PRACTICE TEST 8

I. LISTENING (5 points)
Part 1: Listen and decide whether the following sentences are true (T) or false (F)
1. The speaker compares a computer virus to a biological organism.
2. Core Wars was designed as a model virus.
3. The speaker says that computer viruses are picked up because they can be sold with commercial
software.
4. The worst aspect of a Trojan horse virus is its capacity to perform operations in your name.
5. The speaker feels that computer viruses can be avoided.
Your answers
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Part 2: Listen and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER taken
from the recording.
1. What should Sandra do to attract readers to the main points besides numbering them?
__________________________________________________________
2. What two areas should Sandra do research on?
__________________________________________________________
3. How many hectares does the tribal park cover?
__________________________________________________________
4. What should they share for transport?
__________________________________________________________
5. What could they explore in Navajo Tribal Park?
__________________________________________________________

Part 3: Listen and choose the correct answer (A, B, or C).

1. When are the girl and teacher talking?
A. at the end of class
B. during the lesson
C. before class
2. What is the main problem the girl is having with her assignment?
A. the subject matter is too broad
B. she doesn't know how to do the type of project
C. she doesn’t understand the question
3. What does the teacher suggest about jobs in tourism?
A. They provide stable employment for the population.
B. They offer a solution for unemployment issues.
C. They aren’t always remunerated well.
4. What issue does the girl need to pay particular attention to?
A. The changes native people have made to tourism.
B. How tourism affects native people.
C. The way tourists mix with native cultures.
5. What does the teacher say about using graphs?
A. They can make a presentation look untidy.
B. They make a presentation more attractive.
C. They make facts and figures easier to understand.

Your answers

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Part 4: Listen and complete the summary by writing NO MORE THAN THREE words
and/or a number in each gap.
- Dr Larry Smarr is quickly being recognized as the father of personalized medicine, a title that
reflects his (1) __________ and innovative way of thinking, as evidenced by how he directed his
own surgery after examining his anatomy in (2) __________.
- Dr. Larry, who likened his approach to bringing video games into (3) __________, realized the
potential of combining breakthroughs in (4) __________ and computer graphics to produce
transparent versions of people.
- Dr. Larry found out that he had a type of (5) __________ with health data from “Transparent
Larry” - his own (6) __________ created using (7) __________ along with three-dimensional
visualizations gathered over nearly 10 years.
- With (8) __________, both Larry and the team operating on him gained more confidence.
- Dr. Larry is optimistic about a future in which (9) __________ will replace the current (10)
__________ and turn it into a true “healthcare” one.

II. LEXICO - GRAMMAR (3 points)

Part 1. Choose the best option to complete each of the following sentences. (Source: CPE Use
of English 1 by Virginia Evans)
1. “Is Nigel still here?”
“Yes, but hurry, he is just ______.”
A. about to leave B. about leaving C. to be leaving D. to leave
2. Speaking about his long battle with illness struck a ______ with the audience.
A. wire B. rope C. string D. chord
3. I prefer to practice the violin alone in my bedroom as having other members of the family listen
really ______ my style.
A. restricts B. impedes C. obstructs D. cramps
4. “Are you coming to the wedding?”
“Yes, but I would prefer not ______ to the reception afterwards.”
A. going B. to go C. having gone D. to have gone
5. Breaking his leg dealt a ______ to his chances of becoming a professional footballer.
A. thump B. strike C. hit D. blow
6. The Oscar winning actress simply ______ charm and professionalism in her acceptance speech.
A. exuded B. excluded C. expunged D. extricated
7. Harry blew a ______ when his holiday was cancelled.
A. switch B. plug C. fuse D. socket
8. I was thrilled to meet Paul Mc Cartney in the ______ when I sat next to him at the theatre.
A. meat B. blood C. flesh D. vein
9. Many forest – ______ animals were killed in the fire.
A. dwelling B. residing C. inhabiting D. settling
10. “How did Gina react when she arrived at her surprise birthday party?”
“She exclaimed ______ a wonderful surprise.”
A. to be B. that it was C. being D. to being
11. Attendance has ______ severely during the Christmas period.
A. fallen back B. fallen off C. fallen in D. fallen through
12. She is in two minds ______ marrying him.

