English Olympiad

Level B1+/B2

English Olympiad Year 10 Reading Test 7 Text 1. 

Read the text. Then choose the correct answer (questions 1-12)

Robert Capa

Robert Capa is a name that has for many years been synonymous with war photography.

Born in Hungary in 1913 as Friedmann Endre Ernő, Capa was forced to leave his native country after his involvement in anti government protests. Capa had originally wanted to become a writer, but after his arrival in Berlin had first found work as a photographer. He later left Germany and moved to France due to the rise in Nazism. He tried to find work as a freelance journalist and it was here that he changed his name to Robert Capa, mainly because he thought it would sound more American.

In 1936, after the breakout of the Spanish Civil war, Capa went to Spain and it was here over the next three years that he built his reputation as a war photographer. It was here too in 1936 that he took one of his most famous pictures, The Death of a Loyalist Soldier. One of Capa’s most famous quotes was ‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.’ And he took his attitude of getting close to the action to an extreme. His photograph, The Death of a Loyalist Soldier is a prime example of this as Capa captures the very moment the soldier falls. However, many have questioned the authenticity of this photograph, claiming that it was staged.

When World war II broke out, Capa was in New York, but he was soon back in Europe covering the war for Life magazine. Some of his most famous work was created on 6th June 1944 when he swam ashore with the first assault on Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Capa, armed only with two cameras, took more than one hundred photographs in the first hour of the landing, but a mistake in the darkroom during the drying of the film destroyed all but eight frames. It was the images from these frames however that inspired the visual style of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winning movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’. When Life magazine published the photographs, they claimed that they were slightly out of focus, and Capa later used this as the title of his autobiographical account of the war.

Capa’s private life was no less dramatic. He was friend to many of Hollywood’s directors, actors and actresses. In 1943 he fell in love with the wife of actor John Austin. His affair with her lasted until the end of the war and became the subject of his war memoirs. He was at one time lover to actress Ingrid Bergman. Their relationship finally ended in 1946 when he refused to settle in Hollywood and went off to Turkey.

In 1947 Capa was among a group of photojournalists who founded Magnum Photos. This was a co-operative organisation set up to support photographers and help them to retain ownership of the copyright to their work.

Capa went on to document many other wars. He never attempted to glamorise war though, but to record the horror. He once said, “The desire of any war photographer is to be put out of business.”

Capa died as he had lived. After promising not to photograph any more wars, he accepted an assignment to go to Indochina to cover the first Indochina war. On May 25th 1954 Capa was accompanying a French regiment when he left his jeep to take some photographs of the advance and stepped on a land mine. He was taken to a nearby hospital, still clutching his camera, but was pronounced dead on arrival. He left behind him a testament to the horrors of war and a standard for photojournalism that few others have been able to reach.

Capa’s legacy has lived on though and in 1966 his brother Cornell founded the International Fund for Concerned Photography in his honor. There is also a Robert Capa Gold Medal, which is given to the photographer who publishes the best photographic reporting from abroad with evidence of exceptional courage. But perhaps his greatest legacy of all are the haunting images of the human struggles that he captured.

1. Why did Capa change his name?

A. To hide his identity
B. Because he had been involved in protests
C. To sound more American
D. Because he had to leave Hungary

2. Capa originally wanted to be

A. A photojournalist
B. A writer
C. American
D. A protestor

3. Capa went to Spain to

A. fight in the civil war.
B. build his reputation.
C. have a holiday.
D. take photographs.

4. Capa’s famous picture Death of a Loyalist Soldier

A. was taken by someone else.
B. was definitely genuine.
C. wasn’t even taken in Spain.
D. cannot be proven genuine or staged.

5. When World War II broke out Capa

A. went to New York.
B. went to Normandy.
C. swam ashore on Omaha Beach.
D. went to Europe.

6. A mistake meant that

A. only one hundred of Capa’s photographs were published.
B. Capa lost both of his two cameras.
C. Capa’s images inspired an Oscar winning movie.
D. Most of Capa’s images of the D-Day landing were destroyed.

7. Capa’s private life was

A. less dramatic than his professional life.
B. spent mostly in Hollywood.
C. very glamorous.
D. spent in Turkey.

8. Capa wanted his work to

A. be very famous.
B. show how glamorous war can be.
C. show the true horror of war.
D. make lots of money.

9. Which sentence best paraphrases paragraph 5?

A. Capa had a tragic private life and was never able to settle down and find happiness.
B. Despite having many good friends and lovers, Capa always put his work first.
C. Capa wanted to make friends with important people in Hollywood so that he could move into the movie industry.
D. Capa’s private life was very complicated. He could not choose between the two women he loved, so he went off to work in Turkey.

10. Which sentence best paraphrases paragraph 4?

A. Capa never tried to avoid danger. He risked his life to take photographs of the D-Day invasion, but then destroyed most of them.
B. Capa took some of his most famous photographs during the D-Day invasion, but most were tragically destroyed in an accident.
C. Capa only kept the best eight D-Day photographs as the others were out of focus. These inspired the visual style of a Hollywood film.
D. Capa left Europe when the war broke out and went to take his most famous photographs of the D-Day invasion.

