Month: May 2024

Stonehenge

For centuries, historians and archaeologists have puzzled over the many mysteries of Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument that took an estimated 1,500 years to erect. Located on Salisbury Plain in southern England, it is comprised of roughly 100 massive upright stones placed in a circular layout.

Archaeologists believe England’s most iconic prehistoric ruin was built in several stages, with the earliest constructed 5,000 or more years ago. First, Neolithic Britons used primitive tools, which may have been fashioned out of deer antlers, to dig a massive circular ditch and bank, or henge. Deep pits dating back to that era and located within the circle may have once held a ring of timber posts, according to some scholars.

Several hundred years later, it is thought, Stonehenge’s builders hoisted an estimated 80 bluestones, 43 of which remain today, into standing positions and placed them in either a horseshoe or circular formation. These stones have been traced all the way to the Preseli Hills in Wales, some 300 kilometres from Stonehenge. How, then, did prehistoric builders without sophisticated tools or engineering haul these boulders, which weigh up to four tons, over such a great distance?

According to one long-standing theory among archaeologists, Stonehenge’s builders fashioned sledges and rollers out of tree trunks to lug the bluestones from the Preseli Hills. They then transferred the boulders onto rafts and floated them first along the Welsh coast and then up the River Avon toward Salisbury Plain; alternatively, they may have towed each stone with a fleet of vessels. More recent archaeological hypotheses have them transporting the bluestones with supersized wicker baskets on a combination of ball bearings and long grooved planks, hauled by oxen.

As early as the 1970s, geologists have been adding their voices to the debate over how Stonehenge came into being. Challenging the classic image of industrious builders pushing, carting, rolling or hauling giant stones from faraway Wales, some scientists have suggested that it was glaciers, not humans, that carried the bluestones to Salisbury Plain. Most archaeologists have remained sceptical about this theory, however, wondering how the forces of nature could possibly have delivered the exact number of stones needed to complete the circle.

The third phase of construction took place around 2000 BCE. At this point, sandstone slabs – known as ‘sarsens’ – were arranged into an outer crescent or ring; some were assembled into the iconic three-pieced structures called trilithons that stand tall in the centre of Stonehenge. Some 50 of these stones are now visible on the site, which may once have contained many more. Radiocarbon dating has revealed that work continued at Stonehenge until roughly 1600 BCE, with the bluestones in particular being repositioned multiple times.

But who were the builders of Stonehenge? In the 17th century, archaeologist John Aubrey made the claim that Stonehenge was the work of druids, who had important religious, judicial and political roles in Celtic society. This theory was widely popularized by the antiquarian William Stukeley, who had unearthed primitive graves at the site. Even today, people who identify as modern druids continue to gather at Stonehenge for the summer solstice. However, in the mid-20th century, radiocarbon dating demonstrated that Stonehenge stood more than 1,000 years before the Celts inhabited the region.

Many modern historians and archaeologists now agree that several distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a different phase of its construction. Bones, tools and other artefacts found on the site seem to support this hypothesis. The first stage was achieved by Neolithic agrarians who were likely to have been indigenous to the British Isles. Later, it is believed, groups with advanced tools and a more communal way of life left their mark on the site. Some believe that they were immigrants from the European continent, while others maintain that they were probably native Britons, descended from the original builders.

If the facts surrounding the architects and construction of Stonehenge remain shadowy at best, the purpose of the striking monument is even more of a mystery. While there is consensus among the majority of modern scholars that Stonehenge once served the function of burial ground, they have yet to determine what other purposes it had.

In the 1960s, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins suggested that the cluster of megalithic stones operated as a form of calendar, with different points corresponding to astrological phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes and eclipses occurring at different times of the year. While his theory has received a considerable amount of attention over the decades, critics maintain that Stonehenge’s builders probably lacked the knowledge necessary to predict such events or that England’s dense cloud cover would have obscured their view of the skies.

More recently, signs of illness and injury in the human remains unearthed at Stonehenge led a group of British archaeologists to speculate that it was considered a place of healing, perhaps because bluestones were thought to have curative powers.

Questions 1-8
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Stonehenge

Construction
Stage 1:
• the ditch and henge were dug, possibly using tools made from (1)………………..
• (2)………………may have been arranged in deep pits inside the circle

Stage 2:
• bluestones from the Preseli Hills were placed in standing position
• theories about the transportation of the bluestones:
o archaeological:
-builders used (3)……………to make sledges and rollers
– (4)……………….pulled them on giant baskets
o geological:
– they were brought from Wales by (5)……………

Stage 3:
• sandstone slabs were arranged into an outer crescent or ring

Builders
• a theory arose in the 17th century that its builders were Celtic (6)…………..

Purpose
• many experts agree it has been used as a (7)…………………site
• in the 1960s, it was suggested that it worked as a kind of (8)………………..

Questions 9-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                          if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                        if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN            if there is no information on this

9. During the third phase of construction, sandstone slabs were placed in both the outer areas and the middle of the Stonehenge site.
10. There is scientific proof that the bluestones stood in the same spot until approximately 1600 BCE.
11. John Aubrey’s claim about Stonehenge was supported by 20th-century findings.
12. Objects discovered at Stonehenge seem to indicate that it was constructed by a number of different groups of people.
13. Criticism of Gerald Hawkins’ theory about Stonehenge has come mainly from other astronomers.

Living with artificial intelligence

Powerful artificial intelligence (Al) needs to be reliably aligned with human values, but does this mean Al will eventually have to police those values?

This has been the decade of Al, with one astonishing feat after another. A chess-playing Al that can defeat not only all human chess players, but also all previous human-programmed chess machines, after learning the game in just four hours? That’s yesterday’s news, what’s next? True, these prodigious accomplishments are all in so- called narrow Al, where machines perform highly specialised tasks. But many experts believe this restriction is very temporary. By mid-century, we may have artificial general intelligence (AGI) – machines that can achieve human-level performance on the full range of tasks that we ourselves can tackle.

If so, there’s little reason to think it will stop there. Machines will be free of many of the physical constraints on human intelligence. Our brains run at slow biochemical processing speeds on the power of a light bulb, and their size is restricted by the dimensions of the human birth canal. It is remarkable what they accomplish, given these handicaps. But they may be as far from the physical limits of thought as our eyes are from the incredibly powerful Webb Space Telescope.

Once machines are better than us at designing even smarter machines, progress towards these limits could accelerate. What would this mean for us? Could we ensure a safe and worthwhile coexistence with such machines? On the plus side, Al is already useful and profitable for many things, and super Al might be expected to be super useful, and super profitable. But the more powerful Al becomes, the more important it will be to specify its goals with great care. Folklore is full of tales of people who ask for the wrong thing, with disastrous consequences – King Midas, for example, might have wished that everything he touched turned to gold, but didn’t really intend this to apply to his breakfast.

So we need to create powerful Al machines that are ‘human-friendly’ – that have goals reliably aligned with our own values. One thing that makes this task difficult is that we are far from reliably human-friendly ourselves. We do many terrible things to each other and to many other creatures with whom we share the planet. If superintendent machines don’t do a lot better than us, we’ll be in deep trouble. We’ll have powerful new intelligence amplifying the dark sides of our own fallible natures.

For safety’s sake, then, we want the machines to be ethically as well as cognitively superhuman. We want them to aim for the moral high ground, not for the troughs in which many of us spend some of our time. Luckily they’ll be smart enough for the job. If there are routes to the moral high ground, they’ll be better than us at finding them, and steering us in the right direction.

However, there are two big problems with this utopian vision. One is how we get the machines started on the journey, the other is what it would mean to reach this destination. The ‘getting started’ problem is that we need to tell the machines what they’re looking for with sufficient clarity that we can be confident they will find it – whatever ‘it’ actually turns out to be. This won’t be easy, given that we are tribal creatures and conflicted about the ideals ourselves. We often ignore the suffering of strangers, and even contribute to it, at least indirectly. How then, do we point machines in the direction of something better?

As for the ‘destination’ problem, we might, by putting ourselves in the hands of these moral guides and gatekeepers, be sacrificing our own autonomy – an important part of what makes us human. Machines who are better than us at sticking to the moral high ground may be expected to discourage some of the lapses we presently take for granted. We might lose our freedom to discriminate in favour of our own communities, for example. Loss of freedom to behave badly isn’t always a bad thing, of course: denying ourselves the freedom to put children to work in factories, or to smoke in restaurants are signs of progress. But are we ready for ethical silicon police limiting our options? They might be so good at doing it that we won’t notice them; but few of us are likely to welcome such a future.

