Reader’s book

STANAG 6001, SLP 3:

Reading tests

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STANAG 6001, SLP 3: READING TESTS

INTRODUCTION

The following chapter presents a series of reading tests that I have constructed for testing
reading comprehension as part of SLP 3 exams (standardized language profile at an upper-
intermediate level) at the Foreign Language Institute of the Military Academy in Brno. Each
test consists of three to four reading items covering a wider range of topics from international
politics to ecology. All of them have been taken over from newspapers, magazines, press
releases and web pages on the Internet. Some of them have been abridged, but they have not
been edited, which means that they remained authentic (that is, written by native users of the
language for native readers).
It is important to understand that there is no one “best method” for testing reading because
no single test method can fulfill all the varied purposes for which we might test. Therefore I
tried to employ a number of different techniques across the range of texts tested. This makes
good sense, since in real–life reading, readers typically respond to a text in a variety of different
ways (extracting specific information, getting an idea of the main points, recognizing the
writer’s attitude, etc).

Overview of testing techniques used in the sample tests:

A. Objective and semi-objective techniques:

1. Gap-filling procedures (deletion of selected content words with the intention of testing an
understanding of the overall meaning) in combination with multiple choices for the students
to select from. As the choices are placed after the text all together in one bank, this
technique is sometimes referred to as “a banked cloze” or “a matching cloze”.
2. Matching techniques: usually multiple matching. Here two sets of stimuli have to be
matched against each other, as, for example, matching headings for paragraphs to their
corresponding paragraph.
3. Dichotomous items: students are presented with a statement which is related to a target
text and have to indicate whether this is True or False, or whether the text agrees or
disagrees with the statement. The problem is, of course, that students have a 50% chance
of getting the answer right by guessing alone. It is, however, one of the popular objective
testing techniques because such items are easy to construct. If the test constructor
concentrates on careful wording of the statements, he can have an effective instrument for
testing detailed understanding of the text. In order to eliminate the part played by guessing,
it is often recommended to construct as many items as possible.
4. Short-answer questions: a semi-objective technique also called “limited production
response type”. Test-takers are asked a question which requires a brief response. The
justification for this technique is that it is possible to interpret students’ responses to see if
they have really understood, whereas on dichotomous or multiple-choice items students
give no justification for the answer they have selected.
5. Information-transfer techniques: the students’ task is to identify in the target text the
required information and then to transfer it, often in some transposed form, onto a table,
chart or map.
6. The gapped summary: students read a text, and then read a summary of the same text, from
which key words have been removed. Their task is to restore the missing words, which can
only be restored if students have both read and understood the main ideas of the original
text.

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B. SUBJECTIVE TECHNIQUES:

7. The summary test: students read a text and then are required to summarize the main ideas.
It is believed that students need to understand the main ideas of the text, to separate
relevant from irrelevant ideas and to organize their thoughts about the text in order to be
able to do the task satisfactorily.
Scoring summaries may, however, present problems because agreeing on the main points in
a text may prove difficult. Therefore we do not focus on the recognition of the main ideas
only, but try to evaluate the quality of the summary against the set of more general criteria:
 Does the student understand the content of the text, or does he misunderstand it or
some parts of it?
 Can he distinguish key facts (main ideas) from marginal information (irrelevant ideas)?
 Is he true to the original in his interpretation of the text?
 Can he interpret the writer´s attitude (if any)?
 Can he organize his/her summary (Is it clear/ambiguous/messy? Is it properly structured
or written in one paragraph without any logical sequence? Is it coherent or just a loose
piece of writing with no links?)

An obvious problem is that students may understand the text, but are unable to express their
ideas in writing adequately, especially within the time available for the task. Another risk is
testing writing instead of reading skills. In order to avoid both dangers, we allow candidates to
write the summary in their first language. In addition, the summary written in Czech relates to
a real-life situation because some candidates have to prepare summaries of foreign literature or
press as part of their job, either for themselves or their superiors.

TEACHING READING SKILLS

(a brief methodological note for the teachers)
In real life, people generally read something because they want to and because they have a
purpose in doing so. Another characteristic of readers is that they will have expectations of
what they are going to read before they actually do so. The concepts of desire, purpose and
expectations have important methodological implications for language learning. Taking this
into account, the teacher should try to incorporate all the basic concepts into the process of
teaching reading. He ought to tune in the students’ expectations and arouse their interest in the
initial pre-reading phase, often called the lead-in. Then he should set the task for reading and
thus provide the students with the purpose for the reading activity. In a real-life situation we
often use information extracted from reading for solving a task, answering a question, making
a decision how to act etc. If the reading supplies us with valuable information that helps us, we
have positive feedback that our reading was successful. Similarly, the teacher should provide
the student with the necessary feedback and tell them whether they have completed the task
and how well they have done.
All the aspects mentioned above have been embodied in a widely recognized
methodological model for teaching reading:*
I. Lead-in: the students and the teacher prepare themselves for the task and familiarise
themselves with the topic of the reading exercise. Major objective: to create expectations
and arouse the students’ interest.

*
Jeremy Harmer: The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman 1991
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Teacher directs the comprehension task: here the teacher makes sure that the students know
what they are going to do (answer questions, fill in a chart, complete a message…).
II. Students read for the task: the students read in order to perform the task the teacher
has set.
III. Teacher directs feedback: when the students have performed the task, the teacher will
help them to see if they have completed the task successfully and will find out how well
they have done.
IV. Teacher directs a text-related task: the teacher will then probably organize some kind of
follow-up task related to the text. Thus if the students, for example, have answered
questions about a letter, the text-related task might be to answer that letter. Major
objective: reinforcement and the integration of skills.

Another thing we should keep in mind is the fact that readers employ a number of specialist
skills and their success at understanding the content of the text may depend to a certain extent
on their expertise in these skills:

I. Predictive skills: efficient readers predict what they are going to read and the process of
understanding the text is the process of seeing how the content of the text matches up
to these predictions. Therefore we try to encourage predictive skills by introducing the
lead-in stage.
II. Extracting specific information: very often we read something because we want to
extract specific bits of information. The process of searching for it is often called
scanning.
III. Getting the general picture: we often read because we want to have an idea of the main
points of the text without being too concerned with the details. This is often called
skimming.
IV. Extracting detailed information: sometimes we read carefully in order to extract some
detailed information. The detail we are looking for can be the writer’s attitude or
intention (What exactly does the writer mean? How does he feel about the situation...).
V. Recognizing function and discourse patterns: native speakers of English know that
when they read or hear someone say “for example” this phrase is likely to be followed
by an example. When they read “in other words” a concept is about to be explained in a
different way. Recognizing such discourse markers is an important part of
understanding how a text is constructed.
VI. Deducing meaning from context: a very important subskill is the ability to deduce the
meanings of unfamiliar words from the context in which they appear.
All the skills mentioned above are largely subconscious in the minds of experienced readers –
in other words, most literate adults. But reading in a foreign language creates barriers for the
learner (often through fear of failure or through simple frustration) which may make these
skills and subskills more difficult to use. If we can make students feel less anxious and thus
remove some of the barriers, that alone may dramatically improve their reading abilities.
The job of the teacher is to train students in a number of skills they will need in order to
read and understand texts. We can divide these skills into two types. Type 1 skills are those
operations that students perform on a text when they tackle it for the first time. The first thing
students are asked to do with a text concerns its treatment as a whole. They may be asked to
look at a text and extract specific information, or they might read to get the general picture.
They might read to perform a task, or they might be attempting to confirm expectations they
have about the text. Type 2 skills are those that are subsequently used when studying reading
material and involve detailed comprehension of the text, the study of vocabulary to develop
guessing strategies, the identification of discourse markers and construction, and an
investigation into the writer´s opinion and attitude, thereby making inferences (reading
between the lines). Type 2 skills are generally concerned with a more detailed analysis of the
text and for this reason are generally practised after type 1 skills.
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Bibliography:
Jeremy Harmer: The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman 1991
J. Charles Alderson: Assessing Reading, Cambridge University Press 2000

PhDr. Michaela Trubačíková,

November 2000

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Section B Reading TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

I.
Read the following text and decide whether the statements below are true or false. Circle
either T or F.
New gov’t plan for jobless
The government has declared war on unemployment with the unveiling of a grand plan to
get the country back to work.
But although the initiative, which puts an emphasis on retraining, may be well-intentioned,
without a change in economic fortunes, commentators say, there is little chance of halting the
march of an ever-growing army of jobless.
With unemployment nationwide now well over 8 percent and the country in a deep
recession, the Cabinet has heeded calls for action with the adoption of a national plan of
employment (NPZ).
The plan is based on the following principles:
 To increase workers’chances of finding a job by providing necessary training and by
increasing the flexibility of the labor market.
 To improve conditions for enterprise and to create conditions for equal competition.
 To create equality of opportunity on the job market and eliminate discriminatory
practices.
This is all very well, say critics, but it’s economic growth that will get the nation back to
work, not abstract blueprints as this one.
To be fair though, those behind the employment plan don’t seem to think of it as a miracle
cure. Rather, it is intended as a rough-and-ready rudder to help steer a course through the
stormy waters of economic transformation that lie ahead.
”Above all, the purpose of the plan is to increase labor mobility and to soften the impact of
changes in the economy, from the social point of view,“ said Minister of Labor and Social
Affairs Vladimír Špidla, the plan’s chief architect.
Špidla also boasts that the plan coordinates a number of ministries in the fight against
unemployment. In practice, this may mean coordinating policy on education and employment
so that schools offer a curriculum that will better equip job hunters for the rigors of a
competitive labor market. Effectively, government policy would anticipate demand on the labor
market and tailor supply accordingly.

