LEXICO-GRAMMAR (50 pts)

I. Choose the best answer (A, B, C, or D) to each of the following questions and write your answers
in the correspondent numbered boxes. (20 pts)
1. The ______ are against her winning a fourth consecutive gold medal.
A. chances B. bets C. prospects D. odds
2. The police have been ordered not to ______ if the students attack them.
A. combat B. rebuff C. retaliate D. challenge
3. _____ the invention of the steam engine, most forms of transport were horse-drawn.
A. Akin to B. Prior to C. In addition to D. With reference to
4. He was ___________ with an extraordinary ability.
A. entrusted B. ensured C. endowed D. entreated
5. Four people drowned when the yatch ______ in a sudden storm.
A. inverted B. overflowed C. upset D. capsized
6. ______, he remained optimistic.
A. Though badly wounded he was B. Badly wounded as he was
C. As he was badly wounded D. As badly wounded he was
7. ______imagined what would happen.
A. Not for one minute had they B. Never they had C. No minute had they D. Not one minute had they
8. We were taken out for a meal ______ the company's expense.
A. for B. in C. at D. from
9. Nathalie seems very tough at work. She’s a different person at home, _______.
A. though B. although C. as though D. even though
10. The entire city was _______ electricity last night – it was chaotic.
A. no B. almost no C. hardly any D. without
11. Henry was overweight, so he went on a strict diet and ______ twenty kilos.
A. missed B. lost C. failed D. fell
12. Humanity has done great damage to the environment in its search for ______ materials.
A. live B. raw C. crude D. rude
13. ______, the balcony chairs will be ruined in this weather.
A. Leaving uncovered B. Having left uncovered C. Left uncovered D. Been left uncovered
14. I know you didn’t want to upset me but I’d sooner you _______ me the whole truth yesterday.
A. could have told B. told C. have told D. had told
15. Life’s very easy for you. You were born with a _______ spoon in your mouth.
A. silver B. golden C. bronze D. diamond

16. There has been a lot of ________ surrounding the government’s proposed scheme.
A. controversy B. consent C. conformity D. consequence
17. You can’t bury your head ________ and hope that this problem goes away, you know.
A. in the mud B. in the pool C. in the sand D. in the water
18. I’m working long hours this week._______, the au-pair girl has asked for a few days’ leave.
A. Even so B. All the same C. On top of that D. After all
19. Everything from chairs and fishing poles to ropes and papers can be made from bamboo. Equally
important, ________.
A. this giant grass grows in warm climate
B. fresh spring bamboo shoots take longer to cook than winter ones
C. a variety of food can be made from this giant grass
D. preserved bamboo shoots can be used in soups instead of fresh ones
20. ______ of all of us who are here tonight. I would like to thank Mr. Jones for his talk.
A. On behalf B. On account C. In person D. Instead

II. Fill each gap of the following sentences with the correct form of the word in brackets. Write
your answers in the correspondent numbered boxes. (10 pts)
1. _______ (LEAD) skill is the one skill that can grant you the opportunity to get a good job. 

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2. The teacher warned the children that if they _______ again, they would be punished. (BEHAVE)
3. His busy schedule made him completely _________ (ACCESS) to his students.
4. If you are worried about wrinkles, use a ________ (MOIST) cream every day.
5. She ______ (ROOT) herself, left the farm and moved to London.
6. Heavy rain and excessive use have _______ soil. (POVERTY)
7. Next week, the Sunday mass will be held to ______(MEMORY) the victims of the holocaust.
8. That bicycle lacks a few spokes in the wheels, but I think you can ignore such a minor _______
(SHORT) and buy it at the low cost offered.
9. The key to the peaceful coexistence of a multiracial community is the reduction of the social_______
(EQUAL)
10. Some of you must have forgotten to _______ (CONNECT) the iron before leaving the house
and therefore the fire broke out.

III. There is ONE mistake in each of the following sentences. Find out the mistake and correct it.
Write your answers in the correspondent numbered boxes. No. (0) has been done for you. (10pts)
0. Most people are afraid from sharks.
1. They have replaced workers with computer-controlled machines in near all their factories.
2. We spent a great deal of time looking through a large number of books to help him find a few
information about Bermuda, but he knew most of it already.
3. Not many people realize that a spider is not insect because insects don’t have eight legs and neither of
them make webs.
4. The school advised William's parents to let him go on the adventure holiday as it might develop him
self-confidence.
5. By the year 2015 it may be possible to travel faster than the speed of the light.
6. Probably a number of people is going to be working on space stations in fifty years' time.
7. It seems almost inevitable that the lead actor will be replaced before the show will close.
8. In general, realistic films attempt to reproduce the surface of concrete reality with a minimum of
distort.
9. The railway police have finally arrested the man who has been responsible to biting all the buttons off
railway carriage seats.
10. Migration is a perilous seasonal journey undertake by many bird species.
Your answers

