READING
Task 1. You are going to read a magazine article about threatened languages. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. For questions 1 - 6 choose from the paragraphs A - G the one which fits each gap. There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
The Value of the World Languages Thousands of the world’s languages are dying, taking to the grave not just words but records of civilisations and cultures that we may never come to fully know or understand. It is a loss of which few people are aware, yet it will affect us all. Linguists have calculated that of the 6,000 languages currently spoken worldwide most will disappear over the next hundred years. As many as1,000 languages have died in the past 400 years. Conversely, the handful of major international languages are forging ahead.
Your answer:
But the vast majority of the world never had need of phrases in Heiltsuk (a Native Indian language from the Canadian Pacific coast of British Columbia which is now dead). Nor will most people be interested in learning any of the 800 languages spoken on the island of New Guinea or the 2,400 spoken by Native American Indians (many of which are threatened), but their deaths are robbing us of the knowledge needed to write many chapters of history.
Your answer:
Documenting a threatened language can be difficult and dangerous, requiring consummate diplomacy with tribes, some of which may be meeting outsiders for the first time and may well be wary about why these strangers need so much information about their language. ‘Some peoples are extremely proud of their language while others are sceptical of the ‘white man’ believing he now wants to rob them of their language as well,’ says Kortlandt.
Your answer:
‘There are about 200 Tibeto-Burman languages, only about ten of which have been properly described’, says Kortlandt. ‘We now have fourteen PhD students describing different, unknown languages.’ The problem is it can take years to document a language. ‘We are generally happy when we have a corpus of texts which we can read and understand with the help of a reliable grammar and dictionary provided by a competent linguist, preferably including texts of some particular interest’, says Kortlandt.
Your answer:
To non-linguists it must seem an odd issue to get worked up about. Why waste so much time saving languages spoken by so few and not concentrate on the languages of the future that most of us speak? Why look back instead of forward? ‘Would you ask a biologist looking for disappearing species the same question?’Kortlandt asks. ‘Or an astronomer looking for distant galaxies? Why should languages, the mouthpiece of threatened cultures, be less interesting than unknown species or galaxies? Language is the defining characteristic of the human species. These people say things to each other which are very different from the things we say, and think very different thoughts, which are often incomprehensible to us.’
Your answer:
Take, for example, the vast potential for modern medicine that lies within tropical rainforests. For centuries forest tribes have known about the healing properties of certain plants, but it is only recently that the outside world has discovered that the rainforests and coral reefs hold potential cures for some of the world’s major diseases. All this knowledge could be lost if the tribes and their languages die out without being documented.
Your answer:
Kortlandt is blunt about why some languages have suffered. ‘If we look back to the history of the Empire,’ he says, ‘for social, economic and political reasons, a majority never has an interest in preserving the culture of a minority.’
Removed paragraphs:
A) Frederik Kortlandt, Professor of Comparative Linguistics at Leiden University in Holland, has a mission to document as many of the remaining endangered languages as he can. He leads a band of language experts trekking to some of the most inaccessible parts of the earth to save such threatened languages.
B) This is one of the factors worrying Paul Qereti, a linguist in Fiji in the South Pacific. There are hundreds of known remedies in Fiji’s forests. The guava leaf relieves bowel disorders , the udi tree eases sore throats, and hibiscus leaf tea is used by expectant mothers. There are possibly scores more yet to be discovered. We will only be able to find them and benefit from their properties through more of the 300 languages and dialects spoken on the Fijian islands. If the languages die, so too will the medicinal knowledge of naturally occurring tonics, rubs and potions. Science could be left wondering what we might have found. English is now spoken by almost everyone in Fiji and Qereti is teaching Fijians how to speak their own disappearing native languages and dialects.
C) In September this year, like-minds met in Kathmandu for a conference on how to save some Himalayan languages spoken by just a handful of people. A great number of languages in the greater Himalayan region are endangered or have already reached the point of no return.
D) As Kortlandt stresses, ‘If you want to understand the human species, you have to take the full range of human thought into consideration. Language is the binding force of culture, and the disappearance of a language means the disappearance of culture. It is not only the words that disappear, but also knowledge about many things.’
E) Kortlandt knows a language is disappearing when the younger generation does not use it any more. When a language is spoken by fewer than forty people, he calculates that it will die out. Every now and then language researchers get lucky. Kamassian, a southern Samoyed language spoken in the Upper Yenisey region of Russia, was supposed to have died out, until two old women who still spoke it turned up at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia in the early 1970s.
