BA I&P English Placement Test B

Section I: Listening

(Instructions and Example)

NOTE: You will only get to hear the audio once. Do not click "play" until you are ready, and listen carefully to the entire audio clip.

--CLICK PLAY TO START THE AUDIO--



In this section of the test, you will hear conversations and answer some questions about them. For each conversation, first read the situation and the question or questions. Then listen to the conversation. Answer the questions after you hear the conversation. Respond to the questions by marking the correct answer (a, b, c, or d).
Read the example situation and question.

Example

Situation: Bill Sanchez calls Dr. Stockton’s office to make an appointment.

Bill is going to see the doctor on _________.
a. Tuesday at 10:00
b. Tuesday at 4:00
c. Wednesday at 10:00
d. Wednesday at 4:00

Now listen to the example conversation.

[EXAMPLE CONVERSATION]

Now answer the example question.

The answer for the example is d, Wednesday at 4:00. The answer d should be selected.

Now go on to the next page.

Situation 1: David is talking with Tomomi when Monica comes into the room.

1. ______ are meeting for the first time.

Situation 2: Ken and Nancy are at a restaurant.

2. Ken _______.

Situation 3: Karen calls Jason’s home. Jason’s father answers the telephone.

3. Karen is going to _________.

Situation 4: A reporter is giving today’s weather forecast.

4. It will be clear in _______.

5. In Seattle, the weather is ______.

Situation 5: Bill invites Jennifer to go to dinner and a movie.

6. Jennifer doesn’t accept right away because she can’t _______.

7. They’re going to ________.

Situation 6: Linda is asking Jim about his plans for the summer.

8. In the summer, Jim usually ________.

9. This summer he’s planning to _______.

Situation 7: Phil is talking with Susie about money.

10. Phil is upset because ______.

11. Albert _________.

12. Susie doesn’t lend money to friends because _______.

Situation 8: Natalie and Chuck are talking about their experiences abroad.

13. Chuck went backpacking __________.

14. Chuck says he “would have liked to have seen Portugal.” He means that he ________.

15. While Natalie was in Japan, she _______.

16. Chuck doesn’t want to ________.

Situation 9: Diane and Conrad are talking about their careers.

17. Conrad got into advertising because he _______.

18. When he was young, Conrad wanted to ________.

19. Diane’s parents didn’t want her to _______.

20. Conrad _______.

Placement Essay

Directions: Please write about one of the following topics. Do not write about all three. Write a well-organized essay about the topic you choose. When you finish your essay, read it over and correct any mistakes you find.

Topic 1: Describe your plans for the future. What do you plan to be doing in ten years?

Topic 2: Where would you go if you could visit anyplace in the world? Why would you want to visit this place?

Topic 3: What are the advantages and disadvantages of owning a car?

Section II: Reading

In this section of the Objective Placement Test, you will read some short passages and answer questions about them. Choose the word or words that best complete the sentence. You will have 20 minutes to complete this section (20 Questions).

Passage 1: What are you doing today?

Pedro: I usually go out with friends on Saturday night. But today is Friday, and we’re going out to a football game tonight. So tomorrow night I’m staying home.

21. This Saturday night, Pedro is ______.

Passage 2: What do you do?

Marcia Chung: I work in a busy real estate office. I do the same thing day after day – answer the telephone and send documents. I need to get a more interesting job. That’s why I’m studying law at night.

22. Marcia’s job is ______.

Passage 3: A vacation postcard

Hi, Andre,

Greetings from Mexico. It’s really great to be away from school. I was traveling with Paul, but he got homesick and now I’m by myself. I have a tent and two sleeping bags, so why don’t you come on down? We could go to the beaches, see the sights. And it doesn’t cost much to stay here. Think
about it, OK?

Todd

23. Todd wants Andre to ______.

Passage 4: Meditation

You observe a person in meditation. On the surface, he appears to be asleep, but he’s simply in a trance – a kind of half-sleep in which the person is conscious but able to ignore the situation around him. For the meditator, the ability to concentrate is so strong that everything around him – sounds, smells, movement – seems to fade in importance. At the same time, decision making and deep thinking are often greatly improved.

24. In this reading, meditation refers to a person’s _______.

25. Meditation doesn’t help a person ______.

Passage 5: The electric lightbulb

Thomas Edison was called the Wizard of Menlo Park because he found a simple, efficient way to light up a room at night. By 1877, many other scientists had been successful using electricity for light, but their inventions were not practical for home use. Edison’s patient experimenting resulted in an easy-to-use lightbulb, which produced just enough light for a room in a house. Edison’s victory came in December of 1879 when he used a piece of carbonized (burned) cotton thread as the filament or wire in the bulb. An electric current passing through the thread made it shine.

26. In 1877, electricity was not used to light homes because _______.

27. The filament in a lightbulb is used to produce _______.

Passage 6: It’s a big country!

