Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LISTENING SECTION
TIME: 30 MINUTES
INSTRUCTIONS: You must not open the booklet until you are instructed to do so. Write your name and
registration number at the top of the page. You should attempt all questions. All recordings will be
played only once. Write all your answers on the test paper itself. After the section is over, you will be
given ten minutes to transfer your answers to the given answer sheet. You are not permitted to take this
exam booklet out of the examination room.
There are 40 questions in this section. They are broken up into four parts as follows:
Questions 1-2
Example:
A Half-day
B Full-day
C Full-day plus after school care
A Swiss
B Swedish
C Swazi
A By post
B By e-mail
C Picked up from the school
Question 3
A Vacation
B Work
C Family reasons
Question 4
4 Which THREE pieces of information are required to retrieve the child’s personal
education number?
Question 5
A Erick
B Eric
C Erik
Questions 6-7
A T56340192
B P56340192
C T56P40192
A Newcastle
B London
C Monterey
Question 8
8 What TWO qualifications do many of the nursery school’s senior staff have?
Questions 9-10
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for
each answer.
Questions 11-13
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Question 14
A B C
Question 15
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
_______________________________
Question 16
A 30%
B 40%
C 3%
Questions 17-20
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
In front of the library, there is a beautiful 17……… Inside the library, the ground floor has
18………. books. The upper floors, however, house over 3,000,000 books. The collection was
built by donations, gifts and university purchases. Additionally, there is a 19……….. area, with
works dating back to 1588. There are many sporting facilities, including the rugby field, which is
home to the rugby team which has won three of the past five 20………….
SECTION 3 Questions 21-30 (CD3 Track 3)
Questions 21-23
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
21 If an Egyptian’s income was 10 000, how much would be given to the pharaoh?
__________________________
23 The second reason for taxes, known as ____________, takes money from the rich and gives it
to the poor.
Questions 24-26
Product
A Revenue
B Alcohol
C Redistribution
25………………… 24……………….. D Repricing
E General goods
F Production
Subject to Allowed to go
26………. Tax to free market
Questions 27-29
Which THREE of the following are arguments given in favour of lower taxes?
Write the THREE correct letters, A-F, next to questions 27-29 (in any order).
Questions 31-33
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
31………………… to ……………….
↓
Leaves school, mother attempts to make him a 32………………
↓
1661, on the recommendation of his teachers, admitted to Trinity College in Cambridge. Six
Choose your answers from the box and write the letters A-D next to questions 34-37.
A Galileo
B Newton
D Einstein
35 Developed a theory which was thought to “replace” the earlier theory of gravity ……
Questions 38-39
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Telescopes with lenses cannot be built as large as telescopes with mirrors because large lenses
READING SECTION
TIME: 60 MINUTES
INSTRUCTIONS: You must not open the booklet until you are instructed to do so. Write your name and
registration number at the top of the page. You should attempt all questions. Write all your answers on
the answer sheet provided. You are not permitted to take this exam booklet out of the examination
room.
There are 40 questions in this section. They are broken up into three parts as follows:
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1.
(Reading Audio – CD3 Track 5)
Tristan da Cunha
An Island of Remote Curiosity
A Tristan da Cunha is an island in the South Pacific Ocean, formed by volcanic activity,
and part of the British Overseas Territory called Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
Tristan da Cunha is generally considered to be the most remote inhabited place on Earth.
Because of its extreme isolation, and its small population, Tristan da Cunha is a fascinating
‘experiment’ in sociology and genetics.
B The island was first discovered in 1506 by a Portuguese explorer named Tristao da
Cunha, who named the island after himself. The name of the island was later anglicized by the
inhabitants into Tristan da Cunha. In 1816, the United Kingdom annexed the island, taking
control of it. They used it as a marine military base for a number of decades in the 19th century,
before it fell into disuse after the construction of the Suez Canal. The Second World War,
however, brought renewed purpose to the island. It was used as a top secret British naval
station, codenamed HMS Atlantic Isle. The purpose of the station was to monitor the waters
for German U-boats.
C According to a recent census, the island has a population of just 263 people, who mainly
reside in the settlement known as ‘Edinburgh of the Seven Seas’. It is thought that the
residents of the island descend from just fifteen ancestors, of which eight were male and seven
were female. Because the reproduction pool is so small, the residents of the island suffer from
a number of medical disorders. There is rampant asthma on the island, which is thought to be a
result of the known fact that three of the original founders of the island suffered from asthma.
Based on the endemic asthma afflicting inhabitants of the island today, it is thought that there
is a genetic underpinning for the condition. Further evidence comes from islanders commonly
suffering from glaucoma, a degenerative eye condition which, left untreated, can result in
blindness.
D There are just eight surnames among the 263 residents of Tristan da Cunha,
corresponding roughly to the eight original male ancestors. Since there is almost no
emigration to the island, the surnames are kept intact for many generations.
