PRACTICE TEST (A - 2015) - 4

I. LISTENING
I. Listen to a piece of news from BBC and fill in the missing information. Write NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS taken from the recording for each answer in the spaces provided.
It's been history in the making.
The people of Scotland have decided to continue their 300-year (1) ___________________ with
England. So the UK survives.
Pro-independence (2) ___________________ say they're disappointed, but insist the high turnout
shows there's an (3) ___________________ for change. Few would disagree, and accept the result
doesn't mean Britain goes back to business as usual.
In the hours and days ahead, the Prime Minister David Cameron and the other (4)
___________________ will now have to deliver on their promise in the last days of the campaign to
give Scotland more powers.
And no-one believes that can be done without a (5) ___________________of how the rest of the UK
is governed.
II. Listen to a piece of news from EW radio and fill in the missing information. Write NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS taken from the recording for each answer in the spaces provided.
Withering in Warm Water
When the oceans get warmer, the number of plants in the water goes down.
Satellite images reveal that 1. ________________________ become less common as water
temperatures get warmer. The change in temperature apparently slows down a natural conveyor
system that feeds the plants at sea, and that slowdown could cause big problems in the future.
Mike Behrenfeld is a plant pathologist at Oregon State University. He worked with the
2.________________________ NASA on a study of plant growth at sea. The study used satellite
imagery to monitor changes over ten years. Behrenfeld says it revealed a connection between plant
growth and air temperature.

"There seems to be this very clear relationship that - 3. ________________________- when you
have climate warming periods, production goes down and cooling periods, production goes up."
Periods of cooler air temperatures also cool off the water at the 4. ________________________.
That makes the water more dense, and when it sinks, it forces nutrients up from the depths. The
nutrients feed plants at the surface, and that increases the 5. ________________________ of plant
life at sea.

Things change when the surface is warmer. The 6. ________________________of ocean water
grows weaker and plants at the surface die off.

Behrenfeld says air temperatures grew warmer over the 10 years of the NASA study. That led to a
loss of phytoplankton that could be seen from space. Behrenfeld says that as the climate grows
warmer, other marine life might suffer because they won't have phytoplankton to eat.

"It's the same in the ocean as it is on land. If you reduce how much grass is growing in a field, that's
obviously going to change how much animal biomass can be supported by that field."
The loss of tiny plants at sea is not a 7. ________________________. Marine plants account for 50
percent of all plant life on Earth.
III. You will hear a man called Paul Osborne giving a career talk about his work as a computer
game designer. Complete the sentences.
COMPUTER GAME DESIGNER
Paul says that people often think that he's a game 1. _________________________________ rather
than a designer.

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As part of his degree, Paul did a course in 2. _________________________________ which has
proved the most useful in his career.
In his first job, Paul was designing 3. _________________________________ most of the time.
Paul worked on what are known as 4. _________________________________ in his first job.
Paul mentions a game with the name 5. _________________________________ as the one he's
enjoyed working on most.
Paul uses the word 6. _________________________________ to describe what multi-players in a
game can create for themselves.
Paul says that achieving the correct 7. _________________________________ is the biggest
challenge when designing a game.
Paul feels that 8. _________________________________ is the most important personal quality that
a game designer needs.

IV. You will hear an interview with a successful businesswoman called Faye Brandon. Choose the
answer A, B, C or D which fits best according to what you hear.
1. Looking back, how does Faye feel about her previous career as a model?
A. She regrets not being more successful at it.
B. She admits that it was not the right thing for her.
C. She denies that she only did it as a way of making money.
D. She insists that she only intended to do it in the short-term.
2. What does Faye suggest about the sock collection she designed?
A. It was the wrong product for a new business.
B. Persistence was needed to convince shops to sell it.
C. She wishes she hadn't listened to those who criticised it.
D. Using a backpack to carry it around created a bad impression.
3. Faye thinks that to be successful a new business needs above all to
A. avoid being distracted by negative feedback. B. ensure that delivery times are always met.
C. agree to fulfil all its customers' requests. D. make a careful choice of retail partners.
4. What does Faye suggest about the "home testing" of her products?
A. It's not popular with all her employees.
B. It's the only way of ensuring product quality.
C. It can have a negative effect on children's behaviour.
D. It can put unreasonable demands on some of them.
5. Faye is keen to point out that her company's website
A. isn't oriented towards sales. B. benefits from being a team effort.
C. is mostly devoted to product information. D. has established customers as its main target.
6. What advice does Faye have for working mother?
A. Don't give up in the face of problems. B. Learn from all the mistakes you make.
C. Concentrate on the things you're best at. D. Try to do equally well in everything you do.

