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Reading and Use of English Part 1 For questions 1 – 8, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0). Sea otters The sea otter has recently been regaining its numbers in the Pacific. (0) …….. seals and whales, sea otters are not equipped with blubber to keep warm, but have amazing fur coats. When you first observe a sea otter you may (1) …….. whether his fur is too big for him. But the 800 million hairs that (2) …….. the coat are there for a reason. By trapping air, they provide (3) …….. against the cold seawater. Not all of the social structure and (4) …….. of the otter is fully understood yet, although long-term studies are being (5) …….. out. However, we do know that otters have distinct personalities, demonstrated in the way each one (6) …….. in their reactions to humans – wary, brave, playful. Luckily, sea otters’ (7) …….. for living near the shore makes them easier to observe. Unfortunately, the types of shellfish and fish that they enjoy (8) …….. with human tastes and this rivalry causes conflict with the fishing communities. But otters are tolerated because they also keep the population of sea urchins under control.

A meditate

B reflect

A comprise

B consist

A exclusion A action

B behaviour B carried

A contradicts

B option

A accompany

C habitat 

B contrasts

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D separation

D living

D taken 

C differs

C preference

B coincide

 D involve

C seclusion

C held

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D wonder

C enclose

B insulation

A brought

A choice

C think

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C parallel

D opposes  D selection  D resemble

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Reading and Use of English Part 2 

For questions 9 – 16, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Write only one word in each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0). Rhubarb: The strange fruit The word rhubarb is thought to come from Rha, another name for the River Volga that flows through Russia, where the plant grows (0) 

in

 abundance. Rhubarb was originally used

for medicinal purposes, but it also played a role (9)  long (10) 

 a decorative garden plant

 it became a popular pie filling.

In the UK and other countries, rhubarb is often ‘forced’ – that is, grown indoors in dark and warm conditions. The first place in the world (11) )   sheds specially designed for forcing rhubarb were built was Yorkshire, UK, and they are a distinctive feature of the landscape there. Inside, the rhubarb is still picked (12) 

 candlelight to prevent the young stalks from

losing their unusual pink colour. Incredibly, the shoots of the plant can even (13)   heard growing – they pop and crack as they stretch and grow. As rhubarb’s popularity

 

increased, (14)   did the number of growers and there were more than two hundred at its height. Today, however, this number has dropped to only twelve. (15) 

 other fruit and vegetables, rhubarb seems to actually improve by being grown

in artificial conditions. Why (16) 

  try some today?

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Reading and Use of English Part 3 For questions 17 – 24, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits in the gap. There is an example at the beginning (0).

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Covering it up The Bulgarian-born Christo is called an ‘environmental artist’. He often worked on projects collaboration

in (0)   (COLLABORATE) with his wife Jeanne-Claude, who was born on the same day as him, but in Morocco. Their work was amazing – they would use plastic or fabric sheets to wrap around (17)  

 (HISTORY) buildings and structures, which included Berlin’s Reichstag, and the Pont Neuf in Paris. But perhaps most (18)    (FAMOUS) the artists also covered a stretch of the Australian coastline. Their work attract (19)   (WORLD) attention, and they were happy to be seen as (20)  

 

 (CONTROVERSY)

figures. They always maintained that their projects were purely about making works of art that people could enjoy, rather than those that portrayed a deeper meaning. They also said they were trying to create a new (21)    (CONSCIOUS) in people by presenting familiar landscapes in an unfamiliar way. Their projects were funded by selling their many (22)     (PREPARE) drawings and (23)  (SCULPT), which are now desirable items for collectors. Love them or hate them, you’ll agree that this is quite (24)  

  (ORDINARY) art.

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Reading and Use of English Part 4 For questions 25 – 30, complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between three and six words, including the word given.  26 I don’t mind which restaurant we go to this evening. DIFFERENCE It doesn’t   where we eat tonight.  27 Unless Susan wins the next game, she will be out of the competition. MEAN If Susan loses the next game     is out of the competition.  28 He didn’t pay attention to the warning. NOTICE He took the warning.  29 Carol started screaming as loudly as she could. TOP Carol began to her voice.  30 This is the first time Tim’s tried cooking this dish. ATTEMPT This is  cooking this dish.

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Reading and Use of English Part 5 You are going to read a newspaper article about some homes in the USA. For questions 31 – 36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

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When the Westbrooks moved into their house, A they made improvements to the condition of it. B they discovered features they had not known about. C they were forced to change the way they lived. D they struggled to get used to living in it. What is implied about the building of Rush Creek in the second paragraph? A Wright was not directly involved in the process. B It involved a team set up by Wright. C Wright approved of the final product. D Its connection with Wright was not known at the time. Regulations concerning Rush Creek ensure that A any changes are agreed with residents. B only small additions are permitted. C there are regular reviews of what can be considered an organic development. D disputes arising from organic developments are quickly resolved. 

