Starter table of contents

Table of contents
1.- Greetings
2.- Introducing yourself
3.- The Alphabet
4.- Daily use things.
5.- The numbers
6.- Countries and Nationalities.
7.- The Adjectives
8.- The house
9.- The colours
10.- Food and drink
11.- Present simple

Part 7.- Gapped text

You are going to read a newspaper article about clothes and the environment. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Is it possible to be green and fashionable?

Despite the huge numbers of people who car about the environment and love clothes, there is a basic contradiction about being green and being fashionable. This is because the fashion industry depends on constant stream of ever-changing trends, which means you have to keep consuming. However, buying a lot of things that you don’t need, in this case new clothes, is harmful to the environment.

1.   41.- ____

Firstly, develop your own unique style, so, rather than basing your choice of clothes on whatever the fashion industry says you should, choose your own look. If you do this, you’ll look a lot more like an individual, and probably more genuinely stylish. It does not require any sense of style to copy the looks in glossy magazines. It does require some to develop your own. You’ll find that because your clothes aren’t going in and out of fashion every week, you’ll buy fewer and this helps the environment.

42.- _____

The problem with buying every changing fashion is that it looks out of date within a few weeks. If you buy a white T-shirt with a slogan because that is the thing right now, in just a few months, it will look silly. The trend might come round again, but probably not in the same form. On the other hand, if you buy a white T-shirt, it will look fine until it wears out. Opt for simple designs, especially with larger items such as coats.

43.- _____

A variation on this is to organize clothes swaps with friends or neighbours. This way, everybody gets new clothes without actually consuming any more resources. You can feel pleased with yourself because you’ll have earned a reputation for being green.

44.- _____

While we’re on the subject of the materials, here is a word of warning. Try to avoid buying clothes made from animal products, especially fur. Not only will this have the effect of reducing animal suffering, it will also reduce your environmental footprint; animal products have a larger impact than plant products because they consume more resources.

45.- _____

So, let’s imagine you have taken our advice and gone for simple second-hand, organic clothes, but you still want to enjoy passing trends. The gentlest way to do this is to go for small things like jewellery, bags and shoes which use up fewer resources than an entire new wardrobe every month.

46.- _____

In the end, what you wear is your choice and on-one would suggest that this should not be a free choice. But we hope that, having read this, you will be fully aware of the impact your choices may have on the health of our planet.

A.- If plain-looking clothes don’t appeal to you, an alternative eco-friendly option is to buy second-hand clothes. The environmental impact is practically zero as nothing new is being made. If your image of shops which sell second-hand clothes is piles of shabby pullovers and jeans, think again. Find the right shops, and you’ll discover a lot of very attractive clothes, often for a lot less than you’d pay for new.

B.- On the other hand, your clothes habit is probably not the biggest part of your carbon footprint. If being fashionable is important to you, compromise where can to make the habit a bit greener, and concentrate your planet-saving activities elsewhere. There are a number of simple actions you can take.

C.- Part of the growing eco-friendly lifestyle includes being mindful not only of what we eat and how we recycle, but also being more aware of what goes into the clothes we buy.

D.- Remember, too that these are the sort of items widely available from independent producers, meaning that you can support small businesses rather than massive, planet-damaging multinationals. And, if you have any skill with crafts yourself, you could even note the latest tend and make your own version.

E.- Some people think that another way of achieving this is to buy only natural fabrics, like cotton. But actually the production of some plant-based fabrics involves the use of enormous quantities of pesticides. In fact, cotton is an especially dirty crop, with methods used in its cultivation which can wreck the local environment. If you want to avoid adding to soil and water pollution In this manner, simply opt for organic fabrics.

F.- This also applies to leather clothing production, which supports the not-very-environmentally-friendly cattle farming industry. However, since leather is a practical material rather that simply a fashion fabric like fur, we’ll allow an exception for coats, shoes and boots.

G.- You can achieve the same effect by buying higher quality clothes because these will not need to be replaced as frequently as a greater number of cheap clothes. This is not only better for the environment, it also means you’ll have simpler, more attractive clothes even if they are less obviously stylish.

Part 6.- Cross-matching.

