CPE ENTRY TEST

It involves telling the truth 1 ………… the time, with no exceptions for hurt feelings.. In a recent survey of Americans, 93 per cent 8 ………… to lying ‘regularly and habitually’ in the work

Mark Harrison

2

Oxford Entry Test

CPE

Timing: 1 hour 30 minutes

Part Task Type Number of Number of Test Format Similar tasks in

containing 15 gaps Part 1 Grammatical /

lexico-grammatical

Each gap corresponds to Part 2

missing words are given beside the text and must be transformed to provide the missing word

3 Four-option multiple- 12 12 Two modified cloze texts, Reading Part 1

Each text contains six gaps

complementation, questions

phrasal verbs,

semantic precision

paragraphs have been

from where in the text the paragraphs have been removed

Content / detail,

opinion, attitude,

tone, purpose,

main idea, implication,

text organisation

features

(exemplification,

comparison, reference)

Reproduced by permission of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate

© Oxford University Press

CONTENTS

Page 3

R adical honesty therapy, (0) ………… it is known in the US, is the latest thing to be

held up as the key to happiness and success It involves telling the truth

(1) ………… the time, with no exceptions for hurt feelings But this is not as easy as it (2) ………… sound Altruistic lies, (3) ………… than the conniving, self-aggrandising variety, are

an essential part of polite society.

‘We all lie (4) ………… mad It wears us (5) ………… It is the major source of all human stress,’

says Brad Blanton, psychotherapist and founder of the Centre for Radical Honesty He has become

a household (6) ………… in the US, where he spreads his message via day-time television talk shows He certainly has his work cut out (7) ………… him In a recent survey of Americans, 93 per cent (8) ………… to lying ‘regularly and habitually’ in the workplace Dr Blanton is typically blunt about the consequences of (9) ………… deceitful ‘Lying kills people,’ he says.

Dr Blanton is adamant that minor inconveniences are (10) ………… at all compared with the

huge benefits of truth telling ‘Telling the truth, especially after hiding it for a long time,

(11) ………… guts It isn’t easy But it is better than the alternative.’ (12) ………… , he believes,

is the stress of living ‘in the prison of the mind,’ which (13) ………… in depression and ill health.

‘Your body stays tied up (14) ………… knots and is susceptible to illness,’ he says ‘Allergies, high blood pressure and insomnia are all (15) ………… worse by lying Good relationship skills,

parenting skills and management skills are also dependent on telling the truth.’

as

For questions 1–15, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space Use only one word in each space There is an example at the beginning (0) Write your answers in

CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 A S

Is Honesty The Best Policy?

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PART 2

For questions 16–25, read the text below Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines

to form a word that fits in the space in the same line There is an example at the beginning (0) Write your answers in CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 R E F E R E N C E

The DICTIONARY of NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Just over one hundred years ago, the last volume of a tremendous work of

(0) ………… entitled The Dictionar y of National Biography rolled off

the printing presses (16) ………… , this 21-volume shelf-filler may

not immediately sound like the most thrilling read in the world As

enter tainment, you might imagine it ranks some way below a

(17) ………… autobiography But you would be very, very wrong.

The DNB, like the Oxford English Dictionary, is one of the great monuments to

British culture and also a hugely enjoyable work in its own right It is, quite simply,

an (18) ………… dictionary of potted biographies of all the notable men and

women who had lived in Britain since the year dot It was produced between

1885 and 1900, and it remains (19) ………… an achievement of the Victorian

period, richly redolent of 19th century confidence and (20) ………… , energy

and optimism It is also a monument to the enormous variety of the British

national character, and the dictionary is immeasurably (21) ………… by this

aspect There are not only great statesmen, generals, writers, but also hundreds

of wonderfully (22) ………… characters, who you can discover only by leafing

idly through a volume of the DNB on a wet afternoon down at your local library.

The way in which the DNB was produced was very British too: on a shoestring,

out of sheer dedication, and with no state (23) ………… whatsoever It was the

private endeavour of a group of (24) ………… , scholars and freelance

journalists, as (25) ………… to, for instance, the Austrian equivalent, produced

under the oppressive auspices of the Imperial Academy of Vienna.

REFER ADMIT

POLITICS

ALPHABET

EMPHASIS CAPABLE

RICH

COLOUR

INTERFERE ENTHUSE OPPOSE

reference

For questions 26–37, read the two texts below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Al Gross – Inventor

AL GROSS, WHO DIED IN 2001 IN ARIZONA, US, aged 82, was the inventor of the walkie-talkie and the telephone pager, and devised the essential technology used in cordless and mobile telephones Another of his inventions, the lightweight ground-to-air transmitter, was used to great (26) ………… by Allied troops during the Second World War (27) ………… another, the two-way wrist-watch transmitter, (28) ………… the eye of the cartoonist Chester Gould, who gave it to Dick Tracy In 1948, the comic strip detective began his career as a crime fighter with the help of a two-way wrist radio.

