PART 1

1. Sir, are you aware that local fire restrictions   the number of people

allowed in a club this size to 200?

a. top

b. cap

c. stop

d. limit

2. If Harold never won any cups, why is his name   onto this golfing

trophy?

a. daubed

b. scribbled

c. carved

d. etched

3. The extensive winds that have been   Florida will move away as the

weekend draws to a close.

a. battering

b. punching

c. cracking

d. thumping

4. Despite the scandal, the leader emerged with his reputation  .

a. untarnished

b. unpolluted

c. unimpaired

d. unfettered

5. Three of the escapees have now been recaptured but police spokesmen have

said they are concerned that, of the fourth prisoner,   information is

known that could help the authorities put him back behind bars.

a. scant

b. rare
c. slight

d. a little

6. If the manager says anything about the missed deadline, just   your

tongue, say nothing and we can discuss it later.

a. eat

b. swallow

c. bite

d. suck

7. I didn't realise you were so   interested in fishing.

a. vividly

b. keenly

c. extensively

d. patently

8. The most important parts of your job may seem difficult now but they will

become second   to you within a couple of weeks.

a. instinct

b. thought

c. nature

d. mind

PART 2

1. Tomorrow will be hot and looking further  , the sunshine

should continue.

2. Hardly had my mother left the shop   she was asked to go

back inside.

3. It's of   utmost importance that you listen to what I'm about

to tell you.
 4. When we leave the dog alone, we like giving it something to

chew  .

5. With the exception   Daniel, everyone will be coming into work

tomorrow.

6. Philip Mouriet, all of   most famous works were in the cinema,

also wrote four novels.

7. Can you make   whose signature that is?

8. There are   the region of two hundred countries in the world.

PART 3

1. Many actors move into becoming   for television after they finish

their acting careers.

narrate

2. After getting a heart   last November, Mike felt like a new man.

plant

3. The   rate of company failures is having a disastrous effect on

unemployment.

quick

4. Thanks to   costs, everyone is expected to agree to a pay freeze

for this year.

balloon
 5. The dog found the cat in his bed and walked off feeling as though he'd

been  .

wit

6. Living in poverty and  , the family struggled to make ends meet.

deprive

7. The many dance movies of the 1980s, such as Dirty Dancing and

Flashdance, helped to   dancing.

popular

8. After the book club was  , it became much more popular.

structure

PART 4

1. Carla thinks it would be better if Tom discovered the answer for himself.

found

Carla would prefer   answer for himself.

2. He left the house early, but arrived after he expected.

off

Despite   late.

3. Unless this weather really changes overnight, we'll leave at 6am.

no

Providing   the weather overnight, we'll leave at 6am.

4. The desert was completely devoid of trees.

whatsoever

There   the desert.

5. Patrick wanted to guarantee that everything was as it should be on his

wedding day.

leave

Patrick didn't   on his wedding day.

6. Susan didn't tell Dan about the bill until he'd finished his dinner.

for

Susan   dinner before telling him about the bill.

7. Don't let his relaxed manner fool you. He's an extremely clever businessman.

taken

Don't be   his relaxed manner. He's an extremely clever

businessman.

8. "It's none of your business who I go out with!" Betsy informed her mother.

concern

Betsy informed his mother that who his friends were   of

hers.

PART 5

Read this extract of the first part of "The Ghost" and then answer the multiple

choice questions.

We were speaking of sequestration, alluding to a recent lawsuit. It was

at the close of a friendly evening in a very old mansion in the Rue de
Grenelle, and each of the guests had a story to tell, which he assured
us was true. Then the old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years
of age, rose and came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told the
following story in his slightly quavering voice:

I, also, have witnessed a strange thing, so strange that it has been the
nightmare of my life. It happened fifty-six years ago, and yet there is
not a month when I do not see it again in my dreams. From that day I
have borne a mark, a stamp of fear, do you understand?

