LISTENING

P AR T 1 Questions 1–10
Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Bankside Recruitment Agency

• Address of agency:497 Eastside, Docklands
• Name of agent: Becky 1 JAMIESON
• Phone number: 07866 510333
• Best to call her in the 2 afternoon

Typical jobs
• Clerical and admin roles, mainly in the finance industry
• Must have good 3 business skills communication
• Jobs are usually for at least one 4 week
• Pay is usually 5 £ 8 10 per hour

Registration process
• Wear a 6 suit to the interview
• Must bring your 7 book to the interview passport
• They will ask questions about each applicant’s 8 personality

Advantages of using an agency

• The 9 performent you receive at interview will benefit you feedback
• Will get access to vacancies which are not advertised
• Less 10 time is involved in applying for jobs

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 PA R T 2 Questions 11–20
Questions 11–14

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

Matthews Island Holidays

11 According to the speaker, the company
__
A has been in business for longer than most of its competitors.
___
B arranges holidays to more destinations than its competitors.
C has more customers than its competitors.
12 Where can customers meet the tour manager before travelling to the Isle of Man?
A Liverpool
B Heysham
__
C Luton
__
13 How many lunches are included in the price of the holiday?
__
A three
B four
C five
14 Customers have to pay extra for
A guaranteeing themselves a larger room.
B booking at short notice.
__
C transferring to another date.

Questions 15–20

Complete the table below.

Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Timetable for Isle of Man holiday

Activity Notes

Introduction by manager
Day 1 Arrive
Hotel dining room has view of the
15 river

Tynwald may have been founded in

Day 2 Tynwald Exhibition and Peel
16 1422 not 979.

Travel along promenade in a tram;

Day 3 Trip to Snaefell train to Laxey; train to the
17 mountain of Snaefell top

Company provides a
Day 4 Free day 18 travel for local pass
transport and heritage sites.

Free time, then coach to Castletown

Take the 19 steam railway
Day 5
train from Douglas to Port Erin
– former 20 capital has old
castle.

Day 6 Leave Leave the island by ferry or plane

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 P ART 3 Questions 21–30
Questions 21–26

What did findings of previous research claim about the

personality traits a child is likely to have because of their
position in the family?

Choose SIX answers from the box and write the correct letter, A–H, next to
Questions 21–26.

Personality Traits
A outgoing
B selfish
C independent
D attention-seeking
E introverted
F co-operative
G caring
H competitive

Position in family
21 the eldest child G
22 a middle child F
B
23 the youngest child A
C E
24 a twin
25 an only child D C
26 a child with much older siblings E C

Questions 27 and 28

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

27 What do the speakers say about the evidence relating to birth order and academic
success?
A There is conflicting evidence about whether oldest children perform best in
intelligence tests.
B
__ There is little doubt that birth order has less influence on academic
achievement than socio-economic status.
__
C Some studies have neglected to include important factors such as family size.
28 What does Ruth think is surprising about the difference in oldest children’s
academic performance?
A It is mainly thanks to their roles as teachers for their younger siblings.
__
B The advantages they have only lead to a slightly higher level of achievement.
C The extra parental attention they receive at a young age makes little
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Questions 29 and 30

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Which TWO experiences of sibling rivalry do the speakers agree has been valuable
for them?
A learning to share
B
__ learning to stand up for oneself
C learning to be a good loser
__
D learning to be tolerant
E
__ learning to say sorry

PA RT 4 Questions 31–40
Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

The Eucalyptus Tree in Australia

Importance
• it provides 31 shelter and food for a wide range of species
• its leaves provide 32 oil which is used to make a disinfectant

Reasons for present decline in number

A) Diseases
(i) ‘Mundulla Yellows’
• Cause – lime used for making 33 roads was absorbed
– trees were unable to take in necessary iron through their roots
(ii) ‘Bell-miner Associated Die-back’
• Cause – 34 Detroy feed on eucalyptus leaves insects
– they secrete a substance containing sugar
– bell-miner birds are attracted by this and keep away other species
B) Bushfires
William Jackson’s theory:
• high-frequency bushfires have impact on vegetation, resulting in the growth
of 35 grass
• mid-frequency bushfires result in the growth of eucalyptus forests, because
they:
– make more 36 water available to the trees
– maintain the quality of the 37
• low-frequency bushfires result in the growth of 38 ‘ dry rainforest’,
which is:
– a 39 simple ecosystem
– an ideal environment for the 40 next nest of the bell-miner

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READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.

Nutmeg – a valuable spice

The nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, is a large evergreen tree native to Southeast Asia.
Until the late 18th century, it only grew in one place in the world: a small group of
islands in the Banda Sea, part of the Moluccas – or Spice Islands – in northeastern
Indonesia. The tree is thickly branched with dense foliage of tough, dark green oval
__________________________________________________-
leaves, and produces small, yellow, bell-shaped flowers and pale yellow pear-shaped
_______________________________________________________________
fruits. The fruit is encased in a fleshy husk. When
_____ the fruit is ripe, this husk splits into two
_______________________________
halves along a ridge running the length of the fruit. Inside is a purple-brown shiny seed,
_________________________________-
2–3 cm long by about 2 cm across, surrounded by a lacy red or crimson covering called
an ‘aril’. These are the sources of the two spices nutmeg and mace, the former being
produced from the dried seed and the latter from the aril.

