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PRACTICE TEST 1
Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English (1 hour 30 minutes)
Part 1
For questions 1-8, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. Mark your
answers on the separate answer sheet.

There is an example at the beginning (0).

0 A holding B clinging C seizing D embracing

0 A B C D

APPALACHIA
B
Steep green wooded hills with alpine meadows (0) ...................... to their sides stretched away for as
far as the eye could see. Before me a sinuous road led down to a valley of rolling farms
(1) ...................... out along a lazy river. It was as perfect a (2) ...................... as I had ever seen. I
drove through the soft light of dusk, (3) ...................... by the beauty.
This was the heart of Appalachia, the most (4) ...................... impoverished region of the United
States. Known for its music, and also known historically, and largely unjustly, for its isolation, for coal
mining, and for the dearth of education of its inhabitants, it is also one of the most misunderstood
regions. But to my (5) ......................, above all else, it was simply inexpressibly beautiful.
It seemed strange to think that the urban professionals of the Eastern Seaboard cities hadn’t
(6) ...................... an area of such arresting beauty, filling the dales with rustic weekend cottages,
country clubs and fancy restaurants. At a second (7) ......................, however, there were a handful of
quaint cottages (8) ...................... among the farms. Perhaps Appalachia was on the cusp of
establishing a new identity.

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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

1 A spread B stacked C stood D sat

2 A set B scenery C setting D scenario

3 A digested B absorbed C dissolved D immersed

4 A severely B strictly C sharply D harshly

5 A nose B thought C eye D taste

6 A possessed B encamped C overtaken D colonised

7 A glance B take C attempt D glare

8 A brushed B tossed C concealed D dotted

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PRACTICE TEST 1

Part 2
For questions 9-16, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only one word in
each space. There is an example at the beginning (0). Write your answers IN CAPITAL LETTERS on the
separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 B U T

AUSTRALIA’S DOG FENCE

BUT
The dog fence is Australia’s version of the Great Wall of China, (0) ................. longer;
erected to keep (9) ................. hostile invaders, in this (10) ................. hordes of wild
dogs, called dingoes. The empire it preserves is (11) ................. of the woolgrowers.
They are sovereigns of the world’s second largest sheep flock after China’s, some 123
million head, and keepers of a wool export business worth four billion dollars
(12) ................. the national economy. It seems to (13) ................. little that more
and more people – conservationists, politicians, taxpayers and animal lovers – say that
the construction of such a fence would never be allowed today. With some sections of
it almost one hundred years old, built by bushmen travelling with camels, the dog fence
has (14) ................., as even most conservationists ruefully admit, ‘an icon of frontier
ingenuity’.
To appreciate this unusual outback monument and to meet the people (15) .................
livelihoods depend on it, I spent part of an autumn travelling the wire. For most of its
prodigious length, the fence winds like a river through a landscape that,
(16) ................. heavy rain has fallen, scarcely has rivers. It marks the traditional
dividing line. Outside, dingoes thrive; inside, legally classified as vermin, they may be
shot, poisoned and trapped.

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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

Part 3
For questions 17-24, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form
a word that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0). Write your answers IN
CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 J U D G E M E N T S

JUDGEMENTS about people are formed on the basis of their

Most snap (0) .......................... JUDGE

(17) .................................... features. The eyes, regarded as clues to one’s true FACE

character, are said (18) ....................................... to be the windows of the soul: POETRY

closely positioned, they imply (19) ......................................; set wide apart they SLY

suggest (20) .............................. and directness. Thin mouths are equated with HONEST

meanness and full mouths with (21) ................................... . Unconsciously, we SENSUAL

make such instant judgements and they are made about us. There is no hiding

place for the face. Always exposed and vulnerable, it (22) ................................. VOLUNTARY

expresses happiness, desire and joy, anger, fear, shame and (23) ................. . LOATHE

Precisely for that reason, a masked face evokes fear and horror: once

someone’s distinguishing (24) ................................ are hidden, we cannot read CHARACTER

or recognise the person and fear of the unknown immediately arouses

suspicion.

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PRACTICE TEST 1

Part 4
For questions 25-30, complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the
word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between three and eight words, including the word
given. Here is an example (0).

Example:

0 I really wish I’d seen her before she left.

regret

I really ........................................................................................ before she left.

0 regret not having seen her

Write only the missing words on the separate answer sheet.

25 It won’t hurt to tell your boss how you feel.

lose

You have ........................................................................................ your boss how you feel.

