Today I received emails from Moscow (Russia), Dubai (UAE), Budapest (Hungary), Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and they all said that their exam was the same as in Namibia. However, the report from Moscow was a very detailed one and with several versions of Speaking questions, so I decided to post it anyway. Pay attention to the words in bold – those are the answers. In the end P tells us about unexpected difficulties they had – keep on reading and be prepared! Thanks a bunch to P for updating us!
Listening test
Section 1: a questionnaire of local citizen of Newport town, a man of 19, who lives there for 9 years, probably a salesman, shares an apartment with a friend, has a bicycle, among public transport regularly uses only trains and taxi (fill in). He also eats out once a month, twice a week visits clubs, goes to the cinema only occasionally and never goes to the theater because of the prices. His main sport activity is sailing and he attends a Japanese course (fill in too).
Section 2: Wreck diving. I remember that you need a certificate to join this activity, it’s popular enough because there are many sunk vessels – 2050 to be exact. Then, you’re lucky if you could find a ship bell with a name of a vessel on it. Sharks are not dangerous in British waters, but the water is rather dark so that you can’t see clearly (fill in). There also were multiple choice questions with 3 options, a/b/c.
Section 3: Agree with everything, that wrote C from Namibia. The questions were multiple choice with three options (a/b/c).
Section 4: The section was divided into 2 parts, the first was about a marine biologist, what made her work for the laboratory, why they prefer to explore marine creatures (similarity to human or long period when they remain unchanged), what subject she is specialized in (immune system or muscles or something similar). The questions here were multiple choice with 3 options (a/b/c).
The second part was a table completion of 3 species of some kind of crabs (not exactly a fish), what particular qualities they study and what use it can bring to humans. This last section was a bit complicated but easier than previous about methodology research.
Reading test
Passage 1: Northside theater and its facilities, T/F/NG questions.
Passage 2: About the same theater, with short-answer questions (answer in three words).
Passage 3: Courses at some University, what is the shortest course you can get, are the courses running on the same schedule, whether you can return an airline expenditure or not if travel more than 2500 km from Sydney, is there a chance to get an attendance certificate if the reason of your absence is not an illness. The questions were T/F/NG and short answer ones (answer in three words).
Passage 4: Sexual segregation. Why different kinds of animals create groups of one gender, possible reasons of the phenomenon: food preferences of male and female, behavioral examples of different species (monkeys, hoofed mammals, human), whether among human it is more related to boys or girls, what was the reason of hunting in traditional societies – need for more energetic food or a point of status. There were T/F/NG questions and matching statements to passage content (not matching headings indeed).
Writing test
Writing task 1 (letter)
Write a letter to your employer and ask to attend a training course. In your letter:
1) give reasons why you want to attend this course;
2) explain why it could be useful for your job;
3) suggest suitable time for you to attend the course.
Writing task 2 (essay)
Nowadays the amount of people who live till 100 is increasing.
1) what are the reasons of the trend;
2) what effect it has on an individual and the society.
Speaking test
My friend had an her exam on the same day, so I have two options for Speaking:
Option 1
Interview
– What’s your name?
– Do you work or study?
– What kind of work do you do?
– How could it happen that you do it?
– Who usually cooks for your family, do you like to cook?
Cue card
Remember a public library you used, talk about
– where was it located,
– what purpose did you used it for,
– how useful was it for your studies or research,
– what did you like and dislike in it.
Discussion
Then there were questions related to libraries:
– Why now people use them less frequent than earlier?
– Should government support libraries?
– What is better for people – libraries or bookshops, what is your attitude to online libraries?
Option 2
Interview
– Do you work or study?
– Is it easy to work?
Cue card
Describe an apartment or house you like (not your home), you should say:
– Why do you like this house?
– Where is it located?
Discussion
Other questions were about local regulations of house design.
Where do you prefer to live: in a flat or to run the house.
BTW, I would like to mention that they changed the tasks order for one group of test takers because of some breakdown of the equipment, and had done the reading part first, then listening. And it was a bit confusing to have the reading first, and writing after listening, nobody expected such sort of thing and it felt messy.
But the most embarrassing fact was that we needed to wait for 5 hours for speaking, so we spent all this time in a park on a hot whether, and were almost exhausted during the Speaking. I’ve never seen any information about such cases before and weren’t ready for these difficulties.