IV. Fill in the gaps of the following sentences with suitable particles or prepositions. Write the
answers in the correspondent numbered boxes. (10pts)
1. His heart attack was brought _______ by too much stress at work.
2. We don’t quite like the new employer’s approach. He seems to lie_______ the job.
3. Learning this long definition _______ heart seems to be an impossible task.
4. At the moment, I am ___________ to my ears in work, so I can't go out with you.
5. The government’s plans to reduce crime came ________for a lot of criticism from freedom groups.
6. I was ________the impression that you like Indian food.
7. Mr. Horrid was a terrible teacher and obviously not cut ________for teaching.
8. The farmhouse we stayed in was completely ________the beaten track.
9. The teacher was deaf__________ Nick's explanation of why he hadn't done his homework.
10. Although Mrs. Parker was bitterly jealous_______ her friends’ higher wage in the company, she
managed to avoid making sharp comments.
Your answers

READING (50 points)

I. Read the following passage and decide which answer (A, B, C, or D) best fits each gap. Write
your answer in correspondent numbered boxes. (10pts)
People’s personalities vary considerably from one another as there are no two alike. Our
ingrained characters which (1) ______ the patterns of our behavior, our reactions and temperaments are
unparalleled on (2) ______ of the diversified processes that mould our personality in the earliest (3)
______ of human development.

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 Some traits of character may to some (4) _____ be hereditary simulating the attributes that
identify our parents. Others may (5) _____ from the conditions experienced during pregnancy and
infancy in this way reflecting the parents’ approach towards (6) _____ their offspring. Consequently, the
environmental factor (7) _____ a crucial role in strengthening of eliminating certain behavioral systems
making an individual more prone to comfort to the patterns that (8) ______ a prize.
Undoubtedly, human personality (9) ______ the most profound and irreversible formation during
the first period of its development, yet, certain characteristics may still be (10) ______ to considerable
changes conditioned by different circumstances and situations.
1. A. denote B. resolve C. inflict D. determine
2. A. account B. means C. token D. event
3. A. states B. instants C. stages D. terms
4. A. scope B. area C. extent D. length
5. A. stem B. relate C. rise D. formulate
6. A. breeding B. rearing C. growing D. yielding
7. A. makes B. does C. finds D. plays
8. A. yearn B. deserve C. wish D. necessitate
9. A. under acts B. undertakes C. undergoes D. underlies
10. A. practicable B. feasible C. subject D. potential
Your answers
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

II. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each
gap. Write your answer in correspondent numbered boxes. (10pts)
What is the difference between creative thinking and logical thinking? In creative thinking, we
try to (1) ______ up with as many ideas as (2) ______ .We call this brainstorming. We keep (3) ______
open mind about the ideas for the time being, (4) ______ the ideas are practical or not. No idea is
considered ridiculous because (5) ______ the most outlandish idea may work. This way we have a (6)
______of several possible solutions. In logical thinking, we are looking for (7) ______ right answer. (8)
______ we find a working solution, we stop looking for alternatives, without realizing that there could be
better solutions. Most problems have more than one possible solution. Creative thinking (9)______ us to
choose the best of them. Creative thinking and logical thinking don't oppose (10) ______ other but they
complement each other in fact.
Your answers
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

III. Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D) according to the passage.
Write your answers in the correspondent numbered boxes. (10 pts)
Over the last century the world has become increasingly smaller. Not geographically, of course,
but in the sense that media, technology and the opening of borders has enabled the world’s citizens to
view, share and gain access to a much wider range of cultures, societies and world views. In this melting
pot that the world has become, today’s child is privy to facets of the human experience that his
immediate predecessors had no inkling even existed. It stands to reason that in order to absorb, configure
and finally form opinions about this information-laden planet, children must be supplied with certain
tools. Included in this list of ‘tools’ are: education, social skills, cultural awareness and the acquisition of
languages, the most important of these being the latter. Until recently, a child who had the ability to
speak more than one language would have been considered a very rare entity. This one-language
phenomenon could be attributed to a combination of factors. Firstly, the monolingual environment in
which a child was raised played a strong role, as did the limited, biased education of the past. With
regard to immigrants, the sad fact was that non-native parents tended to withhold the teaching of the
mother tongue so that the child would acquire the ‘more prestigious’ language of the adopted country.
Nowadays, the situation has undergone an almost complete reversal. In the majority of North
American and European countries, most children are given the opportunity to learn a second or even a
third language. Children acquire these foreign languages through various and diverse means. In many
countries, learning a foreign language is a compulsory subject in the state school curriculum. Other
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children rely on language schools or private tuition to achieve their goal. In other instances, children are
born to bilingual parents, who, if they so desire, may teach the children two languages.
Bringing up one’s child bilingually is not a decision to be taken lightly. Both parents must
consider long and hard the implications involved in raising a child in a two-language home. This
decision is one of those all-important choices which will affect not only the parents’ lives but also the
life of the child. Raising a child bilingually has a two-fold effect. Firstly, of course, the child learns the
two languages of the parents. Secondly, the parents’ decision will influence factors which will have a
far-reaching effect on the child’s life. Some of these factors include: style and place of education;
diameter of social circle; employment potential and preference; and, most importantly, the way in which
the child views himself and his global environment.
One of the more advantageous by-products of being a member of a bilingual family is the
inherent awareness of two different cultures. This bicultural child inherits a wealth of knowledge brought
about by an exposure to: historical backgrounds; traditional songs and folklore; rituals of marriage;
models of social interaction; and therefore, two varying interpretations of the world. The monolingual
child seems to be at a disadvantage in comparison to the bilingual child, who has a set of languages and
an accompanying set of abstract cultural ideas. Practically speaking, when a child comes from a two-
language family, he must be taught both languages in order to communicate with the extended family
members. When, for example, the grandparents speak a language which differs from that of the child’s
locale, a monolingual child would be deprived of the interaction which occurs between grandparents and
grandchildren. On the other hand, a bilingual child will not only be able to speak to grandparents, but
will also comprehend where these people have ‘come from’. There will be a shared cultural empathy
within the family. Because all family members can communicate, on both a verbal and cultural level, no
one will feel excluded and the child will develop a sense of rootedness.
On a more abstract level, it has been said that a bilingual child thinks differently from a
monolingual child. Current research in linguistics indicates that there may be a strong correlation
between bilingualism and cognitive skills. This new research concerns itself with the fact that a bilingual
child has two lexical structures for any given physical or abstract entity. This leads logically to the
assumption that the child also has two associations for many words, as a word can mean different things
in different languages. For example, the word ‘fire’ in many western hemisphere languages connotes
warmth and relaxation. In the Inuit language however, where fire is a necessity of life, it may connote
heat and survival. For the bilingual child, then, vocabulary items and the abstract idea behind them are
both dual in nature and more elastic. Researchers maintain that this elasticity of ideas may allow the
child to think more flexibly and, therefore, more creatively.
1. In the author’s view, the world is becoming a _____.
A. more culturally diverse place.
B. place where only privileged children will prosper.
C. less complex place to live in.
D. much more integrated place.
2. According to the first paragraph, which of the following was true of immigrants?
A. Children were reluctant to use their mother tongue.
B. The mother tongue was considered less important.
C. Parents encouraged children to use their mother tongue.
D. Most parents made it a priority for children to grow up bilingual.
3. The phrase “privy to” in paragraph 1 mostly means _____.
A. acquainted with B. advised of C. apprised of D. in the know about
4. The phrase “attributed to” in paragraph 1 mostly means _____.
A. ascribed to B. associated with C. connected with D. held responsible for
5. According to the writer, second or foreign language learning is something _____.
A. people are still apathetic towards.
B. mainly associated with private sector education.
C. that few people take seriously.
D. about which general attitudes have evolved considerably.
6. According to the article, the decision to raise bilingual children is difficult because ______.
A. it may limit the child’s choice of friends.
B. though simple for parents, it can impact negatively on children.

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 C. it may cause children to lose their sense of identity.
D. it needs to be considered from many different angles.
7. With regard to the extended family in immigrant situations, the writer feels it is important that _____.
A. adults try to understand the child’s difficult cultural situation.
B. children are not pressured to speak their parents’ native language.
C. adults recognize the child’s need to identify more with local culture.
D. children can relate to all aspects of their parents’ native culture.
8. The word “by-products” in paragraph 4 mostly means _____.
A. entailments B. knock-on effects C. side effects D. spin-offs
9. The word “connotes” in paragraph 5 mostly means _____.
A underpins B. implies C. signifies D. smacks of
10. According to current research, the benefit of learning two languages is that _____.
A. different types of knowledge can be accessed in different languages.
B. bilinguals become more aware the origin of words in languages.
C. it helps to develop different capabilities of the mind.
D. bilinguals develop a greater sense of the value of culture.