26 It was only because of Sarah’s quick reactions that we weren’t injured.

it

If .............................................................................. Sarah’s quick reactions, we would have been injured.

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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

27 He did not pay any attention to the numerous warning letters he received.

notice

He ........................................................................................ the numerous warning letters he received.

28 The meeting wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated.

turned

The meeting .............................................................................. be much better than I had anticipated.

29 A child will be expelled from the school only as a last resort.

else

Only if ........................................................................................ be expelled from the school.

30 He’s only just getting used to not having to go to work.

terms

He’s only just ........................................................................................ not having to go to work.

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PRACTICE TEST 1

Part 5
You are going to read an extract from an article. For questions 31-36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which
you think fits best according to the text. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Britain on the Couch

T his book is about the angst of normal people, of
people like us. It offers an explanation of why we are
so much more likely to be miserable than our
grandparents, why we are so discontented and self-attacking,
why the moments of emotional richness and freedom of our
which results from these false ambitions and identities, by
selling pills and therapeutic services.
I am not suggesting that there is a conspiracy by a secret
society of top-hat-clad, black-coated bankers and blindly
materialistic retailers to make us miserable. Writing of
childhood are less frequent, why so many of us feel there is advanced capitalism as if it has volition is to make human an
something missing from life. abstract entity which has no will of its own, just as
It establishes that, compared with 1950, the general rise in describing genes as selfish is nonsense. But it has to be
aspirations has spawned depression and an epidemic of acknowledged that the way advanced capitalism happens to
compulsions like drug abuse, gambling and eating disorders. have evolved, it does very nicely at both ends (creating and
We compare ourselves obsessively and enviously, curing misery), with our inner lives footing the bill.
corrupting the quality of our inner lives. No sooner do we Nor am I suggesting that a spiritual renaissance is what is
achieve a goal than we move the goalposts to create a new required, and that we must eschew our materialism and
one, leaving ourselves permanently depleted. There is an return to the simple agrarian life of idealised noble savages;
outbreak of living in the future and a pathological re- rather, that we are suffering from a crucial delusion that we
enactment of the past. need to be richer as a nation in order to be happier.
People with most of these problems are more likely than Increased prosperity is the cornerstone of all major
those without to have low levels of the neurotransmitter political parties’ manifestos and yet, if studies of national
serotonin, the so-called ‘happiness brain chemical’. Given that well-being are to be believed, voters are mistaken in
there is a chemistry of despair, one might suppose that it has a supposing that greater national wealth will be accompanied
chemical, physical cause. Perhaps the problem is pollution. Is by greater happiness. Once a society passes beyond a basic
it something to do with the processing of the foods we eat or level of wealth, anything beyond that makes no difference to
the methods of cultivation of the raw materials? Maybe the overall contentment. Advanced capitalism has made most of
new technologies such as mobile phones and computers are us physically better off by meeting biological needs with
interfering with our brains? Though far from impossible that unprecedented efficiency, but it has actually made us more
some of these things are contributing, the strongest contender prone to low-serotonin problems such as depression and
by far for explaining what has gone wrong is the way we aggression.
organise society. I shall show that advanced capitalism, as New disciplines of evolutionary psychology and
currently organised, creates low-serotonin societies. Far from psychiatry suggest that advanced capitalism does not meet
being the product of other chemicals, serotonin levels in animal our primordial needs, evolved over millions of years, for
and human brains largely reflect what is happening around status and emotional attachment. Our genes were developed
them, socially and emotionally. to cope with completely different psychological and
Put crudely, advanced capitalism makes money out of technological circumstances than the ones facing us today.
misery and dissatisfaction, as if it were encouraging us to fill For example, most of our adult lives we fight against the
the psychic void with material goods. It can also profit from problem of being overweight. This a wholly new problem in
fostering spurious individualism by encouraging us to define the history of the world, caused in the first instance by
ourselves through our purchases, with ever more precisely technology creating diverse and abundant foods.
marketed products that create a fetishistic concern to have Unfortunately, like all animals, humans were designed to
‘this’ rather than ‘that’, even though there is often no assume that food would be scarce and not on the premise
significant practical or aesthetic difference. It can even make that there would be unlimited supplies of highly calorific
money from restoring the chemical imbalance in our brains food available at all times.
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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

31 The writer argues that people feel there is something missing in life because they
A exaggerate the freedom of their youth.
B no longer know what they want.
C are constantly aiming for what they do not have.
D do not possess sufficient depth of emotion.

