S/M/GE
PART ONE: READING (15 points)
A. COMPREHENSION (08pts)
Read the passage carefully then do the activities.

The story is one of tragedy and fraud. It started in May 1981, when travelling salesmen in Northern and central Spain started selling cheap olive oil. They guaranteed that it was pure, and had sold vast quantities around Madrid, Valladolid and Leon, before anyone realized that it was wrong.

Like most Mediterranean countries, Spain uses olive oil in its cooking. When people started falling ill in May, nobody suspected that it was the cooking oil which was the cause of the illness. It was a medical mystery: doctors and scientists were completely baffled by the spread of the disease.

There were several theories about what was happening. At first, it was thought that bad fish had caused food poisoning, and later, that it was rotten fruit. It was until June that children’s doctor in Madrid made the connection between the sickness and the oil. Immediately, the government started issuing public warnings, and offered to take any suspect oil, giving pure oil exchange. This stopped the spread of the poison. But it was too late for the thousands of people who had already eaten the contaminated substance. People who had been affected could not eat or sleep, had pains all over their body, suffered headaches and fevers, and had difficulty in breathing. Some of them even died.

Doctors and scientists were still not sure what the poison was. The most popular theory was that a Spanish company imported some industrial oil from France, and tried to remove the impurities by boiling it at 200°C. They mixed it with a small amount of olive oil to give it a taste, and then sent it to the salesmen to sell as pure olive oil. When they boiled the oil, however, they created a new substance, which was poisonous and unknown to the medical authorities. At one time, twenty thousand people in Spain were analyzing the oil, trying to find a cure for the poison. By March 1982, they had still not found a way of curing the illness caused by the oil. The Spanish health Ministry admitted that all antidotes so far tried had been unsuccessful. While the medical authorities were carrying out the various analyses, the police arrested fourteen people suspected of being responsible for the oil poisoning.

Adapted from Modern English International
Number 5, May 1982


1. Choose the letter that best completes the sentence.
The text is...
a. descriptive.
b. narrative.

2. Say whether the following statements are true or false.
a. Many Mediterranean countries consume olive oil.
b. Food poisoning was caused by bad fish.
c. All the contaminated people died.
d. By March 1982, doctors were unable to cure the disease.


3. In which paragraph is it mentioned that...
doctors were uncertain about the nature of the poison?

4. What or who do the underlined words in the text refer to?
a. This stopped...
b. ...had pains all over their body...
B.TEXT EXPLORATION (07pts)

1. Find in the text words or phrases that are closest in meaning to the following.
a. amounts=.................(§.1)
b. puzzled =................(§.2)

2. Find in the text words that are opposites in meaning to the following .
a. received=/=.............(§.4)
b. released=/=..............(§.4)

3. Which noun can be derived from each given verb?
verbs nouns
contaminate ...........................
remove ...........................
offer ...........................
create ...........................


4. Ask questions that the underlined words answer.
a. It started in May 1981.
b. The Spanish use olive oil in their cooking.
c. Doctors were baffled.

5. Put the verbs between brackets into the correct form.
a. Advertisements of unhealthy foods (be) harmful.
b. Markets may (examine) consumer behaviour.
c. Some people are fond of (cook).
d. If she (eat) a lot of fat and sugar, she will put on weight.

6. Classify the following words according to the pronunciation of their final “S”.
uses scientists thousands substances
/s/ /z/ /iz/


PART TWO : Written Expres​sion( 5 pts)
Choose one of the following topics.

Topic 1.
A friend of yours is obese; he faces many difficulties in his daily life. Use the following notes to write a paragraph of about 80 to 120 words on the causes and the effects of obesity.
• eating a lot of fat and sugary
• consuming wrong kind of food
• lack of practising sport
• appearance of different diseases
• increase in the feeling of inferiority

Topic 2.
Are you for or against advertisements for fast food? Write a paragraph of about 80 to 120 words giving your reasons.