THE STILT HOUSE

James’ friends lived in a decrepit stilt house which was one of the lesser properties of a well-known local
politician. It was a rickety (1)_____ which shook as we climbed the stairs. There were six rooms, clustered around
a communal space (2)_____ with cheap shoes and rubbery slippers. James knocked on one of the doors, which
was so flimsy that it swayed on its hinges at his (3)_____. The door swung open and a slender youth (4)_____
out. James greeted him effusively. The youth – Jimon – (5)_____ from the door and beckoned us in. The place
was humble. Indeed it was one step above squalor, which was (6)_____ at bay by what was clearly a determined
effort to keep it clean and tidy.

1.
c. structure

2.
b. littered

3.
b. touch

4.
d. peered

5.
b. backed away

6.
a. kept

THE BODY SHOP

Many of the positive aspects of The Body Shop resulted from an initial lack of financial resources. Big-budget
advertising and expensive packaging were out of the (7)_____, but this in turn meant that products could be sold
inexpensively without sacrificing quality. As word (8)_____ and the range became more successful, all the profits
could be ploughed back into the company to explore new ideas and (9)_____ more products. Limited finance was
also the reason the business was extended by franchise. The owners of franchises were highly (10)_____ in the
company and helped to maintain its energy. Ideas and information were (11)_____ in the interest of all concerned
and (12)_____ of communication were constantly open.

7.
b. question

8.
d. passed on

9.
b. devise

10.

11.

12.
b. channels

USING SPACE

Space is the greatest luxury of the modern era. With most of us crowding into towns and cities, (13)_____
through traffic jams or jostling for elbowroom in packed commuter trains, there is an (14)_____ need for our
personal space to allow us room to relax in comfort and relative privacy. Space – as in square metres – is
expensive. There (15)_____ a point when moving to gain another bedroom or bigger kitchen becomes financially
impossible. The answer is to find the way to make the most of the space at your (16)_____. There are many small
apartments and houses, for example, that give an appearance of being wonderfully spacious by (17)_____ of
being well-organised. Or because sympathetic and sensitive decorative choices work to dispel any feeling of
rooms being (18)_____ or enclosed.

13.
a. beating

14.
b. utmost

15.
c. comes

16.
a. disposal

17.
b. virtue

18.
d. jammed

You are going to read an extract from a short story. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the article.
Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which best fits each gap (19-25). There is one extra paragraph which we
do not need to use.

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC

M. came to my surgery the week following his first visit, and the week after that, and at regular intervals right
through that winter. I was wrong in ever wavering on his first visit. I summed him up almost immediately as a
hypochondriac of the thorough-going kind. For one thing, there was his persistence. For another, there was the
seemingly infinite adaptability of his symptoms and the discrepancies in his description of them.

19.

He would often describe in some detail the classic symptoms of certain complaints – the sort of thing anyone
can read in classic encyclopedias – but he would forget some tell-tale associative factor or be would fail to
reproduce the physical signs. Then he would fall back on his old stand-by: "'But Doctor, the pain is quite real”:
and I on mine: “For God’s sake – there’s nothing wrong with you.”

20.

I should have questioned him about his mental history, his anxieties, perhaps referred him for psychiatric
treatment. But I did not do this. It seemed to me that to take M.'s condition seriously would quite probably have
the effect of indulging and encouraging it rather than removing it.

21.

The fact that half my family were medical men had made no difference to my motives. There are two ways of
confronting disease: one is sound practical knowledge; the other is health. These are the two things I value most.
And health, believe me, is not the absence of but the disregard for disease. I have no time for the mystique of
suffering.

22.
But he persisted, and became an infernal nuisance. There were times when I had to restrain myself from shouting
at him at the top of my voice, from grasping hold of him and ejecting him bodily from my surgery. Sometimes a
quite violent hatred for that despondent face, for his pleading manner rose inside me. I wanted to hit him.

23.

One day in the surgery (a day when we were back to headaches and miscellaneous complaints, the jumbled
symptoms of half a dozen nervous disorders), I asked him to tell me about himself. His job was in ‘life insurance’,
which amused me – though I didn’t show it. All other inquiries, however, about weekends, friends, girlfriends and
family drew a blank. He simply shook his head. His expression was empty and opaque.

24.

“Doctor”, he interrupted, as if impatient with my digression. He had this way, despite his reticence, of suddenly
pulling you up. “Doctor ...”, he said again, drawing his face closer to mine – it had the same sheepish look it
perpetually wore, but there was something insistent, arresting about it. “... You have to relieve pain. Do you know
what pain is?” I should have blown up at an absurd comment like this. But I didn’t. “Look, all this is rather
pointless, don’t you think?” I said, “Shall we call an end to the game now?”

