Use of English and Reading

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Use of English Reading Mock Part 1

Use of English Reading Mock Part 2

Use of English Reading Mock Part 3

Use of English Reading Mock Part 4

Use of English Reading Mock Part 5

Use of English Reading Mock Part 6

Use of English Reading Mock Part 7

Use of English Reading Mock Part 1

Part 1

For questions 1-8, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet. There is an example at the beginning (0).

England's breakfast revolution

The importance of a good breakfast is beyond (0) according to health experts, but in historical terms breakfast is a relatively new arrival in England, with descriptions of breakfast seldom 1 in medieval literature.

2 there are scattered references to travellers having a meal at

dawn before 3 on arduous journeys, and to the sick sitting down to breakfast for medicinal reasons, but most people went without unless they were monarchs or nobles.

However, in the sixteenth century it gradually became the 4 not the exception.

Some writers have 5 this to the greater availability of food. Proponents of this view have not always considered other profound social changes.

For example, new 6 of employment may well offer a plausible explanation for the

greater importance now 7 to breakfast, as individuals were increasingly employed for a prescribed number of hours. Often this involved starting work extremely early.

Thus, having a meal first thing in the morning was 8 in necessity, and was no longer associated with social status alone.

1 A displaying

B manifesting

C disclosing

D featuring

2 A Deservedly

B Admittedly

C Conceivably

D Assuredly

3 A engaging

B launching

C embarking

D committing

4 A norm

B prototype

C standard

D trait

5 A attributed

B assigned

C accounted

D accorded

6 A figures

B shapes

C lines

D patterns

7 A linked

B fixed

C attached

D secured

8 A embedded

B rooted

C entrenched

D founded

Use of English Reading Mock Part 2

Part 2

For questions 9-16, 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). Write your answers IN CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet

Mission to Mars

Wanted: a middle-aged, married couple (0) a 501-day round hip to Mars. Applicants must be physically and emotionally robust.
This will be the profile of the very first Martian astronauts If multi-millionaire Dennis Tito's plans to launch a capsule on 5 January 2018 actually 9 to fruition. The capsule will take the crew to about 160 km above Mars.

The spacecraft will use the gravity of Mars to allow it to return to Earth without burning any more fuel, for fuel efficiency is a priority - the 2018 deadline has been fixed 10 the next launch window when Mars

and Earth align again isn't 11 2031.

It's a 12 order, but the race is on to develop systems involving totally new technologies.

13 that these can be put in place soon enough,

the spacecraft might just 14 it.

But even if it 15 leaves Earth, the efforts to achieve these ambitious goals

will not be in 16 as they will lead to valuable advances for future missions.

Use of English Reading Mock Part 3

Part 3

For questions 17-24, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0). tWrite your answers IN CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet

CRYING

Charles Darwin thought that the human (0) ... (TEND) to cry had no obvious 17 (EVOLVE) purpose.

He was almost certainly wrong. More recently scientists have pointed to its social 18 (SIGN) with psychiatrist John Bowlby highlighting

the role of crying in developing the 19 (ATTACH) between mother and child. Many believe that tears. at least during childhood,

are mainly an expression of 20 (HELP) However, the persistence of crying into adulthood is harder to explain.

It seems that the sound of crying becomes considerably less important than the visual signal it conveys. It may have been 21 (ADVANTAGE) to early human communities as a means of promoting trust and social connectedness.

Tears can undoubtedly have other causes too. We may cry to express sympathy for those suffering terrible 22 (JUST) .

. Furthermore, tears can be shed 23 (VOLUNTARY) rather to our embarrassment, when we hear inspiring music or moving speeches We may cry when watching a sentimental film, but interestingly, this is more likely to occur in company than when we are alone.

The social function of crying would seem to be 24 (DENY) but research continues.

Use of English Reading Mock Part 4

Part 4

For questions 25-30. 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).

Write only the missing words on the separate answer sheet.

25 I hope the committee will consider this new information when they meet next week. account
I hope this new information when the committee meet next week.

26 James did not find it difficult to answer the interviewer's questions. coming
James had no the Interviewer's questions.

27 The more experienced members of the expedition were made responsible for finding food. charge
The more experienced members of the expedition finding food.

28 The agent said he no longer thought that Sam Bowker would ever appear in a Hollywood film. hope
The agent said he appearing in a Hollywood film.

