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Use of English (45 phút)

Part 1: Multiple-choice cloze

Read the text below and decide which answer best fits each gap.

The tyranny of the to-do list

There is a peculiar modern anxiety that (1) ____ itself as a virtue: the conviction that every hour must be accounted for. Bookshops groan under the weight of manuals promising to help readers squeeze more out of the day, and an entire industry of apps has (2) ____ into being to track, measure and optimise our every waking moment. Idleness, once the (3) ____ of the privileged, has become something closer to a moral failing.

Yet the evidence that this relentless drive actually makes us more effective is, at best, (4) ____. Studies of creative work suggest that insight often arrives precisely when the mind is allowed to wander: in the shower, on a walk, in the half-attentive moments that productivity culture would have us eliminate. To treat such moments as waste is to (5) ____ the very conditions in which original thinking flourishes.

None of this is to (6) ____ the value of discipline. Few worthwhile things are achieved without sustained effort, and those who wait for inspiration to strike may wait indefinitely. The problem lies not in effort itself but in the assumption that more is always better, an assumption that (7) ____ remarkably little scrutiny. Perhaps the most productive thing many of us could do is, from time to time, to do nothing at all, and to do it without a (8) ____ of guilt.

  1. Gap 1: a peculiar modern anxiety that ____ itself as a virtue
    • pretends
    • impersonates
    • feigns
    • disguises
  2. Gap 2: an entire industry of apps has ____ into being
    • put
    • gone
    • come
    • set
  3. Gap 3: Idleness, once the ____ of the privileged
    • preserve
    • reservoir
    • conserve
    • keep
  4. Gap 4: the evidence... is, at best, ____
    • irresolute
    • inconclusive
    • undecided
    • indecisive
  5. Gap 5: To treat such moments as waste is to ____ the very conditions
    • undertake
    • undergo
    • undermine
    • underlie
  6. Gap 6: None of this is to ____ the value of discipline
    • decry
    • descry
    • decree
    • decrypt
  7. Gap 7: an assumption that ____ remarkably little scrutiny
    • admits
    • obtains
    • accepts
    • receives
  8. Gap 8: without a ____ of guilt
    • splinter
    • twinge
    • flake
    • crumb

Part 2: Open cloze

Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only ONE word in each gap.

Finding one's place

We rarely give a thought to the index at the back of a book, yet it is one of the more ingenious inventions in the history of reading. Before it existed, a reader in search of a particular passage had little choice (9) ____ to start at the beginning and read until they found it. The earliest indexes, compiled by medieval scholars, were intended not (10) ____ much for casual readers as for preachers, who needed to locate quotations quickly when composing sermons.

The idea did not meet with universal approval. Some critics feared that readers would no longer read books in their entirety, preferring (11) ____ dip into them for whatever they happened to need. (12) ____ this complaint sounds familiar, it is because the same objection has been raised against almost every subsequent technology of information, from encyclopaedias to search engines.

Compiling a good index is a far subtler task (13) ____ it might appear. It is not (14) ____ matter of listing every word in the text, which a computer can do in seconds; it requires judgement about what a reader is likely to look for, and under what heading. For this reason, professional indexers remain in demand, (15) ____ the ease with which software can now generate a list of terms. Whether readers notice their work is another matter: a good index, (16) ____ a good editor, tends to be invisible.

  1. Gap 9: had little choice ____ to start at the beginning
  2. Gap 10: were intended not ____ much for casual readers as for preachers
  3. Gap 11: preferring ____ dip into them
  4. Gap 12: ____ this complaint sounds familiar, it is because...
  5. Gap 13: a far subtler task ____ it might appear
  6. Gap 14: It is not ____ matter of listing every word
  7. Gap 15: remain in demand, ____ the ease with which software can now generate a list
  8. Gap 16: a good index, ____ a good editor, tends to be invisible

Part 3: Word formation

Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits the gap.

The search for the real thing

Few words are used more (17) ____ (DISCRIMINATE) in the travel industry than 'authentic'. Brochures promise authentic villages, authentic cuisine and authentic encounters with local people, as if the traveller's greatest fear were to be (18) ____ (WITTING) fobbed off with an imitation.

The irony, as anthropologists have long observed, is that the very demand for authenticity tends to produce its opposite. Traditions that had all but died out are revived and performed for visitors, sometimes with considerable (19) ____ (THEATRE). Whether this represents a cynical (20) ____ (COMMODITY) of culture or a genuine opportunity for communities to sustain their heritage is a matter of fierce debate.

