Thematic ielts reading practice tests toshkent «pir» nashriyoti – 2023 Cambridge English

Cambridge IELTS Academic 17
TEST 72 
Questions 36 – 40
Complete the summary using the list of words
 
A-J
 below.
Write the correct letter,
 
A-J
, in boxes 
36-40
 on your answer sheet.
The bedrock myth
In chapter seven, Barr indicates how the lack of bedrock close to the surface does not 
explain why skyscrapers are absent from 
36
.…………………… . He points out that 
although the cost of foundations increases when bedrock is deep below the surface, 
this cannot be regarded as 
37
.……………………, especially when compared to 
38
...………………… .
A particularly enjoyable part of the chapter was Barr’s account of how foundations 
are built. He describes not only how 
39
...………………… are made possible by the 
use of caissons, but he also discusses their 
40
...………………… . The chapter is well 
researched but relatively easy to understand
A
development plans
B
deep excavations
C
great distance
D
excessive expense
E
impossible tasks
F
associated risks
G
water level
H
specific areas
I
total expenditure
J
construction guidelines

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MULTIPLE CHOICES I
TEST 87 READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on 
Questions 36-40
 which are based on 
Reading Passage 3 below.
To catch a king
Anna Keay reviews Charles Spencer’s book about the hunt for King Charles II 
during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century
* Presbyterianism: part of the reformed Protestant religion
Charles Spencer’s latest book, To 
Catch a King, tells us the story of the 
hunt for King Charles II in the six weeks 
after his resounding defeat at the Battle 
of Worcester in September 1651. And 
what a story it is. After his father was 
executed by the Parliamentarians in 
1649, the young Charles II sacrificed 
one of the very principles his father 
had died for and did a deal with Scots, 
thereby accepting Presbyterianism* 
as the national religion in return for 
being crowned King of Scots. His 
arrival in Edinburgh prompted the 
English Parliamentary army to invade 
Scotland in a pre-emptive strike. This 
was followed by a Scottish invasion 
of England. The two sides finally 
faced one another at Worcester in 
the west of England in 1651. After 
being comprehensively defeated on 
the meadows outside the city by the 
Parliamentarian army, the 21-year-
old king found himself the subject of 
a national manhunt, with a huge sum 
offered for his capture, through a series 
of heart-poundingly close escapes, to 
evade the Parliamentarians before 
seeking refuge in France. For the next 
nine years, the penniless and defeated 
Charles wandered around Europe with 
only a small group of loyal supporters.
Years later, after his restoration as king, 
the 50-year-old Charles II requested 
a meeting with the writer and diarist 
Samuel Pepys. His intention when 
asking Pepys to commit his story to 
paper was to ensure that this most 
extraordinary episode was never 
forgotten. Over two three-hour sittings, 
the king related to him in great detail 
his personal recollections of the six 
weeks he had spent as a fugitive. As 
the king and secretary settled down (a 
scene that is surely a gift for a future 
scriptwriter), Charles commenced 
his story: ‘After the battle was so 
absolutely lost as to be beyond hope 
of recovery, I began to think of the best 
way of saving myself.’
One of the joys of Spencer’s book, a 
result not least of its use of Charles 
II’s own narrative as well as those of 
his supporters, is just how close the 
reader gets to the action. The day-by-
day retelling of the fugitives’ doings 
provides delicious details: the cutting 
of the king’s long hair with agricultural 
shears, the use of walnut leaves to 
dye his pale skin, and the day Charles 
spent lying on a branch of the great 
oak tree in Boscobel Wood as the 
Parliamentary soldiers scoured the 
forest floor below. Spencer draws 

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out both the humour – such as the 
preposterous refusal of Charles’s 
friend Henry Wilmot to adopt disguise 
on the grounds that it was beneath 
his dignity – and the emotional 
tension when the secret of the king’s 
presence was cautiously revealed to 
his supporters.
Charles’s adventures after losing 
the Battle of Worcester hide the 
uncomfortable truth that whilst almost 
everyone in England had been 
appalled by the execution of his father, 
they had not welcomed the arrival of 
his son with the Scots army, but had 
instead firmly bolted their doors. This 
was partly because he rode at the head 
of what looked like a foreign invasion 
force and partly because, after almost 
a decade of civil war, people were 
desperate to avoid it beginning again. 
This makes it all the more interesting 
that Charles II himself loved the 
story so much ever after. As well as 
retelling it to anyone who would listen, 
causing eye-rolling among courtiers, 
he set in train a series of initiatives to 
memorialise it. There was to be a new 
order of chivalry, the Knights of the 
Royal Oak. A series of enormous oil 
paintings depicting the episode were 
produced, including a two-metre-wide 
canvas of Boscobel Wood and a set 
of six similarly enormous paintings 
of the king on the run. In 1660, 
Charles II commissioned the artist 
John Michael Wright to paint a flying 
squadron of cherubs* carrying an oak 
tree to the heavens on the ceiling of 
his bedchamber. It is hard to imagine 
many other kings marking the lowest 
point in their life so enthusiastically, or 
* cherub: an image of angelic children used in paintings
indeed pulling off such an escape in 
the first place.
Charles Spencer is the perfect 
person to pass the story on to a new 
generation. His pacey, readable prose 
steers deftly clear of modern idioms 
and elegantly brings to life the details 
of the great tale. He has even-handed 
sympathy for both the fugitive king 
and the fierce republican regime 
that hunted him, and he succeeds in 
his desire to explore far more of the 
background of the story than previous 
books on the subject have done. 
Indeed, the opening third of the book 
is about how Charles II found himself 
at Worcester in the first place, which 
for some will be reason alone to read 
To Catch a King.
The tantalizing question left, in the 
end, is that of what it all meant. Would 
Charles II have been a different king 
had these six weeks never happened? 
The days and nights spent in hiding 
must have affected him in some way. 
Did the need to assume disguises, 
to survive on wit and charm alone, to 
use trickery and subterfuge to escape 
from tight corners help form him? This 
is the one area where the book doesn’t 
quite hit the mark. Instead its depiction 
of Charles II in his final years as an 
ineffective, pleasure-loving monarch 
doesn’t do justice to the man (neither is 
it accurate), or to the complexity of his 
character. But this one niggle aside, To 
Catch a King is an excellent read, and 
those who come to it knowing little of 
the famous tale will find they have a 
treat in store.

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