PRACTICE TEST 8

SECTION A: LISTENING
I. You are going to hear two students, Brett and Mica, talking to their tutor about their
photography assignment. Listen and answer questions 1-5. Write NO MORE THAN FIVE WORDS for
each answer.

1. In bad weather, what should students think carefully about when it comes to photography?

2. What does Brett want to take advantage of when photographing near water?

3. What can they avoid when they use a piece of equipment called an “angle finder”?

4. According to the tutor and Brett, whose works or paintings should they use to generate ideas?

5. What issues should they think about when deciding on what to photograph?

II. You will hear a dialogue about property development. For questions 1-5, decide whether the
following statements are True (T) or False (F).

1. The process of buying a house, improving it and selling it for a profit is called money making.
2. Marcus says that buyers need to do their homework before they buy a house at an auction.
3. When renovating a house, Marcus suggests that buyers think about what fittings future occupants will need.
4. People advertise in newspapers because they want to sell their homes at lower price. 
5. Marcus suggests contacting the land registry if you find an empty house. 

SECTION B: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

I. Choose the best word that fits each blank.
1. The strikers are sticking _____ a substantial pay rise.
A. up for B. out for C. together D. up to
2. As she is so heavily overworked, there is a _____ possibility that she will have a nervous breakdown.
A. distinctive B. distinct C. little D. manifest
3. Make sure you ____ up the data on your computer, because you might get a virus.
A. back B. copy C. store D. save
4. Many local authorities realise there is a need to make ____ for disabled people in their housing
programmes.
A. assistance B. conditions C. admittance D. provision
5. The _____ of two houses prove such a financial burden that they were forced to sell one.
A. upshot B. upsurge C. upkeep D. uproar
6. There is no doubt about the outcome of the trial. The man is a _____ crimminal.
A. self- conscious B. self- contained C. self- confessed D. self- centred
7. There was a _____ of brakes as the car took the corner too quickly.
A. squawk B. squelch C. scream D. screech
8. Our salesmen normally ____ their travel expenses from the company once a month.
A. settle B. reimburse C. cover D. claim
9. The girl’s large, heavy earrings had _____ her earlobes permanently.
A. disfigured B. dismayed C. displaced D. disclaimed
10. The actor was so nervous that he could only remember small _____ of dialogue.
A. shreds B. pieces C. patches D. snatches
11. As a full story _____, the public reacted with shock.
A. uncovered B. unfolded C. unwrapped D. undid
12. This song is not _____ as original as their previous ones.
A. almost B. virtually C. nearly D. practically
13. In any transport system, the safety of passengers should be _____.
A. paramount B. eminent C. chief D. prime
14. Karen was terribly nervous before the interview but she managed to pull herself _____ and act confidently.
A. together B. over C. off D. through

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15. I’m not keen on ____ control of the project to a relative newcomer.
A. undertaking B. charging C. entrusting D. allotting
16. We _____ up a friendship the very first time we met.
A. struck B. launched C. cropped D. settled
17. I’m sure that never happened – it’s just a ______ of your imagination.
A. fantasy B. figment C. piece D. picture
18. The desk was so ______ with papers that it was hard to find anything.
A. burdened B. cluttered C. overrun D. muddled
19. I have several problems at the moment, ______ the least of which is lack of money.
A. but B. not C. only D. far
20. Poor management brought the company to the _____ of collapse.
A. fringe B. brim C. rim D. brink

II. Fill each of the blanks with ONE suitable word.

1. We just hung __________ in the park because we had nothing else to do.
2. If you take that job, you'll be __________-off than you are now, because the salary's lower
3. The party was rather boring at the start, but everyone livened __________ later.
4. She's always __________ the go. I don't know where she gets her energy from.
5. Have you seen the price of these jeans? What a rip- __________!
6. He asked me how old I was and, __________ through my teeth, I said "29".
7. She's so __________- fisted that she'll do almost anything to avoid spending money.
8. His health has improved in leaps and ________.
9. You're not going to have another piece of cake, are you? That's the fifth you've had, you _______ pig!
10. Peter wanted to enter the drawing competition, but he was too late to enter, and he _______ the boat.

III. Supply the correct form of the word in brackets.

1. I think that with a little ______________ (FLATTER), I could persuade him to change his mind.
2. What a ____________ (CRAWL), telling him that he's the best teacher she's ever had!
3. That was a rather ______________ (TACT) remark. You've obviously upset him.
4. I don’t care if you’d had too much to drink. Your behaviour last night was quite _____________ (DEFENSE).
5. Don’t judge the matter by my opponent’s ________________ (LATERAL) statement, but wait till you have
heard the other side.
6. The bicycle I lent Tom had been in good condition, but he returned it in ________________ (REPAIR).
7. She complained ________________ (CEASE) about his rudeness.
8. She is very efficient, and ________________ (FAIL) polite to the customers.
9. The ________________ (GRAND) of the castle made us gasp in wonder.
10. They fought _________________ (HERO) in the war.