What is (21) ____ (DENY) is that the concept itself is harder to pin down than its (22) ____ (ABOUND) use in advertising would suggest. Cultures are not static; they borrow, adapt and change. To insist that a community remain frozen in some (23) ____ (IMAGINE) state for the benefit of tourists is not only unrealistic but arguably (24) ____ (PATRON).

  1. Gap 17: Few words are used more ____ (DISCRIMINATE)
  2. Gap 18: to be ____ fobbed off with an imitation (WITTING)
  3. Gap 19: with considerable ____ (THEATRE)
  4. Gap 20: a cynical ____ of culture (COMMODITY)
  5. Gap 21: What is ____ is that the concept itself is harder to pin down (DENY)
  6. Gap 22: than its ____ use in advertising would suggest (ABOUND)
  7. Gap 23: frozen in some ____ state (IMAGINE)
  8. Gap 24: not only unrealistic but arguably ____ (PATRON)

Part 4: Key word transformations

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. Use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.

  1. I was on the point of leaving when the phone rang. Key word: VERGE I ____ when the phone rang.
  2. It is pointless to complain about the decision now. Key word: POINT There ____ about the decision now.
  3. The protests did not influence the decision in any way. Key word: BEARING The protests ____ on the decision.
  4. We were never told that the flight had been cancelled. Key word: POINT At ____ that the flight had been cancelled.
  5. People say he was extremely difficult to work with. Key word: REPUTATION He ____ extremely difficult to work with.
  6. I didn't expect the film to move me so deeply. Key word: EXTENT I hadn't anticipated ____ the film would move me.

Reading (60 phút)

Part 1: The biographer's dilemma

Read the essay. For each question, choose the answer which you think fits best according to the text.

Every biographer, sooner or later, comes up against a letter that should not have survived. It may be a few lines scrawled in anger, a confession of some private humiliation, or simply an unguarded remark that sits awkwardly with the public image of its author. The question of what to do with it is, in miniature, the central ethical problem of the form: to whom does the biographer owe loyalty, the subject or the reader?

The traditional answer, at least among the more austere practitioners of the craft, has been the reader. Biography, on this view, is a branch of history, and history has no business protecting the dead from the truth. A life that has been sanitised, its contradictions smoothed away, is not merely less interesting than the real thing but positively misleading. If a celebrated novelist was cruel to his children, or a revered scientist took credit for a colleague's work, then to suppress the fact is to collude in a deception that the subject, in many cases, worked hard to sustain.

There is considerable force in this argument, and few serious biographers would now dispute it in principle. The difficulty lies in its application. 'The truth' about a person is not a single fact waiting to be uncovered but an interpretation assembled from fragments, and the fragments that survive are rarely representative. People tend to write letters when they are troubled rather than when they are content; diaries are filled with grievances that their authors may have forgotten within the week. A biographer who gives such material undue prominence risks producing a portrait that is accurate in every detail and false as a whole.

There is also the matter of those who cannot answer back. The subject of a biography is often dead, and the dead, as the old legal principle has it, cannot be defamed. But their children, spouses and friends are frequently very much alive, and the revelations that make a book newsworthy may cause them real and lasting distress. It is easy to dismiss such concerns as special pleading, the natural wish of families to control a reputation in which they have an interest. Sometimes that is exactly what they are. But not always, and a biographer who treats every objection from a relative as an attempt at censorship has abdicated a form of judgement that the job requires.

What, then, is the conscientious biographer to do? I have come to believe that the question of whether to include a painful detail is less important than the question of how. A fact presented without context, dropped into the narrative for its shock value, distorts in a way that the same fact, carefully placed and weighed against what else is known, does not. The quarrel with a daughter recorded in a single bitter letter means one thing if it is the only evidence of their relationship and quite another if it stands among forty years of affectionate correspondence. The biographer's obligation is not to suppress the letter, nor to trumpet it, but to give it its proper weight.

This is, admittedly, a counsel of perfection. Proper weight is a matter of judgement, and judgements differ. Moreover, the commercial pressures on biography, as on all publishing, push in the opposite direction: a revelation sells books in a way that a balanced assessment rarely does. Biographers are not immune to the temptation, and the reader who notices that the most scandalous episodes in a life tend to appear in the opening chapter, or on the back cover, is entitled to a degree of scepticism.

