PART I – GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
Choose the correct answer.
01. It’s getting more _____ to rent a cheap flat.
A) hardly
B) hardier
D) the most difficult
C) and more difficult
E) and very difficult
02. _____ in a foreign country is not so easy.
A) You live
B) I live
C) Lives
D) Living
E) Live
03. Mr. Ford, your boss called. He asked you to call him _____.
A) back
B) in
C) off
D) of
E) over
04. The job _____ isn’t a problem.
A) it
B) myself
C) himself
D) itselves
E) itself
05. Sarah doesn’t cut her own hair. She _____ at the hairdresser.
A) cuts it
B) has it cut
C) has cut it
D) gets it
E) cuts her hair
06. I wish I _____ a new car. This one is very old.
A) have
B) had
D) had had
C) would have
E) have had
07. He said: “You look beautiful in red.”
Last night my husband told me _____ beautiful in red.
A) I looked
B) he looked
C) you look
D) I look
E) you looked
08. Sally: “Should we turn left or right?”
Jim: “Hmm. I’m not sure which way _____.”
A) we turned
B) should we turn
D) it turns
C) to turn
E) do we turn
09. I wonder who _____
A) our waiter is?
B) our waiter is.
D) is our waiter?
C) is our waiter.
E) our is waiter?
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10. Instead _____ going _____ the concert, he stays _____ home and listens _____ it _____ the radio.
A) of to at to of
B) at in of to of
C) of to at in to
D) of to at to on
E) of at at to on
11. He was really proud of _____ among so many intelligent people. He had been used to _____ alone before _____ to
this research center in Japan.
A) being working coming
B) being worked to come
D) to be worked come
C) been work come
E) been worked came
12. Policeman: “Hasn’t anyone caught the thief _____?”
Policewoman: “No, he hasn’t been caught _____. He will be caught _____.”
A) already already already
B) soon yet soon
D) still yet soon
C) yet yet soon
E) yet yet already
13. I failed the test. I _____ studied harder.
A) can
B) may
C) should
D) must have
E) should have
14. Give the dog _____ food and the cats _____ milk.
A) its its
B) their its
C) it’s they
D) it its
E) its their
PART II – TEXT COMPREHENSION
Answer according to the texts.
FUCHS, Marjorie & BONNER, Margaret. Grammar
Express. NY: Pearson Education, 2000. p. 128.
15. Where is the man?
A) In his office.
B) In an employment agency.
D) In his house.
C) In an employment.
E) In the woman’s house.
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16. What’s he applying for?
A) He’s applying for a job as an elevator operator.
B) He’s applying for starting at the bottom and working his way to the top.
C) An elevator operator.
D) A secretary.
E) A job.
17. What king of job is the woman suggesting for the man?
A) She’s considering a job as an elevator operator for herself.
B) She’s suggesting an employment agency.
D) She’s considering a job.
C) She’s suggesting him a job as an elevator operator.
E) She thinks he ought to consider.
THE FINE ART OF ENCOURAGEMENT
I was 26 years old, battling bad health and depression. I needed help and found it at the local library – of all
places, in a book of speeches by Winston Churchill.
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans. We shall fight with
growing confidence and growing strength in the air.”
I could almost imagine myself in England that bleak day in June 1940, following Britain’s defeat at the battle of
Dunkirk, when that great resonant voice – measured, pausing, powerful – addressed the House of Commons.
Churchill’s words lifted me as they had millions of his countrymen.
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the
landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.” I could see the great bulldog
face and fiery eyes. “We shall never surrender!”
All it took was this man’s expression of faith in the individual’s power to meet a challenge and rise above it –
and I was fortified. Churchill knew his countrymen had it in them. And I knew the same power lay within me.
Someone once said to me, “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” There are people
everywhere in need of a good word, an uplifting compliment to fire their hopes and dreams.
Let me offer you four ways to give true words of encouragement:
Be sincere and simple. Mark Twain remarked that he could live for two months on one good compliment. How
true! Haven’t we all repeated someone’s admiring words over and over in our minds, without losing the boost they
give?
There is more to a compliment than flattery, however. An insincere compliment sweetens the tongue, but sours
the stomach. And the flowery phrase is usually unnecessary. The simplest compliment can be the most profound.
