CONSEJERÍA DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTES

PRUEBAS DE CERTIFICACIÓN IN / B1 4º ESO – 2º CFGM / CTO / SOL / 2023

TASK 1
THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP FOR TEENAGERS

ANSWER BOX
EXTRACT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

TOPIC G E D F I H J K A

TRANSCRIPT

G. Sleep is essential for memory and learning

0. Sleep is actually critical for learning and memory, so you need sleep before you get into the classroom
because sleep almost prepares your brain like a dry sponge ready to soak up new information. But then after
you've done some learning you need sleep after that classroom experience.

E. Sleep improves how you do physical activity

1. We also know that it makes you much better at sports and athletics, that when you're getting sufficient
sleep, your time to physical exhaustion is increased. You much better at playing a longer game, for example.
Your muscle strength is improved. We also know that you can you sweat a little bit better, which sounds like
a strange thing… I don't want to sweat, but, no, you actually do want to sweat because that will make you
better in terms of your physical performance as well.

D. Sleep improves your mental health

2. The other thing is that sleep is actually great upstairs in the brain to help with your mental health and we
know that when you're not getting enough sleep the world looks a little bit darker. The world can actually
seem strangely sort of worse than it actually is. It's more likely that you'll be more sad or more depressed. A
lack of sleep will make you much more anxious as well.

F. Sleep improves your relationships

3. Sleep helps you with your social relationships too. The more sleep that you're having, the better your
relationships both with your parents, with your friends, maybe with your sort of girlfriend or your boyfriend…
all of those things seem to improve when you're getting better sleep.

I. The connection between sleeping and illnesses.

4. Sleep is wonderful for your immune system, you know, if you're getting sick a lot and you're sort of getting
lots of colds, you don't feel well often, you may want to think about how much sleep that you're getting
because sleep is critical for that part of your immune system.

H. Sleep is even more important than diet and exercise.

5. Obviously, diet and exercise are really important things to keep in mind: they keep you healthy, they also
keep you happy, but sleep I would argue is perhaps the most important of those three, and why would I make
that claim? Well, if I were to take you and for 24 hours prevent you from eating, prevent you from exercising
and prevent you from sleeping and then I look within your brain and your body to see how bad things look,
things look far worse when you've gone for 24 hours without a good night of sleep versus 24 hours without
eating or you know even without exercising.

J. The speaker warns us to be careful with technology.

6. And there are lots of amazing things about technology, does it have any impact on the quality or quantity
of our sleep?
It does seem to. So, I think what's happened is, you know, this invasion of technology into the bedroom has
really started to harm sleep and it does it in several ways. Firstly, the sort of the blue light that comes from
CONSEJERÍA DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTES
PRUEBAS DE CERTIFICACIÓN IN / B1 4º ESO – 2º CFGM / CTO / SOL / 2023

all laptops or iPads or our Phones: that can actually block a hormone called melatonin and you need
melatonin at night to help time the healthy onset of your sleep.

K. You shouldn’t have this after midday to sleep well.

7. Caffeine is probably a little bit misunderstood when it comes to sleep. We all know that caffeine makes us
a little bit more awakened, keeps us alert but one of the things that most people don't know is how long
caffeine sticks around in your brain and your body. So, caffeine has what we call a half life of 6 hours and it
has a quarter life of 12 hours. What does that mean? It means that if you have a cup of coffee at midday, a
quarter of that caffeine is still swirling around in your brain at midnight.

A. A technique you can follow before sleeping.

8. If you are feeling a bit stressed and a bit worried about life, then one hour before bed just get a pad of
paper and just write down all of the things that you’re worried about.

Get it all out.

Yeah, get it all out and when it's on the page you’d actually be surprised at how to have that feels as though
you're relieved, catharsis yeah, catharsis, you've got your baggage out on to the paper and what we found
in our scientific studies is that decreases the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep by 50% so…

That’s amazing.

In other words, it is half the time that it would otherwise when you do that.

I’ll do that tonight.

It's a simple trick.

(youtube.com/watch?v=q1XQawZ5l2E, 25/03/2022, 4:21 minutes)

TASK 2
MARIE CURIE

ANSWER BOX
QUESTION 0 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

ANSWER B A C A B B C C A

TRANSCRIPT
Marie Curie was physicist and a chemist, and is best known for her studies of radiation. She was born Maria
Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 (0) in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents were both well-educated: her father
taught physics and mathematics, and her mother ran a girls' school (9).

Marie had three older sisters and an older brother, but one of her sisters as well as her mother died by the
time she was ten years old.

Young Marie had a sharp and curious mind and did well in her studies, graduating at age fifteen from a girls'
school with a gold medal. She wanted to attend university, but the university in Warsaw would not accept
women (10).