Still, the alternative to imperfect judgement is not perfect objectivity, which is unattainable, but either suppression or sensationalism, both of which are worse. The best biographies I know are those in which the author's struggle with these questions is visible, in which we sense a mind weighing evidence rather than prosecuting a case. They do not spare their subjects, but nor do they put them on trial. They treat a life, in all its inconsistency, as something to be understood rather than judged.

  1. In the first paragraph, the writer presents the problematic letter as
    • evidence that most biographical subjects have something shameful to hide
    • a rare occurrence in biographical research
    • a document that biographers should, in most cases, quietly destroy
    • a small-scale example of a fundamental issue in biography
  2. According to the second paragraph, supporters of the 'traditional answer' believe that
    • a subject's private life is irrelevant to their work
    • biographers should avoid writing about living people
    • leaving out unflattering facts can help maintain a false image
    • readers are mainly interested in scandal
  3. What problem does the writer identify in the third paragraph?
    • Readers prefer interpretations to facts.
    • Surviving evidence may give a distorted impression of a person.
    • Letters and diaries are often deliberately falsified by their authors.
    • Biographers rarely have access to enough material.
  4. What is the writer's attitude to objections raised by a subject's relatives?
    • They deserve consideration, though they are sometimes self-interested.
    • They become irrelevant once the subject has died.
    • They should generally be dismissed as attempts to censor the biography.
    • They are usually justified and should be respected by the biographer.
  5. The example of the quarrel with a daughter is used to show that
    • the significance of a fact depends on what surrounds it
    • family relationships are the hardest subject for biographers
    • affectionate letters are less reliable than bitter ones
    • a single letter can reveal the truth about a relationship
  6. What does the writer suggest about commercial pressures on biography?
    • They make balanced, carefully weighed biographies almost impossible to publish.
    • They encourage biographers to give prominence to sensational material.
    • They have little real influence on serious biographers.
    • They are a recent development in publishing.
  7. What does the writer most admire in a biography?
    • a focus on the subject's public achievements
    • a willingness to expose the subject's faults
    • visible evidence that the author has weighed the material carefully
    • the complete absence of the author's own opinions and judgements from the text

Part 2: A winter on Skellan

Read the extract from a memoir. Five paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose the paragraph which fits each gap. There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

I arrived on Skellan in the last week of October, on the supply boat that would not return, if the weather allowed, for another fortnight. The island is a little under two miles long, treeless, and inhabited for most of the year by a population of exactly one: whoever happens to be the warden of the bird observatory. That winter, it was me.

(8) ____

The observatory itself is a low stone building that was once a lighthouse keeper's cottage. It has a kitchen, a room full of field guides and old logbooks, two bedrooms and a generator that requires coaxing. My duties, as they had been explained to me, were simple: walk the island's census route each morning, record every bird I saw, maintain the traps used for ringing, and keep the place from falling apart.

(9) ____

The census route took about three hours and followed the same path every day, around the cliffs on the western side, down through the marshy ground in the middle of the island, and back along the shingle beach. At first I found the repetition faintly absurd. What could I possibly see on the fortieth circuit that I had not seen on the first?

(10) ____

By midwinter, I had come to know the island in a way I had never known anywhere. I knew which rocks the turnstones favoured at high tide and which patch of thistles would hold a flock of finches after a northerly wind. I could tell from the sound of the sea, before I opened the curtains, roughly what the day would bring.

(11) ____

Loneliness, which friends had warned me about, was less of a problem than I had expected, though it arrived occasionally and without warning, usually in the evenings. What I had not anticipated was the strange effect that solitude had on my sense of time. Without other people to mark the days, they began to run together, and I came to rely on the logbook not only as a scientific record but as a way of reminding myself that time was passing at all.

(12) ____

When the boat finally came for me in March, I stood on the jetty with my bags and felt, to my surprise, something close to grief. The relief warden, a cheerful young man from the mainland, asked me what he should know. I thought for a long time, and then told him to walk the route every day, even when it seemed pointless. Especially then.

