TEST 12

I. LEXICO- GRAMMAR
Part 1. Choose the answer ( A, B, C or D) that best fits each of the following questions.
1. I was sitting on the bus when I heard this odd_________________ of conversation
A. lumps B. air C. snatch D. stab
2. Laura’s trying to ____________in some of her friends to help with the dinner part
A. tie B. rope C. string D. lace
3. Though he faced many difficulties, he could not be _________from his goal
A. hindered B. obstructed C. deflected D. prevented
4. The police caught the thief ______________
A. red- handed B. in the red C. true blue D. in black and while
5. The __________against your having that kind of accident was about 500 to 1.
A. possibilities B. figures C. opportunities D. odds
6. I’m in a _________________as to how to use this CD Room.
A. loss B. difficulty C. quandary D. mind—game
7. Look, will you stop __________in and let me finish my sentence.
A. moving B. pushing C. plugging D. butting
8. While backpacking in a quiet, traditional region, I came across the seemingly ___________
fast food ads typical of my homework
A. invasive B. infuriating C. irritating D. ubiquitous
9. Tom said something rude and a big argument____________
A. ensured B. derived C. stemmed D. sprang
10. I don’t believe there is the slightest __________ of truth in what you just said
A. seed B. kernel C. shell D. grain
Part 2. The passage below contains 10 mistakes in grammar and word form. Underline the
mistakes and write their correct forms in the corresponding numbered boxes.
In Monsanto's research centre there are 1500 PhDs, one of the biggest concentration of scientific
brain power in the commercial world. It was here 20 years ago that they made some of the first
experiments to genetic modify plants. This is what it's all about - genes, DNA, the blueprint of
life. Inside every cell of every living thing there is DNA what is made up of thousands of genes.
Genes produce proteins that have special functions and it's these proteins that give every plant
and animal its unique characteristics. Scientists can manipulate the genetic code of life to
produce plants with new characteristics ever seen in nature. They can isolate any one gene from
any organism like an animal or bacteria and insert it into a completely unrelated species like a
plant.
That gene then becomes part of the genetic instructions that make these tiny plants to grow. It
will give them the same unique characteristic as the original species. The possibilities are almost
endless. Scientists can insert a gene from a bacterium into a grape to make it resistant with
viruses, or they can engineer maize that resists drought, or potatoes that resist pests, so farmers
can use more pesticides on their crops. But these are all plants unknown in nature. They have a
foreign gene inside them. People are sharply divided on whether this can be safe.
Part 3. Fill in the gaps in the following sentences with suitable particle or preposition
1. Our marketing manager keeps getting ______________ me because he doesn’t think I’m
creative enough.
2. I thought I'd brush __________ my French before going to Paris.
3. Sometimes he seemed like a good old pal, but other times he came _______________ an
angry and unpleasant man
4. Computerization has enabled us to do ________a lot of paperwork.
5. Why did you have to put me _________in front of everybody like that?
6. David has come_________ a brilliant idea for an advertising slogan.
7. Walking around a museum all day really wears you __________.
8.  City council member said that the proposals for the new shopping centre were unlikely to
go __________.
9. He bought some cheap shoes that fell ___________after a couple of months.
10. He's always walking ______________ things when he doesn't have his glasses on.
III. READING
Part 1. Fill in the blank with one of four options to complete the passage.
Oxford is a city with such a mind-blowing reputation that many who come here find themselves
intimidated by the place and can't wait to leave, while others, taking to it like a duck to water,
find themselves returning again and again. The college lawns provide a gorgeous
(1)___________ to serious study, and in the right light, on the sunny winter's morning say, one
feels as if one is(2) ____________ on air, such is the sense of unreality. Oxford may like to
(3)_________ that it is at the intellectual hub of things, but in many ways it is no more than a
sleepy (4)____________
where, to mix metaphors, transitory students, the (5)____________ of their generation, wait in
the (6)____________ allowing their talents to (7)____________ before moving off into the
industrial or political fast-lane. Much of this is a myth, of course. Hardship and hard work are
very much part and(8)____________ of student life. The (9)_____________ get through the
three years' hard grind by simply putting their shoulders to the wheel before going on to fairly
average jobs. Only for the tiny minority is Oxford the first (10)__________________ on the
ladder to fame and fortune
1. A. backdrop B. curtain C. scene D. screen
2. A. flying B. floating C. gliding D. swimming
3. A. act B. dissemble C. pretend D. produce
4. A. backwater B. stream C. tributary D. watershed
5. A. froth B. fat C. caviar D. cream
6. A. pavilion B. wings C. foyer D. dressing room
7. A. open B. spread C. float D. flourish
8. A. parcel B. package C. section D. provision
9. A. hot- headed B. level-headed C. hot- blooded D. kind- hearted
10. A. position B. elevation C. ascent D. step
Part 2. Fill in each gap with ONE suitable word
The fate of any pop band is a question that is no longer of interest to its fans alone.
