Test 3

Listening

Part 1

You will hear some sentences. Choose the best reply to each sentences

1. (A) A finished product

(B) Maybe you should ask for help

(C) we should inspect the equipment

2. (A) Did you win the award?

(B) Hmm… I’ll follow your advice

(C) It’ll suit your company’s needs

3. (A) He’s physically fit

(B) Make sure to tie them tight

(C) the striped ones

4. (A) It’s 10 dollar per hour

(B) Take a right turn up ahead.

(C) the entrance exam was difficult

5. (A) I need a few hours to read it

(B) No, that’s unnecessary

(C) She lost her boarding pass

6. (A) Where should we put it

(B) Yes, She made a great impression

(C) On the third floor

7. (A) No, It was an Internet advertisement

(B) Yes, sales have increased

(C) Turn on the television

8. (A) It’s not an urgent shipment

(B) It was a very large ship

(C) Due to the high unemployment rate

 Part 2

Questions 9-14
Complete the notes below.
Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

City Transport Lost Property Enquiry

Example
Main item lost: suitcase
Description of main item: black with thin 9 ………..……… stripes
Other items: a set of 10 ………………… keys
some documents
a 11 ……………… in a box a blue 12…………………..
Journey details
Date and time: 2.00 -2.30 pm on 13 ……………….
Basic route: caller travelled from the 14 ………. to Highbury

Part 3
You will hear people speaking in different situations. Match each speakers (15-18)
to the place where the speaker is (A-F). There are TWO EXTRA places which you
do not need to use.

A) The dangers of careless driving.

15. Speaker 1 … B) Sports car races.
16. Speaker 2 … C) His/her recent journey.
17. Speaker 3 … D) Different means of transport.
18. Speaker 4 … E) His/her new job.
F) Traffic problems.
 Part 4

Choose the exact location for the following places on the map

19 Newspapers …………
20 Computers …………
21 Photocopier …………
22 Café …………
23 Sports books …………
 Part 5

You will hear three different extracts. For questions 24-29 choose the answer (A,B
or C) which fits best according to what you hear. There are two questions for each
extract.

Extract One

24. According to Ruth, Tai Chi

A) needs to be performed indoors.

B) is a series of exercises.
C) represents a way of life.
25. One of the most difficult things about learning Tai Chi is
A) that you have to do it out of doors.
B) achieving harmony between your movements.
C) remembering the complex dance sequences.

Extract Two

26. Before going to work in China, the man had not expected the job to be
A) rewarding.
B) easy.
C) boring.
27. The woman’s experience made her realise that
A) marketing was a difficult career for women.
B) working in a hotel was very challenging.
C) she had made the wrong choice of career.

Extract Three

28. Daniel’s interest in magic arose from his

A) ambition to become an entertainer.
B) desire to impress someone.
C) trips to the cinema as a boy.
29. According to Daniel, one similarity between magic and film-making is A) the
debt they owe to technology.
B) the disbelief they arouse in the audience.
C) the power they have over the audience.
 Part 6

You will hear a part of a lecture. For each question, fill in the missing information in the
numbered space.
Write no more than ONE WORD for each answer.

AN INTERESTING CHARACTER
The speaker has written a book about a(n) (30)
…………………………………………. historian called Robert Tewbridge.
Tewbridge’s father was a (31) …………………………………………. in
Scotland
Tewbridge earned his living by writing (32)
…………………………………………. and essays for various publications.
It appears that Tewbridge and his (33) ………………………………………….’s
brother were close friends.
Tewbridge spent many years studying (34)
…………………………………………. history.
He lived in (35) …………………………………………. for the last 30 years of
his life.
 READING TEST

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.

Do fish have a home?

Do you have a favorite place? One that makes you feel 1________ and has everything
you need to survive? Now imagine you are in your favorite place and a skunk wanders in.
You run away 2________ you don’t want to end up stinky.

This same thing happens to young (juvenile) fish when their favorite places get polluted
or are not protected. Fish might even get caught by fishermen. A lot of fish populations
are in danger because:

 too many individuals are 3_________

 there aren’t enough safe places for 4________s to hide.
If we protect their favorite places, we might be able to keep fish 5__________ from
decreasing.

We tracked European bass (an important fish in Europe) for a year to figure out where
their 6_________ places were. We found that most European bass stayed close to the
coastal sites we caught them from. Our goal is to identify more of these 7_________
sites. That way, humans can protect them, and fish populations can thrive.

