CAE Reading and Use of English Practice Test 1 Printable

CAE Reading and Use of English Part 4

For questions 25-30, complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between three and six words, including the word given. Here is an example (0).

0 I didn’t know the way there, so I got lost.

GET
Not_____________________ there, I got lost.
Answer: KNOWING HOW TO GET

25 I’ve just noticed that the car has almost run out of petrol.
HARDLY
I’ve just noticed that_____________________ left in the car.

26 I didn’t know that cars were so expensive in this country.
IDEA
I _____________________ so much in this country.

27 Don’t get depressed because of such a small problem.
LET
It’s such a small problem that you shouldn’t _____________ down.

28 It is reported that he is now recovering in hospital.
RECOVERY
He is reported____________________ in hospital now.

29 Laura’s teacher says that she doesn’t have a serious enough attitude to her work.
SERIOUSLY
Laura doesn’t _____________________ to her teacher.

30 What’s confusing you so much?
LOT
What is it that’s _____________________ confusion?

CAE Reading and Use of English Part 5

You are going to read a book review. For questions 31-36 choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

The Great Indoors: At Home in the Modern British House

In 1910 the music hall comedian Billy Williams scored his biggest hit with the song When Father Papered the Parlour, mocking the incompetence of the amateur home decorator. Fifty years later, comedians Norman Wisdom and Bruce Forsyth were still entertaining millions on the TV show Sunday Night at the London Palladium with a similar routine, but the joke was starting to look dated. The success of magazines such as The Practical Householder was already proving that, as the 1957 Ideal Home Exhibition proclaimed, “Do-it-yourself is a home hobby that is here to stay.”

By this stage, Britain had mostly completed its transition from primitive housing conditions, made bearable – for those who could afford it – by servants and handymen, into a world where families looked after themselves in highly serviced environments. Recognisably modern technology, in the form of telephones, televisions and electricity, had become ubiquitous and was to transform domestic living still further in the coming years. The makeover of British homes in the twentieth century is recounted in Ben Highmore’s entertaining and informative new book. He takes us on a whirlwind tour of an everyday house, from entrance hall to garden shed, illuminated by extensive reference to oral histories, popular magazines and personal memoirs.

At its centre, though, is the way that our homes have reflected wider social changes. There is the decline of formality, so that living rooms once full of heavy furniture and Victorian knick-knacks are now dominated by television screens and littered with children’s toys. There is a growing internationalism in taste. And there is the rise of domestic democracy, with the household radiogram and telephone (located in the hall) now replaced by iPads, laptops and mobiles in virtually every room. Key to that decentralisation of the home – and the implied shift of power within it – is the advent of central heating, which gets pride of place as the innovation that allowed the whole house to become accessible at all times of day and night. Telling an unruly child to ‘go to your room’ no longer seems much of a threat.

Highmore also documents, however, some less successful steps in the onward march of domestic machinery. Whatever happened to the gas-powered fridges we were promised in 1946? Or to the Dishmaster a decade later that promised to do “a whole day’s washing up in just three minutes”? Rather more clear is the reason why a 1902 Teasmade failed to catch on: “when the alarm clock triggered the switch, a match was struck, lighting a spirit stove under the kettle”. You don’t have to be a health and safety fanatic to conclude that a bedroom isn’t the ideal place for such a gadget. Equally disturbing to the modern reader is the prewar obsession with children getting fresh air. It was a belief so entrenched that even a voice of dissent merely argued that in winter, “The healthy child only needs about three hours a day in the open air, as long as the day and night nursery windows are always open.” Nowadays, the fresh air obsession has been replaced by irrational fears of horrors outside the home. It’s easier to laugh at the foibles of the past, and Highmore doesn’t always resist a sense of modern superiority, though, for the most part, he’s an engaging and quirky guide, dispensing sociological insights without jargon.

The message is that even the language of the home has changed irrevocably: airing cupboards are going the same way as drawing rooms. As for that Billy Williams song, “By the 1980s”, Highmore writes, “it would be impossible for anyone to imagine their front room as a ‘parlour’ without seeming deeply old-fashioned.” He’s not entirely correct, for there was at least one person who was still employing such terminology. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sold her message with the use of what she called ‘the parables of the parlour’, which suggests she understood the truth that, despite the catalogue of changes, there is a core that seems consistent. A 1946 edition of Housewife magazine spelt it out: “men make houses, women make homes”. When you watch a male comedian today doing a routine about his wife’s attachment to scatter cushions, it seems worth asking: has the family dynamic really moved a great deal?

31 The reviewer’s main topic in the first paragraph is
A improvements in home decorating skills.
В how common it was for home decorating to be discussed.
C how unfair descriptions of home decorating used to be.
D a change in attitudes to home decorating.

32 In the second paragraph, the reviewer says that the book includes evidence illustrating
A that some British people’s homes were transformed more than others.
В the widespread nature of changes that took place in British homes.
C the perceived disadvantages of certain developments in British homes.
D that the roles of certain people in British homes changed enormously.

33 In the third paragraph, the reviewer points to a change in
A the extent to which different parts of the house are occupied.
В ideas of which parts of a house should be furnished in a formal way.
C how much time children spend in their own rooms.
D beliefs about what the most pleasant aspect of home life is.

34 The reviewer suggests in the fourth paragraph that
A most unsuccessful inventions failed because they were dangerous.
В various unsuccessful inventions failed because they did not work properly.
C some unsuccessful inventions were not advertised appropriately.
D there were unsuccessful inventions which might have been good ideas.

35 In the fifth paragraph, the reviewer says that in his book, Highmore
A sometimes focuses on strange ideas that were not very common in the past.
В occasionally applies the standards of today to practices in the past.
C occasionally expresses regret about how some attitudes have changed.
D sometimes includes topics that are not directly relevant to the main topic.

36 In the final paragraph, the reviewer suggests that Highmore may be wrong about
A when certain modern attitudes to home life first developed.
В which changes in home life in Britain have been most widely welcomed.
C the extent to which home life in Britain has changed.
D how common terms such as ‘airing cupboards’ are in modern Britain.

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