2000

In the Scottish county of Fife an old university town of saints and scholars mixes history and tradition with sport and tourism.

Many people know that Oxford and Cambridge Universities (which people sometimes call "Oxbridge") are the two oldest in Britain, but the third oldest can be found far, far away up north in the small town of St Andrews situated on the wild east coast of Scotland. Records show that the first degrees were awarded in 1415.

The year 2001 is just around the corner, but how close will life be then to how it was portrayed by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke in the epic film of the same name? The film showed a massive orbiting space station, communities on the moon, computers that can think and evidence of extraterrestrial life. It doesn't seem likely that we will reach such levels of technology in a matter of months, but can we ever expect people to live on other planets or encounter life elsewhere in the universe?

Paper 1: Use of English

This paper consists of five parts, each very different, but all with the aim of testing your knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary and word formation.

Part 1

This is a multiple choice gap-fill exercise which involves knowing not only the meaning of words but also collocations and grammatical patterns. The extract below is the first paragraph of a typical part 1 text.

The London Tea Trade

With his latest album, Brand New Day, released last year, Sting returned with another set of distinctively melancholic yet danceable songs. An icon of popular music for the last two decades, he has managed to convey his music to people of all generations and nationalities, an achievement most artists can only dream of.

Venezuela surprises the baseball world at the 2000 Little League Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Overcoming obstacles, it seems, was nothing new for the Little League Baseball team from Maracaibo, Venezuela, representing the Latin American region at the 2000 Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. The team's flight to the United States was delayed more than 12 hours, so the team arrived late and tired in Williamsport for the start.

Anybody who has visited Britain in the past year or so cannot have failed to hear about the argument surrounding bloodsports. These are 'sports' which involve hunting and killing wild animals. They are still legal in Britain, but many people want them to be banned, especially bloodsports which involve hunting with packs of dogs, or 'hounds' as hunting dogs are called"

This year Andrzej Wajda received an honorary Oscar for his life-long achievements. The distinguished Polish film director was born in Suwałki on 6 March 1926. He studied painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Kraków and cinema at the Higher Film School in Łódź.

Wajda rose to fame with a trilogy - Pokolonie (A Generation, 1954), Kanał (1956) and Popiół i Diament (Ashes and Diamonds, 1958) that vividly reflected the experience of an entire generation in postwar Poland.

The UCLES First Certificate Examination (FCE) consists of five papers:

1. Reading 1 hour 15mins
2. Writing 1 hour 30mins
3. Use of English 1 hour 15mins
4. Listening 40mins (approx.)
5. Speaking 14mins (approx.)

There is an overall pass mark (somewhere around 60%), which means you can theoretically fail one part if you do well enough in the other parts to make up the difference. Statistically, Polish students do least well on the listening paper, followed by the Use of English. Each paper represents 20% of the total score for the exam.

Rugby: a game for thugs played by gentlemen; football: a game for gentlemen played by thugs - or so the old saying goes. But whom would you least like to bump into on a dark night, a rugby player or a footballer?