Institut National des Langues

English Test
CEF C1.1

Your name:  ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 

Class: E...........
Date: ....................................

READING /25

LISTENING /25

WRITING /25

SPEAKING /25

TOTAL /100
 READING (25 marks)

Part 1 (5 marks)

Read the text and for questions 1-5, circle the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think
fits best.

BETTER AND BETTER

Take a couple of minutes to lie still in bed and reflect on the day ahead. Do you feel cheerful
or fed up, excited or bored? Or do you, perhaps, feel nothing? Go on, prod your subconscious
to consider your situation. Unless you get pleasure from living a passive and non-eventful
life, having a non-committal attitude can actually be as bad as being pessimistic. So if, as you
walk yourself through the events of the day ahead, you feel pretty average about things, then
try and aim higher. It will mean that you get much more out of life. So there you are, lying in
bed. Picture yourself showering, making breakfast, catching the bus, attending meetings,
shopping, cooking supper, watching TV and finally getting into bed. Did your spirits sink at
the thought of any of it? If so, pluck what it was out of the timetable and examine it more
closely. Is it a must-do, non-negotiable event? For instance, you may not mind the idea of
going to work but hate your job or daily commute. Find out what options you have to make
changes or find alternatives. In the meantime, come up with a strong and confident affirming
statement about the person you wish to be and the way you wish to tackle these life changes.

Once you have a clear picture of the things in your life that make you feel low, either
eliminate, minimise or improve them and the way you manage them. If getting everyone
organised in the morning is a nightmare, you need to apply some lateral thought to the
process. Encourage everybody to help with the morning routine. Make everyone responsible
for some parts of their own organisation. If everyone is leading busy lives in the household, it
makes no sense for one person to be a martyr. Be realistic about your stamina and stress limits
and appreciate the importance of keeping yourself fit and happy. Agree new regimes with
family members or housemates as a sensible training exercise, and stick with it until everyone
takes their equal share. Instead of feeling miserable about your chores and responsibilities,
adopt a positive approach and acknowledge that they are an essential component of life.

Pessimism, doubt and negativity can often disguise themselves as realism. Facing up to the
facts can sometimes be healthy but it’s essential not to poison hope and optimism with
negative thoughts. Observing how you think it vital. You really need to tune into hearing
those negative waves as soon as they start and see a more positive alternative view. To find
this perspective, you may need to examine closely the experience and subject of your
attention. Be curious and interested in life, the things and people that make up your day. Be
resolute that you will find a positive in everything and everyone.

The logical rationale for having a positive attitude is compelling. Nobody knows for sure
what each day will bring and whether its end will mark a personal triumph or disaster. Make
yourself work out what good things will happen. Today could be the day you meet your soul
mate, or when you are praised or promoted. Carry a list and photographs of things in your life
that are rewarding or make you feel happy. This can include loved ones, favourite flowers,
song tracks, a cutting from a newspaper that made you laugh, or a theatre ticket that reminds

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you of a wonderful occasion. If you need reminding that good things do happen, take this
collection out and relive fond memories and thoughts.

Even if today has been a bad day, you needn’t go to bed depressed because your optimism
didn’t pay off. Why? Well, because tomorrow is another day. In the same way that a single
look or a sour comment can instantly kill a feeling, so a bubble of optimism arising from even
the most minor triumph will eventually get bigger if you refuse to let yourself look on the
dark side. That is the great thing about life.

QUESTIONS:

1) What does the writer advise people to do before getting up in the morning?
A – Calmly contemplate their day ahead.
B – Organise their routine to maximise their time.
C – Decide which undesirable activity they could dispense with.
D – Reject the idea of having to fulfil their obligations successfully.

2) The writer suggests dealing with difficult aspects of our home lives by
A – freeing up more time to handle them more effectively
B – delegating some responsibilities to others
C – learning to control stress by taking more exercise
D – asking for outside help to relieve pressures

3) The writer initially implies that adopting a realistic attitude towards life can
A – have a counterproductive effect on our lives
B – encourage us to look on the bright side of life
C – enable us to find solutions to our problems
D – help us be more analytical in our approach to life

4) The writer justifies having a positive outlook on the day by saying it will
A – make the outcome of our day more predictable
B – help us blank out the less desirable events in our lives
C – give us renewed energy to face up to problems in life
D – reinforce our appreciation of what makes life worthwhile

5) According to the writer, how should we react to having had a bad day?
A – Focus on the one positive thing that happened, however insignificant.
B – Try to communicate our feelings about it to another person in a positive
way.
C – Tell ourselves it is perfectly acceptable to feel down after a day like that.
D – Stay positive and believe that tomorrow will be a better day.

