EURO TEST

TEST 1: READING

Task One: Short texts (10 minutes) Questions 1-5

You are looking at a travel guide and browsing through programmes for the summer.
• Match the type of the sights with their description that fits best.
• Tick (
) the appropriate letter on the separate answer sheet.
• The first one has been done for you.
• There are two types of sights that you DO NOT need.

Example: C
The garden, at Menton near the Italian border, was created in the twenties by Major Lawrance
Johnston, from the exotic plants he had collected over 30 years of travel. It fell into disrepair
after his death but is currently undergoing a massive restoration.

1:
In 1916 the American socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan fell in love with the area’s spectacular
scenery, and established a “salon” at Taos, 7,000 feet above sea level. Today, Taos is a
thriving community of weavers, glass-blowers and sculptors.

2:
The best way to visit there is travelling along the coast, past thousands of tiny islands. As a
tourist, you can only sit and stare, and the views are astonishing. The rich Alpine pastures and
dramatic scenery of the fjords is amazing. The service calls at 43 ports.

3:
The palazzo, which has both a land and a water entrance, is set a little off Venice’s tourist
trail, in the Castello district. Even though you can’t have this crowded city to yourself , the
canals here at least are strictly for business and you can see the real Venice from the balcony.

4:
The decline of home cooking in Italy is a national crisis. As more and more people eat ready-
made food, traditional family recipes are being forgotten. Home Food is trying to reverse that
trend. The group has tracked down a number of old-fashioned experts, and asked them to
open up their kitchens so that visitors can sample their expertise.

5:
Drive just ten minutes out of Wellington, and you can experience an altogether different and
much older country. The place is a sanctuary. It has turned the clock back by reintroducing
plants and animals that had been there before the settlers arrived. The difference is subtle but
rather wonderful.

SIGHTS TYPES

A. A PLACE TO STAY
B. A BOAT RIDE
C. AN EXOTIC GARDEN
D. A RESTAURANT
E. A TRAIN JOURNEY
F. A VENUE FOR CRAFTSMEN
G. A CULINARY PROGRAMME
H. AN AUTENTIC WILDLIFE PARK
Task Two: Paragraph Headings (10 minutes – Question 6-11)

Read this magazine article on the Coca Cola Company. The paragraphs have lost their
headings. Choose the paragraph heading that best matches each paragraph. The first has been
done for you. There are two extra paragraph headings that you DO NOT need.

Paragraph Headings

A. COKE BEHIND THE FRONT LINES

B. PRODUCT QUALITY SHORTCOMINGS
C. THE BIRTH OF COCA-COLA
D. WRONGDOING AND CHARITY
E. A VARIETY OF BRANDS
F. THE PRINCIPLE OF ORGANISATION
G. STILL THE BEST TODAY
H. A SUCCESSFUL TAKE-OVER
I. THE RISE OF THE BOTTLING INDUSTRY

Example: C
In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta,
Georgia. The name was a suggestion given by his bookkeeper Frank Robinson.
Being a bookkeeper, Frank Robinson also had excellent penmanship. It was he who first
scripted „Coca Cola” into the flowing letters which has become the famous logo of today.

6:
In 1887, another Atlanta pharmacist and businessman, Asa Candler bought the formula from
John Pemberton for $2,300.
By the late 1890s, Coca Cola was one of America's most popular fountain drinks, largely due
to Candler’s aggressive marketing of the product. The company increased syrup sales by over
4000% between 1890 and 1900. By the turn of the century, the drink was sold across the
United States and Canada.

7:
Around the same time, the company began selling syrup to independent bottling companies
licensed to sell the drink. Even today, the US soft drink industry is organized on this
principle.
Until the 1960s, the young enjoyed carbonated beverages at the local soda fountain or ice
cream saloon. Often housed in the drug store, it served as a meeting place for people of all
ages. The soda fountain declined in popularity as fast food restaurants became popular.

8:
When the United States entered World War II, Coca-Cola began providing free drinks for
American soldiers. The Army permitted Coca-Cola to operate Coke’s system of providing
refreshments for soldiers. Coca-Cola set up bottling plants in several locations overseas to
assure the drink’s availability, setting the stage for the company’s post-war expansion. The
popularity of the drink exploded as American soldiers returned home from the war with a
taste for the drink.