29 My father said that the portrait did not look like him. resemblence
My father said that the portrait him.

30 Leo doesn't understand why his sister is opposing his plan. what
Leo doesn't understand his plan is.

Use of English Reading Mock Part 5

Part 5

You are going to read an article about the history of blogging. For questions 31-36, choose the answer (A, B. C or D) which you think fits best according to the text. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Blogging: Confessing to the world

Some time ago, a website highlighted the risks of public check-ins - online announcements of your where-abouts. The site's point was blunt: you may think you are just telling the world, 'Hey, I'm at this place' - but you are also advertising your out-and-about-ness to all kinds of people everywhere - not all of them people you might like to bump into.This appeared to confirm the growing awareness that there might be a downside to all the frantic sharing the web has enabled. The vast new opportunities to publish any and every aspect of our lives to a potentially global audience hold out all sorts of tantalising possibilities: Wealth! Fame! So we plunge into the maelstrom of the interne, tossing confessions, personal photos and stories into the digital vortex. Too late we realise that the water is crowded and treacherous - and we are lost.

Depressing? Perhaps, but don't give up. This future has a map, drawn for us years ago by a reckless group of online pioneers. In the early days of the web, they sailed these waters and located all the treacherous shoals. They got fired from their jobs, found and lost friends and navigated celebrity's temptations and perils - all long before the invention of social networking. These pioneers, the first wave of what we now call bloggers, have already been where the rest of us seem to be going. Before their tales scroll off our collective screen, it's worth spending a little time with them. After all, those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repost it.

In January 1994, Justin Hall, a 19-year-old student began posting to the 'WWW, as it was then known, something inhabited mostly by grad students, scientists and a handful of precocious teens like him. The web had been invented at CERN, the international physics lab in Switzerland, so researchers could more easily share their work. Hall saw something else: an opportunity to share his life. Link by link, he built a hypertext edifice of autobiography, a dense thicket of verbal self-exposure leavened with photos and art. In January 1996, on a dare, he began posting a daily blog, and readers flocked to the spectacle of a reckless young man pushing the boundaries of this new medium in every direction at once.

Hall's ethos was absolute: cross his path and you could appear on his site; no topic was taboo. Certainly, this was the work of an exhibitionist, but there was also a rigour and beauty to his project that only a snob would refuse to call art. One day though, visitors to Hall's site discovered his home page gone, replaced with a single anguished video titled Dark Night. His story tumbled out he'd fallen spectacularly in love, but when he started writing about it on his site he was told 'either the blog goes, or I do'. He'd published his life on the intemet and, Hall protested, 'it makes people not trust me'. The blog went, but the dilemma persists. Sharing online is great. But if you expect your song of yourself to 'make people want to be with you', you'll be disappointed.

In 2002, Heather Armstrong, a young web worker in Los Angeles, had a blog called Dooce. Occasionally, she wrote about her job at a software company. One day an anonymous colleague sent the address of Armstrong's blog to every vice president at her company - including some whom she'd mocked - and that was the end of her job. Those who study the peculiar social patterns of the networked world have a term to describe what was at work here. They call it the 'online distribution effect': that feeling so many of us have that we can get away with saying things online that we'd never dream of saying in person. But our digital lives are interwoven with our real lives. When we pretend otherwise, we risk making terrible, life-changing mistakes.

Armstrong's saga had a happy ending. Though she was upset by the experience and stopped blogging for several months afterwards, she ended up getting married and restarting her blog with a focus on her new family. Today she is a star in the burgeoning ranks of 'mommy bloggers' and her writing supports her house hold. Once a poster child for the wages of web indiscretion, she has become a virtuoso of managed self-revelation. What Armstrong has figured out is something we would all do well to remember: the web may allow us to say anything, but that doesn't mean we should.

31 Why does the writer describe a website about public check-ins in the first paragraph?

to reinforce the concerns already felt by some people

to remind readers to beware of false promises

to explain that such sites often have a hidden agenda

to show that the risks of internet use are sometimes overestimated

32 What is the writer's attitude to the online pioneers mentioned in the second paragraph?

He is concerned by the risks they took.

He appreciates their unprecedented achievements.

He admires their technical skills

He is impressed by the extent of their cooperation.

33 What does the writer suggest about Justin Hall in the third paragraph?

He was unusually innovative in his approach.

His work was popular for the wrong reasons.

He inspired others writing in different fields of study

His work displayed considerable literary skill.