32 What does the author suggest is a vehicle for advanced capitalism to profit from feelings of despair?
A work promotion
B marketing
C therapy
D aesthetic values

33 The writer makes it clear that

A advanced capitalism has no answers for the problems it creates.
B we need to reject materialism.
C particular groups are not directly responsible for the problems.
D the system governing society has a will of its own.

34 In the writer’s view, political parties aggravate the problem by

A setting out to achieve basic standards of wealth.
B thinking only of efficiency.
C depressing people further by enriching themselves.
D equating happiness with prosperity.

35 In the last paragraph, what does the writer suggest is the defining characteristic of our times?
A Evolution is speeding up.
B We no longer get what we most need from society.
C Machinery has displaced humans in certain fields of activity.
D Meeting primordial human needs is no longer enough.

36 In the writer’s general view, a possible way forward for society lies in
A further prosperity creating time for reflection.
B our capacity to find remedies for compulsions.
C restoring the way of life of pre-industrial times.
D a reassessment of the value of material wealth.

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PRACTICE TEST 1

Part 6
You are going to read an extract from an article. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from
the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (37-43). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

The as
The unsolved crime is usually hailed as the perfect
40
crime. More often than not, however, a crime remains
unsolved thanks to a combination of poor planning, luck With trucks painted to resemble those of the phone
on the criminal’s part and a faulty police investigation. company, Schneider would hijack the equipment and
It remains unsolved because it is unrecognised and then return home to tap into the computer once more to
undetected as a piece of villainy. give it instructions to wipe the whole transaction from
its electronic memory. The whole process, from the
37 initial order being sent to it being erased, would take just
a few hours.
At the beginning of the 1980s it was estimated that there
were 300,000 large computers at work in businesses in
41
the United States, Europe and Japan juggling enormous
amounts of commodities. Unlike human clerks and bank The embarrassing extent of the losses was only admitted
tellers, with all their frailties and temptations, computers to once police investigators had physically gone round
could never get their sums wrong and do not possess to the warehouse and totalled up items with old-
sticky fingers to stick into the till. fashioned pen and paper. No-one had been prepared to
concede that a computer insisting everything was as it
38 should be might be wrong.

Small wonder then that it did not take long for criminals
42
to realise the potential of getting computers onto their side.
For the computer’s infallibility is a double-edged sword. If Schneider subsequently set himself up in a new business
crooked information is fed in at the start of the process, as one of America’s highest paid computer security
impeccably crooked instructions are produced at the other consultants. For fat fees, he would reveal that clients’
end and no-one doubts the orders the machine gives them. systems contained flaws like the ones he had exploited,
which enabled crooked computer operators to steal by
39 remote control.

A twenty-one-year-old high school graduate who was

43
struggling to form his own telephone equipment supply
business, Schneider discovered secret codes which A typical opening sales pitch to prospective clients
allowed him to tap into the computer controlling the would go something like this : ‘Who needs to take the
stocks in the warehouse of Pacific Bell in California. risk of leaping over a counter with a sawn-off shotgun
Using his own modified computer terminal at home, he when they can sit in the comfort of their own home and
persuaded the electronic stock controller that he was a do the same thing with a computer terminal or a
legitimate installation contractor for the phone company telephone?’
and he began to order costly wiring and exchange
equipment from the warehouse.

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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

A The decision of the almighty computer is E Accepting illicit instructions, the computer
final, whether it is sending a demand for dispatched expensive goods to destinations
payment to a customer who is vainly throughout the region. A typical order, for
disputing a bill or releasing vast amounts of example, would be sent to a pavement beside
hard cash on invoices it has cleared for a manhole cover where delivery drivers
payment. The computer is above suspicion. dumped the bulky crates, assuming another
crew would arrive later and begin installation.
B The case never reached the courts. It was, after
all, a huge embarrassment to an organisation F In the criminal’s quest for illegal perfection,
that needed to convince its public that their many have found a willing new accomplice
electronically calculated phone bills were who never gets nervous about being caught
accurate and Schneider, even under lock and and punished, who leaves no fingerprints
key, still posed a considerable threat. All and never demands a share of the loot. The
charges were dropped after he gave the phone computer, an electronic brain without morals
company a secret briefing on the loopholes in or scruples, is the perfect partner in crime.
their system.
G Business boomed until an employee,
C The legend of Jerry Schneider lives on in the angered at not being given a pay rise, tipped
corporate memory of every major US firm, off the police. Even with a red-handed
haunting them when noughts are added to the suspect in custody, however, officials of the
paychecks of imaginary staff. His picture also phone company simply could not conceive
hangs on the walls of hundreds of hackers that Schneider had milked them of $1 million
operating in clandestine cyber-space. worth of stock in less than a year.