I work in a company where my boss doesn’t say a lot about how well we’re doing. But I still have a memo I
wrote that involved ideas on how to build better customer relations. Why does that one stick in my mind over the
hundreds I’ve written? Two little words Mr. Kuwada had scrawled at the top: “Good idea!”
Even a little nod of acknowledgment, given deftly at the right moment, can stir a soul. John Wooden, the great
U.C.L.A. basketball coach, told his players that when they scored, they were to smile, wink or nod to the player who
had passed them the ball. A team member asked, “What if he’s not looking?”
“I guarantee he’ll look”, Wooden replied.
Be sensitive to time and place. In the words of the Biblical proverb of Solomon, “Like apples of gold in
settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.”
During one of the last major offensives of World War II, Dwight Eisenhower was walking near the Rhine and
came upon a GI who seemed depressed.
“How are you feeling, son?” He asked.
“General,” the young man replied, “I’m awful nervous.”
“Well,” Eisenhower said, “you and I are a good pair then, because I’m nervous too. Maybe if we just walk along
together, we’ll be good for each other.”
No sermon. No special advice. But what words of encouragement!
Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers football coach, was a feared disciplinarian. But he never
leveled a man without also seeking to launch him. One d ay he chewed out a player who’d missed several blocking
assignments.
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After practice, Lombardi stalked into the locker room. The player was sitting at his locker, head down, dejected.
Lombardi mussed his hair, patted him on the shoulder and said, “One of these days, you’re going to be the best
guard in the NFL.”
That guard was Jerry Kramer, and he says he carried that positive image of himself for the rest of his career.
“Lombardi’s encouragement had a tremendous impact on my whole life”, he says. Kramer went on to become a Green
Bay Packer Hall of Famer and a member of the NFL’s All-50-Year Team.
Recall personal examples of struggle. It’s human nature to believe that successful people have never made
mistakes. But it’s not so. Someone facing difficulty needs to be reminded of the challenges and failures that haunt us
all.
I decided to go to a certain seminary because of a teacher there named Howard Hendricks. His personality,
candor, wit and confidence shone through in everything he said. He proved to be the greatest teacher I’d ever had.
After a while, though, I grew discouraged, thinking that I could never live up to what he had accomplished.
One day, Hendricks seemed to spot my mood and perhaps the whole class’s mood. He stopped everything in
the middle of a lecture and began to talk heart to heart. He quietly spoke of his failures and how he was tempted
several times to give up teaching. He had us laughing one moment and feeling sad and sympathetic the next. I
realized he was a man of clay – just like the rest of us. “Life isn’t a hundred-yard dash,” he said to us. “It’s a marathon,
and those who win are often just plodders like you and me.”
Take time. Any old word of encouragement won’t do. The easy, unthinking compliments  “Hey, you’re
looking good” or “I like your style”  have no power to move, even when they are genuinely meant. Real
encouragement is like a well-wrought letter. In fact, it might even be a letter.
Walt Whitman struggled for years to get anyone interested in his poetry. He was discouraged. Then he
received a note. “Dear sir,” it began. “I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the
most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I greet you at the beginning of a great
career.” It was signed by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Those words weren’t off the cuff. Emerson labored over them to get them right. Not only did he want to
encourage Whitman; he wanted to do it memorably.
Encouragement is simple. Just a word, an anecdote, a compliment. A little pep talk, a visit. Take a look around.
Pick someone out. Then give him the best you’ve got. Today.
LITTLETON, Mark, R. The Fine Art of Encouragement. In: Reader’s Digest, nov. 1989. p. 141-143.
18. Who was in need of help?
A) Winston Churchill was in need of help.
B) I needed help and found it at the local library.
D) The narrator was in need of help.
C) Winston Churchill was the President of U.S.A.
E) The narrator was helping Winston Churchill.
19. Which are the ways of giving true words of encouragement?
A) Be sincere and simple, be sensitive to time and place, recall personal examples of struggle, and take time.
B) An insincere compliment sweetens the tongue, but sours the stomach.
C) Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.
D) It’s human nature to believe that success people have never made mistakes.
E) Any old word of encouragement won’t do.
20. Is there room for flattery in the fine art of encouragement?
A) Yes, there is.
B) Always.
D) No, not now.
C) There was in the past.
E) No, there isn’t.
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