1. Commentators approve of the national plan of employment as it is the only means of

reducing unemployment. T F

2. The government´s plan stresses the importance of a flexible workforce and retraining
programmes. T F

3. The plan will stimulate economic growth. T F

4. Mr Špidla designed the plan with a view to softening the side-effects of economic
transformation.
T F

5. Špidla says that his ministry and the Ministry of Education are cooperating closely in
forecasting future demands on the labour market. T F
II.

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Read the text and fill in the gaps with numbers 1-7, choosing from the options below.
There are two extra options that do not fit into any of the gaps.

Jiří Dienstbier, the UN special investigator for human rights in the former Yugoslavia, has been
a frequent critic of NATO’s air war against Yugoslavia. He spoke to Siegfried Morkowitz of
the Prague Post:
M: You have called the NATO air campaign against Yugoslav President Slobodan Miločevic’
the “biggest blunder since the Vietnam War.“ Why?
D: We have had incredible ethnic cleansing, comparable only with the ethnic cleansing of
Croatian Serbs from the Krajina in the summer of 1995,............................... Now we have
a similar thing in Kosovo. It’s a pity that I must say that the bombing just gave Miloševic’
the possibility to start this ethnic cleansing. We are now destroying everything because we
think we are bombing Miloševic’................................. We enabled this terrible ethnic
cleansing. The last remnants of a growing civil society and democratic forces in Yugoslavia
were destroyed.
M: What would be the way out of this crisis now?
D: It’s a vicious spiral of violence. I spoke with the Montenegrin president, Milo
Djukanovic’, and he told me: ”The international community has been making one mistake
after another since 1989. ..........................“ I don’t know how to stop it. We had some
goals, and now it’s clear that these goals have not been achieved. If we really want to get
near these goals, we have to accept that in this war we lost the battle ..............................
M: Is the Kosovo Liberation Army a trustworthy ally for the West?
D: It would be another catastrophic step ................ The Kosovo Liberation Army at the
beginning had people connected with the drug mafia. Some of them were followers of
Enver Hoxha, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries and people of this kind. Now it´s of course
different because now in their ranks are people who were ethnically cleansed from
Kosovo, young people who are just angry and want to fight for their liberation.
The only way is to disarm all private armies, no matter whether it is Arkan or the Kosovo
Liberation Army or all these so-called paramilitaries of the Kosovo Serbs, Bosnian Serbs and
Belgrade Serbs.

1. ... but Miloševic’ isn’t being bombed.

2. ... when 30,000 Kosovars lost their homes and their villages were burned.

3. ... because we used the wrong instrument.

4. ... if the UCK were used as the ground army of NATO.

5. ... Now they punish all of us for Serbian atrocities.

6. ... Now they are punishing all of us for their own mistakes.

7. ... when 30,000 people lost their homes and their villages were burned.

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III.
Choose the most suitable heading from the list (A-G) for each part (1-5) of the article.
Caution: There are two extra headings that do not fit anywhere.
Cohen Battles to Win the Hearts of Civilians Fill in the letter (A-G)

REDMOND, Washington - Fewer young people in the United States say they are willing to
consider military service. The number of veterans on Capitol Hill declines with each new
Congress. The armed services have shrunk, and military bases are closing. The military’s place
in American society is not what it once was.

But has it really come to this? The secretary of defense has started what he calls „a very
aggressive campaign“ to persuade the public that the military still matters.
In a series of appearances not normally associated with the nation’s top Defense
Department official, Defense Secretary William Cohen, who himself never served in uniform, is
trying to make just the case.

The hope, Mr Cohen says, is to reconnect America to its military before what many people
have portrayed as a widening gap between the military and civilian cultures becomes a more
dangerous breach.

He took his campaign on Thursday to the headquarters of Microsoft Corp., the computer-
software giant whose ranks are filled with a generation of the sort of educated, innovative
young people who now seem to give little thought to a stint in the all-volunteer military, let
alone a career.

In introducing Mr Cohen, Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, noted that the Defense
Department was Microsoft’s largest client and discussed ways the two could do even more
business together in the future. But Mr Cohen devoted the bulk of his remarks to a recitation
of the military’s role in insuring the global stability that allows companies like Microsoft to
prosper.

A. Links between the nation’s defence and its businesses.

B. Microsoft as a guarantee of global stability.
C. The social prestige of the army has decreased.
D. William Cohen campaigns in favour of the military.
E. Veterans’s visit to the Capitol Hill.
F. Young educated men are not attracted to the military.
G. The risk of estrangement between society and the military.

IV.
Read the following text and answer the questions below.

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In Multiethnic Asia, Another View of the Balkan Crisis

Singapore - From Timor to Tibet and Kashmir to Kurdistan, the NATO air strikes against
Serbia must have gladdened the hearts of beleaguered minorities. But it will also have alarmed
many multiethnic and multireligious states in Asia and elsewhere.
This helps explain why Foreign Minister Tang Jixuan of China is deeply worried and why
the former Russian prime minister, Yevgeni Primakov, protested. India and Indonesia are two
other large, pluralistic countries that have also expressed disapproval.
Of course, there is no denying the suffering of the Kosovars, or that the Serbs, who had
earlier indulged in similar butchery in Bosnia and Croatia, had to be taught a lesson. But it is
open to question whether the Clinton administration thought through all the possible
consequences of the action, not only in Serbia itself but in the world beyond, where many
international borders cut across racial, religious and linguistic lines, and where communal strife
is endemic.
The fears of minority groups cannot be easily dismissed; yet neither can those of multiethnic
states. Free rein to the former would dissolve internationally recognized borders, creating
instead impoverished little states with fluid boundaries, overspilling populations and
extraterritorial ambitions. Many would be incapable of managing their own affairs or achieving
viable independence.
Yet unconditional respect for the interest of existing multiethnic states might turn many
countries with an authoritarian bent into huge prison camps of dissident nationalities, like the
old Soviet Union.

Questions:
1. Why is the author worried about the NATO air strikes against Serbia?

2. What could the consequences of an over-tolerant approach towards the demands of minority
groups be?

3. Where could the unquestioning acceptance of the interests of the existing multiethnic states
lead?

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ANSWER KEY:

I.
F, T, F, T, F
II.
7, 1, 6, 3, 4
III.
C, D, G, F, A
IV.
1. The air strikes may provoke territorial claims of minorities in multiethnic states all over the
world. (The Clinton administration did not think through all the consequences of the action
not only in Serbia, but in the world beyond).
2. The dissolution of international borders and the creation of small, poor and weak ethnic
states that would not be able to manage themselves.
3. To the support of authoritarian trends, authoritarian states and the oppression of ethnic
minorities.

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Section B Reading TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

I.
Read the following text and decide whether the statements at the below are true or false.
Circle either T or F.

How do anarchists organize, anyway?

Just as the word ‘skinhead’ broadly encapsulates youth activism of the extreme right,
‘anarchist’ has become a catchword for youths of the extreme left.
In the popular mind, the term ´anarchism´ vaguely means disorder. But participants in a
recent anarchist rally that turned violent say it´s a serious movement with long roots in the
Czech Republic.
Several so-called anarchists gathered May 1 with the stated intention of demonstrating
against a planned skinhead rally in down-town Prague. But for the second time in 12 months,
youths calling themselves anarchists clashed with police instead.
The May Day riot, which included Molotov cocktails, an overturned police car and several
beatings by police, was termed by CNN the worst civil disturbance in the Czech Republic since
the 1989 revolution.
One of the anarchist leaders told the press: ”We are against the globalization of the world,
which means that we don’t want things to be overly organized. We believe that human beings
need space to create their own ideas. I admit that it sounds vague, but anarchism is just a way
of thinking.“
The problem, according to him, is that the neo-Nazi skinheads took over the idea of anti-
globalization in a more negative way.
”They don’t want foreigners in this country. Neo-nazis attack the most irrelevant people of
globalization. The anarchists have nothing to do with those racist ideas.“
”We use violence, but only against symbols, like cars and houses. We never use violence
against people. And that is a big difference. Skinheads do use violence against people, and very
often against innocent people.“

1. The general public here regards anarchism as a serious movement with a long tradition.
T F

2. CNN reported the anarchists´second clash with police since 1989. T F

3. The anarchists think that society is disorganized. T F

4. Skinheads and anarchists share a distaste for globalization, but they manifest it in different
ways. T F

5. The anarchists claim they never use violence. T F

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II.
Read the text and fill in the gaps with numbers 1-7, choosing from the options below.
There are two extra options that do not fit into any of the gaps.

