Read the following passage about the role of colour in food and mark the letter (A, B, C, or D) on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 23 to 30.

Colour has always been important when it comes to food. The Roman food lover Apicius observed that ‘we eat first with our eyes’ and ancient Egyptians used to colour sweets using grape juice to make them more attractive. As food manufacturing grew in the 19th century, all kinds of substances were used to colour and disguise cheap products. Some of these colourings were actually poisonous and there were incidents where people died. Finally, laws had to be introduced to protect the public and the producers of more expensive, natural products. In some parts of the US, manufacturers were banned for many years from using yellow dye to make margarine look more like butter. However, these laws have not stopped food businesses from using colour to their advantage. These days, there’s a huge variety of colours available, but they’re mainly produced from natural sources. Furthermore, the food industry has a greater understanding of how colour can affect our mood.

For example, red and yellow are popular with fast-food chains partly because of their effect on behaviour. Red tends  to make us more active and increase our appetite. Bright yellow may also encourage us to eat more by creating a happy mood. At the same time, it seems people tend not to stay long in yellow rooms, leaving space for new customers.

We may also find ourselves eating more or less depending on the colour of the plate we use. Studies suggest that when the colour of the plate contrasts strongly with the food (white pasta on a blue plate) we tend to serve ourselves less. When the food matches the colour of the plate more closely people may eat more – although that might not be the case for all colours. For example, the colour blue is often associated with food that has gone off. One experiment was reported to show how colouring a steak blue made people feel sick, even though the food was perfectly fresh. People started eating the meal under a low light, which meant they could not see that the food had been dyed. When the lights were turned up and they saw their off-coloured food, several of them immediately left the table saying they felt ill.

(Adapted from Outcomes 3ed Intermediate)

Question 23: What does the writer suggest about food colouring in the 19th century?

A.    It was sometimes used to hide low-quality food products.

B.     People were unaware of the risks of eating coloured food.

C.    It helped make the food industry more attractive to buyers.

D.    Laws were introduced to encourage the use of natural dyes.

Question 24: Why were yellow dyes banned in margarine production in parts of the US?

A.    Food manufacturers used yellow dye to mislead customers.

B.     Yellow dyes were considered unsafe for public consumption.

C.    The public preferred margarine which looked more like butter.

D.    The government wanted to protect butter producers’ interests.

Question 25: What is one reason fast-food chains use red and yellow in their designs?

A.    These colours are associated with a sense of happiness and joy.

B.     Red and yellow encourage people to eat quickly and leave faster.

C.    They can increase appetite and create a welcoming environment.

D.    The colours are widely recognised as symbols of fast-food culture.

Question 26: The phrase “contrast strongly” in paragraph 3 refers to ______________ .

A.    how the food colour and plate colour differ noticeably

B.     food and plates that do not match in size and texture

C.    the way food colour changes under different lighting

D.    plates with colours that make food appear more appealing

Question 27: What does the writer imply about blue-coloured food?

A.    People tend to associate it with food that is no longer fresh.

B.     It can make food look unappetizing and reduce overall appetite.

C.    Experiments show that blue food can make people feel unwell.

D.    Blue food is generally avoided unless served under dim lighting.

Question 28: What happened when people ate blue steak under low lighting?

A.    They were unable to tell that the food had been artificially dyed.

B.     They felt unwell once they realised the steak had been coloured.

C.    They only ate the food because the lighting concealed the colour.

D.    They continued to eat the steak but said it tasted very unpleasant.

Question 29: Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

A.    Natural food dyes are always safer than artificial alternatives.

B.     The colour of food is more important than its taste or freshness.

C.    Food manufacturers use colour to influence consumer behaviour.

D.    Brightly coloured food is more likely to appeal to younger people.

Part 1. For questions 1 – 5, read the passage below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line.

        The word ‘security’ has both positive and negative connotations. Most of us would say that we crave security for all its positive virtues, both physical and psychological – its (1. EVOKE) _______________ of the safety of home, of undying love, or freedom from need. More negatively, the word nowadays conjures up images of that huge industry which has developed to protect individuals and property from invasion by ‘outsiders’, ostensibly malicious and intent on theft or (2. WILL) _______________ damage.
        Increasingly, because they are situated in urban areas of escalating crime, those buildings which used to allow free access to employees and other users (buildings such as offices, schools, colleges, or hospitals) now do not. (3. ENTER) _______________ areas which in another age were called ‘Reception’ are now manned by security staff. Receptionists, whose task was to receive visitors and to make them welcome before passing them on to the person they had come to see, have been supplanted by those whose task is to bar access to the (4. AUTHORITY) _______________ , the unwanted, or the plain unappealing. Inside, these buildings are divided into ‘secure zones’ which often have all the (5. TRAP) _______________ of combination locks and burglar alarms.

Part 1. For questions 1 – 10, read the passage below and decide which answer (A, B, C, or D) best fits each space.  

Throwaway lifestyle took off in the second half of the 20th century. Disposable coffee cups, plastic stirrers, and plates (1) ______________ in the bin ‘improved’ our lives. Global plastic production soared from 1.5 million tonnes in 1950 to nearly 200 million tonnes in 2002. Today, it has reached the 300 million tonne (2) ______________ . Reports of ocean garbage patches suggest that much of that plastic eventually (3) ______________ in our seas. Take a boat out far enough and you will witness bottles, toy figurines, roller balls from underarm (4) ______________ , and thousands of plastic sandals all floating around in the sea. A project called The Ocean Cleanup has been testing floating platforms for collecting bigger bits of plastic, but they cannot deal with microplastics – the technical term for tiny pieces of plastic. They are so (5) ______________ shredded by ocean currents that they are impossible to spot from a boat and are easily mistaken for food by sea creatures.

A recent study by Marcus Eriksen, one of the co-founders of 5 Gyres, the organisation that studies plastic pollution in the seas, reports that at least five trillion pieces of plastic, altogether (6) ______________ at over 268,000 tonnes, are floating around near the surface of the sea. An incredible 92% of the pieces are microplastics. According to Eriksen, we will have to live with what is already out there. “It is going to sink, it is going to get buried, it is going to (7) ______________ ,” he says. “There is no efficient means to clean up 5 km down on the ocean floor.” No one really knows (8) ______________ damage all that stranded microplastic is doing, but the hope is that once it has mixed up with the sediment, it is (9) ______________ . Yet the clouds of microplastics (10) ______________ in the water column pose a problem. The debris is easy for marine life to swallow, but the gunk that the plastics collect – such as pollutants and bacteria – is also a threat.

1)   A. can be tossed          B. which could toss      C. having tossed          D. that could be tossed

2)   A. milestone                B. sign                         C. limit                         D. mark

3)   A. must end up            B. end up                     C. ends up                   D. should be ended up

4)   A. decongestants         B. depressants             C. antiperspirants         D. antioxidants

5)   A. sparsely                  B. leanly                      C. finely                       D. slightly

6)   A. weighing out            B. weighing down         C. weighing up             D. weighing in

7)   A. fossilise                   B. stagnate                  C. accentuate               D. solidify

8)   A. how                        B. whose                     C. that                         D. what

9)   A. doing more of it        B. doing less of it          C. making more of it     D. making fewer of it

10) A. twirling                     B. swirling                     C. twisting                    D. swirling