Reading Practice Test 1 [C1]

Part 1

– 8 questions –

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).

Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Example:

0  A. deposits     B. piles      C. stores     D. stocks

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New uses for salt mines

Geological (0) …… of salt were formed millions of years ago, when what is now land, lay under the sea. It is hard to believe that salt is now such a cheap (1) ……. , because centuries ago it was the commercial (2) …….. of today’s oil. The men who mined salt became wealthy and, although the work was (3) …….. and frequently dangerous, a job in a salt mine was highly (4) …….. . Nowadays, the specific microclimates in disused mines have been (5) …….. for the treatment of respiratory illnesses such as asthma, and the silent, dark surroundings in a mine are considered (6) ……….in encouraging patients to relax.

In addition, some disused mines have been (7) …….. to different commercial enterprises, although keeping up-to-date with the technology of mining is essential to (8) …….. visitors’ safety. Some of the largest underground chambers even host concerts, conferences and business meetings.

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8.

Part 2

-8 questions-

For questions 9 – 16, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Example (0): IS

Part 3

– 8 questions –

For questions 17 – 24, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).

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Training sports champions

Part 4

– 6 questions –

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. Here is an example (0).

Write only the missing words IN CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example:

0. James would only speak to the head of department alone.

ON

James …….(o) INSISTED ON SPEAKING……..to the head of department alone.

25.

26.

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30.

Part 5

– 6 questions –

You are going to read the introduction to a book about the history of colour. For questions 31 – 36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

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Introduction to a book about the history of colour

This book examines how the ever-changing role of colour in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, clothing, painting and popular culture. Colour is a natural phenomenon, of course, but it is also a complex cultural construct that resists generalization and, indeed, analysis itself. No doubt this is why serious works devoted to colour are rare, and rarer still are those that aim to study it in historical context. Many authors search for the universal or archetypal truths they imagine reside in colour, but for the historian, such truths do not exist. Colour is first and foremost a social phenomenon. There is no transcultural truth to colour perception, despite what many books based on poorly grasped neurobiology or – even worse – on pseudoesoteric pop psychology would have us believe. Such books unfortunately clutter the bibliography on the subject, and even do it harm.

The silence of historians on the subject of colour, or more particularly their difficulty in conceiving colour as a subject separate from other historical phenomena, is the result of three different sets of problems. The first concerns documentation and preservation. We see the colours transmitted to us by the past as time has altered them and not as they were originally. Moreover, we see them under light conditions that often are entirely different from those known by past societies. And finally, over the decades we have developed the habit of looking at objects from the past in black-and-white photographs and, despite the current diffusion of colour photography, our ways of thinking about and reacting to these objects seem to have remained more or less black and white.

The second set of problems concerns methodology. As soon as the historian seeks to study colour, he must grapple with a host of factors all at once: physics, chemistry, materials, and techniques of production, as well as iconography, ideology, and the symbolic meanings that colours convey. How to make sense of all of these elements? How can one establish an analytical model facilitating the study of images and coloured objects? No researcher, no method, has yet been able to resolve these problems, because among the numerous facts pertaining to colour, a researcher tends to select those facts that support his study and to conveniently forget those that contradict it. This is clearly a poor way to conduct research. And it is made worse by the temptation to apply to the objects and images of a given historical period information found in texts of that period. The proper method – at least in the first phase of analysis – is to proceed as do palaeontologists (who must study cave paintings without the aid of texts): by extrapolating from the images and the objects themselves a logic and a system based on various concrete factors such as the rate of occurrence of particular objects and motifs, their
distribution and disposition. In short, one undertakes the internal structural analysis with which any study of an image or coloured object should begin.

The third set of problems is philosophical: it is wrong to project our own conceptions and definitions of colour onto the images, objects and monuments of past centuries. Our judgements and values are not those of previous societies (and no doubt they will change again in the future). For the writer-historian looking at the definitions and taxonomy of colour, the danger of anachronism is very real. For example, the spectrum with its natural order of colours was unknown before the seventeenth century, while the notion of primary and secondary colours did not become common until the nineteenth century. These are not eternal notions but stages in the ever-changing history of knowledge.

I have reflected on such issues at greater length in my previous work, so while the present book does address certain of them, for the most part it is devoted to other topics. Nor is it concerned only with the history of colour in images and artworks – in any case that area still has many gaps to be filled. Rather, the aim of this book is to examine all kinds of objects in order to consider the different facets of the history of colour and to show how far beyond the artistic sphere this history reaches. The history of painting is one thing; that of colour is another, much larger, question. Most studies devoted to the history of colour err in considering only the pictorial, artistic or scientific realms. But the lessons to be learned from colour and its real interest lie elsewhere.

31. What problem regarding colour does the writer explain in the first paragraph?

32. What is the first reason the writer gives for the lack of academic work on the history of colour?

33. The writer suggests that the priority when conducting historical research on colour is to

34. In the fourth paragraph, the writer says that the historian writing about colour should be careful

35. In the fifth paragraph, the writer says there needs to be further research done on

36. An idea recurring in the text is that people who have studied colour have

Part 6

-4 questions-

For questions 37 – 40, choose from the reviews A – D. The reviews may be chosen more than once.