  1. Which paragraph fits gap 8?
    • The answer, it turned out, was almost everything. Birds that had been absent for weeks would appear overnight, carried in on a change of wind; a species I had walked past a dozen times would suddenly reveal some detail of behaviour I had never noticed. The sameness of the route was precisely what made the differences visible.
    • I had applied for the post almost on a whim, after a decade spent working in an office in the city, where the only birds I saw were pigeons. I had no formal training in ornithology, only an enthusiasm that had grown, over the years, from a casual interest into something closer to obsession. Why the observatory's trustees chose me over better-qualified candidates I never discovered.
    • The last of these proved by far the most demanding. Storms stripped tiles from the roof, a pipe froze and burst in December, and the generator broke down so often that I learned, of necessity, more about diesel engines than I had ever wished to know.
    • This intimacy, I realised later, was something I had never achieved in the city, where I had lived in the same flat for nine years without learning the names of the trees in the street outside. It was not that the island was more interesting than the city. It was that I had, for once, been paying attention.
    • Entries from my own time on the island now seem to me oddly moving in their dryness. 'Wind north-west, heavy showers. Two snow buntings on beach. Generator repaired.' Behind each of those lines is a day I can still remember in detail, though I could not have told you, at the time, what made it different from any other.
    • On the first evening, the other two volunteers showed me how to light the stove and where the spare batteries were kept, and we sat up late over mugs of tea, comparing the birds we most hoped to see. By the end of that first week we had settled into an easy routine, taking turns to cook and to walk the census route, so that each of us could count on at least one morning off to sleep late.
  2. Which paragraph fits gap 9?
    • The answer, it turned out, was almost everything. Birds that had been absent for weeks would appear overnight, carried in on a change of wind; a species I had walked past a dozen times would suddenly reveal some detail of behaviour I had never noticed. The sameness of the route was precisely what made the differences visible.
    • I had applied for the post almost on a whim, after a decade spent working in an office in the city, where the only birds I saw were pigeons. I had no formal training in ornithology, only an enthusiasm that had grown, over the years, from a casual interest into something closer to obsession. Why the observatory's trustees chose me over better-qualified candidates I never discovered.
    • The last of these proved by far the most demanding. Storms stripped tiles from the roof, a pipe froze and burst in December, and the generator broke down so often that I learned, of necessity, more about diesel engines than I had ever wished to know.
    • This intimacy, I realised later, was something I had never achieved in the city, where I had lived in the same flat for nine years without learning the names of the trees in the street outside. It was not that the island was more interesting than the city. It was that I had, for once, been paying attention.
    • Entries from my own time on the island now seem to me oddly moving in their dryness. 'Wind north-west, heavy showers. Two snow buntings on beach. Generator repaired.' Behind each of those lines is a day I can still remember in detail, though I could not have told you, at the time, what made it different from any other.
    • On the first evening, the other two volunteers showed me how to light the stove and where the spare batteries were kept, and we sat up late over mugs of tea, comparing the birds we most hoped to see. By the end of that first week we had settled into an easy routine, taking turns to cook and to walk the census route, so that each of us could count on at least one morning off to sleep late.
  3. Which paragraph fits gap 10?
    • The answer, it turned out, was almost everything. Birds that had been absent for weeks would appear overnight, carried in on a change of wind; a species I had walked past a dozen times would suddenly reveal some detail of behaviour I had never noticed. The sameness of the route was precisely what made the differences visible.
    • I had applied for the post almost on a whim, after a decade spent working in an office in the city, where the only birds I saw were pigeons. I had no formal training in ornithology, only an enthusiasm that had grown, over the years, from a casual interest into something closer to obsession. Why the observatory's trustees chose me over better-qualified candidates I never discovered.
    • The last of these proved by far the most demanding. Storms stripped tiles from the roof, a pipe froze and burst in December, and the generator broke down so often that I learned, of necessity, more about diesel engines than I had ever wished to know.
    • This intimacy, I realised later, was something I had never achieved in the city, where I had lived in the same flat for nine years without learning the names of the trees in the street outside. It was not that the island was more interesting than the city. It was that I had, for once, been paying attention.
    • Entries from my own time on the island now seem to me oddly moving in their dryness. 'Wind north-west, heavy showers. Two snow buntings on beach. Generator repaired.' Behind each of those lines is a day I can still remember in detail, though I could not have told you, at the time, what made it different from any other.
    • On the first evening, the other two volunteers showed me how to light the stove and where the spare batteries were kept, and we sat up late over mugs of tea, comparing the birds we most hoped to see. By the end of that first week we had settled into an easy routine, taking turns to cook and to walk the census route, so that each of us could count on at least one morning off to sleep late.
  4. Which paragraph fits gap 11?
    • The answer, it turned out, was almost everything. Birds that had been absent for weeks would appear overnight, carried in on a change of wind; a species I had walked past a dozen times would suddenly reveal some detail of behaviour I had never noticed. The sameness of the route was precisely what made the differences visible.
    • I had applied for the post almost on a whim, after a decade spent working in an office in the city, where the only birds I saw were pigeons. I had no formal training in ornithology, only an enthusiasm that had grown, over the years, from a casual interest into something closer to obsession. Why the observatory's trustees chose me over better-qualified candidates I never discovered.
    • The last of these proved by far the most demanding. Storms stripped tiles from the roof, a pipe froze and burst in December, and the generator broke down so often that I learned, of necessity, more about diesel engines than I had ever wished to know.
    • This intimacy, I realised later, was something I had never achieved in the city, where I had lived in the same flat for nine years without learning the names of the trees in the street outside. It was not that the island was more interesting than the city. It was that I had, for once, been paying attention.
    • Entries from my own time on the island now seem to me oddly moving in their dryness. 'Wind north-west, heavy showers. Two snow buntings on beach. Generator repaired.' Behind each of those lines is a day I can still remember in detail, though I could not have told you, at the time, what made it different from any other.
    • On the first evening, the other two volunteers showed me how to light the stove and where the spare batteries were kept, and we sat up late over mugs of tea, comparing the birds we most hoped to see. By the end of that first week we had settled into an easy routine, taking turns to cook and to walk the census route, so that each of us could count on at least one morning off to sleep late.
  5. Which paragraph fits gap 12?
    • The answer, it turned out, was almost everything. Birds that had been absent for weeks would appear overnight, carried in on a change of wind; a species I had walked past a dozen times would suddenly reveal some detail of behaviour I had never noticed. The sameness of the route was precisely what made the differences visible.
    • I had applied for the post almost on a whim, after a decade spent working in an office in the city, where the only birds I saw were pigeons. I had no formal training in ornithology, only an enthusiasm that had grown, over the years, from a casual interest into something closer to obsession. Why the observatory's trustees chose me over better-qualified candidates I never discovered.
    • The last of these proved by far the most demanding. Storms stripped tiles from the roof, a pipe froze and burst in December, and the generator broke down so often that I learned, of necessity, more about diesel engines than I had ever wished to know.
    • This intimacy, I realised later, was something I had never achieved in the city, where I had lived in the same flat for nine years without learning the names of the trees in the street outside. It was not that the island was more interesting than the city. It was that I had, for once, been paying attention.
    • Entries from my own time on the island now seem to me oddly moving in their dryness. 'Wind north-west, heavy showers. Two snow buntings on beach. Generator repaired.' Behind each of those lines is a day I can still remember in detail, though I could not have told you, at the time, what made it different from any other.
    • On the first evening, the other two volunteers showed me how to light the stove and where the spare batteries were kept, and we sat up late over mugs of tea, comparing the birds we most hoped to see. By the end of that first week we had settled into an easy routine, taking turns to cook and to walk the census route, so that each of us could count on at least one morning off to sleep late.

