Read the following passage and choose the best answer to the questions that follow.
In recent years, organic farming has made its own effect on the farming community. Encouraged by the general public’s awareness of chemical use in the environment, growers are becoming more aware of the demand for organically farmed produce.
Laura Davis grew up in London, far removed from the small country village she later moved to. Although not from an agricultural background, she wasn’t impressed by what she had seen of conventional methods. Joining Laurence on the 32 acre smallholding of Bindon Farm provided a perfect opportunity to develop an organic system of farming.
“It was perfect really,” she says. “We never considered using chemicals, so we were organic from the start. The land here had never been intensively farmed, it was all permanent pasture, and in the early days it was more an exercise in self-sufficiency than a working farm. Later, when we decided to operate commercially, we both did part-time courses at the local agricultural college. It was a general course, not geared to an organic system.
There is a tremendous confusion about what ‘organic’ means. We describe organic produce as ‘the products of a sustainable system of farming that is environmentally harmless’. In other words, ‘organic’ describes the system of farming rather than the produce itself. All land has a certain amount of naturally occurring chemicals in it. It's also possible that your produce can be marginally contaminated by, for instance, the farmer next door. So it is wrong to suggest that the product is completely free of chemical residue.”
The Soil Association is the body which approves land suitable for organic growing. Their inspectors issue a Soil Association symbol which can be used in the marketing of organic produce. To gain the symbol, land has to be free of chemical use for at least two years - sometimes longer, depending on how it has been used previously. The organic farmer also has to demonstrate competence in organic farming. The Soil Association was in its infancy when Laura and Laurence began and they were among the first to be awarded the symbol.
When they first started operating properly, they were selling to specialist outlets in London. Because they were supplying individually they had to try to meet as many demands as possible.
Providing that sort of range and continuity all year round was no easy task. Now they sell their produce via a marketing cooperative, which is a group of 17 growers from various-size farms. Together they plan a crop rotation system. “Forming the cooperative was a logical step,” says Laura. “Individual producers were becoming vulnerable as the competition grew amongst themselves, and as the large supermarket chains became more aware of organically produced food. The cooperative has been running for two years now. It is one of the first to try this and to have a national marketing structure. It is a considerable investment for us growers because we fund a full-time manager to control the storage, sale and transport of the produce.
“In some ways we have felt like pioneers. A lot of the work we do had never been done before. There was certainly no pool of knowledge to draw on when we started, so we had to solve our own problems. We made some extremely expensive mistakes but have learned from them and the experience is now useful for helping people who are just coming into the industry. Some of the systems we use return to the traditional rules of farming.”
The techniques used by organic growers combine the best of traditional farming with modern methods and it would be a mistake to assume that organic growers are against modern techniques. They use them whenever they can. Machinery is also important to organic farmers, who will adapt what is available to suit the needs of their system.
Planning the rotation of the crops to be grown is vital for Laura and Laurence. Every year in late January they sit down and decide what they will grow and on what area of their land they will grow it. They record this on large maps. It’s quite complicated because they have to fit their rotation to that of the other 17 growers. The cooperative will decide they need X amount of the potatoes and X amount of onions. They then decide how much of that they can grow. As each participant signs a five-year contract to the cooperative, there is a commitment to the group above personal interest. They hope the interest of the group matches their own.
It's important for them to know in advance that there is a market for what they grow, so that all this careful planning will pay off in the end. It is also necessary for them to spread the planting and harvesting cycle, so they don’t end up trying to harvest everything at once.
According to Laura, a particular problem organic growers face is in educating the public about the appearance of the produce. “There seems to be an obsession with cosmetics. Of course, it’s much more difficult to get continuity in appearance without using chemicals. We hope that eventually people will pay less attention to the cosmetics and simply appreciate the flavour.”
Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.
Lucy’s eyes burned and her shoulders ached. She _____ at the computer for four straight hours. Finally, she took a break.
The town people were always so well-behaved and _______ that the police had an idle life.
The case for an increase in spending on education has been proved beyond the _____ of doubt.
The newspaper did not mention the _____ of the damage caused by the fire.
I bought this grammar book _____ I could go over all things we have studied this year.
_____ the demand for tickets that people had to queue all day and night.
_____ he worked hard for many years, he couldn't make both ends meet.
In fact, ________ mobile phone companies deciding to create phone billing plans that include message last year, the service might not be so popular today.
school
fool
Read the text below and decide which answer best fits each gap.
The 1920s saw the emergence of widespread car ownership in the US. Assembly line production made cars wonderfully cheap, credit was available on the cheapest terms and the irresistible of the car to consumer did the rest. The result was a complete transformation of American life.