Part 2

Questions 8-14
Look at the six reviews of computer keyboards, A-F.
For which keyboard are the following statements true?
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
8 This keyboard may not suit users who prefer the keys to be almost silent.
9 This keyboard is easily portable because it can be made to fit into a small space.
10 This keyboard includes a special place to put small devices.
11 This keyboard is designed to prevent injury to those who spend a lot of time on the
computer.
12 This keyboard offers good value for money.
13 This keyboard is primarily aimed at people who use their computer for
entertainment.
14 It shouldn’t take long for users to get used to the shape of the keys on this keyboard.
Read the text below and answer Questions 8-14.
 Which keyboard should you buy?
It’s worth remembering that a bad keyboard can significantly affect your entire
computing experience. So make sure you pick the right keyboard for your needs.
A Logitech K120
Logitech’s K120 offers a number of extra features. It’s spill-resistant, draining small
amounts of liquid if you have an accident. It isn’t particularly eye-catching, but it feels
very solid. For the price, it’s a tempting choice.
B Cherry MX 3.0 Keyboard
The Cherry MX 3.0 looks simple and neat, thanks to its compact build. It’s solid, durable
and you don’t need to push keys all the way down to activate them. It’s also rather loud
though, which can take some getting used to.
C Logitech K780
The K780 is a compact, pleasantly modern-looking keyboard. There’s an integrated stand
for smartphones and tablets too. It’s quiet to type on, and the circular keys are easy to
familiarise yourself with, well-spaced and large enough to hit accurately. For this price
though, the lack of backlighting is disappointing.
D Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic
The Sculpt’s curved, strange-looking build serves a purpose. It provides wrist support
and lifts your forearms into a relaxed position so you don’t hurt yourself from typing for
lengthy periods. It feels weird, but it seems to do the trick.
E Microsoft Universal Bluetooth Keyboard
Microsoft’s Bluetooth keyboard has one very handy feature – you can fold it in half and
carry it around in your jacket pocket or bag, and it feels rather like a large wallet. It has
generously sized keys, though the two-piece spacebar takes some getting used to.
Another useful feature is that you can get up to three months’ use from a single charge.
F Corsair Strafe RGB Keyboard
Corsair’s keyboard is expensive, flashy and extremely impressive. All of its keys are
programmable, there’s eye-catching backlighting and the buttons are textured for
improved grip. All this is because it’s designed for gamers. However, it’s also silent,
meaning it is suitable for everyday office work too.
 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.

Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 15-19on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Solving the puzzle of a papyrus document
ii The importance of written records and different ways of recording them
iii The use of papyrus for a range of purposes
iv Suggestions for future possibilities for papyrus
v How papyrus was cultivated and different manufacturing methods
vi The decline of papyrus use
vii The preservation and destruction of papyrus documents
viii The process of papyrus production
15 Section A
16 Section B
17 Section C
18 Section D
19 Section E

