THE MOCK TEST OF

INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE TESTING SYSTEM

ACADEMIC READING

Time: 1 hour

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

 Do not open this booklet until you are told to do so.

 Write your name in the space at the top of this page

 Start at the beginning of the test and work through it

 You should answer all questions

 If you cannot do a particular question, leave it and go on to the next. You can

return to it later.

 All answers must be written on the Answer Sheet.

 Do not remove this booklet from the examination room.

INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES

 There are 40 questions on this question paper.

 The test is divided as follows:

Reading Passage 1 Questions 1- 13

Reading Passage 2 Questions 14- 26

Reading Passage 3 Questions 27 – 40

Reading passage 1

The US City and the Natural Environment

A) While cities and their metropolitan areas have always interacted with and shaped the
natural environment, it is only recently that historians have begun to consider this
relationship. During our own time, the tension between natural and urbanized areas has
increased, as the spread of metropolitan populations and urban land uses has reshaped
and destroyed natural landscapes and environments.
B) The relationship between the city and the natural environment has actually been
circular, with cities having massive effects on the natural environment, while the natural
environment, in turn, has profoundly shaped urban configurations. Urban history is filled
with stories about how city dwellers contended with the forces of nature that threatened
their lives. Nature not only caused many of the annoyances of daily urban life, such as bad
weather and pests, but it also gave rise to natural disasters and catastrophes such as
floods, fires, and earthquakes. In order to protect themselves and their settlements against
the forces of nature, cities built many defences including flood walls and dams, earthquake-
resistant buildings, and storage places for food and water. At times, such protective steps
sheltered urbanites against the worst natural furies, but often their own actions – such as
building under the shadow of volcanoes, or in earthquake-prone zones – exposed them to
danger from natural hazards.
C) City populations require food, water, fuel, and construction materials, while urban
industries need natural materials for production purposes. In order to fulfill these needs,
urbanites increasingly had to reach far beyond their boundaries. In the nineteenth century,
for instance, the demands of city dwellers for food produced rings of garden farms around
cities. In the twentieth century, as urban populations increased, the demand for food drove
the rise of large factory farms. Cities also require fresh water supplies in order to exist –
engineers built waterworks, dug wells deeper and deeper into the earth looking for
groundwater, and dammed and diverted rivers to obtain water supplies for domestic and
industrial uses. In the process of obtaining water from distant locales, cities often
transformed them, making deserts where there had been fertile agricultural areas.
D) Urbanites had to seek locations to dispose of the wastes they produced. Initially, they
placed wastes on sites within the city, polluting the air, land, and water with industrial and
domestic effluents. As cities grew larger, they disposed of their wastes by transporting them
to more distant locations. Thus, cities constructed sewerage systems for domestic wastes.
They usually discharged the sewage into neighbouring waterways, often polluting the water
supply of downstream cities.

The air and the land also became dumps for waste disposal. In the late nineteenth century,
coal became the preferred fuel for industrial, transportation, and domestic use. But while
providing an inexpensive and plentiful energy supply, coal was also very dirty. The cities
that used it suffered from air contamination and reduced sunlight, while the cleaning tasks
of householders were greatly increased.

E) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reformers began demanding urban
environmental cleanups and public health improvements. Women's groups often took the
lead in agitating for clean air and clean water, showing a greater concern than men in
regard to quality of life and health-related issues. The replacement of the horse, first by
electric trolleys and then by the car, brought about substantial improvements in street and
air sanitation. The movements demanding clean air, however, and reduction of waterway
pollution were largely unsuccessful. On balance, urban sanitary conditions were probably
somewhat better in the 1920s than in the late nineteenth century, but the cost of
improvement often was the exploitation of urban hinterlands for water supplies, increased
downstream water pollution, and growing automobile congestion and pollution.
F) In the decades after the 1940s, city environments suffered from heavy pollution as they
sought to cope with increased automobile usage, pollution from industrial production, new
varieties of chemical pesticides and the wastes of an increasingly consumer-oriented
economy. Cleaner fuels and smoke control laws largely freed cities during the 1940s and
1950s of the dense smoke that they had previously suffered from. Improved urban air
quality resulted largely from the substitution of natural gas and oil for coal and the
replacement of the steam locomotive by the diesel-electric. However, great increases in
automobile usage in some larger cities produced the new phenomenon of smog, and air
pollution replaced smoke as a major concern.

