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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

CAMBRIDGE READING PRACTICE TEST-1

READING PASSAGE 1
you should spent about 20 minutes on Questions 1-15 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
                  
A spark, a flint:How fire leapt to life

The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of humanity's steps towards a life-enhancing technology.To early man, fire was a divine gift randomly delivered in the form of lighting, forest fire or burning lava. Unable to make flame for themselves, the earliest peoples probably stored fire by keeping slow burning logs alight or by carrying charchol in pots.

How and where man learnt how to produce flame at will is unknown. It was probably a secondary invention ,accidentally made during tool-making operations with wood or stone. Studies of primtive societies suggest that the earliest method of making fire was through friction.European peasants would insert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate it briskly between their palms. This process could be speeded up by wrapping a cord around the drill and pulling on each end.

The Ancient Greeks used lenses or concave mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays and burning glasses were also used by Mexican Aztecs and Chiness. Percussion methods of fire lighting date back to Paleolithic times, when some Stone Age tool-makers discovered that chipping flints produced sparks. The technique became more efficient after the discovery of iron, about 5000 years ago. In Arctic North America, the Eskimos produced a slow-burning spark by striking quartz against iron pyrites, a compound that contains sulphur. The Chinese lit their fires by striking procelain with bamboo. In Europe, the main method of fire-lighting untill the mid 19th centuary.

Fire-lighting was revolutionised by the discovery of phosphorus, isolated in 1669 by German alchemist trying to transmute silver into gold. Impressed by the element's combustibility,several
17th centuary chemists used it to manufacture fire-lighting devices, but the results were dangerously inflammable. With phosphorus costing equivalent of several hundred pounds per ounce, the first matches were expensive.

The quest for a match really began after 1781 when a group of French chemists came up with the  Pboqbboric Candle or Ethereal Match, a saled glass tube containing tt-twist of paper tipped with phosphorus. When the tube was broken air rushed in, causing the phosphorus to self-combust. Au even more hazardous device, populut in America, was the Instantaneous Light Box - a bottle filled with sulphurlc acid into which splints muted with chemicals were dipped.

The first matches resembling those used today  were made in 1827 by john Walker, an English pharmacist who borrowed the formula from at rocket-rnaker called Congreve. Costing a shilling a box. Congrews were splints coiued with sulphur and upped with potassium chlorate. To light them, the user drew them quickly through folded glass paper.

Walker never patented his invention, and three years later it was copied by a Samuel jones, who marketed his product as Luctjerx. About the same time, a french chemistry studentcalled Charles Sauria produced the first ‘strike-'anywhere' match by substituting white phosphorus for the potassium chlorite In the Walker formula. However, since white phosphorus ls a deadly poison, from 1845 match maker exposed to its fumes succumbed to necrosis, a disease that eats away jaw·bones. lt wasn't until 1906 that the aubmncc was eventuallt banded.

That was62 years after a Swedish chemist called Pasch had discovered non-toxic red or amorphous phosphorus, a development exploited commercially by Pasch's compatriot J E Lundastrom's safety matches were safe because the red phosphorus was non-toxic; it was painted on to the striking surface instead of the match tip,which contained potassium chlorate with a relatively high ignition temerature of 182 degrees centrigrade.

America lagged behind Europe in match technology and safety standards. It was not untill 1900 that the Diamond Match Company  bought a French patent for safety matches - but the formulla did not work properly in the different climatic conditions prevailing in Americ and it was another 11 years before scientist finally adapted the French patent for the US.

The American however can claim several 'firsts' in match technology and marketing. In 1892 the Diamond Match company pioneered book matches. The innovation didn't catch until after 1896,when a brewary had the novel idea of advertising its product in match books. Today book matches are the mostly widely used types in the US,with 90 percent handed out free by hotels,restaurants and others.

Other American innovation include an anti afterglow solution to prevent the matches from smouldering after it has been blown out; and the waterproof match,which lights after eight hours in water.
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Questions 1-8
complete the summary below. Choose your answer from word at the bottom of the pages and write then in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

NB:
There are more words than spaces so you will not use them all. You may use any of the words more than once.

Example
Primtive societies saw fire as a..........(example).....gift.  Answer heavenly.

The tried to .....(1)........burning logs or charcoal ...........(2).........that they could create fire themselves. It is suspected that the first man made flames were produced by .........(3).......
The very first fire-lighting methods invloved the creation of ............(4).........by , for example, rapidly .........(5).......a wooden stick in a round hole. The use of ........(6)......or persistent chipping was also widespread in Europe and among other peoples such as Chinese and ......(7)...... .European practice of this method continued until the 1850........(8) the discovery of phosphorus some years earlier.

                                                              
 LIST OF WORDS
                     mexicans   random  rotating  despite  sunlight  lacking  heavenly  
                     percusssion  chance  friction unaware    without  make  heating                      Eskimos  surprised  until  smoke

Questions 1-8
Look at the following notes that have made about the matches descrided in Reading passage 1. Decide which type of matches (A-H) corresponds with each description and write you answer in boxes 9-15 on you answer sheet.

NB:
There are more matches than description so you will not use them all. You  may use any match more than once.

Example:
could be lit after soaking in water.     Answer H

Notes
9. made using a less poisomous type of phosphorus
10. identical to previous type of match
11. caused a deadly illness
12. first to look like modern matches
13. first matches use for advertising
14. relied on an airtight glass container
15. made with the help of any army design

Types of Mtches

A    The Ethernal Match
B     The Instantaneous Lightbox
C     Congreves
D     Lucifers
E     The first strike-anywhere match
F     Lundstrom's safety match
G     Bokk matches
H     Waterproof matches
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Answer key
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(1-8)
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1 preserve
2 unware
3 chance
4 friction
5 rotating
6 percussion
7 Eskimos
8 despite
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(9-15)
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9   F
10 D
11 E
12 C
13 G
14 A
15 C


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