PART 1

Part 1: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it. Your
summary should be between 140 and 160 words long.

The economic recession has brought about an abrupt change of mood on university
campuses up and down the country. A five-year boom in the graduate job market has
been stopped in its tracks and salary expectations. No wonder only one in five of 16,000
final year students questioned for a survey by High Flyers Research said that they
expected to get a job for which they are qualified by the time they graduate this summer.

Despite the gloom, the financial case for going to university remains compelling.
International surveys continue to show the salary premium enjoyed by UK graduates over
those who choose not to go to university as among the highest in the world. In the post-
recession world, a university degree is likely to be even more of an advantage to job-
seekers than before.

But choosing the right degree course and the right university will also be more important
than ever. This does not necessarily mean that students should go only for job-related
degrees, but it will put a premium on marketable skills. And it may mean that more
universities can be expected to follow the lead of Liverpool John Moores University, which
puts all of its undergraduates through a World of Work (WoW) course designed to give
them the problem-solving and communication skills they’ll need at work.

The Times Good University Guide 2010, published by HarperCollins, offers a wealth of
essential information to help candidates to navigate the maze of university choice, as well
as advice on students’ life. It is the most authoritative guide to universities in the UK and is
an essential and comprehensive tool for students and parents.

The online version of the Guide allows students and parents to create their own individual
university rankings and to compare the strengths and weaknesses of different institutions
by sorting universities according to one of the eight criteria—from student satisfaction to
research quality and degree results. The table sees Oxford maintain its leadership, despite
coming below Cambridge in most of the subject tables. Cambridge has the better record
on student satisfaction, research, entry standards, completion and graduate destinations,
but Oxford’s lead in staffing levels, degree classifications and particularly in spending on
libraries and other student facilities makes the difference.

The biggest climbers at the top of the table include Liverpool (up from 43 to 28), Leeds
(up from 31 to 27), Sheffield (up from 22 to 18), Edinburgh (up from 18 to 14) and Exeter
(up from 13 to 9). St Anorews remains the top university in Scotland, while Cardiff is well
clear in Wales.

The key information is contained in the 62 subject tables, which now cover every area of
higher education. The number of institutions in this year’s tables has increased by only one
because a fourth university - the West of Scotland - has instructed the Higher Education
Statistics Agency not to release its data. It joins Swansea Metropolitan, London
Metropolitan and Liverpool Hope universities in blocking the release of data to avoid
appearing in league tables.

SAMPLE ANSWER
The extract discusses how recent economic changes may affect students’s choices of
higher institutions. Due to the recession, the five-year progresssion of the graduate job
market has been curbed, with only one-fifth of students in their senior years anticipating a
career within their qualification’s realm. Nevertheless, financial reasons lend weight to
tertiary education as university graduates enjoy a superior level of salary compared to
those who refuse further schooling. A degree may prove to be even more valuable after
economy crises, yet it also means that marketable skills are placed in greater priority,
rendering the choices of courses and institutions of unprecedented importance. In such
context, The Times Good University Guide 2010 provides undergraduates with advice and
orientation in the jumble of choices. Additionally, the guide’s online version creates criteria
for universities, which facilitates the process of making comparisons and decisions.
However, several institutions have deliberately prevented their information from being
disseminated to shun presence on the tables.
 PART 2
Part 2: The pie chart below shows the main reason why agricultural land becomes less
productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during
the 1990s.

SAMPLE ANSWER
The pie chart offers an overview over four distinct causes of global agricultural land
degradation whilst the table illustrates data regarding the effect of those causes in three
different regions during the 90 decade.

Overall, it can be interpreted that over-grazing contributed the most to the decreasing
quality of land worldwide and that Europe was affected the most by the factors presented
in the pie chart.
A more specific look into the chart highlights the fact that over-grazing was responsible for
35% of worldwide degraded cultivation land. Deforestation appeared to be the second
major cause and over-cultivation the third, accounting for 30%and 28%of less productive
land worldwide respectively. The remaining 7% of global deteriorated land was attributed
to other miscellaneous factors.

On a smaller scale, the effects of aforementioned causes varied noticeably,

exemplified by the fact that deforestation only resulted in 0.2% of land degradation in
North America and 1.7% in Oceania yet was the leading cause of land degradation in
Europe with a figure of up to 9.8%. In the same manner, over-cultivation was what mainly
spoiled North American land but posed no significant problem in Oceania. Rather,
aggravated land quality in Oceania resulted mostly from over-grazing, which degraded
11.3% of its land. It is also observable that Europe’s land was in the worst condition with
23%deteriorated in comparison with only 5%in North America and 13%in Oceania.

VOCAB HIGHLIGHT
 curb (v): control or limit something
 lend weight to: make an opinion/belief seem more likely to be correct
 tertiary education: the educational level following the completion of a school
providing secondary education
 unprecedented (adj): that has never happened before
 jumble (n): an untidy or confused mixture of things
 facilitate (v): make an action/process possible or easier
 shun (v): avoid
 attribute (v): say/believe that something is the result of a particular thing
 aforementioned (adj): mentioned before
 exemplify (v): give an example to make something clearer (synonym: illustrate)
 aggravate (v): worsen