But Gross himself was too far (29) ………… his time to make much money from his electronic inventions When, in 1949, he suggested that his pager could be of great assistance to the medical profession, doctors (30) ………… that the beeping devices would upset their patients, and might interrupt their (31) ………… of golf Today, there are more than 300 million pagers in use around the world.

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Intelligent Chickens

A lthough chickens might not (32) ………… most people’s list of clever animals,

their particular abilities can sometimes be surprisingly impressive For example, they can (33) ………… to a challenge Readers may be impressed by the chicken that learnt to peck a key to (34) ………… access to a perch suspended over a tank of water It then crossed the perch, pulled a string three times to unlock a door, turned right

at a T-junction, and jumped across water to reach a nestbox

However, this is a crude anthropomorphic example of animal intelligence In fact most animals can be trained to perform (35) ………… complex tasks with the promise of a food reward Dr Christine Nicol of the University of Bristol trained the performing chicken

to (36) ………… just this point She says that it is not possible to measure intelligence

on a single scale However, what has impressed her most about chickens is how they can teach and learn Hens, it seems, recognise when their chicks eat the wrong thing, and intensely peck and scratch at better foods to demonstrate correct conduct They are also, she says, ‘rather good at (37) ………… new behaviours by watching each other’.

34 A take B gain C land D hold

35 A presentably B suggestively C seemingly D externally

37 A bringing off B picking up C catching on D making out

You are going to read an extract from a novel Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract.

Choose from the paragraphs A–H the one which fits each gap (38–44) There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Trip to Tonbridge

Lisa was frantic to come up with someone she

could visit A girl called Buzz she had once met was

the only person she could think of She had had a

letter from Buzz some months before, saying she

was living alone in a Volkswagen van in a field

outside Tonbridge She had invited Lisa to visit ‘Just

turn up Any time.’ Lisa searched frantically for the

letter It contained a list of directions.

Lisa felt confident the right one would reveal itself

to her.The train journey might jog it into place She

gave up on her search for the letter and prepared

to be away for up to a week She packed a bag and

left a note for her mother The train to Tonbridge

took just under an hour Lisa spent the entire

journey matching buses with numbers until she

began to feel sick with the effort She decided that

once she had got off the train, everything would

come back to her.

But when Lisa handed in her ticket and went out

into the station forecourt, there was nothing in sight

that looked even remotely familiar She stood

dolefully on the concrete strip of pavement and

wondered which way she should go.There wasn’t a

bus in sight.The people who had travelled with her

disappeared into taxis and waiting cars and were

sped away.

Lisa turned away from it and continued to walk

down the hill, which soon evened out into a straight

high street of shops, all closed up for the night In the

distance, she could see that the road twisted away

out of sight.

But when she reached the point where the road curved, she found she had to cross a wooden bridge over a wide and noisy river, and on the other side, around the corner, there wasn’t in fact a bus stop at all, but the ruins of a dimly lit medieval castle that no one, no one at all, could forget to mention Lisa turned abruptly and began to walk back the way she’d come She kept walking until she had walked right out through the other side of the town She walked past a church and then the road sloped

up a hill.

Despite this doubt, she carried on, until there were

no more street lights The hill, with its overgrown hedges, now lay shrouded in an eerie night So she traced her way back towards the church.There was

a pub near it with warm, orange light seeping through its windows.

Lisa went over and peered through a window The glass was frosted and gave nothing away She was about to edge her way through the doors when a contingent of bikers roared to a halt in the car park and began to dismount Lisa flattened herself against the wall of the porch and, as they got off their bikes, she slipped away around the side of the pub Once

on the safety of the road, she resumed her walk back into the town centre.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that that was true And she knew what

it was going to be She would meet someone on the train Someone with whom she could mark this day

as the beginning of the rest of her life Someone to fall in love with.

44

43 42 41

40

39

38

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A She imagined Buzz sitting inside with a drink

and a table covered with packets of

cheese-and-onion crisps She longed to see her

smiling, freckled face, and her twinkling eyes

clogged almost shut with mascara She

imagined her at a table of men all vying for

attention

B Lisa had to accept that it was unlikely now

anything was going to occur to change this

day from the failure that it was She kept her

head down as she wandered out She was

ashamed to be back there again so soon

C And then she felt sure she remembered ‘Get

off the train, go down a hill, round a corner

and there will be a bus stop.’ She repeated

this to herself over and over as she walked

on, frightened that these valuable directions

would slip away now that she’d finally got a

hold of them

D Lisa asked someone the way to the centre of

town, and was pointed wordlessly down the

sharp slope of a hill where almost

immediately she came upon a bus stop Her

heart leapt as she scanned the timetable, but

there were so many buses listed and with

such foreign-sounding destinations that she

felt sure it couldn’t be the right stop

E She started to convince herself that she had

made this journey before That she would

know her way to the tobacconist and the

sweetshop and the park in the centre of

town, like a man in a film she had once seen

The man, who had lost his memory during

the war, was astounded to find he knew his

way around a sleepy, sepia-coloured village

It emerged that it was the village he had been

born in

F It was almost utterly deserted now She stared wistfully into the faces of the occasional passers-by Mostly young couples wandering aimlessly hand in hand There was no one scruffy or wild enough to look as if they were a friend of Buzz’s Lisa clutched the return ticket lying deep in the bottom of her pocket, and headed for the station The last train to London didn’t leave until ten to ten and she sat down on a bench

