PHẦN 3: ĐỀ ÔN LUYỆN THI PRACTICE TEST 2

Give the correct form of the words in brackets to complete the following passage.

Nowadays, we use different products for personal cleanliness, laundry, dishwashing and household cleaning, but this is very much a 20^th-century development. The origins of cleanliness date back to (36. HISTORY)…………….times. Since water is essential for life, the (37. EARLY)……………. people lived near water and knew something about its cleansing properties - at least that it rinsed mud off their hands.

During the excavation of ancient Babylon, evidence was found that (38. MAKE - SOAP)…………….was known as early as 2800 BC. Archaeologists discovered cylinders

made of clay, with inscriptions on them saying that fats were boiled with ashes. This is a method of making soap, though there’s no (39. REFER)…………….to the purpose of

this material.

The early Greeks bathed for (40. AESTHETE)…………….reasons and apparently

didn’t use soap. Instead, they cleaned their bodies with blocks of sand, pumice and ashes, then anointed themselves with oil, and scraped off the oil and dirt with a metal instrument known as a strigil. They also used oil mixed with ashes. Clothes were washed without soap in streams. The ancient Germans and Gauls are also (41. CREDIT) ……………. with discovering how to make a substance called ‘soap’, made of melted animal fat and ashes. They used this (42. MIXTURE)…………….to tint their hair red.

Soap got its name, according to an ancient Roman legend, from Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificial, leaving deposits of animal fat. Rain washed these deposits, along with wood ashes, down into the clay soil along the River Tiber. Women found that this mixture (43. GREAT)…………….reduced the effort required to wash their clothes.

As Roman (44. CIVIL) ……………. advanced, so did bathing. The first of the

famous Roman baths, supplied with water from their aqueducts, was built around 312 BC. The baths were luxurious, and bathing became very popular. And by the second century AD, the Greek physician Galen recommended soap for both (45. MEDICINE) ……………and cleansing purposes.

(adapted from learnenglish.britishcouncil.org)

PART C. READING (35 POINTS)

Read the following passage and choose the best answer to each of the following questions.

In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which is around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure hides two far more (51)………..trends for society and for the environment. First, a lot of that consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently (52)………..  

approximately £670 per adult to credit card companies. That’s 66 per cent of the average wardrobe budget. Also, not only are people spending money they don't have, they're using it to buy things they don't need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which (53)………..landfill sites.

People might not realize they are part of the (54)………..clothing problem because

they donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can't sell all those unwanted clothes. ‘Fast fashion’ goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often too poor quality to recycle; people don't want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities (55) ……….. being thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can't sell are sent

abroad, causing even more economic and environmental problems.

However, a different trend is springing up (56)……….. consumerism - the ‘buy

nothing’ trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the US, where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of Black Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing Day people organize various types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year, Buy Nothing groups organize the (57)………..and repair of items they already own.

The trend has now reached (58)………..on social media who usually share posts of

clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars now encourage their (59)………..not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year. Two

friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first three months, they learned how to live (60)………..buying electrical goods, clothes or things for

the house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at restaurants or buying petrol for their cars. In one year, they’d saved $55,000.

(adapted from iearnenglish.britishcouncil.org)

Read the following passage and fill in each blank with ONE suitable word. BLACKPOOL

Many English people now go abroad for their holidays in search of better weather. For many years these were the only commercial trams still operating in Britain. By far the biggest of these resorts is Blackpool, which still welcomes some six million visitors every year.

At the beginning of the 19^th century, Blackpool was a little-known fishing village on the north-west coast of England with a population of fewer than 500. The arrival of the railways in 1846 linked Blackpool with the industrial towns in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. This gave the inhabitants of these towns the chance to (61)……….away from their smoke-filled environment and seek fresh air on the coast.

The visitors soon began to demand organized entertainment and Blackpool was quick to oblige. Theatres and dance halls were quickly provided for the holidaymakers, but the (62)……….striking building was Blackpool Tower, which was erected between 1891 and 1894. The tower was built in imitation of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (63)……….it is hardly half the height of the French original. Nevertheless, for many years it was Britain’s tallest structure. The Tower contained a highly decorated ballroom and the Tower Circus.