These issues might seem far-fetched, but they are to some extent already here. Al already has some input into how resources are used in our National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK, for example. If it was given a greater role, it might do so much more efficiently than humans can manage, and act in the interests of taxpayers and those who use the health system. However, we’d be depriving some humans (e.g. senior doctors) of the control they presently enjoy. Since we’d want to ensure that people are treated equally and that policies are fair, the goals of Al would need to be specified correctly.

We have a new powerful technology to deal with – itself, literally, a new way of thinking. For our own safety, we need to point these new thinkers in the right direction, and get them to act well for us. It is not yet clear whether this is possible, but if it is, it will require a cooperative spirit, and a willingness to set aside self-interest. Both general intelligence and moral reasoning are often thought to be uniquely human capacities. But safety seems to require that we think of them as a package: if we are to give general intelligence to machines, we’ll need to give them moral authority, too. And where exactly would that leave human beings? All the more reason to think about the destination now, and to be careful about what we wish for.

Questions 14-19
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

14. What point does the writer make about Al in the first paragraph?
A It is difficult to predict how quickly Al will progress.
B Much can be learned about the use of Al in chess machines.
C The future is unlikely to see limitations on the capabilities of Al.
D Experts disagree on which specialised tasks Al will be able to perform.

15. What is the writer doing in the second paragraph?
A explaining why machines will be able to outperform humans
B describing the characteristics that humans and machines share
C giving information about the development of machine intelligence
D indicating which aspects of humans are the most advanced

16. Why does the writer mention the story of King Midas?
A to compare different visions of progress
B to illustrate that poorly defined objectives can go wrong
C to emphasise the need for cooperation
D to point out the financial advantages of a course of action

17. What challenge does the writer refer to in the fourth paragraph?
A encouraging humans to behave in a more principled way
B deciding which values we want Al to share with us
C creating a better world for all creatures on the planet
D ensuring Al is more human-friendly than we are ourselves

18. What does the writer suggest about the future of Al in the fifth paragraph?
A The safety of machines will become a key issue.
B It is hard to know what impact machines will have on the world.
C Machines will be superior to humans in certain respects.
D Many humans will oppose machines having a wider role.

19. Which of the following best summarises the writer’s argument in the sixth paragraph?
A More intelligent machines will result in greater abuses of power.
B Machine learning will share very few features with human learning.
C There are a limited number of people with the knowledge to program machines.
D Human shortcomings will make creating the machines we need more difficult.

Questions 20-23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet, write

YES                            if the statement agrees with the information
NO                              if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN           if there is no information on this

20. Machines with the ability to make moral decisions may prevent us from promoting the interests of our communities.
21. Silicon police would need to exist in large numbers in order to be effective.
22. Many people are comfortable with the prospect of their independence being restricted by machines.
23. If we want to ensure that machines act in our best interests, we all need to work together.

Questions 24-26
Complete the summary using the list of phrases, A-F, below. Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Using AI in the UK health system

Al currently has a limited role in the way (24)………………..are allocated in the health service. The positive aspect of Al having a bigger role is that it would be more efficient and lead to patient benefits. However, such a change would result, for example, in certain (25)………………. not having their current level of (26)………………… It is therefore important that Al goals are appropriate so that discriminatory practices could be avoided.

A medical practitioners
B specialised tasks
C available resources
D reduced illness
E professional authority
F technology experts

An ideal city

Leonardo da Vinci’s ideal city was centuries ahead of its time

T he word ‘genius’ is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci. A true Renaissance man, he embodied scientific spirit, artistic talent and humanist sensibilities. Five hundred years have passed since Leonardo died in his home at Chateau du Clos Luce, outside Tours, France. Yet far from fading into insignificance, his thinking has carried down the centuries and still surprises today.

The Renaissance marked the transition from the 15th century to modernity and took place after the spread of the plague in the 14th century, which caused a global crisis resulting in some 200 million deaths across Europe and Asia. Today, the world is on the cusp of a climate crisis, which is predicted to cause widespread displacement, extinctions and death, if left unaddressed. Then, as now, radical solutions were called for to revolutionise the way people lived and safeguard humanity against catastrophe.

Around 1486 – after a pestilence that killed half the population in Milan, Italy – Leonardo turned his thoughts to urban planning problems. Following a typical Renaissance trend, he began to work on an ‘ideal city’ project, which – due to its excessive costs – would remain unfulfilled. Yet given that unsustainable urban models are a key cause of global climate change today, it’s only natural to wonder how Leonardo might have changed the shape of modem cities.

Although the Renaissance is renowned as an era of incredible progress in art and architecture, it is rarely noted that the 15th century also marked the birth of urbanism as a true academic discipline. The rigour and method behind the conscious conception of a city had been largely missing in Western thought until the moment when prominent Renaissance men pushed forward large-scale urban projects in Italy, such as the reconfiguration of the town of Pienza and the expansion of the city of Ferrara. These works surely inspired Leonardo’s decision to rethink the design of medieval cities, with their winding and overcrowded streets and with houses piled against one another.

It is not easy to identify a coordinated vision of Leonardo’s ideal city because of his disordered way of working with notes and sketches. But from the largest collection of Leonardo’s papers ever assembled, a series of innovative thoughts can be reconstructed regarding the foundation of a new city along the Ticino River, which runs from Switzerland into Italy and is 248 kilometres long. He designed the city for the easy transport of goods and clean urban spaces, and he wanted a comfortable and spacious city, with well-ordered streets and architecture. He recommended ‘high, strong walls’, with ‘towers and battlements of all necessary and pleasant beauty’.

His plans for a modem and ‘rational’ city were consistent with Renaissance ideals. But, in keeping with his personality, Leonardo included several innovations in his urban design. Leonardo wanted the city to be built on several levels, linked with vertical outdoor staircases. This design can be seen in some of today’s high-rise buildings but was unconventional at the time. Indeed, this idea of taking full advantage of the interior spaces wasn’t implemented until the 1920s and 1930s, with the birth of the Modernist movement.

While in the upper layers of the city, people could walk undisturbed between elegant palaces and streets, the lower layer was the place for services, trade, transport and industry. But the true originality of Leonardo’s vision was its fusion of architecture and engineering. Leonardo designed extensive hydraulic plants to create artificial canals throughout the city. The canals, regulated by clocks and basins, were supposed to make it easier for boats to navigate inland. Leonardo also thought that the width of the streets ought to match the average height of the adjacent houses: a rule still followed in many contemporary cities across Italy, to allow access to sun and reduce the risk of damage from earthquakes.

Although some of these features existed in Roman cities, before Leonardo’s drawings there had never been a multi-level, compact modem city which was thoroughly technically conceived. Indeed, it wasn’t until the 19th century that some of his ideas were applied. For example, the subdivision of the city by function – with services and infrastructures located in the lower levels and wide and well-ventilated boulevards and walkways above for residents – is an idea that can be found in Georges-Eugene Haussmann’s renovation of Paris under Emperor Napoleon III between 1853 and 1870.

Today, Leonardo’s ideas are not simply valid, they actually suggest a way forward for urban planning. Many scholars think that the compact city, built upwards instead of outwards, integrated with nature (especially water systems), with efficient transport infrastructure, could help modem cities become more efficient and sustainable. This is yet another reason why Leonardo was aligned so closely with modem urban planning and centuries ahead of his time.

Questions 27-33
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                           if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                         if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN             if there is no information on this

27. People first referred to Leonardo da Vinci as a genius 500 years ago.
28. The current climate crisis is predicted to cause more deaths than the plague.
29. Some of the challenges we face today can be compared to those of earlier times.
30. Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘ideal city’ was constructed in the 15th century.
31. Poor town planning is a major contributor to climate change.
32. In Renaissance times, local people fought against the changes to Pienza and Ferrara.
33. Leonardo da Vinci kept a neat, organised record of his designs.

Questions 34-40
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Leonardo da Vinci’s ideal city

A collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s paperwork reveals his design of a new city beside the Ticino River. This was to provide better (34)…………………for trade and a less polluted environment. Although Leonardo da Vinci’s city shared many of the ideals of his time, some of his innovations were considered unconventional in their design. They included features that can be seen in some tower blocks today, such as (35)………………..on the exterior of a building. Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t only an architect. His expertise in (36)……………….was evident in his plans for artificial canals within his ideal city. He also believed that the height of houses should relate to the width of streets in case earthquakes occurred. The design of many cities in Italy today follows this (37)……………..

While some cities from (38)…………………times have aspects that can also be found in Leonardo’s designs, his ideas weren’t put into practice until long after his death. (39)………………….is one example of a city that was redesigned in the 19th century in the way that Leonardo had envisaged. His ideas are also relevant to today’s world, where building (40)…………………no longer seems to be the best approach.

