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Part 1: Multiple Choice Lexical Cloze

For questions 1-8, read the three texts below and decide which
Planetary Artistry
By Johanna Kieniewicz
For me, the highlight of this past week's science news was the images
(1) ........ back from the Curiosity rover, providing (2) ........ geologic
evidence that water flowed on Mars. Of course, this wasn't exactly a
surprise; for decades, planetary scientists have suggested the
channel networks visible in spacecraft imagery couldn't have been
made by anything else. The evidence has been (3) ........ as well, as
various clay minerals and iron oxides have been identified through
hyperspectral imagery.
Nonetheless, I suspect that the image of definitely water-lain (4) ........
made the heart of more than one geologist (5) ........ a beat. Ground
truth. You could argue that the scientific exploration of the extraterrestrial is, at least (6) ........ part, a search for meaning: to position
us within a larger cosmology. But our fascination with, and connection
to, what we see in the night sky comes not just through science, but
also through art. So it should come as no surprise that scientific
images of planetary surfaces have (7) ........ inspiration to a range of
artists from Galileo - whose first sketches of the moon through a
telescope are (8) ........ beautiful - to Barbara Hepworth - whose
interpretations of the lunar surface are far less literal.

1 A thrown

B shot

2 A final

C beamed

C proved

D fired
D guaranteed

3 A swelling B expandingC increasing D mounting


B dross

C grounds

D matter

5 A slip

B lose

C skip

D jump

6 A with

B in

C at

D for

7 A offered

B provided C given

D made

8 A totally

C surely

D truly

Part 2: Open Cloze

For questions 1-8, read the text below and type the word which best
There is an example below:
(0) as
Global English
Global English exists (0) ... a political and cultural reality. Many
misguided theories attempt to explain why the English language
should have succeeded internationally, whilst (1) ... have not. Is it
because there is something inherently logical or beautiful about the
structure of English? Does its simple grammar make it easy to learn?
Such ideas are misconceived. Latin was once a major international
language, (2) ... having a complicated grammatical structure, and
English also presents learners with all manner of real difficulties, (3) ...
least its spelling system. Ease of learning, therefore, has little to do
with it. (4) ... all, children learn to speak their mother tongue in
approximately the same period of time, (5) ... of their language.
English has spread not (6) ... much for linguistic reasons, but rather
because it has often found (7) ... in the right place, at the right time.
Since the 1960s, two major developments have contributed to
strengthening this global status. Firstly, in a number of countries,

English is now used in addition to national or regional languages. As

well as this, an electronic revolution has taken place. It is estimated
that (8) ... the region of 80% of worldwide electronic communication is
now in English.

Part 3: Word Formation

For questions 1-8, read the text below. Use the word in capitals at the
same line. There is an example at the beginning.
A Musical Genius
For many people Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is the most (0)
influential figure in the history of western classical music. His (1) .....
talent was already clearly evident as a young man, (2) ..... surviving a
somewhat unconventional (3) ..... during which his eccentric father
would often force him to take music lessons in the middle of the night.
The young Beethoven's ability won him the admiration of the leading
contemporary musical figures. Throughout the 1790s he worked hard
to secure the interest of wealthy patrons. Such patronage (4) ..... him
to concentrate on becoming a successful composer.
Whatever his awe-inspiring musical (5) ....., however, his personal life
was something of a disaster. His day-to-day (6) ..... with people
invariably turned out to be ratherturbulent. Although he apparently
fell in love with a number of society women, the identity of the girl
who lay closest to his heart remains (7) ..... to this day.
However, just at the point when Beethoven was beginning to reap the
rewards of his early endeavours, he had to come to terms with the
crushing realisation that his increasing deafness was (8) ..... . From
that point on, his music displayed a striking change in style, becoming
both heavier in tone and larger in scale.