Yes, for ten minutes I was a prey to terror, in such a way that ever
since a constant dread has remained in my soul. Unexpected sounds
chill me to the heart; objects which I can ill distinguish in the evening
shadows make me long to flee. I am afraid at night.

No! I would not have owned up to such a thing before reaching my

present age. But now I may tell everything. One may fear imaginary
dangers at eighty-two years old. But before actual danger I have never
turned back, mesdames.

That affair so upset my mind, filled me with such a deep, mysterious

unrest that I never could tell it. I kept it in that inmost part, that
corner where we conceal our sad, our shameful secrets, all the
weaknesses of our life which cannot be confessed.

I will tell you that strange happening just as it took place, with no
attempt to explain it. Unless I went mad for one short hour it must be
explainable, though. Yet I was not mad, and I will prove it to you.
Imagine what you will. Here are the simple facts:

It was in 1827, in July. I was quartered with my regiment in Rouen.

One day, as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I
believed I recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I
instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my
impulse, looked at me, and fell into my arms.

It was a friend of my younger days, of whom I had been very fond. He

seemed to have become half a century older in the five years since I
had seen him. His hair was white, and he stooped in his walk, as if he
were exhausted. He understood my amazement and told me the story
of his life. A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly
in love with a young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike
ecstasy. After a year of unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she
had died suddenly of heart disease, no doubt killed by love itself.

He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and had come
to live in his hotel at Rouen. He remained there, solitary and
desperate, grief slowly mining him, so wretched that he constantly
thought of suicide. 'As I thus came across you again,' he said, 'I shall
ask a great favor of you. I want you to go to my ch�teau and get
some papers I urgently need. They are in the writing-desk of my room,
of our room. I cannot send a servant or a lawyer, as the errand must
be kept private. I want absolute silence.

'I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked carefully myself
before leaving, and the key to the writing-desk. I shall also give you a
note for the gardener, who will let you in. 'Come to breakfast with me
to-morrow, and we'll talk the matter over.'

I promised to render him that slight service. It would mean but a

pleasant excursion for me, his home not being more than twenty-five
miles from Rouen. I could go there in an hour on horseback. At ten
o'clock the next day I was with him. We breakfasted alone together,
yet he did not utter more than twenty words. He asked me to excuse
him. The thought that I was going to visit the room where his
happiness lay shattered, upset him, he said. Indeed, he seemed
perturbed, worried, as if some mysterious struggle were taking place in
his soul.

At last he explained exactly what I was to do. It was very simple. I was
to take two packages of letters and some papers, locked in the first
drawer on the right of the desk of which I had the key. He added: 'I
need not ask you not to glance at them.'
I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather sharply. He
stammered: 'Forgive me. I suffer so much!' And tears came to his
eyes.

I left about one o'clock to accomplish my errand. The day was radiant,
and I rushed through the meadows, listening to the song of the larks,
and the rhythmical beat of my sword on my riding-boots. Then I
entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking. Branches of the
trees softly caressed my face, and now and then I would catch a leaf
between my teeth and bite it with avidity, full of the joy of life, such as
fills you without reason, with a tumultuous happiness almost
indefinable, a kind of magical strength.

As I neared the house I took out the letter for the gardener, and noted
with surprise that it was sealed. I was so amazed and so annoyed that
I almost turned back without fulfilling my mission. Then I thought that
I should thus display over-sensitiveness and bad taste. My friend might
have sealed it unconsciously, worried as he was.

The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last twenty
years. The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one wondered how. Grass
filled the paths; you could not tell the flower-beds from the lawn.