Court Weighs Yugoslav Suit Against NATO

The Hague ― In a parallel fight to the war in Kosovo, the International Court of Justice
concluded hearings Wednesday in Yugoslavia’s lawsuit against 10 NATO countries in which
Belgrade is asking for a legal order to stop the bombing and demanding payment for war
damages.
Judges at the court,........................., will now deliberate whether NATO’s bombing
campaign is illegal. A decision is expected in the next two weeks.
Speaking in the grandiose Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace here, Yugoslavia on
Wednesday again charged that the NATO bombing of its territory had violated the UN Charter,
the Geneva Conventions and several human rights treaties - and constituted genocide.
In the three days of hearing, the 10 NATO countries have responded with
scorn, .....................
By presenting a travesty of the facts, the countries argued, Yugoslavia was mocking the
court.
The Belgrade delegation gave a lengthy overview of the damage caused to civilian
installations and said ............................. It made no mention of its own campaign against
Kosovars, of the unaccounted dead or the 700 000 refugees, and said violence in Kosovo was
the result of secessionist war.
Some experts familiar with the court say that, regardless of Belgrade’s own crimes, the case
can lead to an embarrassing review of the legality of NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention.’
Several Western scholars have argued .......................... because it has no United Nations
authorization and ‘humanitarian intervention’ is at best a tenuous concept in international law.
Britain, ....................., has also made it clear that it takes the lawsuit seriously by sending
Attorney General John Morris to argue its case.

1. ...that is a tenuous concept in international law.

2. ...so far the most outspoken champion of NATO’s actions...

3. ...that NATO’s actions are legally dubious...

4. ...calling Yugoslavia’s claim cynical and absurd.

5. ...which is the highest executive body of the US...

6. ...which is the highest judicial body of the UN...

7. ...that 1,200 people had been killed and more than 4,500 wounded.

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III.
Choose the most suitable heading from the list (A-G) for each part (1-5) of the article.
Caution: There are two extra headings that do not fit anywhere.
The Moral Crisis in Prague Fill in the letter (A-G)
1
The lack of ethical conduct in financial matters has created a credibility crisis for the Czech
Republic, both internally and internationally. One sign of this problem is the invention of words
such as ‘tunneling’ or ‘juicing’ to describe reprehensible behavior like embezzlement and
breach of fiduciary duty. The need to create new words underlines the prevalence of such
activities and the attempt to soften the image of financial theft. There is an ingrained system of
”see no evil, hear no evil.“

2
People are angry and frustrated since they see no solution. The courts are, at best, confused
about how to interpret laws. The police work with limited resources and even less
understanding of financial crime than the courts. They are underpaid, overworked and
unrecognized for what they do accomplish. These are the classic conditions which promote
police corruption.

3
The credibility problem rises to the highest level and includes the government and major
political parties. All of these issues raise important questions about the Czech Republic’s
commitment to serious economic reform and a democratic capital market. A concerned
government would not find it so difficult to acknowledge that corruption is encouraged by lack
of regulation on the capital market and a refusal to prosecute embezzlement.

4
If the economy is to recover and the Czech Republic is to attain what it believes to be its
rightful place among the civilized nations of the world, thieves and corrupt officials must be
removed and prosecuted. Only a forceful showing by the government that it won’t stand for
corruption will bring back the people’s confidence in this society.

5
How can this be done?
First, the economic crime team should be given the personnel, money and authority to seek out
and prosecute those guilty of abuse.
Second, the thieves should be forced to disgorge all their ill-gotten gains. They must be shown
that crime does not pay.
If removing crooks would grind the government and the economy to a halt, then this country
has no future.

A. The tasks ahead of the government.

B. Proof of corruption in the police force.
C. Tolerance of financial crime.
D. Loss of credibility for the government and political parties.
E. The need to deregulate the capital market.
F. The way out of the crisis.
G. Judicial bodies and security forces paralyzed by lack of experience and money.

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[Link] the text and complete the task below:

NATO puts faith in man they call Boss

When two bright young Americans arrived at Oxford in the 1960s they had much in common,
at least on the surface. Both were brought up in Little Rock, Arkansas, both were Southern
Baptists and both were Rhodes scholars. One of them played it straight. The other was Bill
Clinton.
Now Wesley Clark, two years older than the president of the USA at 54, is a four star
general and NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe. He is also in charge of an assault in
Yugoslavia.
But back then he was a hard working student who took his degree in politics, economics
and philosophy, left early and went to serve in the Vietnam War.
By way of contrast, the president did not do his finals and dodged the draft. Where Mr
Clinton famously did not inhale, Gen Clark did not allow the joint to get as far as his lips.
When he got to Vietnam, he commanded an infantry company. He was awarded the silver
star for gallantry in action and was wounded four times.
If it ever came to it, Gen Clark could hardly claim that he was just following orders. He is
not that sort of soldier. In Bosnia, where only Mr Holbrook had more dealings with president
Miloševic’, Gen Clark fell out with some US generals with even more stars. And at NATO
briefings since strikes against Yugoslavia began he has offered the same sort of subjective
analysis as Mr Clinton, though in a stiffer, less folksy style.
His colleagues see him as a bright, ambitious man, willing to take risks and incredibly hard-
working and knowledgeable.

Now fill in the questionnaire for General Wesley Clark:

Name: Wesley Clark
Comes from:

Religion:

Academic degree in:

Experience with drugs: none occasional addicted

Served in Vietnam: YES NO

War medals:

Injured: YES NO

Current position:

Negotiation and rhetoric good poor

skills:
Personal qualities:

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ANSWER KEY:

I.
F, F, F, T, F.
II.
6, 4, 7, 3, 2.
III.
C, G, D, A, F.
IV.
Little Rock, Arkansas; Baptist; politics, economics, philosophy; none; YES; silver star for
gallantry; YES; supreme allied commander in Europe; good; bright, ambitious, willing to take
risks, hard-working, knowledgeable.

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Section B Reading TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

I. Read the text and decide whether the statements below are true or false. Circle either
T or F.

Hold-Up
If the current wave of Czech bank robberies continues, one newspaper recently mused, armed
raiders will soon outnumber depositors. An exaggeration perhaps, but it hints at the scale of
the problem.
According to the police, in the seven months to the end of July, the number of raids on
banks almost doubled to 34. Then came August, a month when hard-working bank robbers
spurned foreign holidays to put in extra hours. The balmy summer days witnessed about 20
bank and post office raids.
Banks rapidly reduced the amount of cash they held in branches, while police increased the
number of patrols. The raids slowed to a trickle, but the banks soon faced another problem. In
the space of just a few weeks, staff from Komerční, Union Banka and IPB were all accused of
stealing vast sums from their employers.
The first two alleged perpetrators are in custody, but the IPB man, identified only as Petr S.,
is still at large. He is accused of taking Kč 50 million. Petr’s wife is also missing.
And then the Czech National Bank weighed in with 17 complaints against the banks
themselves. Quite apart from the 16 banks that have collapsed within the past five years,
there’s the dodgy loans which now total 30% of total bank lending.
Managers explain that it is down to past mistakes. That’s why they don’t go to prison for it
- unlike at least some of the robbers and tellers.

1. Due to the holiday period, the number of bank robberies in the summer months decreased.
T F

2. Recently a few tellers have stolen their employer´s money. T F

3. The perpetrator from the IPB has been released by mistake. T F

4. 30% debtors do not pay back their loans. T F

5. Some bank managers are being prosecuted for their past mistakes. T F

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II.
Read the text and then answer the questions below.