F) According to the Atlas of Languages, Chinese is now spoken by 1,000 million people and English by 350 million. Spanish, spoken by 250 million people, is fast overtaking French as the first foreign language choice of British schoolchildren.
G) Kortlandt is one of several linguists who have sounded the alarm that humankind is on the brink of losing over fifty percent of its languages within the next generation or two. ‘This loss may be unavoidable in most cases,’ says one authority, ‘but at the very least, we can record as much as we can of these endangered languages before they die out altogether. Such an undertaking would naturally require support from international organisations, not to mention funding.’
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 2. You are going to read an extract from a book about life in cities. For questions 7- 13, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Image and the City
In the city, we are barraged with images of the people we might become. Identity is presented as plastic, a matter of possessions and appearances; and a very large proportion of the urban landscape is taken up by slogans, advertisements, flatly photographed images of folk heroes- the man who turned into a sophisticated dandy overnight by drinking a particular brand of drink, the girl who transformed herself into a femme fatale with a squirt of cheap scent. The tone of the wording of these advertisements is usually pert and facetious, comically drowning in its own hyperbole. But the pictures are brutally exact: they reproduce every detail of a style of life, down to the brand of cigarette-lighter, the stone in the ring, and the economic row of books on the shelf.
Yet, if one studies a line of ads across from where one is sitting on a tube train, these images radically conflict with each other. Swap the details about between the pictures, and they are instantly made illegible. If the characters they represent really are heroes, then they clearly have no individual claim to speak for society as a whole. The clean-cut and the shaggy, rakes, innocents, brutes, home-lovers, adventurers, clowns all compete for our attention and invite emulation. As a gallery, they do provide a glossy mirror of the aspirations of a representative city crowd; but it is exceedingly hard to discern a single dominant style, an image of how most people would like to see themselves.
Even in the business of the mass-production of images of identity, this shift from the general to the diverse and particular is quite recent. Consider another line of stills: the back-lit, soft-focus portraits of the first and second generations of great movie stars. There is a degree of romantic unparticularity in the face of each one, as if they were communal dream-projections of society at large. Only in the specialised genres of westerns, farces and gangster movies were stars allowed to have odd, knobbly cadaverous faces. The hero as loner belonged to history or the underworld: he spoke from the perimeter of society, reminding us of its dangerous edges.
The stars of the last decade have looked quite different. Soft-focus photography has gone, to be replaced by a style which searches out warts and bumps, emphasises the uniqueness not the generality of the face. Voices, too, are strenuously idiosyncratic; whines, stammers and low rumbles are exploited as features of ‘star quality’. Instead of romantic heroes and heroines, we have a brutalist, hard-edged style in which isolation and egotism are assumed as natural social conditions.
In the movies, as in the city, the sense of stable hierarchy has become increasingly exhausted; we no longer live in a world where we can all share the same values, the same heroes. (It is doubtful whether this world, so beloved of nostalgia moralists, ever existed; but lip-service was paid to it, the pretence, at least, was kept up.) The isolate and the eccentric push towards the centre of the stage; their fashions and mannerisms are presented as having as good a claim to the limelight and the future as those of anyone else. In the crowd on the underground platform, one may observe a honeycomb of fully-worked-out worlds, each private, exclusive, bearing little comparison with its nearest neighbour. What is prized in one is despised in another. There are no clear rules about how one is supposed to manage one’s body, dress, talk, or think. Though there are elaborate protocols and etiquettes among particular cults and groups within the city, they subscribe to no common standard.
For the new arrival, this disordered abundance is the city’s most evident and alarming quality. He feels as if he has parachuted into a funfair of contradictory imperatives. There are so many people he might become, and a suit of clothes, a make of car, a brand of cigarettes, will go some way towards turning him into a personage even before he has discovered who that personage is. Personal identity has always been deeply rooted in property, but hitherto the relationship has been a simple one - a question of buying what you could afford, and leaving your wealth to announce your status. In the modern city, there are so many things to buy, such a quantity of different kinds of status, that the choice and its attendant anxieties have resulted in further degradation of taste.
