Cambridge IELTS 20 General Training Reading Test 4

Read the text below and answer Questions 15–21.

Opportunities for graduates – freelance writing

If you want to start a career in writing or journalism, freelancing could be for you. Here is some advice on finding opportunities, and building your portfolio:

There are more graduates than ever entering an increasingly diminished market, so they are having to be more creative in the ways they get income and gain experience in their chosen field. For those with a talent for writing, working freelance can be worthwhile.

When starting out, many people turn to specialist websites listing a range of current writing projects offered by different organisations, which freelancers can apply to complete. These sites can be useful but just make sure any organisation is genuine first. Otherwise you might find you’ve spent hours on work which you never get paid for.

When looking to get work for magazines and newspapers, keep the pitches – in which you present what you could write for them – brief and interesting. Even if you’re sending your fifth in a row of rejected ones, be polite and professional.

The advantages

The positives of freelancing as a graduate are numerous. It’s incredibly satisfying to be working for yourself and having the responsibility of determining your own workload. Making a living doing what you love is hugely rewarding, and of course the flexibility of the work hours may suit you. New graduates are generally used to working unusual hours, so if you’re most comfortable working late at night or at the weekend, then freelancing may be the way to go. Depending on how much work you manage to get, which can vary wildly, especially when you’re just starting out, it also leaves it open for you to get a part-time job, however basic, which would bring in a regular amount.

The disadvantages

It is not steady and it is not always profitable. Graduate writers are notorious for working for no actual payment, and it’s because there are so many people willing to do it that companies simply assume that it’s acceptable, and of course this suits the companies.

Freelancing is probably not for people who lack motivation. If you don’t go looking for work, spending your days shooting off emails, then it is very unlikely the work will come to you. For most people, freelancing does not provide regular work at the beginning. So if you find it stressful not getting paid at the end of every week or month, then it’s worth looking at other options.

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Read the text below and answer Questions 22–27.

How to make sure your CV catches the hiring manager’s eye

To be successful in today’s job market, it pays to put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager. After all, their perception of your CV could result in a job interview or a rejection.

Hiring managers are pushed for time, so they will usually spend a few seconds skimming your CV for must-have terms before they decide to commit to reading it fully. To pass this preliminary test, make sure your CV is extremely easy to read and is divided into appropriate sections.

Never make readers wade through large amounts of writing or you will risk losing their interest quickly. You should also research your target role thoroughly to identify what skills are most needed and ensure these are clearly included near the beginning of your CV. Providing a pleasant reading experience and reflecting the company’s needs in your CV will create a perfect first impression.

Once managers have scanned your CV quickly, they will look at your present or most recent post. This is easily the best way to assess you, so managers will review this part of your CV thoroughly. Give this description your full attention and think about the questions that managers will want answers to, such as ‘Where do you sit within the organisation?’ and ‘How do you contribute to the company?’

Many job seekers make bold claims in their CVs, but very few back them up with facts. Demonstrate the scale of your responsibilities by including numbers such as the size of budget you control, or the number of locations you work in. These numbers provide a scale that everybody can understand and leave readers in no doubt of the level you work at. You can also prove your impact by including quantifiable achievements you have had. Perhaps you have generated sales of £300k within six months, or maybe you have delivered a project that affected 3 million customers.

Even the smallest weakness can deter managers from shortlisting you. Obvious spelling and grammar mistakes will be warning signs, but they will also be on the lookout for gaps in the list of posts you have held, or facts that just don’t add up. Proofread your CV thoroughly, including all of your dates, and don’t be tempted to add any white lies. Keep everything looking as professional as possible and don’t give them any reason to doubt you.

Read the text and answer Questions 28–40.

