Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the questions.

Soft skills are non-technical skills that promote productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace. Some soft skills can also be part of your personality or work ethic. These skills are often transferable across roles and industries and are necessary at every level of the workplace, from entry-level roles to top-level executives. They are also known as "essential skills" for this reason–they span all levels and roles, and anyone can develop and improve them. These highly transferable skills can cover interpersonal, communication, self-management and creative skills. Many essential soft skills are valuable in the workplace, and these are some of the most impactful soft skills you can have:

1. Communication skills

Communication is how you express your thoughts, ideas and feelings to others as well as understand and receive information from those you interact with at work. Speaking and listening skills cover steps like body language, the ability to use different examples and facts to support your points or using questioning to evaluate different perspectives.

2. Teamwork

Teamwork skills allow you to work well with others and include the ability to relate, communicate and collaborate in reaching goals. This could be through resolving conflicts, supporting others, or contributing to a group, which are some of the steps in the Universal Framework. In addition, this skill is incredibly important for companies since it helps you complete tasks more efficiently as a team, manage conflict, and build relationships to create an enjoyable working environment.

3. Problem-solving

Problem-solving involves thinking innovatively to find several solutions to an obstacle. With problem-solving skills, you can identify an issue, research possible solutions, use logical trial and error and establish ways to prevent the issue from happening again. Companies will often have complex problems that arise, like deciding on the cost of a service, how to structure a team, how to engage with more customers or the best way to create a product. Individuals with problem-solving skills will be able to work creatively to think of and evaluate a range of possible solutions.

To promote yourself as a high-quality candidate, be sure to emphasise your soft skills in your cover letter, on your CV and during the interview. While writing your cover letter, you can include a paragraph that highlights your achievements using soft skills in your previous work experience. You can also mention your strongest soft skills when you first introduce yourself as well.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the questions.

Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy, and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online shopping means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands offer such cheap clothes that they can be treated like disposable items – worn two or three times and then thrown away.

In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which is around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure hides two far more worrying trends for society and for the environment. First, a lot of that consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently owe approximately £670 per adult to credit card companies. That's 66 per cent of the average wardrobe budget. Also, not only are people spending money they don't have, they're using it to buy things they don't need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which goes into landfill sites.

People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can't sell all those unwanted clothes. 'Fast fashion' goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often too poor quality to recycle; people don't want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities end up being thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can't sell are sent abroad, causing even more economic and environmental problems.

However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the 'buy nothing' trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the US, where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of Black Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing Day people organise various types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year, Buy Nothing groups organise the exchange and repair of items they already own.

The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars now encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year. Two friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first three months they learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or things for the house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at restaurants or buying petrol for their cars. In one year, they'd saved $55,000.

The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and paper packaging and a positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved. If everyone followed a similar plan, the results would be impressive. But even if you can't manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the anti-consumerist movement by refusing to buy things you don't need. Buy Nothing groups send a clear message to companies that people are no longer willing to accept the environmental and human cost of overconsumption.

Complete the text below with the correct form of the words in capitals.

From birth, warm, gentle and (28) ____________ communication helps babies and children feel safe and secure in their worlds. It also builds and (29) ____________ relationships between children and their parents or carers. To grow and develop skills, children need safety, security and strong relationships, so communicating well with children is (30) ____________ to development. When you work on developing good communication with your child, it helps your child to develop skills for communicating with you and other people. It also builds your relationship, because it sends your child the message that you value their thoughts and feelings. Your child learns how to communicate by watching you (31) ____________. When you talk with your child in a (32) ____________ way, this gives a powerful message about positive communication.