Read the text below and answer questions 1-7.
The Scottish Curling School Why not try the Olympic sport of curling?
Curling is a challenging sport based around a very simple idea. Slide a stone down a sheet of ice and have it stop as near as possible to the centre of a set of rings, called the house. The opposing team will do everything tactically to stop you from achieving this goal, so the game contains elements of great skill, strategy, finesse and effort. The impression given in the media that curling is a relaxed game is far from the truth.
Curling is one of the few sports which is accessible to all. Many start curling as children and continue to play well into retirement. Britain even has its own wheelchair squad of curlers. Curling is also very social: you could easily find yourself playing a match against a team of international champions and sitting down to a coffee together afterwards.
If you are interested in taking up the sport but have never dared to try, why not come on our three-day initial familiarisation course?
Day 1 is designed to get you onto the ice safely and to get you delivering a curling stone, with a basic understanding of the rules.
Day 2 focuses on working with the coaches to better your skills and includes an opportunity to have a short game.
Day 3 allows you to put your knowledge into practice in a full game.
At the end of the course, details of clubs looking for new members will be provided, along with information on joining our Beginner Curling Club, where you can continue to work on your skills before joining a mainstream curling club.
Clothing
You need warmth and ease of movement, so we recommend:
• layers of clothing, which you can remove as you warm up.
• loose-fitting trousers e.g. jogging bottoms rather than jeans.
• fabrics which won’t drop fibres onto the ice surface.
• gloves, if your hands get cold, and warm socks.
Footwear
• Choose warm, soft-rubber-soled shoes.
• If you plan to wear trainers instead, check that the soles are rubber; synthetic ones are very slippery on ice.
• Check that the soles of your shoes are totally clean. Even tiny pieces of dirt can spoil the ice surface.
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Read the text below and answer Questions 8-14.
Outdoor places to visit
A Balloch Castle Country Park
The park commands impressive views over a large lake and includes walled gardens, nature trails and guided walks. The ruined castle, built by John Buchanan in the nineteenth century, was once the main visitor centre. Since the early 1990s, the park has hosted several major pop gigs, which have attracted thousands of people.
B Thurrock Thameside Nature Park
In the centre of the park is an exciting new visitor centre built on the site of a former waste disposal site, with superb views over the River Thames. There are footpaths and cycleways in 120 acres of nature park, which will soon expand to 845 acres. Visitors can experience great birdwatching – and boat watching too.
C Turner’s Wood
The wood, originally part of the estate of Edward Turner, consists mainly of oak trees, and there is a beautiful display of wildflowers in the spring. Because the wood is quite small, it is not always open to visitors. We do make it available for pupils to visit on nature observation trips, and are keen for people living nearby to get involved in looking after the reserve.
D Moseley Reserve
The reserve supports a variety of plants, animals and insects. Especially fascinating are the twisted old trees, the childhood inspiration of the author JRR Tolkien, who often passed through as he lived nearby. The site also has great historical interest, since remains of an old mill and some nineteenth-century greenhouses have been found here.
E Druridge Park
The park contains a beautiful bay and sand dunes, plus a large freshwater lake surrounded by woods and meadows. This is available for launching windsurfers (by permit). You can also take a pleasant walk around the lake, or enjoy a picnic overlooking it.
F Abbotsbury
Visitors to Abbotsbury can enjoy the unusual experience of walking through the heart of a colony of nesting swans. Close to the beautiful Dorset coast, this unique natural wildlife habitat is also popular with film makers, and has been used as a location for a number of recent blockbusters.
Read the text below and answer Questions 15-20.
Job: Sunset Orchard, Cromwell, New Zealand – Cherry Picking
Picking
This is the harvesting of fruit to the required standard and is physical work. The employee must be able to lift, manoeuvre and reach the top of a 3-metre ladder. Most pickers are paid on a contract rate; e.g. for cherries the minimum bucket rate is $4-25. The average picker will pick 20 of these buckets in an 8-hour day but this depends very much upon the individual. However, you are required to pick at least 16 buckets.
Packing
This is the sorting of fruit into different grade standards. This part of the job involves standing at a sorting table and the employee must be fit and have good concentration. The employee must be able to work long hours, up to 7 days a week. Note that the cherry picking and packing starts in mid to late December and continues through until late January, weather permitting. This is our peak season and prior to and after this period we require fewer staff.
Accommodation
We have accommodation available on site in bunkrooms, which were built two years ago. Because everybody is working hard and requires a decent sleep, no loud music or excessive noise is allowed after 10 o’clock. Our residential manager will allocate beds and look after everyone’s needs. The cost of the accommodation is $10-00 per night or $60-00 per week and it is filled on a first-come first-served basis. Payment must be made to the orchard supervisor on a weekly basis.
Transport and pay
Pay is fortnightly and is paid by credit so you require a bank account. Also, you need an IRD number and, if you are from overseas, a work permit. If you wish to work for us, you must have some form of transport as we are 5km from Cromwell. Even if you live on site, you still need to get into town for groceries, etc. On-site parking for cars and vans is extremely limited so we suggest using a bicycle. If you would like to apply for a position at Sunset Orchard, then please complete our online application form on the website www.sunsetorchard.co.nz
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Read the text below and answer Questions 21-27.
Service Division – Daylight Trading Company
Staff Guidelines
These guidelines have been produced to enable common systems and practices to be followed across all teams within the Division. They will be formally reviewed every July and published in September, although earlier revision will occur if necessary. Any suggestions for additional items to be included should be sent to the Directorate Mailbox by the end of May each year.