Eclipse sends a warning to the Earth

The Sun is getting brighter, research carried out in Cornwall during this year´s solar eclipse
reveals.
The preliminary results of the research, which show that radiation from the Sun has
increased over the past fifty years, provide a warning for the world. The scientists say that a
brighter Sun increases global warming.
“Changes we saw seem to suggest that the Sun is brighter than during previous eclipses,”
said Dr Chris Davis, head of ionospheric monitoring at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories at
Chilton, Oxfordshire, one of the scientists co-ordinating research for several universities during
the eclipse.
He and his colleagues set up an experiment at Helston School in Cornwall to test a
hypothesis by scientists at the laboratory that the radiation from the Sun is increasing.
They bounced radio waves off the Earth’s ionosphere to see how it was affected by the
phenomenon. The ionosphere is created by the Sun’s radiation so it decays during a total
eclipse. Dr Davis said that it disappeared “much more slowly” than during eclipses elsewhere
in the world in the 1940s, suggesting that the Sun’s corona, all that can be seen during totality,
had got brighter.
He stressed that final conclusions could not be drawn until the measurements had been fully
studied and the results published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. But the preliminary
results provided promising evidence to support the hypothesis that the Sun was brightening.
Previous work at the laboratory, based on measuring the magnetic field of the Sun, had
suggested that it had got brighter by about a 10th of 1 percent since records began at the
beginning of the century, and recent research was giving them “confidence” that something of
the sort was indeed happening. “This may not seem a lot but it would have a noticeable effect
on the Earth,” said Dr Davis. It would increase global warming and make it more urgent that
the world tackled the pollution that also caused it. “If the Sun is getting brighter, which is
beyond our control, the last thing we should do is to add fuel to the fire,” he said. He added
that the brightening seemed to be part of a natural cycle – “part of the natural breathing of the
star” - but nobody could yet tell how long it would continue.

1. In what respect did this year’s solar eclipse seem to differ from the previous ones?

2. Why did Dr Chris Davis and his team experiment during the eclipse?

3. How was the Earth’s ionosphere affected by the total eclipse?

4. What must be done in order to ensure reliability of the experiment?

5. What should people do in order not to contribute to the process of global warming?

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 Reader’s book

III.
Choose the most suitable heading from the list (A-G) for each part (1-5) of the article.
Caution: There are two extra headings that do not fit anywhere.

Complete the table with the correct letter (A-G).

1.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Muslims and Christians grudgingly accepted an Israeli government
compromise Wednesday on building a mosque in the town of Jesus Christ’s boyhood,
Nazareth, ending a dispute that had affected preparations for a long awaited papal visit to the
Holy Land.

2.
Under the compromise announced by Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, a proposed
mosque will cover a third of a half-acre plot of land adjacent to the Basilica of the
Annunciation. Christians wanted the entire area for an Italian style “piazza“, or square, to
accommodate thousands of pilgrims expected in the millennium. Instead, they are to have two-
thirds of the area for the square.

3.
Many Christians believe the church marks the site where the Angel Gabriel told Mary she
would give birth to Jesus. The Islamic Movement, a political party, wanted the entire area for a
mosque because a Muslim sage is buried there.

4.
The disagreement erupted into violence between the town’s Muslim majority and Christian
minority over Easter weekend. Cars were stoned and shops were set on fire. When it appeared
that the Israeli government backed Muslim plans for a mosque, despite a court ruling last week
that the Muslims had no legal claim to the land, Christian churches threatened a boycott of
millennium activities.

5.
Spokespeople for the Roman Catholic Church have said the presence of a mosque so close to
the church is inappropriate. There has been no official statement that Pope John Paul II would
cancel his planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land next year because of the mosque. But local
church officials speaking anonymously have said this might cause him to reconsider the visit,
tentatively planned for March.

A. Pilgrimage to celebrate the millennium

B. Nazareth compromise
C. Holy site for the two religions
D. Easter violence
E. Pope’s visit threatened
F. Quarrel between Christians and Muslims
G. Mosque to be built next to the Basilica

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 Reader’s book

IV.
Read the text and fill in the gaps 1-5 with letters A-G, choosing from the options below.
Caution: There are two extra options that do not fit into any of the gaps.

Albright on Africa mission

Freetown, Sierra Leone - It was an emotion-filled moment for Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, lifting 3-year-old Mamuna in a sun-baked courtyard as hundreds of Sierra Leoneans
looked on. All of them - the little girl, too - 1)..............................................................................
The spectators, residents of the camp for war victims, were of all ages, but Mamuna’s story
was one of the most poignant. A rebel soldier had shot off her arm at point-blank range.
Albright, on the first day of a weeklong African tour, called the camp visit "heart-
wrenching and stomach-turning.“
She offered 55 million dollars in U.S. support for efforts to uphold a shaky peace pact and
2)...................................................................................................................................................
“There are people who had their limbs chopped off for no reason,” Albright said. “It’s hard
to reach out and shake hands with somebody 3)...........................................................................
Albright came here intent on encouraging parties to the former British colony´s eight-year
conflict to stick by a peace agreement they signed three months ago.
During her eight-hour visit to Freetown, Albright also met with President Ahmed Tejan
Kabbah and two rebel leaders, Foday Sankoh, of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and
Johnny Paul Koroma, leader of a former ruling junta.
Albright agreed to meet with the rebel chieftains 4) …………………………….. because
she said she believes there can be no peace unless their concerns are dealt with.
The rebels agreed to lay down their arms 5).............................................................................
Albright raised the possibility that the RUF chieftains could be prosecuted under
international auspices once peace is consolidated. That could mean establishment of war crimes
tribunals similar to those prosecuting alleged atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

A. ...urged the government and rebel leaders to end the fighting for good.
B. ...urged the war victims and rebel leaders to end the fighting for good.
C. ...in exchange for a role in government and amnesties for crimes committed by RUF forces.
D. ...had been disfigured in a brutal civil war.
E. ...because of the atrocities committed in their names
F. ...despite the atrocities committed in their names
G. ...when you know they don’t have a hand

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 Reader’s book

ANSWER KEY

I.
1F, 2T, 3F, 4T, 5F

II.
1. the Sun seemed to be brighter, 2. they wanted to test/verify a hypothesis that the radiation
from the Sun is increasing, 3. it decayed and disappeared, 4. measurements have to be studied
and results published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, 5. they should tackle the
pollution/decrease the amount of pollution

III.
1B, 2G, 3C, 4F, 5E

IV.
1D, 2A, 3G, 4F, 5C

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 Reader’s book

Section B Reading TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

I. Read the text and decide whether the statements below are true or false. Circle either
T or F.
Dornier Upgrades Computer on Bombardier Drone

A modernized, more accurate version of the CL-289 reconnaissance drone successfully

completed its first test flight on the NATO training range at Bergen Hohne, Germany.
The truck-launched drone, developed by Bombardier Services, Mirabel, Quebec, and
currently in service with the German Army in Bosnia and Kosovo, has been in service with the
German and French armies since 1992.
The upgrade for the German Army, which is being carried out by Dornier GmbH,
Friedrichshafen, Germany, includes equipping the drone with a modified onboard computer,
new computer software with increased memory and a global positioning satellite system
receiver. A company spokesman said no date for completion of the upgrade could be given, as
it depended upon when the drones returned from Bosnia.
France will continue using the original 20-year-old CL-289 technology, said Paul Mercier,
Bombardier program manager for unmanned aerial vehicles.
The CL-289 travels long distances on a preprogrammed course, much like a cruise missile,
said Mercier. The upgrade was necessary because the calculation program currently used in the
drone’s onboard computer was in a programming language almost impossible to maintain. It is
being changed to use the Ada programming language, which the company says will guarantee
use of the drone for many years and considerably improve navigation accuracy.
Dornier is a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG, Munich. Under the arrangement
with Bombardier, it is responsible for all post-development system modifications for NATO
forces, said Mercier.