(1)__________  only has the Prime Minister himself recognised pop music's
importance(2)___________a business, pointing out that it contributes more
(3)____________export earnings than the steel industry, but strange as it may seem, British
people spend more on pop music than they do on fruit and vegetables.
 With such serious money washing around, the question of (4)___________will be the
next big thing is (5)___________too important to be left to random factors such as chance and
talent.
 (6)__________the great names of British rock in the 60s and 70s formed bands
spontaneously (7)_______________they were discovered and then marketed, their new
millennium successors are increasingly (8)_______________to be brought together by
marketing men. The Spice Girls, sold as a group of young girls in (9)_______________  of their
own destiny, were in fact dreamed up and promoted by middle-aged men. Designing a band is
much the same as designing (10)_______________other product: take a basic, successful model
and adapt it. The challenge, when everything has been tried already, is to persuade consumers
that what you are doing is in some way innovative.
Part 3. Read the passage and choose the best answer to the questions
I left school and university with my head packed full of knowledge; enough of it, anyway, to
pass all the examinations that were put in my path. As a well-educated man I rather expected my
work to be a piece of cake, something at which my intellect would allow me to excel without
undue effort. It came as something of a shock, therefore, to encounter the world outside for the
first time, and to realize that I was woefully ill-equipped, not only for the necessary business of
earning a living, but, more importantly, for coping with all the new decisions which came my
way, in both life and work. My first employers put it rather well: ‘You have a well-trained but
empty mind,’ they told me, ‘which we will now try to fill with something useful, but don’t
imagine that you will be of any real value to us for the first ten year'. I was fortunate to have
lighted upon an employer prepared to invest so much time in what was, in effect, my real
education and I shall always feel guilty that I left them when the ten years were up.
A well-trained mind is not to be sneezed at, but I was soon to discover that my mind had been
trained to deal with closed problems, whereas most of what I now had to deal with were open-
ended problems. ‘What is the cost of sales?’ is a closed problem, one with a right or a wrong
answer. ‘What should we do about it?’ is and open problem, one with any number of possible
answers, and I had no experience of taking this type of decision. Knowing the right answer to a
question, I came to realize, was not the same as making a difference to a situation, which was
what I was supposed to be paid for. Worst of all, the real open-ended question – ‘What is all this
in aid of?’ was beginning to nudge at my mind.
I had been educated in an individualist culture. My scores were mine. No one else into it, except
as competitors in some imagines race. I was on my own in the learning game at school and
university. Not so in my work, I soon realized. Being an individual star would not help me there
if it was in my failing group. Our destinies were linked, which meant that my co-workers were
now colleagues, not competitors. Teams were something I had encountered on the sports field,
not in the classroom. They were in the box marked ‘fun’ in my mind, not the ones marked
‘work’ or even ‘life’. My new challenge, I discovered, was to merge these three boxes. I had
discovered, rather later than most, the necessity of others. It was the start of my real education.
‘So you’re a university graduate are you?’ said my new Sale Manager. ‘In classics, is it? I don’t
think that is going to impress our Chinese salesmen! How do you propose to win their respect
since you will be in charge of some of them very shortly?’ Another open-ended problem! I had
never before been thrust among people very different from me, with different values and
assumptions about the way the world worked, or should work. I had not even met anyone more
than two years older, except for relatives and teachers. Cultural exploration was a process
unknown to me, and I was not accustomed to being regarded as stupid and ignorant, which I
undoubtedly was, in all the things that mattered in their world.