9:
Coca-Cola only produces syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout
the world who hold a Coca-Cola franchise. Bottlers produce finished product in cans and
bottles from the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers
then distribute and merchandise the resulting product to stores, vending machines and
restaurants.

10:
Coca-Cola also produces a number of other soft drinks. Fanta’s origins, for example, date
back to Word War II when Coca-Cola in Germany ran out of the ingredients for Coke during
the war, which could be supplied only from the United States. He started producing a
different soft drink, Fanta, which proved to be a hit. After the war, Coca-Cola adopted the
Fanta brand as well. The German “Clear Lemon Fanta” variety became Sprite, another of the
company’s bestsellers.

11:
Coca-Cola has been involved in a number controversies and law suits. These cases include
monopolistic practices, pesticides in the product and even hiring mercenaries to kill union
leaders. However, Coca-Cola is more famous for its giving. It supported the Hurricane
Katrina evacuees, donated millions to Tsunami relief and the September 11 disaster relief
efforts – just to mention some recent causes.
Task Three: Scanning for Information (10 minutes) – Questions 12-18

Read the film reviews below and decide if the information is in the text A, B, C, or D.
Example:
it is based on a real story of a shooting
The correct answer is A.

Letter of text
12. characters are not adequately described
13. viewers tend to know what happens next
14. the director allows the viewers to form their own opinion
15. a couple living in a huge house
16. not a very persuasive biography
17. critics from different countries view the movie differently
18. the main character does now show a balanced performance

A. ELEPHANT
Gus Van Sant’s fictionalised account of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School won
the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film festival. Shot in documentary style, Elephant is
deliberately banal. For about an hour we watch ordinary scenes of high school life, until two
armed male students suddenly stride in to blow everybody to hell. It is an undoubtedly
shocking high point of the film, but what is the audience to make of it?
Van Sant makes no effort to provide any insights into the central characters, nor to offer an
explanation for their motives in killing so many students. But does an explanation exist? Isn’t
it simply that Van Sant has the courage to treat his audience as adults and to invite them to
draw their own conclusions?

B. SYLVIA
Brave is the moviemaker who ventures into the life of Sylvia Plath. Ever since Plath killed
herself in 1963, an unholy flock of vengeful academics, conspiracy theorists and agenda-
driven historians has hovering over her literary reputation like ravenous vultures. Christine
Jeffs’ film attempts to portray the stormy relationship between Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and
Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), but it fails to convince. Paltrow is good in the early stages at
portraying Plath as an ambitious middle-class American girl torn between conformity and
revolt but she ends up resembling a passive-aggressive Mia Farrow on a bad hair day. It’s also
hard to escape the feeling that, without her fame, Plath’s story would seem rather ordinary.

C. COLD CREEK MANOR

Moving to the country isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially if you’re Dennis Quaid and
Sharon Stone. Tired of city life, they move into a remote manor against the advice of locals.
They should have listened. The previous owner, Stephen Dorff, whom they employ as a
handyman, turns out to be a raging psychopath. There’s never any doubt what’s going to
happen in this clichéd and overlong thriller. The film has more signposts than a highway. It all
adds up to one of the silliest and most predictable thrillers in recent memory and it’s just
astonishing that director Mike Figgis became involved in such project.

D. MYSTIC RIVER
As children, Jimmy (Sean Penn), Dave (Tim Robbins) and Sean (Kevin Bacon) were bound
by a terrible secret. Years later, they are reunited by the murder of Jimmy’s daughter, of
which Dave finds himself accused. Clint Eastwood has directed good movies before, but
nothing as haunting as Mystic River. This extraordinary film, an outburst of tragic realism and
grief, may be as close as we are likely to come on the screen to the spirit of Greek tragedy.

Several American critics have said much the same thing but that’s only because their idea of a
decent film is a Hollywood drama that addresses big, time-honoured themes through a tale of
ordinary people played by esteemed actors. In Britain critics view things rather differently:
Mystic River is undoubtedly an ambitious and serious-minded film, but by no stretch of the
imagination could it be termed a masterpiece.
Task Four: Reading for detailed Information (10 minutes) – Questions 19-25

Read the following text taken from a British magazine about cannibalism. Answer the
multiple-choice questions about it and choose the best answer: A, B, C, or D.

