High School Preparation program
Offshore Placement Test

I’ve just read a novel – it was an e-book – you know, an electronic one you read on the screen - on your iPad, or on your computer. Tell me about the books you like reading. Which is better, reading on a screen or reading a printed book?

Your English teacher wants you to write a story. This is the title for your story:

An exciting weekend

A superhero is a fictional character (6) …….. special powers. (7) ……. the first Superman story was written in the USA in 1938, superheroes have (8) …….. in various comic books around the world. But more recently they have (9) ………… better known as film characters.

(10) ……. superhero powers vary widely, superhuman strength and the ability to fly are common. (11) …… superheroes do not have special powers but have (12) ……. other important abilities. In order to protect friends and family, a superhero’s identity is normally (13) ……. secret, which often means superheroes have a complicated double life.

(14) ….. have been successful superheroes in countries other than the USA. Examples (15) ….. Cybersix from Argentina and the heroes of AK Comics from Egypt. Japan is the only country that has created as may superhero characters as the USA. However, most Japanese superheroes are short-lived. While American entertainment companies reinvent superheroes, (16) ….. they will stay popular, Japanese companies frequently introduce new characters.

Alice Guy Blaché

Alice Guy Blaché was the first female film director. She first became involved in cinema whilst working for the Gaumont Film Company in the late 1890s. This was a period of great change in the cinema and Alice was the first to use many new inventions, (17) .................. sound and colour. In 1907 Alice (18) ................... to New York where she started her own film company. She was (19) .................. successful, but, when Hollywood became the centre of the film world, the best days of the independent New York film companies were (20) ................... . When Alice died in 1968, hardly anybody (21) ................. her name.

UFOs – do they exist?

UFO is short for ‘unidentified flying object’. UFOs are popularly known as flying saucers, (22) ................. that is often the (23)................. they are reported to be. The (24) .................. "flying saucers" were seen in 1947 by an American pilot, but experts who studied his claim decided it had been a trick of the light.

Even people experienced at watching the sky, (25) ................. as pilots, report seeing UFOs. In 1978 a pilot reported a collection of UFOs off the coast of New Zealand. A television (26) ................. went up with the pilot and filmed the UFOs. Scientists studying this phenomenon later discovered that in this case they were simply lights on boats out fishing.

The tallest buildings - SKYSCRAPERS

Nowadays, skyscrapers can be found in most major cities of the world. A building which was many (47) .................. high was first called a skyscraper in the United States at the end of the 19th century, and New York has perhaps the (48) .................. skyscraper of them all, the Empire State Building. The (49) ................... beneath the streets of New York is rock, (50) ................... enough to take the heaviest load without sinking, and is therefore well-suited to bearing the (51) ............... of tall buildings.

SCRABBLE

Scrabble is the world’s most popular word game. For its origins, we have to go back to the 1930s in the USA, when Alfred Butts, an architect, found himself out of (52) .................... . He decided that there was a (53) ................... for a board game based on words and (54) ................... to design one. Eventually he made a (55) ................. from it, in spite of the fact that his original (56) ................... was only three cents a game.