25.

At the door he looked up, almost with satisfaction. My palms sweated. His features had this flat quality, as if there
was nothing behind them. And suddenly I knew why he fostered and cherished his ‘pains’, why he manufactured
little upheavals and crises in his body, why he needed the amateur dramatics in my surgery: he was getting his
experience.

You are going to read part of an extract from a story about life in and around an American army base. Choose the
answer (A, B, C, or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

THE AMERICAN BASE

A paternalistic US government assured military personnel volunteering for overseas service that the comforts
awaiting them were no less complete than those they had come to expect at home, and so air transport began to
fly into Effingham laden with deep freezers, washing machines, hi-fi equipment, electric organs and even Persian
carpets. Many of those for whom these goods were destined had become accustomed to an annual trade-in, and
a major disadvantage of the life overseas was that no regular outlets existed for the discarded equipment. Thus
the efficient turnover of the entire system was threatened and a surplus built up, for base houses were small and
soon glutted with gear.

Dick was everybody's friend and often acted as a sort of go-between. When consulted about the American
quandary, he immediately took it up with local shopkeepers and affluent villagers such as the Broadbents, and a
number of them agreed to do what they could to ease the log-jam of consumer durables. It was Dick's
commitment to the future of his only daughter Jane that turned him into a salesman. First he accepted small
gifts, then a trifling commission, then finally obliged American friends and begrudgingly accepted the role of
purchasing their cast-offs to sell on. Thus trade developed. Dick was a reluctant and therefore good salesman, a
little troubled about the legality of his enterprise, and there was a melancholic religiosity about him that
reassured seller and buyer alike.

Dick and his family continued to live frugally, the appearance of an occasional cake at Sunday tea-time being just
about the only outward sign of their newly- found prosperity. He himself did not like to talk about finance but his
wife Dorothea, who was more intimately acquainted with the size of the cache of notes somewhere under the
floor, quietly confided in him one day that the first few months7 operations had brought in enough to pay for one
year’s schooling at Woodford. It was arranged that Jane would enter Gladben's in the coming September.

Most of the married American servicemen and their families stayed within the confines of the base, and the base
did its best to provide those things that made home sweet to them. England remained largely unknown. Only the
young servicemen ventured out, and when they did it was usually in search of female company. They were a
godsend to the girls of Essex, which had become a real backwater for young people. The local girls found the
Americans more considerate and enthusiastic than their English counterparts. In approaches to the opposite
sex, the Americans often displayed an outmoded gallantry, which sometimes evoked pretended amusement but
was always well received. Saturday night discos were about the only form of entertainment surviving in country
places and a girl escorted to one by a local lad had to resign herself to a loutish rather than a romantic
experience. By contrast, the dances at the base offered a model of propriety and good order.

The homely and somewhat formal atmosphere of the social club at the base seemed to exert a tranquillising
effect upon even the most unruly and pugnacious English males. Finding it impossible to pick a quarrel with their
urbane hosts, they soon gave up trying. The music at the base was good and played on the very latest system;
the decor was tasteful and relaxing and avoided cheap effects. No one was ever overcharged, and the old, sly
trick practised in so many clubs of turning up the heat to increase consumption was unnecessary, since base
hospitality was not perverted by the profit motive. Above all, it was the servicemen themselves who impressed. A
rumour circulating at the time was that they had been issued back home with a manual setting out the finer
points of conduct they would be obliged to observe whilst on our shores. This struck all those who came into
contact with them as absurd. These, the girls decided, were nature’s gentlemen: handsome, clean-cut in both
appearance and motive, sophisticated and evidently well-off. In the most discreet fashion, at pains not to provoke
the rivalry' of their English counterparts, the Americans produced photographs of themselves in their civilian
days, often at the wheels of enormous cars, in the glamorous environment of their homeland. Few
impressionable young girls could resist such an emotional assault. It was an experience that turned many a
head. To Dorothea’s horror, her daughter Jane was among them.

26. The problem for Americans at the base was

27. Dick was trusted by the people he dealt with because he

28. Dick and Dorothea

29. The writer suggests that local girls found the American servicemen appealing because

30. The local boys went to the base because

31. ‘This’ in the last paragraph refers to

32. The appeal of the servicemen for local girls grew as they

Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only one word in each space. There is
an example at the beginning (0).

