Unit 9 | Cause and effect

Causes and effects with conditionals

After a conditional like If I were or If he had, you might hear about an effect. In
SPOTLIGHT ON TESTING

this case, the effect is something that was possible but did not actually happen.
Listening questions may ask you about these types of effects.

1 Understanding cause-effect situations

AUDIO FILE Listen to the press conference. Fill each blank in the table. Use no more than
three words for each blank. Listen more than once if necessary.

Cause (real or unreal) Effect (real or unreal)

1. Because FBI agents 12 people … a shipment of fake $100 bills was
for counterfeiting… stopped.
2. If the fake notes had gone into
... the value of the dollar might have .
circulation, …

3. If Agent Hollis were to say how

… she would tell the reporters.
the FBI knew of the operation, …

4. Criminals have access to very good … so they can bills with the 1996
technology, … design.

5. Fake U.S. bills are harder to detect … so the criminals planned to to Asia.
outside the U.S, …

2 Understanding what did / didn’t happen

AUDIO FILE Listen to the press conference again. Check (3) each statement that is true
according to the listening passage.
1. The value of the U.S. dollar fell a lot.
2. The FBI learned of the counterfeiting operation by reading people’s e-mail.
3. Agent Hollis believes a new style of $100 bill is being planned.

Vocabulary: Synonyms
A test question may ask for the word closest in meaning to a target word
(the word being tested). Sometimes the answer—a synonym—is found in
the reading. In other cases, you have to depend on your own knowledge of
vocabulary. Practice by noticing synonyms as you read or listen.

3 Working with synonyms

Read the article. Match each word on the left with the closest synonym. Write the letter in
the blank.

1. circulation a. put out

2. currently b. bill
3. image c. portrait
4. issue d. general use
5. note e. now

18 Spotlight on Testing • Unit 9

Strategies for taking the: TOEFL® Test TOEIC® Test IELTS™ Test
 Know Your
American Money
• Most U.S. bills have the
image of a president
(Washington on the $1;
Lincoln on the $5). Only
two notes in current use
show non-presidents—
Alexander Hamilton on the
$10 bill and Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill.

• The paper money of the United States is issued by the Federal Reserve Bank, not by the United States
Treasury. The Federal Reserve pays the Treasury Department to print the money.

• Now, the highest value of any U.S. paper money is $100. Notes in higher values stopped being printed
in 1945 and were officially taken out of circulation in 1969.

• The highest value of any bill is $100,000. A very small number were printed in the 1930s, featuring a
portrait of President Woodrow Wilson. They were never actually used by ordinary people, only for
exchanges between banks.

• The largest value U.S. banknote ever circulated is the $10,000 bill. It shows a picture of Salmon P.
Chase, President Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury. About 300 of these bills probably still exist. Even
though they were declared “not in circulation” in 1969, the government says they still have a value of
$10,000 and would be accepted at a government bank. This is unlikely. Because they are so rare, these
bills are being held in private money collections. A note in good condition is worth about $500,000 on
the collectors’ market.

4 Check your understanding

Read the memo again. Write T for true or F for false.
1. Benjamin Franklin was not a president of the U.S.
2. The U.S. Treasury issues America’s paper money.
3. Many ordinary people once used $100,000 bills.
4. If you take a $10,000 bill to a government bank, the bank will accept it.

5 Skills in review In vocabulary questions like Which

Read the short news stories in Exercise 10
on p. 62 of the Workbook. Find synonyms
/ near synonyms for: thief, money, police
officer, complained, mistakenly, and hurt.
word is closest in meaning to X? be careful.
Some answer choices might mean the same as
X in another context but not in this one. Always
find X in the reading, and make sure your choice
fits into the context before you answer.

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