1. The CL-289 drone is launched from stationary launch-pads. T F

2. Some of the drones are not available for the upgrade because they operate abroad.
T F

3. The upgrade includes a change in the programming language. T F

4. The original programming language was hard to maintain, but it guaranteed very high
navigation accuracy. T F

5. The upgrade is carried out jointly by two companies: Bombardier and Dornier.
T F

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 Reader’s book

II. Read the text and answer the questions below.

Paris Bars Figure in ´72 Olympics Raid

Paris ― The Palestinian guerilla accused of masterminding the hostage-taking of Israeli
athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, was turned away Monday when he tried to enter
France to promote a new book, an official said.
Mohammed Daoud Audeh, better known by his guerilla code name, Abu Daoud, was turned
away at Orly Airport in Paris, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The guerilla leader was implicated by Israeli and American intelligence experts in planning
the botched hostage-taking at the Olympics that left 17 people dead, including 11 Israelis.
Mr. Audeh, 62, a member of the Palestine National Council and a lawyer in the West Bank
town of Ramallah, was never charged in the Munich massacre.
He was coming to Paris to promote a new autobiography, written in collaboration with a
French journalist.
In the Olympics raid, eight Palestinians from the Black September terrorist movement took
over a dormitory housing Israeli athletes and team personnel.
The Palestinians demanded the release of prisoners by Israel and safe passage for
themselves out of Germany. Golda Meier, the Israeli prime minister, refused to negotiate.
After a 20-hour standoff during which two Israelis were killed, nine Israeli athletes, five
Palestinians and a German policeman died during a bungled rescue effort at Munich airport.
Mr. Audeh says in his autobiography that his commandos did not intend to kill anyone when
they seized the Israelis.
The autobiography acknowledges, for the first time, that the Palestine Liberation
Organization planned the terrorist assault. It attributes the killings to betrayal by the German
police and the Israeli refusal to negotiate.
The book says that Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had
been briefed on the Munich operation by a PLO colleague, Abu Iyad, who was later
assassinated by a rival group.
Publicists for Editions Anne Carriere, the publisher, indicated before the book was put on
sale that Mr. Audeh would use the opportunity to apologize for the Olympics violence.
But the autobiography, titled Palestine from Jerusalem to Munich, contains no apology.
Mr. Audeh says in the book that he regrets the PLO resorted to violence, but he explains
that his regret is based on the fact that the operation and the killing of the Israelis backfired,
creating a public outcry against Palestinian violence rather than sympathy for their cause, as he
had hoped.
“We were certainly not angels in our actions, but neither were the Israelis. For a long time
– too long a time, perhaps – we thought that resorting to violence, which worked so well for
the Zionists, could also succeed for us,“ he says in the book.
Now, more than a quarter of a century later, Mr. Audeh says that, with the Mideast peace
process in place, the Arabs and Israelis have, in effect, agreed to share Palestine and therefore
“we must bury the past.“
“That means we shake hands, even if our partner has blood on his hands,“ he added.
Based on Israeli press reports, Mr. Audeh says German ballistics tests determined that eight
of the nine hostages killed at the airport were killed by German police bullets.
Israel and Germany have never published their findings.

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 Reader’s book

1. Why was Mr. Daoud Audeh not permitted into France?

2. Was Mr. Audeh convicted for his involvement in the terrorist attack?
3. How many people died during the raid in 1972?
4. In his autobiography, does Mr. Audeh plead guilty to the killings?
5. How does Mr. Audeh feel about Arab-Israeli relations today?

III. Read the text and fill in the gaps 1-5 with letters A-G, choosing from the options
below. Caution: There are two extra options that do not fit into any of the gaps.

As the U.S. economy enters its 107 th month of expansion this week, unemployment is at a 30-
year low; consumer confidence is at a 50-year high. 1. ………………………, in March 1991,
the economy has created 20 million new jobs and America’s output of goods and services has
grown by astonishing 58 percent. By one estimate, the number of millionaires has doubled, to 9
million. Half of all households now own stock. Statistics are handy, but they don’t capture the
psychological magnitude of this change. Says Laura D’Andrea Tyson, the University of
California, Berkeley, economist and former White House advisor: “2. ………………….
They’ve never known anyone who’s lived through taking a risk nad having it not worked out.“
That fundamental shift in outlook is fueling a national spending spree that has rippled
through the entire economy. Confident workers are racking up record purchases of big-ticket
items 3. …………………. And prosperous citizens are also dining out more than ever, buying
fancy jewelry and spending heavily on gadgets from cell phones to PalmPilots.
The long boom hasn´t changed every life. Roughly one of every eight Americans still lives
below the poverty line. As always, capitalism rewards some skills and not others,
4…………….
But the current boom has had widespread benefits. Even people who missed the bull market
5…………….. – and thanks to the tight labor market, the chance of getting a better one. But
from coast to coast, the boom is playing itself out in the lives of millions – changing institutions
and creating vast new opportunities.

A. Since this recession began…

B. ………..like cars and homes.
C. ……….giving rise to deep-seated inequalities.
D. Since this boom began…….
E. ……….are likelier than ever to have a good-paying job.
F. ……….like house appliances and electronics.
G. This generation has never witnessed failure……………..

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 Reader’s book

ANSWER KEY

I. F, T, T, F, F.

II.
1. Because he was accused of planning a terrorist attack against Israeli athletes in Munich in
1972.
2. NO.
3. 17.
4. NO.
5. He doesn´t want to resort to violence any more. He is calling for reconciliation.

III. D, G, B, C, E.

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 Reader’s book

Section B Reading TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

I. Read the text and decide whether the statements below are true or false. Circle either
T or F.
The Shadow of a Spy
NATO denies reports that a mole passed military secrets to the Serbs early in the Kosovo
campaign.
Was a spy at NATO giving the Serbs intelligence about the alliance’s flight plans during the first
weeks of the Kosovo air campaign last March? If so, no one has fingered the mole nor defined
the path such information might have taken to Belgrade. But, according to a BBC report, a
classified Pentagon study of the Kosovo campaign has determined that someone was spiriting
NATO’s daily “air-tasking orders“ directly to the Serbs for the first two weeks of the war.
Dismissing the report as rumour and speculation, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea argued that if
security had been compromised “how is it that we were able to conduct… 38,000 sorties
involving 1,200 aircraft and not lose a single pilot?” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral Craig
Quigley said a Pentagon review of the air campaign contains no hint of any “spy or mole”.
However, alliance officials do acknowledge that security wasn’t up to snuff when the
campaign began last March 24. “After 50 years of peace… our first conflict required us to look
at where our information was going,” says a military official at NATO’s European military
headquarters in Mons, Belgium. The answer: too many places. At the outset of the air
campaign 600 persons on NATO’s closed-feed Chronos computer system were getting the
daily air-tasking orders – the same people who got information of more routine air patrols over
Bosnia. “We realized we had information hanging out there,” says the Mons official. Some two
weeks into the campaign the list was pared to 100. There were other breaches, too: loose talk
on cell phones, unsecured transmissions from allied aircraft and cavalier faxing of possibly
sensitive information to national capitals. Add to that the presence of Serb spotters outside
alliance airbases in Italy and one might ask: Who needs a spy?
‘French officer Pierre-Henri Bunel had already admitted to passing general target categories
on to the Serbs in October 1998. Even that wasn’t of stellar value, says one NATO diplomat:
“Any military cadet that’s read a book can tell you that you start with air defenses, and that’s
what we did.”
‘The Serbs’most spectacular military coup in those first two weeks of war was shooting
down a U.S. F-117A fighter. But the Americans so closely guard their Stealth technology that
flight plans for that plane, as well as the B-2 bomber, were not shared with NATO allies and
did not appear on air-tasking orders. The BBC report implies that the alliance’s air strikes
became more effective once security was tightened and the putative spy neutralized. NATO
officials put more weight on another key factor: as March turned to April, the weather
improved, skies cleared and more bombs hit their targets.

1. The Pentagon admitted publicly that a spy at NATO had worked for the Serbs in the first
weeks of the Kosovo campaign.
2. After the first two weeks of air strikes, NATO restricted the access to sensitive
information.
3. NATO headquarters banned the use of mobile telephones and faxes for the transmission of
possibly sensitive data.
4. It was easy for the Serbs to predict which targets the Allies would hit first.
5. Due to the better weather in April, the Serbs spotted and shot down a U.S. F-117A fighter.

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 Reader’s book

II.
Choose the most suitable heading from the list (A-G) for each part (1-5) of the article.
Caution: There are two extra headings that do not fit anywhere.

1
Of all the developments affecting the fate of Jewish and Arab communities in the Middle East
during the early 20th century, one of the most important was the Balfour Declaration of 1917 –
a letter sent by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to a British Zionist leader approving
the establishment in Palestine of a “national home for the Jewish people.”

2
Zionists had been seeking the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East territory since the
late 19th century, when their movement began taking steps toward securing international
approval for a large-scale Jewish settlement. The Balfour declaration would prove to be crucial
to their goals as Britain would be assigned the Palestine mandate after World War I – a
development that essentially gave the Zionists the charter they had long desired.

3
With political turmoil and persecution of Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, Jewish
immigration into Palestine increased substantially, alarming Palestinian Arabs, who feared that
the Jews would soon take control of their territory. Riots followed and tensions between the
two groups increased.

4
To appease the Arabs, Britain imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration into the area in
1939. However, with the near-extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, Western
sympathies on Jewish emigration to Palestine shifted, overcoming British restrictions. By 1947,
international support for a Jewish state led to a United Nations partition plan – one that called
for the division of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, and for establishing Jerusalem as
neutral city under U.N. administration. Arabs rejected the plan and violence between the two
communities erupted almost immediately.

5
At midnight on May 14th, 1948, the British mandate ended, and Jews proclaimed their
independence with the new state of Israel. The following day, armies from neighboring Arab
countries entered the former Palestine to engage the Israeli military. The resulting 1948-49 war
of independence was a watershed for Israel, which rolled over the invading Arab forces. By the
end of the war, Israeli-controlled territory had increased by 50 percent, and included the
western part of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs, meanwhile, were dealt a crushing blow: most fled
the region, living as refugees in neighboring Arab countries.

