Test 1 / 25

For each gap choose the correct sentence. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

Air quality in India

Air quality in the Indian holy city of Varanasi is the most toxic in the country according to research that reveals the extent of the pollution crisis across northern India.

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According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board, Varanasi and Allahabad, both located in India’s largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, did not record a single day of good air quality in the more than 220 days that measurements were taken.

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The report’s lead author, Aishwarya Madineni, said the levels recorded in Varanasi appeared to regularly breach 150, when the air is classified as unhealthy and begins to affect the general population.

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Levels of coarser particles finer than 10 micro-metres were triple the safe limit in 2016 and had increased by more than one-third since 2010, the research showed.

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Allahabad and Delhi were also listed as suffering from toxic levels of fine pollution in the WHO report but Varanasi was not measured.

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The pollution’s cause in Varanasi is a mix of dust kicked up by traffic and construction sites, vehicular and industrial emissions, smoke from private diesel generators and open fires lit by poorer residents.

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Among six cities in Uttar Pradesh highlighted in the report, only two, Kanpur and Agra, had more than 12 good air quality days each year.

The spiritual capital, which sits on the banks of the Ganges, had just one monitoring station capable of measuring the finest pollution particles, and even that station had huge gaps in the data.There has been a growing awareness of the dangers of the smog that envelopes Delhi in the winter months, but a report released on Monday highlights the extent of the problem across the north Indian plains, where levels of harmful airborne particles are routinely higher than in the capital.Rates of asthma and patients reporting breathlessness in the city had also increased by up to 25 per cent, according to RN Vajpayee, a pulmonologist and chest physician cited in the study.The researchers found that levels of airborne pollution in Varanasi finer than 2.5 micrometres, which are the most harmful variety because they can reach deep into the lungs and breach the blood-brain barrier, were routinely double the safe limit.Uttar Pradesh is also home to at least 18 coal-fired power stations, the emissions from which can travel hundreds of kilometres and diminish air quality across the region.Good air indicates an Air Quality Index score below 50. Anything above 100 is considered to be dangerous for children, the elderly and people with respiratory conditions.A World Health Organisation study found that half of the world’s 20 most polluted cities were in India, starting with Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.

Test 2 / 25

For each gap choose the correct sentence. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

Powerhouse

It started with a crowdfunding startup, an investment from Prince, and the idea to help new solar companies tackle business challenges that can be hard to overcome on their own.

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Powerhouse runs an accelerator and an incubator program. An accelerator typically provides a small amount of funding, and networking opportunities with investors and customers for young companies that are still developing their first technology and business plans.

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The group’s incubator division rents office space to more established solar and energy startups across 15,000 sq ft and three floors in downtown Oakland, California.

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Its goal is simple. The organization wants to play a unique role in fostering a new wave of tech innovation in the solar market. Many of the Powerhouse companies are using software, data and the web to make selling or designing solar systems cheaper and easier.

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‘Powerhouse gave us so much validation and credibility at the beginning, when we didn’t have much to show. It was just enough to get people to believe in us,’ says Elena Lucas, the co-founder and CEO of UtilityAPI, an energy data startup.

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Many of those materials-focused solar startups failed in getting the desired technical performance despite large investments from the Bay Area’s venture capitalists.

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It’s like when fast internet connections finally got cheap and ubiquitous enough to attract the entrepreneurial-minded to build new websites and services on top of it.

Sometimes the accelerator entrepreneurs graduate into rent-paying companies in the co-working space. Powerhouse now hosts about 15 companies and about 100 people across both groups.Since its launch in 2013, Powerhouse has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively into 15 startups, and this summer plans to welcome another few solar entrepreneurs into the program.An earlier wave of solar startups was dominated by companies experimenting with different materials and designs for solar cells and panels.Now, four years later, the idea has morphed into a group called Powerhouse, and notably, in a world flush with tech startups, it’s one of the only incubators out there focused on launching and growing solar companies.‘The ultimate mission of Powerhouse is to make solar energy the most accessible form of energy in the world,’ says Emily Kirsch, co-founder of Powerhouse.As the price of solar panels dropped dramatically in recent years, the new generation of entrepreneurs and startups are chipping away at other stubborn problems, such as shortening the time it takes to get permits or honing the sales pitch to homeowners.They rely on the advice and networking opportunities through Powerhouse to raise money, find customers or exit, through an initial public offering or acquisition.