Reading passage 1

A. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. B. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. C. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs -- commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you water ward. Its extreme down-town is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. D. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall northward. What do you see? -- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster -- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? E. But look! Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extreme limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand -- miles of them -- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues, -- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? F. Once more. Say, you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent- minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries -- stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.

G. But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger- lilies -- what is the one charm wanting? -- Water -- there is not a drop of water there! Source: Moby Dick by Melville Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 to 14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 Questions 1 to 7 Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A G. From the list of headings below, choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers I ix in boxes 1 7 on your answer sheet.

i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix.

The call from the water. The extreme limit of the land. The Circumambulation. The insular city. The substitute for pistol and ball. An artists desires. The journey in the sea. An attraction. A walk by the lake.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Paragraph A Paragraph B Paragraph C Paragraph D Paragraph E Paragraph F Paragraph G

Questions 8 10 Choose the correct letters, A, B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 8 10 on your answer sheet. 8 Nothing will content them but the extreme limit of A. B. C. D. 9 A. B. C. D. 10 A. B. C. D. The ocean. The land. The shore. The jungle. The narrator is extremely interested in The ocean. The shore. The voyages. The travelling. Taking a journey through the country is Magical. Supernatural. Romantic. Flabbergasting.

Questions 11 14 Complete each of the following statements (questions 11 14) with the best endings A G from the box below Write the appropriate letters A G in boxes 11 14 on your answer sheet. 11 Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, 12 He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, 13 Almost all men in their degree, some time or other, 14 Nothing will content them but the

A B C D

Crossing the magic halfway. And seemingly bound for a dive. Extreme limit of the land. Cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. E Is not going to win the game for them. F Will be fascinated by the journeys. G Most enchanting bit of romantic landscape.

Reading passage 2 A. The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Watt's book, When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind--or Destroy It. Cold, dark, silent. Close to death. Buried in the depths of a collapsed, illegal coal mine, Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou knew they had been given up for dead. The rescue effort had been abandoned. The two brothers could no longer hear the sound of mechanical diggers, drills and spades above their heads. Dismayed and exhausted, they had stopped yelling frantically for help. B. How long had it been? Hours, days, weeks? There was no way of knowing. When their mobile phone batteries died, they lost all track of time. And place. With the silence and the darkness came disorientation. They were unsure which way led to the surface and which led deeper into the mountain. They had little evidence that they were even still alive. It was like being lost inside a tomb. Above ground, their families were already preparing a funeral. In accordance with tradition, relatives had started burning 'ghost money' for the two brothers to spend in the other world. Negotiations had begun with the local authorities about compensation. Yet down below, the Mengs stubbornly refused to die. C. Driven by a powerful instinct to survive, they fought against the earth and the darkness, against death itself. The brothers started digging. They hacked and shovelled, using a single pick and their bare hands. They were only a few dozen metres from the surface, but despite twenty years of mining experience, they were so panicked and confused by the darkness that they started to worry they were tunnelling deeper into the mountain. They changed direction once, twice, three times, before deciding to head straight up. D. With every hour that passed they grew wearier and more depressed. It grew harder to dig, exhausting even to crawl. They filled water bottles with urine. The taste was so foul, they could only drink in small sips and felt like crying after they swallowed. Desperately hungry, Xianchen took to nibbling finger-sized pieces of coal, not knowing it had zero nutritional value. Yet they kept digging. Their companionship was a source of comfort and strength. They slept in each other's arms to stave off the cold and told jokes about their wives to maintain morale. 'My wife will be happy after I die. She can find a rich husband in Shenyang to replace me,' mused Xianchen out loud, then laughingly contradicted himself. 'But then again, she is an ugly woman with two children so it will be hard for her to remarry.' Humour does not get much blacker than laughter in a collapsed coal mine. But it kept them going for six days, until finally, miraculously, they scratched their way to the surface. E. Weak and close to starvation, they emerged blinking into the light, then staggered to the village where they were met with a hero's welcome and incredulous joy that the dead could rise from their tombs. They were carried off to hospital, where the doctors treated their damaged kidneys and journalists bombarded them with questions. The mine owner, meanwhile, was on the run. Aware that the standard bribes would not protect him from a deadly accident investigation, he had fled as soon as he heard of the collapse. F. The survival of the magnificent Meng brothers made front-page headlines in Beijing. Their experience captured the Chinese zeitgeist of the past thirty yearsgritty, poor, dirty, illegal,

dangerous, willing to go to almost any lengths to get ahead, ill as a result, but surviving long after being written off. They had been trapped in a carbon hell in which they dug, ate, inhaled and were almost suffocated by coal, yet they had lived to tell the tale. G. China finds itself in a similar predicament in the first decade of this century. Demand for energy continues to grow and most of it comes from underground. The economy is utterly dependent on coal. It provides 69.5 per cent of the country's energy, a greater degree of reliance than that of any other major nation. This, more than anything, explains why China is so cautious in setting carbon targets in international climate talks such as the 2009 summit in Copenhagen. Cheap coal generates electricity for Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, fires the steel mills of Huaxi, powers the production lines of Guangdong, and allows consumers in the West to buy Chinese goods at a knockdown price. No other fuel has such an impact on the environment. Source: Scientific American Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15 27 which are based on Reading Passage 2 Questions 15 19 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 15 -19 in your answer sheet write TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. if the statement agrees with the information if the statement contradicts the information if there is no information on this

The passage speaks about the Chinese revolution. They were unsure which way led to the surface and which led deeper into the mountain. The two brothers were digging for days. They spent the night in a hotel. The men had their wives accompanying them.

Question 20 23 Look at the following topics (questions 20 23) and the list of statements below. Match each topic to the correct statement. Write the correct letter A G in boxes 1 4 on your answer sheet. 20. The brothers 21. Xianchen 22. The mine owner 23. Shanghai

A B C D E F G

Dug for a long time. Was desperately hungry. Forbade the brothers from digging. Facing a lot of troubles. Is a place in China. Helped his brother in finding food. Was very supportive.

Questions 24 27 Complete the following statements with the correct alternative from the box. Write the correct letter A F in boxes 24 27 on your answer sheet. 24. 25. 26. 27. With every hour that passed they grew Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou had been China finds itself in a similar predicament in The taste was so foul, they could only drink in small sips

A And felt like crying after they swallowed. B Wearier and more depressed. C Would probably ensure that they want to go back. D The first decade of this century. E They were terribly thirsty. F Given up for dead.

Reading Passage 3 A. A THRONG of bearded men, in sad coloured garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. B. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnsons lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of Kings Chapel.

C. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, applePeru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. D. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. E. This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it,or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door,we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow. F. THE GRASS-PLOT before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. G. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white mans fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. Source: The Scarlet Letters by Hawthorne Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28 40 which are based on Reading Passage 3.

Questions 28 32 The passage has seven paragraphs labelled AG. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. NB: You may use any letter more than once. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. The prison looked blurred forever. An undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. All the cityscape was very sarcastic for the dwellers. There was an effort to change the landscape around the prison. The rose bush had a strange look in it that was very attractive to the narrator.

Questions 33 36 Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 3. Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet. 33. 34. 35. 36. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found . The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked . Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was . We could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it .

Questions 37 40 Complete the summary of the paragraphs A C below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet. A THRONG of bearded men were passing 37 .. The founders of a new colony have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion 38 .. The wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and 39 .. the men evidently found something for building 40 ..