Text 3: <<Britain is at the Bottom of the Class in Foreign Languages> > From Premium Learning
Britain has been proven to be the dunce of Europe when it comes to learning foreign languages, according to a recent report by the European Commission. More than half of other Europeans can speak at least one foreign language, and often two. However, 66% of the British population has absolutely no knowledge of any language apart from English and 51% thought that it would be just ‘too difficult’.
Not everyone seems to have such a negative attitude. Compare these figures with Luxembourg, where only 2% could not speak a foreign language. Or Sweden, Denmark and Holland, where 80% of the population claims to speak English. To be fair, not all the other European countries were as good at languages. Fifty-six percent of the Portuguese, 53% of the Spanish and 51% of the French spoke only their own languages. According to the report, 18% of Britons claimed some knowledge of Spanish and 10% some German. None of this was in evidence recently when the British Tourist Centre (BTC) carried out a little experiment,
BTC hired researchers to pretend to be monolingual Spanish and German speakers. They had to contact hotels to ask questions about accommodations. Eighty-five percent of the hotels contacted were unable to answer even one question in Spanish, and 90% were unable to answer anything in German. Even more embarrassingly, many of the hotel staff thought ‘Deutsch’ meant the same as Dutch.
Unsurprisingly, the representative from the BTC was not pleased. The European Commission report found that 69% of people across the EU believed that everyone in the Union should be capable of speaking English as a foreign language. Is that really an excuse for our ignorance?
Statements 16 through 25 (on your answer sheet mark + if the statement is true, - if it is false)
16. Britain has proven to be the leader of Europe when it comes to learning foreign languages.
17. Less than half of other European countries cannot speak another foreign language.
18. Not all other European countries were as good at languages as Sweden, Denmark and Holland.
19. Two percent of the people in Luxembourg speak a foreign language.
20. The BTC experiment concluded that less than 18% of Britons spoke Spanish or German.
21. Besides England, Portugal speaks the lowest number of foreign languages.
22. Ninety percent of the hotel staff contacted could not answer questions in German.
23. Many of the hotel staff in Britain thought Deutsch meant Dutch.
24. The representative from the BTC was not pleased that a minority of people speak English in the EU.
25. At the end of this text, ‘our’ is a pronoun referring to the Britons.
Text 4: <<From>> Our Island Universe by Ruth Reichl, New York Gourmet, 2004
New York is an invisible city, a chameleon hiding in plain sight, a place no two people experience in quite the same way. Despite this, it is – like all great cities – constantly being explored, examined, and explained.
But New York moves too fast to be easily understood, vibrating at a pace that makes capturing a perfect image almost impossible. Just when you think you understand it, the city dances away, changed. New immigrants pour across the bridges, transforming entire neighborhoods in the blink of an eye. Rents go up, buildings come down, and stable businesses disappear only to be replaced by new industries that were unimaginable just a few months earlier.
But even more powerful than the changes wrought by time are the changes wrought by place, by ethnicity, by character. New York is a vision embraced by many people each personal, each unlike any other. Which New York you see depends on who you are and where you live: My New York is not, and never will be, yours.
But while we may not be able to live in all of these intersecting cities, visiting them is a definite possibility. What we have tried to do in this issue is look at the multiple New Yorks that coexist, side by side, almost invisible to outsiders.
Questions 26 through 30 (on your answer sheet mark the correct letter A, B, C, or D)
26. New York is described as “invisible” because of…
A. the fast pace of life.
B. the way different people view the city.
C. its location on an island.
D. its long history.
27. The author believes all of the following EXCEPT:
A. that people should live in all of the interesting parts of New York City.
B. that New York is very fast paced.
C. that New York can be very hard to understand.
D. that New York is constantly being explored.
28. What two things are described as constantly changing?
A. population and industry
B. industry and location
C. neighborhoods and location
D. bridges and population
29. Outsiders are…,
A. welcome to live in different parts of New York.
B. often unable to view the different images of the city.
C. constantly contributing to the city’s changes.
D. an important part of New York’s many identities.
30. What is the LEAST powerful of the changes in New York?
A. character
B. time
C. pace
D. ethnicity