E Education on the island is very limited. Children only attend school until the age of
fifteen, with the option of taking the British standardized test for secondary school graduates,
once they have completed schooling. As a consequence of the low quality of education,
standardized test scores are generally very poor. Another indication of the island’s remoteness
and relative lack of contact with the outside world is that the English spoken among its natives
is very different from that spoken in the rest of the world.
F Arguably, one of the most interesting facts about Tristan da Cunha was that until the
aftermath of the Second World War, the only currency in place was the potato. For example,
the newspaper The Tristan Times, could be purchased for four big potatoes. Today Tristan da
Cunha uses the British pound as its currency, which is odd, because neighbouring Saint Helena
(2,173 km away), of which Tristan da Cunha shares its status as a British Overseas Territory,
uses the Saint Helena pound and not the British pound. Since Tristan da Cunha was formed by
volcanic activity, and the volcano which formed it is still active, the inhabitants of the island live
in constant danger of volcanic eruption. The last such eruption occurred as recently as 1961,
when all of the islanders had to be evacuated to England. While some communities around the
world participate in fire, earthquake or tornado drills, the residents of Tristan da Cunha
participate in evacuation drills, where they practise the protocol for evacuation of the island in
case of volcanic eruption.
G The Tristan economy is built mainly upon farming. All land is owned by the community,
that is to say there is no individual land ownership. Another significant part of the economy is
the exportation of crayfish and lobster, mainly to Japan and the United States. A fire that
occurred in 2008 greatly affected both the domestic and export economies. Tristanians are a
fiercely proud and independent people; even when given the choice to stay in England after
exile due to the volcanic eruption, almost every resident returned to the island.
Questions 1-5
Questions 6-11
Match the following places with facts about them from the passage.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet.
A Saint Helena
B Tristan de Cunha
C United Kingdom
D Portugal
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.
12 Because the number of people that move permanently to the island is so small,
D continually developing
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2.
(Reading Audio – CD3 Track 6)
Questions 14-18
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A- C, and E-F from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
14 Paragraph A
15 Paragraph B
16 Paragraph C
Example Answer
Paragraph D vii
17 Paragraph E
18 Paragraph F
WHY STUDY
PHILOSOPHY?
A There are two schools of thought when it comes to education. One side
believes that education should give students tools for success in life, while the
other side believes that education itself is an important goal. No area of study
brings this debate to a head more than the study of philosophy. Philosophy, for
those who belong to the practical side of the debate, is an utter waste of time.
Philosophy provides very few tools for success in life, they say. A common
question for someone studying philosophy is – “what are you going to do with
it?” Those on the other side of the debate – those who value education for
knowledge itself – can see that the study of philosophy has many important
benefits.
B The word ‘philosophy’ derives from the Greek for ‘love of wisdom’. Just as
it was in Ancient Greece, it is those people who love wisdom, knowledge and
truth who study philosophy. However, we do not live in Ancient Greece, where
people had slaves to do all of their chores (such as working in the fields), so what
place does philosophy have in today’s society?
F Above all, philosophy is pure. Certainly reason is useful in all areas of life,
but that does not mean that philosophy’s value lies only in its usefulness in the
day-to-day. Philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
There is a beautiful human quality expressed in this. Every other academic
discipline is knowledge for some empirical pursuit. For example, engineering is
knowledge so that we can construct buildings, chemistry is knowledge so that
we can make drugs, and biology is knowledge so that we can stay healthy.
Philosophy has no tangible outcome outside of the pure pursuit of knowledge.
The only other discipline which comes close in this regard is mathematics. One is
purity in numbers, and the other is purity in words.
Questions 19-24
Write the correct letters, A-K, in boxes 19-24 on your answer sheet.
Philosophy teaches us how to reason, which in turn can help us deconstruct 19……………..
Students schooled in the precepts of reason are able to differentiate between an argument which
follows from the given premises and one that does not and is 20…………….. Force of opinion
has no impact on the 21………… of the opinion. This is because forcefulness is the wrong
22……………. for the job of convincing someone of a viewpoint. In physical battles, the correct
the truth.
Questions 25-26
A Opposites
B Analogues
C Complementary disciplines
D Unrelated but both important
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3.
(Reading Audio – CD3 Track 7)
Physalia physalis
The physiology of Physalis physalis is unique. At first glance they appear to be jellyfish,
but the Portuguese man-of-war is actually a polyp (or community of polyps) belonging
to the order Siphonophora, which gets its common name from its resemblance to an old
Portuguese war ship. The man-of-war floats with a gas-filled, blue to pink, translucent
body called a pneumatophore (a part of a single polyp). This crest-like pneumatophore,
which may attain a length of 20 cm, acts as a sail and is aligned so that the colony sails
at 45° to the wind direction. Polyps connect tentacles which are located on the ventral
surface of the float. There are 3 types of specialized polyps: dactylozooid (that find and
catch prey with poisonous stingers called nematocysts), gonozooid (that reproduce),
and gastrozooid (that digest the food, like a stomach). These fishing tentacles,
sometimes as long as 50m, hang down like a drift net, combing the water for prey.