1. How does the Marquis look back on what happened to him?

     he has mostly forgotten it

     it is still with him

     it gives him nightmares

     it changed his life

2. Why hasn't the Marquis ever told the story before now?

     he feels ashamed

     he think he was insane

     his memory is poor

     he was too young

3. Why did the narrator's friend look so much older?

     his hair had turned white

     he felt suicidal

     he had been abroad

     he had suffered greatly

4. Why did the narrator's friend ask him to go to his chateau?

     because they knew each other so well

     because there was some urgent business

     because he couldn't ask anyone else

     because the lawyer had insisted

5. Why was the narrator offended during his breakfast with his friend?
     because the friend was not very talkative

     because he wasn't happy about going a long distance to the chateau

     because he felt as though he couldn't be relied on to keep a secret

     because he felt as though he wasn't trusted

6. Which word is closest in meaning to "avidity" in the third to last paragraph?

     consideration

     power

     knowledge

     eagerness

7. Why did the narrator feel angry about the letter being sealed?

     his instructions were in the sealed letter

     he felt he wasn't trusted

     he wanted to read what was inside

     it made his errand more mysterious

PART 6

In the following text, six paragraphs have been removed. Above the extract you

will find the six removed paragraphs PLUS one paragraph which doesn't fit.
Choose from the paragraphs (A-G) the one which fits each gap in the text (1-6).

Remember, there is one extra paragraph you do not need to use. Write only the

correct letter in the empty boxes in the text.

Use these paragraphs to fill the spaces below. There is one extra you do not need

to use.

A. The conflict over the development of Internet communication in Iran reflects a

larger struggle between elements within the government that support it and

factions that are alarmed by the Internet's relative freedom.

B. Ms. Farhi says she believes hard-liners won't be able to control the Internet

forever.

C. Hossein Derakhshan, 30, is an Iranian who emigrated to Canada four-years

ago. In 2002, he developed a simple way for people to use Persian language on

the Internet, which led to the creation of an independent service in Tehran called

Persianblog.com.

D. The apparent targets, according to Mr. Derakhshan, are blogs and websites

with political content. But he says most of the Persian language blogs did not

start out focusing on political issues.

E. "These people will feel cut off from the outside world," he said. "The

government looks to be getting serious about blocking these services and that

can only mean bad news for bloggers in this country."

F. The chill on blogging in Iran may not be permanent, but it is having some

effect. An Iranian journalist contacted in Iran refused to discuss blogging and

bloggers.

G. In recent months, the Iranian authorities made several much publicized

arrests of activists labeled as bloggers, but released them after a brief detention.
A battle is raging within Iran's political leadership over a form of Internet

communication known as a blog, a "weblog" that combines a publicly accessible

online personal diary and a guide to other links on the World Wide Web. Some

elements of the Iranian government have been supportive of the free and rapid

development of blogging in Iran, while hard-liners in the Judiciary are trying to

figure out how to control it.

1. 

"After few months, Persianblog.com launched its service and started with a fully

Persian interface, in very simple language, to help Iranian people to start

blogging. And it was a turning point for the Iranian blogosphere because, thanks

to the ease of service and the easy interface of Persianblog.com, many, many

people who were not very familiar with technical issues on the Net were able to

start blogging."

Persianblog.com estimates there are now as many as 70,000 active Persian

language blogs, both inside and outside Iran. These sites had basically been

allowed to operate freely, until Iran's Judiciary began an Internet crackdown

several-months ago.

2. 

"A lot of them are just tools to facilitate dating, which is very important now in

Iran, because there are not official dating services, or any official easy way for

young people to socialize and to find new friends, new dates, and stuff like that,"

he noted.

Mr. Derakhshan says the Judiciary's attempt to block access to several of the

main blogging services used by Iranians, such as Persianblogger.com,

blogspot.com and blogger.com, means that many of the existing blogs are

turning political, even when they did not start out that way.
"It is very obvious that because of the censorship that has been stepped up

recently, many of these weblogs that are not normally about politics or political

issues have started to become political, just because the censorship doesn't even

allow them to see their weblogs or even easily continue blogging," he added.

3. 

This point is emphasized by Farideh Farhi, an independent Iranian-American

scholar affiliated with the University of Hawaii. She compares what she calls

Iran's "haphazard" attempts to control the Internet to the relatively more unified

response in a country like China, which consistently blocks Internet sites Beijing

deems offensive.