When visitors to the United States leave the crowded cities of the East Coast or Midwest, they are likely to comment on the use of space. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even the central part of Chicago may look similar to great cities anywhere in the world. However, urban areas in other parts of the country, and especially those in the “wide West,” look different. Take Denver or Los Angeles, for example. Although statistics show that many people there live in apartments, these buildings are small compared to the multi-storied apartment blocks of Moscow, Cairo, and Beijing. The midsize city of Tucson, Arizona (population 700,000), which developed in a broad desert valley with several small streams to feed it, covers an area larger than all of Chicago (population 7 million). In Tucson, most people live in individual houses. They drive their cars (or pickup trucks) to work and shop in large shopping malls with huge parking lots. Perhaps it’s the farmer or cowboy influence: each family has its own “horse” and its own piece of land.

28. Visitors to the United States often comment on the use of space in ______.

29. According to the article, apartment buildings in Moscow, Cairo, and Beijing are often _______ than those in Denver and Los Angeles.

30. The average person in Tucson lives ______.

31. The article implies that in building cities today, Americans are influenced by ______.

Passage 7: Personality types

    What makes people the way they are? Why do some people get angry easily, others always seem to be cheerful, while still others are often depressed? The early Greek doctor Hippocrates thought that personality was linked to the fluids that were known to exist in the human body: the blood, the bile, the black bile, and the phlegm. These fluids were called the four humors. He believed that inside each person, one kind of body fluid was dominant and that this fluid – or humor – caused a tendency toward a particular kind of behavior.
    If the blood (sanguinis) was dominant, the person was sanguine, or cheerful and willing to help others. If the yellow bile of the liver (called choler) was the most important, the person would be irritable and quick to anger. If the person was often sad and depressed, the black liquid of the spleen and kidneys (melan-choler or black bile) was blamed. And the person who had too much phlegm (the thick mucus of the nose and throat) was likely to be lazy, calm, and dull (not very intelligent).
    Today we know that personality results from a combination of lifestyle and natural factors, and has little or nothing to do with the balance of body fluids. However, even today the words remain: humorous, sanguine, choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic. Although psychologists no longer use them, they have become part of the common vocabulary – with some changes, of course. For example, today to say that a person is humorous means that the person laughs and makes others laugh, from the idea of having “good” humor.

32. According to the article, the early Greeks knew that ________.

33. For the early Greeks, humor was the name for a type of ________.

34. Hippocrates believed that _______ was dominant in a happy person.

35. Today the word humorous is used to describe a person’s ______.

Passage 8: What is intelligence?

    We all know that there are different degrees of intelligence, but it is perhaps less understood that the way we think about intelligence may be influenced by the society we live in, and that even within one society, standards and norms can change over time. For example, since the rise of a scientific culture, the intelligence of the scientist has been greatly valued. Therefore, scientific thinkers and theoreticians like Albert Einstein and Stephen W. Hawking have been considered the “most intelligent.”
    Recent research in the area of intelligence is leading toward a redefinition of the concept. Today it is recognized that people have different degrees but also different kinds of intelligence and that the ability to think scientifically (i.e., the capacity to use logical deduction and factual evidence to solve problems) is just one kind. For example, the ability to create things of beauty such as a painting or a musical composition demonstrates another type of intelligence, which could be called artistic intelligence. Political and social leaders all have interpersonal intelligence, the talent to understand and to manage other human beings. The ability to organize facts into a clear argument, to master languages, and to create stories about imaginary people and situations can all be considered as separate aspects of intelligence. From this perspective, the average person has different but “normal” amounts of each type of intelligence, while a genius is a person with an outstanding brilliance in at least one kind of intelligence.

36. The main idea of this article is that _______.

37. The meaning of concept (second paragraph, first sentence) is closest to ______.

38. ______ are usually considered the most intelligent.

39. Interpersonal intelligence refers to the ability to _______.

40. According to the article, a genius is someone who _______.

Section III: Language Use

In this section, you will answer questions about the use of English. Choose the word or words that best complete the sentence. You will have 15 minutes to complete this section (30 Questions).

41. “Where are the stamps?”
       “____ on the desk.”

42. My office is ______ downtown.

43. “I can’t speak German.”
       "______ can I.”

44. On weekends, we enjoy ______ friends.

45. I don’t have a computer, but ______ my friends do.

46. We’re very ______ about the news.

47. “Is the report done yet?”
       “No, but I hope ______ it by tonight.”

48. Cairo is ______ any other city in Egypt.

49. Ted’s never gone mountain climbing, ______ he?

50. I had an accident. I wish I _____ more careful.

51. Excuse me. Could you tell me where _______?

52. Bill would have done something about the problem if he _____ about it.

53. Janice moved to Paris. _____ there for a year already.

54. The movie’s great! It’s really worth ______.

55. I’d play the piano better if I _____ more.

56. Would you mind _______ in here?

57. My sister is interested ______ about Japanese literature.

58. This fruit needs ______ before you eat it.

59. By the time you get this postcard, ______ New York.

60. The ground’s wet. It must ______.

61. Sue is used ______ up early.

62. The man ______ lives across the street is a dentist.

63. I won’t go ______ you come with me.

64. Before ______ for work, I usually have a cup of coffee.

65. I’m going to flying school ______ I can learn how to fly my own plane.

66. Helen is ______ serious student I have ever seen.

67. I’d prefer ______ at home this weekend.

68. Ken failed the test. He should ______ more.

69. Betty’s husband suggested that she _____ a few days off from work.

70. The older I get, ______ I become.