The leisure pages of the Sunday newspapers, fashion magazines, TV plays, popular novels, cookbooks, window displays all nag at the nerve of our uncertainty and snobbery. Should we like American cars, hard-rock hamburger joints, Bauhaus chairs ... ? Literature and art are promoted as personal accessories: the paintings of Mondrian or the novels of Samuel Beckett ‘go’ with certain styles like matching handbags. There is in the city a creeping imperialism of taste, in which more and more commodities are made over to being mere expressions of personal identity. The piece of furniture, the pair of shoes, the book, the film, are important not so much in themselves but for what they communicate about their owners; and ownership is stretched to include what one likes or believes in as well as what one can buy.
7. What does the writer say about advertisements in the first paragraph?
8. The writer says that if you look at a line of advertisements on a tube train, it is clear that
9. What does the writer imply about portraits of old movie stars?
10. What does the writer suggest about the stars of the last decade?
11. The writer uses the crowd on an underground platform to exemplify his belief that
12. The writer implies that new arrivals in a city may
13. What point does the writer make about city dwellers in the final paragraph?
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 3. Read a newspaper article in which people talk about their experiences at job interviews. For questions 14 -25, choose from the people (A- F). The sections may be chosen more than once.
Talking Yourself into a Job
Being interviewed for a job can be a stressful experience. We asked six people what they learnt from being in that situation.
A
My first interview for a job taught me a great deal. I was applying for the position of junior account executive in an advertising company, which involves dealing with clients on a face-to-face basis. It follows that you have to be good at interpersonal skills, and unfortunately, that’s not the impression I gave. Like a lot of people, I tend to babble when I’m nervous. The interviewer began by asking me to say something about myself, and I started talking about my hobbies. But I got carried away and went off at a tangent, which made a bad impression. The other lesson I learnt was that if you are asked what your weaknesses are, you really shouldn’t be evasive. You could mention a weakness that can also be a strength. For example, being pedantic is not always a bad thing in certain circumstances, and you should explain how you cope with that weakness, but you have to say something.
B
In my present job I have to interview applicants, and I can offer a few general tips. Firstly, a candidate should not learn a speech off by heart; you will come across as insincere, as if you have practiced everything in front of a mirror. Secondly, it is crucial to understand what the interviewer wants you to talk about. For instance, an interviewer might ask about a situation where your supervisor or manager had a problem with your work. Now, what the interviewer is really after is to see how you react to criticism, and the best thing is to say that you tried to learn from this. Finally, don’t try to conceal your real character. When I was interviewed for a job many years ago, the interviewer asked me at the end of our talk if I had any questions. I was very keen to get the job, so I asked what opportunities there were for promotion if I were hired. I wondered if perhaps I had been too direct, but I later discovered that employers like you to seem eager, and I think they were impressed by my enthusiasm and ambition.
C
One good way to prepare for an interview is to find out as much as you can about the company applied to from its website and promotional material. When you are asked if you have any questions, you can show that you have done this preparatory work, which will impress the interviewer. I also think a lot of candidates are too defensive in interviews. It’s not enough just to avoid giving the ‘wrong’ answers; you should also actively try to make a good impression. Make it clear that the interview is a twoway process: after all , you want to be sure the company is the right place for you. It’s acceptable to take the opportunity, when one is offered, to interview the interviewer! One way to do this is to ask him or her some penetrating questions such as why he or she has stayed with the company for so long. Some people might think such a question is arrogant, so size up the interviewer first and decide whether it would be an appropriate thing to ask.
D
I remember one interview I attended with a company that makes ice cream and other dairy products. I didn’t know much about the company, and it was brought home to me that I should have found out some basic facts. I turned up in a smart business suit and tie, only to find that my prospective employers were in jeans! They believed in being casual: no private offices, everyone ate in the same canteen, people all used first names with each other etc. I realised I should have done more research. Needless to say, 1 didn’t get the job. On another occasion, at the end of an interview, I was asked if I had anything to say. I was so relieved that the interview was over that I just smiled and blurted out: ‘No thanks!’ I later realised this was a mistake. A candidate should decide in advance on at least ten things to ask the interviewer: it’s not necessary to ask more than two or three questions, but you need to have some in reserve in case the question you wanted to ask is answered in the course of the interview.
E
Preparation is of extreme importance; things like finding out what form the interview will have. Will there be any sort of written component, for instance, and will you be talking to one person or a panel? And of course, you need to prepare answers to those awkward questions designed to find out more about your character. For example, you might be asked about your most important achievement so far; don’t answer this in a way that makes you seem swollen-headed or complacent as this will suggest that you don’t learn easily. Actually, it’s not so much what people say that makes them seem arrogant as the way they sit, how they hold their heads, whether they meet the interviewer’s eye, so bear that in mind. Another question interviewers sometimes ask, to find out how well you work in a team, is about mistakes you have made. You should have an example ready and admit that you were at fault, otherwise it looks as though you are the kind of person who shifts the blame onto others. But you should also show that you learnt from the mistake and wouldn’t make it again.
