IELTS General Training Reading Test 7: Free, with Answers

All kitchen staff must wear the protective clothing described below while they are working in food preparation areas. The hotel provides every item free of charge, and all items remain the property of the hotel.

Chef's jacket

Jackets are made of thick, double-layered cotton, which protects the skin from heat and from splashes of hot liquid. They should be fully buttoned at all times. Clean jackets can be collected from the laundry room at the start of every shift.

Headwear

Hair must be completely covered, using either a chef's hat or a hairnet, to prevent hairs from falling into food. Staff with beards must also wear a beard net.

Aprons

Aprons protect your jacket from dirt and should be changed whenever they become visibly dirty, and always after you have handled raw meat. Blue aprons are worn in the pastry section, and white aprons in the rest of the kitchen.

Footwear

Safety shoes with non-slip soles and steel toecaps must be worn, as kitchen floors are often wet and heavy items may be dropped. Staff receive a new pair every twelve months, or sooner if their shoes become damaged.

Gloves

Disposable gloves must be worn when you are handling food that will not be cooked before it is served, such as salads and sandwiches. Change your gloves between tasks and whenever they are torn. When using the meat slicer, you must also wear a cut-resistant glove, which is kept beside the machine. Oven gloves should be used for all hot trays and pans, and they must be replaced if they become damp, as moisture allows heat to pass through them quickly.

Hygiene

Wash your hands thoroughly before putting on gloves and after removing them. Any cuts must be covered with a blue waterproof plaster, which is easy to see if it falls into food. Kitchen clothing must not be worn outside the hotel, for example when travelling to and from work.

Jewellery

Apart from a plain wedding ring, no jewellery may be worn in the kitchen, as it can trap dirt and could fall into food.

Larkfield Council is committed to developing its own staff, and many senior posts are filled by people who already work for the council. If you are interested in a more senior role, the following process applies.

Finding a vacancy

All internal vacancies are advertised on the staff intranet for at least two weeks before they are advertised to the public. You can also sign up to receive an email alert whenever a post in your area of work is advertised.

Before you apply

We strongly recommend that you discuss your application with your line manager, who may be able to offer advice and will need to provide a reference. You may also arrange an informal conversation with the manager responsible for the vacancy, which is a good opportunity to find out more about the role.

Applying

Applications must be made using the online form. The most important part of the form is the supporting statement, in which you should explain how your experience matches each of the requirements listed in the job description. Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.

Assessment

Shortlisted candidates are invited to an interview, usually within two weeks of the closing date. For some posts, candidates are also asked to give a short presentation or to complete a written exercise, and details of this will be sent with the invitation.

Acting up

Staff are sometimes asked to cover a more senior post for a limited period, for example during a colleague's long-term absence. This is known as acting up, and you will be paid at the higher rate for as long as it continues. Acting up can be a useful way of gaining experience before applying for a permanent post.

After the interview

All candidates are told the outcome within five working days. Unsuccessful candidates are entitled to feedback, which can help them to prepare for future applications. Successful candidates normally start their new role within a month, once a replacement has been arranged for their current post. Staff who are not yet ready to apply may wish to join the council's leadership programme, which offers workshops and work shadowing for those who hope to move into management.

AMachines for lifting heavy loads have existed since ancient times, but until the middle of the nineteenth century few people were willing to trust their lives to them. Hoists powered by steam or water were common in factories and warehouses, where they were used to move goods between floors, but they were raised and lowered by ropes, and if a rope broke, the platform and anything on it would crash to the ground. As a result, buildings were constrained by the number of stairs that people were prepared to climb. Even in the busiest cities, few buildings rose more than five or six storeys, and the upper floors, which were the most tiring to reach, were usually the least desirable and the cheapest to rent.

BThe man who changed this was Elisha Otis, who was born in Vermont in 1811 and had worked as a wagon driver, a miller and a builder of carriages before becoming a master mechanic in a factory that made beds. His first wife had died in 1842, leaving him to bring up two young sons, and for many years he moved from one job to another in search of a reliable income. There he invented a machine that turned bedposts four times faster than could be done by hand, and he later designed a safety brake for railways. In 1852, while installing machinery at a bed factory in Yonkers, near New York, he was asked to find a way of lifting heavy equipment to the upper floor. Aware of the dangers involved, he devised a hoist with a safety device that brought it to a halt automatically if the rope broke. The following year, he set up his own company to manufacture it.

CSales were slow at first, and Otis realised that people needed to see the device working before they would believe in it. In 1854, at an exhibition in New York's Crystal Palace, he stood on an open platform high above a crowd of spectators and ordered an assistant to cut the only rope holding it up. The platform dropped a few centimetres and then stopped, held by the safety catch. Otis is said to have raised his hat and announced: 'All safe, gentlemen, all safe.' The principle behind the device was simple. A strong spring at the top of the platform was held in tension by the rope; if the rope broke, the spring was released and pushed two metal arms outwards into teeth along the guide rails on either side, locking the platform in place. After this display, orders for his safety hoist began to increase.

DIt was another three years before the device was used to carry members of the public. In March 1857, the first passenger lift fitted with Otis's safety brake was installed in the Haughwout store, which sold china and glassware on Broadway in New York. Otis himself did not live to see the full impact of his invention, as he died of diphtheria in 1861, but his sons Charles and Norton continued the business, and demand grew rapidly. Over the following decades, steam power gave way to electricity, and lifts became faster, smoother and more reliable. Once people could reach the top floor of a building as easily as the ground floor, the upper storeys became the most desirable, and architects were free to build far higher than ever before.

EThe moving staircase had an equally complicated history. A design for 'revolving stairs' was patented as early as 1859 but was never built. In 1892, Jesse Reno patented what he called an 'inclined elevator', and four years later he installed the first working example beside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York. It was little more than a sloping belt, set at an angle of 25 degrees, with cast-iron slats to help riders keep their footing. A few months later, the same machine was tried out for a month on the Brooklyn Bridge. Meanwhile, Charles Seeberger had bought the patents of another inventor, George Wheeler, and in 1899 he joined forces with the Otis company to produce the first commercial escalator, which won first prize at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Otis registered the name 'escalator' as a trademark, so rival manufacturers had to sell their machines under different names, such as the 'Motorstair' and the 'Electric Stairway'. The trademark has long since lapsed, and 'escalator' is now simply an ordinary English word.

FNot every member of the public was immediately won over. When Harrods, the London department store, unveiled its first moving staircase in November 1898, some customers found the experience so alarming that assistants waited at the top with smelling salts and brandy to revive them. Today such anxieties seem amusing, yet without the inventions that provoked them, the modern city of skyscrapers, shopping centres and underground railways would be impossible to imagine. Few of the millions who use them every day give a thought to the inventors, or to the courage of the first passengers who agreed to try them.