My education, I decided then, had been positively disabling. So much of the content of what I
had learned was irrelevant, while the process of learning it had cultivated a set of attitudes and
behaviors which were directly opposed to what seemed to be needed in real life. Although I had
studied philosophy I hadn’t applied it to myself. I had assumed that the point of life was
obvious: to get on, get rich, get a wife and the get a family. It was beginning to be clear that life
wasn’t as simple as that. What I believed in, what I thought was worth working for, and with
whom, these things were becoming important. So was my worry about what I personally could
contribute that might not only earn me money but also make a useful contribution somewhere.
It would be nice to think that this sort of experience could not happen now, that our schools,
today, prepare people better for life and for the work which is so crucial to a satisfactory life.
But I doubt it. The subjects may appear to be a little more relevant, but we are still left to learn
about work at work, and about life by living it. That will always be true, but we could, I believe,
do more to make sure that the process of education had more in common with the processes of
living and working as they are today, so that the shock of reality is less cruel.

1. The first paragraph deals with which of the following main topics?
A. Personal conclusions
B. relevance to today’s educational systems
C. Initial expectations of work
D. Personal preparation for a job
2. The third paragraph deals with which of the following main topic?
A. Attitudes to colleagues
B. Dealing with problems and making decisions
C. Broadening awareness of other cultures
D. competition in the world of work
3. When the writer left university, he expected to succeed by
A.     using the qualities his education had developed.
B.    gaining further qualification.
C.    developing his decision-making skills
D.    acquiring relevant skills in his place of work.
4. The phrase “ a piece of cake” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to
A. some sort of food B. something very easy
C. some difficult task D. a part of something
5. He feels he treated his first employers badly because he did not
A.    give them a true idea of his strengths and weaknesses.
B.   contribute to the company financially.
C.   repay them fully for the help they gave him.
D.   stay with them any longer than he was obliged to.
6. He found that he needed to re-evaluate his approach at work because he
A.   was asking the wrong types of question.
B.   had been trained to deal with problems in the wrong way.
C.   met new kinds of problems in his working life.
D.   was dealing primarily with moral problems.
7. What was one of the first things he learned at work?
A.   that he could no always be first
B.   that other people were willing to help him
 C.   the importance of having leisure interests outside his work
D.   the link between team sport and work
8. He realized that he lacked understanding of other cultures when he
A.   had to work with people who had different values.
B.   had to work outside his own country.
C.   realized that his subordinates did nor respect him.
D.   found that his qualifications were not relevant.
9. What was the writer’s main conclusion about his education?
A.   It had taught him to value money too much.
B.   It had been much too theoretical to be of any use.
C.   It had been not just useless, but actually harmful.
D.   It had taught him that life was not simple.
10. The writer feels that nowadays
A.   life is changing so fast that schools can never prepare for it.
B.   the way in which students are taught to think should be re-examined.
C.   the content of syllabuses should be brought fully up-to-date.
D.   educational reforms have bridged the gap between school and work.
Part 4. Read the passage and answer the questions
Advantages of public transport
A new study conducted for the World Bank by Murdoch University's Institute for Science
and Technology Policy (ISTP) has demonstrated that public transport is more efficient than cars.
The study compared the proportion of wealth poured into transport by thirty-seven cities around
the world. This included both the public and private costs of building, maintaining and using a
transport system.
The study found that the Western Australian city of Perth is a good example of a city with
minimal public transport. As a result, 17% of its wealth went into transport costs. Some
European and Asian cities, on the other hand, spent as little as 5%. Professor Peter Newman,
ISTP Director, pointed out that these more efficient cities were able to put the difference into
attracting industry and jobs or creating a better place to live.
According to Professor Newman, the larger Australian city of Melbourne is a rather
unusual city in this sort of comparison. He describes it as two cities: ‘A European city
surrounded by a car-dependent one’. Melbourne's large tram network has made car use in the
inner city much lower, but the outer suburbs have the same car-based structure as most other
Australian cities. The explosion in demand for accommodation in the inner suburbs of
Melbourne suggests a recent change in many people's preferences as to where they live.