Cannibalism: our man-eating past

There have been reports of cannibalism throughout history, but perhaps the most influential
came from Cristopher Columbus, after his second voyage to the New World in 1495. He
claimed that, on the island of Guadeloupe, he had discovered a recently abandoned feast of
human limbs roasting on spits. It was, he said, the work of the “Canib” tribe – a
mispronunciation of “Carib” which gave rise to the Spanish word “canibales”. Other
explorers told of cannibalism among tribes in the Amazon basin, Africa, Australia, Fiji,
Sumatra, New Guinea, Melanesia, and Polynesia (where humans still sometimes known as
“long pig”, on account of their similarity to pork).
Such travellers’ tales have been discredited for a time. In as late as 1979, for example,
William Arens, an anthropologist argued that these stories of cannibalism were racist lies
invented by Western colonialism. His book proved to be hugely influential and welcomed a
period of cannibalism denial. Recent scientific discoveries have proved beyond doubt that
cannibalism was once commonplace. The Fore tribe of New Guinea was the last society to
admit cannibalism. They stopped in the mid-Fifties after an outbreak of a brain disease which
is contracted through eating human flesh. British scientists studying the tribe discovered that
many of them had developed a genetic resistance to the disease. They took samples from
populations around the world and found the same result.
Cannibalism was so commonplace that humans evolved a genetic resistance to the diseases
associated with. But why did people eat human flesh in the first place? In many cultures
eating one’s deceased relatives was a mark of respect for the dead. The Fijians ate their
vanquished enemies in a spirit of reverence. The Aztecs, on the other hand, captured their
enemies in order to sacrifice them to the gods. Each prisoner represented one of the gods:
eating him brought the participant contact to the deity.
However, cannibalism is not primarily a symbolic act. The most common reason for
cannibalism is survival. In early hunter-gatherer societies it would have been insanely
wasteful not to eat the deceased. Humans quickly revert to old habits when deprived of food.
Napoleon’s troops resorted to cannibalism during the retreat from Moscow in 1812; so did the
starving citizens of Leningrad during Hitler’s siege of the city. In 1972, a plane full of
footballers crashed in the Andes. Some of the survivors ate the dead: those who refused died
of starvation.
The invention of farming made cannibalism unnecessary and unfashionable, thus it became
taboo. “It is likely,” says the archaeologist Dr Timothy Taylor, “that the cannibalism taboo
arose for status reasons: that being able to farm your own food, raise your own livestock and
bury your dead on your own land came to be seen as an expression of wealth and power.”

19. The word “cannibalism” comes from

A the name of a Spanish tribe.
B the name of an explorer who found an abandoned feast once.
C the name of a tribe that used to roast limbs on spits.
D incorrect use of a tribe’s name.
20. Cannibalism
A is a symbol of reverence.
B a mean of survival.
C all the above.
D none of the above.
21. Modern day cannibalism
A does not exist but is only a legend.
B happens whenever circumstances force people.
C is common because human flesh is similar to pig meat.
D is insanely wasteful.
22. Cannibalism became a taboo because
A farming produced better tasting food than human flesh
B people could afford to avoid it
C it was against the law
D wealth and power wasn’t in fashion anymore.
23. In early hunter-gatherer societies
A they ate the dead for status reasons.
B they didn’t eat the dead at all.
C eating the dead was a matter of being economical.
D they only eat the dead when they ran out of pig.
24. What proved that cannibalism was once wide-spread?
A people from different populations are resistant to a certain brain disease
B a tribe admitted being resistant to a certain brain disease
C Aren, an anthropologist proved it scientifically in his book
 D many people died from a disease being contracted through human flesh
25. The main purpose of the text is
A help people accept cannibalism
B reason in favour of cannibalism
C give a general overview of cannibalism
D discourage cannibalism

ANSWERS
19 20 21 22
23 24 25 --------------------

TEST 2: LISTENING (not included here)

TEST 3: WRITING

Task One: Compulsory Task (30 minutes)

You must answer both questions.