IV. Read the text and find 10 mistakes and correct them.
For the past eight years, many of the world’s leading classical musicians have gathered together in
Switzerland’s most glitzy ski resort to play, to teach and socialise. If this were all, it would be the ultimate
classical music insiders’ club. But the attraction of Verbier, their charm and relevance, is that it is also home for
three weeks to more than 100 young musicians from 31 countries, starried-eye about meeting the masters and
getting a crashing course at the highest possible level. Conductors of the world’s top orchestras are off hand to
get the young musicians into shape, coaxing fine performances of so daunting challenges as Mahler’s Third
Symphony and Brahms’ First Symphony.
Verbier is the creation of the Swede, Martin Engstroem, who for many years was a leading agent. He
wanted to run his own festival and, having some of the best contacts of the business, it was not hard to find a
Swiss ski resort to look for a summer boost, rich villa owners keen to open their houses to musical celebrities
and stars used to being indulgent. Engstroem is the most relaxed and charming of men, but in his way he is a
dictator. The music heard at Verbier tends to be of his classical taste with barely a note of the contemporary.

SECTION C: READING
I. Read the passage and do the tasks that follow.
BUILDING HOUSES OUT OF EARTH
On every continent, one can find houses or other buildings made of the clay–bearing soils dug up from
the ground. In some places, earth building technologies have been around for a very long time. In the
southwestern United States, for example, American Indian tribes such as the Pueblo people have been building

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earth houses and other earth structures for thousands of years. And in China’s Xinjiang Province, archaeologists
have found entire earth villages dating back over 2500 years. While building houses out of earth is certainly not
new, it has never been very common because of the preference for other materials.
In some parts of the world, however, there has been renewed growth in the popularity of earth building.
Two such places are Australia and New Zealand, where the practice did not exist until the relatively recent
arrival of European settlers. It is estimated that there are now over 2100 houses made of earth in Australia, and
35% of them were built within the past decade. An equal proportion of the 550 earthen structures in
New Zealand were built in the last five years. This trend appears to reflect growing earth construction in North
America and Western Europe.
Why the renewed interest in earth building? The building material itself is probably the reason. Earth is
available virtually anywhere, literally under our feet.  And unlike many other building materials that typically
require treatment with chemical preservatives, earth is non-toxic. This cannot be said for commercially sold
timber and brick products.
Another well-known characteristic of earth houses is their passive solar capacity –  their ability to retain
warmth in the winter and keep cool in the summer  without the need for dedicated solar panels, plumbing or
fossil fuel energy  sources. This comes entirely from the effective way in which earthen walls act to store heat.
Some people claim that earth buildings are cheaper to build than conventional brick or wooden houses,
the two most common types in Australia and New Zealand.  This appears to be true, according to data from the
New Zealand Construction  Quarterly. Assuming walls make up 15% of the cost of building a house, then the use
of earthen walls would bring a total saving of 10% over timber frame construction and 38% over brick.
But perhaps most attractive of all is the unique atmosphere provided by earth houses, with  their natural
colors, their acoustic properties and thick, solid walls.
Not all earth building is done the same way. The technologies used vary from region to region,
depending on the types of earth available and local building traditions. They are also undergoing constant study
and improvement, with a view to bettering resistance to earthquakes and weather.
In New Zealand, stabilisers such as cement, sand, straw, even cow dung, have been found to make a
stronger and longer-lasting material when added to earth. The downside of using particularly effective stabilisers
like cement is that they can be expensive and their manufacture may create much pollution. Thus their use
should be kept to a minimum.
Those who choose to build with earth should also be careful about using paints or other  coatings on the
surface of the earth walls. Some coatings have the effect of preventing the walls from ‘breathing’. When this
happens any water that gets absorbed into the walls may not have a way of escaping and so gets trapped. This
may lead to cracks or other signs of early deterioration of the earthen material.

1. Choose the best answer.

In ‘Building houses out of earth’, the writer’s main aim is to ………. .
A. provide an overview of earth building
B. promote the building of earth houses
C. review the history of earth building
D. examine the variety of earth buildings

2. Name TWO places where earth building practices have existed for a long time.
………………………. ……………………….
3. Name THREE places where earth building is becoming more popular.
………………………. ………………………. ……………………….

