IELTS General Training Reading Test 5: Free, with Answers

Spending long periods at a computer can lead to aches and pains in the neck, back and shoulders, as well as tired eyes and headaches. Most of these problems can be avoided by setting up your workstation correctly and taking regular breaks.

Your chair

Adjust the height of your chair so that your forearms are roughly horizontal when you type and your feet rest flat on the floor. If your feet do not reach the floor, ask your manager for a footrest. The back of the chair should support the lower part of your back; if it does not, a small cushion may help.

Your screen

The top of the screen should be at about the same level as your eyes and roughly an arm's length away from you. Position it so that light from windows does not fall directly on it, as reflections make the screen harder to read. If you use a laptop for more than an hour at a time, connect a separate keyboard and mouse and raise the laptop on a stand.

Your keyboard and mouse

Keep your keyboard and mouse close to you, so that you do not have to stretch to reach them, and leave a space in front of the keyboard where you can rest your wrists between periods of typing.

Breaks

Rather than working for long periods without stopping, try to take a short break of five to ten minutes every hour. This does not mean stopping work altogether: making a phone call or filing papers will give your eyes and muscles a rest. From time to time, look at something in the distance to relax your eyes.

Eye tests

The company will pay for an eye test for any member of staff who uses a computer regularly. If the optician finds that you need glasses specifically for computer work, the company will contribute up to £60 towards their cost. You may book your test with any optician; afterwards, send the receipt to the human resources team.

Reporting problems

If you experience any pain or discomfort that you think may be connected with your work, tell your manager as soon as possible. An assessment of your workstation will then be arranged, and changes will be made where necessary.

Brightline Logistics offers a range of benefits to all employees who have completed three months' service.

Health

All staff are covered by the company's health insurance scheme, which pays for private treatment for a wide range of conditions. Partners and children can be added to the scheme for a small monthly charge. Staff also have free access to a confidential telephone advice line, open 24 hours a day, which offers support with personal, financial and legal problems.

Saving money

Our discount scheme gives staff reduced prices at more than 800 shops, restaurants and cinemas, and the latest offers can be found on the benefits website. In addition, staff can obtain a bicycle through the 'cycle to work' scheme: the company buys the bicycle, and you repay the cost in monthly instalments from your salary over one year, saving tax in the process.

Pension

The company pays into a pension for every employee, matching your own contributions up to a maximum of 6% of your salary. You can change the amount you pay in at any time through the benefits website.

Learning

The company will pay up to £1,000 a year towards the cost of courses that are relevant to your job. Staff who are studying for a professional qualification can also apply for up to five days of paid study leave a year to prepare for their examinations.

Time off

In addition to their normal holiday entitlement, all staff receive a day off on their birthday. Staff with more than ten years' service are entitled to a four-week sabbatical, which may be used for travel, volunteering or any other purpose.

Recognition

Each month, staff can nominate a colleague who has done more than was expected of them. The winner receives a £100 voucher and a certificate signed by the managing director. Free parking is also available at all of our sites, and staff who share a car to work are given priority spaces near the entrance.

ABefore 1840, sending a letter in Britain was a complicated and expensive business. The charge depended both on the distance the letter travelled and on the number of sheets of paper it contained, and it was normally paid not by the sender but by the person who received it. The cost of a single letter was usually more than four pence, a considerable sum for an ordinary family, and anyone who did not wish to pay could simply refuse to accept it. Some found ingenious ways of exploiting the system: by agreeing on a code of marks written on the outside of a letter, friends and relatives could pass on a message without the letter ever being opened, and the person receiving it could then decline to pay. Members of parliament, meanwhile, were entitled to send letters free of charge, a privilege that was widely abused.

BThe campaign for cheaper postage was begun in 1835 by Robert Wallace, a member of parliament who argued that lower charges would encourage people to send more letters and so increase the government's income. The idea was taken up and developed by Rowland Hill, a former schoolteacher with a passion for reform. According to a popular story, Hill became interested in the subject after seeing a young woman refuse a letter from her fiancé because she could not afford to pay for it, although historians regard the tale as probably untrue. In 1837, while he was working as secretary of a commission concerned with the settlement of South Australia, Hill published a pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability. In it, he argued that much of the cost of running the post came not from carrying letters but from the laborious business of calculating and collecting the charges, since every individual letter had to be recorded.

CHill's proposal was strikingly simple. Every letter weighing up to half an ounce would be carried anywhere in the country for one penny, regardless of distance, and the charge would be paid in advance by the sender. The postal authorities were dismissive. The Postmaster General, Lord Lichfield, condemned Hill's 'wild and visionary schemes', while William Leader Maberly, the Secretary to the Post Office, declared that the plan was 'utterly unsupported by facts'. Merchants and bankers, however, who regarded the existing system as a burden on trade, formed a body known as the Mercantile Committee to campaign for Hill's plan, and parliament eventually approved the reform. The penny rate came into force on 10 January 1840, even before any stamps had been printed.

DTo show that postage had been paid, Hill proposed small printed labels that could be stuck to a letter. A public competition to design them, organised by Hill with the help of Henry Cole, attracted some 2,600 entries, but none was considered suitable. Instead, a design featuring the head of the young Queen Victoria was chosen, based on an image created by the artist William Wyon and engraved by Charles Heath and his son Frederick. The portrait proved so popular that it remained on British stamps until the queen's death in 1901, by which time she was over eighty. As the first stamps in the world, they had no need to show the name of the country, and British stamps have never carried it since; the United Kingdom remains the only country in the world to omit its name.

EThe new stamp, which became known as the Penny Black, went on sale on 1 May 1840 and could officially be used from 6 May, although some post offices sold them a few days early. Two days later, a two-penny stamp printed in blue was issued for heavier letters. It was printed in sheets of 240, and since there were no perforations, post office clerks had to cut the stamps apart with scissors. At the same time, the Post Office issued prepaid envelopes decorated with an elaborate illustration by the artist William Mulready. These proved so unpopular that they were widely ridiculed in cartoons, and they were soon withdrawn.

FThe Penny Black itself remained in use for less than a year. Used stamps were cancelled with a red mark to prevent them from being used again, but the red ink was difficult to see against the black background and could easily be removed. As a result, some people reused their stamps. In February 1841, the Penny Black was replaced by the Penny Red, which was cancelled with black ink that was much harder to remove.

GAt first the reform was a financial disaster for the Post Office, but Hill's prediction that cheaper postage would eventually pay for itself proved correct. In 1840, the number of letters sent in Britain more than doubled, and within ten years it had doubled again, as families separated by long distances found that they could at last afford to keep in touch. Other countries were quick to follow. Within three years, postage stamps had been introduced in Switzerland and Brazil, and by 1860 they were in use in around 90 countries. Hill himself was knighted in 1860, and when he died in 1879, he was buried in Westminster Abbey.