Part 4: Key Word Transformation

For questions 1-6, complete the second sentence so that it has a
change the word given. You must use between three and eight words,
including the word given.
1. The mistake in the accounts was not noticed until the figures were
The mistake in the accounts
were re-checked.
2. I had no problems at all during my trip to France.
3. The heavy downpour brought their picnic to an abrupt end.
They had
4. The reforms will not succeed unless they are carefully planned.
5. They think that Helen's brother stole the money.

................. the money.
6. I feel completely exhausted when I've listened to Marion for half-anhour.

Part 5: Multiple Choice

You are going to read the introduction from a book on sports. For question 1-6,
choose the answer (A, B, C, or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Offices and bars are full of casual obscenity, but most British newspapers are ...
well, not necessarily careful about language, but careful about bad words anyway.
The phrase 'family newspaper' is an ineluctable part of our lives. Newspapers are
not in the business of giving gratuitous offence. It is a limitation of newspaper
writing, and one everybody in the business, whether writing or reading,
understands and accepts. There are many other necessary limitations, and most of
these concern time and space.
Newspapers have dominated sportswriting in Britain for years, and have produced
their own totem figures and doyens. But ten years ago, a new player entered the
game. This was the phenomenon of men's magazines; monthly magazines for men
that had actual words in them - words for actually reading. GQ was the pioneer and,
in my totally unbiased opinion as the long-term author of the magazine's sports
column, it leads the way still, leaving the rest panting distantly in its wake.
Sport, is of course, a blindingly obvious subject for a men's magazine - but it could
not be tacked in a blindingly obvious way. Certainly, one of the first things GQ was

able to offer was a new way of writing about sport, but this was not so much a
cunning plan as a necessity. The magazine was doomed, as it were, to offer a whole
new range of freedoms to its sportwriters. Heady and rather alarming freedoms.
Freedom of vocabulary was simply the most obvious one and, inevitably, it
appealed to the schoolboy within us. But space and time were the others, and
these possibilities meant that the craft of sportswriting had to be reinvented.
Unlike newspapers, a magazine can offer a decent length of time to research and to
write. These are, you would think, luxuries - especially to those of us who are often
required to read an 800-word match report over the telephone the instant the final
whistle has gone. Such a discipline is nerve-racking, but as long as you can get it
doneat all, you have done a good job. No one expects a masterpiece under such
circumstances. In some ways the ferocious restrictions make the job easier. But a
long magazine deadline gives you the disconcerting and agoraphobic freedom to
research, to write, to think.
To write a piece for a newspaper, at about a quarter of the massive GQ length, you
require a single thought. The best method is to find a really good idea, and then to
pursue it remorselessly to the end, where ideally you make a nice joke and bale out
stylishly. If it is an interview piece, you look for a few good quotes, and if you get
them, that's your piece written for you. For a longer piece, you must seek the nonobvious. This is a good quality in the best of newspaper writing, but an absolute
essential for any writer who hopes to complete the terrifying amount of words
that GQrequires. If you write for GQ you are condemned to try and join the best.
There is no other way.
GQ is not restricted by the same conventions of reader expectation as a newspaper.
You need not worry about offending people or alienating them; the whole ethos of
the magazine is that readers are there to be challenged. There will be readers who
would find some of its pieces offensive or even impossible in a newspaper, or even
in a different magazine. But the same readers will read the piece in GQ and find it
That is because the magazine is always slightly uncomfortable to be with. It is not
like a cosy member of the family, nor even like a friend. It is the strong, selfopinionated person that you can never quite make up your mind whether you like
or not. You admire him, but you are slightly uneasy with him. The people around
him might not altogether approve of everything he says; some might not care for
him at all. But they feel compelled to listen. The self-confidence is too compelling.
And just when you think he is beginning to become rather a bore, he surprises you
with his genuine intelligence. He makes a broad joke, and then suddenly he is
demanding you follow him in the turning of an intellectual somersault.

