Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
pancreas
cleavage
upheaval
treatise
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
vivacious
shallot
marinate
staple
Choose the word which has the different main stress pattern from the others.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
I think people who help the old, poor, sick, and homeless are _____.
She _____ regretted having been so unkind and rude.
Think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences.
1. The police do not have enough evidence to _____ anyone with the murder.
2. If you can be responsible for booking the flights for everyone, I'll be in _____ of finding us a good hotel.
3. Please _____ your glasses and drink a toast to the success of the new project.
=> Answer:
Think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences.
1. I didn't like the _____ on the carpet so I chose some plain fabric instead.
2. The _____ of events was the same as at all of our meetings.
3. His parents want him to set the _____ for his siblings to follow.
Answer:
Think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences.
1. All the witnesses were asked to give an accurate _____ of the accident.
2. He decided to quit his job on _____ of being overworked and underpaid.
3. It's really difficult to _____ for her unusual behavior at the party yesterday.
=> Answer:
Fill each of the following blanks with ONE suitable word.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SPORTY
It is a multi-million dollar industry and that attracts some of the most talented individuals alive, it generates further millions advertising revenue and has spawned a whole celebrity culture of its . But what role does sport play in our ordinary lives?
Few people are untouched sport. We all have favorite football team or tennis player or, at least, support our national side in major sporting events like the Olympics. How can it be, then, that so people actually play sports and that obesity is becoming a major threat in the developed world?
Well, in part, the answer is the question. Obesity is not a problem in the developing world participation in sport is still high. True, there may be few organized leagues but children the world still go out to play games like football with other children and this comes the supremacy of countries like Brazil in the world of football. So, what is stopping the British or the Americans? After , they still have organized sports in schools and a myriad of clubs and teams to join in their spare time. What they lack is a public space for children to play unsupervised outdoors. As a result, they are kept indoors and encouraged to play online of getting ours in the fresh air. They may of course still develop a love of sport as spectators but this is unlikely to do much to lower levels of obesity the young.
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
A live broadcast of any public event, such as a space flight or sporting occasion, is almost (VARY) accompanied by the thoughts of a commentator. This may be on television, along with the relevant pictures, or alternatively on radio. The technique involved differs between the two media, with radio broadcasters needing to be more explicit and descriptive because of the absence of visual information. TV commentators do not need to paint a picture for their audience; instead their various (OBSERVE) should add to the images that are already there. There will sometimes be silences and pauses in TV commentary, although these are becoming increasingly rare. Both types of commentators should try to be informative but should avoid sounding (OPINION). In Sports commentary, fairness and impartiality to both sides is vital, but spontaneity and (ENTHUSIAST) are valued by those watching or listening. Sports commentators usually broadcast live in an essentially unscripted way, although they may refer to previously prepared materials such as sports statistics. Because of the (PREDICT) nature of live events, thorough preparation in advance is vital. The internet has helped enormously with this aspect of the job. Anyone interested in becoming a commentator should have excellent organizational skills, the willingness to work irregular hours, and a strong voice.
Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions.
In January 1997, reporter Susan Jeffreys of the London Sunday Times informed a colleague that J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings had been voted the greatest book of the 20th century in a readers’ poll conducted by Britain’s Channel 4 and the Waterstone’s bookstore chain. Her colleague responded: "What? Has it? Oh, dear. Dear oh dear oh dear."
Attitudes in America are arguably more relaxed about this kind of thing. No one from the American educated classes expressed much dismay when a 1999 poll of American online bookshop Amazon.com customers chose The Lord of the Rings as the greatest book not merely of the century but of the millennium. Tolkien’s book is so deeply ingrained in popular culture, after all, that a great many of today’s American academics and journalists probably still have those dog-eared paperbacks they read avidly in eighth grade with their hallucinatory mid-1970s cover art, stashed somewhere in the attic.
Furthermore, members of the U.S. intelligentsia fully expect to have their tastes ignored, if not openly derided, by the public at large. To some American intellectuals, it seems gratifying, even touching, that so many millions of readers will happily devour a work as complicated as The Lord of the Rings. Whatever one may make of it, it’s a more challenging read than Gone with the Wind, not to mention Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.