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 Part 2 (6 marks)

You are going to read a story about the famous Portland Vase, taken from The World’s
Greatest Trials. Paragraphs of the text are mixed up. Put the paragraphs (A-G) into
the correct order. Write your answers in the boxes after the text. There is an example
at the beginning (0).

A SMASHING CASE

It happened at 3.45 pm on 7 February 1845. A number of visitors wandering around the

Hamiltonian Room at the museum suddenly heard an ear-shattering crash. Everyone
A rushed to the ante-room where the vase normally stood in a display case mounted on an
octagonal table. But the case was not there – it was scattered in a hundred fragments on
the floor. Whodunit?
As it happened, Lloyd only had ninepence on him at the time, and so was hauled off to
gaol. But he had served less than a week of his two-month sentence before an
B anonymous donor sent £ 5 to pay the fine. The vandal was freed, and having made his
brief, ignominious bow in the spotlight of history, vanished backstage forever.
The world’s most valuable item of glassware, everyone agrees, is the famous Portland
C Vase, made in Italy at around the time of Christ, and on display at the British Museum.
The vase, however, was painstakingly restored in the months that followed, and it was
D not long before Parliament passed a special Act to protect works of art from similar
outrages.
The existing Willful Damage Act only provided for deliberate damage done to property
worth up to £5; the penalties were a £5 fine or 2 months’ imprisonment. Now, however
hard it was to gauge the price of the Portland Vase, it was certainly worth more than £5.
E But the defect in the law was such that Lloyd could not be directed to pay anything for
shattering the Portland Vase; instead, he was ordered to pay £5 for the glass case in
which it had stood!
Barely 10 inches high, the piece is, quite literally, priceless; so completely unique that
no sum can be quoted in valuation. And looking at this most delicate of the world’s art
F treasures, it is hard to believe that, more than a hundred years ago, it was smashed to
smithereens.
The doors were immediately closed and a Mr Hawkins, the Superintendent, questioned
the horrified visitors. Eventually he got round to one William Lloyd, theatrical scene
painter from Dublin. ‘Alone I did it!’ the miscreant proudly roared. He had taken aim
G with a small item of sculpture picked up nearby, and when taken to Bow Street Police
Station excused himself on the grounds of ‘delirium, arising from habitual
intemperance’. That is to say, he was drunk as usual. The amazing feature of the
incident, though, was that the law was almost powerless against the vandal.
Tim Healey: The World’s Greatest Trials

Put the parts of the text in the correct order

Write your answers here:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
C

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 Part 3 (12 marks):

Read the article and for questions 1-12, choose in which paragraph (A-E) the
following are mentioned. The paragraphs may be chosen more than once.

A controversial pastime that raises considerable money 1 ...... XXXX

An action which creates a different weather pattern 2 ...... XXXX
An undesirable result of unnecessary global transportation 3 ...... 4 ......
Inadequate research into harmful substances 5 ...... XXXX
A continual change in what is required or needed 6 ...... XXXX
People at the greatest risk from factors beyond their control 7 ...... XXXX
A far-reaching change in official attitude 8 ...... XXXX
A benefit for those the scheme was not originally intended for 9 ...... 10 ......
The bringing of a source of energy to remote areas 11 ...... XXXX
A failure to adapt in order to meet increasing demands 12 ...... XXXX

BUT WILL IT SAVE THE PLANET?

A) FAIR TRADE
Farmers in developing countries are some of the most vulnerable people on earth, prey to
world commodity markets, middle men and the weather. So-called ‘fair-trade’ arrangements
guarantee co-operative groups a price above the world market and a bonus on top. The
growing fair-trade market has distributed hundreds of millions of pounds to more than 50
million people worldwide. But critics say that fair trade will never lift a country out of
poverty; indeed, it may keep it there, because the money generated from sales goes almost in
its entirety to rich countries which promote the products. As a simple guide, only about 5% of
the sale price of a fair-trade chocolate bar may actually go to the poor country.