How archaeologists made some exciting discoveries in southeast Turkey

A It’s a sad fact of archaeological life that we can often only find things when they’re about to be lost forever. Construction of the Ilisu Dam, on the river Tigris in southeast Turkey, is now complete, and the flooding of 300 km² of land behind it has begun. The dam will provide much needed water and electricity to the local region, but it will flood up to 500 archaeological sites. However, its construction has also provided a great opportunity to learn about the past of this region, because when the dam was proposed in the early 1990s, the government invited teams of local and international archaeologists to work in the Tigris valley upstream of Ilisu to recover as much as they could before the dam was completed. The result was a series of intensive survey projects, followed by more than twenty excavations, which amazingly came across places with archaeological remains ranging from deep prehistory to the Ottoman period. The area to be flooded is now the best-studied archaeological landscape in eastern Turkey.

B One of the biggest Ilisu Dam salvage excavations was at the site of Ziyaret Tepe, an imposing mound rising 22 metres above the plain, within which lies the ancient Assyrian city of Tušhan.

Tušhan was a provincial centre which guarded the northern border of the mighty Assyrian Empire for almost 300 years (882–611 BCE). It never approached the grandeur of the Assyrian capital Nineveh, but it was part of the Assyrian network of imperial control which imposed authority over conquered regions. Tušhan was home not just to Assyrian settlers, but to deportees from all over the empire, who had been uprooted from their homelands as a further means of subjugation.

C Archaeological work at Ziyaret Tepe began in 1997 and ran for eighteen years. The results of all those long hot summers in the field are now finally ready to be presented, with the publication of the project’s first book. It provides the most complete picture of an Assyrian imperial town yet known. It includes a mass of information on the governor’s palace at Tušhan, which sat on the eastern side of the high mound. It was built under King Ashurnasirpal II, who boasted about its construction in an inscription found not far away. Unlike Ashurnasirpal’s magnificent palace at Nimrud, Tušhan’s provincial palace had no raised stone carvings of historical figures. Instead, its white plastered walls were decorated with finely painted geometric patterns in blue, red, orange and black. The reception suite was equipped with a trackway for a moveable heating brazier and with neatly tiled bathrooms, giving it a touch of luxury.

The remains of some of the governors themselves may have been found. Under the paving of the palace, five intact burials of human ashes were excavated. Whether or not these were the governors of Tušhan, they were certainly important people, whose bodies had been burnt on beds with ivory fittings, and provided with bronze bowls, lamps and ornaments. Intriguingly, cremation was not an Assyrian practice and these burials suggest that Tušhan’s ruling elite had either adopted local customs, or were not themselves Assyrians.

D To the south of the high mound, Tušhan had a substantial lower town and this is where the real work of the city took place. Over many seasons, the excavation team uncovered a series of sizeable structures, all set around large courtyards paved with beautiful black and white mosaics made of thousands of small, plain black or white pebbles collected from local river beds. Most were high-status homes but one had more complex functions. The entrance chamber to this building yielded hundreds of tiny tokens in a range of forms standing for different numbers and commodities. These are thought to have been used for keeping records as merchandise and people passed in and out. The administrative function of the building was confirmed when an archive of 28 tablets with cuneiform writing was found. These include lists of different personnel, but most concern the movement of barley. These transactions are visible throughout the building in the form of standardised weights and huge jars to keep it in. This building was the commercial and administrative centre of Tušhan.

E The frontier character of the city, which stood on the border with hostile Shubria, is clear from the massive fortifications which surrounded both the high mound and the lower town. The mudbrick city wall was two kilometres long and almost three metres thick, with a substantial ditch in front of it. Despite these precautions, Tušhan fell with the rest of the Assyrian Empire. The imperial capital at Nineveh fell after a dramatic siege in 612 BCE, after which the remaining Assyrian forces retreated steadily north-westward towards the site of the empire’s last stand at the city of Harran. In the path of the army of Medes and Babylonians as they marched up the Tigris river lay Tušhan.

F Now Tušhan faces another threat, as the water from the Ilisu Dam advances along the same route as that used by the Medes and Babylonians 2,600 years ago. It remains to be seen to what extent the site will eventually be flooded, but even though its physical remains may be lost, along with the other Ilisu sites, there is some consolation in the fact that a rich record of the town of Tušhan, some of its history, its people and way of life, is now preserved in the archives and publications of the Ziyaret Tepe project.