You are planning to move in together Jane, with another student at your London school,
to save money.
1.1 Write a note to Jane outlining your choice AND reasons. (60-80 words)
AND
1.2 Write a letter to the real estate agency asking for more information about your choice (60-
80 words)

Hi!
I found these ads yesterday in the Week. These places look promising but I’m still at the
hospital and I couldn’t look through them. Let me know which one we should pick and why.
Also consider
· affordable but not run down?
· enough room for both of us?
· commuting to the university?
· what about shops and entertainment nearby?
Could you write a nice letter of inquiry to the real estate agent? Ask them about:
· availability (from/to)
· what about deposit? how much?
· can they show it? when?
Regards,
Jane

TO LET
2-room flat in a busy area with all amenities nearby
In prime condition
5 minutes from tube station
GBP 1300

TO LET
2-room converted office close to London (20km)
Nice, refurbished flat
Quiet, peaceful neighbourhood
GBP 980

TO LET
2 room flat with nice living room
in need of minor repairs
10-minute walk to tube
Bars, restaurants, shopping in the neighbourhood
GBP 1150

Task Two: Extended Writing (30 minutes)

• Choose ONE of the following questions – 1, 2, or 3.

• Write 110-150 words.
 • You can include addresses, dates etc. if you want to, but they will not be marked.
• DO NOT answer more than one question.

1. You have read a new book recently that you especially enjoyed.
Write a review and recommend it to others.

2. These are the opening lines of a short story:

Last week I ate out with a friend. The restaurant was close to the office so I went there
straight from work. I had my usual brown leather bag with me in which I carried some vital
documents to work on them later at home. The hostess seated us at a table near the entrance.
I immediately noticed that the man next to us has a very similar bag to mine….
Continue the story. You do not have to finish it.

3. “Old relatives are often abandoned.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Write an essay.

TEST 4: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

Task one: Dictation (not included here)

Task Two: Multiple Choice Gap Fill (10 minutes) Questions 1-10

Complete the following article by choosing the most suitable word from each of the 4
possible options.

…Example… as it sounds, we could learn a few things about urban regeneration from
Albania, says Andrew Mueller. …1…. I visited Tirana, I imagined that the capital of Europe’s
poorest country would ….2…. a large, dismal housing estate. And a couple of years ago it
probably did. But under its current …3…, a conceptual artist named Edi Rama, the city has
had a radical makeover. Almost every building in downtown Tirana is now painted in a …4…
of bright colours, zigzags, stripes and polka-dots. From space, the city must …5… like a giant
Hawaiian shirt. If the visual transformation is amazing, …6… too is the effect it has had on
the city’s residents. Not everyone likes the colour scheme, but they are talking about it. After
years of meekly …7… their depressing surroundings, the population has been shocked into
thinking about what constitutes an ideal urban environment.
Tirana shares many of the …8… problems as London: crime, drugs, apathy, and low
expectations. These can’t ….9… be cured with a lick of paint. But many studies show that
people undoubtedly …10… to their surroundings – so why not try Edi’s plan here?

EXAMPLE:
A unlikely B probably C possible D possibly
The correct answer is A.

1. A Prior B After C Before D When

2. A remember B resist C resemble D resume
3. A dean B mayor C major D president
4. A variety B difference C manner D lot
5. A see B watch C stare D look
6 A so B like C then D even
7 A expecting B accepting C excepting D expressing
8. A similar B alike C same D likely
9. A every B all C whole D entire
10. A respond B answer C reaction D act

Task Three: Gap Fill (10 minutes) – Questions 11-21

Please read the following text and fill each gap with ONE appropriate word. The first one has
been done for you as an example.

For questions 11-20, complete the following article by writing the missing words in the table
below. Use only ONE word for each space.
YOU MUST THINK OF THE WORD – THERE ARE NO MULTIPLE CHOICES.

Less heart attacks when banning smoking

When the local authorities in a small town in Montana banned smoking in ...Example…
public places, many local residents were none too pleased. But the effect on their health was
dramatic: heart attack rates fell …11… nearly 60% in the first six months. Researchers said
…12… were amazed by the results. “We know from longer-term studies …13… effects of
second-hand smoke occur within minutes,” Stanton Glantz of the University of California told
the International Herald Tribune. “But it was quite stunning …14… see this large effect so
quickly.” …15… happened next was no less remarkable. When the state legislature lifted the
ban, …16… response to pressure from the tobacco industry, heart attack rates bounced back
again, almost as quickly …17… they had fallen. Helena was a perfect place to conduct such a
study. The town is relatively isolated, and …18… is only one cardiac-care hospital within a
60 mile radius. This made …19… easy to control the study sample and methodology.
Researchers also found there was no change in heart attacks for those living outside the city,
…20… there was no ban.

Example: The correct word is “all”

ANSWERS
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20