The car began to break the ancient sharp division between town and country. The movement perhaps began with the prosperous middle class, anxious for a holiday from New York, were delighted to discover the rest of their country. But the cheap car also enabled the working class to travel, for pleasure or in of work. Even poor country people, it turned out, could own car and when they did so, many of them used the freedom thus to depart to the West or the cities.
Even more important, perhaps, was the of the car on daily life. It came into for all sorts of short trips, to work or to the shops, which had previously been made by trolly bus or railway. It made a whole new pattern of living . Vast suburbs began to spread over the land. No longer did you have to live in comparatively cramped housing near the railway station. did you have to take your annual holiday at one of the traditional, crowded resorts nearby. , you could speed over the hills and far away.
Read the following passage and choose which of the headings from A - J match the blanks. There are two extra headings, which do not match any of the paragraphs.
Headings:
A. Causes of concern for the individual
B. The struggle for better education results in parents sending children to costlier schools
C. Doubts as to whether competition is a modern phenomenon
D. The value of education in securing employment
E. Questions raised concerning the over-emphasis placed on paper qualifications
F. Reaction to criticism of perceived bias toward paper qualifications
G. Social consequences of the push for further education
H. Comprehensive school students no longer receive low grades
I. Competition in the workplace increasing the need for higher qualifications
J. Pressure to perform well at school and continue study while working
Paragraph 1:
The need for a satisfactory education is more important than ever before. Nowadays, without a qualification from a reputable school or university, the odds of landing that plum job advertised in the paper are considerably shortened. Moreover, one’s present level of education could fall well short of future career requirements.
Paragraph 2:
It is no secret that competition is the driving force behind the need to obtain increasingly higher qualifications. In the majority of cases, the urge to upgrade is no longer the result of an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The pressure is coming from within the workplace to compete with ever more qualified job applicants, and in many occupations, one must now battle with colleagues in the reshuffle for the position one already holds.
Paragraph 3:
Striving to become better educated is hardly a new concept. Wealthy parents have always been willing to spend the vast amounts of extra money necessary to send their children to schools with a perceived educational edge. Working adults have long attended night schools and refresher courses. Competition for employment has been around since the curse of working for a living began. Is the present situation so very different to that of the past?
Paragraph 4:
The difference now is that the push is universal and from without as well as within. A student at a comprehensive school receiving low grades is no longer as easily accepted by his or her peers as was once the case. Similarly, in the workplace, unless employees are engaged in part-time study, they may be frowned upon by their employers and peers and have difficulty even standing still. In fact, in these cases, the expectation is for careers to go backwards and earning capacity to take an appreciable nosedive.
Paragraph 5:
At first glance, the situation would seem to be laudable; a positive response to the exhortations of politicians for us all to raise our intellectual standards and help improve the level of intelligence within the community. Yet there are serious ramifications according to at least one educational psychologist. Dr Brendan Gatsby has caused some controversy in academic circles by suggesting that a bias towards what he terms “paper excellence” might cause more problems than it is supposed to solve. Gatsby raises a number of issues that affect the individual as well as society in general.
Paragraph 6:
Firstly, he believes the extra workload involved is resulting in abnormally high stress levels in both students at comprehensive schools and adults studying after working hours. Secondly, skills which might be more relevant to the undertaking of a sought-after job are being neglected by employers not interviewing candidates without qualifications on paper. These two areas of concern for the individual are causing physical as well as emotional stress.
Paragraph 7:
Gatsby also argues that there are attitudinal changes within society to the exalted role education now plays in determining how the spoils of working life are distributed. Individuals of all ages are being driven by social pressures to achieve academic success solely for monetary considerations instead of for the joy of enlightenment. There is the danger that some universities are becoming degree factories with an attendant drop in standards. Furthermore, our education system may be rewarding doggedness above creativity; the very thing tutors ought to be encouraging us to avoid. But the most undesirable effect of this academic paper chase, Gatsby says, is the disadvantage that "user pays" higher education confers on the poor, who invariably lose out to the more financially favoured.
Paragraph 8:
Naturally, although there is agreement that learning can cause stress, Gatsby’s comments regarding university standards have been roundly criticized as alarmist by most educationists who point out that, by any standard of measurement, Britain’s education system overall, at both secondary and tertiary levels, is equal to that of any in the world.
Supply the correct form of the word given in brackets.