"And if you look at China, if I remember correctly, they responded to this Internet

boom in a very consistent and immediate manner, filtering very early on," she

explained. "In the case of Iran, that has not been the case because so much of

the political structure is divided and decentralized. And that gives tremendous

amount of space to a lot of activities that are going on in the society."

4. 

"Their arrest was publicized," she added. "Everybody knew about it. And then

they came out. They had their lamentations, their statements of regret."

But, Ms. Farhi says, the released prisoners told a former vice-president, who is a

blogger, that authorities tortured them.

"So, that came out in a blog by the former vice-president. Everybody knows

about it. So, it is a very, very funny situation, where both the activity is not fully

allowed, yet at the same time, it somewhat goes on. And then, the repression of

it is also well-publicized. That is what gives Iran a very interesting dynamic," she

noted.
5. 

"The kind of activities that are going on in Iran are so strong and they have such

a large audience, and there is such desire for it, and also, you have this reality

that there are people within the government structure that do not like the kind of

activities that the Judiciary is involved in. And that is why you see resistance and

complaint," she said.

6. 

In an e-mail, he said it would be risky for him to be interviewed about what he

said has recently become a heavily-politicized issue. He said he could be jailed for

giving an interview to an American journalist.

PART 7

Answer the questions 1-10 by referring to the article below. Choose from the list

of towns (A-E) for each question.

Which of the towns (A-E):

A. Plymouth
1. possesses boats used in historic voyages? 

2. lets you watch a show on the streets? 

B. Torquay
3. is noted for its evening entertainment? 

4. has a celebrity amongst its local businessmen?  C. Falmouth

5. has a recreational area near the beach? 

D. St. Ives
6. has houses made of wood? 
 7. allows you to observe animals in the wild under the water? 

8. has a tourist attraction which has been praised? 

E. Ilfracombe
9. has altered its natural coastline? 

10. used to play an important role in the postal service? 

High on granite cliffs towering above the restless Atlantic, walkers on

Britain's longest national trail, the spectacular 630-mile South West
Coast Path, are left in no doubt of the sea's role in shaping this area's
landscape and heritage. England's far south-western counties of
Cornwall and Devon boast a seafaring tradition of adventurers,
explorers, pirates and emigrants, reinforced by the salty flavour of
novels by Daphne du Maurier and Rosamunde Pilcher.

Add to this the fine cuisine, stylish hotels, National Parks and one of
Europe's favourite surfing resorts, picturesque harbours and gardens
warmed by Gulf Stream currents - and you have the recipe for a
perfect all-year holiday destination.

The 08:35 train from London's Paddington station to Plymouth, Devon

bears a ship's name - "The Mayflower". This was the vessel which
carried a band of determined religious reformers, the Pilgrim Fathers,
on their momentous journey to a new life in North America, in 1620.
After 66 days at sea they eventually settled in New Plymouth and laid
the foundation of the New England states.

The story is brought to life in the naval port and city of Plymouth's
Mayflower exhibition, situated on The Barbican, opposite the historic
harbour steps from which they set off nearly four centuries ago. It also
tells how thousands of emigrants to the USA and other countries
(mainly Australia and New Zealand, with Canada becoming popular
later) started their journey here.
The city is full of seaside atmosphere, particularly around the old
harbour with its fish market and customs house and the waterfront
park, the Hoe. Here Elizabethan seafarer Sir Francis Drake is said to
have finished a game of bowls before sailing off to confront the
approaching Spanish Armada.

Also here is the National Marine Aquarium which, among its many fishy
delights, boasts the world's largest collection of sea-horses. Britain's
biggest aquarium, its attractions include a coral reef teeming with
brightly-coloured fish and the deepest tank in Europe - three storeys
high - containing a wide variety of sharks which you can view close-up
(if you dare) from inside a walk-through transparent tunnel.

To see marine life of a warm-blooded variety, head east to the popular

seaside resort of Torquay. Coastal creatures from puffins and
penguins to fur seals are all at home in an environment of
reconstructed beaches, cliff-faces and an estuary. Living Coasts,
Paignton Zoo's marine aviary, opened in July 2004 to rave reviews.
The birds fly freely over your head and acrylic tunnels also allow
unobstructed underwater views.