Part 3: In defence of boredom?

Read what five academics say about boredom. For each question, choose the correct academic. Each academic may be chosen more than once.

A. Dr Iris Hallam, neuroscientist I find it helpful to think of boredom as functioning rather like physical pain. Nobody enjoys it, but it carries information: it tells us that whatever we are currently doing is failing to engage us, and prompts us to look for something better. The difficulty today is not that we are bored more often than our grandparents were, but that we have become extraordinarily efficient at extinguishing the feeling the moment it arises. A few seconds of waiting, and the phone is out of the pocket. The signal is silenced before we have had a chance to ask what it might be telling us, and so we never learn.

B. Professor Kwame Asante, educationalist Many parents I speak to feel a kind of duty to ensure that their children are never bored, filling every afternoon with clubs, lessons and screens. I understand the impulse, but I think it is misguided. Children who are left with unstructured time, and who have to work out for themselves what to do with it, develop a capacity for self-direction that no timetable can teach. I would add one important qualification, however. The boredom of a child sitting through a badly planned lesson is not character-building. It is simply a failure on the part of the adults responsible, and we should not dress it up as anything else.

C. Dr Lucia Ferrante, philosopher Much of the current enthusiasm for boredom rests on a confusion. There is the boredom of waiting for a delayed train, which is trivial and passes as soon as the train arrives. And there is a deeper condition, in which the world as a whole seems to have lost its savour and nothing appears worth doing. These are not two degrees of the same thing; they are different in kind. As for the fashionable claim that boredom makes us more creative, I remain unpersuaded. The studies usually cited involve small numbers of participants and have rarely been repeated, which is a slender basis for so confident a conclusion.