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 A. on B. of C. about D. for
13. The teacher was adamant and stuck to his ______ about the date of the final exam.
A. weapons B. guns C. thumbs D. necks
14. ______ other runner is as fast as him.
A. No B. Any C. Not D. Some
15. What are you getting ______? I can’t understand what you are trying to say.
A. off B. on C. at D. through
16. Maggie is so moody and unpredictable. She’s apt to fly off the ______ without any real cause.
A. handle B. strap C. catch D. belt
17. Once at the skating rink, Ivan was allowed to skate to his heart’s ______.
A. happiness B. content C. contentment D. delight
18. The heavy rain lashed down ______ throughout the night without letting up.
A. continually B. perpetually C. eternally D. continuously
19. Lots of fans were waiting at the airport, ______ to see Ricky Martin arrive.
A. to hope B. hoped C. for hoping D. hoping
20. The exercise routine works in ______ with the diet.
A. tandem B. league C. hand D. cooperation
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Part 2. Write the correct form of word in each blank. (Source: Upstream Proficiency by
Virginia Evans & Jenny Dooley)
1. The _______________ have a speech which made the delegates trust him again. (GOVERN)
2. _______________ in the office will be punished with a fine. (CIVIL)
3. There is still a lot of _______________ in the team despite my assurances. (SCEPTIC)
4. Ashamed to admit it, illiterate adults often become accustomed to concealing their ignorance,
and _______________ many do so with remarkably success. (SEEM)
5. The worst thing about air travel is that even if you are bent and determined on contentedly
snoozing the flight away, there are always a million and one _______________ which will not
allow you to do so. (DETER)
6. Any censorship that takes place is on purely ethical grounds and we have not allowed ourselves
to be intimidated by _______________ pressure groups. (EXTREME)
7. We are entering a new age of medicine, where the doctor and patient come together in a
therapeutic _______________. (ALLY)
8. Left-handers now dominate the game to an extent that _______________ their numbers.
(WEIGH)
9. Workers, ignoring the terms of their terms of their contracts, struck to protest speed-ups on the
_______________ line, the firing of a fellow worker, and slow resolution of grievances and
contract negotiations. (ASSEMBLE)
10. By combining environmentalism with dedication to his company’s success, Anderson has
_______________ proven that being green can also bring in the green for big business. (RELENT)

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

III. READING (6 points)

Part 1. Fill in each blank with ONE word
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 GARDEN WILDLIFE
The age of a garden (0) has a great effect on the abundance of its wildlife. Since most animals
depend ultimately on plants for their food, animal life cannot easily establish (1) ______ in the
absence of plant life. A plot of land behind a newly-built house, even though covered with a layer
of good soil, will support very few resident species other (2) ______ microscopic organisms. (3)
______ from the odd worm or spider, not many creatures will be able to make a living in the
garden (4) ______ this stage.
Colonisation takes place gradually. Humans may introduce plants, and weed seeds will arrive on
the breeze or be dropped by passing birds. Insects and other animals visit the garden and, given
suitable conditions, they take (5) ______ residence there. (6) ______ all this activity, however, it
takes years for a garden to become fully populated, and it cannot really be regarded as mature until
it is (7) ______ of supporting fully-grown shrubs and trees. On (8) ______ basis, a large number of
British gardens are immature, (9) ______ as much as they do not support (10) ______ a variety of
wildlife as an older garden.
(Extracted from USE OF ENGLISH -TEST 2; CPE 1)

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 2: Read the following passage and choose the best answer to each question.
The Creators of Grammar
No student of a foreign language needs to be told that grammar is complex. By changing word
sequences and by adding a range of auxiliary verbs and suffixes, we are able to communicate tiny
variations in meaning. We can turn a statement into a question, state whether an action has taken
place or is soon to take place, and perform many other word tricks to convey subtle differences in
meaning. Nor is this complexity inherent to the English language. All languages, even those of so-
called 'primitive' tribes have clever grammatical components. The Cherokee pronoun system, for
example, can distinguish between 'you and I', 'several other people and I' and 'you, another person
and I'. In English, all these meanings are summed up in the one, crude pronoun 'we'. Grammar is
universal and plays a part in every language, no matter how widespread it is. So the question which
has baffled many linguists is - who created grammar?