Hours of Work
The office hours are 09:00 – 17:30 (Mon-Thurs) and 09:00 – 17:00 (Fri), although some staff will be working slightly different hours which have previously been approved. Where this is the case, the details should be recorded and retained on the individual’s personal file. As this is a service unit, it is important that offices are staffed throughout the day. Please observe this when taking lunch breaks. It also means that we may need to help another team in times of staff shortage so that our service to the organisation is maintained. There will be occasions when an urgent job arises which will require extra time to be worked. Wherever possible this should be approved in advance by your line manager but, if this is not possible, you must advise him/her as soon as possible after the event.
Holidays
Holiday requests should be submitted to and agreed by the line manager, where possible giving at least one week’s notice for one to four days of leave and three weeks’ notice for one week or more. If the period of notice is shorter, the request should be discussed as soon as possible with the line manager. Wherever possible, holiday requests will be approved but operational needs will be the overriding criterion, and there may be occasions when requests cannot be approved. Any requests for holiday exceeding fifteen working days must be approved by a member of the Leadership Team.
Holidays are important breaks in our working life and staff are expected and encouraged to take all their holiday within the leave year, but it is acknowledged that planned holidays can be affected by unexpected situations and the flexibility many staff demonstrate is appreciated. In accordance with organisational policy staff are not allowed to carry more than ten days forward to the new holiday year for personal reasons, and any carry over is expected to be taken by the end of the calendar year.
Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.
Tracking elephants in Namibia
A The elephants surrounded us, moving closer and closer. Hendrick, our expert tracker, whispered: ‘I’m just checking whether they’re really eating or just pretending to eat.’ A voice screamed in my head ‘What do you mean pretending to eat? Is that bad?’ They were two metres away now, and just as I leaned towards him to ask for clarification, Hendrick raised his arm, pointing his index finger in the air – this was the signal not to move, not to make a sound, not to breathe.
B The last time I had seen these elephants, 15 years earlier, I had narrowly escaped being flattened as they charged towards us, and was saved by the fact that the matriarch, the eldest member and authority on decision making, had been towards the back of the herd. The younger females, seeing us in their path, had turned to check and see what she wanted to do. That split second saved my life, giving us the chance to start the engine, and slam our 4×4 into reverse and out of their way.
They were really wild back then, rarely meeting humans in anything but a confrontational setting. But for years, Hendrick Munembone, and other rangers working alongside Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA), have tried to create a positive relationship, not only within the herds of elephants in the region, but also between the animals and the humans who live and work side by side with them – with a knock-on benefit for tourism.
C This time, as it turned out, they really were eating – which meant they were calm and curious rather than nervous and potentially aggressive. ‘They’re in a good mood,’ Hendrick whispered, putting me only slightly more at ease as they moved even closer towards the truck. Elisabeth, one of our group, was taking data and had a pencil between her teeth. Not daring to take it out, she kept it there, biting down hard on it.
This was called the Mama Africa herd of elephants, and ‘Deliwe’ and her daughter ‘Hanna’ were so close now that we could see every detail of their faces, and feel their rumbling calls under our skin. Just as it seemed as though Deliwe was about to take Elisabeth’s pencil with her trunk, Hendrick clapped his hands in quick bursts and the mother and daughter retreated a little. We let out our breath. It’s great to go on adventures – even better to return to tell the tale.
D We were not on safari, we were on patrol with EHRA to collect data: to record the locations of these herds, check their wellbeing, note down any injuries they may have suffered, make sure they were all there and record any new-borns. But this was not just about the wellbeing of the elephants, it was about the wellbeing of the participants – the women who had decided to join me and experience true wilderness, have close encounters with wildlife, face a challenge, support conservation efforts, trek through the desert, meet local women and relax.
I had first had the idea for an all-female expedition seven years before, but had done nothing about it. Then I happened to discuss it with a friend, and suddenly everything fell into place: a group of women, elephants, ten days in Namibia, EHRA. We could track desert elephants in one of my favourite places in the world, help EHRA with its work, and experience the beauty of the desert.
E I could picture it all really clearly, but now I had to make it happen. I contacted EHRA, who thought it was a great plan. But how to find the women? I wrote to all my female friends and asked them to spread the word, and soon I had a number wanting to know more. Only three months after the idea took shape, we were there in Namibia, ten women of different ages and backgrounds.
F When you think of Namibia, you think of desert, heat, baked cracked earth. Instead we were greeted with rain. It hadn’t rained properly for seven years, but now the rivers were in flood and the elephants had retreated to higher ground to eat the sweet new shoots. This made tracking them difficult, and we frequently had to climb up the rocks and peer through binoculars. If someone had told me that an elephant could disguise itself as a rock I wouldn’t have believed them, but with thousands of these boulders in our view, it was almost impossible to distinguish the herd, despite Hendrick pointing wildly. Once we had spotted them, we then had to try and get closer. Even with a 4×4, thorny bushes and protruding rocks made the going tough. Later, as we headed back to our camp, I spotted a rainbow. In the desert! It was an incredible sight, but of course it means there’s rain. We certainly hadn’t expected to be cooking our barbecue under umbrellas!
G Even with rain, the spirits of this all-women team were not dampened: in fact it made for a great sense of community. On the last day, as we sat in the safety of our truck, silently watching our animal counterparts seeking shade under a tree, I was struck by the similarity of our two groups, and wondered who was watching who more intently. We were most definitely in their territory, but they didn’t seem to mind us being there – which showed that EHRA had succeeded in reducing tension between elephants and people.