D. Dr Simon Whitlock, psychologist In our laboratory, we asked one group of volunteers to spend fifteen minutes copying numbers from a telephone directory before attempting a creative task, while another group went straight to the task. The first group did come up with more ideas, which lends some support to the popular view, although the difference was not large, and it seemed to depend on whether people had been free to let their minds wander during the dull activity. I should also stress that boredom which persists over months or years is quite another matter. It is consistently associated with problems such as overeating, gambling and substance misuse.

E. Professor Anna Kovacs, historian It is worth remembering that boredom, at least as we understand it, has a history. The noun itself only became common in English in the nineteenth century, at around the time when factory work was imposing long hours of repetitive labour on millions of people, and when the idea of leisure as a separate part of life was taking shape. Each generation since seems to have believed that some new invention, the novel, the cinema, the television, was destroying the capacity for sustained attention. The present anxiety about screens is, in that sense, only the latest chapter in a very long story.

  1. Which academic regards boredom as a signal that serves a purpose?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  2. Which academic doubts the reliability of the research usually cited on boredom and creativity?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  3. Which academic rejects the idea that boredom caused by others' failings is good for character?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  4. Which academic insists that two experiences called boredom are different in nature?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  5. Which academic describes findings that give partial support to a popular belief?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  6. Which academic argues that people no longer give themselves the chance to understand their boredom?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  7. Which academic places current worries in a long tradition of similar fears?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  8. Which academic suggests that adults' efforts to prevent boredom may be counterproductive?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  9. Which academic links long-term boredom to harmful behaviour?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)
  10. Which academic connects the experience of boredom with changes in working life?
    • A (Iris Hallam)
    • B (Kwame Asante)
    • C (Lucia Ferrante)
    • D (Simon Whitlock)
    • E (Anna Kovacs)

Part 4: In praise of the amateur

Read the article. For each question, choose the answer which you think fits best according to the text.

The word 'amateur' has suffered a curious decline. Derived from the Latin for 'lover', it once described someone who pursued an activity for the sheer pleasure of it, without expectation of reward. Many of the great scientific advances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were made by people who would have proudly accepted the label: clergymen who catalogued fossils, landowners who built telescopes, physicians who in their spare hours investigated electricity. Today, to call someone an amateur is, more often than not, to suggest that they are not quite up to the job.

The shift reflects, in large part, the professionalisation of knowledge that took place over the twentieth century. As the sciences grew more specialised and more expensive, the gentleman with a microscope in his study was edged out by the salaried researcher with a laboratory, a grant and a body of colleagues to scrutinise the work. There were good reasons for this. Professional science is, on the whole, more rigorous, more accountable and more cumulative than its amateur predecessor. The amateur, working alone, is prone to enthusiasms that no one is in a position to check.

Yet something was lost in the transition, and it is worth being precise about what. The professional researcher is subject to pressures that the amateur escapes: the need to publish regularly, to secure funding, to work on problems that are likely to yield results within the span of a grant. These pressures are not in themselves corrupting, but they do shape what gets studied. Questions that are unfashionable, or that would take decades to answer, or that fall awkwardly between disciplines, tend to be neglected, not because anyone has judged them unimportant, but because no one can afford to pursue them.

It is precisely here that the amateur retains an advantage. Free from the need to justify their work to a funding committee, amateurs can follow their curiosity wherever it leads, however slowly. Some of the most valuable long-term records in natural history, decades of observations of when particular birds arrive in spring or when certain flowers first bloom, were kept by individuals with no professional interest in the subject at all. At the time, such records might have seemed like the harmless obsessions of eccentrics. Today, they are among the most important evidence we have for the effects of a changing climate.

There is a further, less tangible benefit. The amateur's relationship to their subject is, almost by definition, one of affection rather than obligation, and affection produces a particular quality of attention. The professional ornithologist may know more about the physiology of a bird; the amateur who has watched the same stretch of river for forty years may know things about its behaviour that have never appeared in any journal. Neither kind of knowledge is superior. They are simply different, and a culture that values only one of them is poorer for it.

None of this is to suggest that we should abandon professional expertise, still less to endorse the fashionable suspicion of 'experts' that has done so much damage in public life. The amateur who believes that enthusiasm can substitute for training is no more admirable than the professional who has forgotten why they chose their field. The point, rather, is that the two need each other. Professionals provide the rigour and the frameworks within which amateur observations can be made meaningful; amateurs provide the patience, the breadth and the freedom from institutional pressure that professionals increasingly lack.