At first, it would appear that this question is impossible to answer. To find out how grammar is
created, someone needs to be present at the time of a language's creation, documenting its
emergence. Many historical linguists are able to trace modern complex languages back to earlier
languages, but in order to answer the question of how complex languages are actually formed, the
researcher needs to observe how languages are started from scratch. Amazingly, however, this is
possible.

Some of the most recent languages evolved due to the Atlantic slave trade. At that time, slaves
from a number of different ethnicities were forced to work together under colonizer's rule. Since
they had no opportunity to learn each other's languages, they developed a make-shift language
called a pidgin. Pidgins are strings of words copied from the language of the landowner. They have
little in the way of grammar, and in many cases it is difficult for a listener to deduce when an event
happened, and who did what to whom. [A] Speakers need to use circumlocution in order to make
their meaning understood. [B] Interestingly, however, all it takes for a pidgin to become a complex
language is for a group of children to be exposed to it at the time when they learn their mother
tongue. [C] Slave children did not simply copy the strings of words uttered by their elders, they
adapted their words to create a new, expressive language. [D] Complex grammar systems which
emerge from pidgins are termed creoles, and they are invented by children.
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Further evidence of this can be seen in studying sign languages for the deaf. Sign languages are not
simply a series of gestures; they utilise the same grammatical machinery that is found in spoken
languages. Moreover, there are many different languages used worldwide. The creation of one such
language was documented quite recently in Nicaragua. Previously, all deaf people were isolated
from each other, but in 1979 a new government introduced schools for the deaf. Although children
were taught speech and lip reading in the classroom, in the playgrounds they began to invent their
own sign system, using the gestures that they used at home. It was basically a pidgin. Each child
used the signs differently, and there was no consistent grammar. However, children who joined the
school later, when this inventive sign system was already around, developed a quite different sign
language. Although it was based on the signs of the older children, the younger children's language
was more fluid and compact, and it utilised a large range of grammatical devices to clarify
meaning. What is more, all the children used the signs in the same way. A new creole was born.

Some linguists believe that many of the world's most established languages were creoles at first.
The English past tense –ed ending may have evolved from the verb 'do'. 'It ended' may once have
been 'It end-did'. Therefore it would appear that even the most widespread languages were partly
created by children. Children appear to have innate grammatical machinery in their brains, which
springs to life when they are first trying to make sense of the world around them. Their minds can
serve to create logical, complex structures, even when there is no grammar present for them to
copy.
(extracted from https://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/TOEFL_reading1.htm)

