Mock test

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below .

The vikings wayfaring way

In the last century, Vikings have been perceived in numerous di fferent ways – vilified as conquerors
and romanticised as adventurers. How Vikings have been employed in nation-building is a topic of
some interest.
In English, Vikings are also
known as Norse or Norsemen.
Their language greatly
influenced English, with the
nouns, ‘Hell’, ‘husband’, ‘law’,
and ‘window’, and the verbs,
‘blunder’, ‘snub’, ‘take’, and
‘want’, all coming from Old
Norse. However, the origins of
the word ‘Viking’, itself, are
obscure: it may mean ‘a
Scandinavian pirate’, or it may
refer to ‘an inlet’, or a place
called Vik, in modem-day
Norway, from where the pirates came. These various names – Vikings, Norse, or Norsemen, and
doubts about the very word ‘Viking’ suggest historical confusion.
Loosely speaking, the Viking Age endured from the late eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries. Vikings
sailed to England in AD 793 to storm coastal monasteries, and subsequently, large swathes of England
fell under Viking rule – indeed several Viking kings sat on the English throne. It is generally agreed
that the Battle of Hastings, in 1066, when the Norman French invaded, marks the end of the English
Viking Age, but the Irish Viking age ended earlier, while Viking colonies in Iceland and Greenland
did not dissolve until around AD 1500.
How much territory Vikings controlled is also in dispute – Scandinavia and Western Europe certainly,
but their reach east and south is uncertain. They plundered and settled down the Volga and Dnieper
rivers, and traded with modem-day Istanbul, but the archaeological record has yet to verify that
Vikings raided as far away as Northwest Africa, as some writers claim.
The issue of control and extent is complex because many Vikings did not return to Scandinavia after
raiding but assimilated into local populations, often becoming Christian. To some degree, the Viking
Age is defined by religion. Initially, Vikings were polytheists, believing in many gods, but by the end
of the age, they had permanently accepted a new monotheistic religious system – Christianity.
This transition from so-called pagan plunderers to civilised Christians is significant and is the view
promulgated throughout much of recent history. In the UK, in the 1970s for example, schoolchildren
were taught that until the Vikings accepted Christianity they were nasty heathens who rampaged
throughout Britain. By contrast, today’s children can visit museums where Vikings are celebrated as
merchants, pastoralists, and artists with a unique worldview as well as conquerors.
What are some other interpretations of Vikings? In the nineteenth century, historians in Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden constructed their own Viking ages for nationalistic reasons. At that time, all
three countries were in crisis. Denmark had been beaten in war and ceded territory to what is now
Germany. Norway had become independent from Sweden in 1905 but was economically vulnerable,
so Norwegians sought to create a separate identity for themselves in the past  as well as the present.
The Norwegian historian, Gustav Storm, was adamant it was his forebears and not the Swedes’ or
Danes’ who had colonised Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland, in what is now Canada. Sweden,
meanwhile, had relinquished Norway to the Norwegians and Finland to the Russians; thus, in the late
nineteenth century, Sweden was keen to boost its image with rich archaeological finds to show the
glory of its Viking past.
In addition to augmenting nationalism, nineteenth-century thinkers were influenced by an
Englishman, Herbert Spencer, who described peoples and cultures in evolutionary terms similar to
those of Charles Darwin. Spencer coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, which includes the notion
that, over time, there is not only technological but also moral progress. Therefore, Viking heathens’
adoption of Christianity was considered an advantageous move. These days, historians do not
compare cultures in the same way, especially since, in this case, the archaeological record seems to
show that heathen Vikings and Christian Europeans were equally brutal.
Views of Vikings change according to not only to forces a ffecting historians at the time of their
research but also according to the materials they read. Since much knowledge of Vikings comes from
literature composed up to 300 years after the events they chronicle, some Danish historians cal1 these
sources ‘mere legends’.
Vikings did have a written language carved on large stones, but as few of these survive today, the
most reliable contemporary sources on Vikings come from writers from other cultures, like the ninth-
century Persian geographer, Ibn Khordadbeh.
In the last four decades, there have been wildly varying interpretations of the Viking influence in
Russia. Most non-Russian scholars believe the Vikings created a kingdom in western Russia and
modern-day Ukraine led by a man called Rurik. After AD 862, Rurik’s descendants continued to rule.
There is considerable evidence of this colonisation: in Sweden, carved stones, still standing, describe
the conquerors’ journeys; both Russian and Ukrainian have loan words from Old Norse; and,
Scandinavian first names, like Igor and Olga, are still popular. However, during the Soviet period,
there was an emphasis on the Slavic origins of most Russians. (Appearing in the historical record
around the sixth century AD, the Slavs are thought to have originated in Eastern Europe.) This Slavic
identity was promoted to contrast with that of the neighbouring Viking Swedes, who were enemies
during the Cold War.
These days, many Russians consider themselves hybrids. Indeed recent genetic studies support a
Norse-colonisation theory: western Russian DNA is consistent with that of the inhabitants of a region
north of Stockholm in Sweden.
The tools available to modern historians are many and varied, and their findings may seem less open
to debate. There are linguistics, numismatics, dendrochronology, archaeozoology, palaeobotany, ice
crystallography, climate and DNA analysis to add to the translation of runes and the raising of mighty
warships. Despite these, historians remain children of their times.