Allied

Reviewer A

Allied, which is Robert Zemeckis’s deft and diverting World War II romantic thriller, operates a bit like Casablanca in reverse. There are some similarities between the films, but I don’t want to press the comparison too far. For one thing, there is more Alfred Hitchcock than Michael Curtiz in this movie’s DNA. For another, whereas Casablanca put forth a spine-stiffening anti-fascist call to arms, Allied offers the comforts of elegant escapism. Its moral complexities and political ambiguities are intriguing rather than troubling, its ethical and emotional agonies a diversion from rather than a reflection of our own. Which is just fine with me. There are nits to pick, of course. Mr. Pitt, playing a Canadian wing commander in the Royal Air Force, has apparently drawn inspiration from the trees in the great forests of the North. He is handsome, trim and efficient, but the same might be said of a wooden canoe, and his character’s stoical reserve often feels more like an empty space than a deep pool of untapped feeling. They are puffy and sentimental, the cinematic equivalent of a cloying dessert following an otherwise well-prepared meal.

NY Times

Reviewer B

Robert Zemeckis has a vastly diverse slate of motion pictures to his credit, but it’s not unfair to associate him with a certain technological fixation on stunt-gizmo cinema. Once in a while, though, Zemeckis makes a film that reminds you what a terrific director he can be when he works the old-fashioned way, staging unadorned human drama without the safety net of cutting-edge visual flimflam. Allied is tense and absorbing in the style of Hitchcock , yet the film’s climactic act somehow falls short. Zemeckis and company don’t make any obvious missteps, but the movie, in trying to reach out and tug on our heartstrings, goes soft regarding what the Marianne we’re presented with would choose to do. You believe that she loves Max, but there’s another side to her devotion that washes away far too easily. The result is that Allied inspires most of the old-movie reactions it’s going for except one: It never makes you swoon.

Variety

Reviewer C

A lot of prerelease gossip has attended this plonkingly slow and clonkingly laborious wartime thriller starring Brad Pitt as dashing Canadian airman Max Vatan and Marion Cotillard as Marianne Beausejour, the lissom French spy with whom he falls in love. Their screen passion bursts forth like a cold wet teabag falling out of a mug that you have upended over the kitchen sink and don’t much feel like washing up. Their rapport fizzes like a quarter-inch of bin juice left after you have taken the rubbish out. At this stage, Allied could have summoned up a bit of intimate suspense, some Hitchcockian suspicion, and Knight does in fact unveil an interesting further twist: another level of potential bad faith. But this isn’t resolved very satisfyingly and the final big reveal feels anti-climactic, with unanswered questions concerning Marianne. It seems like tourist cinema: a tourist visit to the heritage-wartime past, with Max and Marianne looking like uncomfortable tourists in each other’s languages and in each other’s lives. Despite being married, they always look like strangers; the stars look as if they are intent on squashing rumours by behaving as if they have just emerged from their trailers and have yet to be introduced.

The Guardian

Reviewer D

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play spies in love in a steamy World War II drama called Allied where there are more romantic fireworks than tanks and explosions. Allied turns out to be a slower wartime romance in which Pitt plays Max Vattan, a British assassin sent to Casablanca to kill a high ranking Nazi officer. We see early on how deadly Max can be, but he’s been assigned to create the ruse of being married to Marion Cotillard’s Marianne Beausejorge, an equally deadly French agent. Pretending to be married eventually drives them closer together and Max and Marianne decide to get married for real, despite the warnings from Max’s commander. Marianne soon becomes pregnant as they settle down in England to lead a more domestic life. The ending is quite grim if you’re expecting any type of old Hollywood ride into the sunset, but if you enjoy slightly awkward romance during wartime, Allied is worth a fling.

NY Daily News

Questions

 Part 7

– 6 questions –

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41 – 46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

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A

The recruitment of men to the armed forces during the conflict in Europe from 1914 to 1918 meant there was very little persecution, since gamekeepers went off to fight. As the number of gamekeepers decreased, the wildcat began to increase its range, recolonising many of its former haunts. Extinction was narrowly averted.

B

The wildcat waits for a while in rapt concentration, ears twitching and eyes watching, seeing everything and hearing everything, trying to detect the tell-tale movement of a vole or a mouse. But there is nothing, and in another leap he disappears into the gloom.

C

The results, which are expected shortly, will be fascinating. But anyone who has seen a wildcat will be in little doubt that there is indeed a unique and distinctive animal living in the Scottish Highlands, whatever his background.

D

They probably used deciduous and coniferous woodland for shelter, particularly in winter, and hunted over more open areas such as forest edge, open woodland, thickets and scrub, grassy areas and marsh. The wildcat was probably driven into more mountainous areas by a combination of deforestation and persecution.

E

As the animals emerge, their curiosity is aroused by every movement and rustle in the vegetation. Later they will accompany their mother on hunting trips, learning quickly, and soon become adept hunters themselves.

F

This is what makes many people think that the wildcat is a species in its own right. Research currently being undertaken by Scottish Natural Heritage is investigating whether the wildcat really is distinct from its homeliving cousin, or whether it is nothing more than a wild-living form of the domestic cat.

G

It is a typical image most folk have of the beast, but it is very much a false one, for the wildcat is little more than a bigger version of the domestic cat, and probably shows his anger as often.

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Part 8

-10 questions-