IELTS General Training Reading Practice Test 14

Text A — WILLOWBROOK HOLIDAY COTTAGES: GUEST HOUSE RULES

Welcome to Willowbrook Holiday Cottages. To ensure all guests generally enjoy a pleasant stay, please observe the following:

Check-in and check-out: - Check-in: from 16:00 on the day of arrival. Early check-in (from 13:00) may be requested for an additional £15. - Check-out: by 10:00 on the day of departure. Late check-out until 12:00 is available at a charge of £20. - Keys are normally collected from the green key safe beside the front door. The four-digit code will be sent by text message at 14:00 on the day of arrival.

Occupancy and visitors: - The maximum occupancy is six adults per cottage. Children under three do not count towards this number. - Day visitors are welcome between 09:00 and 21:00. Overnight visitors are not permitted without prior written agreement from the office. - Parties, hen and stag events, and gatherings of more than ten people are strictly not allowed at any time.

Pets: - Two well-behaved dogs are permitted in cottages 1, 4, and 7 only at a charge of £25 per dog per stay. Dogs must not be left unattended at any time and are not allowed on the soft furnishings. A £75 deep-cleaning fee applies if dog hair is found on sofas or beds.

Heating, fires and barbecues: - The wood-burning stove may only be lit between October and April. Logs are provided; do not burn rubbish, painted wood, or pizza boxes. - Barbecues are permitted on the patio only. Do not place barbecues on the lawn or under the wooden pergola. - Smoking is not permitted inside any cottage. Cigarette ends must be disposed of in the metal bin provided.

Damage and cleaning: - A refundable £200 damage deposit is taken at booking and normally returned within seven days of departure, less any deductions. - The cottage is professionally cleaned between stays. Please leave it in a reasonable condition: dishes washed, rubbish bagged, and the dishwasher emptied. Text B — IMPORTANT NOTICE: TRAVEL ADAPTERS FOR UK GUESTS

Please read carefully before using any electrical equipment brought from outside the United Kingdom.

The UK mains supply is 230 volts at 50 hertz. UK sockets generally use a three-pin (Type G) plug. Equipment from continental Europe, North America, Asia, and Australasia will not fit a UK socket without a suitable adapter.

Choosing an adapter: - Use only adapters that carry the CE or UKCA safety mark. Cheap unmarked adapters bought at airports or markets have been linked to fires. - A 'travel adapter' simply changes the plug shape. It does NOT change the voltage. If your device is rated 110-120 V only (typical of older North American hairdryers, kettles and curling tongs), it must be used with a voltage converter, not a simple adapter. Plugging a 110 V-only device into a UK socket through a plain adapter will damage the device and may start a fire. - Most modern phone chargers, laptops, and shavers are rated 100-240 V, so a plain adapter is sufficient. Check the small print on the charger.

Using your adapter safely: - Do not stack two adapters on top of each other. - Do not cover the adapter with bedding or curtains. - Unplug all chargers from the socket when not in use and before going out for the day. - Report any signs of burning, melting, or sparking immediately to reception on 01632 960240. Do not continue to use the affected socket.

Adapters are not provided in the cottages. Pre-charged hairdryers and kettles are supplied in every cottage and meet UK standards.

Text C — NEW STARTER GUIDE: GREENGATE HOTELS GROUP

Welcome to Greengate Hotels. This guide summarises the practical information you will normally need during your first month of employment.

Uniform: - A clean and pressed uniform is supplied free of charge: two shirts, one waistcoat, one pair of trousers or a skirt, and a name badge. A replacement set is provided at six months. - Black, polishable, closed-toe shoes are required and must be purchased by the employee. A £40 contribution towards your first pair would normally be added to your second month's pay slip. - Visible tattoos on the face and neck must be discussed with your line manager. Discreet tattoos on the arm are acceptable provided they are not offensive.

Working hours and breaks: - Standard shifts are eight hours including one paid 30-minute meal break and two paid 15-minute rest breaks. You may not save your breaks to leave early. - The rota is normally published every Wednesday for the following two weeks. Swaps must be agreed in writing by both staff members and signed off by the duty manager at least 24 hours in advance. - Clocking in: every member of staff clocks in at the staff entrance using their personal four-digit code. Forgetting to clock in three times in a calendar month will result in a written warning.

Tips and gratuities: - All cash tips left for individuals must be declared to the office by the end of each shift. Card tips are pooled across the front-of-house team and paid through payroll the following month, with a small deduction for handling.

Sickness: - Phone the duty manager as early as possible — at the latest two hours before your shift starts — if you are unable to work due to illness. A text message or email is not sufficient. - A self-certification form must be completed on your return. After seven calendar days of absence a doctor's note (fit note) is required.

Guests with complaints: - Listen first; do not interrupt. Apologise for the inconvenience even if you do not yet agree the hotel is at fault. Offer a clear next step, such as escalation to a manager. Never argue with a guest in a public area.

