Reading Practice Test 2 [B2]

The Goulburn Valley is situated in the south-east corner of the Australian continent, in the state of Victoria. Because (9) the introduction of irrigation over a century ago, primary industry flourished, resulting in a multitude of orchards (10) . market gardens. After World War II, migrants flocked to the area in search of work on the farms, and in (11) cases, establishing a property of their own.

Unfortunately, the region has taken a turn for the worse over the past decade. The irrigation water that was (12) plentiful has now been rationed, and many farmers have been forced (13) the land. The main source of water is from the Goulburn River, with several reservoirs located along its stretch to the mighty Murray River. Dam capacities have fallen to dangerous levels, resulting in some farmers having (14) inadequate supply of irrigation water.

(15) the recent hardships, some farmers have continued to eke an existence out of the land. Many have become (16) ingenious, devising new ways to utilize water plus finding special niches to service the ever-changing urban needs. Perhaps the Goulburn Valley can return to its prosperous times again.

UK companies have received (0) ….criticism… (critic) from a business forum for what their report refers to as a rather narrow-minded attitude towards the dress code for office workers. This follows a case in which a male (17)  (employ) working in the post room of a large company in the United Kingdom received a (18)  (suspend) for wearing jeans to work. Whilst the report accepts that there is a need for people dealing with (19)  (custom) to look well dressed, it questions whether employees who work behind the scenes necessarily need to dress formally. The authors of the report made a (20)  (compare) between the UK and other European nations where employers seem (21)  (concern) about the need for their workers to wear smart clothes in the office. Their (22)  (argue) is based on research that claims workers are far more (23)  (product) when they have the (24)  (free) to dress in a way that they feel most comfortable in.

25. Was it necessary for her to spend so much money on it?

HAVE

Did spend so much money on it?

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26. She’s driving too fast for me to keep up with her.

ENOUGH

She for me to keep up with her.

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27. Susan and Frank don’t like each other.

WELL

Susan and Frank don’t with each other.

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28. It’s possible that he hasn’t been informed about his uncle’s death.

MIGHT

He  informed about his uncle’s death.

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29. Mark is very patient, he’ll never give up.

TOO

Mark is give up.

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30. I’m sorry I didn’t go to college.

REGRET

I to college.

The History of the Toaster

Before the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame or a long-handled fork and holding it near a fire or kitchen grill. Simple utensils for toasting bread over open flames appeared in the early 19th century. Earlier, people simply speared bread with a stick, sword or knife and held it over a fire.

In 1905, Irishman Conor Neeson of Detroit, Michigan, and his employer, American chemist, electrical engineer, inventor and entrepreneur William Hoskins of Chicago, Illinois, invented chromel, an alloy from which could be made the first high-resistance wire of the sort used in all early electric heating appliances (37) .

The first electric bread toaster was created by Alan MacMasters in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1893, Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Company of the UK marketed an electric, iron-wired toasting appliance called the Eclipse. Early attempts at producing electrical appliances using iron wiring were unsuccessful, because the wiring was easily melted and a serious fire hazard. Meanwhile electricity was not readily available , and when it was, mostly only at night. The first US patent application for an electric toaster was filed by George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater Company of Detroit. AEH’s proximity to Hoskins Manufacturing and the fact that the patent was filed only two months after the Marsh patents suggests collaboration and that the device was to use chromel wiring. One of the first applications the Hoskins company had considered for chromel was toasters, but eventually abandoned such efforts to focus on making just the wire itself.

At least two other brands of toasters had been introduced commercially around the time General Electric submitted their first patent application in 1909 for one, the GE model D-12, designed by technician Frank Shailor, “the first commercially successful electric toaster”.

In 1913, Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various toaster patents and in that same year the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the toaster with automatic bread turner. (38) Before this, electric toasters cooked bread on one side and then it was flipped by hand to toast the other side. Copeman’s toaster turned the bread around without having to touch it.

(39) , which turned off the heating element automatically after the bread toasted, using either a clockwork mechanism or a bimetallic strip. However, the toast was still manually lowered and raised from the toaster via a lever mechanism.

The automatic pop-up toaster, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was first patented by Charles Strite in 1919. In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite’s toaster, the Waters Genter Company introduced the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster, the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, (40) and eject the toast when finished.

By the middle of the 20th century, some high-end U.S. toasters featured automatic toast lowering and raising, with no levers to operate — (41) . A notable example was the Sunbeam T-20, T-35 and T-50 models (identical except for details such as control positioning) made from the late 1940s through the 1960s, which used the mechanically multiplied thermal expansion of the resistance wire in the center element assembly to lower the bread; the inserted slice of bread tripped a lever to switch on the power which immediately caused the heating element to begin expanding thus lowering the bread. When the toast was done, as determined by a small bimetallic sensor actuated by the heat passing through the toast, the heaters were shut off and the pull-down mechanism returned to its room-temperature position, (42) . This sensing of the heat passing through the toast, meant that regardless of the color of the bread (white or wholemeal) and the initial temperature of the bread (even frozen), the bread would always be toasted to the same degree. If a piece of toast was re-inserted into the toaster, it would only be reheated.

43. Which person had a parent who was accused of driving dangerously?

44. Which person bought a car?

45. Which person drove his girlfriend’s dad’s car?

46. Which person drove alone without a license?

47. Which person had to defend one of their parents?

48. Which person drove the family car without permission?

49. Which person used to make their father nervous?

50. Which person paid for driving lessons?

51. Which person had no driving instruction from their father?

52. Which person was given driving lessons by an older member of their family?