1. In paragraph 1, why does the writer include information about the Cherokee language?
A. To show how simple, traditional cultures can have complicated grammar structures
B. To show how English grammar differs from Cherokee grammar
C. To prove that complex grammar structures were invented by the Cherokees.
D. To demonstrate how difficult it is to learn the Cherokee language
2. What can be inferred about the slaves' pidgin language?
A. It contained complex grammar.
B. It was based on many different languages.
C. It was difficult to understand, even among slaves.
D. It was created by the land-owners.
3. All the following sentences about Nicaraguan sign language are true EXCEPT
A. The language has been created since 1979.
B. The language is based on speech and lip reading.
C. The language incorporates signs which children used at home.
D. The language was perfected by younger children.
4. In paragraph 3, where can the following sentence be placed?
It included standardised word orders and grammatical markers that existed in neither the pidgin
language, nor the language of the colonizers.
[A] [B] [C] [D]
5. 'From scratch' in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to:
A. from the very beginning B. in simple cultures
C. by copying something else D. by using written information
6. 'Make-shift' in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to:
A complicated and expressive B simple and temporary
C extensive and diverse D private and personal
7. Which sentence is closest in meaning to the highlighted sentence?
Grammar is universal and plays a part in every language, no matter how widespread it is.
A. All languages, whether they are spoken by a few people or a lot of people, contain grammar.
B. Some languages include a lot of grammar, whereas other languages contain a little.
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 C. Languages which contain a lot of grammar are more common that languages that contain a
little.
D. The grammar of all languages is the same, no matter where the languages evolved.
8. All of the following are features of the new Nicaraguan sign language EXCEPT:
A. All children used the same gestures to show meaning.
B. The meaning was clearer than the previous sign language.
C. The hand movements were smoother and smaller.
D. New gestures were created for everyday objects and activities.
9. Which idea is presented in the final paragraph?
A. English was probably once a creole.
B. The English past tense system is inaccurate.
C. Linguists have proven that English was created by children.
D. Children say English past tenses differently from adults.
10. Look at the word 'consistent' in paragraph 4. This word could best be replaced by which of the
following?
A. natural B. predictable C. imaginable D. uniform
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 3: For questions 1-13, read the following passage and do the tasks that follow.
Questions 1-7: Reading Passage has seven sections, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-7 on your
answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Getting the finance for production
ii An unexpected benefit
iii From initial inspiration to new product
iv The range of potential customers for the device
v What makes the device different from alternatives
vi Cleaning water from a range of sources
vii Overcoming production difficulties
viii Profit not the primary goal
ix A warm welcome for the device
x The number of people affected by water shortages
1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C
4. Section D
5. Section E
6. Section F
7. Section G
The Desolenator: producing clean water
A. Travelling around Thailand in the 1990s, William Janssen was impressed with the basic rooftop
solar heating systems that were on many homes, where energy from the sun was absorbed by a
plate and then used to heat water for domestic use. Two decades later Janssen developed that basic
idea he saw in Southeast Asia into a portable device that uses the power from the sun to purify
water.
B. The Desolenator operates as a mobile desalination unit that can take water from different
places, such as the sea, rivers, boreholes and rain, and purify it for human consumption. It is
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particularly valuable in regions where natural groundwater reserves have been polluted, or where
seawater is the only water source available.
Janssen saw that there was a need for a sustainable way to clean water in both the developing and
the developed countries when he moved to the United Arab Emirates and saw large-scale water
processing. ‘1 was confronted with the enormous carbon footprint that the Gulf nations have
because of all of the desalination that they do,’ he says.
C. The Desolenator can produce 15 litres of drinking water per day, enough to sustain a family for
cooking and drinking. Its main selling point is that unlike standard desalination techniques, it
doesn’t require a generated power supply: just sunlight. It measures 120 cm by 90 cm, and is easy
to transport, thanks to its two wheels. Water enters through a pipe, and flows as a thin film between
a sheet of double glazing and the surface of a solar panel, where it is heated by the sun. The warm
water flows into a small boiler (heated by a solar-powered battery) where it is converted to steam.
When the steam cools, it becomes distilled water. The device has a very simple filter to trap
particles, and this can easily be shaken to remove them. There are two tubes for liquid coming out:
one for the waste - salt from seawater, fluoride, etc. - and another for the distilled water. The
performance of the unit is shown on an LCD screen and transmitted to the company which provides
servicing when necessary.
D. A recent analysis found that at least two-thirds of the world’s population lives with severe water
scarcity for at least a month every year. Janssen says that by 2030 half of the world’s population
will be living with water stress - where the demand exceeds the supply over a certain period of
time. Tt is really important that a sustainable solution is brought to the market that is able to help
these people,’ he says. Many countries ‘don’t have the money for desalination plants, which are
very expensive to build. They don’t have the money to operate them, they are very maintenance
intensive, and they don’t have the money to buy the diesel to run the desalination plants, so it is a
really bad situation.’
E. The device is aimed at a wide variety of users - from homeowners in the developing world who
do not have a constant supply of water to people living off the grid in rural parts of the US. The
first commercial versions of the Desolenator are expected to be in operation in India early next
year, after field tests are carried out. The market for the self-sufficient devices in developing
countries is twofold - those who cannot afford the money for the device outright and pay through
microfinance, and middleincome homes that can lease their own equipment. ‘People in India don’t
pay for a fridge outright; they pay for it over six months. They would put the Desolenator on their
roof and hook it up to their municipal supply and they would get very reliable drinking water on a
daily basis,’ Janssen says. In the developed world, it is aimed at niche markets where tap water is
unavailable - for camping, on boats, or for the military, for instance.
F. Prices will vary according to where it is bought. In the developing world, the price will depend
on what deal aid organisations can negotiate. In developed countries, it is likely to come in at
$1,000 (£685) a unit, said Janssen. ‘We are a venture with a social mission. We are aware that the
product we have envisioned is mainly finding application in the developing world and
humanitarian sector and that this is the way we will proceed. We do realise, though, that to be a
viable company there is a bottom line to keep in mind,’ he says.
G. The company itself is based at Imperial College London, although Janssen, its chief executive,
still lives in the UAE. It has raised £340,000 in funding so far. Within two years, he says, the
company aims to be selling 1,000 units a month, mainly in the humanitarian field. They are
expected to be sold in areas such as Australia, northern Chile, Peru, Texas and California.
Questions 8-13: Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