Example: 0. between

THE MELTING POT

In just twenty years, (0)_____ 1830 and 1850, the proportion of foreign-born immigrants in America rose from one
in a hundred (33)_____ one in ten. Never before had (34)_____ been such a global exodus – and not (35)_____ to
America, but to Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, anywhere (36)_____ showed promise, though America had
(37)_____ far the largest share. From smaller countries like Norway and Ireland and regions within countries
(38)_____ Sicily and the Messorgiorno in Italy, the numbers represented a significant drain (39)_____ human
resources. (40)_____ was especially true of Ireland. In 1807 it was the most densely populated country in Europe.
By the 1860s it was one of the (41)_____.

Those who had neither the inclination to work in heavy industry (42)_____ the wherewithal to take up farming
generally clustered in cities – (43)_____ if, as was almost always the (44)_____, their backgrounds were
agricultural. So effortlessly (45)_____ Irish, Poles and Italians settle into urban life that we easily forget that most
came from rural stock and had perhaps never seen a five-storey building prior (46)_____ leaving home. Often
they arrived in such numbers (47)_____ to overturn the prevailing demographics – as in 1851, when a quarter of a
million Irish settled in New York and Boston.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits in the space. There is an example at
the beginning (0).

Example: 0. extraordinary

AMERICAN ENGLISH

None of the interesting and (0 ORDINARY)_____ things Americans are doing to the language really matter as long
as we get the (48 INTEND)_____ meaning across to each other. It seems to me that the messages (49
PULSE)_____ out of the various gyrations of American English are, on the whole, promising. It is a positive
development if our young people are displaying a personal sympathy with the cause of (50 EQUAL)_____, and if
older people are developing a greater (51 SENSITIVE)_____ to one another’s feelings. Similarly, if technology is
considerably (52 RICH)_____ our vocabulary (and by (53 IMPLY)_____, our thinking and our vision) then the
sometimes baffling, sometimes (54 ORTHODOX)_____ and strikingly original ways we speak are (55
OPTIMISM)_____ signals. If, in the process, we engage in some jawbreaking nonsense, no great harm is done.
For all its (56 ODD)_____, American English is, without doubt, increasingly (57 INFLUENCE)_____ around the
world and, to all of us at home, that is good news, man.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

Think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences. Here is an example (0).

Example:

Working during the summer was a good opportunity to _____ some experience.

Opposition parties have started to _____ ground on the government in the polls.

Stock markets tend to _____ when central banks reduce interest rates.

Answer: 0. gain

58. The police _____ the crowd in an attempt to break up the demonstration.

I couldn’t believe what the hotel _____ for putting an extra bed in the room.

Following lengthy questioning, the police formally _____ the suspect last night.

59. The committee decided not to let the matter _____ and ordered a formal enquiry.

The prosecution was foolish to _____ so much of its case on the testimony of such an unreliable witness.

I am sure we only lost because the manager decided to _____ our two best players.
60. The train stopped just _____ of the station so we got off and walked to the platform.

It was the awful weather that made us decide to cut the holiday _____.

The group were running _____ of supplies and drinking water, so they reluctantly turned back.

61. We were _____ to an expensive meal out as a reward for the hard work we’d put in.

The wood was sanded and then _____ with a varnish to protect it.

When I first took up the post, I was _____ with suspicion by my colleagues.

62. The company has made a huge effort this year to improve on the customer care _____.

His friendliness and charm are just a _____ – don’t be fooled into thinking he’s soft.

It’s an unusual row of terraced houses, because every house _____ is so different from the others.

63. The result should _____, even though there were some refereeing irregularities.

We don’t _____ much of a chance if they are able to field a full-strength side.

I doubt whether he’ll _____ for re-election after this disappointment.

Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the word given. Do not
change the word given. You must use between three and eight words, including the word given. Here is an
example (0).

Example:

0. I’d rather you spoke to him before the meeting. IT

I _____________________ speak to him before the meeting.

Answer: ’d prefer it if you could

64. You need to keep an eye on the children at all times if you take them out. SIGHT

You mustn’t let _____________________ if you take them out.

65. We decided it simply wasn’t worth pursuing the matter any further. POINT

We decided _____________________ the matter any further.

66. He’s agreed to help the police as long as his name is not made public. CONDITION
He’s agreed to help the police _____________________ not reveal his name.

67. I don’t mind if you come but you’ll have to get there by yourself. WAY

I don’t mind if you come but _____________________ there.

68. I think you must have me confused with someone else. MISTAKING

I think you must _____________________ someone else.

69. She doesn’t seem to have much idea of what’s been happening here. TOUCH

She seems to _____________________ what’s been happening here.

70. If the plans are not ready to submit, the project may have to be put off until next year. MEAN

Failing to submit the plans _____________________ the project until next year.

71. He was unable to take part in the tournament because of a nagging injury. RULED

A nagging injury _____________________ the tournament.