Urban farming

In Paris, urban farmers are trying a soil-free approach to agriculture that uses less space and fewer resources. Could it help cities face the threats to our food supplies?

On top of a striking new exhibition hall in southern Paris, the world’s largest urban rooftop farm has started to bear fruit. Strawberries that are small, intensely flavoured and resplendently red sprout abundantly from large plastic tubes. Peer inside and you see the tubes are completely hollow, the roots of dozens of strawberry plants dangling down inside them. From identical vertical tubes nearby burst row upon row of lettuces; near those are aromatic herbs, such as basil, sage and peppermint. Opposite, in narrow, horizontal trays packed not with soil but with coconut fibre, grow cherry tomatoes, shiny aubergines and brightly coloured chards.

Pascal Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began experimenting with vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers – as the soil-free plastic tubes are known – on his Paris apartment block roof five years ago. The urban rooftop space above the exhibition hall is somewhat bigger: 14,000 square metres and almost exactly the size of a couple of football pitches. Already, the team of young urban farmers who tend it have picked, in one day, 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries. When the remaining two thirds of the vast open area are in production, 20 staff will harvest up to 1,000 kg of perhaps 35 different varieties of fruit and vegetables, every day. ‘We’re not ever, obviously, going to feed the whole city this way,’ cautions Hardy. ‘In the urban environment you’re working with very significant practical constraints, clearly, on what you can do and where. But if enough unused space can be developed like this, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t eventually target maybe between 5% and 10% of consumption.’

Perhaps most significantly, however, this is a real-life showcase for the work of Hardy’s flourishing urban agriculture consultancy, Agripolis, which is currently fielding enquiries from around the world to design, build and equip a new breed of soil-free inner-city farm. ‘The method’s advantages are many,’ he says. ‘First, I don’t much like the fact that most of the fruit and vegetables we eat have been treated with something like 17 different pesticides, or that the intensive farming techniques that produced them are such huge generators of greenhouse
gases. I don’t much like the fact, either, that they’ve travelled an average of 2,000 refrigerated kilometres to my plate, that their quality is so poor, because the varieties are selected for their capacity to withstand such substantial journeys, or that 80% of the price I pay goes to wholesalers and transport companies, not the producers.’

Produce grown using this soil-free method, on the other hand – which relies solely on a small quantity of water, enriched with organic nutrients, pumped around a closed circuit of pipes, towers and trays – is ‘produced up here, and sold locally, just down there. It barely travels at all,’ Hardy says. ‘You can select crop varieties for their flavour, not their resistance to the transport and storage chain, and you can pick them when they’re really at their best, and not before.’ No soil is exhausted, and the water that gently showers the plants’ roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90% less water than a classic intensive farm for the same yield.

Urban farming is not, of course, a new phenomenon. Inner-city agriculture is booming from Shanghai to Detroit and Tokyo to Bangkok. Strawberries are being grown in disused shipping containers, mushrooms in underground carparks. Aeroponic farming, he says, is ‘virtuous’. The equipment weighs little, can be installed on almost any flat surface and is cheap to buy: roughly €100 to €150 per square metre. It is cheap to run, too, consuming a tiny fraction of the electricity used by some techniques.

Produce grown this way typically sells at prices that, while generally higher than those of classic intensive agriculture, are lower than soil-based organic growers. There are limits to what farmers can grow this way, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. ‘Root vegetables we cannot do, at least not yet,’ he says. ‘Radishes are OK, but carrots, potatoes, that kind of thing – the roots are simply too long. Fruit trees are obviously not an option. And beans tend to take up a lot of space for not much return.’ Nevertheless, urban farming of the kind being practised in Paris is one part of a bigger and fast-changing picture that is bringing food production closer to our lives.

Questions 1-3
Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Urban farming so Paris

1. Vertical tubes are used to grow strawberries……………….and herbs.
2. There will eventually be a daily harvest of as much as………………….in weight of fruit and vegetables.
3. It may be possible that the farm’s produce will account for as much as 10% of the city’s…………….overall.

Questions 4-7
Complete the table below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Intensive farming versus aeroponic urban farming
	Growth	Selection	Sale
Intensive farming	wide range of (4)……….usedtechniques pollute air	quality not goodvarieties of fruit and vegetables chosen that can survive long (5)…………	(6)…………….receive very little of overall income
Aeroponic urban farming	no soil usednutrients added to water which is recycled	produce chosen because of its (7)…………..

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? In boxes 8-13 of your answer sheet write

TRUE                             if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                           if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN               if there is no information on this

8. Urban farming can take place above or below ground.
9. Some of the equipment used in aeroponic farming can be made by hand.
10. Urban farming relies more on electricity than some other types of farming.
11. Fruit and vegetables grown on an aeroponic urban farm are cheaper than traditionally grown organic produce.
12. Most produce can be grown on an aeroponic urban farm at any time of the year.
13. Beans take longer to grow on an urban farm than other vegetables.

Forest management in Pennsylvania, USA

How managing low-quality wood (also known as low-use wood) for bioenergy can encourage sustainable forest management

A A tree’s ‘value’ depends on several factors including its species, size, form, condition, quality, function, and accessibility, and depends on the management goals for a given forest. The same tree can be valued very differently by each person who looks at it. A large, straight black cherry tree has high value as timber to be cut into logs or made into furniture, but for a landowner more interested in wildlife habitat, the real value of that stem (or trunk) may be the food it provides to animals. Likewise, if the tree suffers from black knot disease, its value for timber decreases, but to a woodworker interested in making bowls, it brings an opportunity for a unique and beautiful piece of art.

B In the past, Pennsylvania landowners were solely interested in the value of their trees as high-quality timber. The norm was to remove the stems of highest quality and leave behind poorly formed trees that were not as well suited to the site where they grew. This practice, called ‘high-grading’, has left a legacy of low-use wood’ in the forests. Some people even call these ‘junk trees’, and they are abundant in Pennsylvania. These trees have lower economic value for traditional timber markets, compete for growth with higher-value trees, shade out desirable regeneration and decrease the health of a stand leaving it more vulnerable to poor weather and disease. Management that specifically targets low-use wood can help landowners manage these forest health issues, and wood energy markets help promote this.

C Wood energy markets can accept less expensive wood material of lower quality than would be suitable for traditional timber markets. Most wood used for energy in Pennsylvania is used to produce heat or electricity through combustion. Many schools and hospitals use wood boiler systems to heat and power their facilities, many homes are primarily heated with wood, and some coal plants incorporate wood into their coal streams to produce electricity. Wood can also be gasified for electrical generation and can even be made into liquid fuels like ethanol and gasoline for lorries and cars. All these products are made primarily from low-use wood. Several tree- and plant-cutting approaches, which could greatly improve the long-term quality of a forest, focus strongly or solely on the use of wood for those markets.

D One such approach is called a Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) Cut. In a TSI Cut, really poor-quality tree and plant material is cut down to allow more space, light, and other resources to the highest-valued stems that remain. Removing invasive plants might be another primary goal of a TSI Cut. The stems that are left behind might then grow in size and develop more foliage and larger crowns or tops that produce more coverage for wildlife; they have a better chance to regenerate in a less crowded environment. TSI Cuts can be tailored to one farmer’s specific management goals for his or her land.

E Another approach that might yield a high amount of low-use wood is a Salvage Cut. With the many pests and pathogens visiting forests including hemlock wooly adelgid, Asian longhorned beetle, emerald ash borer, and gypsy moth, to name just a few, it is important to remember that those working in the forests can help ease these issues through cutting procedures. These types of cut reduce the number of sick trees and seek to manage the future spread of a pest problem. They leave vigorous trees that have stayed healthy enough to survive the outbreak.

F A Shelterwood Cut, which only takes place in a mature forest that has already been thinned several times, involves removing all the mature trees when other seedlings have become established. This then allows the forester to decide which tree species are regenerated. It leaves a young forest where all trees are at a similar point in their growth. It can also be used to develop a two-tier forest so that there are two harvests and the money that comes in is spread out over a decade or more.

G Thinnings and dense and dead wood removal for fire prevention also center on the production of low-use wood. However, it is important to remember that some retention of what many would classify as low-use wood is very important. The tops of trees that have been cut down should be left on the site so that their nutrients cycle back into the soil. In addition, trees with many cavities are extremely important habitats for insect predators like woodpeckers, bats and small mammals. They help control problem insects and increase the health and resilience of the forest. It is also important to remember that not all small trees are low-use. For example, many species like hawthorn provide food for wildlife. Finally, rare species of trees in a forest should also stay behind as they add to its structural diversity.

