Full name: ……………………………………………………………………………………… Class: ……………………………………

Student’s ID number: …………………………………………………………………… Test date: ………………………………

READING PASSAGE 1 - Questions 1-14

Questions 1-7
The Reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A-H. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-H from the
list of headings below.
List of headings Example: Answer:
i. The personal impact of friendship Paragraph A iv
ii. The right amount and quality of friends
iii. Strong relationships with best friend 1. Paragraph B ___________
iv. What is friendship? 2. Paragraph C ___________
v. Communities aren't isolated 3. Paragraph D ___________
vi. Understanding ourselves 4. Paragraph E ___________
vii. Individual differences and the effect on community 5. Paragraph F ___________
viii. The decline of friendship 6. Paragraph G ___________
ix. New studies on friendship 7. Paragraph H ___________
x. Changes in the selection process

What friends do we need?

A. When Aristotle was asked, in the 4th century BC, what defines a friend, he had no doubts. A friend is
‘one soul inhabiting two bodies,’ he said, adding: ‘Without friends no one would choose to live, though
he had all other goods.’ In this century, it is a little more complicated. A startling discovery in the
American Sociological Review found 25 per cent of Americans do not have a single friend. That is,
nobody ‘with whom to discuss matters important to them,’ said the researchers. The average number
of friends was two. Yet modern demands on our time can take a deep toll on friendships.

B. Two books aim to help us through the maze. Vital Friends: The People You Can't Afford to Live Without
by Tom Rath, advises readers to evaluate the roles played by their friends, ensuring eight essential
friendship types are represented. Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today by Liz Spencer and
Ray Pahl looks at the different kinds of friendships in the internet age.

C. Rath is a New York Times bestselling author, and leads research and consulting at Galtup. He analysed
more than five million interviews to try to define what Plato said he never could: what is friendship?
The result is Vital Friends, and it reaches startling conclusions. If you ask people why they became
homeless, why their marriage failed or why they overeat, he says, they do not blame it on poverty or
mobility; they blame it on a lack of friendships. If your best friend eats healthily, he discovered, you are
five times more likely to have a healthy diet yourself. His interviewees rated friendship as being more
than five times as important as physical intimacy in the success of a marriage. He also found patients
with heart disease are twice as likely to die if they do not have three or four close social connections.

D. Ray Pal's Rethinking Friendship is based on in-depth interviews conducted over seven years. He finds
the quality of our friendships has a huge influence on the amount of satisfaction we draw from life.
‘Individuals with no real friends at work have only a one in 12 chance of feeling engaged in their job,’
he says. But the quantity, as well as the quality of friends, does matter. Some people can have three or
four close friends and be very happy, he believes. Others more extrovert prefer to have 10 or 15. But
he is certain you need to have more than one friend to be satisfied in life. ‘It is a very common mistake
to expect one close friend to provide everything you need,’ he says ‘And it can cause a lot of problems.’

1
E. Dr Angela Carter, an occupational psychiatrist from Sheffield University, says: ‘We are social animals.
We need friends to hold a mirror up to us and show us what our behaviour looks like. They provide
companionship and support, but the most important thing friends do is help us to work out who we
are. Families cannot do that in the same way.’ She has found people can struggle to find the friends
that they need. ‘We need to be quite strategic in our friendships. People think friends turn up from
nowhere, and they grumble when they don’t have any. You need to think, “What do I need from
friends and am I being a good friend in return?”’

F. In researching Rethinking Friend ship, Pahl found little cause for the notion that society is becoming
atomised and selfish. ‘Friendship takes such a variety of different forms,’ he says. ‘I don't think people
have fewer friends now. What is new is that in the past 50 years we have become more and more used
to choosing friends, rather than accepting them as given.’

G. Both authors did not find transient communities are all about networking and getting on. ‘As people
have learned to be consumers, maybe they have also learned to make choices among their friends,’
says Pahl. ‘But when people think about their close friends, those relationships are deep and trusting,
not exploitative or self-seeking. People are probably loyal and decent, against what is cynically
regarded as the current of the age.’

H. So how many friends can one person reasonably support? ‘I don't think it is useful or meaningful to put
a number on it,’ says Dr Carter. ‘Psychologists use the term ‘affiliation need’, and society tells us we
have a lot of it. In truth, some people need a lot of friends, others few! ‘It is fair to say, people with a
more diverse and mixed group of friends have a more robust defence against the way the world works’
says Pahl. ‘I don't want to be prescriptive, or the government will start saying that we need a Ministry
of Mates. But if you can provide the circumstances for a more friendly society, then society will be
happier and healthier.’
Questions 8-11. Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
8. A quarter of people from the USA are without a ___________.
9. People need ___________ differ ent types of friend in their group.
10. People blame problems in their lives on not having enough ___________.
11. The ___________ of friendships and the number of friends is important.

Questions 12-14. Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage 1?
Write: TRUE; FALSE; or NOT GIVEN in boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet.
12. People don't find it easy to get the friendships they require.
13. Technology has changed friendship groups.
14. Everyone needs the same number of friends to be happy.