A. Balfour Declaration
B. New mandate for the Zionist movement
C. Israelis win in the armed conflict with Arabs
D. Division of Palestine announced
E. British attempt to appease the Jews
F. Palestinian Arabs felt threatened
G. International backing legalized the Zionists’ efforts

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 Reader’s book

III.
Read the text and answer the questions below.

Ex-Leader of Slovakia Is Arrested

The Slovak authorities ended a three-week standoff with the country’s populist former prime
minister, Vladimír Mečiar, on Thursday morning as masked police commandos blew open the
back door of his home and then arrested him on charges of abusing his power for allegedly
paying illegal bonuses to cabinet officials while in office.
The arrest could destabilize Slovakia’s fragile political balance. Mr Mečiar is still the most
popular politician in the country, and his opposition Movement for a Democratic Slovakia has
been trying relentlessly to unseat the government, calling no-confidence votes in Parliament
and urging a referendum on early elections.
A police spokesman said Mr Mečiar was questioned in the capital, Bratislava, in connection
with the 1995 kidnapping of the son of Slovakia’s then-president, Michal Kováč. He was
released at midday after being charged with abuse of power and fraud while in office, offenses
carrying potential prison terms of three to ten years. He was also fined 10 000 crowns ($225)
for refusing to answer police questions about the kidnapping.
Mr Mečiar was the final key witness in the state’s case against Ivan Lexa, a close aide who
ran the secret services and is charged with orchestrating Mr Kováč’s kidnapping.
The arrest drew cries of protest from Mr Mečiar’s supporters, who threatened to appeal to
European courts, and even President Rudolf Schuster, a political opponent of Mr Mečiar’s
said the police had used disproportionate force to bring in their man.
Martin Šimečka, editor in chief of the daily newspaper Sme, said the dramatic arrest would
play into the hands of Mr Mečiar. “He is now a martyr, especially doing this on the day before
Good Friday,” Mr Šimečka said. “Yesterday, he had dinner with close friends and it was like a
Last Supper.”

1. What legal means does the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia want to use in order to
overthrow the government?
2. Why was Mr Mečiar interrogated by the police?
3. Who is accused of planning and organizing the kidnapping?
4. Which of Mr Mečiar’s opponents criticized the arrest and why?
5. Why does Martin Šimečka criticize the timing of the arrest?

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 Reader’s book

IV.
Read the text and then fill in the gapped summary.

Who Should Carry a Gun?

Is a gun-carrying nation a safer nation? Fearful of being victimized by indiscriminate violence,
many Americans are gnawed by a dilemma: Should I or shouldn’t I carry a gun? The question
is a real one for a growing number of Americans because the tally of states with “right to
carry” laws has gone from eight to 31 since 1985. These states will issue a concealed-weapon
permit to any citizen without a criminal record who wants one – no questions asked.
But here’s one: Do those laws really protect people and cut crime? A study published in
1995 showed that guns were used defensively in the U.S. about 2.5 million times a year and
that in only 5 % of cases were defenders harmed after they brandished their gun. But such
findings were based on narrow surveys whose scope, upon re-examination by gun-control
advocates, could easily have been exaggerated. Thus, discerning the benefits of packing heat
has largely remained a matter of conscience, not science.
Now, however, the author of a new book, More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime
and Gun Control Laws, has analyzed crime rates in the ten states that passed right-to-carry
laws from 1977 to 1992.
The book claims to be the most comprehensive look ever at the effect of gun laws on crime,
examining data from all U.S. counties over a span of 18 years. The findings are startling. Not
only did violent crime drop after states relaxed concealed-weapon laws, but it tumbled more
precipitously the longer the laws were on the books: after five years, murder was down 15 %
and rape 9 %.

Because the number of states allowing people to carry concealed weapons has increased from
eight, in 1985, to the current thirty one, the decision whether 1……………………………….
is one that more Americans will face.

But it is not certain that the right to carry a concealed weapon causes a drop in 2………...…...

A 1985 study claims that easier access to guns means less crime, but the study was based on
3……………..…….. that it may not be reliable.

However, a new book, More Guns, Less Crime, looks at crime rates in ten states 4…..
……………between 1977 and 1992. The author claims that, five years after the laws were
passed, there was much less violent crime, for instance 5……………….………………...

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 Reader’s book

ANSWER KEY

I.
1F, 2T, 3F, 4T, 5F

II.
1A, 2G, 3F, 4D, 5C

III.
1. no-confidence vote in Parliament;
2. in connection with the 1995 kidnapping of Michal Kováč junior;
3. Ivan Lexa;
4. Rudolf Schuster because he thinks the police used disproportionate force;
5. it happened just before Easter and thus helped Mečiar look like a martyr.

IV.
1. to carry a gun
2. crime
3. such a small sample/narrow surveys
4. that passed right-to-carry laws
5. murder was down 15 % and rape dropped by 9 %.

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 Reader’s book

Section B READING TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

You are working in a branch responsible for international cooperation and contacts. Your
senior officer has drawn your attention to the text below and he would very much like you to
submit a brief Czech summary of the content.

1.
Moscow Warns U.S. on Missile Defense
By David Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service

The Russian military warned the United States today that it has enough weaponry to
overwhelm any anti-ballistic missile system, and it threatened to deploy more atomic warheads
if the United States builds a national missile defense system.
Nikolai Mikhailov, the first deputy defense minister, told reporters that “our arsenal has
such technical capabilities” to “overcome” any antimissile defenses. “This technology can
realistically be used and will be used if the United States pushes us toward it,” he said. His
comments came on the heels of the latest meeting between Russian and American officials last
week to discuss possible amendments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Russian
military adamantly opposes any changes to the treaty, which prohibits both countries from
building systems capable of stopping missile attacks.
The Clinton administration has said it will decide next summer whether to go ahead with a
limited missile defense system, which would require changing or abandoning the treaty. Russian
officials have responded with increasingly vocal warnings that such a move could unravel two
decades of arms control efforts.
Russia’ key method of trying to overcome any missile defenses would be to deploy more
nuclear warheads atop its missiles, in the calculation that it could outnumber and penetrate any
defensive shield. Mikhailov did not offer specifics, but he said it was easier for Russia to
deploy more warheads than for the United States to build an effective defense against them.
“Russia’s expenses would be several times lower than the cost of implementing plans for
setting up a national missile defense system” he said. He also said Russia could target any
ABM facility with a nuclear warhead.
One way Russia could gain more warheads would be to slow the dismantlement of existing
multiple-warhead missiles. Another way would be to turn the single-warhead Topol-M missile,
now being deployed in limited numbers, into a three-warhead delivery system. However, there
are major obstacles to any Russian attempts to expand its nuclear arsenal. Prolonging the life
of existing missiles could be costly. Many missiles have already passed the period in which they
were to have been taken down. In addition, Russia has no resources to design and build new
weapons. Even the most modern missile, the Topol-M, is being deployed at a rate of only 10
missiles a year. Ilya Klebanov, the deputy prime minister in charge of the military-industrial
complex, said Friday that while “we have every technical means to proceed if the United States
pulls out of the ABM treaty, there is no funding.”
Mikhailov, speaking to Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, an elite group of
policymakers, also said that Russia lacks resources for an up-to-date conventional military
force. Referring to the high-tech weaponry that NATO deployed in last spring’s bombing
campaign against Yugoslavia, he said such advanced weapons make up only 30 percent of
Russia’s armed forces, compared with 80 percent in the West. “This will cost us dearly,” he
said. “We will not catch up to Western countries in 10 or 15 years.”

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 Reader’s book

SECTION B – READING TIME ALLOWED: 30 minutes

You are working in a branch responsible for international cooperation and contacts. Your
senior officer has drawn to your attention the text below and he would very much like you to
submit a brief Czech summary of the content.

Look What a Fraction of This Arms Money Could Do

By Oscar Arias (Washington Post)

President Bill Clinton has chosen to begin the new year by advocating the largest increase
in military spending since the Reagan era, a proposed addition of 110 billion dollars over the
next six years. For Americans and for members of the international community alike, this
decision is truly lamentable.
Instead of offering world leadership on arms control, renewed focus on military buildup
promises to replicate both flawed security reasoning and outdated spending priorities.
Those who believe that a bigger defense budget is an effective response to post-Cold War
security challenges ignore the fact that the United States and its allies already spend more than
twice as much as all their conceivable adversaries combined. Yet this production and
distribution of weapons have made for a more dangerous world.
International terrorism and nuclear proliferation, in particular, are not problems that can be
solved simply by a show of American military strength.
World leaders must stop viewing militaristic investment as a measure of national well-being.
And they must embrace multilateral efforts that recognize the complex and politicized nature
of contemporary security questions.
By maintaining a massive military-industrial complex, the United States sends the wrong
signal to other countries whose national budgets desperately need to be directed toward
human needs. The sad fact is that half the world's governments invest more in defense than in
health programs.
The United States has been notoriously hesitant to participate in intiatives to establish a
cooperative framework for global security. Congress has yet to ratify major agreements on
chemical and biological weapons, on the use of land mines, on nuclear testing and on
international courts that could hold war criminals responsible for their actions.
Perhaps most significant, the United States, which is responsible for 43 percent of all arms
exports, has been unwilling to strengthen humanitarian restraints on these transfers. And in the
past four years 85 percent of weapons deliveries have gone to nondemocratic governments in
the developing world.
This proliferation of armaments bolsters the power of militaries, impedes the process of
democratization, perpetuates ethnic and territorial conflicts, and creates situations in which
basic human rights are at risk.
In pursuing true solutions to its security concerns, the United States urgently needs to work
with its international partners to limit the availability and spread of deadly weaponry.
Security today is not found in unilateral buildup and agressive posturing. Instead, it must be
based on an increased commitment to international cooperation and on a renewed investment
in the health, education and well-being of all humanity.