SECTION 1: QUESTIONS 1-14

Questions 1-5
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer
Questions 6-13
Look at the following statements and the list of times and places below.
Match each statement with the correct place or time: A-H.
Question 14
Choose the correct letter A-E.

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on Reading Passage 2
below.
The future never dies?

The prospects for humanity and for the world as a whole are somewhere between glorious and dire. It
is hard to be much more precise.
A
By ‘glorious’, I mean that our descendants – all who are born on to this Earth – could live very
comfortably and securely, and could continue to do so for as long as the Earth can support life, which
should be for a very long time indeed. We should at least be thinking in terms of the next million
years. Furthermore, our descendants could continue to enjoy the company of other species –
establishing a much better relationship with them than we have now. Other animals need not live in
constant fear of us. Many of those fellow species now seem bound to become extinct, but a significant
proportion could and should continue to live alongside us. Such a future may seem ideal, and so it is.
Yet I do not believe it is fanciful. There is nothing in the physical fabric of the Earth or in our own
biology to suggest that this is not possible.
B
‘Dire’ means that we human beings could be in deep trouble within the next few centuries, living but
also dying in large numbers in political terror and from starvation, while huge numbers of our fellow
creatures would simply disappear, leaving only the ones that we find convenient – chickens, cattle –
or that we can’t shake off, like flies and mice. I’m taking it to be self-evident that glory is preferable.
C
Our future is not entirely in our own hands because the Earth has its own rules, is part of the solar
system and is neither stable nor innately safe. Other planets in the solar system are quite beyond
habitation, because their temperature is far too high or too low to be endured, and ours, too, in
principle could tip either way. Even relatively unspectacular changes in the atmosphere could do the
trick. The core of the Earth is hot, which in many ways is good for living creatures, but every now and
again, the molten rock bursts through volcanoes on the surface. Among the biggest volcanic eruptions
in recent memory was Mount St Helens, in the USA, which threw out a cubic kilometre of ash –
fortunately, in an area where very few people live. In 1815, Tambora (in present-day Indonesia)
expelled so much ash into the upper atmosphere that climatic effects seriously harmed food
production around the world for the season after season. Entire civilisations have been destroyed by
volcanoes.
D
Yet nothing we have so far experienced shows what volcanoes can really do. Yellowstone National
Park in the USA occupies the caldera (the crater formed when a volcano collapses) of an exceedingly
ancient volcano of extraordinary magnitude. Modem surveys show that its centre is now rising.
Sometime in the next 200 million years, Yellowstone could erupt again, and when it does, the whole
world will be transformed. Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow. But there’s a very good chance that it
will give us another million years, and that surely is enough to be going on with. It seems sensible to
assume that this will be the case.
E
The universe at large is dangerous, too: in particular, we share the sky with vast numbers of asteroids,
and now and again, the come into our planet’s atmosphere. An asteroid the size of a small island,
hitting the Earth at 15,000 kilometres an hour (a relatively modest speed by the standards of heavenly
bodies), would strike the ocean bed like a rock in a puddle, send a tidal wave around the world as high
as a small mountain and as fast as a jumbo jet, and propel us into an ice age that could last for
centuries. There are plans to head off such disasters (including rockets to push approaching asteroids
into new trajectories), but in truth, it’s down to luck.
F
On the other hand, the archaeological and the fossil evidence shows that no truly devastating asteroid
has struck since the one that seems to have accounted for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago. So again, there seems no immediate reason for despair. The Earth is indeed an uncertain
place, in an uncertain universe, but with average luck, it should do us well enough. If the world does
become inhospitable in the next few thousand or million years, then it will probably be our own fault.
In short, despite the underlying uncertainty, our own future and that of our fellow creatures are very
much in our own hands.
G
Given average luck on the geological and the cosmic scale, the difference between glory and disaster
will be made and is being made, by politics. Certain kinds of political systems and strategies
would predispose us to long-term survival (and indeed to comfort and security and pleasure of being
alive), while others would take us more and more frenetically towards collapse. The broad point is,
though, that we need to look at ourselves – humanity – and at the world in general in a quite new
light. Our material problems are fundamentally those of biology. We need to think, and we need our
politicians to think, biologically. Do that, and take the ideas seriously, and we are in with a chance.
Ignore biology and we and our fellow creatures haven’t a hope.

Questions 15-20
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?