4. In ‘Building houses out of earth’, the writer mentions several reasons why some people prefer
earth houses. Read the list of reasons below and choose FOUR that are referred to in the passage.
A. cost of construction B. resistance to earthquakes
C. stability of earth D. heat storage capacity
E. availability of materials F. construction technology G. appearance and character
5. Use a NUMBER or NO MORETHAN THREE WORDS to answer the following questions.
a. What percentage of earth buildings in New Zealand were constructed in the past 5 years?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
b. Name ONE building material that contains chemical preservatives.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..

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c. Name the feature of earth houses that enables them to keep temperatures low in summer.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
d. Name TWO substances that can lengthen the life of earth as a building material.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..

6. Complete the flow chart below. Choose ONE or TWO words from the passage for each answer.

(a) …………….

(b) …………….

II. Complete the following article by using ONE suitable word for each space.
SLIM CHANCE
(1) _________ your heart and swear in (2) _________ honesty that you have never ever been on a diet.
If so, lucky you! You must be supremely confident about your appearance, enviably restrained in your eating
habits or (3) _________ with an ability to eat what you like without gaining weight.
In a society whose most potent icons are abnormally thin models, fat has become, quite literally, a dirty
(4) __________- one of the earliest epithets to be hurried around the school playground. These days, children
begin to restrict their (5) __________ intake as early as age nine. By fifteen, as many as one girl in three thinks
she should be on a diet.
This obsession with losing weight fuels a multi-million pound slimming industry which grows ever more
inventive in its attempts to persuade veteran (6) _________ that “this one really works”. Meanwhile, it is
obvious to many people that diets don’t work -at least, not in the long (7) ___________. If they did, we would
be getting thinner, but in fact we are getting fatter.
As many as nine out of ten dieters needn’t have bothered dieting at all as they put back the weight they
(8) __________; and up to half end up weighing even more than they did before. Most of these people see their
problem as a personal (9) __________ - they think they should have been more strong -minded. This is a
fallacy, however, for there is growing evidence that many dieters get locked (10) __________ a losing battle
with their own bodies, which fight like mad to resist the starvation process. There is also a good reason to
believe that dieting may be bad for you- particularly if it leads to regular fluctuations in weight.

III. Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to
each of the questions.
GENETICS
In the 1860s, an Austrian botanist and monk named Gregor Mendel began studying the characteristics of
pea plants. Specifically, he was interested in the way in which pea plants passed on their characteristics to their
offspring. Mendel chose to work with pea plants because they are not self-pollinating. Unlike some plants, pea
plants are distinctly male or female, and require the presence of a pea plant of the opposite sex for pollination.
In this way, they are roughly analogous to humans and all other mammals, and it is for this reason that Mendel
chose to study them.
In his experiments, Mendel selected seven distinct traits in pea plants: such as plants producing round
seeds versus those producing wrinkled seeds, or tall plants versus short plants. Mendel then spent years
breeding plants with different combinations of traits and observing the results. What he concluded was that
each trait is controlled by a gene which is passed down by parents. For example, there is gene for pea plants
with round seeds and one for plants with wrinkled seeds. Mendel also concluded that a new pea plant must