Text D — RESTAURANT SERVICE PROCEDURES

Greengate Hotels generally operate restaurants in fifteen of our properties. The following procedures broadly apply to all front-of-house restaurant staff.

Before service: - Tables must be laid according to the diagram on the kitchen wall. Cutlery is polished and held by the handle only — fingerprints on the blades are unacceptable. - The day's specials and any allergens are read aloud at the pre-service briefing, which takes place fifteen minutes before opening. New starters in their first week are not normally expected to take notes during this briefing.

Taking the order: - Always greet guests within two minutes of seating. Allow at least five minutes before approaching to take the order, unless the guest signals that they are ready. - Ask every table whether anyone has a food allergy or intolerance, and note the answer on the order pad. If a guest mentions a severe allergy (for example to nuts), inform the head chef immediately and write 'ALLERGY' clearly across the top of the order.

Serving food and drink: - Drinks are served from the right; food is served from the left. Plates are cleared from the right. - Hot plates are carried with a folded service cloth. Stack no more than three plates on one forearm during your first three months in post.

Closing down: - The dining room must be reset for breakfast by 23:30. Anything found on the floor (jewellery, phones, glasses) is normally placed in the locked lost-property cabinet and entered in the lost-property log.

A Although toothbrushes seem ordinary today, dental cleaning has been a human concern for thousands of years. Archaeologists have found 'chew-sticks' — small twigs frayed at one end — in Egyptian tombs dating to around 3500 BCE, and similar tools were used in Babylonian and early Chinese civilisations. The aromatic miswak twig, taken from the Salvadora persica tree, is still chewed and used to clean teeth today across parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and modern dental studies suggest it has genuine antibacterial properties.

B The bristle toothbrush, which would be recognisable to a modern user, is widely regarded as a Chinese invention. By the late 1400s, Chinese craftsmen were tying the coarse hairs from the back of a pig's neck — the so-called 'boar bristle' — into bamboo or animal-bone handles. Travellers carried examples to Europe, where they were curiosities owned by a small number of nobles. The English physician and antiquarian Anthony Wood records owning one in his Oxford diary in the 1670s, complaining that it cost considerably more than a comb.

C The first commercially mass-produced toothbrush in Europe is credited to William Addis of London, a rag-maker who, according to family tradition, designed it while serving a sentence in prison for inciting a riot. The story tells how Addis used a small bone left from his evening meal, drilled holes in it, and pushed in bristles he obtained from a guard. Whatever the truth of that account, by the time he was released around 1780 he had set up a workshop in Whitechapel and was selling toothbrushes in respectable numbers. The company he founded, Wisdom Toothbrushes, still operates more than two centuries later.

D For most of the nineteenth century, the toothbrush remained a relatively expensive item. Bristles came from pigs raised in Siberia and northern China, where the cold climate produced firmer hairs. Handles were normally made of bone, ivory, or — in the cheaper versions — turned wood. The shape was less varied than today: most brushes were straight, with a flat head, and they were not particularly comfortable to use. Toothpaste did not yet exist in the modern sense; people used powders made from chalk, charcoal, brick dust, or even gunpowder, which were highly abrasive and damaged the enamel.

E Two technological developments in the early twentieth century transformed the toothbrush. The first was the invention of synthetic bristles. In 1938 the American chemical company DuPont introduced 'Doctor West's Miracle-Tuft' toothbrush, the first to use nylon bristles in place of pig hair. Nylon was cheaper, more hygienic (since it did not retain moisture and bacteria the way animal hair did), and could be manufactured to any thickness. The second development was the rise of plastics for the handle. Together they reportedly brought the price down sharply and made the toothbrush a true mass-market product. By the end of the Second World War, the toothbrush was, in the author's view, an everyday item in most developed economies.

F The electric toothbrush followed in the 1950s. The Swiss inventor Philippe-Guy Woog produced the first mains-powered model, the Broxodent, in 1954, originally intended for patients with limited manual dexterity such as those with arthritis. Cordless rechargeable models with rotating or oscillating heads followed in the 1960s. For many years they were considered an indulgence; sales did not become substantial until the late 1990s, when clinical studies began to suggest that oscillating-rotating brushes removed more plaque than ordinary manual brushes. By 2010, the global market for electric toothbrushes had grown to several billion dollars annually.

G The most recent chapter in the history of the toothbrush concerns its environmental footprint. A standard plastic toothbrush takes hundreds of years to decompose, and dental professionals generally recommend that brushes are replaced every three months — meaning a single user discards roughly four every year. Brushes made from bamboo handles and plant-based bristles have appeared in response, although their bristles are still partly synthetic, since fully biodegradable bristles are not yet considered hard-wearing enough for daily use. Some manufacturers have introduced refill systems, where the user replaces only the head rather than the entire brush.

H The toothbrush therefore reflects a much larger industrial story: the slow replacement of natural materials with synthetic ones, the steady fall in price as manufacturing matured, and the more recent attempt to reverse some of those trends in the name of sustainability. For an object many of us pick up without a second thought twice a day, it has had a surprisingly eventful past.