English Reading Practice Test Level B1 - Test No. 15

Read the passage and answer these following questions. Education was of primary importance to the English colonists and was conducted at home as well as in established schools. Regardless of geographic location or finances, most Americans learned to read and compute numbers. For many, the Bible and other religious tracts were their only books; however, the excellent language contained in such works usually made them good primers. Many families owned one or more of Shakespeare’s works, a copy of John Bunyan’s classic A Pilgrim’s Progress, and sometimes collections of English literary essays, poems, or historical speeches. In 1647 the Massachusetts School Law required every town of at least 50 households to maintain a grammar school. The law was the first to mandate public education in America. In the middle colonies at the time, schools were often dependent on religious societies, such as the Quakers and other private organizations. In the South, families employed private tutors or relied on the clergy to conduct education. At the outset, most elementary schools were for boys, but schools for girls were established in the eighteenth century in most cities and large towns. In spite of the informal atmosphere of most American schools, the literacy rate in the colonies of mid-eighteenth century America was equal to or higher than that in most European countries.​ Before the American Revolution, nine colleges had been founded, including Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), Brown, Rutgers, Dartmouth, and Kings College (later Columbia University). By 1720 the natural sciences and modern languages were being taught, as well as courses in practical subjects such as mechanics and agriculture. At the end of the 18th century, medical schools were established at the College of Philadelphia and at King’s College.​

Read the passage and answer these following questions. Every year in late December, a southward-moving current warms the water along the Pacific coast of Peru. Because the warm current arrives around Christmas, the Peruvians named it El Nino, “boychild.” Until the mid-1970s, El Nino was an unrecognized local phenomenon, until scientists began to realize that El Nino, later named El Nino Southern 5 Oscillation (ENSO), is part of a huge ocean and atmosphere system that is felt as far away as Australia and Indonesia. Every few years the El Nino current is warmer than normal, causing greater ocean warming and consequently changes in the normal patterns of sea and surface temperatures. The resulting changes in atmospheric pressure affect trade wind speeds and the location of the largest thunderstorms, thus affecting weather patterns around the world. The shift in location of the Pacific’s largest thunderstorms, which usually occur from the Western Pacific to the Central Pacific, changes global weather patterns because the thunderstorms pump air into the atmosphere in different places than normal. The result is a shift in the location of high- and low-pressure areas, wind patterns, and the paths followed by storms. From 1982 to 1983 the El Nino condition caused greater than average precipitation along the U.S. West Coast and sent five hurricanes to French Polynesia, which normally goes years without hurricanes. That same year, El Nino was linked to floods in Louisiana, Florida, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and to droughts in Hawaii, Mexico, Southern Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia. In response to the 1982-83 global weather disruption, the World Meteorological Organization initiated the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program. The goal of the 10-year program is to gain a better understanding of El Nino so scientists can forecast future El Nino episodes and their likely results.