PRACTICE TEST 25

II. LEXICO-GRAMMAR
Part 1 : Choose the word or phrase that best completes each sentence. Write your answer A, B, C or D in
the numbered boxes.
1. I will use this example to _______ my point more effectively.
A. portray B. illustrate C. depict D. sketch
2. Jason is a very capable individual, not only is he exceptionally good at _______ his own business but he is also
involved in a lot of charity work.
A. doing B. making C. running D. operating
3. As a(n) _______ you receive most of your training on the job while working for an employer who helps you learn the
necessary skills for a particular trade.
A. exchange student B. apprentice C. instructor D. collaborator
4. If he accepted the promotion, it would involve him being _______ to the head offices in France.
A. transformed B. transported C. transferred D. transmitted
5. The salary of a computer programmer can be _______ a teacher.
A. as twice much as B. as much as twice of
C. twice as higher as that D. twice as high as that of
6. The paintings, _______ depictions of still life, contained allegorical symbolism.
A. most of them were B. they were mostly C. most of which were D. the most were.
7. I bought this grammar book _______ I could go over all the things we have studied this year
A. so that B. that C. so far as D. seeing that
8. Jenny had changed so much that _______ anyone recognized her.
A. hardly B. not C. almost D. nearly
9. She _______ drive to the station every day but then she suddenly decided to walk instead.
A. has used to B. was using to C. was used to D. used to
10. It is said that at that time valuable artifacts _______ on the black market for more than one hundred thousand Euros
a piece.
A. were selling B. had been selling C. were being sold D. had sold
11. _______ regards sport and leisure activities, our two countries appear to have little in common.
A. With B. What C. How D. As
12. Beth _______ all night working on her assignment as the tutor was absent the next day and an extension was given.
A. needn’t have stayed up B. shouldn’t have stayed up
C. shouldn’t have been staying up D. didn’t have to stay up
13. Did you know that they’ve _______ away with plastic shopping bags at the local supermarket?
A. done B. bid C. come D. broken
14. Emily’s teachers congratulated her on being accepted to one of the most _______ universities in the country.
A. rural B. enticing C. prestigious D. effervescent
15. There was nothing they could do _______ leave the car at the roadside where it had broken down
A. unless B. but C. instead of D. than
16. The answer Mary gave was so confusing that her lecturer could hardly make _______ of it at all.
A. sense B. meaning C. interpretation D. intelligibility
17. Although the players did their best, our team didn’t manage to _______ for the finals of the World Cup.
A. classify B. qualify C. intensify D. testify
18. There’s no point _______ to get an extension because the tutor will not give you one.
A. to try B. trying C. to trying D. on trying
19. We are prepared to overlook the error on this occasion _______ your previous good work.
A. with a view to B. thanks to C. with regard to D. in the light of
20. The candidate still expects to be re-elected _______ the results of the latest opinion poll.
A. apart B. without C. nevertheless D. notwithstanding
21. The driver’s attention was _______ by a child running across the road.
A. deterred B. disturbed C. distracted D. destroyed
22. It is _______ probable that they are the original bindings of the manuscript.
A. widely B. highly C. utterly D. bitterly
Part 2: Complete each sentence with suitable prepositions or particles. Write your answers in the numbered boxes.
1. Despite his strong craving _______ a cigarette John managed to avoid smoking until he got out of the habit
completely
2. I am afraid our plans have fallen _______. We will have to think again.

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3. _______ balance, I think the government’s doing a reasonable job.
4. The professor broke _______ her lecture when she heard a cell phone ringing.
5. The hotel was terrible, but the wonderful beach made _______ our disappointment.
6. Apparently a number of army officers were implicated _______ the plot.
7. I tried to get an early night, but just as I was dropping _______ the phone rang.
8. If Colin promises to do something, he will. He never goes _______ his word.
9. With total disregard _______ her own safety, Ann jumped in to rescue the dog.
10. Neil was too embarrassed to bring _______ the question of who would pay.