How the Desolenator works

The energy required to operate the Desolenator comes from sunlight. The device can be used in
different locations, as it has (8)…………. Water is fed into a pipe, and a (9)…………of water
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flows over a solar panel. The water then enters a boiler, where it turns into steam. Any particles in
the water are caught in a (10)…….. . The purified water comes out through one tube, and all types
of (11)……….come out through another. A screen displays the (12)……….of the device, and
transmits the information to the company so that they know when the Desolenator requires (13)
……….. .
(Extracted from TEST 3; IELTS 15)

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11. 12. 13.

Part 4: Read the text and the missing paragraphs (A-H). Choose from paragraphs A-H the
one which fits each gap (1-7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
In those days the council houses stretched all over the western side of the city: row after row of
huddled, dingy dwellings in orange half-brick or pale white stucco. In summer the chemicals from
the May and Baker factory two miles away came and hung round the doors and gardens with an
indescribable smell of sulphur, and the most common sight in that part of Norwich early in the
morning was a paperboy wrinkling his nose in disgust as he negotiated somebody’s front path.
1. _____________
That my mother should intrude into these early memories is no surprise. I remember her as a small,
precise and nearly always angry woman, the source of whose anger I never quite understood, and
consequently couldn’t do anything to appease. Even as a child, though, accompanying her to the
small shops in Bunnett Square or on longer excursions into the city, I’m sure that I had some notion
of the oddity of her personality.
2. _____________

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As a moral code this was completely beyond my comprehension: even now I’m not sure that I
understand it. To particularise, it meant not straying into neighbours' gardens or jeopardising their
rose bushes as you walked down the street; it meant sitting for long half-hours in a silent dining
room, with your hands folded across your chest, listening to radio programmes that my mother
liked; it meant - oh, a hundred proscriptions and prohibitions.
2. _____________
It was only later that I comprehended what poor company this trio was; they formed a depressed
and depressing sisterhood, a little dribble of inconsequent talk about bad legs, the cold weather and
the perils of ingrate children, a category in which I nearly always felt myself included.
3. _____________
This was easier said than done. Growing up in West Earlham at this time followed a well-regulated
pattern. Until you were five you simply sat at home and got under your parents’ feet (I can
remember awful aimless days, when I must have been about four, playing on a rug in the front
room while my mother sat frostily in an armchair). Then, the September after your fifth birthday,
you were packed off to Avenue Road infants’ school half a mile away in the direction of the city.
4. _____________
If I remember anything about these early years it’s the summer holidays; those days when you
caught occasional glimpses of the world that existed outside West Earlham: a vague old man who
lived next door to Mrs Buddery and told stories about his time in the Merchant Navy; a charity fete,
once, held at a house far away in Christchurch Road, where a motherly woman doled out lemonade
and tried to get me interested in something called the League of Pity - a kind of junior charity, I
think - only for my mother, to whom subsequent application was made, to dismiss the scheme on
the grounds that its organisers were ‘only after your money’.
5. _____________
No doubt I exaggerate. No doubt I ignore her virtues and magnify her frailties. But there was
precious little milk of human kindness in my mother; it had all been sucked out of her, sucked out
and thrown away.
6. _____________
My mother wasn’t, it must be known, altogether averse to this recreation, and eventually almost got
to have opinions on the various subjects presented for her edification. I can remember her stopping
once in front of a fine study of a Roman soldier in full battle gear to remark, ‘Well, I wouldn’t like
to meet him on a dark night!’ I recall this as a solitary instance of my mother attempting to make a
joke.
(Extracted from READING -TEST 1; CPE 1)