to wait ‘Something good has to happen,’ she told herself

G Get a train from Charing Cross, it began She remembered that She could remember the rhythm of the directions but not the actual words Get a train from Charing Cross, get off at Tonbridge, walk into the tum te tum – the town centre? the bus station? Get the number something bus, up a hill, get off, climb over a gate and there’s a field Get the number 9 bus? The number 19 bus? The 92?

H It was possible this might have been the one Buzz had meant in her letter, but if it was the one with the field off it, then why would she have told her to catch a bus when there was

no bus or bus stop?

You are going to read a magazine article For questions 45–50, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

SIMPLE – it’s all in the mind

TONY BUZAN IS HIS OWN BEST ADVERTISEMENT

when he claims that his latest book can teach you not only

how to be brilliant with words, but also to be fitter, live

longer and be happier He has transformed himself from a

promising but not outstanding schoolboy into a man with

an IQ at genius level, who has contributed to more than 80

books on the brain and is consulted by universities,

business organisations and governments Some 250

million people worldwide have already benefited from his

Mind Maps, a diagrammatic learning tool that helps the

brain to store and recall information

In his latest book, Head First, subtitled, ‘10 ways to tap into

your natural genius’, he redefines intelligence to include

not only the familiar verbal, numerical and spatial

benchmarks measured by IQ tests, but other skills such as

creative, social, spiritual and physical intelligence, to

which he gives equal weight Developing these, he claims,

will bring confidence, self-awareness and personal

fulfilment And with this transformation will come

physical benefits – less stress, a stronger immune system

and even a longer life It is estimated that we use around

one per cent of our brain, so there is plenty of scope for

improvement ‘I have fallen into the usual traps of

thinking that IQ was the be-all and end-all, that being

academic was better than being artistic and that art and

music were unteachable gifts,’ admits Buzan, 58 ‘Bit by bit,

I have come to know better This book is a compact history

of my revelations.’

The first moment of truth came when Buzan was at

primary school After scoring 100 per cent in a nature test,

he found himself top of the A-stream His best friend

knew far more about ecology than Buzan, but was bottom

of the D-stream ‘That started me wondering Later, I

became aware that many of the so-called intelligent people

I knew did not seem very bright at all They were brilliant

at words and numbers, but not particularly interesting to

be with, or happy with themselves or even successful I

began working with children and found that many were

like my best friend They were amazing, but they were not

able to express their brilliance at school For instance, I

spoke to a boy of eight who had been marked down in an

‘intelligence test’ for ticking a picture of the earth when

asked which image was the odd one out – sun, moon,

lemon or earth When I asked him why he had done this,

he looked at me as if I were an idiot and said: ‘Because the

earth is the only one that is blue.’ At that point I wondered who was the fool – the eight-year-old ‘slow learner’ or the university lecturer If we had measured the process by which the child had reached his answer – instead of the expected response – we would have realised the beautiful, sophisticated intelligence behind it.’

Identifying and developing this kind of undervalued intelligence is Buzan’s mission His starting point is that all people have the potential to excel if they can only rid themselves of the barriers placed in their way by upbringing, education and society’s belief systems and expectations The first obstacle to overcome is lack of self-belief Buzan describes how his marks in maths soared at secondary school after he was told he was in the top one per cent of the population in the subject ‘I realised that what I thought about my ability in a subject affected how well I did.’ The second hurdle is the conviction most of us have that certain skills – art, music and numerical ability – are gifts from heaven, conferred only on the naturally talented few Buzan disputes this, claiming that all we have

to do is learn the appropriate ‘alphabet’ If we can learn to copy, he insists, we can learn to draw ‘It is the same with music The most sophisticated musical instrument is the human voice Many people think they cannot sing But everybody sings without realising it It’s called talking Listen to somebody speaking a foreign language of which you know no vocabulary; it is pure music.’ Buzan’s third lesson is the recognition that we are all intelligent; otherwise, we could not survive ‘There is only one true intelligence test,’ he says, ‘and that is life on planet Earth Sitting in a room answering questions is not as difficult as survival Every day, we are confronted with new problems that we learn to handle.’

Head First offers a template for each of the 10 kinds of

intelligence, including a definition, an outline of its benefits and lots of exercises ‘Think of each of your multiple intelligences as a finger on a pair of wonderfully adept and agile piano-playing hands You can play life’s music with just two fingers, but if you use all 10 you can play a concerto where each one supplements and enhances

the others The Moonlight Sonata will sound OK with two

fingers But it sounds much better with 10.’