Your answers
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

IV. Read the following passage and choose the most suitable from A to G on the list and write it in
each gap from 1 to 5. Write your answers in the correspondent numbered boxes. (10 pts)

STAYING HEALTHY IN SPACE

The range of foods available to astronauts is vast, and great care is taken to ensure that it looks and
smells appetizing. Meals are organized to provide an average of 3,000 calories a day, which seems high
for living in an enclosed environment in which there is no gravity. But astronauts can expend a great deal
of energy in doing the simplest things. For example, if they try to turn a handle, they turn themselves as
well. If they bend down to do up a shoelace, (1) ________. Finding unusual ways of doing such ordinary
things uses up the excess calories. The space diet is balanced rather differently from a terrestrial diet.
This is to try and compensate for changes that take place in the body during space flight. Bodily changes
begin as soon as astronauts go into space (2) _______________Among the most serious is calcium loss,
which causes a marked reduction in the mass and strength of bones. There is also a progressive loss of
red blood cells. What causes these effects is not known, (3) ______________ The heart muscles, with
no gravity to battle against, start to waste away. The leg muscles start to waste away too, since walking,
as done on Earth, (4) _______________ Exercise also helps to reduce muscle wastage (5)
_____________ No one yet knows the limit of human endurance in space. If astronauts can withstand
two years or more of continuous weightlessness, the mankind’s dream of visiting other planets could
become reality in the early decades of the next century.
A. can only be done if astronauts put on their heavy spacesuits
B. and will never be known
C. which is rather more than astronauts really need
D. and are quite noticeable after even a week
E. they start turning somersaults
F. and is vital on very long flights
G. and the question must be answered before long-duration space-flight is really safe
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
V. Read the passage and do the tasks that follow. (10pts)
The US City and the Natural Environment
A. While cities and their metropolitan areas have always interacted with and shaped the natural
environment, it is only recently that historians have begun to consider this relationship. During our own
time, the tension between natural and urbanized areas has increased, as the spread of metropolitan
populations and urban land uses has reshaped and destroyed natural landscapes and environments.

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B. The relationship between the city and the natural environment has actually been circular, with cities
having massive effects on the natural environment, while the natural environment, in turn, has
profoundly shaped urban configurations. Urban history is filled with stories about how city dwellers
contended with the forces of nature that threatened their lives. Nature not only caused many of the
annoyances of daily urban life, such as bad weather and pests, but it also gave rise to natural disasters
and catastrophes such as floods, fires, and earthquakes. In order to protect themselves and their
settlements against the forces of nature, cities built many defenses including flood walls and dams,
earthquake-resistant buildings, and storage places for food and water. At times, such protective steps
sheltered urbanites against the worst natural furies, but often their own actions – such as building under
the shadow of volcanoes, or in earthquake-prone zones – exposed them to danger from natural hazards.

C. City populations require food, water, fuel, and construction materials, while urban industries need
natural materials for production purposes. In order to fulfill these needs, urbanites increasingly had to
reach far beyond their boundaries. In the nineteenth century, for instance, the demands of city dwellers
for food produced rings of garden farms around cities. In the twentieth century, as urban populations
increased, the demand for food drove the rise of large factory farms. Cities also require fresh water
supplies in order to exist – engineers built waterworks, dug wells deeper and deeper into the earth
looking for groundwater, and dammed and diverted rivers to obtain water supplies for domestic and
industrial uses. In the process of obtaining water from distant locales, cities often transformed them,
making deserts where there had been fertile agricultural areas.

D. Urbanites had to seek locations to dispose of the wastes they produced. Initially, they placed wastes
on sites within the city, polluting the air, land, and water with industrial and domestic effluents. As cities
grew larger, they disposed of their wastes by transporting them to more distant locations. Thus, cities
constructed sewerage systems for domestic wastes. They usually discharged the sewage into neighboring
waterways, often polluting the water supply of downstream cities. The air and the land also became
dumps for waste disposal. In the late nineteenth century, coal became the preferred fuel for industrial,
transportation, and domestic use. But while providing an inexpensive and plentiful energy supply, coal
was also very dirty. The cities that used it suffered from air contamination and reduced sunlight, while
the cleaning tasks of householders were greatly increased.

E. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reformers began demanding urban environmental
cleanups and public health improvements. Women's groups often took the lead in agitating for clean air
and clean water, showing a greater concern than men in regard to quality of life and health-related issues.
The replacement of the horse, first by electric trolleys and then by the car, brought about substantial
improvements in street and air sanitation. The movements demanding clean air, however, and reduction
of waterway pollution were largely unsuccessful. On balance, urban sanitary conditions were probably
somewhat better in the 1920s than in the late nineteenth century, but the cost of improvement often was
the exploitation of urban hinterlands for water supplies, increased downstream water pollution, and
growing automobile congestion and pollution.

