Unit 1 Test: Higher Name: __________________________________ Result: __/100 Vocabulary 1 3 Complete the sentences with the correct words. 1 crystal cucumber daisy day lion mud wind Max is always joking around. He loves pulling my ________________ and teasing me – and I always fall for it! 2 Have I offended Sara? She’s giving me the cold ________________ and being really unfriendly. 3 Sue and Will argue all the time, they’re often at each other’s ________________. It’s hard being around such angry people. 4 Will you stop doing that? It’s so annoying, and it’s really getting on my ________________. 5 Henry never does anything without asking Olivia’s permission. He’s totally under her ________________. 1 2 3 4 Score __/5 2 Complete the mini-dialogues with the words in the box. There are two extra options. Alana: You look as fresh as a ________________! Ben: Yes, I relaxed yesterday and had an early night. Clara: Are you sure it was Sylvia you saw. I thought she was away. Olivia: Absolutely sure. I saw her as plain as ________________. Adam: Do you understand how to do your homework now? Laura: Yes, totally. Your explanation was as clear as ________________. Dan: Can you get to the supermarket before it closes? Bianca: Sure, I can run like the ________________. Complete the text with the correct form of words in the box. 5 Alex: In the film, the police questioned the suspect for hours, but he was totally calm and relaxed. Marta: Yeah, he was as cool as a ________________! conclude import perceive probable psychology real You’re far more likely to be in a car accident or hit by lightning than die in a shark attack. In fact the (a) ________________ of being killed by a shark is one in 3,748,067, which experts will tell you is very low. However, that doesn’t stop people being scared of the idea. (b) ________________, who know a lot about human nature, believe this may be because fear of big or dangerous animals is deeply rooted in people. In the past, this kept them safe. However, in this case, our (c) ________________ of how likely an attack could be doesn’t match fact. In (d) ________________, humans are more dangerous for sharks than the other way round. This highlights the (e) ________________ of doing your own research. Find out what sharks there are in the area and which, if any, are dangerous. Avoid obvious dangers such as swimming if you are bleeding. In (f) ________________, it’s safe to say that while we may fear sharks, the chances of an attack are pretty small. Score __/5 4 Write verbs for the definitions. 1 complain in a way that annoys other people ________________ 2 speak in a low voice that is difficult to hear because you’re annoyed, embarrassed or talking to yourself ________________ 3 shout in a loud high voice because you’re frightened, excited or surprised ________________ 4 speak in a way that shows you’re unhappy, disappointed or in pain ________________ Score ___/4 Score __/6 This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 Higher Unit 1 Test: Higher Grammar 5 7 Complete the sentences with the correct past form of the verbs in the box. There are two verbs you do not need. Choose the correct answers. 1 A is always complaining finish learn make meet rain run write 1 I was tired because I _______________ in the park for two hours because the gym was closed. 2 Mario _______________ the guitar for six years now, so he plays it pretty well. 3 The weather was awful. It _______________ and there was a bitter wind. 4 On my last summer holiday, I _______________ some fantastic people and we’re still in touch now. 5 By the time I _______________ studying, all my homework was completed. B was always complaining C will complain 2 Complete the text with the correct past form of the words in brackets. Use continuous tenses where possible. Yesterday, I (a) _______________ (about/go) to bed, although I (b) _______________ (not start) getting ready yet. I (c) _______________ (read) for a few hours and I was getting tired. Suddenly, I (d) _______________ (see) an interesting article about people and animals. It turns out that dogs are people’s oldest animal companions as they (e) _______________ (live) with humans for at least 11,000 years, far longer than any other animal. Wolves, which are dogs’ ancestors, sometimes (f) _______________ (come) to campsites where people (g) _______________ (stay) in the hope of getting scraps of meat. Over time, some became friendly with people and ended up staying with them. Since then, humans and dogs (h) _______________ (have) a relationship, living and working together. It’s no surprise that dogs are said to be man’s best friend. I like Rita and we often meet up. What I don’t like is that she _______________ late every time we meet up. A would arrive B used to arrive C will arrive 3 Score __/5 6 Jack _______________ about everything. He did it all the time! In Japan, at the start of meetings, people _______________ rather than shake hands. It’s a polite greeting. A are always bowing B will usually bow C are used to bowing 4 It took a while, but now I _______________ up earlier than last year. A used to get B am used to getting C am always getting 5 Years ago, people _______________ most of their own food, now we go to supermarkets. A would grow B will grow C are used to growing 6 When my brother was younger, he _______________ in trouble, but that doesn’t happen now. A will always get B usually gets C was always getting Score __/6 Score __/8 This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 Higher Unit 1 8 Test: Higher Find and correct six mistakes in the text. Write the corrections on the lines below. I’m from a small village in Wales, but I’ve lived in Madrid in Spain for five years now. At first, I didn’t used to living in a big city and I found it hard, but now I love it. I found some customs strange, too, for example, friends are usually give you two kisses on the cheeks when you meet up. When I was growing up, people will say hello or shake hands, not kiss. My Spanish is pretty good now, although I didn’t used to know much. I always was making mistakes at first! I love life here, but there is one thing that I can’t standing – when they find out I’m Welsh, people always asking me to say the longest name of a town there, and I can’t say it. It’s so annoying. The name? It’s Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysili ogogogoch! 