II. LEXICO- GRAMMAR

I. Choose the word or phrase (A, B, C or D) which best completes each sentence.
1. The optician says you have to wear glasses, like it or ________ it.
A. jump B. lump C. dislike D. loathe
2. You will be putting your life on the ________ if you take up skydiving.
A. ground B. way C. lane D. line
3. His friends and family left him in the ________ when he went bankrupt.
A. church B. lurch C. end D. street

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4. There are more people employed, by and ________ in the service sector than in manufacturing
nowadays.
A. large B. all C. by D. through
5. Tara was really laying it on ________ about her accident at work.
A. fine B. broad C. thick D. thin
6. Were you on the ________ when you said you had resigned from work?
A. wagon B. level C. flat D. town
7. Stars of the Hollywood silver screen tended to be larger than ________.
A. life B. drama C. reality D. ever
8. Judging from the noise it is making, the washing machine is on its last ________.
A. gasp B. breath C. resort D. legs

II. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only ONE word in
each space.
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
Universally, work has been a central focus point in society. As old as the idea of work (1)
____________________ is the question of what constitutes "real work". This is, in fact, a very
subjective question indeed. (2) ____________________ you to ask a miner, or any labourer for that
matter, what real work is, he would probably reply that real work entails working (3)
____________________ your hands and, in the process, getting them dirty. To the average blue-
collar worker, white-collar workers are those who sit in their offices day (4) ____________________
day doing little or (5) ____________________ in the line of actual work. By
(6)____________________, if you approached a white-collar worker or a professional of
(7)____________________ sort with the same question, you can rest assured that they
(8)____________________ adamantly maintain that the world would stop revolving
(9)____________________ their invaluable intellectual contribution to the scheme
(10)____________________ things.

This idea is reflected (11) ____________________ the vocabulary used to describe work and its
related subjects. Words (12) ____________________ career, vocation and profession carry a (13)
____________________ elevated connotation than the simple term "job". The (14)
____________________ three lexical items convey the idea of learned persons sitting at desks and
using their grey matter to solve matters involving financial, legal or medical matters, (15)
____________________ the humble slave away at some mundane work station or assembly line
task.

III. 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.
POP MUSICALS
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, a man whose compositions, eclectic rock based
works, helped (16) _______________________ British and American (17) VITAL
_______________________ theatre in the late 20th century. As a student at MUSIC
Oxford University, a (18) _______________________ was founded between PARTNER
Webber and Timothy Rice to put on dramatic productions. Their first (19)
_______________________ successful venture was "Joseph and The NOTE
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", a pop oratorio for children that earned
world-wide acclaim. It was followed by the rock opera, "Jesus Christ
Superstar", an extremely popular, though (20) _______________________ CONTROVERSY
work that blended classical forms to tell the story of Jesus' life. This show ran
longer than any other similar show in British (21) _______________________ THEATRE
history. Lloyd Webber's last (22) _______________________ collaboration ART
with Rice was on "Evita". "Cats" was his next major production, in which he
set to music verses from a children's book by T.S.Eliot. With two (23)
_______________________, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, he then LYRIC
composed a hugely successful version of "The Phantom of the Opera".
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Lloyd Webber's best works were flashy spectacles that featured vivid melodies
and forceful and dramatic staging. He was able to blend such varied and (24)
_______________________ genres as rock and roll, English music-hall song, SIMILAR
and (25) _______________________ forms into music that had a wide mass OPERA
appeal.
IV. Complete the sentences with an appropriate particle. There is an example at the beginning (0).
0. My cousin has a flair for languages and can speak more than six.
1. The factory owner is not the habit of fraternising _______________ his workers.
2. All the animals in the forest fled _______________ the fire.
3. If you have a grievance _______________ the company, please lodge a formal written complaint.
4. My car is guaranteed _______________ rust for eight years.
5. The teacher told me to stop fidgeting _______________ and to sit still and concentrate.
6. His glee _______________ the news of his success was a joy to see.
7. You mustn't grieve _______________ one trivial mistake.
8. He has a fixation _______________ becoming the best doctor in the world.
9. She does nothing but fret _______________ her being overweight yet never tries to diet.
10 His fidelity _______________ the firm has won him great respect.
11. He is always gloating _______________ his meteoric rise as an actor.
12 .My husband's always lazing _______________ while I'm always busy.
13. Her sales methods have been criticised as being _______________ odds with company policy.
14. I found the ring in the street purely _______________ luck.
15. We regard this atrocity as an offence _______________ humanity.
16. Terry McWoddle has been named _______________ the new chairman of the football club.
17. The harassed mother juggled _______________ four bags of shopping, a pushchair and a dog in
the middle of the busy high street.
18. Many vegetarians argue that there is no justification ____________ eating meat in this day and
age.
19. I've been asked to key this information _______________ the computer immediately.
20. I'm sure there's a jinx _______________ this dress. Whenever I wear it I have a terrible time.

