Reading Test 5
SECTION 1:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Application for the role of travel Consultant
I would like to apply for the role of Travel Consultant which was advertised in the newspaper on the 16th March 2016 and have enclosed my updated CV for your needful.
I have always had a keen interest in travel and feel that I am a meticulous individual who has spent many hours in my personal life looking for holidays and booking them with the best deals, travel arrangements etc so as to ensure a successful and enjoyable trip.
I believe that I have excellent customer service skills and feel confident communicating with all strata of people. I enjoy helping people and making sure they have the support and advice needed to make an important travel decision.
I am quite knowledgeable about the world topography which gives me an edge over others.
I have excellent IT skills and can pick up new systems and procedures quickly. If my profile suits your requirements, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to answer any question related to my experiences.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter and CV and I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Smith Johnson
Section 2
SECTION 3
A. The role of governments in environmental management is difficult but inescapable. Sometimes, the state tries to manage the resources it owns, and does so badly. Often, however, governments act in an even more harmful way. They actually subsidize the exploitation and consumption of natural resources. A whole range of policies, from farm-price support to protection for coal-mining, do environmental damage and (often) make no economic sense. Scrapping them offers a two-fold bonus: a cleaner environment and a more efficient economy. Growth and environmentalism can actually go hand in hand, if politicians have the courage to confront the vested interest that subsidies create.
B. No activity affects more of the earth's surface than farming. It shapes a third of the planet's land area, not counting Antarctica, and the proportion is rising. World food output per head has risen by 4 per cent between the 1970s and 1980s mainly as a result of increases in yields from land already in cultivation, but also because more land has been brought under the plough. Higher yields have been achieved by increased irrigation, better crop breeding, and a doubling in the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the 1970s and 1980s.
C. All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example, land clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation; chemical fertilizers and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more intensive farming and the abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate soil erosion; and the spread of monoculture and use of high-yielding varieties of crops have been accompanied by the disappearance of old varieties of food plants which might have provided some insurance against pests or diseases in future. Soil erosion threatens the productivity of land in both rich and poor countries. The United States, where the most careful measurements have been done, discovered in 1982 that about one- fifth of its farmland was losing topsoil at a rate likely to diminish the soil's productivity. The country subsequently embarked upon a program to convert 11 per cent of its cropped land to meadow or forest. Topsoil in India and China is vanishing much faster than in America.
D. Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage that farming can cause. In the rich countries, subsidies for growing crops and price supports for farm output drive up the price of land. The annual value of these subsidies is immense: about $250 billion, or more than all World Bank lending in the 1980s. To increase the output of crops per acre, a farmer's easiest option is to use more of the most readily available inputs: fertilizers and pesticides. Fertilizer use doubled in Denmark in the period 1960-1985 and increased in The Netherlands by 150 per cent. The quantity of pesticides applied has risen too: by 69 per cent in 1975-1984 in Denmark, for example, with a rise of 115 per cent in the frequency of application in the three years from 1981.
E. Not in any of the paragraphs.
SECTION 4
If a person suddenly encounters any terrible danger, the change of nature one undergoes is equally great. Sometimes fear numbs our senses. Like animals, one stands still, powerless to move a step in fright or to lift a hand in defense of our lives, and sometimes one is seized with panic, and again, act more like the inferior animals than rational beings.
On the other hand, frequently in cases of sudden extreme peril, which cannot be escaped by flight, and must be instantly faced, even the most timid men at once as if by miracle, become possessed of the necessary courage, sharp quick apprehension and swift decision. This is a miracle very common in nature. Man and the inferior animals alike, when confronted with almost certain death ‗ gather resolution from despair‘ but there can really be no trace of so debilitating a feeling in the person fighting, or prepared to fight for dear life.
At such times the mind is clearer than it has ever been; the nerves are steel, there is nothing felt but a wonderful strength and daring. Looking back at certain perilous moments in my own life, I remember them with a kind of joy, not that there was any joyful excitement then, but because they broadened my horizon, lifted me for a time above myself.