Newman says this is a new, broader way of considering public transport issues. In the
past, the case for public transport has been made on the basis of environmental and social justice
considerations rather than economics. Newman, however, believes the study demonstrates that
‘the auto-dependent city model is inefficient and grossly inadequate in economic as well as
environmental terms’.
Bicycle use was not included in the study but Newman noted that the two most ‘bicycle
friendly’ cities considered - Amsterdam and Copenhagen - were very efficient, even though
their public transport systems were ‘reasonable but not special’.
It is common for supporters of road networks to reject the models of cities with good
public transport by arguing that such systems would not work in their particular city. One
objection is climate. Some people say their city could not make more use of public transport
because it is either too hot or too cold. Newman rejects this, pointing out that public transport
has been successful in both Toronto and Singapore and, in fact, he has checked the use of cars
against climate and found ‘zero correlation’.
When it comes to other physical features, road lobbies are on stronger ground. For
example, Newman accepts it would be hard for a city as hilly as Auckland to develop a really
good rail network. However, he points out that both Hong Kong and Zürich have managed to
make a success of their rail systems, heavy and light respectively, though there are few cities in
the world as hilly.
A
In fact, Newman believes the main reason for adopting one sort of transport over another
is politics: ‘The more democratic the process, the more public transport is favoured.’ He
considers Portland, Oregon, a perfect example of this. Some years ago, federal money was
granted to build a new road. However, local pressure groups forced a referendum over whether
to spend the money on light rail instead. The rail proposal won and the railway worked
spectacularly well. In the years that have followed, more and more rail systems have been put
in, dramatically changing the nature of the city. Newman notes that Portland has about the same
population as Perth and had a similar population density at the time.
B
In the UK, travel times to work had been stable for at least six centuries, with people
avoiding situations that required them to spend more than half an hour travelling to work. Trains
and cars initially allowed people to live at greater distances without taking longer to reach their
destination. However, public infrastructure did not keep pace with urban sprawl, causing
massive congestion problems which now make commuting times far higher.
C
There is a widespread belief that increasing wealth encourages people to live farther out
where cars are the only viable transport. The example of European cities refutes that. They are
often wealthier than their American counterparts but have not generated the same level of car
use. In Stockholm, car use has actually fallen in recent years as the city has become larger and
wealthier. A new study makes this point even more starkly. Developing cities in Asia, such as
Jakarta and Bangkok, make more use of the car than wealthy Asian cities such as Tokyo and
Singapore. In cities that developed later, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank
discouraged the building of public transport and people have been forced to rely on cars -
creating the massive traffic jams that characterize those cities.
D
Newman believes one of the best studies on how cities built for cars might be converted to
rail use is The Urban Village report, which used Melbourne as an example. It found that pushing
everyone into the city centre was not the best approach. Instead, the proposal advocated the
creation of urban villages at hundreds of sites, mostly around railway stations.
E
It was once assumed that improvements in telecommunications would lead to more
dispersal in the population as people were no longer forced into cities. However, the ISTP
team's research demonstrates that the population and job density of cities rose or remained
constant in the 1980s after decades of decline. The explanation for this seems to be that it is
valuable to place people working in related fields together. ‘The new world will largely depend
on human creativity, and creativity flourishes where people come together face-to-face.’

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of heading below
List of headings
i. Avoiding an overcrowded centre
ii. A successful exercise in people power
iii. The benefits of working together in cities
iv. Higher incomes need not mean more cars
v. Economic arguments fail to persuade
vi. The impact of telecommunications on population distribution
vii. Responding to arguments against public transport

1. Paragraph A: ___________
2. Paragraph B: ___________
3. Paragraph C: ___________
4. Paragraph D: ___________
5. Paragraph E: ___________
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? 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
6. The ISTP study examined public and private systems in every city of the world
7. Efficient cities can improve the quality of life for their inhabitants
8. AN inner-city tram network is dangerous for car drivers
9. In Melbourne, people prefer to live in the outer suburbs
10. Cites with high levels of bicycle usage can be efficient even when public transport is only
averagely good.