11. Which THREE sentences best summarise the passage?

A. Capa’s work tried to show the beauty within the horror of war, that’s why so many photographers have tried to copy his work.
B. From his earliest years Capa was active in political journalism and reporting. This often got him into trouble with the authorities.
C. Capa was not afraid to get close to his work and often risked his life to ensure that his photographs were as good as they could be.
D. Capa wanted to have a glamorous life style and so he made friends with Hollywood film stars and even had a film, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ made about him.
E. Capa was deeply committed to trying to stop war and he left behind him a legacy that continued to support and inspire other photojournalists to continue this work.
F. Capa had always wanted to be as American as possible, so after the war he changed his name and went to live in America.

English Olympiad Year 10 Reading Test 7 Text 2.

Read the text and choose the best answer (questions 12-18)

Safety at Sea

Catastrophes at sea and in the air make grim headlines: they represent a great deal of sorrow for the families of the dead and injured. Why do they occur? Terrorists plant bombs, as in the case of the destruction of the American airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland. Pyromaniacs light fires, as in the case of the ferry, Scandinavian Star, sailing from Norway to Denmark. In the week following that tragedy, there were two other cases of fires on board ferries: on one plying between Wales and Ireland, and on another between Portsmouth and Cherbourg. In both of them, a man died.

Clearly, fire is a commonplace hazard, and a very dangerous one, at sea. Talking after the Scandinavian Star had been towed into the small port of Lysekil, a Swedish police spokesman made it clear how awful if had been. He said: “The toll from the blaze that engulfed the ferry south of Oslo fjord is still officially 75 dead and 60 missing but about 100 bodies have already been taken off the ship and as many as 50 to 100 could still be on board. People tried to save themselves in the cabins and they are lying in big piles and it’s difficult to figure out how many there are. There are a lot of children.”

In the immediate aftermath of such catastrophes reports of inadequate safety measures circulate. On board the Scandinavian Star, a fireman said the ferry had only one system to pump and spray water on to the flames and that pumping and spraying had to be done alternately. On a wider scale, newspapers reported once again on the world-wide system of “flagging-out” which means that ships are not registered in the countries where they operate, and where the regulations are strict and expensive, but in places like Panama and Cyprus and the Bahamas, where they are lax and cheap. The Scandinavian Star, although Danish-owned, was registered in the Bahamas.

One of the more outrageous cases came to light in October 1989. A general cargo ship named the Bosun set sail from Hamburg under the flag of the small central American state of Belize. West German police arrested and charged two men, the ship’s British master and its German owner. They were charged with flying a false flag, and forgery of Belize government documents. A police officer said: “Belize was not the latest entrant in the cheap flag stakes; they in fact operate no shipping whatsoever. When we contacted the Belize High Commission in London, they were astonished to learn that a ship was pretending to be registered in their country.”

Rules are laid down for ship safety by United Nations organizations. The rules are strict, and specify that a ship must be built with heat and fire resistant bulkheads, fire doors to passenger and crew areas, sealed cable and air conditioning trunking to block smoke, non-combustible materials and/or sprinkler systems, smoke detectors and alarms, and signposted emergency exits. But all these rules of ship design are meaningless according to an expert from the Nautical Institute. He explains: “The big loophole is the lack of power to test whether these rules are being enforced. The port state is entitled to carry out spot checks on ships to make sure their safety certificates are in order; the lifeboats are all there and don’t have holes in them; and that there are the necessary charts, life-jackets in the racks, and fire hoses in their reels. But they don’t have the power to test whether they all work, or the crews know how to use them. I think the public has a right to be worried.” He goes on to point out that the Scandinavian Star would have been built to a very high design standard. However, it is likely that neither her crew nor her safety equipment could have been checked in the Bahamas before she began carrying passengers. Why do the ship-owners do it? According to the Secretary of the National Union of Seamen, the answer is cost. He says: “The Danish owners of the ill-fated Scandinavian Star could have registered her in Denmark and employed ratings belonging to the appropriate union. These would have been properly trained in firefighting and lifeboat drills and been able to communicate with their officers and the passengers in the event of an emergency. The ship would have come under the rigorous scrutiny of the Danish port inspectorate. “But the inspectors might have insisted on potentially costly modifications and the ratings would have asked for Danish wages and accompanying social benefits. Much simpler (not to mention cheaper) to register her in the Bahamas and at a stroke free the owners from such irksome restrictions. Among the survivors of this horrific tragedy there may be some ideologues who share this free-market philosophy, but I doubt it.”

12. Fires sometimes occur on board ships

A. because someone deliberately lights them
B. when there are inadequate safety measures
C. when the crew has not been trained
D. because the safety measures are inadequate

13. Flagging-out

A. is common all over the world
B. means that ships must register
C. is a matter of flying the national flag
D. helps poor nations export

14. The Belize High commission was surprised to have a ship registered in the country because

A. they had only just started registering shipping
B. it is a land-locked country, like Switzerland
C. no ships operate under the Belize flag
D. it was the first time forged Belize documents had been used.

15.When are the strict rules of shipbuilding ineffective?

A. When the crew is untrained.
B. When the safety equipment does not work.
C. If regulations are not enforced.
D. If there are not enough lifeboats.

16. Being involved in a serious accident at sea is likely to make people skeptical of

A. free-market economics
B. ship builders
C. ship owners
D. government restrictions

You’ve done English Olympiad Year 10 Reading Test 7. Which task was the most interesting/ the easiest?