READING
READING
PASSAGE I
You should spend about 20 minutes on
Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Cutty Sark: the fastest sailing ship of all time
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The nineteenth century was a period of
great technological development in Britain, and for shipping the major
changes were from wind to steam power, and from wood to iron and steel.
The fastest commercial sailing vessels
of all time were clippers, three-masted ships built to transport goods around
the world, although some also took passengers. From 1840s until 1869, when
the Suez Canal opened and steam propulsion was replacing sail, clippers
dominated world trade. Although many were built, only one had survived more
or less intact: Cutty Sark, now on
display in Greenwich, southeast London.
Cutty
Sark’s
unusual name comes from the poem Tam
O’Shanter by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Tam, a farmer, is chased by
a witch called Nannie, who is wearing a ‘Cutty
Sark’ – an old Scottish name for a short nightdress. The witch is depicted
in Cutty Sark’s figured head – the
carving of a woman typically at the front of old sailing ships. In legend,
and in Burn’s poem, witches cannot cross water, so this was a rather strange
choice of name for ship.
Cutty
Sark was
built in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1869, for a shipping company owned by John
Willis. To carry out construction. Willis chose a new shipbuilding firm,
Scott & Linton, and ensured that the contract with them put him in a very
strong position. In the end, the firm was forced out of business, and the
ship was finished by a competitor.
Willis’s company was active in the tea
trade between China and Britain, where speed could bring shipowners both
profits and prestige, so Cutty Sark
was designed to make the journey more quickly than any other ship. On her
maiden voyage, in 1870, she set sail from London carrying large amounts of
goods to China. She returned laden with tea, making the journey back to
London in four months. However, Cutty
Sark never lived up to the high expectations of her owner, as a result of
bad winds and various misfortunes. On one occasion, in 1872, the ship and a
rival clipper. Thermopylae, left
port in China on the same day. Crossing the Indian Ocean, Cutty Sark gained a lead of over 400
miles, but then her rudder was severely damaged in stormy seas, making her
impossible to steer. The ship’s crew had the daunting task of repairing the
rudder at sea, and only succeeded at the second attempt. Cutty Sark reached London a week after Thermopylae.
Steam ships posed a growing threat to
clippers, as their speed and cargo capacity increased. In addition, the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the same year that Cutty Sark was launched had a serious impact. While steam ships
could make use of the quick, direct route between the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea, the canal was of no use to sailing the ships, which needed the much
stronger winds of the oceans, and so had to sail a far greater distance.
Steam ships reduced the journey time between Britain and China by
approximately two months.
By 1878, tea traders weren’t interested
in Cutty Sark, and instead, she
took on the much less prestigious work of carrying and cargo between any two
ports in the world. In 1880, violence aboard the ship led ultimately to the
replacement of the captain with an incompetent drunkard who stole the crew’s
wages. He was suspended from service, and a new captain appointed. Thus
marked a turnaround and the beginning of the most successful period in Cutty Sark’s working life,
transporting wool from Australia to Britain. One such journey took just under
12 weeks, beating every other ship sailing that year by around a month.
The ship’s next captain, Richard
Woodget, was an excellent navigator, who got the best out of both his ship
and his crew. As a sailing ship, Cutty
Sark depended on the strong trade winds of the southern hemisphere, and
Woodget took her further south than any previous captain, bringing her
dangerously close to icebergs off the southern tip of South America. His
gamble paid off, though, and the ship was the fastest vessel in the wool
trade for ten years.
As competition from steam ships
increased in the 1890s, and Cutty Sark
approached the end of her life expectancy, she became less profitable. She
was sold to a Portuguese firm, which renamed her Ferreira. For the next 25 years, she again carried miscellaneous
cargoes around the world.
Badly damaged in gale in 1922, she was
put into Falmouth harbour in southeast England, for repairs. Wilfred Dowman,
a retired sea captain who owned a training vessel, recognised her and tried
to buy her, but without success. She returned to Portugal and was sold to
another Portuguese company. Dowman was determined, however, and offered a
high price, this was accepted, and the ship returned to Falmouth the
following year and had her original name restored.
Dowman used Cutty Sark as a training ship, and she continued in this role
after his death. When she was no longer required, in 1954, she was transferred
to dry dock at Greenwich to go on public display. The ship suffered from fire
in 2007, and again, less seriously, in 2014, but now Cutty Sark attracts a quarter of a million visitors a year.
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Questions
1-8
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In
boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
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If the statement agrees with the information
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FALSE
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If the statement contradicts the information
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NOT
GIVEN
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If there is no information on this
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1
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Clippers were originally
intended to be used as passenger ships.
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2
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Cutty Sark was given the name of a character in a
poem.
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3
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The contract
between John Willis and Scott & Linton favoured Willis.
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4
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John Willis
wanted Cutty Sark to be the fastest
tea clipper travelling between UK and China.
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5
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Despite storm
damage, Cutty Sark beat Thermopylae back to London.
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6
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The opening f
the Suez Canal meant that steam could travel between Britain and China faster
than clippers.
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7
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Steam ships
sometimes used the ocean route to travel between London and China.
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8
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Captain Woodget
put Cutty Sark at risk of hitting
an iceberg.
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Questions
9-13
Complete
the table below
Choose
ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for
each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
9
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After 1880, Cutty Sark carried ___________ as its
main cargo during its most successful time.
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10
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As a captain
and ___________, Woodget was very skilled.
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11
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Ferreira went to Falmouth to repair damage that
a ___________ had caused.
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12
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Between 1923
and 1954, Cutty Sark was used for
_____________.
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13
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Cutty Sark has twice been damaged by ____________
in the 21st century.
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ANSWER KEY
1
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FALSE
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2
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FALSE
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3
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TRUE
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4
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TRUE
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5
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FALSE
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6
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TRUE
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7
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NOT
GIVEN
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8
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TRUE
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9
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wool
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10
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navigator
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11
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gale
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12
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training
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13
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fire
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