English Test

I. Listening

20 minutes, 10 points

You are going to hear part of a presentation about global warming. Say whether these
statements are true or false.
1. During the last 1,000 years, the 1980s were the warmest years.
2. Carbon dioxide is produced when burning gas and oil.
3. Russia and Japan want to produce less carbon dioxide.
4. International oil companies disagree that global warming is a threat.
5. President George W. Bush does not fear global warming.
6. In February 2000, Africa suffered a major earthquake.
7. The melting of the polar caps threatens polar bears.
8. The Yellow River in China ran dry in 1919 and 1999.
9. West Nile fever and malaria are common diseases in Boston and New York.
10. Everybody believes that solar and wind energy are the solution to global warming.

II. Reading Comprehension

1.

40 minutes, 30 points

Read the following text and fill in the blanks with the missing words: magma,
prospectors, crust , dissolved, gold, valuable, banks, deposited, underground , springs.

For as long as anyone has understood the basics of geology, it has been assumed that it takes
millions of years for gold ore to be a)............ Now investigations of a mysterious mine at the
center of a volcano on Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea are changing all that. []The
discoveries are not only changing our understanding of the processes that lead to the formation of
b)...........deposits, they could also transform the way c)............search for their precious prize.
Gold is hard to find, of course; if it wasnt, it wouldnt be so d)............. Normally scattered
through the Earths e)...........at trace levels, it sometimes becomes concentrated in deposits
containing myriad metallic specks, usually too small to be seen with the naked eye. A variety of
mechanisms are involved in the formation of these deposits, everything from highly pressurized
rocks oozing gold-rich fluid deep f)............, to rivers leaving traces of gold residue on their
g)............. .
The precious staff can also be deposited by hot h)............and other hydrothermal systems in
which water from deep underground, heated by molten rock or i)............., rises to the surface
carrying j).............gold with it. It is now estimated that one-fifth of all gold deposits in the world,
including the one on Lihir Island, are formed this way.

2. In the following gapped text decide which fragments (a-d) best fit each space
(1-4).
The recent magnitude-9.1 earthquake in Sumatra and the devastating tsunami that followed
killed some 300,000 people. That extraordinary loss of life has focused attention on the
earthquakes and their power to move water. But large volumes of volcanic debris falling into the

sea can also generate devastating tsunamis, multiplying the effect of a volcanic collapse far
beyond the avalanche itself. 1
The most catastrophic volcano-related tsunami in recorded history took place in 1792. The
collapse of Mayu-yama lava dome at Unzen volcano, in Southern Japan, caused a debris
avalanche that rocked the Ariake Sea. Tsunamis inundated the city of Shimabara as far as the
gates of its castle, and swept along a forty-three-mile long segment of the Shimabara Peninsula.
2..
But the event pales in comparison with the size of what the collapse of massive oceanic island
volcanoes would cause. The huge volcanoes in Hawaii, the Canaries, and the West Indies, for
instance, are several orders of magnitude larger than Mayu-yama lava dome. Seafloor studies
around those island volcanoes indicate that massive deposits of debris from avalanches ring the
islands as far out as 150 miles.
Two kinds of island and underwater collapses have been identified: slumps and debris avalanches.
Large slumps typically creep slowly, though occasionally they lurch a few feet in response to an
earthquake without substantially disrupting the volcano. 3..............
The massive volume of submarine landslides can create very large tsunamis, often called mega
tsunamis. Rocks with coral deposits 230 feet above sea level on Molokai and 1,200 feet on the
top of Lanai in the state of Hawaii have been interpreted as tsunami deposits. Some controversy
remains, though, in part because the rates of uplift and subsidence of those islands since the time
of collapse are not well known. 4
Models and computer simulations of how tsunamis propagate after large underwater landslides
have focused primarily on the Hawaiian Islands and on one volcano in the Canary Islands:
Cumbre Vieja on La Palma.

The fragments are:

a) The waves then traveled across the bay, washing away nearly 6,000 houses and 1,600 fishing
boats along another seventy-five miles of shoreline. About 14,500 people were killed.
b) Debris avalanches, in contrast, move at high speed, and they often transport fragmented debris
over long distances, including blocks as large as six miles wide. The surface topography of such a
debris field on the sea floor is comparable to that deposited by terrestrial avalanches.
c) Out of roughly 25, 000 fatalities from large volcanic landslides in historic times, nearly fourfifths of them resulted not from debris avalanches themselves or the associated volcanic
eruptions, but from tsunamis.
d) At Kohala volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, however, where height changes have been well
documented, tsunami deposits were likely carried between 1,100 and 1,600 feet above sea level
when neighboring Mauna Loa volcano collapsed.