Going west from Plymouth you cross the wide River Tamar on one of
two high bridges, road and rail, leave Devon and enter Cornwall. There
are views of battleships at anchor and the sparkling ocean beyond.

The UK has more coastline than any other country in Europe, with no-
one living more than 75 miles from the sea. But it is only in Cornwall
that you feel the sea is ever-present: a leg of land jutting precariously
into the Atlantic, its two coasts only four miles apart at the narrowest
point.

Cornwall was the obvious choice as location for a new National

Maritime Museum, which opened in late 2002. The stylish, modern
building, clad in English oak, rises beside the water in the harbour-
town of Falmouth, on the edge of the world's third largest natural
harbour (Rio and Sydney take the top slots).

Falmouth was an almost sleepy place, despite once being the British
Empire's second busiest port. Its main occupations after tourism are
luxury yacht-building, ship repair and oyster fishing (oyster sail-boats
can still be seen working the River Fal). But the museum has brought
new life and "buzz' to the town.

The entrance is through Events Square, surrounded by shops and

dining places, and the focal point for open-air entertainment,
particularly during the town's Oyster Festival, held every October.

The galleries include historic small vessels from the national collection.
They range from a 70ft. rowing boat used by Eton schoolboys in the
late 1800s, through Olympic medal-winning boats, canoes, yachts,
power-boats and working craft to the ketch used by Sir Robin Knox-
Johnston to make the first solo, non-stop global circumnavigation. You
can compare Queen Elizabeth II's little yacht Bluebottle to the latest
state-of-the-art, carbon-fibre racing dinghy.

Find out more about Cornwall's nautical traditions in various exhibits.

How seven generations of the same family made a living from the sea;
and how the 40 mail ships of Falmouth Packet Service made the town
a world communication hub, from 1688 until the electric telegraph took
over.

Then descend to the Tidal Zone, where windows thicker than a man's
fist, and five metres high, look directly out under the waters of
Falmouth Harbour. See fish and other marine creatures - sometimes
cormorants diving for their dinner - it's like an aquarium in reverse.
Climb the museum's 30-metre tall tower for an aerial view of the
harbour. A caf� offers refreshment and more spectacular views.
No visit to Cornwall should exclude the artists' town of St. Ives, its
Tate Gallery sitting right on the beach; Newquay, a young surfers'
paradise with a nightlife to match; or the Eden Project near St. Austell.
This is a garden with a difference, reminiscent of something out of
science-fiction, its spherical hot-houses or "biomes' containing
waterfalls, beech houses and tropical flora from distant parts of the
world - all in a former quarry.

Something with a definite maritime flavour is the region's food. It is

now as easy to find freshly-caught sea bass or native oysters as
everyone's favourite: fish-and-chips. Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant
in Padstow is one of the best of its kind and the celebrity chef has now
complemented it with his own fish-and-chip shop. All fish is locally
sourced -- monkfish, Dover sole and gurnard are available as well as
cod, haddock and plaice - customers choose their fish and wait
earnestly while it is cooked.

In the North Devon harbour-town of Ilfracombe, controversial

modern artist Damien Hirst has opened the White Hart Bar at 11 The
Quay, overlooking the harbour. The locals hope it will give a
prominence to the town in the way Rick Stein raised Padstow's profile.
Go along and sample the tapas, mezze, freshly baked bread and cakes
and judge for yourself.

As for places to stay, these range from friendly farmhouses and family-
run bed and breakfasts to luxurious hotels such as Bovey Castle. This
Edwardian mansion in the fine scenery of Dartmoor National Park has
been transformed into the "ultimate luxury destination" by
entrepreneur Peter de Savary and opened earlier in 2004. With a
1920's Palm Court dining room, a piano-bar serving 142 different
cocktails, individually designed bedrooms and suites, a spa and
championship golf course, this is a place for people who expect the
very best.