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14—18 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. bad outcomes for a forest when people focus only on its financial reward
15. reference to the aspects of any tree that contribute to its worth
16. mention of the potential use of wood to help run vehicles
17. examples of insects that attack trees
18. an alternative name for trees that produce low-use wood

Questions 19-21
Look at the following purposes (Questions 19-21) and the list of timber cuts below. Match each purpose with the correct timber cut, A, B or C. Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

19. to remove trees that are diseased
20. to generate income across a number of years
21. to create a forest whose trees are close in age

List of Timber Cuts
A a TSI Cut
B a Salvage Cut
C a Shelterwood Cut

Questions 22-26
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

22. Some dead wood is removed to avoid the possibility of………………
23. The………………from the tops of cut trees can help improve soil quality.
24. Some damaged trees should be left, as their………………provide habitats for a range of creatures.
25. Some trees that are small, such as…………………are a source of food for animals and insects.
26. Any trees that are……………….should be left to grow, as they add to the variety of species in the forest.

Conquering Earth’s space junk problem

Satellites, rocket shards and collision debris are creating major traffic risks in orbit around the planet. Researchers are working to reduce these threats

A Last year, commercial companies, military and civil departments and amateurs sent more than 400 satellites into orbit, over four times the yearly average in the previous decade. Numbers could rise even more sharply if leading space companies follow through on plans to deploy hundreds to thousands of large constellations of satellites to space in the next few years.

All that traffic can lead to disaster. Ten years ago, a US commercial Iridium satellite smashed into an inactive Russian communications satellite called Cosmos-2251, creating thousands of new pieces of space shrapnel that now threaten other satellites in low Earth orbit – the zone stretching up to 2,000 kilometres in altitude. Altogether, there are roughly 20,000 human-made objects in orbit, from working satellites to small rocket pieces. And satellite operators can’t steer away from every potential crash, because each move consumes time and fuel that could otherwise be used for the spacecraft’s main job.

B Concern about space junk goes back to the beginning of the satellite era, but the number of objects in orbit is rising so rapidly that researchers are investigating new ways of attacking the problem. Several teams are trying to improve methods for assessing what is in orbit, so that satellite operators can work more efficiently in ever-more-crowded space. Some researchers are now starting to compile a massive data set that includes the best possible information on where everything is in orbit. Others are developing taxonomies of space debris – working on measuring properties such as the shape and size of an object, so that satellite operators know how much to worry about what’s coming their way. The alternative, many say, is unthinkable. Just a few uncontrolled space crashes could generate enough debris to set off a runaway cascade of fragments, rendering near-Earth space unusable. ‘If we go on like this, we will reach a point of no return,’ says Carolin Frueh, an astrodynamical researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

C Even as our ability to monitor space objects increases, so too does the total number of items in orbit. That means companies, governments and other players in space are collaborating in new ways to avoid a shared threat. International groups such as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee have developed guidelines on space sustainability. Those include inactivating satellites at the end of their useful life by venting pressurised materials or leftover fuel that might lead to explosions. The intergovernmental groups also advise lowering satellites deep enough into the atmosphere that they will burn up or disintegrate within 25 years. But so far, only about half of all missions have abided by this 25-year goal, says Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency’s space-debris office in Darmstadt, Germany. Operators of the planned large constellations of satellites say they will be responsible stewards in their enterprises in space, but Krag worries that problems could increase, despite their best intentions. ‘What happens to those that fail or go bankrupt?’ he asks. They are probably not going to spend money to remove their satellites from space.’

D In theory, given the vastness of space, satellite operators should have plenty of room for all these missions to fly safely without ever nearing another object. So some scientists are tackling the problem of space junk by trying to find out where all the debris is to a high degree of precision. That would alleviate the need for many of the unnecessary manoeuvres that are carried out to avoid potential collisions. ‘If you knew precisely where everything was, you would almost never have a problem,’ says Marlon Sorge, a space-debris specialist at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California.

E The field is called space traffic management, because it’s similar to managing traffic on the roads or in the air. Think about a busy day at an airport, says Moriba Jah, an astrodynamicist at the University of Texas at Austin: planes line up in the sky, landing and taking off close to one another in a carefully choreographed routine. Air-traffic controllers know the location of the planes down to one metre in accuracy. The same can’t be said for space debris. Not all objects in orbit are known, and even those included in databases are not tracked consistently.

F An additional problem is that there is no authoritative catalogue that accurately lists the orbits of all known space debris. Jah illustrates this with a web-based database that he has developed. It draws on several sources, such as catalogues maintained by the US and Russian governments, to visualise where objects are in space. When he types in an identifier for a particular space object, the database draws a purple line to designate its orbit. Only this doesn’t quite work for a number of objects, such as a Russian rocket body designated in the database as object number 32280. When Jah enters that number, the database draws two purple lines: the US and Russian sources contain two completely different orbits for the same object. Jah says that it is almost impossible to tell which is correct, unless a third source of information made it possible to cross-correlate. Jah describes himself as a space environmentalist: ‘I want to make space a place that is safe to operate, that is free and useful for generations to come.’ Until that happens, he argues, the space community will continue devolving into a tragedy in which all spaceflight operators are polluting a common resource.

Questions 27-31
Reading Passage has six sections, A-F. Which section contains the following information?

27. a reference to the cooperation that takes place to try and minimise risk
28. an explanation of a person’s aims
29. a description of a major collision that occurred in space
30. a comparison between tracking objects in space and the efficiency of a transportation system
31. a reference to efforts to classify space junk

Questions 32-35
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet.

The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee

The committee gives advice on how the (32)……………………of space can be achieved. The committee advises that when satellites are no longer active, any unused (33)……………….or pressurised material that could cause
(34)…………………………should be removed.

Although operators of large satellite constellations accept that they have obligations as stewards of space, Holger Krag points out that the operators that become (35)……………………are unlikely to prioritise removing their satellites from space.

Questions 36-40
Look at the following statements (Questions 36-40) and the list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

36. Knowing the exact location of space junk would help prevent any possible danger.
37. Space should be available to everyone and should be preserved for the future.
38. A recommendation regarding satellites is widely ignored.
39. There is conflicting information about where some satellites are in space.
40. There is a risk we will not be able to undo the damage that occurs in space.

List of People
A Carolin Frueh
B Holger Krag
C Marlon Sorge
D Moriba Jah

Density and Crowding

A Of the great myriad of problems which man and the world face today, there are three significant fiends which stand above all others in importance: the uprecedented population growth throughout the world a net increase of 1,400,000 people per week and all of its associations and consequences; the increasing urbanization of these people, so that more and more of them are rushing into cities and urban areas of the world; and the tremendous explosion of communication and social contact throughout the world, so that every part of the world is now aware of every other part. All of these fiends are producing increased crowding and the perception of crowding.

B It is important to emphasize at the outset that crowding and density are not necessarily the same. Density is the number of individuals per unit area or unit space. It is a simple physical measurement. Crowding is a product of density, communication, contact, and activity. It implies a pressure, a force, and a psychological reaction. It may occur at widely different densities.

The frontiersman may have felt crowded when someone built a homestead a mile away. The suburbanite may feel relatively uncrowded in a small house on a half-acre lot if it is surrounded by trees, bushes, and a hedgerow, even though he lives under much higher physical density than did the frontiersman. Hence, crowding is very much a psychological and ecological phenomenon, and not just a physical condition.

C A classic crowding study was done by Calhoun (1962), who put rats into a physical environment designed to accommodate 50 rats and provided enough food, water, and nesting materials for the number of rats in the environment. The rat population peaked at 80, providing a look at ramped living conditions. Although the rats experienced no resource limitations other than space restriction, a number of negative conditions developed: the two most dominant males took harems of several female rats and occupied more than their share of space, leaving other rats even more crowded; many females stopped building nests and abandoned their infant rats; the pregnancy rate declined; infant and adult mortality rates increased; more aggressive and physical attacks occurred; sexual variation increased, including hypersexuality, inhibited sexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.

D Calhoun’s results have led to other research on crowding’s effects on human beings, and these research findings have suggested that high density is not the single cause of negative effects on humans. When crowding is defined only in terms of spatial density (the amount of space per person), the effects of crowding are variable. However, if crowding is defined in terms of social density, or the number of people who must interact, then crowding better predicts negative psychological and physical effects.