Nomeus gronvii are tropical fish belonging to the ray-finned fishes of the class
osteichthyes. The fins, supported by long flexible rays, are modified for maneuvering,
defense and other functions. The length of this fish at maturity is about 8 cm. The nature
of the ability of Nomeus to live among the venomous tentacles of Physalia has been
likened to that of the relationship between sea anemones and anemone-fishes. This
immunity is not yet fully understood.
The relationship between Physalia and Nomeus is arguably harmful to both organisms.
They mutually benefit from one another but at the same time the symbiosis can be quite
damaging to both creatures. In this sense the relationship could be better defined as one
of mutualism and parasitism. In mutualism, both organisms benefit. In parasitism, one
organism benefits at the expense of the host.
When the Nomeus is weak it may no longer be able to withstand the venom of the
nematocysts. In one study, a freshly expired Nomeus was offered to the Physalia. The
carcass was immediately stung, taken hold of by a dactylozooid and brought up to the
gastrozooids. The Nomeus, although resilient to the toxin, is not 100% immune. In the
same study, the live Nomeus began to swim more erratically and moved towards the
carcass as the gastrozooids formed their characteristic ‘bag’ and began to digest the fish.
The live Nomeus was then caught on the left side by one of the largest dactylozooids.
This behaviour clearly indicates how the symbiosis may deviate from the definition
provided by commensalism.
On the other hand the Nomeus has two distinct gains from its innate behavior with
Physalia. As an experiment demonstrated, upon introduction, the Nomeus initially swam
near the surface and around the Physalia in a large circular pattern in both clockwise
and counterclockwise directions. This action protects the fish from attack. Most
predatory fishes of Nomeus therefore avoid the man-of-war or sustain serious injury and
often death. Second, the Physalia provides a food source for the Nomeus. In the
mentioned experiment, about 15 minutes after the release, the Nomeus swam closer to
the Physalia, paused as if inspecting it, and then began to nip the edges of the
gonozooids. Physalia is able to regenerate the tentacles and so this ingestion is rarely
fatal to the organism.
Nomeus’s capacity to survive near the poison tentacles of the man-of-war is only partly
due to the resilience of the toxin. The main reason for this skill is certain swimming
behaviors. Instead of developing protective mucus, the fish depends on its swimming
abilities as its main mechanism of defense while living in the venomous discharge of the
Physalia. The Nomeus fish can maneuver with precision to avoid stinging nematocysts.
This is the case whether the Physalia is stationary or in motion. Ray-finned fishes have a
physiology which enables maneuverability. The fish displays relative ease in
maintaining a safe distance from the dactylozooids even with absurd, sharp changes in
direction. Nomeus specimens use the pectoral fins for propulsion while the pelvic fins
are spread like a fan. The caudal fin is apparently used for only short fast darts. This
swimming behavior appears to be well suited for existence with Physalia. It is therefore
apparent that, rather than developing an ability to inhibit the discharge of Physalia
nematocysts or prevent them from stinging, Nomeus uses its swimming abilities as its
primary means of defense while living in the venomous drift net of Physalia.
Taking into consideration all of the interactions involved in the symbiotic relationship
of these two organisms, the appropriate term to assign is difficult. The facts state that
the commensalism of these two aquatic creatures is one which incorporates beneficial as
well as harmful factors depending on the circumstance. It is this alternation of prey-
predator roles of Physalia and Nomeus that creates a definitive difficulty. Perhaps the
best term we can apply for the moment is that of commensalism given that both
animals receive some benefit at varying times during the relationship.
Questions 27-32
Choose no more than TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
29 Nomeus is also a very competent ………………….., which helps keep it safe from the man-
of-war.
30 Although they initially look like a jellyfish, the man-of-war is really a ………………
32 Nomeus’s ability to live around the poisonous ………………… of the man-of-war is not
fully understood.
Questions 33-36
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.
A its venom
B protective mucus
C swimming behaviours
D being able to subsist on parts of the man-of-war
A dorsal fins
B caudal fins
C pelvic fins
D pectoral fins
Questions 39-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
40 The chief reason why Nomeus exists is to act in commensalism with Physalia.
Practice Test Two Candidate Name __________________
WRITING SECTION
TIME: 60 MINUTES
INSTRUCTIONS: You must not open the booklet until you are instructed to do so. Write your name and
registration number at the top of the page. You should attempt all questions. Write your responses in
the answer booklet provided. You are not permitted to take this exam booklet out of the examination
room.
There are 2 tasks in this section. You must do both. If you do not meet the minimum length
requirements provided, you will be penalized.
WRITING
WRITING TASK 1
The charts below show the percentages of types of vehicles sold in the United States in the
selected year. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant.
1980 1990
5%
6%
15% Cars
Cars
Trucks
Trucks
SUVs
79%
95%
2000 2010
Banks should receive billions of dollars in assistance from their governments during a
financial crisis that was in large part their fault.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give reasons for your answer, and
include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Examiner Questions:
You will have one to two minutes to talk about this topic.
You will have one minute to prepare what you are going to say.