Part 3: The passage below contains 10 mistakes. UNDERLINE the mistakes and WRITE THEIR CORECT
FORMS in the spaces provided in the column on the right. (0) has been done as an example.
Researchers studying the brain has found differences in the left side and right side
0. _____ have ______
of the brain. Researchers believe that people who use more of the left side of their
brain tends to be more intelligent. They also tend to use language better and solve 1. ____________________
problems faster. Therefore, one study also showed that left-brain people tend to
have worse memories. 2. ____________________
So, which side of the brain do lefties use? Actually, both. Right-handed people use 3. ____________________
the left side of the brain more, whereas left-handed people use both sides of the
brain most equally. The part connected the two halves of the brain is usually larger 4. ____________________
in left-handed people. Therefore, information can pass more efficiently from one 5. ___________________
side of the brain to other. The left hemisphere of the brain controls speech,
language, writing, logic, mathematics, and science. The right hemisphere controls 6. ____________________
music, art, creativity, perception, and emotional. Since lefties use both sides, they
7. ____________________
are often both creative and scientific.
Approximately ten percent of the world is left-handed, and the ratio of left- 8. ____________________
handed males to left-handed females is two to one. Thankful, parents and teachers
no longer treat left-handedness like a problem to be curing. It may actually 9. ____________________
contribute to a child’s excellence! If allowed to learn and develop in their own way, 10. __________________
lefties will excel in school. Perhaps one of these lefties might turn up to be the next
Einstein or Da Vinci.

Part 4: Write the correct FORM of each bracketed word in the numbered space provided in the column on the
right.
CURRENT CONCERNS Your answers:
In our modern world, there is a great concern about the (1. DESTROY) _______ of
1.___________________
the rainforests and its impact on our global climate, how to limit carbon (2. EMIT)
_______ effectively and seek viable alternatives to fossil fuels and a multitude of 2.___________________
other issues, such as the safe (3. DISPOSE) _______ of toxic waste materials and
ways to limit the quantity of (4. POISON) _______ chemicals entering our water 3.___________________
systems and, ultimately, the food chain. Some argue that development and growth 4.___________________
needs to be more considered in its approach and that current development is (5.
SUSTAIN) _______ in the long term. Growing problems such as soil (6. ERODE) 5.___________________
_______ and the over- exploitation of our natural resources need to be tackled head- 6.___________________
on. The good news, though, is that whilst the human race has become (7. EXCESS)
_______ dependent on fossil fuels, for example, research and development into 7.___________________
viable alternative energy sources is gaining momentum and making breakthroughs
8.___________________
that may yet save the day. We should remember, however, that there are not always
alternatives to the resources we use and that, in the future, a (8. SCARCE) _______ 9.___________________
of drinking water may well expose our vulnerability. Currently, our (9. CONSUME)
_______ of some resources is depleting reserves and forcing us to seek alternatives 10.__________________
fast. It is also leading to greater (10. EQUAL) _______ between those who have and
those who don’t. The question remains: how do we make our development more
balanced and long-lasting?

III. READING
Part 1: Read the following passage and decide which answer (A, B, C, or D) best fits each gap. Write your answer in
the numbered boxes.

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 “Living” walls reduce pollution in cities
Buildings covered in greenery are starting to appear in cities around the world. These living walls are the outside
surfaces of buildings, bursting all over with vegetation. They certainly look pretty, but there's a far more interesting
reason (1) _______ their existence.
According to biochemists, the green walls - which are covered with pre-planted panels offer several (2) _______ besides
disguising an ugly facade. They have been (3) _______ to cool the building down, reduce noise, and make the block
more energy (4) _______.
But (5) _______ is really exciting is that green walls could potentially reduce air pollution in the 'corridors' between
tall buildings on a street. As the wind (6) _______ through these man-made canyons, carrying with it traffic fumes and
other environmental pollutants, the green walls appear to (7) _______ large amounts of the most harmful chemicals in
the air. This could be the perfect (8) _______ to the difficulty of improving air quality in some of the planet's most
polluted cities.