E There are several reasons why crowding makes US feel uncomfortable. One reason is related to stimulus overload there are just too many stimuli competing for our attention. We cannot notice or respond to all of them. This feeling is typical of the harried mother, who has several children competing for her attention, while she is on the phone and the doorbell is ringing. This leaves her feeling confused, fatigued and yearning to withdraw from the situation. There are strong feelings of a lack of privacy – being unable to pay attention to what you want without being repeatedly interrupted or observed by others.

F Field studies done in a variety of settings illustrate that social density is associated with negative effects on human beings. In prison studies, males generally became more aggressive with increases in density. In male prison, inmate; living in conditions of higher densities were more likely to suffer from fight. Males rated themselves as more aggressive in small rooms (a situation of high spatial density), whilst the females rated themselves as more aggressive in large rooms (Stokols et al., 1973). These differences relate to the different personal space requirements of the genders.

Besides, Baum and Greenberg found that high density leads to decreased attraction, both physical attraction and liking towards others and it appears to have gender differences in the impact that density has on attraction levels, with males experiencing a more extreme reaction. Also, the greater the density is, the less the helping behavior. One reason why the level of helping behavior may be reduced in crowded situations links to the concept of diffusion of responsibility. The more people that are present in a situation that requires help, the less often help is given. This may be due to the fact that people diffuse responsibility among themselves with no-one feeling that they ought to be the one to help.

G Facing all these problems, what are we going to do with them? The more control a person has over the crowded environment the less negatively they experience it, thus the perceived crowding is less (Schmidt and Keating). The ability to cope with crowding is also influenced by the relationship the individual has with the other people in the situation. The high density will be interpreted less negatively if the individual experiences it with people he likes. One of the main coping strategies employed to limit the impact of high density is social withdrawal. This includes behaviors such as averting the gaze and using negative body language to attempt to block any potential intrusions.

Questions 1-7
Reading passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A -G from the list of headings below.

List of headings
i Other experiments following Calhoun’s experiment offering a clearer indication
ii The effects of crowding on people in the social scope
iii Psychological reaction to crowding
iv Problems that result in crowding
v Responsibility does not work
vi What cause the upset feel of crowding
vii Definitions of crowding and density
viii Advice for crowded work environment
ix Difference between male and females’ attractiveness in a crowd
x Nature and results of Calboun’s experiment

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G

Questions 8-13
Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Being disturbed repeatedly, the harried mother feels frustrated for the lack of (8)……………… Inmates in high density settings were more aggressive in (9)………………. The different result between male and female is associated with the varying need of (10)……………….. Especially for male, Baum and Greenberg found that (11)……………….. declined with high density. The idea of responsibility diffusion may explain a person’s reluctant to (12)…………………. Schmidt and Keating suggest that if more (13)………………… was present there would be a reduction in crowding stress.

Video Games’ Unexpected Benefit to Human Brain

James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, played his first video game years ago when his six-year-old son Sam was playing Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside. He wanted to play the game so he could support Sam’s problem solving. Though Pajama Sam is not an “educational game”, it is replete with the types of problems psychologists study when they study thinking and learning. When he saw how well the game held Sam’s attention, he wondered what sort of beast a more mature video game might be.

Video and computer games, like many other popular, entertaining and addicting kid’s activities, are looked down upon by many parents as time-wasters, and worse, parents think that these games rot the brain. Violent video games are readily blamed by the media and some experts as the reason why some youth become violent or commit extreme anti-social behavior. Recent content analyses of video games show that as many as 89% of games contain some violent content, but there is no form of aggressive content for 70% of popular games. Many scientists and psychologists, like James Paul Gee, find that video games actually have many benefits – the main one being making kids smart. Video games may actually teach kids high-level thinking skills that they will need in the future.

“Video games change your brain,” according to University of Wisconsin psychologist Shawn Green. Video games change the brain’s physical structure the same way as do learning to read, playing the piano, or navigating using a map. Much like exercise can build muscle, the powerful combination of concentration and rewarding surges of neurotransmitters like dopamine, which strengthens neural circuits, can build the player’s brain.

Video games give your child’s brain a real workout. In many video games, the skills required to win involve abstract and high level thinking. These skills are not even taught at school. Some of the mental skills trained by video games include: following instructions, problem solving, logic, hand-eye coordination, fine motor and spatial skills. Research also suggests that people can learn iconic, spatial, and visual attention skills from video games. There have been even studies with adults showing that experience with video games is related to better surgical skills. Jacob Benjamin, doctor from Beth Israel Medical Center NY, found a direct link between skill at video gaming and skill at keyhole or laparoscopic surgery. Also, a reason given by experts as to why fighter pilots of today are more skillful is that this generation’s pilots are being weaned on video games.

The players learn to manage resources that are limited, and decide the best use of resources, the same way as in real life. In strategy games, for instance, while developing a city, an unexpected surprise like an enemy might emerge. This forces the player to be flexible and quickly change tactics. Sometimes the player does this almost every second of the game giving the brain a real workout. According to researchers at the University of Rochester, led by Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive scientist, games simulating stressful events such as those found in battle or action games could be a training tool for real-world situations. The study suggests that playing action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions. Video games can be used to train soldiers and surgeons, according to the study. Steven n, author of Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture, says gamers must deal with immediate problems while keeping their long-term goals on their horizon. Young gamers force themselves to read to get instructions, follow storylines of games, and get information from the game texts.

James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that playing a video game is similar to working through a science problem Like students in a laboratory, gamers must come up with a hypothesis. For example, players in some games constantly try out combinations of weapons and powers to use to defeat an enemy. If one does not work, they change hypothesis and try the next one. Video games are goal-ven experiences, says Gee, which are fundamental to learning. Also, using math skills is important to win in many games that involve quantitative analysis like managing resources. In higher levels of a game, players usually fail the first time around, but they keep on trying until they succeed and move on to the next level.

Many games are yed online and involve cooperation with other online players in order to win. Video and computer games also help children gain self-confidence and many games are based on history, city building, and governance and so on. Such games indirectly teach children about aspects of life on earth.

In an upcoming study in the journal Current Biology, authors Daphne Bavelier, Alexandre Pouget, and C. Shawn Green report that video games could provide a potent training regimen for speeding up reactions in many types of real-life situations. The researchers tested dozens of 18- to 25-year-olds who were not ordinarily video game players. They split the subjects into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the fast-paced action video games “Call of Duty 2” and “Unreal Tournament,” and the other group played 50 hours of the slow-moving strategy game “The Sims 2.” After this training period, all of the subjects were asked to make quick decisions in several tasks designed by the researchers. The action game players were up to 25 percent faster at coming to a conclusion and answered just as many questions correctly as their strategy game playing peers.

Questions 14-17
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

14. What is the main purpose of paragraph one
A Introduction of professor James Paul Gee.
B Introduction of the video game: Pajamas Sam.
C Introduction of types of video games.
D Introduction of the background of this passage.

15. What does the author want to express in the second paragraph
A Video games are widely considered harmful for children’s brain.
B Most violent video games are the direct reason of juvenile delinquency.
C Even there is a certain proportion of violence in most video games; scientists and psychologists see its benefits of children’s intellectual abilities.
D Many parents regard video games as time-wasters, which rot children’s brain.

16. What is correctly mentioned in paragraph four
A Some schools use video games to teach students abstract and high level thinking.
B Video games improves the brain ability in various aspects.
C Some surgeons have better skills because they play more video games.
D Skillful fighter pilots in this generation love to play video games.

17. What is the expectation of the experiment the three researchers did
A Gamers have to make the best use of the limited resource.
B Gamers with better math skills will win in the end.
C Strategy game players have better ability to make quick decisions.
D Video games help increase the speed of players’ reaction effectively.

Questions 18-21
Do the following statement with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                         if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                       if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN           if there is no information on this

18. Most video games are popular because of their violent content.
19. The action game players minimized the percentage of making mistakes in the experiment.
20. It would be a good idea for schools to apply video games in their classrooms.
21. Those People who are addicted to video games have lots of dopamine in their brains.

Questions 22-26
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-F) with opinions or deeds below.

A The writer’s opinion
B James Paul Gee
C Shawn Green
D Daphne Bavelier
E Steven Johnson
F Jacob Benjamin

22. Video games as other daily life skills alter the brain’s physical structure.
23. Brain is ready to make decisions without hesitation when players are immersed in playing stressful games.
24. The purpose-motivated experience that video games offer plays an essential role in studying.
25. Players are good at tackling prompt issues with future intensions.
26. It helps children broaden their horizon in many aspects and gain self-confidence.

