Part 1

Read the text. Fill in each gap with ONE word. You must use a word which is somewhere in the
rest of the text.

The Great Quake

Today, in most industrialized countries in the world, buildings are designed to withstand
various, unexpected natural disasters. Safety measures are installed in modern-day designs to
help contain the spread of fire, and design engineers make sure newer structures are
deliberately planned to hold against the violent shifting of the earth during an (Q1)
earthquake. However, such deliberate design and planning was not the case
during the early 1900s. On April 18, 1906, in the morning hours of the day, the citizens of San
Francisco, California, were witnesses to an (Q2) _ so monumental the tremors were
felt as far north as Oregon. Neither the city nor its people were prepared for what would
happen next: the devastation of their (Q3) .

The actual earthquake only lasted two minutes. Of course, the violent tremors must have
seemed much longer to the actual eyewitnesses, but the fires that came after the earthquake
(Q4) for nearly three days. The enormous loss from the disaster included the lives
of at least five hundred (Q5) , and an estimated three thousand acres of the city
were destroyed. This (Q6) is often called simply the “Great Quake” because of the
vast destruction that occurred.

1
 Part 2
Read the texts 7-14 and the statements A-J. Decide which text matches with the situation
described in the statements.

Each statement can be used ONCE only. There are TWO extra statements which you do not
need to use.

Mark your answers on the answer sheet.

A) David enjoys walking but he has injured his knee and cannot climb up hills. He would like
to spend a couple of hours on a quiet walk with well-marked paths.

B) Luigi likes to get as much exercise as possible and particularly likes climbing steep hills to
get a good view. He wants to do a walk that is difficult and offers a range of scenery.

C) Yannis has two sons of 8 and 10. He would like to take them to see some animals in the
countryside. He wants to be able to buy some refreshments.

D) Amanda has had an operation and needs plenty of fresh air to help her recover. She wants
to find a short, quiet walk with beautiful place to visit on the route.

E) Claudia's grandparents are staying with her. They are very fit and enjoy walking. They
would like to visit some of the local villages and need a clearly-marked route so they don't
lose their way.

F) Anna is 18 and she wants to do computer studies so that she can work in an office. She
would like to study in London but is worried about finding accommodation.

G) Peter is 19 and wants to be a sports teacher. He is very good at sport, especially running.
He wants to go to a college outside London.

H) Maria used to teach in a secondary school but now wants to teach at primary level. She
wants to do a part-time course in London.

I) Stephen works in the computer industry and wants to go back to college for a year to do a
diploma in advanced computer studies. He lives in London and wants to study there.

J) Ali wants to do computer studies in London. He would like to do full-time course which
includes some time working in industry. In his spare time, he plays football.
 7) CUTTERS WAY
This walk can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours. It's not a good walk for hill-lovers
as the ground is completely flat, but it has good signposts and simple facilities for the hungry
or thirsty walker. A few places or things to see would improve this walk, which can be a little
dull.

8) PADDOCK WAY
This is really a short track across a working farm. There are plenty of chickens and sheep to
see, and the farmer has turned some of the buildings into an educational center with a café.
Not a walk for those who like peace and quiet, but good fun.

9) HURDLES

This is a route for the experienced walker. It crosses two rivers and includes hills of up to 500
meters, from which you can see the sea. There are several rocky paths that are unsuitable for
children or older people and there are no shops so take plenty of water.

10) GOLD-DIGGERS END

You won't find any gold on this peaceful walk, but you will find plenty of other things to see
including a lovely garden which is open to the public. It's a half-hour walk with a couple of
small cafés on the way.

11) Mac Kintosh College offers a range of courses from modern languages to computer
studies, in a quiet and pleasant part of London. All students are offered accommodation in
college flats and we have excellent sports facilities. Full-time and part-time courses of either
three or four years are available

12) Kirby College has over fifty years’ experience of teacher training. We offer both fulltime
and part-time courses for all levels of teaching. Large college in lovely countryside, with
excellent sports facilities, especially for football and athletics. There is a new course this year
called 'Computers in the Classroom'
13) Dene College was built in 1990 in an attractive part of north London. Spaces are still
available on our popular part-time course in primary teaching for teachers who want to
retrain. Beginning in October we will also have new four-year courses in law, economics,
mathematics and sports science.