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The writer says that when Wright first designed Usonian houses, A opinions on their desirability varied. B he did not expect his designs to be popular for long. C he could not have envisaged a place like Rush Creek. D lifestyle was an important consideration. What do we learn about Mrs Wakefield's home? A She has resisted the temptation to make alterations to it. B Its layout might appear confusing at first sight. C It is still as functional as when it was first built. D Lack of light could be regarded as a drawback in it. What is implied about John Gary in the final paragraph? A He often challenges the committee’s decisions. B He was upset by the committee’s decisions. C He did not expect his plans to be approved D He does not fit in well with the other residents.

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Reading and Use of English Part 6 You are going to read four extracts from newspaper articles about plans to redesign a library. For questions 37 – 40, choose from the Journalists A – D. Each journalist may be chosen more than once. Journalist A When the New York Public Library (NYPL) decided it needed an upgrade, it asked renowned architect, Norman Foster, to design a 21st-century interior for their iconic building, one that would be both practical and cutting edge. When the plans finally went on display, I could see that he’d fulfilled the brief brilliantly, but not everybody shared my enthusiasm. Never mind that Foster has sensibly proposed removing some of the dark, 19th-century features to create a light and airy vista; what really sparked controversy was his plan to remove the old stacks of barely used books and put them in underground storage, allowing the NYPL to create a café. The idea of using the aboveground areas for human activity rather than book storage is certainly to be commended as an opportunity to create a major public space for future generations of New Yorkers. Yet the plans horrify some less broad-minded citizens who in taking particular exception to the idea of the café, have lost sight of the wider benefits. Journalist B There is far more at stake than just architectural taste in the debate over plans to revamp the NYPL. The key question is what’s the point of a public library at all these days? Why would anyone really need those physical book stacks – whether in a breathtakingly airy, Foster-designed Manhattan building or in an underground storage facility? Does the plan go far enough? It’s a very fraught issue. When the NYPL was created in 1895, books were precious stores of knowledge and difficult to access. So philanthropists stepped in to support the public good and leave an ego-enhancing legacy. Traditionalists urge us to care about preserving that legacy, by which they mean those physical books, but on the whole we do not. Indeed, library visits and book circulations across the western world have been declining, as people turn to electronic alternatives. Journalist C Plans to update the NYPL represent a response to the demands of changing times, but could also be interpreted as a desperate measure which already risks being overtaken by events. This month, for example, a county in Texas decided to create a new library to serve their community – but exclusively online, without any tangible books or buildings at all. Academics and librarians bemoan the impermanence of ebooks, but also quite correctly question the assumption that Foster’s rather uninspiring revamp is any more likely to attract users to the NYPL than its current building. Although the NYPL is one of the few western libraries where attendance figures have bucked the trend and risen recently by 3.4%, it’s not necessarily the bookstacks that are pulling people in. On the contrary, the library runs an impressive array of accessible community projects, including language training and similar programmes aimed at the average citizen, as well as free internet services and ebook lending programmes. This surely is where libraries should be heading. 7

Journalist D Since 2009, the NYPL has quadrupled its budget for ebooks, and spent $1 million on 45,000 ebook copies. Indeed, to his credit, its director envisages the library as eventually being akin to a giant cyber educational hub, offering anyone access, anywhere in the world, however poor. ‘We need to be the leading educational programme, cradle to grave,’ he says. But that, of course, is why Norman Foster's design is so symbolic, so brilliant and so controversial. If you buy in to Foster’s vision of learning cafés and computers, fair enough; if, however, you want libraries to be reverential museums, then you might understandably go on the defensive. But to focus on the issue of coffee is surely to miss the point. Personally, I think the crucial issue is creating community and egalitarian access to knowledge. Clearly, the debate could get very noisy – even amid those solemn, historic bookstacks. Which journalist: ... shares Journalist B’s reservations about whether the NYPL’s proposals are sufficiently bold and up to date? 37  ... takes a similar view to Journalist C about the role libraries should play in educating ordinary people? 38  ... has a similar attitude to Journalist D towards a specific issue raised by those opposing the plan? 39  ... has a different opinion to the others regarding the appeal of the new design? 40 