Inspired by Mimicking Mother Nature

A Researchers and designers around the globe endeavor to create new technologies that, by honoring the tenets of life, are both highly efficient and often environmentally friendly. And while biomimicry is not a new concept (Leonardo da Vinci looked to nature to design his flying machines, for example, and pharmaceutical companies have long been miming plant organisms in synthetic drugs), there is a greater need for products and manufacturing processes that use a minimum of energy, materials, and toxins. What’s more, due to technological advancements and a newfound spirit of innovation among designers, there are now myriad ways to mimic Mother Nature’s best assets.

B “We have a perfect storm happening right now,” says Jay Harman, an inventor and CEO of PAX Scientific, which designs fans, mixers, and pumps to achieve maximum efficiency by imitating the natural flow of fluids. “Shapes in nature are extremely simple once you understand them, but to understand what geometries are at play, and to adapt them, is a very complex process. We only just recently have had the computer power and manufacturing capability to produce these types of shapes.” “If we could capture nature’s efficiencies across the board, we could decrease dependency on fuel by at least 50 percent,” Harman says. “What we’re finding already with the tools and methodology we have right now is that we can reduce energy consumption by between 30 and 40 percent.”

C It’s only recently that mainstream companies have begun to equate biomimicry with the bottom line. DaimlerChrysler, for example, introduced a prototype car modeled on a coral reef fish. Despite its boxy, cube-shaped body, which defies a long-held aerodynamic standard in automotive design (the raindrop shape), the streamlined boxfish proved to be aerodynamically ideal and the unique construction of its skin—numerous hexagonal, bony plates—a perfect recipe for designing a car of maximum strength with minimal weight.

D Companies and communities are flocking to Janine Benyus, author of the landmark book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (Perennial, 2002) and cofounder of the Biomimicry Guild, which seats biologists at the table with researchers and designers at companies such as Nike, Interface carpets, Novell, and Procter & Gamble. Their objective is to marry industrial problems with natural solutions.

E Benyus, who hopes companies will ultimately transcend mere product design to embrace nature on a more holistic level, breaks biomimicry into three tiers. On a basic (albeit complicated) level, industry will mimic nature’s precise and efficient shapes, structures, and geometries. The microstructure of the lotus leaf, for example, causes raindrops to bead and run off immediately, while self-cleaning and drying its surface—a discovery that the British paint company Sto has exploited in a line of building paints. The layered structure of a butterfly wing or a peacock plume, which creates iridescent color by refracting light, is being mimicked by cosmetics giant L’Oreal in a soon-to-be-released line of eye shadow, lipstick, and nail varnish.

F The next level of biomimicry involves imitating natural processes and biochemical “recipes”: Engineers and scientists are now looking at the nasal glands of seabirds to solve the problem of desalination; the abalone’s ability to self-assemble its incredibly durable shell in water, using local ingredients, has inspired an alternative to the conventional, and often toxic, “heat, beat, and treat” manufacturing method. How other organisms deal with harmful bacteria can also be instructive: Researchers for the Australian company Biosignal, for instance, observed a seaweed that lives in an environment teeming with microbes to figure out how it kept free of the same sorts of bacterial colonies, called biofilms, that cause plaque on your teeth and clog up your bathroom drain. They determined that the seaweed uses natural chemicals, called furanones, that jam the cell-to-cell signaling systems that allow bacteria to communicate and gather.

G Ultimately, the most sophisticated application of biomimicry, according to Benyus, is when a company starts seeing itself as an organism in an economic ecosystem that must make thrifty use of limited resources and creates symbiotic relationships with other organisms. A boardroom approach at this level begins with imagining any given company, or collection of industries, as a forest, prairie, or coral reef, with its own “food web”(manufacturing inputs and outputs) and asking whether waste products from one manufacturing process can be used, or perhaps sold, as an ingredient for another industrial activity. For instance, Geoffrey Coates, a chemist at Cornell, has developed a biodegradable plastic synthesized from carbon dioxide and limonene (a major component in the oil extracted from citrus rind) and is working with a cement factory to trap their waste CO2 and use it as an ingredient.

H Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI), a global network of scientists, entrepreneurs, and educators, has initiated eco industrial projects that attempt to find ways to reuse all wastes as raw materials for other processes. Storm Brewing in Newfoundland, Canada—in one of a growing number of projects around the world applying ZERI principles—is using spent grains, a by-product of the beer-making process, to make bread and grow mushrooms.

As industries continue to adopt nature’s models, entire manufacturing processes could operate locally, with local ingredients like the factories that use liquefied beach sand to make windshields. As more scientists and engineers begin to embrace biomimicry, natural organisms will come to be regarded as mentors, their processes deemed masterful.

Questions 27-32
Look at the following descriptions mentioned in the reading passage. Match the three kinds of levels (A-C) listed below the descriptions. Write the appropriate letters, A-C, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

A First level: mimic nature’s precise and efficient shapes, structures, and geometries
B Second level: imitating natural processes and biochemical ‘recipes’
C Third level: creates symbiotic relationships with other like organisms

27. Synthesized Plastic, developed together with cement factory, can recycle waste gas.
28. Cosmetics companies produce a series of shine cosmetics colours
29. People are inspired how to remove excess salt inspired by nature.
30. Daimler Chrysler introduced a fish-shaped car.
31. Marine plan company integrated itself into a part in economic ecosystem
32. Natural chemicals developed based on seaweed known to kill bacteria

Questions 33-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? In boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES                          if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                            if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN         if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

33. Biomimicry is a totally new concept that has been unveiled recently.
34. Leonardo da Vinci has been the first designer to mimic nature
35. Scientists believe it involves more than mimicking the shape to capture the design in nature
36. We can save the utilisation of energy by up to 40% if we take advantage of the current findings.
37. Daimler Chrysler’s prototype car modelled on a coral reef fish is a best-seller.
38. Some great companies and communities themselves are seeking solutions beyond their own industrial scope
39. The British paint company Sto did not make the microstructure of the lotus leaf,applicable
40. a Canadian beer Company increased the production the by applying ZERI principles

Mental Gymnastics

A THE working day has just started at the head office of Barclays Bank in London. Seventeen staff are helping themselves to a buffet breakfast as young psychologist Sebastian Bailey enters the room to begin the morning’s framing session. But this is no ordinary training session. He’s not here to sharpen their finance or management skills. He’s here to exercise their brains.

B Today’s workout, organised by a company called the Mind Gym in London, is entitled “having presence”. What follows is an intense 90-minute session in which this rather abstract concept is gradually broken down into a concrete set of feelings, mental tricks and behaviours. At one point the bankers are instructed to shut then eyes and visualise themselves filling the room and then the building. They finish up by walking around the room acting out various levels of presence, from low-key to over the top.

C It’s easy to poke fun. Yet similar mental workouts are happening in corporate seminar rooms around the globe. The Mind Gym alone offers some 70 different sessions, including ones on mental stamina, creativity for logical thinkers and “zoom learning”. Other outfits draw more directly on the exercise analogy, offering “neurobics” courses with names like “brain sets” and “cerebral fitness”. Then there are books with titles like Pumping Ions, full of brainteasers that claim to “flex your mind”, and software packages offering memory and spatial- awareness games.

D But whatever the style, the companies’ sales pitch is invariably the same— follow our routines to shape and sculpt your brain or mind, just as you might tone and train your body. And, of course, they nearly all claim that their mental workouts draw on serious scientific research and thinking into how the brain works.

E One outfit, Brainergy of Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: “Because your grey matter matters”) puts it like this: “Studies have shown that mental exercise can cause changes in brain anatomy and brain chemistry which promote increased mental efficiency and clarity. The neuroscience is cutting-edge.” And on its website, Mind Gym trades on a quote from Susan Greenfield, one of Britain’s best known neuroscientists: “It’s a bit like going to the gym, if you exercise your brain it will grow.”

F Indeed, die Mind Gym originally planned to hold its sessions in a local health club, until its founders realised where the real money was to be made. Modem companies need flexible, bright thinkers and will seize on anything that claims to create them, especially if it looks like a quick fix backed by science. But are neurobic workouts really backed by science? And do we need them?

G Nor is there anything remotely high-tech about what Lawrence Katz, co- author of Keep Your Brain Alive, recommends. Katz, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical School in North Carolina, argues that just as many of US fail to get enough physical exercise, so we also lack sufficient mental stimulation to keep our brain in trim. Sine we are busy with jobs, family and housework. But most of this activity is repetitive routine. And any leisure time is spent slumped in front of the TV.

H So, read a book upside down. Write or brush your teeth with your wrong hand. Feel your way around the room with your eyes shut. Sniff vanilla essence while listening intently to orchestral music. Anything, says Katz, to break your normal mental routine. It will help invigorate your brain, encouraging its cells to make new connections and pump out neuroteophins, substances that feed and sustain brain circuits.

