Practice CGE One Reading Skills Test
Reading Task 1: Sleep Suggested Time: 20 minutesSkim and scan the three articles on page 2 and answer questions 1 – 10.
Questions 1 – 5:
Instructions: Write the letter of the article that contains the following information.
1. Research into teenagers’ use of two types of cell phone______
2. The effect of sleep on young children and their ability to remember things______
3. Why it’s good to have some time without using an electronic device before sleeping ______
4. Details about how many hours teenagers sleep______
5. Something that mothers and fathers can do to help their young children______
Questions 6 - 10
Instructions: Answer the following questions using no more than five words or a number.
6. What percentage of 15 year olds slept for at least seven hours a night in 2012?______
7. Which organization gives advice about how much sleep young people need?______
8. What is one health problem that teenagers may suffer from if they don’t sleep enough? ______
9. How old were the babies who took part in the study at the University of Sheffield?______
10. How many students took part in the research carried out at the University of Basel?______
Article A
Teenagers in the US are increasingly getting less sleep than they should according to research carried out on 270,000 adolescents from 1991 to 2012. Students in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades took part in a survey. The researchers asked the teenagers how often they get seven or more hours of sleep a night. Generally, high school children are getting less sleep than they used to. Of the 15 year olds, 72 per cent reported regularly getting seven-plus hours of sleep per night in 1991. By 2012, in the same age group, only 63 per cent of the young people reported sleeping seven or more hours per night regularly.
Seven hours per night is two hours less than the nine hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Lack of sleep is linked with a wide range of problems including mental health issues, lower academic performance, and weight gain. “Although the reasons for the decrease in hours of sleep are unknown, it could be that increased internet or social media use and the pressures of trying to get a place at university are adding to the sleep problem,” the researchers noted.
Article B
He may only be nine years old, but Ali Al Muhairi is already making a name for himself as an inventor.Parents who read to their children before they go to bed at night might be doing just the right thing, according to researchers from the University of Sheffield. The researchers wanted to find out if sleep affects the learning and memory of young children. They carried out tests on 216 babies aged between six and twelve months. The babies were taught three new activities which involved playing with hand puppets. The researchers allowed half the babies to sleep soon after the activity while the others were kept awake. The next day, the researchers encouraged the babies to repeat what they had been taught. The results showed that, on average, the babies who had slept were able to complete one and a half of the tasks while those who hadn’t slept couldn’t do any of them. The connection between learning and sleep is not understood, but it could be that when we sleep the brain absorbs recent experience and information. This can help young children retain knowledge and ideas that they get from listening to stories.
‘Fewer parents read bedtime stories to their children these days but if they knew the benefits, maybe more parents would do this,’ said Dr. John Kent from the research team. ‘We hope to carry out further studies on different age groups.’
Article C
A recent study has shown that teenagers who spend time online at night are more likely to suffer from sleep problems and daytime tiredness than those who limit their online activity at this time. Researchers from University of Basel in Switzerland questioned more than 300 students. They wanted to find out about teenagers’ use of smartphones compared to those who use conventional (older style) mobile phones. Not surprisingly, the researchers discovered that teenagers who own smartphones spend more time online, especially during the night. The study found that, on average, teenagers who have smartphones spend twice as much time online compared to those who use conventional phones. In addition, only 17 per cent of smartphone owners switched their devices off or put them on silent during the night compared to 47 per cent of the teenagers with conventional mobile phones.
The researchers recommend that teenagers should switch off their digital media devices at least one hour before bedtime. This allows the brain to slowly relax so the person is ready to sleep. It also improves their quality of sleep, which results in the person feeling more refreshed when they wake up.
Skim and scan the text on page 4 and answer questions 11 – 20.
Questions 11 – 14
Instructions: Write the letter of the paragraph that contains the following information.
11. Reasons why some malls are built outside the center of the city______
12. The origins of the products sold______
13. Security in the mall______
14. How people paid for the things they bought______
Questions 15 - 17
Instructions:Answer the following questions using no more than four words and/or numbers.
15. In Trajan’s Market there were shops and______.
16. What could people see on the walls of the shops in Trajan’s market?______
17. What is one busy time of day in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar?______
Questions 18 - 20
Instructions: Decide if the sentences are true (T), false (F) or not given (NG).
18. Trajan’s Market is the oldest of the three malls described in the text. ______
19. Tehran’s Grand Bazaar included places where people could stay.______
20. The Mall of America contains exactly five hundred and twenty shops.______
Shopping Malls Then and Now
A. The last time you bought something, did you go to a small shop in town or a shopping mall? Probably you chose to go to a shopping mall because of the choice of shops under one roof or because it is more comfortable than shopping outside when the weather is very hot. People’s shopping habits and the places where they shop have changed over the centuries and some ancient shopping centers are still in use today.
B. In ancient Rome, people shopped in forums, which were large open public places located in the center of the city. One of the earliest shopping centers was Trajan’s Market in Rome, built in 107-110 BCE when Trajan ruled Rome. Trajan’s Market was a complex of buildings in the governmental area ofRome. The shops were located on the lower levels and the upper levels were used for management offices. There was a total of 150 shops and they were often decorated with pictures of the goods sold there. Customers paid with tokens they bought before they started shopping. The principal products sold at the market would have come from across theRoman Empire and included fruit, vegetables, fish, oil, and spices such aspepper.
C. One example of an ancient shopping centre still in use today is the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran. The current bazaar dates back to the 19th century although its roots go back much further. There are several entrances into the bazaar, some of which are locked and guarded at night. In addition to shops, the Grand Bazaar used to contain banks, mosques and guest houses. Originally, Tehran’s Grand Bazaar consisted of long corridors, each specializing in different types of goods, includingcopper, carpets, paper, spices and valuable metals, as well as small traders selling all types of goods. Some of these corridors are over 10 km long! These specialized areas still survive today although modern products are also sold in the bazaar. The bazaar is busiest around noon, and between 17:00 and 19:00.
D. Shopping malls in North America have developed in a different way. In the past, people went into city centres to shop. However, in the 20th century, as more people bought cars, driving into the city centre became difficult because of the traffic and crowded parking areas. Developers decided to create shopping areas away from the city centre where shoppers could drive their cars and park and have all the shops they needed under one roof. The most famous mall in the USA is probably the Mall of America which is located in Bloomington, Minnesota. It opened in 1992 and receives over 42 million visitors annually. The Mall of America has over 520 stores and employs over 11,000 workers. Google Maps has even made indoor maps for it.
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