3. Read the text below and answer the questions in the space provided.
According to the conventional view, from soon after its formation about 4.5 billion years ago
until 2 to 2.5 billion years ago, Mars was a watery world like Earth, with luxuriant seas, perhaps
even an ocean, that might have supported life. These large bodies of water were gradually lost
through climate change, caused by a decline in volcanic activity and the whittling away of the
planets atmosphere by radiation from the sun. Some water remained frozen in the polar caps, but
most drained into the rocks and froze. While there can be no misleading that water did exist on
Mars in large quantities, as new information from Marss many probes and landers comes in, it is
looking increasingly likely that this simple tale isnt true. Instead, the warm, wet phase of Mars,
when life might have originated, was actually quite short-lived, lasting less than a billion years,

and was followed by a series of extreme conditions unlike any experienced on Earth. If this is
true, Marss reputation a once-habitable planet that may still harbor microscopic life is at stake. A
billion years might well have been long enough for life to emerge - indeed it appeared within that
time frame on Earth-but the speed with which those conditions vanished would have made it
much more difficult for that early life to truly establish itself.[] Since the planets were most
severely bombarded early in the formation of the solar system, and since lava from Marss
volcanoes can cover evidence of bombardment, Gerhard Neukum assumed that area with fewer
craters are younger.
a) How would have Mars looked at its formation?

b) What caused the climate to change on Mars?

c) Where did water supposedly disappear?

d) Which instruments are used by scientists to get information from/about Mars?

e) Within how many years did life appear on Earth?

f) What could have covered the evidence of asteroid collision on Mars?

III. Writing

30 minutes, 30 points

Write an essay of no more than 200 words on one of the following topic. Use the space
bellow.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling abroad?

Solutions:

I. Listening:
false.

1-true, 2-false, 3-false, 4-true, 5-true, 6-false, 7-true, 8-false, 9-false, 10-

10 points

II. Reading:

30 points

1. a) deposited, b) gold, c) prospects, d) valuable, e) crust, f) underground, g) banks, h)

springs, i) magma, j) dissolved.
2.
1.

1-c, 2-a, 3-b, 4-d

10 points (1p/item)

8 points (2p/item)

12 points (2p/item)

a) Mars would have loked like Earth with luxuriant seas taht might have supported life.
b) The climate change was the result of a decline in volcanic activity and of the disappearance of
the planets atmosphere.
c) The water drained into teh rocks and froze.
d) The scientists use probes and landers to get information about/from Mars.
e) Life apperaed within a billion years (from the planets formation).
f) Lava from Mars volcanoes can cover the evidence of the asteroid bombardment.
III. Writing:

30 points

IV. Speaking:

20 points

10 points each subject X 2.

The marking will start at 10 points.

Tape script:

On 22 January, international scientists produced a frightening 1,000-page report on global

warming. The 1990s were the warmest ten years for 1,000 years, they say. Temperatures
will go up even more quickly in the next 100 years. The sea will be 88 centimetres higher
than it is now. Millions of people in China, Bangladesh, Egypt and other places will lose
their homes in terrible floods. Why is this happening? And what can we do to stop it?
4

Most people agree that carbon dioxide in the air is the biggest problem. It is produced
when we burn gas and oil. In November 2000, 160 countries met in The Hague to discuss
this problem, but nothing was decided. Europe and China want to produce less carbon
dioxide. The USA, Australia, Canada, Russia and Japan disagree. They think that we
should just plant more trees. 'More trees will cool the world,' they say.
Other people don't believe that there is a problem at all. International oil companies are
paying scientists lots of money to prove that global warming doesn't exist. Their money
has also helped an oil man to become the President of the USA. George W Bush worked
in the oil industry for many years, 'I don't think global warming is a problem,' he says.
While governments do nothing, the world is getting hotter. There are more and more
disasters because of global warming. Last summer, the USA had the worst fires in its
history, and Northern Europe had its worst floods. In February 2000, heavy rain and
storms brought serious floods across southern Africa. Southern Botswana received 75%
of its usual yearly rainfall in only 3 days. Polar bears are dying near the North Pole
because the ice is melting. This is already making the sea higher. The north of Egypt, for
example, is losing 148 metres of land under the sea every year. There have been serious
droughts in North Korea (1997), Afghanistan (2000) and Sudan and Ethiopia (19982000). The Yellow River in China ran dry in 1998 and 1999. There have even been
reports of unusual illnesses in America: West Nile fever in Boston and malaria in New
York.
Is there any hope for the future? Some people think that solar and wind energy is the
answer. Germany already has 100,000 solar roofs. The USA has plans for 1 million. But
there are some problems like carbon dioxide that countries cannot solve alone. Let's
hope that at the next meeting, governments will stop fighting and start working together.
If they don't do something now, what kind of world will there be for our grandchildren?