I Well, up to a point it will. “What I’m really talking about is brain maintenance rather than bulking up your IQ,” Katz adds. Neurobics, in other words, is about letting your brain fulfill its potential. It cannot create super-brains. Can it achieve even that much, though? Certainly the brain is an organ that can adapt to the demands placed on it. Tests on animal brain tissue, for example, have repeatedly shown that electrically stimulating the synapses that connect nerve cells thought to be crucial to learning and reasoning, makes them stronger and more responsive. Brain scans suggest we use a lot more of our grey matter when carrying out new or strange tasks than when we’re doing well-rehearsed ones. Rats raised in bright cages with toys sprout more neural connections than rats raised in bare cages— suggesting perhaps that novelty and variety could be crucial to a developing brain. Katz, And neurologists have proved time and again that people who lose brain cells suddenly during a stroke often sprout new connections to compensate for the loss—especially if they undergo extensive therapy to overcome any paralysis.

J Guy Claxton, an educational psychologist at the University of Bristol, dismisses most of the neurological approaches as “neuro-babble”. Nevertheless, there are specific mental skills we can learn, he contends. Desirable attributes such as creativity, mental flexibility, and even motivation, are not the fixed faculties that most of US think. They are thought habits that can be learned. The problem, says Claxton, is that most of US never get proper training in these skills. We develop our own private set of mental strategies for tackling tasks and never learn anything explicitly. Worse still, because any learned skill— even driving a car or brushing our teeth-quickly sinks out of consciousness, we can no longer see the very thought habits we’re relying upon. Our mental tools become invisible to US.

K Claxton is the academic adviser to the Mind Gym. So not surprisingly, the company espouses his solution-that we must return our thought patterns to a conscious level, becoming aware of the details of how we usually think. Only then can we start to practise better thought patterns, until eventually these become our new habits. Switching metaphors, picture not gym classes, but tennis or football coaching.

L In practice, the training can seem quite mundane. For example, in one of the eight different creativity workouts offered by the Mind Gym—entitled “creativity for logical thinkers” one of the mental strategies taught is to make a sensible suggestion, then immediately pose its opposite. So, asked to spend five minutes inventing a new pizza, a group soon comes up with no topping, sweet topping, cold topping, price based on time of day, flat-rate prices and so on.

M Bailey agrees that the trick is simple. But it is surprising how few such tricks people have to call upon when they are suddenly asked to be creative: “They tend to just label themselves as uncreative, not realising that there are techniques that every creative person employs.” Bailey says the aim is to introduce people to half a dozen or so such strategies in a session so that what at first seems like a dauntingly abstract mental task becomes a set of concrete, learnable behaviours. He admits this is not a short cut to genius. Neurologically, some people do start with quicker circuits or greater handling capacity. However, with the right kind of training he thinks we can dramatically increase how efficiently we use it.

N It is hard to prove that the training itself is effective. How do you measure a change in an employee’s creativity levels, or memory skills? But staff certainly report feeling that such classes have opened their eyes. So, neurological boosting or psychological training? At the moment you can pay your money and take your choice. Claxton for one believes there is no reason why schools and universities shouldn’t spend more time teaching basic thinking skills, rather than trying to stuff heads with facts and hoping that effective thought habits are somehow absorbed by osmosis.

Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage. In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write:

YES                                if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                                  if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN              if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. Mind Gym coach instructed employees to imagine that they are the building
2. Mind Gym uses the similar marketing theory that is used all round
3. Susan Greenfield is the founder of Mind Gym
4. All business and industries are using Mind Gym’s session globally
5. According to Mind Gym, extensive scientific background supports their mental training sessions

Questions 6-13
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-D) with opinions or deeds below.

A Guy Claxton
B Sebastian Bailey
C Susan Greenfield
D Lawrence Katz

6. We do not have enough inspiration to keep our brain fit.
7. The more you exercise your brain like exercise in the gym, the more brain will grow
8. Exercise can keep your brain health instead of improving someone’s IQ
9. It is valuable for schools to teach students about creative skills besides basic known knowledge
10. We can develop new neuron connections when we lose old connections via certain treatment
11. People usually mark themselves as not creative before figuring out there are approaches for each person
12. An instructor in Mind Gym who guided the employees to exercise
13. Majority of people don’t have appropriate skills-training for brain

When the Tulip Bubble Burst

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (10 cm) or as high as 28 inches (71 cm). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or sub-scapose stems that lack bracts. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The showy, generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with “blue” in the name have a faint violet hue)

A Long before anyone ever heard of Qualcomm, CMGI, Cisco Systems, or the other high-tech stocks that have soared during the current bull market, there was Semper Augustus. Both more prosaic and more sublime than any stock or bond, it was a tulip of extraordinary beauty, its midnight-blue petals topped by a band of pure white and accented with crimson flares. To denizens of 17th century Holland, little was as desirable.

B Around 1624, the Amsterdam man who owned the only dozen specimens was offered 3,000 guilders for one bulb. While there’s no accurate way to render that in today’s greenbacks, the sum was roughly equal to the annual income of a wealthy merchant. (A few years later, Rembrandt received about half that amount for painting The Night Watch.) Yet the bulb’s owner, whose name is now lost to history, nixed the offer.

C Who was crazier, the tulip lover who refused to sell for a small fortune or the one who was willing to splurge. That’s a question that springs to mind after reading Tulip mania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused by British journalist Mike Dash. In recent years, as investors have intentionally forgotten everything they learned in Investing 101 in order to load up on unproved, unprofitable dot- com issues, tulip mania has been invoked frequently. In this concise, artfully written account, Dash tells the real history behind the buzzword and in doing so, offers a cautionary tale for our times.

D The Dutch were not the first to go gaga over the tulip. Long before the first tulip bloomed in Europe-in Bavaria, it turns out, in 1559-the flower had enchanted the Persians and bewitched the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. It was in Holland, however, that the passion for tulips found its most fertile ground, for reasons that had little to do with horticulture.

E Holland in the early 17th century was embarking on its Golden Age. Resources that had just a few years earlier gone toward fighting for independence from Spain now flowed into commerce. Amsterdam merchants were at the center of the lucrative East Indies trade, where a single voyage could yield profits of 400%. They displayed their success by erecting grand estates surrounded by flower gardens. The Dutch population seemed tom by two contradictory impulses: a horror of living beyond one’s means and the love of a long shot.

F Enter the tulip. “It is impossible to comprehend the tulip mania without understanding just how different tulips were from every other flower known to horticulturists in the 17th century,” says Dash. “The colors they exhibited were more intense and more concentrated than those of ordinary plants.” Despite the outlandish prices commanded by rare bulbs, ordinary tulips were sold by the pound. Around 1630, however, a new type of tulip fancier appeared, lured by tales of fat profits. These “florists,” or professional tulip traders, sought out flower lovers and speculators alike. But if the supply of tulip buyers grew quickly, the supply of bulbs did not. The tulip was a conspirator in the supply squeeze: It takes seven years to grow one from seed. And while bulbs can produce two or three clones, or “offsets,” annually, the mother bulb only lasts a few years.

G Bulb prices rose steadily throughout the 1630s, as ever more speculators into the market. Weavers and farmers mortgaged whatever they could to raise cash to begin trading. In 1633, a farmhouse in Hoorn changed hands for three rare bulbs. By 1636 any tulip-even bulbs recently considered garbage-could be sold off, often for hundreds of guilders. A futures market for bulbs existed, and tulip traders could be found conducting their business in hundreds of Dutch taverns. Tulip mania reached its peak during the winter of 1636-37, when some bulbs were changing hands ten times in a day. The zenith came early that winter, at an auction to benefit seven orphans whose only asset was 70 fine tulips left by then father. One, a rare Violetten Admirael van Enkhuizen bulb that was about to split in two, sold for 5,200 guilders, the all-time record. All told, the flowers brought in nearly 53,000 guilders.

H Soon after, the tulip market crashed utterly, spectacularly. It began in Haarlem, at a routine bulb auction when, for the first time, the greater fool refused to show up and pay. Within days, the panic had spread across the country. Despite the efforts of traders to prop up demand, the market for tulips evaporated. Flowers that had commanded 5,000 guilders a few weeks before now fetched one-hundredth that amount. Tulip mania is not without flaws. Dash dwells too long on the tulip’s migration from Asia to Holland. But he does a service with this illuminating, accessible account of incredible financial folly.