Nutmeg was a highly prized and costly ingredient in European cuisine in_______________
the Middle
Ages, and was used as a flavouring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Throughout this
___________________________________________
period, the Arabs were the exclusive importers of the spice to Europe. They sold nutmeg
for high prices to merchants based in Venice, but they never revealed the exact location
of the source of this extremely valuable commodity. The Arab-Venetian dominance of
the trade finally ended in 1512, when the Portuguese reached the Banda Islands and
began exploiting its precious resources.

Always in danger of competition from neighbouring Spain, the Portuguese began

subcontracting their spice distribution to Dutch traders. Profits began to flow into the
Netherlands, and the Dutch commercial fleet swiftly grew into one of the largest in the
world. The Dutch quietly gained control of most of the shipping and trading of spices in
Northern Europe. Then, in 1580, Portugal fell under Spanish rule, and by the end of the
16th century the Dutch found themselves locked out of the market. As prices for pepper,
nutmeg, and other spices soared across Europe, they decided to fight back.

In 1602, Dutch merchants founded the VOC, a trading corporation better known as the
Dutch East India Company. By 1617, the VOC was the richest commercial operation in
the world. The company had 50,000 employees worldwide, with a private army of 30,000
men and a fleet of 200 ships. At the same time, thousands of people across Europe were

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dying of the plague, a highly contagious and deadly disease. Doctors were desperate for
a way to stop the spread of this disease, and they decided nutmeg held the cure.
Everybody wanted nutmeg, and many were willing to spare no expense to have it.
Nutmeg bought for a few pennies in Indonesia could be sold for 68,000 times its
original cost on the streets of London. The only problem was the short supply. And
that’s where the Dutch found their opportunity.

The Banda Islands were ruled by local sultans who insisted on maintaining a neutral
trading policy towards foreign powers. This allowed them to avoid the presence of
Portuguese or Spanish troops on their soil, but it also left them unprotected from other
invaders. In 1621, the Dutch arrived and took over. Once securely in control of the
Bandas, the Dutch went to work protecting their new investment. They concentrated all
nutmeg production into a few easily guarded areas, uprooting and destroying any trees
outside the plantation zones. Anyone caught growing a nutmeg seedling or carrying
seeds without the proper authority was severely punished. In addition, all exported
nutmeg was covered with lime to make sure there was no chance a fertile seed
which could be grown elsewhere would leave the islands. There was only one obstacle
to Dutch domination. One of the Banda Islands, a sliver of land called Run, only 3 km
long by less than 1 km wide, was under the control of the British. After decades of
fighting for control of this tiny island, the Dutch and British arrived at a compromise
settlement, the Treaty of Breda, in 1667. Intent on securing their hold over every
nutmeg-producing island, the Dutch offered a trade: if the British would give them the
island of Run, they would in turn give Britain a distant and much less valuable island in
North America. The British agreed. That other island was Manhattan, which is how New
Amsterdam became New York. The Dutch now had a monopoly over the nutmeg trade
which would last for another century.

Then, in 1770, a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre successfully smuggled nutmeg plants
to safety in Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa. Some of these were later
exported to the Caribbean where they thrived, especially on the island of Grenada. Next,
in 1778, a volcanic eruption in the Banda region caused a tsunami that wiped out half
the nutmeg groves. Finally, in 1809, the British returned to Indonesia and seized the
Banda Islands by force. They returned the islands to the Dutch in 1817, but not before
transplanting hundreds of nutmeg seedlings to plantations in several locations across
southern Asia. The Dutch nutmeg monopoly was over.

Today, nutmeg is grown in Indonesia, the Caribbean, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea
and Sri Lanka, and world nutmeg production is estimated to average between 10,000
and 12,000 tonnes per year.

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Questions 1–4
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1–4 on your answer sheet.

The nutmeg tree and fruit

 the leaves of the tree are 1………………

oval in shape
 the 2 ……………..
husk surrounds the fruit and breaks open when the fruit
is ripe
 the 3 ………………
aril seed is used to produce the spice nutmeg
 the covering known as the aril is used to produce 4 ………………
mace
 the tree has yellow flowers and fruit

Questions 5–7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 5–7 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

5 In the Middle Ages, most Europeans knew where nutmeg was grown. False
6 The VOC was the world’s first major trading company. Not given
7 Following the Treaty of Breda, the Dutch had control of all the islands where True
nutmeg grew.

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Questions 8–13
Complete the table below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 8–13 on your answer sheet.

Arabs

cure plague

lime

run

safety Mauritius

tsunami

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 C
B
E
G

F D

human error

vast majority

car - sharing

ownership
mileage

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__
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__
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__

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__

___

__

__

__

__

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 E
A
C D
D E
B

expeditions
uncontacted

surface

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