Questions 21-26
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Question 27
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
 READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
Cosmetics in Ancient Past
A
Since cosmetics and perfumes are still in wide use today, it is interesting to compare the attitudes,
customs and beliefs related to them in ancient times to those of our own day and age. Cosmetics and
perfumes have been popular since the dawn of civilization; it is shown by the discovery of a great deal
of pertinent archaeological material, dating from the third millennium BC. Mosaics, glass perfume
flasks, stone vessels, ovens, cooking-pots, clay jars, etc., some inscribed by the hand of the artisan.
Evidence also appears in the Bible and other classical writings, where it is written that spices and
perfumes were prestigious products known throughout the ancient world and coveted by kings and
princes. The written and pictorial descriptions, as well as archaeological findings, all show how
important body care and aesthetic appearance were in the lives of the ancient people. The chain of
evidence spans many centuries, detailing the usage of cosmetics in various cultures from the earliest
period of recorded history.
B
In antiquity, however, at least in the onset, cosmetics served in religious ceremonies and for healing
purposes. Cosmetics were also connected with cultic worship and witchcraft: to appease the various
gods, fragrant ointments were applied to the statuary images and even to their attendants. From this, in
the course of time, developed the custom of personal use, to enhance the beauty of the face and the
body, and to conceal defects.
C
Perfumes and fragrant spices were
precious commodities in antiquity,
very much in demand, and at times
even exceeded silver and gold in
value. Therefore they were luxury
products, used mainly in the temples
and in the homes of the noble and
wealthy. The Judean kings kept them
in treasure houses (2 Kings 20:13).
And the Queen of Sheba brought to
Solomon “camels laden with spices,
gold in great quantity and precious stones.” (1 Kings 10:2, 10). However, within time, the use of
cosmetics became the custom of that period. The use of cosmetics became widespread among the
lower classes as well as among the wealthy; in the same way, they washed the body, so they used to
care for the body with substances that softened the skin and anoint it with fragrant oils and ointments.
D
Facial treatment was highly developed and women devoted many hours to it. They used to spread
various scented creams on the face and to apply makeup in vivid and contrasting colors. An Egyptian
papyrus from the 16th century BC contains detailed recipes to remove blemishes, wrinkles, and other
signs of age. Greek and Roman women would cover their faces in the evening with a “beauty mask”
to remove blemishes, which consisted mainly of flour mixed with fragrant spices, leaving it on their
face all night. The next morning they would wash it off with asses’ milk. The very common creams
used by women in the ancient Far East, particularly important in the hot climate and prevalent in that
area of the globe, were made up of oils and aromatic scents. Sometimes the oil in these creams was
extracted from olives, almonds, gourds, sesame, or from trees and plants; but, for those of limited
means, scented animal and fish fats were commonly used.
E
Women in the ancient past commonly put colors around their eyes. Besides beautification, its purpose
was also medicinal as covering the sensitive skin of the lids with colored ointments that prevented
dryness and eye diseases: the eye-paint repelled the little flies that transmitted eye inflammations.
Egyptian women colored the upper eyelid black and the lower one green and painted the space
between the upper lid and the eyebrow gray and blue. The women of Mesopotamia favored yellows
and reds. The use of kohl for painting the eyes is mentioned three times in the Bible, always with
disapproval by the sages (2 Kings, 9:30; Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 23:40). In contrast, Job named one of
his daughters “Keren Happukh”- “horn of eye paint” (Job 42:14)
F
Great importance was attached to the care for hair in ancient times. Long hair was always considered
a symbol of beauty, and kings, nobles and dignitaries grew their hair long and kept it well-groomed
and cared for. Women devoted much time to the style of the hair; while no cutting, they would apply
much care to it by arranging it skillfully in plaits and “building it up” sometimes with the help of
wigs. Egyptian women generally wore their hair flowing down to their shoulders or even longer. In
Mesopotamia, women cherished long hair as a part of their beauty, and hair flowing down their backs
in a thick plait and tied with a ribbon is seen in art. Assyrian women wore their hair shorter, braiding
and binding it in a bun at the back. In Ancient Israel, brides would wear their hair long on the
wedding day as a sign of their virginity. Ordinary people and slaves, however, usually wore their hair
short, mainly for hygienic reasons, since they could not afford to invest in the kind of treatment that
long hair required.
G
From the Bible and Egyptian and Assyrian sources, as well as the words of classical authors, it
appears that the centers of the trade-in aromatic resins and incense were located in the kingdoms of
southern Arabia, and even as far as India, where some of these precious aromatic plants were grown.
“Dealers from Sheba and Rammah dealt with you, offering the choicest spices…” (Ezekiel 27:22).
The Nabateans functioned as the important middlemen in this trade; Palestine also served as a very
important component, as the trade routes crisscrossed the country. It is known that the Egyptian
Queen Hatsheput (15th century BC) sent a royal expedition to the Land of Punt (Somalia) in order to
bring back myrrh seedlings to plant in her temple. In Assyrian records of tribute and spoils of war,
perfumes and resins are mentioned; the text from the time of Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884 BC) refers
to balls of myrrh as a part of the tribute brought to the Assyrian king by the Aramaean kings. The
trade-in spices and perfumes are also mentioned in the Bible as written in Genesis (37:25-26),
“Camels carrying gum tragacanth and balm and myrrh”.

Questions 28-34
Reading Passage has 7 paragraphs A-G
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Questions 35-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
 Writing
Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The graph shows the percentage of people who use mobile phones in four situations, grouped
by four age groups.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make
comparisons where relevant.
You should write at least 150 words.

Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Rich countries often give money to poorer countries, but it does not solve poverty. Therefore,
developed countries should give other types of help to the poor countries rather than financial
aid. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

You should write at least 250 words.