PAPYRUS
Used by the ancient Egyptians to make paper, the papyrus plant has helped to shape the
world we live in
A
Libraries and archives are cultural crossroads of knowledge exchange, where the past
transmits information to the present, and where the present has the opportunity to inform
the future. Bureaucracies have become the backbone of civilizations, as governments try
to keep track of populations, business transactions and taxes. At a personal level, our
lives are governed by the documents we possess; we are certified on paper literally from
birth to death. And written documentation carries enormous cultural importance: consider
the consequences of signing the Foundation Document of the United Nations or the
Convention on Biological Diversity.
Documentation requires a writing tool and a surface upon which to record the
information permanently. About 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians started to use reeds or
sticks to make marks on mud blocks which were then baked, but despite being fireproof,
these were difficult to store. Other cultures used more flexible but less permanent
surfaces, including animal skins and wood strips. In western culture, the adoption of
papyrus was to have a great impact. Sheets of papyrus not only provide an invaluable
record of people’s daily lives, they can also be dated using carbon-dating techniques,
giving precise information about the age of the text written on them.
B
Papyrus is strongly associated with Egyptian culture, although all the ancient civilizations
around the Mediterranean used it. The papyrus sedge is a tall grass-like plant. It was
harvested from shallow water and swamplands on the banks of the River Nile.
Manufacturing sheets of papyrus from papyrus sedge was a complex, messy process. Pith
from inside the plant’s stem was cut into long strips that were laid side by side. These
were then covered with a second layer of strips which were laid at right angles to the
first, then soaked in water and hammered together. The sheet was then crushed to extract
the water, dried and then polished to produce a high-quality writing surface, individual
sheets could be glued together and rolled up to make scrolls or folded and bound to form
books.
C
In moist climates, the cellulose-rich sheets of papyrus would readily decay, becoming
covered by mould or full of holes from attacks by insects. But in dry climates, such as the
Middle East, papyrus is a stable, rot-resistant writing surface. The earliest known roll of
papyrus scroll was found in the tomb of an official called Hemeka near Memphis, which
was then the capital city of Egypt, and is around five thousand years old. in 79CE, nearly
2,000 papyrus scrolls in the library of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law were protected at
Herculaneum by ash from the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. However, the
most famous discoveries of papyrus have come from the rubbish dumps of the ancient
town of Oxyrhynchus, some 160km south-west of Cairo, in the desert to the west of the
Nile. Oxyrhynchus was a regional administrative capital and for a thousand years
generated vast amounts of administrative documentation, including accounts, tax returns
and correspondence, which was periodically discarded to make room for more. Over
time, a thick layer of sand covered these dumps, andthey were forgotten. But the
documents were protected by the sand, creating a time capsule that allowed astonishing
glimpses into the lives of the town’s inhabitants over hundreds of years.
Collections of documents that record information and ideas have frequently been viewed
as potentially dangerous. For thousands of years, governments, despots and conquerors
have resorted to burning libraries and books to rid themselves of inconvenient evidence
or obliterate cultures and ideas that they found politically, morally or religiously
unacceptable. One such calamity, the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, and the
papyrus scrolls and books it contained, has been mythologized and has come to
symbolize the global loss of cultural knowledge.
D
Besides their use in record-keeping, papyrus stems were used in many other aspects of
Mediterranean life, such as for boat construction and making ropes, sails and baskets, as
well as being a source of food. In 1969 the adventurer Thor Heyerdahl attempted to cross
the Atlantic from Morocco in the boat Ra, to show that it was possible for mariners in
ancient times to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Ra was made from bundles of papyrus stems
and modelled on ancient Egyptian craft. As a marshland plant, papyrus sedge stabilizes
soils and reduces erosion, while some investigations show that it has potential for water
purification and sewage treatment.
E
True paper was probably invented in China in the first century CE. Like papyrus, it was
constructed from a meshwork of plant fibres, but the Chinese used fibres from the white
mulberry tree, which yielded a tough, flexible material that could be folded, stretched,
and compressed. The adoption of this paper by western cultures soon rendered papyrus
obsolete.
Despite dreams of paper-free societies, western cultures still use enormous quantities of
paper, often in ways that it would be inconceivable to use papyrus for. As a paper
substitute, the role of the papyrus sedge in western cultures has been superseded; papyrus
is little more than a niche product for the tourist market. What makes papyrus noteworthy
for western societies nowadays is its use as the surface upon which our ancient ancestors
recorded their lives, their art and their science. In the words of the ancient Roman
philosopher Pliny the Elder, it is ‘the material on which the immortality of human beings
depends’.
—————————
*From Stephen Harris, What have Plants Ever Done for Us?, Bodleian Library
Publishing 2015. Reprinted by kind permission of Bodleian Library Publishing.

Part 4

Read the following text for questions 20-27

As More Tech Start-Ups Stay Private, So Does the Money

Not long ago, if you were a young, brash technologist with a world-conquering start-
up idea, there was a good chance you spent much of your waking life working toward a
single business milestone: taking your company public.

Though luminaries of the tech industry have always expressed skepticism and even
hostility toward the finance industry, tech’s dirty secret was that it looked to Wall Street
and the ritual of a public offering for affirmation — not to mention wealth.

But something strange has happened in the last couple of years: The initial public
offering of stock has become déclassé. For start-up entrepreneurs and their employees
across Silicon Valley, an initial public offering is no longer a main goal. Instead, many
founders talk about going public as a necessary evil to be postponed as long as possible
because it comes with more problems than benefits.

“If you can get $200 million from private sources, then yeah, I don’t want my
company under the scrutiny of the unwashed masses who don’t understand my business,”
said Danielle Morrill, the chief executive of Mattermark, a start-up that organizes and
sells information about the start-up market. “That’s actually terrifying to me.
 Silicon Valley’s sudden distaste for the I.P.O. — rooted in part in Wall Street’s
skepticism of new tech stocks — may be the single most important psychological shift
underlying the current tech boom. Staying private affords start-up executives the luxury
of not worrying what outsiders think and helps them avoid the quarterly earnings
treadmill.