1. A. of B. for C. in D. with
2. A. profits B. values C. benefits D. positives
3. A. demonstrated B. convinced C. accepted D. proved
4. A. efficient B. practical C. economical D. appropriate
5. A. there B. it C. this D. what
6. A. runs B. travels C. rolls D. flies
7. A. soak B. breathe C. take D. absorb
8. A. solution B. action C. result D. reaction

Part 2: Fill each of the following numbered blanks with ONE suitable word. Write your answers in the
corresponding numbered boxes.
In pursuit of excellence
In the early 1990s, the psychologist K Anders Ericsson and two colleagues conducted some research into the
relationship between talent and hard work at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. The curious thing (1) _______, they
couldn't find any musicians who could excel without any effort, or who could get to the top (2) _______ practicing as
much as all their peers. Also, they were unable to find any people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just
didn't have exactly what it takes to break into the top ranks. So their research would certainly seem to indicate that once
someone makes (3) _______ into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from (4) _______ is
how hard he or she works. That's it. What's more, with the musicians right at the very top, it's just not a case of their (5)
_______ worked harder, they have worked much, much harder.
This idea of excellence requiring a minimum level of practice, arises time (6) _______ time in studies of expertise in
various fields. In fact, researchers have come (7) _______ an agreement on what they believe to be the number of hours
of practice required for true expertise: 10,000. In their research, they have yet to come across (8) _______ who has
accomplished world-class expertise in less time. It seems that people need (9) _______ amount of time in order for them
to take in everything they need to know to achieve genuine mastery. This is true (10) _______ with individuals we think
of as geniuses.

Part 3: Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, or D) for each question. Write your answer
in the numbered boxes.
Our Vanishing Night
If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight
world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal species on this planet who feel at home in it. Instead, we
are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun's light. This basic fact is engrained deep in our genetic
make-up, even though most of us don't think of ourselves as diurnal beings any more than we think of ourselves as
primates or mammals or Earthlings. Yet it's the only way to explain what we've done to the night.
We've somehow managed to engineer the night to receive us by filling it with light. This kind of control is no different
from the feat of damming a river. Its benefits come with consequences - called light pollution - whose effects scientists
are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light
to shine outward and upward into the sky, where it's not wanted, instead of focusing it downward, where it is. Ill-
designed lighting washes out the darkness of night, altering light levels and light rhythms to which many forms of life,
including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever manmade light spills into the natural world, some aspects of life -
migration, reproduction, feeding - is affected.
For most human history, the phrase 'light pollution' would have made no sense. Imagine walking towards London on
a moonlit night around 1800, when it was Earth's most populous city. Nearly a million people lived there, making do, as

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they always had, with candles, torches and lanterns. Only a few houses were lit by gas, and there would be no public
gaslights in the streets or squares for another seven years. From a few miles away, you would have been more likely to
smell London than to see its dim collective glow.
We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among
mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many
species it acts as a magnet attracting them to it. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds
being 'captured' by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms, circling and circling in
the thousands until they drop. Migrating at night, birds are apt to collide with brightly lit tall buildings; immature birds
on their first journey suffer disproportionately. Some birds - blackbirds and nightingales, among others - sing at
unnatural hours in the presence of artificial light.
It was once thought that light pollution only affected astronomers, who need to see the night sky in all its glorious
clarity. Unlike astronomers, most of us may not need an undiminished view of the night sky for our work, but like most
other creatures we do need darkness. Denying darkness is futile. It is as essential to maintaining our biological welfare
as light itself; the price of modifying our internal clockwork means it doesn't operate as it should, causing various
physical ailments. The regular oscillation of waking and sleep in our lives is nothing less than a biological expression of
the regular oscillation of light on Earth. So fundamental are these rhythms to our being that messing with them is akin to
altering our center of gravity.
In the end, humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs in a pond near a brightly lit highway. Living
in a glare of our own making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage - the light of the
stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the
universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky
Way- the edge of our galaxy - arching overhead.