V. Fill in the blanks with one of the idioms/fixed phrases.

against all odds get the sack in the offing status symbol
once and for all white elephant short and sweet out in the open
off the point pop the question part and parcel of a bitter pill to swallow
golden opportunity out and out in public get the wrong end of the stick
throw a party take things to pieces fall into place grease sb's palm
out of print past one's prime come to the point be out of practice
out of the frying pan into the fire

0. This new job is a golden opportunity and for too good to turn down.
1. Let's keep this ________________________________ - just tell me what you want and then
leave. I'm busy!
2. _______________________________, sit down and be quiet or I'll send you out!
3. I always find it embarrassing when people argue _________________________________.
4. ____________________________, he won the national song contest and became quite well-
known.
5. What he promised was impossible - he was a(n) ___________________________________ liar.
6. Being a car mechanic, William loves _______________ engines __________________.
7. I'm afraid a recession is ___________________________________.
8. Now that the scandal is ___________________________________, the Minister will have to
resign.
9. When the traffic warden gave me a parking ticket, I tried to
_________________________________, which only got me into more trouble.
10. It's traditional to ___________________________________ when you move house.
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11. John ___________________________________ because he was always arriving late to work.
12. My husband ___________________________________ on Valentine's Day in 1974.
13. The book was published in the 1940s and is now
14. Moving from that house to this one was a case of it's much worse here.
15. I'd love a game of tennis even though I'm ______________________________.
16. Failing the exam after so much hard work was ______________________________.
17. Everything ______________________________ . at the end of the film.
18. Since we were discussing unemployment, his comment about football was totally
______________________________.
19. I wish he'd ______________________________ and stop wasting everyone's time.
20. You're no longer considered ______________________________ until you're well into your 60s.

III. READING
You are going to read a newspaper article about robots. Six paragraphs have been removed from
the article. Choose from the paragraph A - G the one which fits each gap. There is one extra
paragraph which you do not need to use.
A MAN WHO KNOW HOW TO BATTLE ROBOTS
In the 2004 movie, I, Robot, robots rise up against humanity. In the classic sci-fi thriller Blade
Runner, a bounty hunter must exterminate intelligent androids that are both deadly and very unhappy
with their creators. Even in 1920, when the playwright Karel Capek gave English speaker the Czech
word robota (labourer) in this play R.U.R., the androids at Rossum's Universal Robots were bent on
wiping out the human race. "If popular culture has taught us anything," Daniel H. Wilson says, "it is
that some day mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace." Luckily, Mr. Wilson is
just the guy to help us do it. In his new book How to Survive a Robot Uprising, Dr. Wilson offers
detailed - and hilariously serious - advice on the subject.
1. __________
If all this fails, reasoning with a robot may work, Dr. Wilson says, but emotional appeals will fall on
deaf sensors. Should you prevail, he offers in a grim addendum: "Have no mercy. Your enemy
doesn't."
2. __________
Unlike Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who has written about what he perceives as the
potential robot menace, Dr. Wilson does not view robotics as contributing to what Mr. Joy called
"the further perfection of pure evil".
3. __________
So he decided to examine popular culture - science fiction boos and movies, even R.U.R - for
scenarios of robot uprisings. Then he talked to researchers around the world about how plausible
they might be, and about the state of robot technology generally. He found them "surprisingly eager
to put themselves into these made-up situations."
4. __________
For example, he recalls, when he asked his adviser at Carnegie Mellon, Chris Atkeson, how large a
walking robot could be, the question provoked a lively discussion in the lab, ending with a consensus
that they could probably be no taller than a telegraph pole.
5. __________
"But it turned out very nicely," Dr. Atkeson says. People will pick it up because it is funny - "and
then you have an opportunity to educate them. It's a robotics primer."
6. __________
And in his own life, he says, he does not feel too threatened by robots. "If you want to worry about
something, worry about humans," says Dr. Wilson, who is 27. "Humans are much more dangerous."