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A. To do my mother justice she wasn’t unconscious of her role as the guardian of my education. On
Sundays occasionally, she would take me - in my ‘good clothes’ - on the 85 bus to the Norwich
Castle Museum. Here, hand-in-hand, suspicious, but mindful of the free admission, we would
parade through roomfuls of paintings by the Norwich School of Artists.
B. The lucky few had a mother with a rickety bike and a child seat - these were extraordinary
contraptions in cast-iron with improvised safetystraps. As far as I recall, my mother consigned me
to the care of other children in the street for this journey.
C. Of explanation - who we were, where we came from, what we were supposed to be doing - there
was none. And yet it seemed to me that my early life, lived out in the confines of the West Earlham
estate, in a dark little house in a fatally misnamed terrace called Bright Road, was crammed with
mysteries that demanded explanation. There was, to take the most obvious, the question of my
father.
D. She was, for instance, quite the most solitary person I have ever known, as alone in a room full
of people as on a moor. To this solitariness was added a fanatic adhesion to a kind of propriety
uncommon on the West Earlham estate, which occasionally broke out in furious spring-cleanings
or handwashings and instructions to ‘behave proper’.
E. Mercenary motives were a familiar theme of my mother’s conversation, and politicians my
mother held in the deepest contempt of all. If she thought of the House of Commons - and I am not
sure if her mind was capable of such an unprecedented leap of the imagination - it was as a kind of
opulent post office where plutocrats ripped open letters stuffed with five pound notes sent in by a
credulous public.
F. Most of this early life I’ve forgotten. But there is a memory of sitting, or perhaps balancing, at
any rate precariously, on some vantage point near an upstairs window, and looking at the houses as
they faded away into the distance. Later on there are other phantoms - faces that I can’t put names
to, my mother, ironing towels in the back room of a house that I don’t think was ours, snow falling
over the turrets of the great mansion at Earlham.
G. In time other figures emerged onto these stern early scenes. For all her solitariness, my mother
wasn't without her cronies. There was Mrs Buddery, who was fixated on the Royal Family; Mrs
Winall, who said exactly nothing, except for grunts supporting the main speaker; and Mrs Laband -
livelier than the others, and of whom they vaguely disapproved.
H. Looking back, it was as if a giant paperweight, composed of the West Earlham houses, my
mother and her cronies, the obligation to ‘behave proper’, lay across my shoulders, and that it was
my duty immediately to grow up and start the work of prising it free.

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7.

Part 5: The passage below consists of five sections marked A-E. Read the passage and do the
task that follows. Write your answers (A-E) in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.

A. The career of citizen Tristan Smith, set in the fictional republic of Efica, is an extraordinary
parable of human power, history and humour. In a feat of considerable literary skill, the author has
created a world with its own history, traditions and customs.

The book is notable also for its humour, and for the author’s unique vision, which is here combined
with his penetrating psychological insight in a novel which is difficult but rewarding.

B. Harriet is poised and middle-class, with an architect husband and her own business. Ordinarily,
she would never have met Sheila, a traditional working-class woman who looks after her ageing
father and has brought up her grandson, Leo, since he was three.
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Their lives are shattered when the teenage Leo viciously attacks Harriet’s son, Joe, in the street.
After the court case both boys refuse to talk about what happened. Leo, who had been a model
pupil and had never been involved in a fight before, will not explain what came over him, while Joe
recovers physically but becomes withdrawn. Harriet is tortured by the effect on her son and
ministering to him takes over her life. Sheila is so wracked with guilt that she requests a meeting -
from which their unusual friendship grows.
The great strength of the author has always been in depicting how people react to upheaval in their
lives. He also captures the mother’s sense that, no matter how hard she tries, she can never do
enough.