D The case that brought the potential for H Those who took advantage of such peculiar
computer fraud to the attention of an insight from first-hand experience were soon
unsuspecting public was that of Jerry to discover that they had already been
Schneider. He became a millionaire by robbed blind, losing millions through
defrauding the master computer of the Pacific computer manipulation to culprits who could
Bell Telephone company in Los Angeles. never be traced. All evidence of these crimes
Schneider’s crime is still unsolved. It remains had long since been erased.
a mystery as to exactly how he fooled the
electronic brain.

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PRACTICE TEST 1

Part 7
You are going to read some opinions from an article about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. For questions 44-53,
choose from the people (A-D). The people may be chosen more than once.

Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Which person gives each of these opinions about health?

It’s a good idea to be a bit sceptical. 44 ..........

The current interest in health is not completely genuine. 45 ..........

There is a lot of contradictory information. 46 ..........

Modern options may be too complicated. 47 ..........

The best way to be healthy requires considerable sacrifices. 48 ..........

There is nothing wrong with occasionally indulging in some bad foods. 49 ..........

The mental aspects of health are as important as the physical. 50 ..........

Some interventions may do as much harm as good. 51 ..........

We must wait some time to know an outcome. 52 ..........

A similar behaviour could benefit most living things. 53 ..........

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Paper 1 – Reading & Use of English

How can we live a healthy life?

A Louise
From what I’ve read, we can do a myriad of things to improve our health. Keeping fit is important in keeping the
weight down and keeping active. Eating a healthy diet is vital too, naturally; some people say going vegetarian is
healthy, but I don’t think I could do it. I do try to cut back on red meat and processed meats like sausages and
such to once or twice a week. Of course, smoking and drinking is detrimental. It’s becoming incredibly confusing
though, because there’s such a glut of information out there. One week they tell us we must drink eight glasses
of water every day, then they tell us water is irrelevant, but tea drinkers live longer than non-tea drinkers. They tell
us chocolate will make us fat and the fat will kill us, then they tell us that chocolate can lower blood pressure and
prevent heart disease. They tell us running is critical to heart health, but it will wreck our knees. I’ve read all manner
of things. I try to take it all with a grain of salt.

B Anna
I’m not a doctor, but I do work in biological research, and I must say that some of the work they’re doing with
calorie restriction is very interesting. You see, they have quite reliably established that all sorts of animals, from
worms to fruit flies to rats, all the way up to primates, have extended healthy lifespans if their calorie intake is
restricted considerably – I mean, something like thirty percent below general recommendations – while they
continue to get enough nutrients by eating only very high quality foods. Of course, it’s easier for laboratory
animals. This would be very difficult to implement for most humans. It’s not an easy diet to follow, for sure – no
more pizza. Some people are trying it already, though, I’ve read. I think they’re part of a study, but it’s early days
still. We’ll have to wait a lifetime, quite literally, to see how they get on.

C Alan
There’s a saying, several maybe, about moderation being the key to this and that. The way I look at it, this is also
the key to having a healthy life. Everything in moderation. There’s nothing wrong with a piece of chocolate cake
once in a while; eating a chocolate cake every day – not so good. Too much coffee is not healthy at all, while
some say a cup or two is actually good for you. Conversely, exercise is so important, as everyone knows, but if
you get too much, well, the body gets worn out long before it should. So really I think, the way I look at it, a bit
of anything is fine, and too much of anything is foolhardy. A varied diet is important, and doing various activities
throughout the day. Try new things; if the mind is alert and interested, health follows. And being happy is the
most important of all, I think.

D Ronald
I think our whole search for the healthy lifestyle is a bit contrived. It comes from an overabundance of leisure
time and a tendency to hypochondria. For most of human history, we were content to have a meal on the table,
and escape dying from the plague, and maybe procure a new suit of clothes once in a while. Now, we have
choices. We have antibiotics, we have the supermarket, and we have all sorts of vitamin pills and supplements.
Does it really matter what brand of multivitamin supplement you take? Will one extend your life by six months
and the next by two years? I doubt it. I think, in general, people need to stop dwelling on their health so much
and just get on with it and live their lives. That pharmaceutical product you’re taking to lower your risk of heart
disease might just end up increasing your risk of cancer. We really don’t know, but worrying about it will surely
lower your quality of life!

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