The encouraging news is that this partnership is, in many fields, being rediscovered. Astronomers rely on amateurs to monitor the skies for comets and exploding stars; ecologists draw on the work of thousands of volunteer recorders. The word 'amateur' may take longer to recover its dignity. But the thing it describes is, perhaps, less endangered than it once seemed.

  1. The writer refers to the origin of the word 'amateur' in order to
    • argue that Latin is a reliable guide to meaning
    • suggest that amateurs were once paid for their work
    • show that most early scientists were wealthy
    • show how its meaning has changed for the worse
  2. What does the writer say about the professionalisation of science?
    • It made scientific work less cumulative.
    • It was driven mainly by financial motives.
    • It deliberately excluded amateurs.
    • It brought genuine improvements in quality.
  3. According to the third paragraph, certain questions are neglected because
    • professional research conditions discourage long or unusual projects
    • funding committees have formally judged them to be unimportant or trivial
    • professional researchers lack curiosity
    • they have already been answered by amateurs
  4. The example of long-term natural history records illustrates
    • the eccentric habits of many amateurs
    • the unexpected value of work done for its own sake
    • the importance of climate research funding
    • the unreliability of amateur observations
  5. What does the writer suggest about amateur and professional knowledge in the fifth paragraph?
    • They rarely concern the same subjects.
    • Amateur knowledge is generally more accurate.
    • They are different but of equal worth.
    • Professional knowledge is more useful to society.
  6. In the sixth paragraph, the writer is careful to
    • praise the public's growing interest in volunteer science and citizen research
    • argue that amateurs do not need training
    • criticise professionals who lack enthusiasm
    • distance the argument from a general hostility towards experts
  7. What does the writer see as the professionals' contribution to the partnership?
    • freedom from institutional pressure
    • frameworks that make amateur observations meaningful
    • funding for amateur projects
    • the patience and breadth needed to make long-term observations
  8. What is the writer's tone in the final paragraph?
    • cautiously optimistic
    • openly critical
    • deeply pessimistic
    • nostalgic

Listening (40 phút)

Part 1: When maps go wrong

You will hear part of a lecture about errors on maps. Complete the sentences. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

  1. Many seventeenth-century European maps showed California as an ____.
  2. Earlier maps had correctly shown California as a ____.
  3. The error survived partly because mapmakers had no practical way of ____ the information.
  4. The Mountains of Kong were said to stretch across ____.
  5. The mountains began to vanish from maps after a French expedition in the late ____.
  6. Sandy Island appeared on some digital maps until ____.
  7. Where the island should have been, the ocean was more than ____ deep.
  8. The island seems to have been based on a single ____ report.
  9. Trap streets are designed to catch competitors who ____ the map.
  10. Years later, someone built a ____ at the site of the invented town of Agloe.

Part 2: Writing the past

You will hear an interview with a historical novelist. For each question, choose the answer which fits best according to what you hear.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

  1. What does Harriet suggest about readers who point out factual errors?
    • She thinks they understand history better than historians.
    • She finds their letters irritating and unhelpful.
    • She believes they are usually mistaken.
    • She is grateful but thinks they focus on a lesser problem.
  2. According to Harriet, the more serious kind of inaccuracy is
    • ignoring what historians have written
    • using modern language in dialogue
    • giving characters modern ways of thinking
    • getting details of clothing wrong
  3. What has Harriet learned from reading documents written at the time?
    • what people did not think to question
    • how dreadful life was in the past
    • how little opinions have changed
    • how unreliable historians can be
  4. Why does Harriet mention crime novelists?
    • to suggest that crime fiction is more popular
    • to argue that readers can distinguish depicting from approving
    • to show that she admires writers who work in other, more popular genres
    • to explain why her novels contain violence
  5. What is Harriet's approach to real historical figures?
    • She relies mainly on historians' accounts of them.
    • She invents only where the records are silent.
    • She changes documented facts when the story requires it.
    • She avoids writing about real people.
  6. How does Harriet respond to colleagues who think her endnotes are unnecessary?
    • She agrees and plans to stop including them.
    • She thinks those colleagues are careless with facts.
    • She says her publisher insists on them.
    • She would rather seem fussy than mislead readers.
  7. How does Harriet feel about being shortlisted?
    • pleased but uneasy about greater fame
    • relieved that her work is finally recognised
    • indifferent, because prizes mean little to her
    • confident that she will win

Part 3: The housing question

You will hear a discussion between an economist, Nadia, and an urban planner, Felix, about housing. For each question, choose the answer which fits best according to what you hear.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