34 What point is exemplified by the references to Hall's project in the fourth paragraph?

People usually dislike exhibitionists.

Someone's life can be a form of art.

Relationships are always a private matter.

Being too open may be counterproductive.

35 What does the account of Armstrong's later career suggest about blogging?

It is important to choose an appropriate audience.

It is possible to blog safely and successfully.

It is vital to consider the feelings of others.

It is best to avoid controversial subjects when blogging

36 In this article, the writer's aim is to

illustrate a point.

defend a proposition.

describe developments.

compare arguments

Use of English Reading Mock Part 6

Part 6

You are going to read an article about a company which makes unusual bicycles. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (37-43). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

A All this, together with the technical skill involved in using jigs. power tools and design blueprints, is a leap of faith for someone whose idea of DIY is flatpack furniture assembly. Accurate cutting for a dean joint can be tricky, for example.

B Personally though, I believe that any bicycle made from this kind of material should be a relaxed affair, something for cruising sedately around on rather than racing. I therefore plump for a frame that avoids the stiff angularity of my existing metal machine: a 'Classic English' giving a gentle, easy- going ride.

C Frames have been set up for the three custom bikes under construction. Bamboo has been selected from a stockpile. Now crossbars and seatposts are being cut according to the lengths specified on each design's blueprint.

D No problem just get another piece and have another go. Such is the benefit of bamboo. Each length has been pre-checked for quality, so you get to indulge in frame aesthetics: plain bamboo, black or mottled.

E If Celiac and their like we safe, middle-of-the-road rock, then Bamboo Bike Club are the punks, the rebels: less up against the big names than creating bikes that embody the DIY spirit and that will engender more passion than the average factory-line model.

F It was this, plus the design challenge, that led James and Ian to spend years cooped up in a shed in Brecon, Wales. Their idea was to establish a boutique bamboo bike business with products within reach of the average cyclist.

G Ian has ridden his for over a year on a 16-mile commute, while James has failed to destroy one bike off-road over three months of testing. To be honest, our bikes are over-engineered - we use larger diameter tubes and over-thick bindings - but I prefer it like that.' James says.

H The outcome was something more community than company, and as such, the Bamboo Bike Club is still an occupation sandwiched between full-time jobs- James makes wind turbines and Ian is a civil engineer. But they seem to be on the right track, with monthly courses whose competitive price buys you a computer-designed custom bike frame plus a fun weekend of bike-building.

Build it yourself at the UK's first bamboo bike workshop

A count at the Bamboo Bike adz run by engineers James Marc and Ian McMillan. buys you a computer.designed custom frame plus a fun weekend of bike-bidding

It's Saturday morning in Hackney Wick, east London, and apart from a mechanic deep in the bowels of a truck, the only sign of life among the small factories on a backstreet is a whine of machinery from an upper window - work has begun at Bamboo Bike Club. Britain's only bamboo bike-building course. I've gone along to watch the action.

There s a sense of energy and industry. And of fun Woodwork class was never like this. Bamboo Is one of the most interesting trends to emerge in bike construction. Names like Californian manufacturer Calfee Design or Yorkshire's Bamboo Bikes have revived a construction method pioneered as early as 1894. The problem for most cyclists is the price. A ready-made bamboo frame from these companies retails for $2,995, or £1,868.

Only after they had refined their research Into a marketable product - James now tosses out phrases like 'close-noded thick-wall tubes' while talking about bamboo - did they realise they were on the wrong track. 'We realised we didn't want just to sell frames. We wanted to share the joy of making something; the craft of creating something unique and sustainable.' James explains.

The question for me, a king of the botch job-my terrible handiwork failures litter my house - was about quality. On day one, the boys explain how to select bamboo for strength and how to form strong joints before tubes are glued lightly in place in the workshop: first the front triangle composed of 40 mm diameter bamboo; then the thinner, more fiddly seat and the chain assembly. Alloy tubes are inserted for the handlebars, wheel forks and other parts which require the strength and precise engineering impossible in bamboo.

James and Ian bun cheerfully between workbenches, supervising every cut, triple-checking every joint, and will take over if a task seems insurmountable. The self-build is half the attraction for most participants; it may be no coincidence that all those on this course were engineers. For the rest of us, Ian reassures that everyone messes up once or twice.