Along a large part of the seafront is the so-called Golden Mile, a lively area of hot- dig stands, amusement arcades and fortune tellers. At the southern end of the seafront stands the vast Pleasure Beach, (64)……….of exciting rides and more amusement arcades. The Pleasure Beach, which has more visitors every year than any other tourist attraction(s) in Britain, has provided Blackpool with a second tower. This is a 50-metre- high column (65)……….the Space Tower, which an observation car ascends to give a panoramic view of the coastline.

One of the principal attractions of Blackpool to many people is the trams which run along the seafront. For many years these were the only commercial trams still operating

in Britain. However, in recent years several cities (66)……….re-introduced trams on to their streets.

Blackpool has the longest holiday season of any seaside town in Britain. Whilst summer is, no doubt, the busiest time of year, conferences and exhibitions (67)……….place in spring and autumn. From early September until the end of October, crowds come in their thousands to see the Illuminations, when the seafront is transformed (68) ……….a glittering display of colored lights and scenes, with trams disguised as moon rockets and American showboats.

Blackpool is not (69)……….everyone's taste but it is a town with a basic honesty. It does not claim to be smart and sophisticated but simply a place (70)……….people can come and have fun.

(adapted from How to pass FCE - Exam practice in Reading)

Film A

Stealing Beauty is a moving and often very amusing film, which owes its charm to an intelligent script and a magnificent performance by Liv Tyler. The film 19-year-old Lucy, played by Tyler, moves from the USA, following the death of her mother, to stay with family friends in a farmhouse in Italy. The house is owned by Ian Grayson, an artist, who is to paint her portrait. Lucy, however, has a hidden agenda; she wants to see the boy she fell in love with four years earlier and to learn the identity of her real father, clues to which lie in one of the poems written by her mother.

Film B

August is set in a country house in North Wales during the late 19^th century when a group of people gather at the home of the Davis family. The visitors are the tyrannical Professor Alexander Blathwaite, the absentee owner of the estate, and his second wide, the much younger American, Helen. They waste little time in imposing their London ways on the rural inhabitants, including leuan, brother of Blathwaite's first wife, and the professor’s plain daughter, Sian. leuan falls passionately in love with Helen although she shows no interest in him. Sian conceals a secret love for the local doctor, Michael Lloyd, who is also in love with Helen. leuan tries to find comfort in drink and, in a series of tragicomic episodes, the ordered calm of the household begins to disintegrate.

Film C

Dead Man is a cowboy film with a difference, breathtakingly shot in black and white. In the film William Blake, an honorable accountant, has come to the west to take up a job which fails to materialize. A stranger in town, he finds himself alone and without money, and so begins a chain of encounters which lead this law-abiding citizen into crime. The central theme of the film is that life is unpredictable and that unexpected circumstances can completely change the course of a person’s life.

Film D

Denise Calls Up is a funny and thoroughly modern story about a group of young Americans whose lives are based totally on work. Their days consist of talking on mobile phones, answering taxes and watching computer screens. Lunch dates are made and missed, parties are organized but never attended, and the friends even fail to turn up at the funeral of one of their pals (killed in a car accident while talking on her car phone). Then along comes Denise, an outsider to the group. She has an urgent personal problem, but will she be able to find enough time in her busy schedule to deal with it?

Film E

A Month by the Lake is based loosely on a romantic story by H.E.Bates. In the film Vanessa Redgrave plays Miss Bentley, an independent and impetuous middle-aged woman, who travels to a resort by Lake Como in Italy following the death of her father in 1935. There she meets and falls in love with fellow holidaymaker Major Wilshore, an eccentric but likeable man. After various unsuccessful dates, it seems unlikely that the romance will ever really get going until a couple of other people begin to show more than a passing interest in the pair. If the film is unremarkable in its content, it makes good use of its beautiful Italian locations.

Film F

The oddly named How to make an American Quilt tells the story of Finn, an American graduate student, who heads off to spend her summer vacation with her grandmother and great grandmother. Soon she is introduced to a group of elderly ladies who spend much of their time together sewing. The work they are producing is useful for her studies on women's handicrafts but the stories Finn is told about their youth, family histories, loves and marriages soon prove far more interesting than their sewing skills. Meanwhile her own love life is in difficulty as she cannot choose between her good, reliable boyfriend and an incredibly attractive newcomer.

(adapted from How to pass FCE - Exam practice in Reading)