A. But if the scenarios are outlandish (so far), the information is real. By the time readers have
absorbed all the possible technological advances rebellious robots could exploit, they have taken a
tour of the world's robotic labs, where, Dr. Wilson maintains, all the techniques and tools in the
book already exist or are under development.

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B. In any event, Dr. Wilson is hardly heeding his own warnings. In fact, he is looking for a job in
commercial robotics research.
C. In fact, he says, he wrote the book out of annoyance with the way the popular media portrayed
robots. "I was kind of tired of them getting a bad rap," he says. "In movies and in television, the
robots are always the bad guys."
D. And that's not all there is to it. Dr. Wilson is currently waiting for the movie company Paramount
Pictures to decide whether to film a sci-fi comedy out of the book. Certainly, he thinks it has all the
right ingredients.
E. This includes evading hostile swarms of robot insects (don't try to fight - "loss of an individual
robot is inconsequential to the swarm"); outsmarting your "smart" house (be suspicious if the house
suggests you test the microwave by putting your head in it); and surviving hand-to-hand combat with
a humanoid (smear yourself in mud to disguise your distinctive human thermal signature and go for
the "eyes" - its cameras).
F. When Dr. Wilson started writing the book, he was still a graduate student. Some of the people he
consulted were nervous about it, in part because they feared other researchers would not respect
anyone who took such a comical approach to his work and then presented it to a popular audience.
Dr. Wilson himself said he feared some readers might not get the joke.
G. But, despite this statement, he is no foe of robots, he says. A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, he earned
his doctorate in robotics at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, a major centre for research in the field,
just as his book was coming out late last year.

II. You are going to read a newspaper article about management. Choose the answer A, B, C or D
which you think fits best according to the text.
SIMPLY TICKING THE BOX ISN'T ENOUGH
I have been asked what I think about the idea of "Investing in People". The best answer I can
give is that I think that what it tries to achieve - basically making the link between business
improvement and focusing on the needs of the people who work for an organization - is great. My
problem is with organizations who subscribe to it as a way to help them "get better", when they don't
bother to understand where they went wrong in the first place. They need to ask what explicit and
implicit policies and procedures they have in place that prevent their people from being able to do
the right thing for the right reasons.
I am sure that there are managers out there who don't know any better, and assume that to
manage they simply need to put pressure on their people to perform. But people don't demonstrate
high performance because they are told to. They do it because they see the need to do it, and make
the choice to do so. They do it because they are connected to the business goals and they see how
their contributions can help achieve them. Such managers may tell themselves they can put a "tick"
in the "we care about people" box. But simply putting ticks in boxes is no good if it doesn't reflect
reality.
I know of a company that was so concerned that its people were doing the "right thing" that it
put in place a series of metrics to measure their effectiveness. So far, so good. But one of the
objectives - making successful sales calls - manifested itself in the metric "Number of potential
customers seen in one day". The sales people obviously focused their efforts on going from one
customer's office to another, and not on closing deals. Instead of the employees becoming more
effective, they focused on getting the boxes ticked. Good intent; poor thinking.
Another company wanted to improve the speed with which it was able to introduce new
products. Competition was beating it to the market place, and consequently the company was losing
market share. Senior management sent out the message to reduce the time spent in getting products
into customer's hands, with the explanation that they couldn't afford delays. This was a relatively
easy task, especially since the time spent testing the products was cut in half to accomplish the time
reduction. The result was new products were introduced in less time than those of the competition -
but soon rejected by customers for poor quality. Good intent; reckless implementation.
A third company I know is trying hard to help employees see that they have some control
over their future. The company instituted a programme with a title like "Creating our own future" or
something like that. A good idea; get the people involved in the future of the company. But instead
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of the employees becoming motivated to contribute, they saw it as a hollow exercise on the part of
senior management who, in the past, had paid little attention to anything other than getting the job
done so they could report great earnings. Yes, the programme was a big "tick in the box" effort, but
that was all it was in the minds of the people that it was designed for.
A final example is of a company that brought in one of these "Investing in People"
programmes to change they way the company was run. Assessors were running around like crazy,
helping managers examine how they managed. They told managers how they could manage better.
And when the programme was over, the company was able to say they had done it - it had invested
in its people and life was now good. But the managers simply went back to business as usual. After
all, the assessors were gone, and they had targets to hit.
All these examples are representative of senior management who see the need to improve
things in their organization, but don't see how to do it. For a start, a programme targeted at improving
things is only as good as management's ability to motivate their people. And when the employees
simply see the programme as a box-ticking exercise, then it's hopeless. If a company is going to go
through the effort implied in investing in people, it should make it worthwhile. Defaulting on the
choice to improve the decision - making process by going through the motion is as lame as senior
management saying their people's poor performance is not the senior management's fault.

