Cambridge IELTS Academic 17
TEST 1
Questions 1 – 5
Complete the notes below.
Choose
ONE WORD ONLY
from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes
1-5
on your answer sheet.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Discovery
Qumran, 1946/7
●
three Bedouin shepherds in their teens were near an opening on side of cliff
●
heard a noise of breaking when one teenager threw a
1
.……………………
●
teenagers went into the
2
.…………………… and found a number of containers
made of
3
.……………………
The scrolls
●
date from between 150 BCE and 70 CE
●
thought to have been written by group of people known as the
4
.……………………
●
written mainly in the
5
.…………………… language
●
most are on religious topics, written using ink on parchment or papyrus
8
TEST 2 READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on
Questions 1-6
which are based on
Reading Passage 1 below.
[Note: This is an extract from READING PASSAGE 1 about The development
of the London underground railway]
In the first half of the 1800s, London’s population grew at an astonishing rate,
and the central area became increasingly congested. In addition, the expansion
of the overground railway network resulted in more and more passengers arriving
in the capital. However, in 1846, a Royal Commission decided that the railways
should not be allowed to enter the City, the capital’s historic and business centre.
The result was that the overground railway stations formed a ring around the
City. The area within consisted of poorly built, overcrowded slums and the streets
were full of horse-drawn traffic. Crossing the City became a nightmare. It could
take an hour and a half to travel 8 km by horse-drawn carriage or bus. Numerous
schemes were proposed to resolve these problems, but few succeeded.
Amongst the most vocal advocates for a solution to London’s traffic problems was
Charles Pearson, who worked as a solicitor for the City of London. He saw both
social and economic advantages in building an underground railway that would
link the overground railway stations together and clear London slums at the same
time. His idea was to relocate the poor workers who lived in the inner-city slums
to newly constructed suburbs, and to provide cheap rail travel for them to get to
work. Pearson’s ideas gained support amongst some businessmen and in 1851
he submitted a plan to Parliament. It was rejected, but coincided with a proposal
from another group for an underground connecting line, which Parliament passed.
The two groups merged and established the Metropolitan Railway Company
in August 1854. The company’s plan was to construct an underground railway
line from the Great Western Railway’s (GWR) station at Paddington to the edge
of the City at Farringdon Street – a distance of almost 5 km. The organisation
had difficulty in raising the funding for such a radical and expensive scheme, not
least because of the critical articles printed by the press. Objectors argued that
the tunnels would collapse under the weight of traffic overhead, buildings would
be shaken and passengers would be poisoned by the emissions from the train
engines. However, Pearson and his partners persisted.
The GWR, aware that the new line would finally enable them to run trains into
the heart of the City, invested almost £250,000 in the scheme. Eventually, over
a five-year period, £1m was raised. The chosen route ran beneath existing main
roads to minimise the expense of demolishing buildings. Originally scheduled to
be completed in 21 months, the construction of the underground line took three
years. It was built just below street level using a technique known as ‘cut and
cover’. A trench about ten metres wide and six metres deep was dug, and the
sides temporarily help up with timber beams. Brick walls were then constructed,
and finally a brick arch was added to create a tunnel. A two-metre-deep layer of
soil was laid on top of the tunnel and the road above rebuilt.
|