Hugely ambitious in scope, The Lord of the Rings occupies an uncomfortable position in 20th-century literature. Tolkien’s epic poses a stern challenge to modern literature and its defenders. (Tolkien on his critics: “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing they evidently prefer.”) Yet The Lord of the Rings has enjoyed massive and enduring popularity. It would seem that Tolkien’s work supplied something that was missing among the formal innovations of 20th-century fiction, something for which readers were ravenous. But what was it, and why was it important?
Answering this question properly would probably require a book rather than an article. But it seems that the crux of the matter lies in Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism. This is what so powerfully attracts some readers, and just as powerfully repels others. In his book J.R.R. Tolkien: Auther of the Century, T.A. Shippey expands on this notion by arguing that Tolkien saw his realm of Middle-earth not as fiction or invention, but as the recovery of something genuine that had become buried beneath fragments of fairy tale and nursery rhyme.
“However fanciful Tolkien’s creation of Middle-earth was,” Shippey writes, “he did not think that he was entirely making it up. He was ‘reconstructing’, he was harmonising contradictions in his source texts, sometimes he was supplying entirely new concepts (like hobbits), but he was also reaching back to an imaginative world which he believed had once really existed, at least in a collective imagination.”
The book is also deeply grounded in Tolkien’s linguistic expertise – he invented whole languages for his characters. Sometimes he became so absorbed in the creation of languages, in fact, that he put the story itself aside for months or years at a time, believing he could not continue until some quandary or inconsistency in his invented realm had been resolved. But Tolkien’s immense intellect and erudition is not the source of his success; without his storytelling gift, The Lord of the Rings would be little more than a curiosity. And this gift seems to stem straight from his refusal to break from classical and traditional forms.
Tolkien himself often spoke of his work as something ‘found’ or ‘discovered’, something whose existence was independent of him. It’s wise to tread lightly in this sort of interpretation, but it seems clear that he believed his work to be something given, something revealed, which contained a kind of truth beyond measure. As a result, his details have the weight of reality, linguistic and otherwise, and because of this his great sweep of the story feels real as well; you might say that his imaginary castles are built with a certain amount of genuine stone. Other writers’ fantasy worlds are made up. Tolkien’s is inherited.
Which of the following statements do you expect the writer not to agree with?
When the lord of the Ring was voted the greatest book of the 20th century, _____.
It is implied in the second paragraph that The Lord of the Rings _____.
What do we learn about Gone With the Wind?
What was Tolkien's reaction to criticism of The Lord of the Rings?
Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "repels" in the paragraph 5th?
According to Shippey, Tolkien believed that the world he described _____.
According to the writer of the article, the details in Tolkien's work _____.
Read the text and decide which answer best fits each space.
THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA
One of Italy’s most famous landmarks is the bell tower of the cathedral in Pisa. This 55-metre-high tower leans at an angle of 5.5 degrees. This may not like much, but it means that the of the tower is more than 4 metres out of position!
Many people that it only began to lean after it was built, but in fact the tower started to sink during the stages of construction due to poor foundations. In an effort to compensate for the tilt, the engineers built the higher floors with one side taller than the other. This made the tower begin to lean in the other . Because of this, the tower is actually curved.
There are a number of interesting historical tales associated with the tower. The famous astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was said to have dropped two cannonballs of different sizes from the top of the tower to prove a principle of physics. In the 1930s, Italian leader Benito Mussolini that the tower be straightened. Concrete was poured into the foundations, but the only result was that the tower sank further into the ground. In 1990, the tower was declared unsafe and to tourists. It reopened in 2001, after the tower had been straightened to a safer angle and it has now been declared safe for the next 300 years.
Complete each sentence using a suitable verb form in line A with a preposition in line B to make a phrasal verb. (You can use prepositions more than once.)
A: [ waltz | pan | going up | knuckle | took | pulled | fell | scrape | written ]
B: [ out | through | off | down | against ]
Jenna's small clothes design business really after a Hollywood actress wore one of her dresses on the red carpet.
Why are you so worried about your history exam? It's your best subject - you'll it!
The Hatton Garden thieves thought they had the perfect burglary, but images on CCTV in the local area allowed the police to identify them.
We were planning to buy new sports equipment for the school gym, but our plans when the local council refused to give us the funds.
Georgia is the best chess player on our team, but she'll be some of the top players in the country, so I don't know if she'll manage to win the tournament.
Up until now, you've done very little revision or preparation for your exams and if you don't you'll find yourself kicked out of college at the end of this term.
I'll never win a prize for my abilities in maths, but I can just about an exam.