1. The writer thinks that putting the concept of "Investing in People" into practice
A. frequently results in confusion among the people it is supposed to help.
B. involves more effort than some organizations are prepared to make.
C. may create problems where previously there had not been any problems.
D. is something that some organizations should not attempt to do.
2. The writer's main point in the second paragraph is that the performance of employees
A. may be very good even if management is poor.
B. cannot be accurately measured by any box-ticking exercise.
C. is related to their knowledge of the organization as a whole.
D. is not as unpredictable as some managers believe it to be.
3. What point does the writer make about the first company he describes?
A. It was not really interested in measuring the effectiveness of employees.
B. The targets that it set for staff were unrealistic.
C. It failed to understand the real needs of its employees.
D. The data that it collected did not measure what it was supposed to measure.
4. What point does the writer make about the second company he describes?
A. It made what should have been made an easy task into a complicated one.
B. It failed to foresee the consequences of an instruction.
C. It misunderstood why a new approach was required.
D. It refused to take into account the views of employees.
5. What does the writer say about the programme introduced by the third company he
mentions?
A. Employees did not believe that it had been introduced for their benefit.
B. Employees felt that it was in fact a way of making their jobs even harder.
C. The reason given for introducing it was not the real reason why it was introduced.
D. It was an inappropriate kind of programme for this particular organization.
6. The writer says that the programme in his final example
A. was too demanding for managers to maintain long-term.
B. was treated as a self-contained exercise by managers.
C. involved some strange ideas on how managers could improve.
D. caused managers to believe that their previous methods had been better.
7. The writer's main criticism of senior management in the final paragraph is that they
A. do not involve employees enough in how their organizations are run.
B. blame employees when programmes for improving their organizations prove unsuccessful.
C. are not genuinely committed to the idea of improving their organizations.
D. keep changing their minds about how best to improve their organizations.

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IV. WRITING
Use the word given in brackets and make any necessary additions to write a new sentence in such
a way that it is as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence. Do NOT change the
form of the given word. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word
given. There is an example at the beginning (0).
1. The council is unlikely to accept the plans for a new sports centre unless the cost is reduced.
MEET
The plans for a new sports centre are __________________________________________________
unless the cost is reduced.

2. Lack of adequate collateral may mean that the bank will have to refuse his loan. IMPOSSIBLE
Lack of adequate collateral may __________________________________________________ him a
loan.

3. I will see to it that the goods are delivered immediately. ARRANGE

I will __________________________________________________ the goods.

4. Fewer people are buying fresh food since convenience foods have become available. DEMAND
Fresh food is __________________________________________________ of convenient food.

5. I am not certain whether his version of the accident can be believed. DOUBTS
I __________________________________________________ his version of the accident.

6. You must remember to pay the phone bill today whatever you do. ACCOUNT
On __________________________________________________ to pay the phone bill today.

7. The owner's mismanagement was directly responsible for the company failing to succeed.
CONSEQUENCE
The company's _____________________________________________the owner's mismanagement.

8. He said he had nothing to do with causing the accident. BLAME

He refused to __________________________________________________ the accident.

9. The lecturer is an expert on modern art. WIDE

The ____________________________________________________________ art.

10. He behaved in an incomprehensible way at the party. BEYOND

His ____________________________________________________________ comprehension.

11. I consider him my worst enemy. LOOK

I ____________________________________________________________ enemy.

12. May is bound to pass her exam. FOREGONE

It ____________________________________________________________ her exam.

13. Len tried to do the exercise, but without success. MATTER

No ____________________________________________________________ do the exercise.

14. The director decided that the cost of relocation was too high. CONCLUSION
The director __________________________________________________________ was too high.

15. The company tried unsuccessfully to secure a bank loan. AVAIL

The company's _________________________________________________________ a bank loan.

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