1 What does the writer say about newspapers in the first paragraph?
A) They tend not to include articles readers will find very challenging.
B) Articles in them do not reflect the way people really speak.
C) They are more concerned with profit than with quality of writing.
D) They fail to realise what kind of writing would appeal to readers.
2 What does the writer imply in the second paragraph?
A) GQ magazine contains articles that are well worth reading.
B) Some of the more recent men's magazines are unlikely to survive.
C) The standard of sportswriting in newspapers has improved in recent times.
D) He is in a position to give an objective view of sportswriting in magazines.
3 Why were sportswriters for GQ given new freedoms?
A) Some restrictions of newspaper writing do not apply to writing for GQ.
B) The magazine's initial plans for its sports articles proved unrealistic.
C) Notions about what made good sports journalism were changing.
D) The writers that it wanted to employ demanded greater freedom.
4 What does the writer say about the amount of time allowed for producing

A) The best articles are often produced under great pressure of time.
B) Having a long time to produce an article encourages laziness.
C) Writers are seldom satisfied by articles produced in a hurry.
D) Having very little time to produce an article can be an advantage.

5 Why can't writers for GQ use the same methods as writers for newspapers?
A) Articles in GQ are not allowed to consist mainly of interviews.
B) They want to be considered better than writers for newspapers.
C) Writers for newspapers do not have so much space to fill.
D) They've been told to avoid the conventions of newspaper writing.
6 What does the writer say in the penultimate paragraph about certain pieces in
A) They will create enormous controversy.
B) They unintentionally upset some of its readers.
C) They are a response to demand from readers.
D) They are a good fit for the GQ reader.

Part 6: Gapped Text

You are going to read an extract from a short story. Seven paragraphs
have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs AH the one which best fits each gap (1-7). There is one extra
paragraph that you do not need to use.
Just at that turning between Market Road and the lane leading to the
chemist's shop he had his 'establishment'. At eight in the evening you
would not see him, and again at ten you would see nothing, but
between those times he arrived, sold his goods and departed. Those
who saw him remarked thus, 'Lucky fellow! He has hardly an hour's

work a day and he pockets ten rupees - even graduates are unable to
earn that! Three hundred rupees a month!' He felt irritated when he
heard such glib remarks and said, 'What these folks do not see is that
I sit before the oven practically all day frying all this ...'
At about 8.15 in the evening he arrived with a load of stuff. He looked
as if he had four arms, so many things he carried about him. His
equipment was the big tray balanced on his head with its assortment
of edibles, a stool stuck in the crook of his arm, a lamp in another
hand and a couple of portable legs for mounting his tray. He lit the
lamp, a lantern which consumed six pies' worth of kerosene every
day, and kept it near at hand, since he had to guard a lot of loose
cash and a variety of miscellaneous articles.
He always arrived in time to catch the cinema crowd coming out after
the evening show. A pretender to the throne, a young scraggy fellow,
sat on his spot until he arrived and did business, but he did not let
that bother him unduly. In fact, he felt generous enough to say, 'Let
the poor rat do his business when I am not there.' This sentiment was
amply respected, and the pretender moved off a minute before the
arrival of the prince among caterers.

Though so much probing was going on, he knew exactly who was
taking what. He knew by an extaordinary sense which of
the jukta drivers was picking up chappatis at a given moment - he
could even mention the license number. He knew that the stained
hand nervously coming up was that of a youngster who polished the
shoes of passers-by. And he knew exactly at what hour he would see
the wrestler's arm searching for the perfect duck's egg. His custom
was drawn from the population swarming the pavement: the boot
polish boys, for instance, who wandered to and fro with brush and
polish in a bag, endlessly soliciting 'Polish, sir, polish!' Rama had a
soft spot for them.

It rent his heart to see their hungry hollow eyes. It pained him to see
the rags they wore. And it made him very unhappy to see the
tremendous eagerness with which they came to him. But what could
he do? He could not run a charity show, that was impossible. He
measured out heir half-glass of coffee correct to a fraction of an inch,
but they could cling to the glass for as long as they liked.