B) ORGANIC FOOD
For food to be organic, it must be free of added chemicals, both in the growing of the food
and in the killing of the pests that might damage the crop. In a world where many
manufactured chemicals have never been properly tested for safety, this is a very big selling
point. Parents are thus prepared to pay a premium for organic food, especially when
chemicals suspected of causing a variety of problems have been found, albeit in tiny
quantities, in most children’s blood. The problem is that many farmers have not switched to
organic in sufficient numbers to satisfy this growing market. As a result, supermarkets are
often forced to fly vegetables they can label ‘organic’ halfway round the world, at a great cost
to the planet in extra greenhouse gases. Environmentalists are now urging shoppers to buy
locally produced vegetables, even if they are not organic and have been sprayed with
pesticides.

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C) RECYCLING
A great shift has taken place in the way we think about rubbish. Where once we were happy
to bury it in landfills or dump it at sea, we are now being urged by national and local
governments to recycle it and think of waste as a resource. The wheelie-bin culture is being
replaced by a series of kerbside collections of paper, metals, plastic, bottles, clothes and
compost. The idea is to cut landfill as well as saving the planet. It is, however, having some
unexpected consequences. Most of Britain’s plastic and paper is now being sent for recycling
in China or India, which creates more greenhouse gases just to get it there, plus workers then
have to separate it. Meanwhile, some paper and bottles carefully sorted out by householders
end up being dumped in landfills after all, because the demand for recycled materials
constantly fluctuates.

D) BEING CARBON NEUTRAL

If you want to make yourself feel better about the planet, there are lots of ways for you to ease
your conscience by becoming ‘carbon neutral’. One of the most appealing methods is to pay
for someone to plant trees, preferably creating or regenerating new forests. The theory is that
trees grow by absorbing carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen, storing the carbon in their
trunks. But woods and forests create their own mini-climate, which collects and stores water
and creates rainclouds. Added to this, there is the potential problem that planting trees often
releases carbon stored in the soil – and what happens if the forests catch fire, or are chopped
down and harvested for timber? Another and perhaps better solution might be to invest in
small-scale hydro-electric schemes, so that people who live in the Himalayas, for example,
and currently do not have electricity, can develop a 21 st century lifestyle without polluting the
planet.

E) ECO-TOURISM
The idea of ‘green’ tourism is to persuade local people not to chop down forests, shoot
elephants or wipe out tigers, but to preserve them so rich tourists visit and peer at the wildlife
through binoculars. Unfortunately, the best money is made from reintroducing animals for
trophy hunting by the very rich – an idea which does not always meet with approval and has
caused much debate. While tourists may help sustain more national parks, they often create as
many problems as they solve. One is that they tend to demand all mod cons in their hotels,
such as a great deal of water for showers; a luxury sometimes not available for locals. Eco-
tourism, when properly managed, can offer the locals and the animals a brighter future.
Sometimes, though, the only winners are a few business people who own hotels.

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 Part 4 (2 marks)

Read the text and for the questions underneath, circle the answer (A, B, C or D)
which you think fits best.

A past beauty of many faces

She was the Queen of the Deep South. An aristocratic party girl decked in jewels. She
could be charming and romantic. She could be corrupt and racist. But most of all, she
had jazz rhythms beating in her carefree heart. Perhaps this was why she was called
‘the city that care forgot’. But in 2005, New Orleans was submerged in the flood
waters of a hurricane called Katrina. Beneath the murky waters lay a city it was hoped
would one day be drained, salvaged, and built again but which had, for a brief spell,
been robbed of its unique heritage, architecture and spirit. Today she is rising again
from the devastation caused by the floods. Her inhabitants have returned, jazz fills the
streets again and the tourists are back, even though her restoration still has a long way
to go. One of the questions on people’s minds is: ‘When she returns to full glory, will
the Queen of the Deep South’s personality have changed?’
We shall have to wait and see but, for many, New Orleans remains a city loved for its
diversity and its tolerance, for its chicory-flavoured sweet, dark coffee, and its broad,
slow-paced southern drawl. It always maintained its sense of nobility, high-minded
civility and air of historic superiority and is undoubtedly remembered as such by
millions of tourists. Despite being a town of great luxury and privilege, it was also
something of a paradox. Beneath its façade of gentility, its hands were as dirty as the
rich deep mud of the Mississippi. Corruption and racism stood alongside great
poverty, high crime and unemployment in many of its African-American slums.

