International Summer Programme
English Language Placement Test
For applications for Short Summer Courses
Please complete this if you do not have an official English Language score such as IELTS or TOEFL.
Your details
Surname/Family name:First names:
Course applied for:
I confirm that I did this test without any help.
I understand that I will be re-tested with a new placement test on arrival at OxfordBrookesUniversity. The result of this new test will be used to place me in a suitable class.
Applicant signature: / Date:
Instructions for completing the test
Spend ONE HOUR ONLY on the test with NO DICTIONARY and NO HELP.There are four passages which range in difficulty. The first three passages test your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and the last is a reading comprehension. The instructions for each passage are written at the beginning.
- Before you start each passage, read it through to get an idea of what it is about.
- Go back to the beginning and work through the passage filling in each blank space with a suitable word from the options after, or by thinking of the word yourself.
- When you have finished, read through the passage to make sure it makes sense.
International Summer School Administrator, Oxford Brookes International,
International Centre, Headington Campus, OxfordBrookesUniversity, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 1865 483874
Fax: + 44 (0) 1865 484377
Email:
For office use only
Score: / Level:Passage 1: Studying Abroad (multiple choice)
Choose a word from the list on the following page from the options available and write it in the space. There are 4 options for each number.
Studying in a foreign country can be a great experience- 1______you plan to stay for a few weeks, months or even years. You will need to do some research to 2______the right course and country for you and there are lots of websites which can help. Speaking to someone 3______has experience of that country can also be useful. Studying abroad gives you the 4______of a different kind of education and can develop language skills. It can also be valuable in terms of life experience but you 5______remember that that it can be difficult in a new culture.
You may find 6______are cultural differences in the classroom. Some people experience a 7______style of learning which requires students to speak more. 8______the number of students in a class can be surprising, especially if a student comes 9______a country with large class sizes to a country with smaller groups. The 10______way to prepare for differences is to keep an open mind.
Many people who 11______abroad discuss the benefits of a different classroom experience. You can 12______friends with different people in the new country and learn about a new culture. In fact 13______people can benefit from this friendship and sometimes this can lead to14______exchange, where the home student stays with the visiting student once they return to their country.
Studying abroad 15______more popular with students. In the past, many students 16______to the UK to learn English, 17______now English students are also studying abroad to learn a language and for the experience. As technology improves, the situation 18______the future may change. 19______students can study online in virtual classrooms, they will 20______a lot of money by not travelling to another country.
Studying abroad can be 21______good experience for students. Speak to lots of people 22______advice and remember 23______the country you plan to visit. After you 24______this, you can start to get 25______and look forward to learning in a new country.
1 / Whether / While / Because / Although2 / Know / Find / Learn / Look
3 / Who / Whom / Whose / Which
4 / Help / Benefit / Assistance / Allowance
5 / Could / Ought / Would / Should
6 / There / Their / They’re / They
7 / Complete different / Completely different / Completely / Difference
8 / Usually / Sometimes / Always / Never
9 / Into / To / From / Back
10 / Better / Good / Best / Much better
11 / Have studied / Has studied / Had study / Is studying
12 / Have / Make / Do / Get
13 / Either / Neither / Both / Every
14 / A / An / The / ---
15 / Becomes / Becoming / Are becoming / Is becoming
16 / Came / Come / Has come / Is coming
17 / Until / But / So / Still
18 / On / At / In / By
19 / Whether / Until / If / Although
20 / Lose / Earn / Save / Get
21 / Such a / A lot of / So / So many
22 / For getting / To get / Getting / Get
23 / Research / Researching / To research / For research
24 / Did / Done / Have done / Had done
25 / Excite / Excitement / Excited / Exciting
(25 marks)
Passage 2: Staying Healthy (open cloze)
Complete the following article by writing the missing word next to each number. You will need to think of the whole sentence to make sure the grammar of the sentence is accurate. There is only ONE word missing in each case.
Staying healthy in the modern world can be a challenge, particularly as 1______are fast food restaurants in every city centre, unlimited entertainment options 2______encourage inactivity, and medicines to treat most conditions. 3______a result it can be difficult to feel motivated to take responsibility for health. Making wise health choices can help someone 4______feel good on a daily basis and even prevent serious diseases.