14) Westgate College in south London has a range of courses, from math and physics to
computer studies and sports science. We offer both lower and advanced diplomas. All our
courses are from one to three years in length and are particularly suitable for people with
some work experience.
Part 3
Read the text and choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings
below.
There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.You cannot use any
heading more than once.
Mark your answers on the answer sheet.

A The universal ability to use language

B Apparently incompatible characteristics of language
C The way in which a few sounds are organised to convey a huge range of meaning
D Why language is the most important invention of all
E Even silence can be meaningful
F Differences between languages highlight their impressiveness
G Why the letters used in one language aren't the same
H Why the sounds used in different languages are not identical

‘This Marvellous Invention’

15) Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions -
the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread – may have transformed our material existence, but the
advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale
in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates
from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled
power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

16) But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of
extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this marvellous
invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions
which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to
others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we
imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’ This was how, in 1660, the renowned French
grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no
one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is
just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to languages unique
accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind s greatest
invention – except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core
of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

17) Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything
other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument
make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these
configurations of mouth p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,sh,a,e and so on – amount to nothing more than a few
haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no
power to explain. But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it
arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless
streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling
the fundamental order of the universe.

18) The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be a
genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody from
pre- modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the
suburban sprawl – to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of
subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this
deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its
triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language run so smoothly that one
rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have
gone into making ittick. Language conceals art.

19) Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and
outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of languages design. One of the showiest
stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking
length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish
word çehirliliçtiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than ‘you
are one of those whom we can’t turn into a town-dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this
monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together – most ol
its components cannot even stand up on their own.)

20) And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken
on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and
thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma’a (‘when he
had made it suitable for her’) might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus
above. What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse –
the thrifty compactness of its construction. The word is made up of different slots, each
corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to
convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to
express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to
the pronoun ‘it’ in the English translation ‘when he had made it suitable for her’, then the
answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing
that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a
non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific
function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?

Part 4
Read the following text for questions 21-29.

NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS: A TEENAGE TIME BOMB.

They are just four, five and six years old right now, but already they are making criminologists
nervous. They are growing up, too frequently, in abusive or broken homes, with little adult
supervision and few positive role models. Left to themselves, they spend much of their time
hanging out on the streets or soaking up violent TV shows. By the year 2005 they will be
teenagers–a group that tends to be, in the view of Northeastern University criminologist
James Alan Fox, “temporary sociopaths–impulsive and immature.” If they also have easy
access to guns and drugs, they can be extremely dangerous.

For all the heartening news offered by recent crime statistics, there is an ominous flip side.
While the crime rate is dropping for adults, it is soaring for teens. Between 1990 and 1994,
the rate at which adults age 25 and older committed homicides declined 22%; yet the rate
jumped 16% for youths between 14 and 17, the age group that in the early ‟90s supplanted
18- to 24-year-olds as the most crime-prone. And that is precisely the age group that will be
booming in the next decade. There are currently 39 million children under 10 in the U.S.,
more than at any time since the 1950s. “This is the calm before the crime storm,” says Fox.
“So long as we fool ourselves in thinking that we’re winning the war against crime, we may be
blindsided by this bloodbath of teenage violence that is lurking in the future.”
Demographics do not have to be destiny, but other social trends do little to contradict the
dire predictions. Nearly all the factors that contribute to youth crime–single-parent
households, child abuse, deteriorating inner-city schools–are getting worse. At the same
time, government is becoming less, not more, interested in spending money to help break
the cycle of poverty and crime. Professor of Australian University John Dallas in his speech in
Malaysia warned the whole world about the dangers of “moral poverty,” He stated that it
would be absolutely useless for the nations to invest finance for education without educating
them morally and spiritually no matter to their identity.

Predicting a generation’s future crime patterns is, of course, risky, especially when outside
factors (Will crack use be up or down? Will gun laws be tightened?) remain unpredictable.
Michael Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota, argues
that the demographic doomsayers are unduly alarmist. “There will be a slightly larger number
of people relative to the overall population who are at high risk for doing bad things, so that’s
going to have some effect,” he concedes. “But it’s not going to be an apocalyptic effect.”
Norval Morris, professor of law and criminology at the University of Chicago, finds DiIulio’s
notion of super predators too simplistic: “The human animal in young males is quite a violent
animal all over the world. The people who put forth the theory of moral poverty lack a sense
of history and comparative criminology.