It is exceedingly difficult to ascertain precisely what is meant by the word ‘culture’. The word is commonly used to refer to almost anything connected with a person’s (CUSTOM) behaviour when (CONSIDER) distinctive in form to that of a person from another background. The problem is that this definition begs the question. Is it race that determines the difference in culture? Or is it nationhood? Certainly, there are (NOTICE) cultural differences between citizens of various nations, although they may share (MEMBER) of the same race. Is language perhaps the (DETERMINE) of culture? Or class? After all, even within the same nation there are extreme differences between the lifestyle and language of the classes that make up a (SOCIAL), as well as varying attitudes towards acceptable behaviour and manners. The problem appears to be that, on closer (ANALYSE), each and every one of us belongs to a unique culture, regardless of the apparent general culture into which we are categorised. It all depends on how (NARROW) the word is defined for its intended purpose. By analysing the word ‘culture’, (ANTHROPOLOGY) are beginning to accept that the word is much (WORK).
Read the text and think of ONE word which best fits each gap.
One of the most mysterious things in nature is the ability of certain creatures to find their way home, sometimes from great distances. Birds are not the ones who can do this. Bees, eels, and salmon are to return to a particular place after long journey, too.
Many experiments have been made with birds in an attempt to find out what guides them on their way home. In one case, seven swallows were taken 400 miles from home. When they were set , five of them returned to their nests. In another case, a certain kind of sea bird was taken from its nests off the Welsh coast to Venice by plane. When it was , it made its way home to its nests, a distance of 930 miles if it flew in a straight line.
birds offer an even more amazing example of this ability. There are swallows that migrate from England to South Africa every year. They not only return to England the next spring, but many of them come back to nest in the very same house where they the year before. They fly the incredible distance of 6,000 miles, one way.
Certain types of butterflies migrate, too, and find their way home over long . In the tropics one can sometimes see the great mass flights of butterflies all flying steadily in one . They may go a thousand miles and more and then return again to explain how these creatures find their way home, we still have no sure . Since many of the birds fly over great bodies of water, we cannot explain it by saying they use landmarks to guide them. Just to say they have an “instinct” doesn't really explain the right conditions. The reason they do it may be to obtain food or to reproduce under the right conditions. But the signals and guideposts they use on their flights are still a to us.
Read the text below and look carefully at teach sentence. Pick out the unnecessary words in most sentences of the passage. If the sentence is correct, put the Tick ( V ). If the line has unnecessary words, write the unnecessary words.
(1) Many outdoor enthusiasts enjoy canoeing or kayaking for recreation on ponds, lakes and rivers. (2) Some people use canoes and kayak to travel across bodies of water to remote camping locations. (3) They carry their supplies, such as in tents, sleeping, bags and food, in their boats. (4) The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs, National Park both located along the border between Minnesota and Ontario, Canada, are two of the most best popular canoeing areas in North America. (5) Whitewater canoeing and kayaking on fast-flowing rivers is one another popular activity. (6) (The term Whitewater refers to the burbling foam which created when fast-moving water spills over and running around rocks or other obstructions.) (7) Whitewater enthusiasts maneuver their boats around the rock, logjams and other natural obstacles. (8) If the current and obstacles make a passage too difficult to not navigate, a Canoeist might make a portage or carry the canoe over land for a short distance, thereby avoiding only danger.
Sentence (1):
Sentence (2):
Sentence (3):
Sentence (4):
Sentence (5):
Sentence (6):
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Sentence (7):
Sentence (8):
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Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the sentence before it. Write between THREE and EIGHT words, including the words given in bracket. Do not change the word given in brackets in any way.
Debbie bought the big house because she wanted to open a hotel. (VIEW)
=> Debbie bought the big house a hotel.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the sentence before it. Write between THREE and EIGHT words, including the words given in bracket. Do not change the word given in brackets in any way.
“If you don’t apologise immediately, I’m leaving.” she told him. (THREATENED)
=> She he apologised immediately.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the sentence before it. Write between THREE and EIGHT words, including the words given in bracket. Do not change the word given in brackets in any way.
I never thought that I would win a prize. (CROSSED)
=> It that I would win a prize.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the sentence before it. Write between THREE and EIGHT words, including the words given in bracket. Do not change the word given in brackets in any way.
Mike will give you lots of excuses for being late, don’t believe any of them. (MANY)
=> No Mike gives you for being late, don’t believe any of them.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the sentence before it. Write between THREE and EIGHT words, including the words given in bracket. Do not change the word given in brackets in any way.
The incident ruined my chances of promotion. (PAID)
=> The incident promotion.
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Tom didn’t celebrate until he received the job offer in writing.
=> Not until ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The number of students applying to this university has increased by 10%.
=> There ..........
Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence before it.
They believe that the manager absconded with the company’s pension fund money.
=> The manager _______________
Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence before it.
You pay $20 a month for a period of one year.
=> You pay in _________
Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence before it.
It wasn’t necessary for you to go to so much trouble on my behalf.
=> You needn’t ________