He lived in the second lane behind the market. His wife opened the
door, throwing into the night air the scent of burnt oil which
perpetually hung about their home. She snatched from his hand all
the ecumbrances and counted the cash immediately.

After dinner, he tucked a betel leaf and tobacco in his cheek and
slept. He had dreams of traffic constables bullying him to move on
and health inspectors saying he was spreading all kinds of disease
and depopulating the city. But fortunately in actual life no one
bothered him very seriously. The health officer no doubt came and
said, 'You must put all this under a glass lid, otherwise I shall destroy
it some day... Take care!'

Rama no doubt violated all the well-accepted canons of cleanliness
and sanitation, but still his customers not only survived his fare but
seemed actually to flourish on it, having consumed it for years
without showing signs of being any the worse for it.

A Rama prepared a limited quantity of snacks for sale, but even then
he had to carry back remnants. He consumed some of it himself, and
the rest he warmed up and brought out for sale the next day.
B All the coppers that men and women of this part of the universe
earned through their miscellaneous jobs ultimately came to him at

the end of the day. He put all his money into a little cloth bag dangling
from his neck under his shirt, and carried it home, soon after the night
show had started at the theatre.
C No one could walk past his display without throwing a look at it. A
heap of bondas, which seemed puffed and big but melted in one's
mouth; dosais, white, round, and limp, looking like layers of
muslin; chappatis so thin you could lift fifty of them on a little finger;
duck's eggs, hard-boiled, resembling a heap of ivory balls; and
perpetually boiling coffee on a stove. He had a separate alluminium
pot in which he kept chutney, which went gratis with almost every
D His customers liked him. They said in admiration, 'Is there another
place where you can get six pies and four chappatis for one anna?'
They sat around his tray, taking what they wanted. A dozen hands
hovered about it every minute, because his customers were entitled
to pick up, examine, and accept their stuff after proper scrutiny.
E They gloated over it. 'Five rupees invested in the morning has
produced another five...' They ruminated on the exquisite mystery of
this multiplication. Then it was put back for further investment on the
morrow and the gains carefully separated and put away in a little
wooden box.
F But he was a kindly man in private. 'How the customers survive the
food, I can't understand. I suppose people build up a sort of immunity
to such poisons, with all that dust blowing on it and the gutter
G He got up when the cock in the next house crowed. Sometimes it
had a habit of waking up at three in the morning and letting out a
shriek. 'Why has the cock lost his normal sleep?' Rama wondered as
he awoke, but it was a signal he could not miss. Whether it three
o'clock or four, it was all the same to him. He had to get up and start
his day.
H When he saw some customer haggling, he felt like shouting, 'Give
the poor fellow a little more. Don't begrudge it. If you pay an anna
more he can have a dosai and achappati.'

Part 7: Multiple Matching

You are going to read an extract from an article about modern art and
whether it can be called 'art'. For questions 1-10, choose from the
people (A, B, C or D). The people may be chosen more than once.

Is it Art?
Art is the result of an artist using her or his skill or creative
imagination for a creative purpose, to give pleasure to the viewer
through it's aesthetic qualities, or to get a reaction from the audience
to a wider more significant issue outside the work of art itself. That
work of art might be a painting, a sculpture, an installation of some
kind or an example from the performing arts like dance or mime. I
think we sometimes get bogged down by the notion of 'skill'. For
many in the anti modern art camp, there needs to be evidence of the
artist's craft on show before the work is taken seriously and can merit
the term 'art', be it intricate drawing skills, expert use of form or an
artist's eye for colour. I'm not suggesting that an artist need not have
these credentials but hand in hand with craft is, as I said earlier,
creative imagination, the ability to see the value or beauty of
something unremarkable which would often go unnoticed by the
untrained eye. Much of modern art I think possesses this second
quality which is why I often leave an exhibition of modern art feeling
that I've had the chance to reflect on something that I wouldn't
normally have given the time of day to. The art has engaged me, has
had an impact, made me think about something in a way that I
wouldn't have thought about before.
I would certainly call myself an art enthusiast and have been for many
years and in my opinion the modern art world is full of second-rate
junk which most of us, if we were being totally honest, would agree a
4-year-old child could do. The idea that a slept-in bed such as that
'produced' by Tracy Emin or many of the pieces by Damien Hirst and
his ilk are works of art is hard to justify as is the huge price tag that
accompanies their work. I find it particulalry galling when extremely
talented people out there who have spent years honing their skills
and learning the craft of drawing or painting are completely ignored.
What's more, one of the dangers of this kind of 'art' is that it serves to
alienate the mass of the population from the visual arts. The man in
the street viewing one of these pieces is left thinking the world of
modern art has no value; worse still, that he lacks the intellectual
ability to understand the meaning of the piece when in fact there is