C. Shortlisted for the Booker prize, this book follows the fortunes of one of the most isolated of the
Scottish Orkney islands and its inhabitants over a long and uneventful rural history.
The book sets this narrative against pertinent moments in Scottish history, as vividly imagined in
the daydreams of the young protagonist, Throfinn Ragnarson, who disappears abruptly at one point
in the book, only to return after the Second World War, having now learnt to appreciate the
simplicity of his worthy ancestors’ lives.

D. Following his recent blockbuster success, the author has produced a sequel resonant with the
same gentle irony and acid observations of family life which made its predecessor so appealing.
Fifteen years after her daughter’s death, Aurora Greenway approaches her seventies with her
spirited companion, Rosie Sunlap. Aurora’s approach to life remains the same winning
combination of vanity, charm and reluctant kindness, and Rosie provides an ally in her continuing
and highly enjoyable manipulation of both suitors and friends. By the end of the book, Aurora is
forced to acknowledge the passage of time that brings a new generation to centre stage.
The author is skillful at exposing the haunting sadness that hovers beneath the seeming ordinariness
of life. He is attuned more to the shadows than the bright lights of human activity and identifies the
randomness of events.

E. Six disparate people are brought together by millionaire Logan Urquhart to sail around the
islands of the South Pacific in his yacht, the Ardent Spirit. With her awe-inspiring mastery of
descriptive language, the author charts the personal voyages of self-discovery with which each of
these mariners prepares to return home, their own spirits quickened and made ardent by the
experience of life adrift on ‘the desert cities of waves’.
The author uses startling images to convey her themes of memory and awareness. Those images are
both alienating and illuminating.
(Extracted from TEST 1; CAE 5)
Which section mentions the following?

1. describes the results of one person’s uncharacteristic behaviour

2. has a main character who is reluctant to accept a diminishing role
3. reveals the unhappiness hidden in people’s lives
4. looks at the relationships between two people from different backgrounds
5. explores the unchanging nature of life in the country
6. deals with the characters’ attempts to reach a deeper understanding of themselves
7. conveys a character’s feelings of inadequacy
8. features a main character whose views on traditional ways of life undergo a change
9. deals with the activities of someone living in an invented world
10. focuses on how people cope with disruption in their lives
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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IV. WRITING (6 points)
Part 1: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarise it. Your summary
should be 120 words long.
It is believed that traditional approaches to writing assessment are not complete due to some
reasons. First, they are not wise enough to assess learners’ writing ability based on only one draft
which is written under timed conditions and about an unfamiliar topic. Second, it is assumed that a
single piece of writing cannot be a good indicator of the learners’ overall writing ability. On the
other hand, the teachers are not in a position to make appropriate judgments about their students’
writing assignment. Thus, writing should be taught as a process rather than a product.
According to Pourverdi Yangili, Jafarpour, and Mohammadi (2016), in traditional methods
of assessing writing the teachers act like a reader and an editor, first they read the paper and then
edit it for grammatical and mechanical mistakes while it contrasts with Brown (2004) who believed
in incorporating both formal and informal assessment techniques for monitoring learners’ progress
in writing.
Because of the indispensable and undeniable role that writing as a language skill plays in
foreign/second language learning and teaching, the way it is taught or assessed is of utmost
importance. According to Muslimi (20l5), portfolios have gained popularity among the educators
and language teachers as an alternative approach both in EFL and in ESL contexts as an
instructional tool for preparation of students for examinations due to the paradigm shift in writing
theory from a focus on writing products to that of writing processes. Moreover, along with the
emergence of technology it is necessary to integrate both computers and Internet in the process of
language learning and teaching.

Part 2. The bar chart shows the relative electricity consumption and cost per year of various
household devices. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features
and make comparisons where relevant.

Part 3: Write an essay of about 300 words to express your opinion on the following issue.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, high school students in Vietnam have been reporting that their
academic workloads have increased dramatically. What in your opinion are the primary causes
of this? What are the main effects?

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