Sunday is a more relaxed day, mainly spent building he lugs. Or rather, wraps: hemp bindings wrapped around the joints and dropouts then glued with epoxy resin to form a strong bond that disperses loads evenly throughout the frame. With a final polymer coating for waterproofing, the bike is ready for wheels, brakes, gears, saddle and any other individual touches. And it is a bike built for the long haul, just as strong, the pair claim, as its metal equivalents.

Technical issues aside, how good does a bamboo bike look? Somewhat scruffy alongside professiona frames, it turns out - the hemp weave can look a bit like parcel tape, for example. But there's no denying their individuality and that, say James and Ian, is the point.

They also cycle well I take James's bike for a spin and the ride is light, stiff and smooth thanks to bamb00% ability to dampen vibration. Impressive, considering I target every pothole. 'Some people love the build, but for me these workshops come together when the bike is on the road,' James says. 'They're so light, so effortless to ride. So much fun to ride too - take a Harley-style retro bike, add 10 and you're still not close.' And the price? Less than £500.

Use of English Reading Mock Part 7

Part 7

You are going to read extracts from an introductory book about studying the law. For questions 44-53, choose from the sections (A-D). The extracts may be chosen more than once. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Studying the law

A Ordinary people regularly encounter law in a variety of circumstances. Freely-negotiated commercial contracts may bind them to act in particular ways. By becoming members of a sports club or a trade union they agree to comply with a set of rules. Sometimes these forms of law will use the courts to enforce their arrangements. In other cases privately-instituted adjudication bodies are established, a third party being appointed to decide whether an agreement or rule has been broken or not. These kinds of arrangements may seem very different from the normal idea of law, especially if law is thought of mainly in terms of the criminal law. However, it is possible to see law simply as a way of regulating our actions, of deciding what can be done and what cannot be done. Most laws are not about something spectacular but, rather, about the details of ordinary life. Every time a purchase is made, a contract is made. Both parties make promises about what they will do; one to hand over the goods, one to pay the price. In this and other ways, everybody is involved in law every day of their lives.

B Legal rules can be divided up in many different ways. The rules show differences in purpose, in origin and form, in the consequences when they are breathed, and in matters of procedure, remedies and enforcement. One of the most fundamental divisions in law is the division between criminal and civil law. Newcomers to the study of law tend to assume that criminal law occupies the bulk of a lawyer's caseload and of a law student's studies. This is an interesting by-product of the portrayal of the legal system by the media. Criminal law weighs very lightly in terms of volume when measured against non-criminal (that is, civil) law. There are more rules of civil law than there are of criminal law; more court cases involve breach of the civil law than that of the criminal law.

C The term 'national law' is used to mean the internal legal rules of a particular country, in contrast to international law which deals with the external relationships of a state with other states. There is no world government or legislature issuing and enforcing laws to which all nations are subject. The international legal order has no single governing body and operates by agreement between states. This means that the creation, interpretation and enforcement of international law lie primarily in the hands of states themselves. Its scope and effectiveness depend on the sense of mutual benefit and obligation involved in adhering to the rules. Disputes about the scope and interpretation of international law are rarely resolved by the use of international courts or binding arbitration procedures of an international organisation. This is because submission to an international court or similar process is entirely voluntary and few states are likely to agree to this if there is a serious risk of losing their case or where important political or national interests are at stake.

D One source of detailed information about the legal system is statistical analyses. Information about the number of cases handled by a court shows in specific terms what a court's workload is. Changes in these from year to year may indicate some effects of changes in the law and practice. Statistical tests can establish that there is a relationship, a correlation, between different things. For example, the length of a sentence for theft may correlate with the value of the items stolen or the experience of the judge who heard the case. This means that the sentence will be longer if, for example, more items are stolen or the judge is more experienced. A correlation can provide evidence for a theory. Such confirmation is important; without it we have little to establish the impact the law has, being forced to rely on individual instances of its application and having to assume that these have general truth. Empirical study of the operation of law may reveal areas of improvement. It can also confirm that, measured by particular standards, the courts are working well.

In which extract are the following mentioned?
the relative frequency of certain types of legal cases 44

input by those who are not directly involved in a dispute 45

how common transactions assume certain guarantees 46

ascertaining the effectiveness of a legal system 47

determining the consequences of altering the legal system 48

the influence of popular depictions of the law 49

a reluctance to submit to formal legal processes 50

how a decentralised legal system depends on a feeling of reciprocity 51

the lack of drama in the way the law operates 52

the absence of a certain type of legal institution 53