1 ____________________ 2 ____________________ 3 ____________________ 4 ____________________ 5 ____________________ 6 ____________________ Score __/6 This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 Higher Unit 1 Test: Higher Use of English 9 Read the text below and think of the word that best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap. Time to learn Education is important, not just to learn but also for social contact with others your age and to increase gender equality. Devanshi Ranjan lives in New Delhi in India and she isn’t afraid of sticking her (a) ____________ out if necessary. When the coronavirus pandemic started, she made a decision as quick as a (b) ___________ to help students. Since then, she (c) ___________ been teaching the poorest children in the city as few have access to computers. Devanshi started teaching in mobile outdoor classrooms around the city, and so far, she has taught over 1000 students, mainly girls. Devanshi did the classes as part of her volunteering at the Ladli Trust Foundation which she (d) _____________ joined before the pandemic started. Devanshi won an award for her work. After winning the award, her friends all thought she (e) ____________ going to stop, but Devanshi plans to continue. She believes in the importance of education, especially for girls. Devanshi is (f) ___________ to working hard, she (g) ____________ doing a university degree during the pandemic, which she has now finished. In addition, she’s just started an organisation called Project MicDrop to help people using art, campaigns and other events. Devanshi is definitely someone who is making a (h) ____________ to others’ lives. 4 Died while travelling abroad. FN / HK / N 5 Travelled to over 30 countries. FN / HK / N 6 Had an amazing teacher. FN / HK / N 7 Chose a career that their parents disapproved of. FN / HK / N 8 Started a charity to help others. FN / HK / N Score __/8 11 Listen again and choose the correct answers. 1 Florence was chosen to organise a group of nurses because … A this is what her parents expected would happen. B she had previously worked in a hospital and improved it. C they needed nurses to cook and clean the hospital. D there was a war in Britain with many injured soldiers. 2 Florence … A wanted to start a school for nurses but was unable to. B was a good speaker who never needed to use diagrams. C wouldn’t understand modern nursing practices. D used statistics to make improvements in patient care. 3 Helen Keller … A really learned to communicate when she was six years old. B was taught by Ann Sullivan from the age of 19 months old. C was never able to communicate using fingerspelling. D was deaf and blind from birth which affected her childhood. 4 In New York, Helen … Score __/8 A studied how to speak between 1894 and 1896. Listening 10 Listen to a podcast. Are the notes about Florence Nightingale (FN), Helen Keller (HK) or neither (N)? 1 Born in a country that was different to their nationality. FN / HK / N 2 Wrote more than one book. FN / HK / N 3 Received an award from a monarch. FN / HK / N This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 B met many other deaf and blind people and learned from them. C learned to communicate in other languages such as Braille. D became the first deaf-blind person to study at university. Score __/4 Higher Unit 1 Test: Higher Reading Better together A Humans are social animals. From the very earliest of times, being part of a group meant you were more likely to survive. Today, social interaction isn’t principally about survival, but it has many benefits, including making us feel happier, more secure and giving us a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. Scientists have been investigating the effects of isolation – being separated from other people – on humans for many years and have come to some interesting conclusions. B We might at times wish for a bit of time alone, but extended isolation clearly has a harmful impact on us. Loneliness or social isolation makes us less able to deal with stress, more likely to suffer from anxiety and low mood and perform worse on tasks that require thinking skills such as logic or memory. It also increases the risk of conditions such as dementia that affect people’s ability to think and remember. A study by ELSA (English Longitudinal Study of Ageing) measured older people’s spoken fluency and ability to remember. When they repeated the tests four years later, they found that people who took part in social activities and had more contact with others had declined noticeably less than lonely people. C Isolation also affects our sense of time and can even cause us to imagine things. In one experiment, Maurizio Montalbini spent 366 days in a deep dark cave. By the end, he was sleeping 12 hours and was awake for 36 hours each ‘day’ and believed he had only been underground for 219 days. Although scientists don’t know why this happens, in other research people who spent long periods in darkness all adapted to a similar 48-hour cycle. Another experiment at McGill University, Canada, had to finish early after participants became too distressed to continue. They had to spend time in small soundproof rooms, where they could see, hear or touch almost nothing. Just a few hours into the experiment, participants started talking or singing to themselves and many later became upset or anxious. Having hallucinations – seeing thing like lights, shapes or animals that weren’t actually there – was common. All performed worse on maths and word tests. D What is interesting is that the effects aren’t just on our mental health. The physical effects can include poorer sleep patterns, and lonely people are also more likely to get sick and have higher blood