Skills Test Unit 3 Test A

Name: ___________________________________________

Everyday English
1 Complete the dialogue with sentences A–E.
Tim Hi Jason. 1____________
Jason Thanks, but 2____________ I’ve got a lot of homework to finish.
Tim 3____________ What about Sunday, then?
Jason OK. 4____________
Tim Yes, quite a few. About ten people said they might come.
Jason Really? 5____________
Tim At five o’clock, in the park.
Jason That sounds great. See you there.

A Oh, that's a shame!

Mark: ___ / 5

Listening
2  Listen to the radio programme. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?
1 The programme is about cooking. ___
2 The aim of the project 'Grow Your Own' is to encourage people to spend time gardening. ___
3 The public first learned about the 'Grow Your Own' project at an event in Hyde Park. ___
4 No one that the presenter interviewed wanted to grow their own food. ___
5 The presenter says that growing your own food helps the environment. ___
6 Tim Harris started growing vegetables five years ago. ___
7 He grows vegetables in his garden. ___
8 He says that going to the supermarket is easier than growing your own food. ___
9 He gets a lot of fresh air and exercise. ___
10 He eats everything that he grows immediately.___

Mark: ___ / 10

1
Reading
The healthy people of Okinawa island
Okinawa Island is the largest of a group of islands that lie in the Pacific Ocean, to the south of the rest of
Japan. The people there are different from other Japanese people. For example, they have their own culture
and language, although now only older people speak the Okinawan language. Okinawans also live longer than
other Japanese people. In fact, they live longer than most people in the world. For every 100,000 people on the
island, thirty-four live to be a hundred years old! In the USA, only ten people in 100,000 reach that age.
So, what is the secret of the long lives of the Okinawan people? Well, scientists believe it is because of their
traditional diet. About forty years ago, Okinawans only ate food that they produced on the island. They ate a
lot of green and yellow vegetables, and only a little meat. They loved pork, but they only ate it on special
occasions, and they didn’t eat many eggs or drink much milk. Although they lived by the sea, they only ate a
little fish; unlike most Japanese people who ate, and still eat a lot! People who lived in Okinawa also didn’t eat
much rice. Unlike other Japanese people, they preferred to eat sweet potatoes, which don’t have as many
calories as rice. It seems that a lot of older Okinawans live to be a hundred because they grew up with a
healthy, low-calorie, mostly vegetarian diet.
Scientists have discovered that elderly Okinawans rarely get diseases which kill a lot of people in other parts
of the world. In the USA, for example, a lot of people die from heart disease, but on the island of Okinawa the
number of people who develop heart problems is eight times less than in the USA.
What about the future? Will young people who are growing up on Okinawa now also live to be a hundred?
The problem is that life on the island now is busier and more modern than it once was, and most young people
there have the same choices and lifestyle as young people in the rest of Japan. As a result, Okinawan teenagers
buy a lot of fast food and fizzy drinks, just like other Japanese teenagers, and they often eat rice and bread
instead of sweet potatoes and vegetables. Okinawa is still mostly a healthy place to live, and the young people
who live there have a healthier diet than teenagers in the rest of Japan and in other parts of the world, but it’s
not as different as it was a few years ago. So, it’s possible that fewer people will celebrate their 100 th birthdays
in Okinawa in the future.

2
3 Read the text. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F)?
1 Okinawa is a Japanese island. ___
2 People in Okinawa live longer than people in the rest of Japan. ___
3 A higher percentage of people in the USA live to be a hundred than in Okinawa. ___
4 In the past, Okinawans bought a lot of food products from the rest of Japan. ___
5 In the past, Okinawans didn’t eat any type of meat. ___
6 Eggs weren’t a common food in Okinawa forty years ago. ___
7 Most Japanese people ate more fish than Okinawans did. ___
8 In the USA, more people get heart disease than in Okinawa. ___
9 The way people live in Okinawa is the same today as it always was. ___
10 Today, people in Okinawa eat more rice than they used to. ___

Mark: ___ / 10

Writing
4 You are planning to have a birthday party on Saturday. Write a note to a friend who is not at
school today to invite them to the party. Use the plan to help you.
Paragraph 1: Say when and where the party is.
Paragraph 2: Give details of what you will all be doing at the party.
Paragraph 3: Ask them to tell you if they can come or not as soon as possible.
Paragraph 4: Remind them that they don't need to bring any presents to the party.

Mark: ___ / 15
TOTAL MARKS: ___ / 40

3
Challenge!
5 Choose the correct answers.
The big American fridge!
While I 1studied / was studying at a university in Houston, Texas, I stayed with an American family 2where /
who owned a really big fridge. It was as big as my kitchen back home in Spain! And 3a / the fridge was
always full. There was 4a lot of / much ice cream in the fridge. The family loved ice cream! However, most of
the food was very healthy. There weren’t 5some / any hamburgers, for example. People think that 6anybody /
everybody in America eats fast food, but, in my experience, they eat good quality food – but a lot of it!
The family I stayed with were very keen 7at / on recycling. They wanted to send as little rubbish as possible to
the rubbish 8place / dump. I know that recycling is a good idea, but I got fed 9 up / on with trying to remember
the place 10 where / which they told me to put the cans or the paper or the plastic!