5______first step for maintaining good health is eating right and getting enough exercise. It is often easier to understand this 6______do anything about. Making healthy food choices on a daily basis can be difficult and finding time to exercise can also 7______challenging.Exercise is not necessarily a priority when there is work to 8______done, children to care for and other chores to prioritise. 9______a person wants to stay healthy and happy, they must work hard to try to fit exercise into their routine 10______least three to five times each week.
Another part of a healthy life is keeping stress levels 11______control. There 12______many factors which contribute to stress and exercising will help,13______only up to a point. To control everyday stress, 14______has long-term effects on health, time 15______needed to relax on a regular basis. A great way to prevent bad stress is to be surrounded 16______positive people. This will help with someone’s own mood and provide a place for support 17______things are particularly tough.
A final method for staying healthy for a lifetime is to practise prevention. 18______of waiting until you become sick and then searching for a cure, 19______the advice given above to prevent ever facing illness. You must keep your body strong 20______that you can resistsickness and disease, and avoid a number of illnesses which would otherwise 21______a problem.
So the message is clear- have a healthy attitude, get plenty 22______rest and fresh air, and follow the steps mentioned to prevent minor illness and serious diseases. A long and healthy life will 23______the reward, and it is possible to save time, money and a 24______deal of pain by adopting 25______preventative attitude towards health.
(25 marks)
Passage 3: The Internet (multiple choice)
Choose a word from the list on the following page from the options available and write it in the space. There are 4 options for each number.
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks 1______billions of users worldwide. It is a network which 2______of millions of private, public, academic, business and government networks, which 3______by various electronic, wireless and optical technologies. Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film and television 4______reshaped or redefined by 5______Internet, creating a new range of services.
The Internet allows greater 6______in working hours and location, especially with the spread of free high-speed connections. It can be accessed almost 7______by numerous means, including through mobile phones. 8______the small screens may cause limitations, the services of the Internet, including email and the web, may be available. Service providers may 9______the services which are offered and mobile data charges may be 10______higher than other access methods.
Thelow cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills 11______working with other people dramatically easier. 12______can a group cheaply communicate and share ideas but the wide reach of the Internet allows groups to more 13______form. A social networking website allows colleagues to stay 14______in a very convenient way 15______working at their computers during the day.
Advancement in Internet technology has 16 ______concerns about computer security. 17______the Internet allows computer users to remotely access other computers and information stores easily, then it is 18______that secure measures are put in place. A 19______of different methods have been used to protect the transfer of data, including encryption, which is the process of encoding messages in such a way that hackers cannot read but 20______parties can.
Overall Internet usage has seen 21______growth and by 2010, 22% of the world’s population had access to computers. The 22______language for communication on the Internet has been English which may be a result of the 23______of the Internet, as well as the language’s role as a Lingua Franca. Although the Internet is 24______functional in terms of its use, some critics argue that it can have negative effects on individuals, 25 ______interfering with concentration and deep thinking which leads to creativity.
1 / Attaching / Linking / Tying / Fastening2 / Contains / Consists / Keeps / Controls
3 / Are linked / Is linked / Link / Linking
4 / Be / Being / Are being / Is being
5 / A / An / --- / The
6 / Flexible / Flexibility / Flexibly / Inflexible
7 / Somewhere / Anywhere / Elsewhere / Nowhere
8 / Although / Despite / In spite of / But
9 / Restricted / Restricting / Had restricted / Restrict
10 / Significant / Considerable / Significantly / sizeable
11 / Making / Made / Is made / Have made
12 / If only / Only / Not only / This
13 / Easily / Easy / Ease / Easiness
14 / By contact / Contact / By touch / In touch
15 / While / During / As / By
16 / Brought forward / Brought about / Carried out / Carried forward
17 / Whereas / If / When / Despite
18 / Severe / Vital / Essentially / Serious
19 / Range / Group / Collection / Cluster
20 / Appointed / Enabled / Authorised / Unauthorised
21 / Tremendous / Extending / Formidable / Marvelous
22 / Habitual / Rife / Prevalent / Outstanding
23 / Birth / Origin / Source / Establishment
24 / Uni- / Semi- / Multi- / Mono-
25 / Includes / Including / Encompass / Encompassing
(25 marks)
Passage 4: An awfully big adventure (Reading Comprehension)
Read the following newspaper article about an expedition and answer the 5 questions which follow. There is ONE correct answer for each question.