It also means Wall Street is doing what it failed to do in the last tech boom: using
traditional metrics like growth and profitability to price companies. Investors have been
tough on Twitter, for example, because its user growth has slowed. They have been tough
on Box, the cloud-storage company that went public last year, because it remains
unprofitable. And the e-commerce company Zulily, which went public last year, was
likewise punished when it cut its guidance for future sales.

Scott Kupor, the managing partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz,
and his colleagues said in a recent report that despite all the attention start-ups have
received in recent years, tech stocks are not seeing unusually high valuations. In fact,
their share of the overall market has remained stable for 14 years, and far off the peak of
the late 1990s.

That unwillingness to cut much slack to young tech companies limits risk for regular
investors. If the bubble pops, the unwashed masses, if that’s what we are, aren’t as likely
to get washed out.

Private investors, on the other hand, are making big bets on so-called unicorns — the
Silicon Valley jargon for start-up companies valued at more than a billion dollars. If
many of those unicorns flop, most Americans will escape unharmed, because losses will
be confined to venture capitalists and hedge funds that have begun to buy into tech start-
ups, as well as tech founders and their employees.

The reluctance — and sometimes inability — to go public is spurring the unicorns. By

relying on private investors for a longer period of time, start-ups get more runway to
figure out sustainable business models. To delay their entrance into the public markets,
firms like Airbnb, Dropbox, Palantir, Pinterest, Uber and several other large start-ups are
raising hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions, that they would otherwise have
gained through an initial public offering.

“These companies are going public, just in the private market,” Dan Levitan, the
managing partner of the venture capital firm Maveron, told me recently. He means that in
many cases, hedge funds and other global investors that would have bought shares in
these firms after an I.P.O. are deciding to go into late-stage private rounds. There is even
an oxymoronic term for the act of obtaining private money in place of a public offering:
It’s called a “private I.P.O.”

The delay in I.P.O.s has altered how some venture capital firms do business. Rather
than waiting for an initial offering, Maveron, for instance, says it now sells its stake in a
start-up to other, larger private investors once it has made about 100 times its initial
investment. It is the sort of return that once was only possible after an I.P.O.

But there is also a downside to the new aversion to initial offerings. When the
unicorns do eventually go public and begin to soar — or whatever it is that fantastical
horned beasts tend to do when they’re healthy — the biggest winners will be the private
investors that are now bearing most of the risk.

It used to be that public investors who got in on the ground floor of an initial offering
could earn historic gains. If you invested $1,000 in Amazon at its I.P.O. in 1997, you
would now have nearly $250,000. If you had invested $1,000 in Microsoft in 1986, you
would have close to half a million. Public investors today are unlikely to get anywhere
near such gains from tech I.P.O.s. By the time tech companies come to the market, the
biggest gains have already been extracted by private backers.

Just 53 technology companies went public in 2014, which is around the median since
1980, but far fewer than during the boom of the late 1990s and 2000, when hundreds of
tech companies went public annually, according to statistics maintained by Jay Ritter, a
professor of finance at the University of Florida. Today’s companies are also waiting
longer. In 2014, the typical tech company hitting the markets was 11 years old, compared
with a median age of seven years for tech I.P.O.s since 1980.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked several founders and investors why they’re
waiting; few were willing to speak on the record about their own companies, but their
answers all amounted to “What’s the point?”

Initial public offerings were also ways to compensate employees and founders who
owned lots of stock, but there are now novel mechanisms — such as selling shares on a
secondary market — for insiders to cash in on some of their shares in private companies.
Still, some observers cautioned that the new trend may be a bad deal for employees who
aren’t given much information about the company’s performance.

“One thing employees may be confused about is when companies tell them, ‘We’re
basically doing a private I.P.O.,’ it might make them feel like there’s less risk than there
really is,” said Ms. Morrill of Mattermark. But she said it was hard to persuade people
that their paper gains may never materialize. “The Kool-Aid is really strong,” she said.

If the delay in I.P.O.s becomes a normal condition for Silicon Valley, some observers
say tech companies may need to consider new forms of compensation for workers. “We
probably need to fundamentally rethink how do private companies compensate
employees, because that’s going to be an issue,” said Mr. Kupor, of Andreessen
Horowitz.