Marie and her sister Bronislawa studied in secret at something called the Flying University, an unofficial
night school (11) that would allow women to join. This was not enough, however, and Marie and her sister
formed a plan.
CONSEJERÍA DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTES
PRUEBAS DE CERTIFICACIÓN IN / B1 4º ESO – 2º CFGM / CTO / SOL / 2023

Bronislawa would go to France to study medicine at a university that accepted women as students. Marie
would stay in Poland and work to support her sister.
Once Bronislawa became a doctor, Marie would come to her in France and it would be Marie's turn
to study (12).

It was not until the end of 1891 when Marie was 24 that she was able to move to France and begin her
university education. She had spent her years of waiting, studying on her own (13) and reading many
books, and she knew that she wanted to become a scientist.

Instead of living with her sister, whose home Marie thought was too far from the university, Marie
rented a small attic room nearby (14).

Marie immediately encountered difficulties. Her years of unofficial study had not prepared her for university
courses. Worse, all of the courses were taught in French, which Marie spoke only imperfectly (15).

Determined to do well, Marie studied during the day and tutored at night to earn money, but she barely had
enough to live on. She was too poor to buy much food, by some accounts surviving on buttered bread and
tea - and she was often so interested in her studies that she forgot to eat at all (16), sometimes fainting
from hunger. Her attic room was often cold, but Marie kept warm by wearing all of her clothes at once.

Despite her hardships, Marie earned a master’s degree in physics by 1893, finishing as the top student in
the course. She earned a second degree, this one in chemistry, in 1894. She was only 27 years old.

(youtube.com/watch?v=aowghaUvP6Q&t=245s, 29/03/2022, 3:11 minutes)

TASK 3
THE HISTORY AND SYMBOLS OF THE OLYMPICS

ANSWER BOX

GAP WORDS

0. the globe

17. 3000 / three thousand

18. travel (safely)

19. (short) race

20. only men

21. Europe

22. 14

23. (different) cities

24. flag

25. around Greece

CONSEJERÍA DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTES
PRUEBAS DE CERTIFICACIÓN IN / B1 4º ESO – 2º CFGM / CTO / SOL / 2023

TRANSCRIPT
Every few years, thousands of the finest athletes in the world gather together to compete in the Olympic
games.

They come from hundreds of countries, from all parts of the globe (0), and for the length of the games,
the world comes together on common ground, in a celebration of peace and unity. But what are the Olympics?

The first Olympic games took place in Greece nearly 3000 (17) years ago, in 776 BC. They were athletic
competitions held in honor of Zeus, the king of the gods. The games happened every four years, and during
the games there was an Olympic Truce when wars and battles were not allowed so that the athletes
from different cities could travel safely to and from the games (18).

Originally, the Olympic games only had one event – a short race across a stadium (19) – but through
the years more events were added including boxing, wrestling, long jump, throwing javelins and discus, and
chariot racing.

In the ancient Olympics, only men were allowed to compete (20). The winners were awarded a wreath
or crown of olive branches, which was a great honor, and often received money and other prizes.

The final games of the ancient Olympics were held in 393 AD, ending a tradition of over 1,000 years.

It wasn't until almost 1500 years later that someone tried to hold the Olympics again. Small events modeled
after the ancient Olympics were held in various places in Europe (21) off and on for over a hundred years,
until the International Olympic Committee was created in 1894 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France.

The first games organized by the IOC took place in Athens, Greece, in 1896, and featured 241 athletes
from 14 countries (22). Since that small beginning, many things have changed.

Women first competed in the Olympics in 1900. The Olympics were expanded to include winter sports like
skiing and figure skating, and special Winter Olympics were held to make that possible.

While the ancient Olympics were held in the same place each time, the modern Olympics are held in different
cities (23) around the world. In the ancient Olympics winners were awarded olive branches, but in the
modern Olympics the victors receive medals.

Another important symbol of the Olympics is the Olympic rings: five interlocking rings of blue, yellow, black,
green, and red on a white background. The colors of the rings were chosen because every flag in the
world at the time had at least one of those colors on it (24). Each of the five rings represents one of the
inhabited continents of the world: North and South America are counted as one, along with Africa, Asia,
Europe, and Australia.

After the rings, one of the most important symbols of the Olympics is the Olympic flame, or torch. Before
each Olympics, the torch is lit in a special ceremony at the site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece.
It travels around Greece and then begins a special journey to the city that will host the Olympics (25).

During the opening ceremonies of the games, the torch is used to light a huge cauldron, which stays burning
until the Olympic's last day. When the flame is put out, it means the official end of the games.

(youtube.com/watch?v=uSf7-LsmU3Y&t=7s, 25/03/2022, 3:47 minutes)