The TaklamakanDesert in western China is one of the last unexplored places on earth. It is also one of the most dangerous. Charles Blackmore crossed it, and lived to tell the tale.
There are very few big adventures left and very few heroes. Children’s stories used to specialise in them- courageous explorers with sunburnt, leathery skin and eyes narrowed by straining to see into far horizons on their journeys into the unknown. These days you no longer find such people in fiction, let alone in real life. Or so I thought until I met Charles Blackmore.
Blackmore’s great adventure consisted of leading an expedition across one of the last unexplored places on earth, the TaklamakanDesert in western China. Its name means ‘once entered you never come out’, but local people call it the Desert of Death. He recalled the dangers and the exhilaration of that amazing trek, in the calm atmosphere of his family home.
The team he led was composed of four Britons (one of them the party’s medical officer), an American photographer, four Chinese (all experts on the area), 30 camels and six camel handlers. It later turned out that the camel handlers had never worked with camels before, but were long-distant lorry drivers: a misunderstanding that could have cost everyone their lives and certainly jeopardised the expedition’s success. The mixed bunch set out to cross 1,200 kilometres of the world’s least hospitable desert and Charles Blackmore has written a mesmerising account of their journey.
At the time, he was about to leave the Army after 14 happy years. He launched the expedition for fun, to fill a gap in his life, to prove something. ‘I had always assumed I’d spend my whole life in the Army. I had been offered promotion but suddenly I felt I wanted to see who Charles Blackmore really was, outside all that. It was a tremendous gamble. Tina, my wife, was very worried that I wouldn’t come back as nobody had ever done that route; we went into it blind. In the event, it took 59 days to cross from west to east, and the desert was very kind to us.
Anyone reading his extraordinary account of that crossing will wonder at the use of the word ‘kind’. The team suffered unspeakable hardships: dysentery; extremes of temperature; severe thirst and dehydration; the loss of part of their precious water supply. ‘But’, Blackmore explains, ‘when we were at the limits of our own endurance and the camels had gone without water for seven days, we managed to find some. We didn’t experience the Taklamakan’s legendary sandstorms. And we never hit the raw, biting desert cold that would have totally immobilised us. That’s not to say that we weren’t fighting against hurdles the whole time. The fine sand got into everything, especially blisters and wounds. The high dunes were torture to climb, for us and for the heavily laden camels, which often rolled over onto us’.
‘I knew I had the mental stamina for the trip but I was very scared of my physical ability to do it. I remember one day- we sat at the edge of the desert and it was such an inferno that you couldn’t breathe. I thought, “We’ve got to do it now!” At that moment I was a very scared man.
If it was like that at the beginning, how did they feel towards the end? ‘When you’ve walked for 1,000 kilometers you’re not going to duck out. You’ve endured so much; you’ve got so much behind you. We were very thin, but very muscular and sinewy despite our physical exhaustion. My body was well-toned and my legs were like pistons. I could walk over anything’.
So now that the expedition is over, and having endured the challenges presented by such an inhospitable place, has Charles Blackmore found peace? ‘I yearn for the challenge- for the open spaces- the resolve of it all. We were buoyed up by the sense of purpose. I find it difficult now to be part of the uniformity of modern life’.
(Adapted from CAE past examination papers 5)
Choose ONE answer (A,B,C or D) for each question.
(There are 5 marks for each question)
1. Meeting Charles Blackmore changed the writer’s opinion about: 1. ANSWER: ______
A the nature of children’s fiction.
B the nature of desert exploration.
C the existence of traditional heroes.
D the activities of explorers.
2. When the expedition members set off, some of the group 2. ANSWER: ______
A posed an unexpected risk.
B disagreed with each other.
C were doubtful of success.
D went on ahead of the others.
3. Blackmore had decided to set up the expedition because 3.ANSWER: ______
A he was certain he could complete it.
B he wanted to write a book.
C his aims in life had changed.
D his self- confidence was low.
4. Which of the following best describes the team’s experience of the desert? 4.ANSWER: ______
A They were not able to have enough rest.
B It presented continual difficulties.
C They sometimes could not make any progress at all.
D It was worse than they had expected.
5. How does Blackmore feel now that the expedition is over?5. ANSWER: ______
A tired but pleased to be home
B regretful about his family’s distress
C unsure of his ability to repeat it
D unsettled by the experience
(25 marks)
END OF TEST
Total mark for paper: 100 marks
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