain needs a rest.
B When more mental effort is required.
C When a person feels excessively confident.
D When a dangerous situation is developing.
29 ‘Confirmation bias’ is an example of
A System 1 rushing to judgment.
B System 1 making a careful judgment.
C System 1 making a brave judgment
D System 1 judging a situation based on facts.
30 The main conclusion of the phone booth experiment was that
A People are more likely to help someone that they are attracted to.
B People are more responsive to their environment than they realize.
C People are more likely to be helpful if they think they will be rewarded.
D People are generally selfish and will always do what is best for themselves.
31 The ‘anchoring effect’ is the process by which
A Decisions are made using a numerical system.
B A subconscious factor may strongly influence our decision-making
C Decisions about prison sentences are made by rolling a dice.
D We may emphasize certain factor too much in our decision-making.

Questions 32-36
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
32 In general, humans have become less rational over the last 100 years.
33 Most people lack a clear sense of their own personal identity.
34 A person can train themselves to use System 2 most of the time.
35 People who make important decisions should be made aware of the dual-process
model.
36 In most everyday situations, people are capable of making calm and rational
decisions.

Questions 37-39
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 37-39 on your answer sheet.
37 In the course of evolutionary history System 1 has served humans well because
38 Low blood sugar or tiredness may be factors in decision making because
39 The ‘peak-end rule’ shows us that
A feeling a certain way at the conclusion of an experience decides how we remember
it.
B decision-making and judgments are made too quickly.
C having less energy means we are more likely to succumb to an irrational bias.
D being sensitive to ones’ surroundings is a useful survival skill.
E wanting more food or drink may distract us from the decision we are making.
Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.
What is the writer’s primary purpose in writing this article?
A to introduce their own research to the general reader
B to summarize and review a recently published book
C to argue against a commonly-held theory
D to encourage readers to question their own decision-making processes.