You are going to read four reviews of a book about habits. For the questions below, choose from the reviews A-D. The review may be chosen more than one

A

This book contains many obvious ideas, but if you are analyzing human behaviour, this is almost inevitable. However, it provides a useful framework which enables us to see ourselves more clearly. Rather than choosing to concentrate on particular habits, or acting as an all-knowing adviser, the author has assembled a collection of experiments which are relevant to real life. Non-experts should easily grasp the book’s central ideas, but rather than reading it from cover to cover, it would suggest picking it up to for ten minutes every day because this will enable you to consider everything carefully, and allow you gradually to build up a picture of why you do what you do and give you ideas about how you might change your behaviour. This book will have a greater impact than some others because it focuses on ordinary habits and avoids dealing with more sensational behaviour.

B

I almost didn’t get as far as the practical ideas in this book because of basic errors in the introductory comments about the significance of habits. As I was reading, it occurred to me that many of the types of behaviour that the author referred to as habits were not habits in the accepted sense of the word. He also said that habits are not conscious – something that is only partially true. I almost gave up reading, but then the author quoted research on ways in which intentions can be put into practice, and from then on the book improved. He had some across studies which I found interesting and informative. Unfortunately, insufficient detail on these studies was included, which meant that it was impossible for me to assess their significance. To conclude, I would say the new research quoted in the chapter on intentions makes up for some of the book’s flaws.

C

In addition to wanting more specific examples, I found myself wishing the author had expanded on his practical advice. The book would also have benefited from some interactive material, which I had presumed it would include. An attractive feature of other recent works on similar subjects is the frequent opportunities readers have to test and measure themselves in a variety of simple but highly informative psychological diagnostic tools. Ironically, these weaknesses derive from one of the author’s major strengths: namely, his modesty. He doesn’t try to promote his favourite theories or push his own habit cures. Commendably, he allows readers to make their own decisions and implement their own change regimes. For my part, I took away a new found enthusiasm for some long-forgotten techniques and a resolution to avoid sugar in the new year. The book gains by focusing on normal rather than abnormal behaviour.

D

When I bought this book, I imagined it was going to be a sort of guide to giving up bad habits, such as smoking or gambling. I soon realized that it was no such thing, but a very interesting study of human psychology. We are presented with a description of how habits work that is accessible to non-specialists. We find out how and why habits develop, why some habits are necessary – and what can go wrong when our habits get out of control. He considers ways in which we benefit from habits and urges us to work out which habits have a positive influence on our lives and which are negative. It is important to point out that you don’t need a degree in psychology to find this book enjoyable. As a non-scientist with a limited knowledge of the subject, I found it well written and easy to follow.

Which reviewer shares reviewer A’s opinion about the main focus of attention in the book?

Speaker A

Speaker B

Speaker C

Speaker D

Which reviewer like reviewer C, approached the book, with expectations that were not met?

Speaker A

Speaker B

Speaker C

Speaker D

Which reviewer agrees with reviewer D about the kind of readers the book is aimed at?

Speaker A

Speaker B

Speaker C

Speaker D

Which reviewer expresses a different view from the others about the writer’s definition of the book’s subject matter?

Speaker A

Speaker B

Speaker C

Speaker D

First Marathons

Part 8.- Multiple matching.

You are going to read a magazine article in which five people talk about their decision to run their first marathon. For questions 1-10, choose from the five runners (A-E). Their runners may be chosen more than once.

First Marathons

A.- Susie Gordon

Susie enjoyed cycling as part of her daily routine. Then one year she went to support some friends who took part in a marathon, and was inspired. “I found it really moving to see all those people doing this amazing thing”, she says. “They had trained for so long and this was their day. I wanted to experience that.” She began a six-month training schedule. “The programme is designed to take you from a standing start to being able to run a marathon,” says Susie. “The aim was to get you to have enough fitness and stamina to run a marathon with minimum risk of injury”. Susie’s healthy lifestyle and fitness were a good basis for the demanding training routine. Week one involved alternating short bursts of running with walking. “I was expecting the training to be awful, but it wasn’t,” says Susie.

B.- Ben Harrier

Looking back, the reasons I finally decided to ‘take the plunge’ and run a marathon are unclear. It was a snap decision really – I certainly didn’t debate the pros and cons for long. There were many factors that led to my sudden decision. I’d always had some interest in running as a way to stay in shape, but every time I did too much too soon, I injured myself and did not want to continue. When I reached my mid-forties, I decided I had to get my act together – mentally and physically. I started walking, then inserted running intervals as a few hundred metres, then gradually extended the runs and reduced the walks until I was running two or three miles without a rest. I found this healthy and therapeutic, and something I was fairly good at.