” Yet other students of the inner city are more pessimistic. “All the basic elements that spawn
teenage crime are still in place, and in many cases the indicators are worse,” says Jonathan
Kozol, author of Amazing Grace, an examination of poverty in the South Bronx. “There’s a
dramatic increase of children in foster care, and that’s a very high-risk group of kids. We’re
not creating new jobs, and we’re not improving education to suit poor people for the jobs
that exist.’’

Can anything defuse the demographic time bomb? Fox urges “reinvesting in children”:
improving schools, creating after-school programs and providing other alternatives to gangs
and drugs. DiIulio, a law-and-order conservative, advocates tougher prosecution and wants to
strengthen religious institutions to instill better values. Yet he opposes the Gingrich-led effort
to make deep cuts in social programs. “A failure to maintain existing welfare and health
commitment for kids,” he says, “is to guarantee that the next wave of juvenile predators will
be even worse than we’re dealing with today.” DiIulio urges fellow conservatives to think of
Medicaid not as a health-care program but as “an anticrime policy.”
For questions 21-24, choose the correct answer A, B, C, or D. Mark your answers on the
answer sheet.

21. Young children are making criminologists nervous because

a) they are committing too much crime.

b) they are impulsive and immature.
c) they may grow up to be criminals.

22. The general crime rate in the US is

a) increasing
b) decreasing
c) not changing

23. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could

a) make us complacent in the fight against crime.

b) result in an increase in teenage violence.
c) result in a decrease in teenage violence.

24. According to paragraph 3, the government

a) is doing everything it can to solve the problem.

b) is not interested in solving the problem.
c) is not doing enough to solve the problem.

For questions 25-29, decide if the following statements agree with the information given in
the text. Mark your answers on the answer sheet.

25) It can be really harmless for teens to get weapons with no challenge.

A) True B) False C) Not given

26) The rate of crime has once decreased among adults over the certain period.

A) True B) False C) Not given

27) One of the professors warned against the dangers of spiritual insufficiency.

A) True B) False C) Not given

28) The dwellers of crowded area have more tendencies to commit a crime.

A) True B) False C) Not given

29) It is stated in the passage that violent films may cause teenagers to commit a crime.

A) True B) False C) Not given

Part 5
Read the following text for questions 30-35.

The growth of bike-sharing schemes around the world How Dutch engineer Luud
Schimmelpennink helped to devise urban bike-sharing schemes

The original idea for an urban bike-sharing scheme dates back to a summer’s day in
Amsterdam in 1965. Provo, the organization that came up with the idea, was a group of
Dutch activists who wanted to change society. They believed the scheme, which was known
as the Witte Fietsenplan, was an answer to the perceived threats of air pollution and
consumerism. In the centre of Amsterdam, they painted a small number of used bikes white.
They also distributed leaflets describing the dangers of cars and inviting people to use the
white bikes. The bikes were then left unlocked at various locations around the city, to be used
by anyone in need of transport.