G) During these decades, the suburban out-migration, which had begun in the nineteenth
century with commuter trains and streetcars and accelerated because of the availability and
convenience of the automobile, now increased to a torrent, putting major strains on the
formerly rural and undeveloped metropolitan fringes. To a great extent, suburban layouts
ignored environmental considerations, making little provision for open space, producing
endless rows of resource-consuming and fertilizer-dependent lawns, contaminating
groundwater through leaking septic tanks, and absorbing excessive amounts of fresh water
and energy. The growth of the outer city since the 1970s reflected a continued preference
on the part of many people in the western world for space-intensive single-family houses
surrounded by lawns, for private automobiles over public transit, and for the development of
previously untouched areas. Without better planning for land use and environmental
protection, urban life will, as it has in the past, continue to damage and stress the natural
environment.

Questions 1-7

Reading Passage 1 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 Phrases

i  Legislation brings temporary improvements

ii  The increasing speed of suburban development

iii  A new area of academic interest

iv  The impact of environmental extremes on city planning

v  The first campaigns for environmental change

vi  Building cities in earthquake zones

vii  The effect of global warming on cities

viii  Adapting areas surrounding cities to provide resources

ix  Removing the unwanted by-products of city life

x  Providing health information for city dwellers

1) Paragraph A   4) Paragraph D  

2) Paragraph B   5) Paragraph E  

3) Paragraph C   6) Paragraph F  

 7) Paragraph G 

Questions 8-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1.

In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage

if the statement is false according to the

FALSE
passage

NOT
if the information is not given in the passage
GIVEN

8) In the nineteenth century, water was brought into the desert to create productive farming land.  

9) Women were often the strongest campaigners for environmental reform.  

10) Reducing urban air and water pollution in the early twentieth century was extremely expensive.  

11) The introduction of the car led to increased suburban development.

12) Suburban lifestyles in many western nations fail to take account of environmental protection.  

13) Many governments in the developed world are trying to halt the spread of the suburbs.
Reading passage 2

Urban planning in Singapore

British merchants established a trading post in Singapore in the early nineteenth century, and for
more than a century trading interests dominated. However, in 1965 the newly independent island
state was cut off from its hinterland, and so it set about pursuing a survival strategy. The good
international communications it already enjoyed provided a useful base, but it was decided that if
Singapore was to secure its economic future, it must develop its industry. To this end, new
institutional structures were needed to facilitate, develop, and control foreign investment. One of the
most important of these was the Economic Development Board (EDB), an arm of government that
developed strategies for attracting investment. Thus from the outset, the Singaporean government
was involved in city promotion.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, the government realised that, due to limits on both the
size of the country’s workforce and its land area, its labour-intensive industries were becoming
increasingly uncompetitive. So an economic committee was established which concluded that
Singapore should focus on developing as a service centre, and seek to attract company
headquarters to serve South East Asia, and develop tourism, banking, and offshore activities. The
land required for this service-sector orientation had been acquired in the early 1970s, when the
government realised that it lacked the banking infrastructure for a modern economy. So a new
banking and corporate district, known as the ‘Golden Shoe’, was planned, incorporating the historic
commercial area. This district now houses all the major companies and various government financial
agencies.

Singapore’s current economic strategy is closely linked to land use and development planning.
Although it is already a major city, the current development plan seeks to ensure Singapore’s
continued economic growth through restructuring, to ensure that the facilities needed by future
business are planned now. These include transport and telecommunication infrastructure, land, and
environmental quality. A major concern is to avoid congestion in the central area, and so the latest
plan deviates from previous plans by having a strong decentralisation policy. The plan makes
provision for four major regional centres, each serving 800,000 people, but this does not mean that
the existing central business district will not also grow. A major extension planned around Marina
Bay draws on examples of other ‘world cities’, especially those with waterside central areas such as
Sydney and San Francisco. The project involves major land reclamation of 667 hectares in total.
Part of this has already been developed as a conference and exhibition zone, and the rest will be
used for other facilities. However the need for vitality has been recognised and a mixed zoning
approach has been adopted, to include housing and entertainment.

One of the new features of the current plan is a broader conception of what contributes to
economic success. It encompasses high quality residential provision, a good environment, leisure
facilities and exciting city life. Thus there is more provision for low-density housing, often in
waterfront communities linked to beaches and recreational facilities. However, the lower housing
densities will put considerable pressure on the very limited land available for development, and this
creates problems for another of the plan’s aims, which is to stress environmental quality. More and
more of the remaining open area will be developed, and the only natural landscape surviving will be
a small zone in the centre of the island which serves as a water catchment area. Environmental
policy is therefore very much concerned with making the built environment more green by
introducing more plants – what is referred to as the ‘beautification’ of Singapore. The plan focuses
on green zones defining the boundaries of settlements, and running along transport corridors. The
incidental green provision within housing areas is also given considerable attention.