QUESTIONS:

1) What comments does the writer make about restoring New Orleans?
A – Many people are questioning how long this will take.
B – It is unsure whether she will have the same character.
C – Inhabitants believe the damage adds to her heritage.
D – Tourists are keen to witness the process of restoration.

2) What is one of the contrasts associated with the city?

A – A much darker side was concealed behind the charm.
B – The people’s apparent happiness covered up desperation.
C – Wealthy tourists were never aware of its poverty.
D – Its buildings appeared strong but were built on weak foundations.

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 LISTENING (25 marks)

Part 1 (10 marks):

Listen to five people discussing friendship and complete the tasks below.

For 1-5, choose from A-H the people’s attitudes towards friendships.

A) The only people I feel I can make demands on are my friends.

B) I think I can honestly say that I have never had a best friend.
C) I expect my friends to place our friendship above everything.
D) We often give friends a one-sided impression of our true selves.
E) Friends are people you can invite to a dinner party at the last minute.
F) I always take advantage of opportunities to meet people.
G) My friendships mean far more to me than even my job.
H) I socialise with people of a similar background to myself.

Speaker 1 (1)
Speaker 2 (2)
Speaker 3 (3)
Speaker 4 (4)
Speaker 5 (5)

For 6-10, choose from A-H what upsets people about friendships.

A) not being able to rely on friends in times of trouble

B) being bothered by someone who won’t accept the friendship is over
C) constantly being forced to make new friends
D) realising that your friendship is no longer of any value
E) dealing with friends’ emotional problems
F) losing touch with people who haven’t been your friends since childhood
G) being let down by friends at work
H) knowing their position in the group is what matters to your friends
Speaker 1 (6)
Speaker 2 (7)
Speaker 3 (8)
Speaker 4 (9)
Speaker 5 (10)

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 Part 2 (8 marks)

How to appreciate modern art

You will hear an expert giving some advice on art appreciation. For questions 11-18,
complete the sentences.

Remember that modern art began around the year (11) .............................. .

The aim of modern art was to rebel against (12) ........................................... .

It is essential to (13) ......................................... at a gallery.

You need to wear (14) ................................................. during your visit.

Never stand where the (15) ...................................................... interfere with your

appreciation of a painting.

Remember that (16) ............................................. is taken extremely seriously in

galleries.

You can actually get a better view by (17) ........................................... and using
binoculars.

Make sure you only stop to look at (18) ......................................... works of art.

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 Part 3 (7 marks)

You will hear a radio interview with a chef about the process of eating. For questions
19-24, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear.

19. Heston mentions eating fish from a paper plate with a plastic knife and fork
A) because it is something listeners may have done.
B) because doing so made him think about the process of eating.
C) as an example of an unpleasant eating experience.
D) as an example of what influences the eating experience.

20. What does Heston say about taste?

A) Fat should be considered a taste.
B) Taste and flavour are separate from each other.
C) The sense of smell is involved in it.
D) The number of taste buds gradually decreases.

21. The experiment involving salt and other food shows that
A) it is possible to taste something that you can’t smell
B) The sense of smell is not as powerful as other senses
C) food can taste better when you can’t smell it.
D) the flavour of food can change as you eat it.

22. The story about the trainee waiters illustrates that

A) certain colours are more appealing than others
B) something can seem to taste good because of its appearance
C) one sense can strongly influence another
D) some people can perceive taste better than others

23. What does Heston say about bitterness?

A) It can give a false impression that something is harmful.
B) It can become the main reason why people like something.
C) Reactions to it can change over time.
D) Its function is widely misunderstood.

24. The problem with the dish Heston describes was caused by
A) its appearance.
B) the taste of it.
C) its combination of flavours.

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 D) the fact that people ate it repeatedly.

WRITING (25 marks)

Choose between option A OR B

A) An article

Urban jungle or country retreat – which is best?

Are cities the best places to live or is life in the countryside a better option? If you
could choose, where would you prefer to settle down? Write an article of
approximately 300 words outlining your preference and giving the reasons for your
choice.

B) An essay

It is important to be honest in life

Write an essay of approximately 300 words saying whether or not you agree with
the statement above.

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