General reading (32)

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Read the advertisements for events at the Sunshine Hotel below and then answer the questions that follow.

7 On which TWO days are there competitions?

8 Which day’s afternoon activities finish the earliest?

9 Which day’s film is about a horse?

10 On which day are the food arrangements different?

Answer the following questions using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 11 – 13 on your answer sheet.

In boxes 21 – 24 on your answer sheet write:
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

21 Ten minutes is the maximum available length for an appointment.

15 Students can go into the Language Lab at 8.30 on Thursday mornings.

16 Students can have a cooked breakfast in the cafe before their morning classes.

17 The police will visit any student not completing the required attendance levels

Read the Information for Students notice for the Westley School of English again.
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS, answer the following questions.

In boxes 21 – 24 on your answer sheet write:
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

21 Ten minutes is the maximum available length for an appointment.

22 If you have had an x-ray, call the surgery no earlier than one week following the date of the x-ray for the result.

23 You cannot order a repeat prescription over the phone.

24 One of the practice’s four doctors will conduct a New Patients Health Check with any new patients to the practice.

Read the Westley Central Surgery Information Leaflet again.
Complete the following statements (Questions 25 – 27) with words taken from the leaflet.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

CHOCOLATE – THE FOOD OF THE GODS

A The story of chocolate begins with the discovery of America in 1492. Columbus was the first European to come into contact with cacao. On August 5th, 1502, on his fourth and last voyage to the Americas, Columbus and his crew met some natives in a canoe that contained beans from the cacao tree. Columbus was struck by how much value the Indians placed on them as he did not know the beans were used for currency. It is unlikely that Columbus brought any of these beans back to Spain and it was not until about twenty years later that Cortez grasped the commercial possibilities when he found the Aztecs using the beans to make the royal drink “chocolate”.

B The Spanish, in general, were not fond of the bitter drink so Cortez and his followers made it more palatable by adding cane sugar and later cinnamon and vanilla were added. Spanish monks let the secret out back home and, although the Spanish hid it from their neighbours for a hundred years, finally chocolate’s popularity grew until it was the fashionable drink at the French court and the discerning choice of customers at London meeting houses.

C The cacao beans are harvested from pods grown on the cacao tree. The pods come in a range of types since cacao trees cross-pollinate freely. These types can be reduced to three classifications. The most common is Forastero, which accounts for nearly 90% of the world’s production of cacao beans. This is the easiest to cultivate and has a thick-walled pod and a pungent aroma. Rarest and most prized are the beans of the Criollo. These beans from the soft, thin-skinned pod have an aroma and delicacy that make them sought after by the world’s best chocolate makers. Finally, there is the Trinitario, which is believed to be a natural cross from strains of the other two types. It has a great variety of characteristics but generally possesses a good, aromatic flavour and the trees are particularly suitable for cultivation.

D The cacao tree is strictly a tropical plant thriving only in hot, rainy climates. Thus, its cultivation is confined to countries not more than 20 degrees north or south of the equator. The cacao tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs protection from the wind and requires a fair amount of shade under most conditions. This is true especially in its first two or three years of growth. A newly planted cacao seedling is often sheltered by a different type of tree. It is normal to plant food crops for shade such as bananas, plantain, coconuts or cocoyams. Rubber trees and forest trees are also used for shade. Once established, however, cacao tree can grow in full sunlight, provided there are fertile soil conditions and intensive husbandry. With pruning and careful cultivation, the trees of most strains will begin bearing fruit in the fifth year. With extreme care, some strains can be induced to yield good crops in the third and fourth years.

E The process of turning cacao into chocolate hasn’t changed much since the Swiss made the major breakthroughs in the process in the late 1800s. First the beans (up to twelve varieties harvested from all over the world) go through a process of fermentation and drying. They are then sorted by hand before cleaning and then roasting. Winnowing follows which removes the hard outer hulls and leaves what is known as the “nibs”. A crushing and heating process known as Hunte’s Process is then used to remove nearly half of the cocoa butter from the nibs. This makes unsweetened chocolate (also known as cooking chocolate). Basic eating chocolate is made from a blending of the unsweetened chocolate with some of the cocoa butter along with other ingredients such as sugar and vanilla. The resulting product is then “conched” and this conching gives chocolate the velvet texture that we know so well. The finished result is then molded, cooled, packaged by machine, distributed, sold and, of course, eaten!

F Where methods of manufacturing are concerned, manufacturers have a completely free hand and have developed individual variations from the pattern. Each manufacturer seeks to protect his own methods by conducting certain operations under an atmosphere of security. No chef guards his favourite recipes more zealously than the chocolate manufacturer guards his formulas for blending the beans. Time intervals, temperatures and proportions are three critical factors that no company wants to divulge.

G Apart from the taste, one of the most pleasant effects of eating chocolate is the “good feeling” that many people experience after indulging. Chocolate contains more than three known chemicals including caffeine, theobromine and phenlethylamine which are stimulants. Some researchers believe that chocolate contains pharmacologically active substances that have the same effect on the brain as marijuana and that these chemicals may be responsible for problems such as the psychoses associated with chocolate craving. However, eating too much of anything can obviously cause health problems and as long as moderation is exercised, chocolate should not cause the average person any harm.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in The Story of Chocolate?
In boxes 34 – 37 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the statement
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage

34 Most early Spaniards did not particularly like the chocolate that the Aztecs originally drank.

35 The Forastero bean is generally regarded as making the best chocolate.

36 Cacao trees need a lot of looking after to be used commercially.

37 Some chocolate companies have been known to steal chocolate recipes from other companies.

Using the information in the passage, complete the flow chart below.
Write your answers in boxes 38 – 40 on your answer sheet.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.