Their plan to televise a well-known novel didn't when the author refused to sell them the rights to his book.
Suzie was upset because she felt her teachers were only interested in the best students and that they had her long ago.
Read the following passage and choose which of the headings from A - I match the blanks. There are two extra headings, which do not match any of the paragraphs.
A. An obvious need
B. Gaining attention
C. The odder the better
D. Making sense of information
E. Trade secrets
F. Academic approval
G. A change of focus
H. Selected memories
I. An ancient skill
Memory test
Jerome Burne talks to a magician who teaches children ways to remember facts.
0. I
The Greek philosophers knew about it and it could still dramatically improve children's school results today, except that no one teaches it. "It is a very old technique for making your memory better. Try memorizing this series of random numbers: 3, 6, 5, 5, 2, 1,2, 4. About as meaningful as dates in history or equations in maths, aren't they? Chances are you won't remember them in five minutes, let alone in five hours. However, had you been at a lecture given at a school in the south of England last month, you would now be able to fix them in your head for five days, five weeks, in fact forever."
1.
"I am going to give you five techniques that will enable you to remember anything you need to know at school," promised lecturer lan Robinson to a fascinated audience of a hundred schoolchildren. He slapped his hand down on the table. In his other life, Robinson is an entertainer, and he was using all the tricks he had picked up in his career. "When I've finished in two hours' time, your work will be far more effective and productive. Anyone not interested, leave now." The entire room sat still, glued to their seats.
2.
When he entertains, Robinson calls himself the Mind Magician. He specializes in doing magic tricks that look totally impossible, and then he reveals that they involve nothing more mysterious than good old-fashioned trickery. "I have always been interested in tricks involving memory being able to reel off the order of cards in a pack, that sort of thing," he explains.
3.
Robinson was already lecturing to schools on his magic techniques when it struck him that students might find memory techniques even more valuable. "It wasn't a difficult area to move into, as the stuff's all there in books." So he summarised everything to make a two-hour lecture about five techniques.
4.
What Robinson's schoolchildren get are methods that will be familiar to anyone who has dipped into any one of a dozen books on memory. The difference is that Robinson's approach is firmly aimed at schoolchildren. The basic idea is to take material that is random and meaningless - musical scales, the bones of the arm - and give them a structure. That series of numbers at the beginning of the article fits in here. Once you think of it as the number of days in the year - 365 - and the number of weeks - 52 - and so on, it suddenly becomes permanently memorable.
5.
"You want to learn a list of a hundred things? A thousand? No problem," says Robinson. The scandal is that every child is not taught the techniques from the beginning of their school life. The schoolchildren who were watching him thought it was brilliant. "I wish I'd been told this earlier," commented Mark, after Robinson had shown them how to construct "mental journeys."
6.
Essentially, you visualize a walk down a street, or a trip around a room, and pick the points where you will put the things you want to remember - the lamppost, the fruit bowl. Then in each location, you put a visual representation of your list - phrasal verbs, historical dates, whatever - making them as strange as possible. It is that simple, and it works.
7.
The reaction of schools has been uniformly enthusiastic. "The pupils benefited enormously from plan's presentation," says Dr. Johnston, head of the school where Robinson was speaking. "Ideally we should run a regular class in memory techniques so pupils can pick it up gradually."
(Adapted from FCE)
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
He threatened the officers with violence.
=> He made ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Whatever the methods used to obtain the results, drugs were definitely not involved.
=> There was no question ............
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
What put me off the idea was simply how expensive it was going to be.
=> The sheer ...........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Every possible effort was made by the orphanage to find the boy's parents.
=> The orphanage left no stone ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
They've been having discussions on the issue for over two weeks.
=> Discussions ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Jim knew he would have to go on the business trip at a moment's notice. (POISED)
=> Jim ...........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I can spend more time with my grandchildren when I retire. (FREE)
=> Retirement .........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The committee members said that they would remain loyal to the chairman. (PLEDGED)
=> The committee members ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
His analysis of the situation was far too complex for me to grasp. (HEAD)
=> His analysis of the situation ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Coming second didn't make her feel any better because she only wanted to win. (CONSOLATION)
=> Coming second .............
Write an academic essay of about 250 words on the following topic.
Some people say that the best way to improve public health is by increasing the number of sports facilities. Others, however, say that this would have little effect on public health and that other measures are required. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.