F. In the decades after the 1940s, city environments suffered from heavy pollution as they sought to cope
with increased automobile usage, pollution from industrial production, new varieties of chemical
pesticides and the wastes of an increasingly consumer-oriented economy. Cleaner fuels and smoke
control laws largely freed cities during the 1940s and 1950s of the dense smoke that they had previously
suffered from. Improved urban air quality resulted largely from the substitution of natural gas and oil for
coal and the replacement of the steam locomotive by the diesel-electric. However, great increases in
automobile usage in some larger cities produced the new phenomenon of smog, and air pollution
replaced smoke as a major concern.

G. During these decades, the suburban out-migration, which had begun in the nineteenth century with
commuter trains and streetcars and accelerated because of the availability and convenience of the
automobile, now increased to a torrent, putting major strains on the formerly rural and undeveloped
metropolitan fringes. To a great extent, suburban layouts ignored environmental considerations, making
little provision for open space, producing endless rows of resource-consuming and fertilizer-dependent

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lawns, contaminating groundwater through leaking septic tanks, and absorbing excessive amounts of
fresh water and energy. The growth of the outer city since the 1970s reflected a continued preference on
the part of many people in the western world for space-intensive single-family houses surrounded by
lawns, for private automobiles over public transit, and for the development of previously untouched
areas. Without better planning for land use and environmental protection, urban life will, as it has in the
past, continue to damage and stress the natural environment.
Questions 1-7 (7pts)
The passage has seven sections, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of
headings below. Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-7. Three of the headings do not fit.
List of headings
i  Legislation brings temporary improvements
ii  The increasing speed of suburban development
iii  A new area of academic interest
iv  The impact of environmental extremes on city planning
v  The first campaigns for environmental change
vi  Building cities in earthquake zones
vii  The effect of global warming on cities
viii  Adapting areas surrounding cities to provide resources
ix  Removing the unwanted by-products of city life
x  Providing health information for city dwellers
1) Paragraph A  ___
2) Paragraph B  ___
3) Paragraph C  ___
4) Paragraph D  ___
5) Paragraph E  ___
6) Paragraph F  ___
7) Paragraph G  ___
Your answers
1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7.
Questions 8-13 (3pts)
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? In boxes 8-10, write

TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage

FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

8) In the nineteenth century, water was brought into the desert to create productive farming land.  
9) Women were often the strongest campaigners for environmental reform.  
10) Reducing urban air and water pollution in the early twentieth century was extremely expensive. 
Your answers
8. 9. 10.

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LEXICO-GRAMMAR (60 pts)
I. Choose the best answer (A, B, C, or D) to each of the following questions.(20 pts)
1. D 2. C 3. B 4. C 5.D 6.B 7.A 8.C 9.A 10.D
11.B 12.B 13.C 14.D 15.A 16.A 17.C 18.C 19.C 20. A

II. Fill each gap of the following sentences with the correct form of the word in brackets.(10 pts)
1. leadership 2.misbehaved 3. inaccessible 4.moisturizing 5. uprooted
6. impoverished 7.commemorate 8. shortcoming 9.inequalities/ 10.disconnect
inequality

III. There is ONE mistake in each of the following sentences. Find out the mistake and correct it.
(10pts)
Mistake Correction Mistake Correction
0. from of
1. near nearly 6. is are
2. few little 7. will close closes
3. neither none 8. distort distortion
4. him his 9. to for
5. the light light 10. undertake undertaken

IV. Fill in the gaps of the following sentences with suitable particles or prepositions. (10pts)
1. on/about 2. on/ down on 3. by 4.up 5. in
6. under 7.out 8. off 9.to 10. of

READING (50 points)

I. Read the following passage and decide which answer (A, B, C, or D) best fits each gap.
(10pts)
1. D 2. A 3.C 4.C 5.A 6.B 7.D 8.B 9.C 10. C
II. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. (10pts)
1.come 2.possible 3.an 4.whether 5.even
6.choice 7.the 8. Once/When 9.enables 10. each

III. Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D) according to the passage.
(10 pts)
1. A 2. B 3. D 4. A 5. D 6. D 7. D 8. D 9. B 10. C

IV. Read the following passage and choose the most suitable from A to G on the list and write it in
each gap from 1 to 5. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes. (10 pts)
1.E 2.D 3.G 4.A 5.F

V. Read the passage and do the tasks that follow. (10pts)

1. iii 2. iv 3. viii 4. ix 5. v 6. i 7. ii
8. F 9. T 10. NG