pressure. Research at Ohio State University, USA, has demonstrated that long-term social isolation can increase our chances of serious medical conditions such as heart disease and decrease brain function. Scientists were stunned by the results of brain scans of the nine members of a research team before and after they spent 14 months in the Antarctic, cut off from the rest of the world. Without exception, their brains had changed. Each member showed around a 7% decrease in a part of the brain, the dentate gyrus, that controls memory and learning. In addition, they had lower levels of a protein that manages stress levels. E Those who spend long periods alone, such as solo mountain climbers or explorers, use a variety of strategies to deal with being cut off from others. For some, objects become human substitutes. One remarkable example of this is sailor Ellen MacArthur. In 2005, she spent over 71 days alone sailing over 44,000 km around the world and to combat the loneliness she called her boat ‘Mobi’. It was as if she’d completed the journey with another person; all her emails were signed ‘love e and mobi’ and she used ‘we’ (referring to herself and Mobi) rather than ‘I’ in her description of events. Professor Gro Sandal, a Norwegian psychologist, found that for others the landscape itself becomes their companion. Looking at the incredible scenery around them made them feel more secure and less lonely. Others befriend animals or use physical activity. Sailor Bernard Moitessier did both. While taking part in a boat race around the world, he fed seabirds that followed his boat and did lots of yoga. Instead of completing the race, he discovered he was enjoying his isolation so much that he just kept on sailing, eventually going more than half way round the globe again. The French scientist Michel Siffre tried to make friends with a mouse during the six months he spent in a cave because he was so lonely. F Actively using your brain helps reduce the negative effects of isolation. Another recent ELSA study measured people’s verbal skills and ability to remember over ten years. It found that regularly taking part in cultural activities such as visiting art galleries or museums, going to concerts or the theatre helped people maintain their performance on the tests. Curiously, going to the cinema was not found to have the same benefits. Solving maths problems or practising languages are other methods people have successfully used to combat loneliness. 12 Read the text and match the paragraph descriptions (1–6) with paragraphs (A–F). There is one extra description you do not need. This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 1 Two experiments that demonstrated different effects of isolation on our mental health. ______ 2 How to train your brain to cope with the mental and physical effects of isolation. ______ 3 Activities that encourage us to think and challenge our brains make us feel less lonely. ______ 4 Long periods of isolation have many negative effects, including affecting our memory. ______ 5 Different ways people who spend time alone have found to deal with isolation. ______ 6 How isolation can impact our body, including the brain. ______ Score __/5 Higher Unit 1 Test: Higher 13 Read the text again. Are the sentences True (T) or False (F)? Correct the false sentences. 1 6 A participant in a sailing race kept sailing and didn’t finish because they were enjoying being alone so much. T / F Although loneliness doesn’t affect how we deal with stress, it can affect mood and our ability to think. T / F ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ 7 ___________________________________________ 2 Maurizio Montalbini believed he had spent far longer underground than he actually had. T / F ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ 3 4 Spending time in rooms with little sensory input made people so upset one isolation experiment had to stop. T/F Score __/7 ___________________________________________ 14 In your opinion, which experiment, research or fact described in the text was most surprising? Why? Give three reasons to support your answer. ___________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Isolation doesn’t only make heart disease more likely, it also causes an area of the brain to shrink. T / F ________________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ 5 Watching a film in a cinema has the same effect on the brain against isolation as going to the theatre. T/F Sailors usually name their boats to stop them feeling so lonely. T / F ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Score __/3 ___________________________________________ This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 Higher Unit 1 Test: Higher Writing Speaking 15 Read the task and write a story of 220–260 words. 16 Work in pairs. Ask and answer the questions, giving full answers. When you answer, make sure you add examples and ideas, express your opinion and use phrases to play for time where appropriate. Stories wanted Are you a talented writer? A travel magazine is looking for interesting stories set at or near a tourist attraction. Your story must include an unusual coincidence and/or an unexpected meeting. The best stories will be published in the magazine. ________________________________________________ 1 What do you hope to be doing in a year’s time? 2 What has been your most unusual holiday experience? 3 Do you ever wish you lived in a different country? 4 How important do you think it is to read fiction books? 5 What do you think are the most important qualities in a good friend? ________________________________________________ Score __/10 ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Vocabulary __/20 Grammar __/25 Use of English __/8 Listening __/12 Reading __/15 Writing __/10 Speaking __/10 ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ TOTAL __/100 ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Score __/10 This page has been downloaded from www.macmillaneducationeverywhere.com Photocopiable © Macmillan Education Limited 2022 Higher