During a recent presentation for Andreessen Horowitz’s limited partners — the

institutions that give money to the venture firm — Marc Andreessen, the firm’s co-
founder, told the journalist Dan Primack that he had never seen a sharper divergence in
 how investors treat public- and private-company chief executives. “They tell the public
C.E.O., ‘Give us the money back this quarter,’ and they tell the private C.E.O., ‘No
problem, go for 10 years,’ ” Mr. Andreessen said.

At some point this tension will be resolved. “Private valuations will not forever be
higher than public valuations,” said Mr. Levitan, of Maveron. “So the question is, Will
private markets capitulate and go down or will public markets go up?”

If the private investors are wrong, employees, founders and a lot of hedge funds could
be in for a reckoning. But if they’re right, it will be you and me wearing the frown — the
public investors who missed out on the next big thing.

Questions 20-23

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 20-23on your answer sheet.

20. How much funds would you gain by now, if you had invested 1000$ in the Amazon
in 1997?

A. 250,000$
B. closeto 500,000$
C. It is not stated in the text
D. Nofunds

21.Nowadays founders talk about going public as a:

A. necessity.
B. benefit.
C. possibility.
D. profit.

22. In which time period was the biggest number of companies going public?

A. early 1990s
B. late 1900s and 2000s
C. 1980s
D. late 1990s
 23.According to the text, which of the following is true?

A. Private valuations may be forever higher than public ones.

B. Public valuations eventually will become even less valuable.
C. The main question is whether the public market increase or the private market
decrease.
D. The pressure might last for a long time.

Questions 24-27

Do the following statements agree with the information in the IELTS reading text?

In boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet, write

24. Private investors are bearing most of the risk.

A. True B. False C. Not Given

25. Not many investors were willing to speak on the record.

A. True B. False C. Not Given

26. The typical tech company hitting the markets in 1990s was 5 years old.

A. True B. False C. Not Given

27. Marc Andreessen, the firm's co-founder, expressed amazement with divergency in
how investors treat public.

A. True B. False C. Not Given

Part 5

Read the text below and answer Questions

How to prepare for an interview

Why prepare?
There are three main reasons.
One: Although you can’t guess every question you might be asked, if you are prepared
you can tailor your answers to fit.
Two: If you’re well prepared, you will have more confidence and this will affect the
way you come across.
Three: Attitude matters. Prospective employers will choose a not-quite-perfect but
willing candidate over a brilliant one who obviously isn’t bothered.
What to prepare?
Find out about the organisation
• Visit the website and read any materials that you have been sent. If nothing has been
sent, phone the company to ask for any reading matter they may have.
• Talk to anyone you know who works there already.
Find out about the job
• Ask for a job description or specification. This will tell you the duties that go with the
job.
• Talk to anyone you know who is familiar with the work you may be doing.
Find out what the employer is looking for
• Make a list of the skills specified in the job advertisement.
• Think of examples to back up claims that you have these skills.
You can then answer most of the questions that will come up, such as ‘Tell me more
about how you work in a team’.
Add in a few ‘lessons learned’ – what you did and how you might have done it better.
You can also outline any voluntary work you have done for a charity, or any experience
of paid work in an unrelated sector.
Preparing for other kinds of questions
Interviewers are also looking for someone who is likely to stay with the organisation and
progress within it. Prepare to answer questions about your ambitions for the future.
You may also be asked to account for gaps in your career history, if you have any. Be
positive and accentuate the learning or experience you gained during these periods.
Preparing your own questions
• Do ask technical questions about software, systems and structures and how things are
done.
• Do ask about possibilities for training.
• Don’t ask about salary unless you have been offered the job.
When you’ve prepared as much as this, you’ve got a good chance of success.
Good luck!
Questions 28-35
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet.
28. By preparing for your interview, you will gain ………………… which will help you
present yourself well.
29. Read through any documents you have received about the company and also go to
their ………………… .
30. Check the job description to find out what ………………… are involved in the post
you have applied for.
31. Interviewers may be interested to hear about any unpaid help you have given to a
………………… .
32. Be ready to talk about your ………………… for the development of your career.
33. Explain any ………………… that there are in your work record and clarify how
you used the time to improve your skills.
34. Questions about ………………… should be delayed until a later stage.
35._____ ask technical questions about software, systems and structures and how things
are done.