C.- Vicky Lawrence

I started training for my first marathon in May after being inspired by a marathon in my home city. Witnessing all those people crossing the finish line made me want to sign up for a similar event. Initially, it was just one more thing on my list of “things to do”. I’d run one and then I’d be finished. I wanted to set a goal for myself and achieve it and didn’t care how long it took. I just wanted to finish. So, I trained for months, running shorter routes during the week, and going on epic jaunts at weekends. Every Saturday was new personal best in terms of distance achieved. My longest run was twenty miles. I tested out my race day clothes to make sure they were comfortable, and tried pre-race meals of oatmeal, peanut butter and a banana.

D Jon Carter

Having torn a muscle at the beginning of the year, I thought I would never run again. To pick myself up after that was difficult and to hear people around me talking about the runs they were doing made me more miserable. Out of frustration, I signed up for a half marathon scheduled four months later. Amazingly, I managed to complete my first half marathon within the qualifying time, I was motivated. When it came the time to register for the November marathon, my husband said he wanted to do the full marathon. It coincided with our first wedding anniversary and he said that he would run for us. I thought, “Why not?” I would complete a full marathon for us, too.

E.- Sally Woods

The sixteen weeks before the race seemed to go really slowly at first. Then the weeks flew by. My weekly mileage started climbing and I continued to be injury free. But the work got harder as the runs got longer and more like marathon training. I began to tell people that I was planning to run a marathon. ‘Where?’ They’d ask. ‘No’, I said, ‘so I have no idea what I’m in for, which is just the way I want it. ‘I prepared myself as best I could. I formulated a nutrition plan, I determined I was going to run as long as I could, as I have knee problems when I start running again after a walk.

1.- Which runner decided not to be put off running because of a previous experience?

2.- Which runner expected the preparation for running the marathon to be worse than it was?

3.- Which runner found that the training programme seemed to go more quickly?

4.- Which runner imagined that a previous injury would prevent them from competing?

5.- Which runner intended to avoid walking as this might lead to a physical problem?

6.- Which runner made the decision to run without weighing up the advantages and disadvantages?

7.- Which runner simply wanted to complete a race however much time it took?

8.- Which runner thought of the marathon as being a way of celebrating an important event?

9.- Which runner was in good physical condition prior to starting their marathon preparation?

10.- Which runner was motivated to run after watching the end of a marathon?

Who owns the networked future of reading?

Part 5.- Multiple-choice

You are going to read a magazine article. For questions 17-22, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Who owns the networked future of reading?

Some years ago, I came across a battered copy of the Science of the Lambs in a train carriage. It was during one of those lonely chunks of life when reading takes on a new importance, and I found a quite unexpected friend in that rather dark and worrying tale. The anonymous former owner had done little drawings and written notes in the margins of the book before inexplicably leaving it on public transport. Amusing, insightful and often unrelated to the actual text the previous reader’s commentary entirely changed my reading of Thomas Harris’s story of a serial murderer and obsessive police procedure.

My anonymous guide was a university student, most likely a young woman, studying the book from a feminist point of view. Harris’s novel is a superior police procedural, but still guilty of that genre’s casual sexism, picked apart by my guide with glee.

I’ve often wished that I could talk to that anonymous commentator. Today, if they were using an e-reader, I might be able to my using Readmill, an e-reading app that, on the surface at least, will be familiar to anyone who has read a book on their smartphone or tablet. But what makes this particular app a potential best-seller is how it helps readers and writers – talk to each other.

One of the word’s most popular e-readers Amazon’s kindle, let’s readers see which sections of a text have been underlined most frequently by other readers: a frustrating feature given what could be achieved. Amazon also provides a social network app for readers, but shows no sign of integrating it into its books. And it seems that the Kindle is unlike to ever truly embrace the power of networks.

The app Readmill aims to fulfil the potential of networked reading. Readers can underline and comment on a text as much as they like, then open up those comments for discussion among a growing community of passionate readers. It’s a simple but powerful feature that could be a serious threat to kindle technology.