F
Being nervous can make you forget things, so always take detailed notes with you to an interview, even about the simplest things - this will help you feel less nervous. I also think you have to strike the light balance between being too arrogant and too self-effacing. For example, if you are asked where you see yourself in five years’ time, don’t be diffident about showing that you are ambitious. You could even say you’d like to be doing the interviewer’s job! Show that your ambition is the force that drives you – employers are happy to see this characteristic because it also suggests you will work hard. Take every opportunity to reinforce the impression that you are eager; one way is by asking questions about the job. This suggests that you will take it seriously. You could also ask what made the last person to fill the position you have applied for successful, or what you could accomplish in the job that would satisfy the interviewer. Naturally, the answers to questions like this are valuable in themselves, but frankly, the main reason for asking is to ensure you make the right impression.
Which person mentions the following?
14. establishing how the interview will be conducted
15. the importance of keeping to the point
16. awareness of body language
17. sources of information about your prospective employer
18. dressing appropriately
19. taking responsibility for past errors
20. appearing to have rehearsed responses
21. foreseeing the consequences of feeling apprehensive
22. an abrupt ending to an interview
23. indicating that you view the interview as a transaction
24. a relaxed atmosphere in the workplace
25. advantages in being honest about your failings
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
USE OF ENGLISH
Task 4. For questions 26 – 34 complete each group of three sentences with one particle or preposition. Some of the particles or prepositions may be used more than once. You do not need use all of them.
- for
- on
- off
- down
- up
- in
- over
- back
- out
- after
- through
- about
26. Your answer:
A. Cast your minds _________ to this morning.
B. Some of the runners started to fall _________ as the pace quickened.
C. Can you phone me _________ this morning?
27. Your answer:
A. They split _________ after ten years of marriage.
B. I’m a bit tied _________at the moment. Can I call you later?
C. A car pulled _________ outside the building.
28. Your answer:
A. The business has to branch _________ into new areas.
B. He kept trotting _________ the same old excuses.
C. The minister was voted _________at the election.
29. Your answer:
A. The match was rained _________.
B. He was due to appear but cried _________ at the last minute.
C. The protesters were aiming for the town centre but police managed to head them _________ .
30. Your answer:
A. We’ve been waiting _________for ages with nothing to do.
B. How do you go _________ persuading someone as obstinate as her?
C. Stop standing _________ and get on with it.
31. Your answer:
A. This constant noise really wears you _________ after a while.
B. It seems that the choices boil _________to just two possibilities.
C. It’s time the police started to crack _________ on this sort of behaviour.
32. Your answer:
A. They pored _________ the map, trying to find the best route.
B. I’m just going to nip _________to Jan’s to see how he is.
C. Isn’t it time we swapped _________?
33. Your answer:
A. It’s hard work but we’ll soldier _________ .
B. Let’s move _________ to the next item on the agenda.
C. I wouldn’t wish that _________my worst enemy.
34. Your answer:
A. Everyone was cheering him _________.
B. I really don’t know what you’re going _________ about.
C. Let’s push _________ : we’re starting to fall behind.
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Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 5. For questions 35 – 42 replace the underlined words with one of the adjectives listed below. There are more words than you need.
- Antiquated
- Oblivious
- Cumbersome
- Convivial
- Meticulous
- Resplendent
- Cursory
- Ingenious
- Itinerant
- Frivolous
- Unwarranted
- Fraudulent
- Exhaustive
35. This is an extremely clever = device for opening bottles with no effort.
36. The factory is still using old and out-of-date = equipment on the production line.
37. Your intrusion into my affairs is unjustified and unnecessary = .
38. The inspectors merely gave a brief and not very thorough = glance at the records.
39. The current administrative procedures are slow, inefficient and difficult to deal with = .
40. The conductor paid close and detailed = attention to the composer’s instructions.
41. I think your comments are silly and not to be taken seriously = .
42. After a thorough and painstaking = enquiry, the conclusions remained unclear.
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 6. For questions 43 – 56 choose the correct answer A, B, C or D.