Much of the environmental provision, for example golf courses, recreation areas, and beaches, is
linked to the prime objective of attracting business. The plan places much emphasis on good leisure
provision and the need to exploit Singapore’s island setting. One way of doing this is through further
land reclamation, to create a whole new island devoted to leisure and luxury housing which will
stretch from the central area to the airport. A current concern also appears to be how to use the
planning system to create opportunities for greater spontaneity: planners have recently given much
attention to the concept of the 24-hour city and the cafe society. For example, a promotion has taken
place along the Singapore river to create a cafe zone. This has included the realisation, rather late in
the day, of the value of retaining older buildings, and the creation of a continuous riverside
promenade. Since the relaxation in 1996 of strict guidelines on outdoor eating areas, this has
become an extremely popular area in the evenings. Also, in 1998 the Urban Redevelopment
Authority created a new entertainment area in the centre of the city which they are promoting as ‘the
city’s one-stop, dynamic entertainment scene’.

In conclusion, the economic development of Singapore has been very consciously centrally
planned, and the latest strategy is very clearly oriented to establishing Singapore as a leading ‘world
city’. It is well placed to succeed, for a variety of reasons. It can draw upon its historic roots as a
world trading centre; it has invested heavily in telecommunications and air transport infrastructure; it
is well located in relation to other Asian economies; it has developed a safe and clean environment;
and it has utilised the international language of English.

Questions 14-19

Complete the summary below using words from the box.

decentralisation fuel industry industry

hospitals loans deregulation service

trade transport entertainment recycling

labour tourism hygiene beautification

agriculture      
Singapore

When Singapore became an independent, self-sufficient state it decided to build up

its 14)...................., and government organisations were created to support this policy. However,
this initial plan met with limited success due to a shortage of 15) .................... and land. It was
therefore decided to develop the 16) .................... sector of the economy instead.

Singapore is now a leading city, but planners are working to ensure that its economy continues to
grow. In contrast to previous policies, there is emphasis on 17) ..................... In addition, land
will be recovered to extend the financial district, and provide 18) .................... as well as
housing. The government also plans to improve the quality of Singapore’s environment, but due
to the shortage of natural landscapes it will concentrate instead on what it calls 19) .....................

Questions 20-26

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2.

In boxes  20-26  on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage

if the statement is false according to the

FALSE
passage

NOT
if the information is not given in the passage
GIVEN

20) After 1965, the Singaporean government switched the focus of the island’s economy.  

21) The creation of Singapore’s financial centre was delayed while a suitable site was found.  

22) Singapore’s four regional centres will eventually be the same size as its central business district.  

23) Planners have modelled new urban developments on other coastal cities.  

24) Plants and trees are amongst the current priorities for Singapore’s city planners.  
25) The government has enacted new laws to protect Singapore’s old buildings.  

26) Singapore will find it difficult to compete with leading cities in other parts of the world.

Reading passage 3

WHAT COOKBOOKS REALLY TEACH US

A Shelves bend under their weight of cookery books. Even a medium-sized bookshop
contains more recipes than one person could hope to cook in a lifetime. Although the recipes in
one book are often similar to those in another, their presentation varies wildly, from an array of
vegetarian cookbooks to instructions on cooking the food that historical figures might have
eaten. The reason for this abundance is that cookbooks promise to bring about a kind of domestic
transformation for the user. The daily routine can be put to one side and they liberate the user, if
only temporarily. To follow their instructions is to turn a task which has to be performed every
day into an engaging, romantic process. Cookbooks also provide an opportunity to delve into
distant cultures without having to turn up at an airport to get there.

B The first Western cookbook appeared just over 1600 years ago. De re coquinara (it
means ‘concerning cookery’) is attributed to a Roman gourmet named Apicius. It is probably a
compilation of Roman and Greek recipes, some or all of them drawn from manuscripts that were
later lost. The editor was sloppy, allowing several duplicated recipes to sneak in. Yet Apicius’s
book set the tone of cookery advice in Europe for more than a thousand years. As a cookbook it
is unsatisfactory with very basic instructions. Joseph Vehling, a chef who translated Apicius in
the 1930s, suggested the author had been obscure on purpose, in case his secrets leaked out.