1. In the first paragraph, what does the writer suggest about darkness?
A. It is linked to our survival instinct. B. Early humans became accustomed to it.
C. We are one of the few animals who fear it. D. Our response to it is intrinsic to our species.
2. The writer refers to damming a river to underline the fact that _______
A. beneficial modifications can have negative effects.
B. water and light are equally crucial to human and animal life.
C. light pollution might have a variety of sources.
D. it's inadvisable to interfere with key environmental features.
3. What point is the writer making about London in 1800?
A. It was virtually invisible at night. B. It was famed for its resourceful lighting.
C. Its inhabitants were subject to strict laws regarding lighting.
D. Its lack of illumination made it a dangerous place.
4. In the fourth paragraph, the writer suggests that light pollution has caused some animals to _______
A. develop physiological adaptations to brighter conditions. B. alter behavioural patterns.
C. risk becoming endangered species. D. be more susceptible to predation.
5. In the fifth paragraph, the writer draws a comparison between 'denying darkness' and _______
A. maintaining our biological welfare. B. modifying our internal clockwork.
C. causing various physical ailments. D. altering our centre of gravity.
6. The overall tone of the article is one of _______
A. concern about how escalating light pollution will affect species in the future.
B. regret at the loss of a fundamental aspect of our relationship with nature.
C. optimism about our increasing awareness of a key environmental issue.
D. doubt as to whether the effects of light pollution can ever be reversed.

Part 4: Read the following passage and answer questions 1-14

The Benefits of Being Bilingual
A. According to the latest figures, the majority of the world’s population is now bilingual or multilingual, having grown
up speaking two or more languages. In the past, such children were considered to be at a disadvantage compared with
their monolingual peers. Over the past few decades, however, technological advances have allowed researchers to look
more deeply at how bilingualism interacts with and changes the cognitive and neurological systems, thereby identifying
several clear benefits of being bilingual.

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B. Research shows that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active at the same time. When we hear a
word, we don’t hear the entire word all at once: the sounds arrive in sequential order. Long before the word is finished,
the brain’s language system begins to guess what that word might be. If you hear ‘can’, you will likely activate words
like ‘candy’ and ‘candle’ as well, at least during the earlier stages of word recognition. For bilingual people, this
activation is not limited to a single language; auditory input activates corresponding words regardless of the language to
which they belong. Some of the most compelling evidence for this phenomenon, called ‘ language co-activation’, comes
from studying eye movements. A Russian-English bilingual asked to ‘pick up a marker’ from a set of objects would
look more at a stamp than someone who doesn’t know Russian, because the Russian word for ‘stamp’, marka, sounds
like the English word he or she heard, ‘marker’. In cases like this, language co-activation occurs because what the
listener hears could map onto words in either language.
C. Having to deal with this persistent linguistic competition can result in difficulties, however. For instance, knowing
more than one language can cause speakers to name pictures more slowly, and can increase ‘tip-of-the-tongue states’,
when you can almost, but not quite, bring a word to mind. As a result, the constant juggling of two languages creates a
need to control how much a person accesses a language at any given time. For this reason, bilingual people often
perform better on tasks that require conflict management. In the classic Stroop Task, people see a word and are asked to
name the colour of the word’s font. When the colour and the word match (i.e., the word ‘red’ printed in red), people
correctly name the colour more quickly than when the colour and the word don’t match (i.e., the word ‘red’ printed in
blue). This occurs because the word itself (‘red’) and its font colour (blue) conflict. Bilingual people often excel at tasks
such as this, which tap into the ability to ignore competing perceptual information and focus on the relevant aspects of
the input. Bilinguals are also better at switching between two tasks; for example, when bilinguals have to switch from
categorizing objects by colour (red or green) to categorizing them by shape (circle or triangle), they do so more quickly
than monolingual people, reflecting better cognitive control when having to make rapid changes of strategy.
D. It also seems that the neurological roots of the bilingual advantage extend to brain areas more traditionally associated
with sensory processing. When monolingual and bilingual adolescents listen to simple speech sounds without any
intervening background noise, they show highly similar brain stem responses. When researchers play the same sound to
both groups in the presence of background noise, however, the bilingual listeners’ neural response is considerably
larger, reflecting better encoding of the sound’s fundamental frequency, a feature of sound closely related to pitch
perception.
E. Such improvements in cognitive and sensory processing may help a bilingual person to process information in the
environment, and help explain why bilingual adults acquire a third language better than monolingual adults master a
second language. This advantage may be rooted in the skill of focussing on information about the new language while
reducing interference from the languages they already know.
F. Research also indicates that bilingual experience may help to keep the cognitive mechanisms sharp by recruiting
alternate brain networks to compensate for those that become damaged during aging. Older bilinguals enjoy improved
memory relative to monolingual people, which can lead to real-world health benefits. In a study of over 200 patients
with Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disease, bilingual patients reported showing initial symptoms of the
disease an average of five years later than monolingual patients. In a follow-up study, researchers compared the brains
of bilingual and monolingual patients matched on the severity of Alzheimer’s symptoms. Surprisingly, the bilinguals’
brains had more physical signs of disease than their monolingual counterparts, even though their outward behaviour and
abilities were the same. If the brain is an engine, bilingualism may help it to go farther on the same amount of fuel.
G. Furthermore, the benefits associated with bilingual experience seem to start very early. In one study, researchers
taught seven-month-old babies growing up in monolingual or bilingual homes that when they heard a tinkling sound, a
puppet appeared on one side of a screen. Halfway through the study, the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of
the screen. In order to get a reward, the infants had to adjust the rule they’d learned; only the bilingual babies were able
to successfully learn the new rule. This suggests that for very young children, as well as for older people, navigating a
multilingual environment imparts advantages that transfer far beyond language.

