Part 2

For items 7-15 read the article below about an unusual school. Fill in the gaps (7-15) in the text choosing from the list A – K the one which fits each gap. Two of the phrases do not belong to the text.

The BRIT school in Croydon, south London, is no ordinary school. You won’t see whole classes struggling to stay awake in French lessons. You won’t find the students at this school hanging around the park (7) ______. You’re more likely to find students mixing tracks, practicing their dance routines or doing voice exercises. Homework could be anything from writing an episode of a soap (8) ____ to choreographing a dance. (9) ______, this is a school which kids actually want to go.

There are over 750 rising stars between the ages of 14 and 19 at the BRIT school. Everyone under 16 studies normal GCSEs (10) _____. After 16 you can do vocational courses and A-levels in media-related subjects (11) ______. As it’s the UK’s non-fee paying entertainment school, competition for places is tough.

The children have summer holidays like other kids, but, (12) ______, the summer is busier than ever. Each year, hundreds of teenagers, sponsored by Sky Television, follow a three-day residential course at the school, and some of these may join the school as full-time students (13) ______. Walk into the school on a typical day in the summer and you will find an astonishing range of activities going on. There may be the sound of bongos coming from the World Music class, (14) ______ or a group of students gathered in a recording studio. Everywhere you look, (15) ______ – why couldn’t school always be like this.

1. a talk show going on in the TV studio

2. after the holidays

3. along with performing art qualifications

4. you find fascination and concentration

5. for the school

6. hard as it may be to believe

7. like film production

8. making it in the pop world

9. or editing a pop video

10. told off by their teachers

11. when they should be in class

Part 3

For items 16-20 read the text THE GLASS LENS and choose the best alternative from A, B, C or D to complete the sentences.

The glass lens

Many of the scientific advances that have shaped the modern world were possible only because people devised tools to improve their ability to see. The development of glass lenses, which can be used to see things that are either very small or very far away, has had profound consequences for humanity.

The first application of ground or polished pieces of glass was not for the microscope or telescope, however. It was for spectacles (eyeglasses), which improve the vision of people with imperfect eyesight. It might be argued that without the invention of spectacles, printing would have taken much longer to catch on. Most people become farsighted as they age, and printed material held near the face dissolves into a blur. Without corrective lenses, reading becomes

frustrating, if not impossible. The first spectacles were invented in Italy in the late 13^th century, although crude versions may have been used in China several centuries earlier.

It took several hundred years before anyone assembled glass lenses in a way that made distant objects appear close. The credit for the invention of the telescope goes to Dutch optician Hans Lippershey. In 1608 Lippershey demonstrated his “looker” for the Dutch government, which immediately grasped its usefulness as a military tool. The next year, Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo used an improved version of Lippershey’s invention to study the sky. Galileo’s telescope could magnify things to 20 times their actual size. With this instrument he observed moons orbiting Jupiter, which contradicted the prevailing belief that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth. Galileo’s observations helped initiate the scientific revolution that has fundamentally altered our world.

Early-17^th-cenruty Holland was a hotbed of optics development. It was here around the year 1600 that the microscope was invented, although sole credit for this achievement is difficult to determine. By 1625 optical workshops had been set up to build these new instruments, and in the late 1600s scientists were using microscope to observe teeming microbes in a drop of water and the physical structure of living cells. These and other microscopic discoveries transformed biology. It was also during the 1600s that Dutch naturalist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek built his own microscope and discovered what he called animalcules, which are now known as bacteria and protozoa. Much of our knowledge of disease and how to fight it, including the concept of immunization, has flowed from the use of the microscope.

16. Eyeglasses were devised _________.

1. to built microscopes

2. to serve as a military tool

3. to improve eyesight

4. to see bacteria

16. The statements below are true according to the text except that _______.

    1. old people may become farsighted

    2. blurry texts are difficult to read

    3. the Italians invented glass

    4. the telescope was invented by an optician from the Netherlands

16. The telescope was invented____________.

    1. by a scientist from Holland

    2. by Galileo to discover Jupiter

    3. for military purposes

    4. by the scientists from Italy

16. Which of the following statements does not contradict the text?

    1. The microscope was invented by Leeuwenhoek.

    2. By the beginning of the 17^th century scientists could see the structure of the cell.

    3. Lippershey’s invention enabled to see bacteria and protozoa.

    4. It was Holland where the telescope and the microspore were devised.

16. According to the text, __________.

    1. during the 1600s biology was invented

    2. by 1625 optical workshops had been set up to build telescope

    3. with the help of microscope people became immune to disease

    4. the development of glass lenses led to scientific and technological breakthroughs.

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