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Reading and Use of English Part 7 You are going to read a newspaper article about one of the earliest computers. Seven 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. The computer that learnt to sing An accident of design produced a 1970s computer that made music. Chris Campion finds out more. Modern technology has implanted itself in our lives in such a way that we’d all be lost without our mobile phones and iPods. But once they leave us, do we feel nostalgic for the machines themselves? And if we did, could they respond in kind? These are the questions that Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson asked himself after a chance conversation with his father. 41  Johannsson’s father, Johann Gunnarsson, was working as the chief maintenance engineer for IBM in Iceland. When the IBM 1401 was withdrawn from service in 1971, the year the microprocessor was introduced, Gunnarsson and two of his colleagues decided to hold a sort of ceremony for it. 42  The IBM 1401 was the first business computer that was both affordable and didn’t require an entire room to house it. But it was still a far cry from the desktop computers of today, requiring cables as thick as an arm to connect its constituent parts, even though it was driven by a fraction of the processing power of today’s mobile phones. 43  By using punch cards to program the computer with instructions, the engineers were able to create the semblance of melody and, in turn, emotion. The music they recorded included pieces by Mozart, Bach and a 19th-century Icelandic hymn. Johannsson never asked his father why he felt the need to produce this emotional tribute for a machine. 44  The opening section of the piece, recorded on a subsequent album is Processing Unit, in which in the five-note looped fragment at the beginning of it, the computer seems to be singing its own lament as the string arrangements swell up around it to offer consolation. ‘I wrote the string parts in counterpoint to the loop,’ says Johannsson, ‘so they’re always in dialogue with those first five notes.’ Then follows Part 2 Printer, with ringing notes and gentle strings, which are mixed in with maintenance instructions for the old printer. Some people regard this as the best track of the album. Further sections have a similar feel about them, but it is at this point that the orchestra really comes into its own, with sweeping strings that mix with the occasional electronic effects. The overall effect is very memorable. 45  ‘These were huge pieces of machinery with moving parts. You had to oil them,’ says Johannsson. ‘The capability to make music is almost a by-product, exploiting a defect in the 9

machine for an artistic end.’ It seems unlikely that today’s technology would inspire such innovation. Ergonomically designed to be as unobtrusive and ubiquitous as possible, the gadgets of today tend to chug silently away until they crash and burn. 46  But who knows – maybe one day someone will figure out a way of using all the out-moded iPods in the world to make music, rather than consume it.

A But it sparked an idea to incorporate the sounds in a piece of scored music. This eventually inspired a moving suite of songs (entitled IBM 1401: A User’s Manual) that were recorded with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. B ‘They assembled in the hall where they kept the machines,’ Johannsson explains. ‘Each made a farewell speech, and then they played the music and recorded the sounds of the machine in operation.’ C Although this may seem like an eccentric thing to do in this day and age, that’s not the view that Johannsson takes. But how exactly was it done? D ‘The idea that things should last just doesn’t fit the economic model anymore,’ says Johannsson. ‘Cheap electronics are not built to be repaired. They’re just used and then discarded. There’s something quite shocking in the idea that everything is disposable and that people don’t care for things any more. Part of the idea for this project was about resurrecting these old machines and giving them their voice again.’ E This eventually led him to dig out a 35-year-old audio tape from the family home. It contained recordings of a strange workplace ritual in which an outdated mainframe computer, an IBM 1401, was given an emotional send-off that included sounds of the machine ‘singing’. F Of course, although Johansson’s father may have started the trend that his son later picked up in this spectacular way, he was by no means the only person making music using machines at that time. On the website for the Computer History Museum, you can listen to 1970 recordings of an IBM 1403 dot-matrix printer chattering renditions of well-known songs of the time. G Its memory consisted of a series of magnetised brass coils that gave off an electro-magnetic charge, the anomaly that allowed it to ‘sing’. Johannsson’s father learnt a technique whereby it was possible to pick up the interference caused by these electromagnetic waves by holding a radio up to the computer. It produced a long, clear tone (Johannsson describes it as ‘cello-like’).

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Reading and Use of English Part 8 You are going to read some short reviews of UK publishers of guidebooks. For questions 47 – 56, choose from the publishers (A – D). The reviews for each publisher may be chosen more than once.

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Which publisher: ... has tried to appeal to a wider range of people? 47  ... has some content that is not really aimed at young people on a budget? 48  ... makes accurate claims about what it does? 49  ... is hard to follow in places because of the way it presents information? 50  ... includes a very useful document in the nominated guide? 51  ... uses negative language carefully in the nominated guide? 52  ... is better for general information than lists of particular places? 53  ... would be very helpful for someone faced with an unexpected emergency? 54  ... included something in its nominated guide that the reviewer wishes it hadn't? 55  ... lacks something that other guides for the same place also lack? 56 

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