MAKE UP EXAM 2024
FORMULA B2 - UNITS 1 TO 4
Reading
Task 1
Read the article and choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
31 What does the writer say about smartphones in paragraph 2?
A The invention of the telephone was more important.
B They only have a limited number of features.
C They have had an important effect on our lives.
D They aren’t suitable for long distance phone calls.
32 According to the writer, how have smartphones affected our relationships?
A They have helped us become more communicative.
B They have made it more difficult to communicate well.
C They have allowed us to spend more time with our families.
D They have stopped us making new friends.
33 What disadvantage of smartphones does the writer discuss in paragraph 3?
A We are not as efficient at work as we used to be.
B We find it harder to forget about our jobs at the end of the day.
C We spend more time chatting to friends than working.
D We no longer like to discuss our personal relationships.
34 The writer talks about an earthquake in the fifth paragraph to show that
A it can take a long time for us to get the latest news.
B we can’t trust any of the social networks.
C reporters aren’t interested in those types of stories.
D we should be careful about the news we read.
35 What it is the writer’s overall message about smartphones?
A We should be concerned about the negative effects on our lives.
B We must do everything we can to stop people using them.
C We ought to prohibit people from using them on public transport.
D We should be pleased that people are using them less than in the past.
Have smartphones changed our lives for the better?
1 4
It’s hard to believe that smartphones have What about work? Surely, smartphones have
only been around for little over a decade. made us more efficient in our jobs? After all,
They’re now so common that it’s surprising if we can send and receive emails at any time,
someone doesn’t have one. As I sit on the organise our schedules and make sure we
underground in the mornings, all I see are don’t miss an important call. That’s great for
tired-looking travellers staring at their our companies, but not so great for us or our
smartphones. When I step off the families. In the past, when we finished work,
underground, others are navigating the we would go home and forget about it.
platform, eyes still fixed on their screens. Nowadays, smartphones mean many people
Most of them will spend the rest of their day take their work home with them so there is
checking their messages and the latest news less time to relax. Apart from making you
updates or keeping up on celebrity gossip. more tired, this can have a negative effect on
2 your personal relationships, with more
There’s no doubt that the smartphone has arguments and misunderstandings.
changed our lives significantly. For most of 5
the twentieth century, the telephone changed But smartphones are fantastic for knowing
little. It only allowed us to talk to people over what’s going on in the world, right? Well,
long distances and, later, send text messages that’s true to a certain extent. In the past, we
to them. The smartphone, however, changed used to rely on papers or television and radio
all of that by adding features such as for our news. Sometimes, you had to wait for
cameras, GPS and sophisticated computer a whole day before hearing the latest
technology. They are multi-purpose tools, updates. However, the online newspapers
whose uses are only limited by the and social networks which we use nowadays
imaginations of computer programmers. If are constantly updated. If there’s an
you’re lost, your phone will help you find your earthquake on an island on the other side of
way. If you’re feeling lonely, it will help you the world, we know about it in minutes. But
find the perfect friend. You can even do your can we really trust the social networks for our
shopping on it, without leaving the comfort of news? Were the reporters on the island when
your kitchen. The problem is that we’ve the earthquake happened? Or were they just
become so dependent on this technology that repeating a story that they’d seen on another
we’ve failed to notice the dangers. social network?
3 6
What worries me most is that we are now I’m not trying to say that the smartphone was
more interested in our smartphones than in a bad invention. I couldn’t imagine not being
the people around us. How many of us check able to search for a recipe or share my
our phones before we’ve even said ‘good photos with my family and friends. However, I
morning’ to our families? How many of us are strongly believe that we need to understand
checking our friends’ online profiles when we the risks related to their use. We should ask
could be talking to them? Instead of actually ourselves whether working longer hours or
talking to people, we send them three-word having fewer ‘real’ conversations is a good
messages or emojis. One advantage of the thing. If we disagree, then we must think
telephone was that it helped us become more carefully about the way we use our
communicative. Smartphones, on the other smartphones.
hand, have limited the way we communicate
with others.
TASK 2
Listening
Task 1
You will hear a student, Francesca, talking to her class about a trip to Granada in Spain. For questions 1–10,
complete the sentences with a word or short phrase.
1 Francesca says that many of the cave houses were constructed in the .
2 From the cave house, Francesca could see the behind the Alhambra palace.
3 Francesca says that the lowest temperatures in Granada can be in winter.
4 The of Granada had the Alhambra palace rebuilt in the thirteenth century.
5 The palace had a canal which provided water for the located in the summer palace and the bath houses.
6 Francesca thinks the kings and queens would have liked the in the gardens.
7 She recommends buying tickets for the Alhambra online because there can be a .
8 You would expect to find many of the things from the street market in
9 Francesca found it amusing to taste the different , called tapas, served in the restaurants.
10 She says Granada has been influenced by various from Europe, Africa and Persia.
Task 2
USE OF ENGLISH