The writer, the 1987 Nobel Peace laureate, was president of Costa Rica from 1986 to l990.

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The Ghosts of War

Korean women are claiming compensation because they were forced to serve the Japanese
Imperial Army as prostitutes more than 50 years ago. A Frenchman in his 80s, accused of
having helped the Nazis in their destruction of the Jews, will soon be put on trial in France.
Swiss government and bank officials are nervously defending their reputations, as more and
more money belonging to Hitler’s victims is discovered in their vaults. The U.S. secretary of
state discovers that her grandparents were killed by the Nazis. And so it goes on and on.
Why won’t the ghosts of World War II lie down? At least three reasons come to mind. One
is the sheer scale of worldwide human destruction, not just of uniformed men, but of entire
populations. Nothing was ever quite so horrifying as the systematic murder of the Jews.
Secondly, postwar governments were so eager to clear the rubble and start afresh that much
of the wartime legacy was left unresolved, to be dealt with by later generations - that is to say,
by us. France is a good example. The divisions in France after the war, between former
collaborators and Resistance, were so sharp that they could have torn the fragile French
Republic apart. Charles de Gaulle decided, perhaps wisely at the time, to lay the past to rest,
and to preferably not even discuss it. Consequently, former Jewish victims kept quiet, and
some former Nazi collaborators became prominent government officials, without anyone
making much of a fuss. Until recently. Now the children of the victims are refusing to keep
quiet. And the main collaborators who are still alive are finally being brought to book.
It was not just political arrangements that muzzled the former victims, however. It is painful
for most victims of terrible and humiliating crimes to talk. French Jews were so traumatized by
being singled out and torn away from their French home that they were happy to hide under de
Gaulle’s official blanket of silence. They never wanted to be treated as a special category
again. That is why their children have to speak up in their stead.
There is one more reason, however, why the war won’t go away. The war is an excuse, a
convenient symbol to express a variety of fears and discontents. Take the Netherlands, a small,
prosperous country dependent for its wealth on a much larger, more powerful eastern
neighbour, which happened to have been its oppressive murderous conqueror almost 60 years
ago. Young Dutch people still say they „hate” Germans, even though they experienced nothing
of the Nazi occupation. But Germany just gets bigger and stronger, and Holland remains small
and vulnerable. So the least one can do, to feel Dutch, is to talk big, and resist the large
neighbour, by bringing up the Nazi past as often as you can.
But using the past as a stick with which to beat nations in the present may cause new
resentments to grow. If the Dutch persist in „hating” the children and grandchildren of men
who once waged war, the children of former aggressors will end up feeling like victims. Jews
and other minorities, who have been singled out for prosecution, must never be stigmatized
again. But only if we apply the same principle to former enemies can we be said to have
learned our lesson.

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Czech arms come up short, analysts say

During the opening ceremony of IDET ‘99, the country’s fifth defense industry trade fair
held in Brno May 4-7, Prime Minister Milos Zeman announced ambitious plans to begin
supporting the country’s defense industry.
„The era when the government behaved negatively towards the arms industry is over,”
Zeman proclaimed May 4. „The only result of the attempts of pacifists to curtail arms
production during the early 1990s was that Czech arms makers were forced out of the world
market. A return to this market will be very complicated.”
Zeman said that every decent government helps its industries, and those involved in defense
manufacturing are no exception.
The strong words of the prime minister, however, are tempered by the sobering view of
most industry analysts that the majority of Czech defense manufacturers are no longer in a
position to offer anything to the Czech army that will prepare it for the 21st century.
The Czech Republic is expected to spend over 60 billion Kč in the coming years on
modernizing its armed forces, but few Czech companies are currently in a position to
participate because they have nothing to offer, defense industry watchers say.
Aside from a few companies such as aircraft maker Aero Vodochody, which has
successfully teamed up with American partner Boeing to produce the L-159 ALCA light attack
plane for the Czech Army, most of the Czech defense industry is now out of the technological
loop.
Years of neglect on the part of the government, coupled with obsolete product lines and
diehard central planning habits of management, have hurled most of the Czech defense
industry back into the stone age.
„What we are witnessing today is a festival of incompetence,” said a Czech defense
industry source at the IDET ‘99 show. „Most of these companies are not offering anything
new; instead, what we have here is old technology with a new paint job.”
Most defense industry experts, foreign and local, agree that the only way the Czech defense
industry will survive is through close cooperation with the industries of neighboring countries.
This view appears to be shared by Slovak Defense Minister Pavol Kanis, who called for
close cooperation between Czech and Slovak defense manufacturers. His appeal comes as
little surprise, since Slovakia is a hot candidate for the next round of NATO expansion. The
new government in Bratislava has done a 180-degree turn in terms of radically shifting the
country’s ideological outlook from East to West.
Through closer cooperation, the countries that comprise the Visegrád Four could eliminate
costly redundances in arms procurements, thus saving money while strengthening their
technological edge and ability to compete internationally.
Nearly all defense industry experts agree that if the newest NATO members do not begin
cooperating, their respective defense industries will go the way of the dinosaur.

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Agenda 2000

The European Commission's huge package of plans - known as Agenda 2000 - will
shape the European Union well into the next decade. It covers not only enlargement but
also the EU budget and farm policy reform.

The evolution of the European Union will depend largely on how it copes with two of its central
ambitions. One is economic and monetary union (EMU), the other enlargement to the east. No one
should assume that EMU - whether or not it occurs - will be the more controversial of the two. For
enlargement, which is virtually certain to happen, will increase the arguments over the EU's institutions,
its financies and its core policies such as that of agriculture.
A flavour of the rows ahead emerged just before the commission published its formal opinions on
the merits of the current batch of ten applications for membership. Some commissioners wanted to
recommend that negotiations should begin in 1998 with only three candidates: Poland, the Czech
Republic and Hungary ( the Union has already promised to start talks with Cyprus). But Hans van den
Broek, the commisioner in charge of enlargement, argued that, judged by objective criteria, Slovenia
and Estonia should be added to the list. He won the argument, but only just.
Deciding which countries should join the club is not the only awkward question that has to be
resolved. Agenda 2000 also includes proposals for radical changes to the common agricultural policy
(CAP) and to the regional and social funds. Such reforms are needed, the commission emphasises,
irrespective of enlargement. But that will not make them any more palatable to governments.
The commission's opinions on the applicant countries are impressively frank. It says that none of
them yet meets the entry criteria set by the EU's Copenhagen summit in 1993. Politically, these include
guarantees of democracy, human rights and protection of minorities. Economically, they require a
functioning market economy, the capacity to cope with the single market and acceptance of the goal of
EMU.
Of the ten, the commission reckons that only Slovakia fails the political exam, though it gives a few
warnings about the treatment of minorities in Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic states. However, no
country meets the economic tests fully. The commission has selected the five that are closest to passing,
but says that even they need to do better. Prescribed homework includes extra laws to apply EU single
market rules; more deregulation to comply with its competition policies and macroeconomic reforms to
curb inflation and correct current-account imbalances.
Now that the commission's opinions are out in the open, it will be hard for governments to shorten
the list of first-wave entrants. There is more likely to be pressure to add extra names. The Danish
government is not the only one that wants negotiations to begin with all the applicants at the same time,
regardless of the logistical difficulties. But even those who want such a broadly based start to
enlargement acknowledge that it is not certain that everyone would gain admission at the same time.
The commission is not prepared to offer any finishing date for completing the process. But its
working assumption is that the five front-runners plus Cyprus might join in 2002, allowing four years
for the negotiation and ratification of the necessary treaties.

