Listening

Questions 37-40
Choose the correct letters A—C.

Strongly Recommended Not

recommended in certain recommended
circumstances
A B C

Example Answer
B C
Diet if overweight [A]

37 Buy special orthopaedic

A B C
chairs

Example
Answer
Buy orthopaedic A C
[B]
mattresses

38 Buy shock-absorbing
inserts A B C

39 Wear flat shoes A B C

40 Buy TENS machine A B C

13
Test 1

READING_

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 on
the following pages.

Questions 1-4

Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs A-F.

Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers i-ix in boxes 1—4 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i How the reaction principle works
ii The impact of the reaction principle
iii Writers’ theories of the reaction principle
iv Undeveloped for centuries
v
The first rockets
vi The first use of steam
vii Rockets for military use
viii Developments of fire
ix What’s next?

Example Answer
Paragraph A ii

1 Paragraph B

2 Paragraph C

3 Paragraph D

4 Paragraph E

Example Answer
Paragraph F ix

14
 Reading

THE ROCKET - FROM EAST TO WEST

A The concept of the rocket, or rather the mechanism behind the idea of propelling an
object into the air, has been around for well over two thousand years. However, it
wasn’t until the discovery of the reaction principle, which was the key to space travel
and so represents one of the great milestones in the history of scientific thought, that
rocket technology was able to develop. Not only did it solve a problem that had
intrigued man for ages, but, more importantly, it literally opened the door to
exploration of the universe.

B An intellectual breakthrough, brilliant though it may be, does not automatically

ensure that the transition is made from theory to practice. Despite the fact that
rockets had been used sporadically for several hundred years, they remained a
relatively minor artefact of civilisation until the twentieth century. Prodigious efforts,
accelerated during two world wars, were required before the technology of primitive
rocketry could be translated into the reality of sophisticated astronauts. It is strange
that the rocket was generally ignored by writers of fiction to transport their heroes to
mysterious realms beyond the Earth, even though it had been commonly used in
fireworks displays in China since the thirteenth century. The reason is that nobody
associated the reaction principle with the idea of travelling through space to a
neighbouring world.

C A simple analogy can help us to understand how a rocket operates. It is much like a
machine gun mounted on the rear of a boat. In reaction to the backward discharge of
bullets, the gun, and hence the boat, move forwards. A rocket motor’s ‘bullets’ are
minute, high-speed particles produced by burning propellants in a suitable chamber.
The reaction to the ejection of these small particles causes the rocket to move
forwards. There is evidence that the reaction principle was applied practically well
before the rocket was invented. In his Noctes Atticae or Greek Nights, Aulus Gellius
describes ‘the pigeon of Archytas’, an invention dating back to about 360 BC.
Cylindrical in shape, made of wood, and hanging from string, it was moved to and fro
by steam blowing out from small exhaust ports at either end. The reaction to the
discharging steam provided the bird with motive power.

D The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of ‘black powder’.
Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their
belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who
settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is
probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded
from its basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean
that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the thirteenth century, powder-
propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of
technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts,

15
Test 1

explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies. One such weapon
was the ‘basket of fire’ or, as directly translated from Chinese, the ‘arrows like flying
leopards’. The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached
near the point of each arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at
the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the ‘arrow as a
flying sabre’, which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar
position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A
small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to
increase the arrow’s stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position below the
rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the ‘egg which moves and burns’.
This ‘egg’ was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail. It was fired
using two rockets attached to either side of this tail.

E It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the
possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other
weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. The incentive
for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European continent
but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used
rockets successfully against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian
rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India
as ‘an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with
sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick’. In the early nineteenth
century the British began to experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British
rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was completely encased in a stout,
iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and
having a stick almost five metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be
firmly attached to the body of the rocket. The Americans developed a rocket,
complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth
century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top
of the launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other
end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of
the rockets in flight was less than predictable.

F Since then, there have been huge developments in rocket technology, often with
devastating results in the forum of war. Nevertheless, the modern day space
programs owe their success to the humble beginnings of those in previous centuries
who developed the foundations of the reaction principle. Who knows what it will be
like in the future?

16