C But a more likely reason is that Apicius’ recipes were written by and for professional
cooks, who could follow their shorthand. This situation continued for hundreds of years. There
was no order to cookbooks: a cake recipe might be followed by a mutton one. But then they were
not written for careful study. Before the 19th century few educated people cooked for themselves.
The wealthiest employed literate chefs; others presumably read recipes to their servants. Such
cooks would have been capable of creating dishes from the vaguest of instructions.

D The invention of printing might have been expected to lead to greater clarity but at first
the reverse was true. As words acquired commercial value, plagiarism exploded. Recipes were
distorted through reproduction. A recipe for boiled capon in The Good Huswives Jewell, printed
in 1596, advised the cook to add three or four dates. By 1653, when the recipe was given by a
different author in A Book of Fruits & Flowers, the cook was told to set the dish aside for three
or four days.
E The dominant theme in 16th and 17th century cookbooks was order. Books combined
recipes and household advice, on the assumption that a well-made dish, a well-ordered ladder
and well-disciplined children were equally important. Cookbooks thus became a symbol of
dependability in chaotic times. They hardly seem to have been affected by the English civil war
or the revolutions in America and France.

F In the 1850s Isabella Beeton published The Book of Household Management. Like earlier
cookery writers she plagiarized freely, lifting not just recipes but philosophical observations
from other books. If Beeton’s recipes were not wholly new, though, the way in which she
presented them certainly was. She explains when the chief ingredients are most likely to be in
season, how long the dish will take to prepare and even how much it is likely to cost. Beeton’s
recipes were well suited to her times. Two centuries earlier, an understanding of rural ways had
been so widespread that one writer could advise cooks to heat water until it was a little hotter
than milk comes from a cow. By the 1850s, Britain was industrializing. The growing urban
middle class needed details, and Beeton provided them in full.

G In France, cookbooks were fast becoming even more systematic. Compared with Britain,
France had produced few books written for the ordinary householder by the end of the 19th
century. The most celebrated French cookbooks were written by superstar chefs who had a clear
sense of codifying a unified approach to sophisticated French cooking. The 5000 recipes in
Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire (The Culinary Guide), published in 1902, might as well
have been written in stone, given the book’s reputation among French chefs, many of whom still
consider it the definitive reference book.

H What Escoffier did for French cooking, Fannie Farmer did for American home cooking.
She not only synthesized American cuisine; she elevated it to the status of science. ‘Progressin
civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery,’ she breezily announced in The
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, before launching into a collection of recipes that sometimes
resembles a book of chemistry experiments. She was occasionally over-fussy. She explained that
currants should be picked between June 28th and July 3rd, but not when it is raining. But in the
main her book is reassuringly authoritative. Its recipes are short, with no unnecessary chat and no
unnecessary spices.

I In 1950 Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David launched a revolution in cooking advice

in Britain. In some ways Mediterranean Foodrecalled even older cookbooks but the smells and
noises that fill David’s books were not mere decoration for her recipes. They were the point of
her books. When she began to write, many ingredients were not widely available or affordable.
She understood this, acknowledging in a later edition of one of her books that ‘even if people
could not very often make the dishes here described, it was stimulating to think about them.’
David’s books were not so much cooking manuals as guides to the kind of food people might
well wish to eat.
Questions 27-29

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.

Why are there so many cookery books?

There are a great number more cookery books published than is necessary and it is their
27………………which makes them differ from each other. There are such large numbers
because they offer people an escape from their 28…………………and some give the
user the chance to inform themselves about other 29…………………

Questions 30-35

Reading passage 3 has nine paragraphs, A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 30-34 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

30. cookery books providing a sense of stability during periods of unrest

31. details in recipes being altered as they were passed on

32. knowledge which was in danger of disappearing

33. the negative effect on cookery books of a new development

34. acknowledgement of some possible problems in cooking some dishes

35. a period when there was no need for cookery books to be precise

Questions 36-40

Look at the following statements (Questions 35-40) and list of books (A-E) below.

Match each statement with the correct book, A-E.

Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.
36. Its recipes were easy to follow despite the writer’s attention to detail.

37. Its writer may have deliberately avoided passing on details.

38. It appealed to ambitious ideas people have about cooking.

39. Its writer used ideas from other books but added additional related information.

40. It put into print ideas which are still respected today.

List of cookery books

A De re coquinara

B The Book of Household Management

C Le Guide Culinaire

D The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

E Mediterranean Food