READING PASSAGE 2 - Questions 15-25

The Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef was one of Australia's first World Heritage Areas and is the world's largest World
Heritage Area. The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981 and was one of 15
World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List on 21 May 2007. The Great Barrier Reef is the
world's largest World Heritage property extending over 2,000 kilometres and covering 348,000 km 2 on the
north-east continental shelf of Australia. Larger than Italy, it is one of the best known marine protected
areas. The Great Barrier Reef's diversity reflects the maturity of the ecosystem which has evolved over
many thousands of years. It is the world's most extensive coral reef and has some of the richest biological
diversity found anywhere. The Great Barrier Reef contains extensive areas of seagrass, mangrove, sandy
and muddy seabed communities, inter-reefal areas, deep oceanic waters and island communities. Contrary
to popular belief, the Great Barrier Reef is not a continuous barrier, but a broken maze of around 2,900
individual reefs, of which 760 are fringing reefs along the mainland or around islands. Some have coral

2
cays. The reefs range in size from less than one hectare to over 1,000 km2, and in shape from flat platform
reefs to elongated ribbon reefs.
The Great Barrier Reef provides habitat for many diverse forms of marine life. There are an estimated
1,500 species of fish and over 360 species of hard, reef-building corals. More than 4,000 mollusc species
and over 1,500 species of sponges have been identified. Other well-represented animal groups include
anemones, marine worms, crustaceans and echinoderms. The extensive seagrass beds are an important
feeding ground for the dugong, a mammal species internationally listed as vulnerable. The reef also
supports a variety of fleshy algae that are heavily grazed by turtles, fish, sea urchins and molluscs. The reef
contains nesting grounds of world significance for the endangered loggerhead turtle, and for green,
hawksbill and flatback turtles, which are all listed as vulnerable. It is also a breeding area for humpback
whales that come from the Antarctic to give birth in the warm waters. The islands and cays support around
215 bird species, many of which have breeding colonies there. Reef herons, osprey, pelicans, frigate birds,
sea eagles and shearwaters are among the seabirds that have been recorded.

The Great Barrier Reef is also of cultural importance, containing many archaeological sites of Aboriginal or
Torres Strait Islander origin, including fish traps, middens, rock quarries, story sites and rock art. Some
notable examples occur on Lizard and Hinchinbrook Islands, and on Stanley, Cliff and Clack Islands where
there are spectacular galleries of rock paintings. There are over 30 historic shipwrecks in the area, and on
the islands are ruins, operating lighthouses and other sites that are of cultural and historical significance.
About 99.3 per cent of the World Heritage property is within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, with the
remainder in Queensland waters and islands. Because of its status, many people think the entire Great
Barrier Reef is a marine sanctuary or national park, and therefore protected equally throughout. However,
the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a multiple-use area in which a wide range of activities and uses are
allowed, including extractive industries.

This has been achieved using a comprehensive, multiple-use zoning system. Impacts and conflicts are
minimized by providing high levels of protection for specific areas. A variety of other activities are allowed
to continue in a managed way in certain zones for the Great Barrier Reef: the Queensland Government and
the Australian Government. The majority of the World Heritage property is still relatively pristine when
compared with coral reef ecosystems elsewhere in the world. Guided by the principle of balancing
conservation and sustainable use, the regulatory framework significantly enhances the resilience of the
Great Barrier Reef.

The Australian and Queensland Governments have a cooperative and integrated approach to managing the
Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) is the Australian Government
agency responsible for overall management, and the Queensland Government, particularly the Queensland
Environmental Protection Agency, provides day-to-day management of the marine park for the Authority.

Questions 15-20
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
The Great Barrier Reef, one of Australia's first sites to become a World Heritage area, is situated on the
15___________ off the northeastern coast of Australia.
The 16___________ of the reef is a result of the evolution of the 17___________ over a very long time.
Being the biggest 18___________ of its kind, the reef is, from the 19___________ point of view, very
varied. This vast area consists of disconnected reefs of different lengths and provides a habitat for a wide
range of 20___________ from fish to coral and sponges and other creatures.

Questions 21-23. Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage 2?
Write: TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
3
21. The reef provides food for turtles.
22. There are plans to renovate some of the ruins on the islands.
23. All industrial activity is forbidden in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Questions 24-25. Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
24. What has a major impact on the Great Barrier Reef's capacity to flourish?
25. What is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority accountable for in respect of the reef?

VOCABULARY - Questions 26-35. Match the following words with the correct definitions.

NB There are TWO extra words you do not need to use.

WORDS WORD MEANINGS

FORMS
26 cranial Noun A a condition in which bacteria or viruses that cause disease
have entered the body
27 conceal Verb B to prevent something from being seen or known about
28 infection Noun C to stop doing an activity before you have finished it
29 contamination Noun D to suffer something difficult, unpleasant, or painful
30 abandon Verb E of the skull
31 consensus Noun F a group of similar things that are close together
32 recede Verb G to move further away into the distance
33 cluster Noun H something shown or examined as an example; a typical
example
34 specimen Noun I a person who intentionally damages property belonging to
other people
35 fatality Noun J a death caused by an accident or by violence
K the process of making something dirty or poisonous, or the
state of containing unwanted or dangerous substances
L a generally accepted opinion or decision among a group of
people

WRITING
The pie charts below show the online shopping sales for retail sectors in New Zealand in 2003 and 2013.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where
relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
ONLINE SALES FOR RETAIL SECTORS IN NEW ZEALAND

4
 2003 2013

16%
24%
29%
travel
36%
film/music
books
clothes 22%

19%

21% 33%