Mac Indicator (FREE)

1. Read the following text to answer the question.

Perfumes and fragrant spices were precious commodities in antiquity. They were very much in demand, and at times even exceeded silver and gold in value. Therefore they were considered to be luxury products, used mainly in the temples and in the homes of the nobility and upper classes.

Since perfumes and spices were luxury products, their use was exclusive to the noble and the wealthy.

2. Read the following text to answer the question.

And the future? It is anticipated that, in some years to come, leisure spending will account for between a third to a half of all household expenditure. Whilst it is difficult to give exact figures, it is clear that the leisure industry will certainly experience a long period of sustained growth. Notably, working hours are not expected to decrease. This is because more people will be needed to keep leisure services running.

In the future, people will pay less for leisure facilities than they do today.

3. Read the following text to answer the question.

People romanticise writing as a profession. They think that it is just about sitting down and churning out words on a page, or more likely these days, on a computer screen. If only it were so! In fact, being a writer is about managing a spectrum of contradictory and conflicting emotions: elation, despair, hope, frustration, satisfaction, and depression! Furthermore, it also involves carrying out meticulous research: first to establish whether there is a market for the planned publication, and second into the actual content of the book. Sometimes, however, instinct takes the place of market research and the contents are dictated not by planning and exhaustive research but by experience and knowledge.

In the planning stages of a book, ______________________________________

4. Complete the sentence with the verb "propose" in the correct form. "The theory _________________ by Hawking has answered some age-old questions."

5. Complete the second sentence so that it means the same as the first. (1) It would be possible to persuade the government to impose a more ambitious target. (2) The government ........... to impose this more ambitious target.

6. Although it is first described as a county in 1065, its southern boundaries at, before and ______________ are uncertain.

7. The launch was planned for 2003 _____________.

8. Listen to the following audio to answer the question.

The holiday insurance that is offered _________

9. Oil is set to run out soon if we continue to ____________ it at the current rate.

10. Listen to the following audio to answer the question.

US East Coast display: grains from the south coast are small, light-coloured and _______ in shape.

11. Researchers visited the Great Upper Nile region ___________________ they could study an endangered languages still spoken there.

12. Listen to the following audio to answer the question.

Which aspect of roof garden design is mentioned?

13. Listen to the following audio to answer the question.

Margaret suggests that managers may find it difficult to _________

14. We'll be looking at the three main causes of social change around the world, and we'll have one or two examples of _______________.

15. Listen to the following audio to answer the question.

Margaret thinks that employers should encourage staff members who are __________

16. Read the following text to answer the question.

Planning an eco-friendly holiday can be a minefield for the well-meaning traveller, says Mark Watson. If there were awards for tourism catchwords that have been hijacked, diluted and misused then ‘ecotourism’ would surely earn first prize. The term initially surfaced in the early 1980s reflecting a surge in environmental awareness and a realisation by tour operators that many of their clients wanted to believe their presence in a foreign land would not have a negative impact. It rapidly became the hottest marketing tag a holiday abroad could carry.

The term ‘ecotourism’ has become an advertising gimmick.

17. Last year's winter was _________ cold and snowfall was frequent.

18. Read the following text to answer the question.

Increasingly, buildings such as offices, schools, colleges or hospitals which used to allow free access to employees and other users now do not. This is because they are situated in urban areas suffering from escalating crime, Entry areas are now manned by security staff. Receptionists, whose task it once was to receive visitors and to make them welcome before passing them on to the person they had come to see,are now tasked with barring entry to the unauthorised, the unwanted or the plain unappealing.

Access to many buildings ___________________

19. Could you ___________ on whether people will change their attitudes towards borrowing money?

20. I’m sorry to bring this __________, but I thought you’d offered to pay for this dinner.