little to interpret. Thankfully, one or two great artists make it through,

but I'm afraid many are lost amongst the deluge of dross the art-world
deems 'art'. For me, the first measure of the worth of an artist must
be the degree of skill exhibited in the work or at the very least a
pedigree of fine art preceeding any more abstract pieces produced by
the artist such as was the case with Picasso.
The idea that modern art is some kind of mass deception and that all
modern artists are talentless fraudsters just doesn't hold water. And
I'm not talking here about the painters who for centuries have make a
living out of copying works of art and selling them on as originals. I'm
talking about abstract art and the idea that the great art collectors
such as the Saatchis or Rockerfellas and the great museums of art
around the world, would somehow allow themselves to be duped into
paying a fortune for an abstract painting or scupture. Are these artists
really tricking these people into paying huge sums of money for
something worthless? Of course not. Though some of these works
may not appear to the layman as having any artisitc merit, neither did
the great impressionsists or the more abstract works of Picasso or
Rothko when they were first exhibited. In the same way that great
poetry can speak to us in a way that prose never can, abstract art can
engage with the audience in more subtle and effective ways than is
the case with art of a more realistic nature. So, they may get their
fingers burnt now and again but I don't think the Saatchis will be
cursing the day they spent huge sums on works of abstract art. Quite
the opposite in fact and in the process of making a canny investment
they have helped further raise the profile of some of our great modern
Here we go again: the media are once more up in arms about the
latest 'is it art' shock-horror editorials following the latest Turner Prize
shortlisting. When will they learn? For decades art in many forms has
moved away from realism and towards abstraction. Ever since the
invention and popularisation of photography, art has had to reinvent
itself. Patrons who wanted a perfect representation of themselves no
longer needed to turn to the artist. Artists started to struggle with the
challenge of catching the essence of the thing depicted rather than
simply its external appearance. Abstract artists try to convey a pure
idea, not the exact relica of the subject concerned. It's true that some
works of art are so obscure that you may need to read up on the
theory behind the creation, which is usually helpfully supplied in art
galleries. But this isn't always necessary. Take Guernica by Picasso. To

get a full understanding of this painting it could be argued the

audience needs to appreciate the historical context, the bombing of
the Basque city during the Spanish Civil War. It would also probably
help to have a good understanding of the techniques of abstraction
that Picasso had used to create the effect. However, I think most
people viewing this masterpiece would be struck by the horror it
depicts even without this background knowledge. And I would argue it
is the effect of this abstraction that adds to the impact on us
compared to a realistic portrayal of such a scene.
Which person gives each of these opinions about modern art?
1. Some practices have been going on for hundreds of years.
2. Some people may not have the knowledge to understand a work of
art fully.
3. Certain aesthetic qualities can be invisible until brought to our
attention by the artist.
4. Picasso is an example of an artist who proved his craftsmanship.
5. Appreciation of the work itself is not always the artist's aim.
6. The purpose of Art has undergone change.
7. Peopledon't always appreciate the works of great artists initially.
8. Abstract at is generally overpriced.
9. Abstract art isn't always a good investment.
10. We can be touched by a work of art without knowing the context.