But this is only the leading edge of the networked reading revolution. Readmill allows authors to claim ownership of their books and interact with readers in the margins of the text. So not only could I and my anonymous commentator debate the feminist critique of The Silence of the Lambs but, should he feel so inspired, Thomas Harris himself could respond, in a conversation directly related to the text itself.

To understand what a fully realized network reading experience might mean, imagine reading a book published in 2013 in the year 2063. In the 50 years between those dates, dozens of critical texts, hundreds of articles, thousands of reviews and hundreds of thousands of comments will have been made on the text. In a fully networked reading experience, all of those will be available to the reader of the book from within the text.

Authors are able to shape the discussion or their books; they can maintain a relationship with all the readers who have enjoyed their books, whether that is a few dozen or a few hundred million. And perhaps most interesting of all, readers can find each other through the books they read. In a world of seven billion people, the ability to find like minds has real value.

Of course, at a time when data privacy is a serious social issue the question is who owns the networked future of reading? Publishers might assume they do, but their failure to lead these innovations puts them at risk of becoming redundant. Amazon and the technology giants seem unstoppable. If that’s true, we face a future where every book and every comment about it is owned and profited from, by a handful or major corporations.

Readmill and other developers might yet deliver the future of reading back into the hands of readers and writers. But if this ideal is to become a reality, we’re going to have to rethink what it means to own a book, or any kind of information, even if you created it. Perhaps the networked future of reading belongs to no one, and therefore to everyone.

1.- In the first paragraph, the writer says he did not understand….

A) why everyone had made notes in the book he found.

B) how his friend could have read such an alarming story.

C) why someone had left the book on the train.

D) how the previous reader’s notes related to the story.

2.- The writer assumes that the reader who wrote the notes…

A) was very critical of the novel.

B) thoroughly enjoyed the novel.

C) was a great fan of crime fiction.

D) was impressed by the writer’s informal style.

3.- In the writer’s opinion, Readmill is likely to be particularly successful because it allows readers to…

A) comment on books they are reading.

B) communicate with other readers.

C) discuss other readers’ comments.

D) underlines passages of text.

4.- The additional feature of Readmill highlighted in the sixth paragraph allows…

A) a book’s author to change what he or she had written.

B) the writer of a book to join the readers’ debate.

C) readers to ask an author questions.

D) readers to comment without giving their name.

5.- What future development of network reading interests the writer most?

A) Authors will be able to find out why readers like their books.

B) Readers will have access to a wide range of book reviews.

C) Authors will be able to keep in touch with some of their readers.

D) Readers will be able to contact people with similar ideas.

6.- The writer hopes that Readmill and similar apps will…

A) make possession of books a more positive experience.

B) make book publishing more profitable.

C) strengthen the influence of major publishers.

D) change how people read and write books.

Is classical music still relevant today?

Part 1.- Multiple-cloze

For questions 1-8, read the text below and decided which answers (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at the beginning.

0)   A) defend  B) protest   C) argue    D) preserve

Is classical music still relevant today?

Having listened to this music for more than three decades, I have often had to (0) _A_ DEFEND_ my devotion to classical music against the kind of people who have a very practical (1)___ to life, I have to admit that I have often been faced with legitimate questions and arguments that made me (2)____ my ideas. Over the years, I have been lucky enough to live in different (3)____ of the world. Because of this, I have come to the (4)____ that I belong to a small group of people who believe in artistic principles that have nothing to do with humanity’s desire for success or a more comfortable (5)____. Quite a few people (6)____ that this music belongs to the museum and is of (7)____ only to those who have a particular reason to find out what music was like in the past. In some (8)____ places I have visited, people simply called it western music and dismissed any possible interest for anybody outside Europe.

     1)   A) method             B) means            C) way                 D) attitude

     2)   A) reorder             B) rearrange       C) reorganize       D) reconsider

     3)   A) places              B) parts               C) communities   D) societies 

     4)   A) conclusion       B) assumption     C) decision          D) deduction

     5)   A) presence         B) lifestyle            C) being              D) survival

     6)   A) discuss            B) differ                C) argue             D) disagree

     7)   A) attention          B) attraction         C) influence        D) interest

     8)   A) remote             B) far                   C) apart              D) separate