The Economist, July 1997

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Charles Krauthammer

The End of Arms Control

George W. Bush proposed a radical new nuclear doctrine. No one noticed

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T
HERE HAVE BEEN TWO billionaires, it had little today, we cannot test a high-
REVOLUTIONS IN intrinsic meaning: it was just a speed interceptor against any
NUCLEAR THEOLOGY way of keeping score. incoming missile traveling
since the doctrine of Perhaps most important, faster than 5 km per sec.
Mutual Assured Destruction arms control gave the Soviets because the Russians are afraid
became dominant four decades and us something to talk about it might be effective against
ago. The first came in 1983. at a time when there was very their ICBMs. This is quite
President Reagan proposed that little else to talk about. We crazy. It means that because of
defensive weapons take were fighting over every inch of a cold war relic, the U.S. has to
precedence over offensive forgo building
weapons. The second the most
happened two weeks ago. It effective defense
came from George W. Bush it can against
and was almost universally nuclear attack by
misunderstood. Bush was said a rogue state
to have proposed the primacy such as North
of defensive weapons over Korea.
offensive weapons. That is old But Bush’s
news. In fact, he did idea is
something far more important: significant
he proposed the end of arms because it goes
control. beyond question-
This seems strange to us. ing why we
For more than a generation we should be
have tailoring our
been living in a world in defensive
which arms control is the weapons to
norm. But for all of history Russian wishes.
before that, it was not: if you He asks, Why
needed a weapon to defend should we be
yourself and had the technology the globe, from Berlin to tailoring offensive weapons–
to build it, you did not go to Saigon. So, every few years, we indeed, any American military
your enemy to get his would trade beans in Geneva, needs–to Russian wishes?
agreement to let you do so. shake hands for the cameras He proposes to reduce the
When the world was and thus reassure the world American nuclear arsenal uni-
dominated that we were not going to blow laterally. The Clinton idea–the
by two bitterly antagonistic it up. idea that has dominated
super-powers, arms control But now? That late-20th American thinking for a
made sense. Barely. The world century world of superpowers generation–is to hang on to
was made marginally safer by and bipolarity and arms control superfluous nukes as
the U.S. and the Soviet Union is dead. There is no bargaining chips to get the
having a fairly good idea of, WarsawPact. There is no Soviet Russians to reduce theirs.
and a fairly good lid on, the Union. What is the logic of Why? Let the Soviets keep,
nuclear weapons in each tailoring our weapons indeed build what they want. If
other’s hands. For development against various they want to bankrupt
the U.S. it was important threats around the world to suit themselves building an arsenal
because of a rather arcane the wishes of a country– they will never use–and that
doctrine called extended Russia–that is no longereither lacks even the psychologically
deterrence: we pledged to an enemy or a superpower? intimidating effects it had
defend Western Europe not by Yet that is exactly what during the cold war–let them.
matching the huge Warsaw Pact President Clinton has been We don’t need new
tank forces (which would have intenton doing. He is deeply agreements; we only need new
been outrageously costly) but enmeshed in arms-control thinking. If we want to cut our
by threatening nuclear negotiations 1) to revise the nuclear arsenal, why wait on
retaliation against any treaty that radically restricts the Russians? If we want to
conventional invasion. America’s ability to defend build a defensive shield, why
Not a very credible threat itself from missile attack (the ask the Russians? The new
to begin with. And as the ABM treaty) and 2) to set new idea–extraordinarily simple and
Soviets overcame the American numbers for American and extraordinarily obvious–is that
nuclear monopoly, it became Russian offensive missiles (a we build to order. Our order.
less credible by the year. We START III treaty). Read my lips. No new
needed arms control to ensure The parts of this treaties.
that there would be enough prospective deal that are not
American nuclear firepower anachronistic are, in fact,
(relative to Moscow’s) to make detrimental to American
our security guarantee to security. One of the reasons the
Europe at least plausible. development of an effective
As I said arcane. But then missile defense has been so
again, the whole arms race with slow and costly is that the
the Soviets had a distinctly ABM treaty prevents us from
academic, almost unworldly testing the most promising
quality. It was really a form of technologies, such as sea-based
bean counting. Like money to and space based weapons. Even

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A Shared Vision BY KOFI A.

ANNAN

Of a better World
O
URS IS A WORLD IN WHICH NO INDIVIDUAL, in the face of global warming and the spread of
and no country, exists in isolation. All of weapons of mass destruction. There is the framework
us live simultaneously in our own of international law, treaties and human-rights
communities and in the world at large. The conventions. There is equally our sense of shared
same icons, whether on a movie screen or a computer opportunity, which is why we build common markets
screen, are recognizable from Berlin to Bangalore. and joint institutions such as the United Nations.
We are all influenced by the same tides of political, Together, we are stronger.
social and technological change. Pollution, organized
Some people say the international community is only
crime and the proliferation of deadly weapons
a fiction. Others say it is too elastic a concept to have
likewise show little regard for the niceties of borders;
any real meaning. Some say there are no
they are “problems without passports.” We are
internationally recognized norms, goals or fears on
connected, wired, interdependent.
which to base such a community. Op-ed pages refer
Much of this is nothing new; human beings have routinely to the “so-called” international community.
interacted across the planet for centuries. But today‘s I believe these skeptics are wrong. The international
“globalization” is different. It is happening more community does exist It has an address. It has
rapidly and it is governed by different rules or, in achievements to its credit.
some cases, by no rules at all. Globalization is
When governments, urged along by civil society,
bringing us new choices and opportunities. It is
come together to adopt a statute for the creation of an
making us more familiar with global diversity. Yet,
International Criminal Court, that is the international
millions of people experience it not as an agent of
community at work for the rule of law. When we see
progress, but as a disruptive force that can destroy
an outpouring of international aid to the victims of
lives, jobs and traditions.
earthquakes in Turkey and Greece, that is the
Faced with the potential good of globalization as well international community following its humanitarian
as its risks, faced with the persistence of deadly impulse. When people come together to press
conflicts in which civilians are the primary targets, governments to relieve the world's poorest countries
faced with the pervasiveness of poverty and injustice, from crushing debt burdens, that is the international
we must be able to identify the areas where collective community throwing its weight behind the cause of
action is needed to safeguard global interests. Local development. When the popular conscience, outraged
communities have their fire departments and town at the carnage caused by land mines, obliges
councils. Nations have their courts and legislatures. governments to adopt a convention banning those
But in today’s globalized world, the mechanisms deadly weapons, that, too, is the international
available for global action are hardly more than community in action.
embryonic. It is high time we gave more concrete
There are many more examples of the international
meaning to the idea of the “international community.”
community at work, from East Timor to Kosovo.
What makes a community? What binds it together?
For, some it is faith. For others it is the defense of an
idea, such as democracy. Some communities are
homogeneous, others multicultural. Some are as small
as schools and villages; others as large as continents.
Specifically, what binds us into an international
community? In the broadest sense there is a shared
vision of a better world for all people, as set out, for
example, in the founding Charter of the United
Nations. There is our sense of common vulnerability

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 Of Peace
and Poison
Miscarriages, birth defects, chronic illnesses
and early deaths—but no one can prove that
Agent Orange caused them. BY RON MOREAU

R
OUGHLY A QUARTER CENTURY told, get much of their dietary protein
after the Vietnam War, the from fish raised in decades-old bomb
vestiges of the Ho Chi Minh craters. But the real horror is in the
Trail run through a nightmare people’s eyes. For more than a
landscape. Vast swaths of blighted generation, practically every family in
countryside, once dense forest, now this stretch of central Vietnam has
support almost no vegetation but the endured a medical hell of repeated
coarse weed known locally as American miscarriages, crippling birth defects,
grass, useless for feeding humans, chronic illnesses and untimely deaths.
livestock or most wildlife. The afflicted This is the heart of Agent Orange
country. From 1961 to 1971, U.S.
warplanes deluged strategic sectors
of southern Vietnam from conducted with Vietnamese doctors’ help,
QuangTri province to the Mekong found extraordinary levels of TCDD, an
Delta with more than 20 million extremely toxic form of dioxin that
gallons of chemical herbicide, of existed as an unwanted contaminant in
which 60 percent was Agent Agent Orange. The toxin was
Orange. The Hanoi government everywhere: in the soil, in the fish and in
says that as many as 600,000 the children’s bloodstreams. “We have to
Vietnamese have fallen victim to get a handle on this problem,” says Chris
serious illnesses from exposure to Hatfield, the company’s president. “If
the defoliants. The chemicals’ something’s not done, and soon, this
manufacturers and the U.S. problem could haunt Vietnam for another
government dispute any such 10,15, 20 years or longer.”
figure. They say no one has ever
produced conclusive scientific
proof that the herbicides caused
those medical problems. They
blame a whole range of other
factors such as disease,
malnutrition and lack of health
care.
Even so, researchers keep
piling up unsettling evidence. The
Ho Chi Minh Trail region, still not
entirely open to foreigners, offers a
huge natural laboratory. Late last
year Hatfield Consultants, an
independent environmental-
assessment firm based in Canada,
Tainted Iegacy : A 24-year-old villager in QuangTri published a report summing up a
four-year series of medical
investigations in the A Luoi valley,
some 65 kilometers west of Hue.
region’s inhabitants, about 5 million all The study, funded largely by
Canadian government agencies and