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inherit a full set of genes from each of its parents. In cases, where a plant inherited the gene for round seeds
from one parent and the gene for wrinkled seeds from the other, the new plants would have round seeds. This
led Mendel to conclude that some genes are dominant and others are recessive. Characteristics which are
controlled by recessive genes, like wrinkled seeds in pea plants, only surface if an organism inherits the
recessive gene from both of its parents.
Although it was greatly expanded upon in the 20 th century, Mendel’s basis theory has stood up to more
than one hundred years of scientific scrutiny, and a whole field of scientific study, genetics, has arisen around
it. It is now known that Mendel’s genes are actually long strands of a complex molecule called DNA. Each gene
carries instructions for the production of a certain protein. , and it is these proteins which determine the traits of
an organism. We also know that genes are transmitted in structures called chromosomes, long chains of genes.
Humans have 46 chromosomes, receiving 23 from their mother and 23 from their father. Actually each set of 23
is basically a complete genetic package, but since some genes are dominant and some are recessive, the
redundancy events out.
Mendel’s observations led him to a simple and elegant theory of heredity, but while the basis of his
theory will stand, reality has not proven to be quite as simple as theory. Any living organism has thousands of
genes. For example, fruit flies have about 13,000 sets of genes, and humans have somewhere between 20,000
and 30,000. Adding to the complexity implied by the sheer numbers of genes is the fact that many traits are
polygenic; that is, they are controlled by a combination of tens or even hundreds of genes, rather than by a
single gene as Mendel had envisioned. So while his experiments produced black and white results (a pea plant
had either round or wrinkled seeds), the interactions of genes in determining traits are often not so
straightforward, and there may be hundreds or thousands of possible outcomes.
Genetics has had a huge impact on the first years of the 21 st century. While earlier scientists were
largely limited to investigating the genes of organisms and classifying which genes controlled which traits,
recent advances in chemistry and molecular biology have actually allowed scientists to begin to alter those
genes. The implications of this development are nearly infinite. While still in its infancy, this new science, called
genetic engineering, has allowed scientists to change organisms in fundamental ways. Scientists can now
deactivate harmful genes, promote the function of useful genes, or introduce foreign genes into an organism to
produce an entirely new trait.
1. According to paragraph 1, Mendel’s reason for choosing pea plants for his experiments was that
A. they were easier to breed than other types of plants
B. their method of reproduction was similar to that of mammals
C. they passed interesting characteristics to their offspring
D. he was interested in studying why some plants are self-pollinating
2. The phrase “the other” in paragraph 2 refers to
A. trait B. seed C. gene set D. parent
3. According to the information in paragraph 2, what led Mendel to conclude that some genes were recessive?
A. In some cases, pea plants completely failed to inherit characteristics from their parents.
B. Some of his pea plants produced seeds that were progressively more and more wrinkled.
C. Some characteristics only seemed to surface if both parents had that characteristic.
D. In some cases, his pea plants did not seem to inherit a full set of genes from each parent.
4. The word “scrutiny” in paragraph 3 is closet in meaning to
A. investigation B. opposition C. application D. theory
5. All of the following are mentioned in the passage as supplements to Mendel’s original theory EXCEPT
A. an explanation of how some genes dominate others
B. the chemical description of genes
C. the counting of genes and gene grouping in organisms
D. the manipulation of genes to produce specific traits
6. According to paragraph 3, what is ultimately responsible for the production of specific traits in an organism?
A. The replication of chromosomes
B. The production of proteins within the organism
C. The use of proteins to create DNA in the organism
D. The structural complexity of the DNA molecule
7. According to paragraph 4, what fact complicates Mendel’s theory?
A. The fact that many traits are controlled by several genes
B. The fact that the exact numbers of genes for organism are uncertain
C. The fact that organisms can have very different numbers of genes
D. The fact that Mendel had only thought in black and white terms

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8. Based on the information in paragraph 4, what can be inferred about the genetic makeup of organisms?
A. Humans have the highest number of genes that are polygenic.
B. Their traits are actually impossible to predict.
C. Only organisms that lack polygenetic traits are properly understood.
D. More advanced organisms generally have higher numbers of gene sets.
9. The word “envisioned” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to
A. imagined B. required C. represented D. tested
10. Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A. According to Mendel, traits were passed down through genes, which could either be recessive or dominant.
B. Mendel’s basic theory has proved to be very complicated.
C. Humans have 46 long chains of genes.
D. Thanks to genetic engineering, scientists can now make fundamental changes to organisms.

SECTION D: WRITING
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the
word given. You must use between three and eight words.
1. The inhabitants were far worse- off twenty years ago than they are now. (NOWHERE)
→ The inhabitants are ………………………………………………. were twenty years ago.
2. I’ve often contemplated emigrating. (THOUGHT)
→ Many’s ………………………………………………… emigrating.
3. I feel that to brand her ideas unworkable at this stage would be wrong. (WRITE)
→ I don’t think we ………………………………………. at this stage.
4. The journalist wanted to interview me and I eventually agreed. (CONSENTED)
→ I ………………………………………………………… the journalist.
5. I put a lot of care and attention into this matter. (TROUBLE)
→ I ………………………………………………………………………………………… this matter.
6. None of us was hurt in the explosion. (UNSCATHED)
→ We ………………………………………………………. the explosion.
7. There was a fantastic firework display at the end of the Games. (CULMINATED)
→ The Games ……………………………………………... fireworks.
8. I choose very carefully who I discuss my private life with. (PARTICULAR)
→ I am ………………………………………………………. my private life with.
9. I’ve forgotten my sandwiches on three consecutive days this week, which was really annoying. (RUNNING)
→ I’ve forgotten my sandwiches ……………………………………, which was really annoying.
10. Your scheme is brilliant, but it won’t succeed. (DOOMED)
→ Brilliant ………………………………………………………………………………….. failure.

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