Luud Schimmelpennink, a Dutch industrial engineer who still lives and cycles in Amsterdam,
was heavily involved in the original scheme. He recalls how the scheme succeeded in
attracting a great deal of attention – particularly when it came to publicising Provo’s aims –
but struggled to get off the ground. The police were opposed to Provo’s initiatives and almost
as soon as the white bikes were distributed around the city, they removed them. However,
for Schimmelpennink and for bike-sharing schemes in general, this was just the beginning.
‘The first Witte Fietsenplan was just a symbolic thing,’ he says. ‘We painted a few bikes white,
that was all. Things got more serious when I became a member of the Amsterdam city council
two years later.’ Schimmelpennink seized this opportunity to present a more elaborate Witte
Fietsenplan to the city council. ‘My idea was that the municipality of Amsterdam would
distribute 10,000 white bikes over the city, for everyone to use,’ he explains. ‘I made serious
calculations. It turned out that a white bicycle – per person, per kilometer – would cost the
municipality only 10% of what it contributed to public transport per person per kilometer.’
Nevertheless, the council unanimously rejected the plan. ‘They said that the bicycle belongs
to the past. They saw a glorious future for the car,’ says Schimmelpennink. But he was not in
the least discouraged. Schimmelpennink never stopped believing in bike-sharing, and in the
mid-90s, two Danes asked for his help to set up a system in Copenhagen. The result was the
world’s first large-scale bike- share programme. It worked on a deposit: ‘You dropped a coin
in the bike and when you returned it, you got your money back.’ After setting up the Danish
system, Schimmelpennink decided to try his luck again in the Netherlands – and this time he
succeeded in arousing the interest of the Dutch Ministry of Transport. ‘Times had changed,’
he recalls. ‘People had become more environmentally conscious, and the Danish experiment
had proved that bike-sharing was a real possibility.’ A new Witte Fietsenplan was launched in
1999 in Amsterdam. However, riding a white bike was no longer free; it cost one guilder per
trip and payment was made with a chip card developed by the Dutch bank Postbank.
Schimmelpennink designed conspicuous, sturdy white bikes locked in special racks which
could be opened with the chip card – the plan started with 250 bikes, distributed over five
stations. Theo Molenaar, who was a system designer for the project, worked alongside
Schimmelpennink. ‘I remember when we were testing the bike racks, he announced that he
had already designed better ones. But of course, we had to go through with the ones we
had.’ The system, however, was prone to vandalism and theft. ‘After every weekend there
would always be a couple of bikes missing,’ Molenaar says. ‘I really have no idea what people
did with them, because they could instantly be recognised as white bikes.’ But the biggest
blow came when Postbank decided to abolish the chip card, because it wasn’t profitable.
‘That chip card was pivotal to the system,’ Molenaar says. ‘To continue the project we would
have needed to set up another system, but the business partner had lost interest.’
Schimmelpennink was disappointed, but – characteristically – not for long. In 2002 he got a
call from the French advertising corporation JC Decaux, who wanted to set up his bike-sharing
scheme in Vienna. ‘That went really well. After Vienna, they set up a system in Lyon. Then in
2007, Paris followed. That was a decisive moment in the history of bike-sharing.’ The huge
and unexpected success of the Parisian bike-sharing programme, which now boasts more
than 20,000 bicycles, inspired cities all over the world to set up their own schemes, all
modelled on Schimmelpennink’s. ‘It’s wonderful that this happened,’ he says. ‘But financially
I didn’t really benefit from it, because I never filed for a patent.’ In Amsterdam today, 38% of
all trips are made by bike and, along with Copenhagen, it is regarded as one of the two most
cycle-friendly capitals in the world – but the city never got another Witte Fietsenplan.
Molenaar believes this may be because everybody in Amsterdam already has a bike.
Schimmelpennink, however, cannot see that this changes Amsterdam’s need for a bike-
sharing scheme. ‘People who travel on the underground don’t carry their bikes around. But
often they need additional transport to reach their final destination.’ Although he thinks it is
strange that a city like Amsterdam does not have a successful bike-sharing scheme, he is
optimistic about the future. ‘In the ‘60s we didn’t stand a chance because people were
prepared to give their lives to keep cars in the city. But that mentality has totally changed.
Today everybody longs for cities that are not dominated by cars.’

For questions 30-33, fill in the missing information in the numbered spaces. Write no more
than ONE WORD and / or A NUMBER for each question.

The first urban bike-sharing scheme

The first bike-sharing scheme was the idea of the Dutch group Provo. The people who
belonged to this group were 30 ........................ They were concerned about damage to the
environment and about 31 .......................... , and believed that the bike-sharing scheme
would draw attention to these issues. As well as painting some bikes white, they handed out
32 ...................... that condemned the use of cars.

However, the scheme was not a great success: almost as quickly as Provo left the bikes
around the city, the 33 ........................ Took them away. According to Schimmelpennink, the
scheme was intended to be symbolic. The idea was to get people thinking about the issues.

34 Which of the following statements are made in the text about the Amsterdam bike-
sharing scheme of 1999?
A It was initially opposed by a government department.
B It failed when a partner in the scheme withdrew support.
C It aimed to be more successful than the Copenhagen scheme.
D It attracted interest from a range of bike designers.

35 Which of the following statements are made in the text about Amsterdam today?
A The majority of residents would like to prevent all cars from entering the city.
B There is little likelihood of the city having another bike-sharing scheme.
C More trips in the city are made by bike than by any other form of transport.
D A bike-sharing scheme would benefit residents who use public transport.