43. Don’t say anything while Ian is here. Wait until he .....
44. ..... now unhappy with their exam results.
45. Rebecca doesn’t look very well this morning - not well enough to go to work. You say to her: ..... to work this morning.
46. Rachel, as well as the boys, ..... out.
47. Although John was reluctant at first, we finally ..... his guitar for us.
48. Mr Lee was upset ..... him the truth.
49. That book is by a famous anthropologist. It’s about the people in Samoa ..... for two years.
50. Are you going to tell Anna what happened, or ..... her?
51. ..... , modern classical music would sound very different.
52. Tom wasn’t at the party last night. I guess, he must not ..... a ride though he had promised to come.
53. When we were children, we lived by the sea. In summer, if the weather was fine, we ..... early and go for a swim.
54. You’re usually very patient, so why are you ..... about waiting ten more minutes?
55. There were a ..... few people rather disappointed with the result.
56. ....., they finally managed to reach a compromise.
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Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 7. For questions 57 – 64 choose (P) for sentences that contain a purpose clause, and (R) for sentences with a result clause.
57. Such was their confusion that my parents ended up getting totally lost.
58. So brilliant a footballer was he that he played for his country at the age of eighteen.
59. I worked hard so that my mother wouldn’t complain.
60. We’d left early to make sure we got there in time.
61. They played loud music every evening, so the neighbours began to complain.
62. Such was our annoyance that we refused to co-operate further.
63. We didn’t eat the shellfish and consequently weren’t as sick as everyone else.
64. He locked his drawer lest somebody should look in it overnight.
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 8. Read a conversation between two people gossiping about their colleague. For questions 65 – 73 choose a word from the list (A – N) to complete the conversation below. There are more words than you will need.
Criticizing People
- Game
- hubbub
- devices
- league
- mind
- nest
- person
- grave
- agog
- making
- tomb
- skin
- trumpet
- pipe
Gloria: Jason behaves as he wants to without being influenced by others.
Betsy: I think he is his own (65) . Nobody can make him do anything he doesn’t want to.
Gloria: And he is always saying how wonderful he is.
Betsy: I know. He never stops blowing his own (66) .
Gloria: And I don’t like the fact that he is sure that he is head and shoulders above the rest.
Betsy: Doesn’t he believe that he is in a (67) of his own?
Gloria: I’m sure his behaviour will cause him a lot of trouble.
Betsy: Definitely. And he’s digging his own (68) , isn’t he!
Gloria: It’s his own fault that he’s so unpopular.
Betsy: I know, it’s of his own (69) .
Gloria: Moreover, for me he is very indecisive. If he is allowed to do what he wants without helping him or trying to control him, he often takes the wrong decisions.
Betsy: Exactly! When left to his own (70) he wouldn’t bother to lift a finger.
Gloria: Besides, when faced with problems, he protects only himself, regardless of others.
Betsy: Yes, and his colleague don’t expect him to support them - he only wants to save his own (71) .
Gloria: Everyone thinks he’s using his position to make money dishonestly.
Betsy: Yes, they suspect him of feathering his own (72) .
Gloria: The trouble is, it encourages others to use the same methods as he does.
Betsy: That’s right. I suppose they’re trying to play him at his own (73) .
Gloria: Yes, they want to get revenge by showing him how unpleasant it is.
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0
Task 9. For questions 74 – 88 choose the correct answer A, B, C or D.
Cambridge Cambridge is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately 55 miles (89 km) north of London. Cambridge is a city with such a
(74)
reputation that
(75)
who come here find themselves intimidated by the place and can’t wait to leave, while
(76) ,
taking to it like a duck to water, find themselves returning again and again. The college lawns provide a gorgeous
(77)
to serious study, and in the right light, on a sunny winter’s morning day, one feels as if one is
(78)
on air, such is the sense of unreality. Cambridge may like to
(79)
that it is at the intellectual
(80)
of things, but in many ways it is no more than a sleepy backwater where, to mix metaphors, transitory students, the
(81)
of their generation, wait in the
(82) ,
allowing their talents to
(83)
before moving off into the industrial or political
(84) .
Much of this is a myth, of course. Hardship and hard work are very much part and
(85)
of student life. The level-headed get through the three years’ hard
(86)
simply by putting their shoulders to the
(87)
before going on to fairly average jobs. Only for the tiny minority is Cambridge the first
(88)
on the ladder to fame and fortune.
Total Questions: 0
Incorrect Answers: 0