  1. What does Nadia say about the argument that building more homes lowers prices?
    • Few economists accept it today.
    • It applies only to city centres.
    • It is basically sound but often oversimplified.
    • It has been disproved by recent evidence.
  2. According to Felix, the main problem is
    • the total number of homes built
    • the type and location of new housing
    • the cost of land
    • the speed of construction
  3. How does Nadia respond to Felix's point about empty flats?
    • She says it mainly affects the outskirts of cities rather than the centre.
    • She denies that it happens at all.
    • She agrees it is the main cause of high prices.
    • She suggests it is less significant overall than it seems.
  4. What point does Felix make about empty flats in certain districts?
    • They can harm local communities.
    • They are usually bought by local residents.
    • They lower property values nearby.
    • They are a sign of a healthy market.
  5. What criticism does Nadia make of some residents' groups?
    • They support only luxury housing.
    • They are secretly controlled by developers.
    • Their objections seem to rule out any development at all.
    • They do not represent most residents.
  6. What do both speakers agree on?
    • Councils already have the expertise to build homes.
    • Developers should be banned from building small, expensive flats for investors.
    • Local opposition to housing is always unreasonable.
    • Commitments to affordable housing should be properly enforced.
  7. What is Felix's concern about the public sector building homes?
    • It would cost too much money.
    • It would discourage private developers.
    • Councils may no longer have the necessary skills.
    • It has never worked in the past.

Part 4: Reading the streets

You will hear a talk by a researcher who studies the languages on public signs. For each question, choose the answer which fits best according to what you hear.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

  1. What does the speaker say about the term 'linguistic landscape'?
    • It refers to something ordinary that people tend to overlook.
    • It describes the study of place names in the countryside.
    • It is a recent term that few people understand.
    • It is used mainly by town planners.
  2. Why, according to the speaker, are signs put up by individuals and businesses often revealing?
    • They follow official regulations closely.
    • They show who really lives in an area.
    • They are more carefully designed.
    • They use fewer languages than official signs.
  3. Why does the speaker mention the order and size of languages on signs?
    • to argue that signs should be simpler
    • to criticise unnecessary regulations
    • to show that signs can make claims about status and belonging
    • to explain why bilingual signs are expensive
  4. What does the example of the café with a French name illustrate?
    • a language used for its associations rather than to communicate
    • the difficulty of translating names
    • a lack of respect for other languages
    • the popularity of French food abroad
  5. What does the speaker say about the school students' project?
    • It was criticised by professional researchers.
    • It revealed a large increase in the number of languages on display.
    • It required expensive equipment.
    • It found that English had gradually replaced most of the other languages on the street.
  6. What is the purpose of the speaker's final challenge?
    • to encourage listeners to start learning one of the languages they see
    • to test listeners' knowledge of languages
    • to collect data for his own research
    • to make listeners realise how much they normally fail to notice

Writing (75 phút)

Part 1: Essay

You must answer this question. Write your answer in 240 to 280 words.

  1. Read the two texts below. Write an essay summarising and evaluating the key points from both texts. Use your own words throughout as far as possible, and include your own ideas in your answer. Text 1: The case for competition Competition in the classroom is often treated with suspicion, as though any ranking of pupils must damage the self-esteem of those at the bottom. Yet the world beyond school is unavoidably competitive, and young people who have never experienced losing are poorly prepared for it. Moreover, well-designed competition can be a powerful motivator: a debating tournament or a science fair gives students a reason to push themselves that an ungraded exercise rarely provides. The aim should not be to remove competition but to ensure that every pupil has some arena in which they can succeed. Text 2: Learning is not a race When schools publish rankings of their pupils, or reward only the highest achievers, they send a clear message about what learning is for: not understanding, but beating other people. Research on motivation suggests that this is counterproductive in the long term. Pupils driven mainly by the desire to outperform others tend to avoid difficult tasks in which they might fail, and they often lose interest once the competition is over. Cooperation, by contrast, encourages students to explain ideas to one another, which is one of the most effective ways of learning anything.

    Tối thiểu 240 từ.

Part 2: Letter

Write your answer in 280 to 320 words in an appropriate style.

  1. You have read an article in your local newspaper reporting that the council plans to sell the town's historic covered market to a developer, who intends to replace it with a modern shopping centre. Write a letter to the editor in which you respond to the article, explain what the market means to the local community, and propose an alternative future for the building.

    Tối thiểu 280 từ.

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