Questions 1-5. Complete the table below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5.
Test Findings
Observing the (1) ______________________ of Bilingual people engage both languages
Russian- English bilingual people when asked to select simultaneously: a mechanism known as (2)
certain objects _____________________

A test called the (3) Bilingual people are more able to handle tasks
________________________________, focusing on involving a skill called (4)
naming colours __________________________________

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 A test involving switching between tasks When changing strategies, bilingual people have
superior (5) ________________________________
Questions 6-10
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the reading passage?
In boxes 6-10, write
YES    if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO    if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
6. Attitudes towards bilingualism have changed in recent years.
7. Bilingual people are better than monolingual people at guessing correctly what words are before they are finished.
8. Bilingual people consistently name images faster than monolingual people.
9. Bilingual people’s brains process single sounds more efficiently than monolingual people in all situations.
10. Fewer bilingual people than monolingual people suffer from brain disease in old age.
Questions 11-14
The reading passage above has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 11-14.
11.  an example of how bilingual and monolingual people’s brains respond differently to a certain type of non-verbal
auditory input
12.  a demonstration of how a bilingual upbringing has benefits even before we learn to speak
13. a description of the process by which people identify words that they hear
14. reference to some negative consequences of being bilingual

IV. WRITING
Part 1 : Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the
sentence before it.
1. Our picnic was cancelled because it rained heavily last Sunday.
→ If _______________________________________________________.
They believe that the robbers got into the bank through the roof. 
→ The robbers _____________________________________________________.
I explained what had happened but they totally refused to accept what I said.
→ They found ______________________________________________________________.
Passengers can only board the plane when all bags have been checked.
→ Only _______________________________________________________.
In his recent article, Bob pointed out all the faults in the government's new transport policy. 
→ In his recent article, Bob was _____________________________________________________.

Part 2: Use the word given in brackets and make any necessary additions to write a new sentence in such a way that
it is as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence. Do NOT change the form of the given word. You must
use between three and six words, including the word given. (0) has been done as an example.
0. Jane regretted speaking so rudely to the old lady (more)
→ Jane ________ wishes she had spoken more ______ politely to the old lady.
1. Radford has contributed in a useful way this season but the team would probably be fine without him. (though)
→ Useful ________________________________________________ this season, the team would probably be
fine without him
I wanted to get a mechanic to service my car before I went on holiday, but I didn’t have time. (have)
→ I would like _______________________________________ before I went on holiday , but I didn’t have
time.
Only when Yoshi was promoted to his new job did he realise how much he was appreciated by his
colleagues. (until)
→ It ________________________________________________ his new job that he realised how much he was
appreciated by his colleagues.
Jenny was the person who really didn’t want to tidy up after the party. (objected)
→ It __________________________________________ up after the party.
I was amazed that John stopped eating meat completely in an attempt to improve his health. (gave)
→ Much ______________________________________________ eating meat completely in an attempt to
improve his health

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