I Tulip mania differed in one crucial aspect from the dot-com craze that grips our attention today: Even at its height, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, well- established in 1630, wouldn’t touch tulips. “The speculation in tulip bulbs always existed at the margins of Dutch economic life,” Dash writes. After the market crashed, a compromise was brokered that let most traders settle then debts for a fraction of then liability. The overall fallout on the Dutch economy was negligible. Will we say the same when Wall Street’s current obsession finally runs its course?

Questions 14-18
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I. Which paragraph contains the following information?

14. Difference between bubble burst impacts by tulip and by high-tech shares
15. Spread of tulip before 17th century
16. Indication of money offered for rare bulb in 17th century
17. Tulip was treated as money in Holland
18. Comparison made between tulip and other plants

Questions 19-23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet, write:

TRUE                          if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                        if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN             if there is no information on this

19. In 1624, all the tulip collection belonged to a man in Amsterdam.
20. Tulip was first planted in Holland according to this passage.
21. Popularity of Tulip in Holland was much higher than any other countries in 17th century.
22. Holland was the most wealthy country in the world in 17th century.
23. From 1630, Amsterdam Stock Exchange started to regulate Tulips exchange market.

Questions 24-27
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of reading passage, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

Dutch concentrated on gaining independence by (24)……………….. against Spain in the early 17th century; consequently spare resources entered the area of (25)……………… . Prosperous traders demonstrated their status by building great (26)………………… and with gardens in surroundings. Attracted by the success of profit on tulip, traders kept looking for (27)……………… and speculator for sale.

Origin of Species & Continent Formation

A THE FACT THAT there was once a Pangean supercontinent, a Panthalassa Ocean, and a Tethys Ocean, has profound implications for the evolution of multicellular life on Earth. These considerations were unknown to the scientists of the 19th century – making their scientific deductions even more remarkable. Quite independently of each other, Charles Darwin and his young contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace reached the conclusion that life had evolved by natural selection. Wallace later wrote in My Life of his own inspiration:

B Why do some species die and some life? The answer was clearly that on the whole the best fitted lived. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies the strongest, the swiftest or the most cunning from famine the best hunters – then it suddenly flashed on me that this self-acting process would improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain, that is, the fittest would survive.

C Both Darwin’s and Wallace’s ideas about natural selection had been influenced by the essays of Thomas Malthus in his Principles of Population. Their conclusion, however, had been the direct result of their personal observation of animals and plants in widely separated geographic locations: Darwin from his experiences during the voyage of the Beagle, and particularly during the ship’s visit to the Galapagos Islands in the East Pacific in 1835; Wallace during his years of travel in the Amazon Basin and in the Indonesia-Australian Archipelago in the 1850s.

D Darwin had been documenting his ideas on natural selection for many years when he received a paper on this selfsame subject from Wallace, who asked for Darwin’s opinion and help in getting it published. In July 1858, Charles Lyell and J. D Hooker, close friends of Darwin, pressed Darwin to present his conclusions so that he would not lose priority to an unknown naturalist. Presiding over the hastily called but now historic meeting of the Linnean Society in London, Lyell and Hooker explained to the distinguished members how “these two gentlemen” (who were absent: Wallace was abroad and Darwin chose not to attend), had “independently and unknown to one another, conceived the same very ingenious theory,”

E Both Darwin and Wallace had realized that the anomalous distribution of species in particular regions had profound evolutionary significance. Subsequently, Darwin spent the rest of his days in almost total seclusion thinking and writing mainly about the origin of species. In contrast, Wallace applied himself to the science of biogeography, the study of the pattern and distribution of species, and its significance, resulting in the publication of a massive two-volume work the Geographical Distribution of Animals in 1876.

F Wallace was a gentle and modest man, but also persistent and quietly courageous. He spent years working in the most arduous possible climates and terrains, particularly in the Malay archipelago, he made patient and detailed zoological observations and collected a huge number of specimens for museums and collectors-which is how he made a living. One result of his work was the conclusion that there is a distinct faunal boundary, called “Wallace’s line,” between an Asian realm of animals in Java, Bronco and the Philipiones and an Australian realm in New Guinea and Australia. In essence, this boundary posed a difficult question: How on Earth did plants and animals with a clear affinity to the Northern Hemisphere meet with their Southern Hemispheric counterparts along such a distinct Malaysian demarcation zone? Wallace was uncertain about demarcation on one particular island-Celebes, a curiously shaped place that is midway between the two groups. Initially, he assigned its flora-fauna to the Australian side of the line, but later he transferred it to the Asian side. Today we know the reason for his dilemma. 200MYA East and West Celebes were islands with their own natural history lying on opposite sides of the Tethys Ocean. They did not collide until about 15 MYA. The answer to the main question is that Wallace’s Line categorizes Laurasia-derived flora-fauna (the Asian) and Gondwana-derived flora-fauna (the Australian), fauna that had evolved on opposing shares of the Tethys. The closure of the Tethys Ocean today is manifested by the ongoing collision of Australia/New Guinea with Indochina/Indonesia and the continuing closure of the Mediterranean Sea – a remnant of the Western Tethys Ocean.

G IN HIS ORIGIN OF CONTINENTS AND OCEANS, Wegener quoted at length from Wallace’s Geographical Distribution of Animals. According to Wegener’s reading, Wallace had identified three clear divisions of Australian animals, which supported his own theory of continental displacement. Wallace had shown that animals long established in southwestern Australia had an affinity with animals in South Africa, Madagascar, India, and Ceylon, but did not have an affinity with those in Asia. Wallace also showed that Australian marsupials and monotremes are clearly related to those in South America, the Moluccas, and various Pacific islands and that none are found in neighboring Indonesia. From this and related data, Wegener concluded that the then broadly accepted “landbridge” theory could not account for this distribution of animals and that only this theory of continental drift could explain it.

H The theory that Wegener dismissed in preference to his own proposed that plants and animals had once migrated across now-submerged intercontinental landbridges. In 1885, one of Europe’s leading geologists, Eduard Suess, theorized that as the rigid Earth cools, its upper-crust shrinks and wrinkles like the withering skin of an aging apple. He suggested that the planet’s seas and oceans now fill the wrinkles between once-contiguous plateaus.

I Today, we know that we live on a dynamic Earth with shifting, colliding and separating tectonic plates, not a “withering skin”, and the main debate in the field of biogeography has shifted. The discussion now concerns “dispersalism” versus “vicarianism”: unrestricted radiation of species on the one hand and the development of barriers to migration on the other. Dispersion is a short-term phenomenon – the daily or seasonal migration of species and their radiation to the limits of their natural environment on an extensive and continuous landmass. Vicarian evolution, however, depends upon the separation and isolation of a variety of species within the confines of natural barriers in the form of islands, lakes, or shallow seas – topographical features that take a long time to develop.

Questions 28-32
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-E) with opinions or deeds below.

A Suess
B Wallace
C Darwin and Wallace
D Wegener
E Lyell and Hooker

28. urged Darwin to publish his scientific findings
29. Depicted physical feature of earth’s crust.
30. believed in continental drift theory while rejecting another one
31. Published works about wildlife distribution in a different region.
32. Evolution of species is based on selection by nature.

Questions 33-35
The reading passage has nine paragraphs A-I. Which paragraph contains the following information?

33. Best adaptable animal survived on the planet.
34. Boundary called Wallace’s line found between Asia and Australia.
35. Animal relevance exists between Australia and Africa.

Questions 36-40
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of reading passage. Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

Wegener found that continental drift instead of “land bridge” theory could explain strange species’ distribution phenomenon. In his theory, vegetation and wildlife (36)……………… intercontinentally. However, Eduard Suess compared the wrinkle of crust to (37)……………… of an old apple. Now it is well known that we are living on the planet where there are (38)……………… in constant mobile states instead of what Suess described. Hot spot in biogeography is switched to concerns between two-terms: “(39)………………… ” and “(40)…………….”

Bird Migration

A Birds have many unique design features that enable them to perform such amazing feats of endurance. They are equipped with lightweight, hollow bones, intricately designed feathers providing both lift and thrust for rapid flight, navigation systems superior to any that man has developed, and an ingenious heat conserving design that, among other things, concentrates all blood circulation beneath layers of warm, waterproof plumage, leaving them fit to face life in the harshest of climates. Their respiratory systems have to perform efficiently during sustained flights at altitude, so they have a system of extracting oxygen from their lungs that far exceeds that of any other animal. During the later stages of the summer breeding season, when food is plentiful, their bodies can accumulate considerable layers of fat, to provide sufficient energy for their long migratory flights.

B The fundamental reason that birds migrate is to find adequate food during the winter months when it is in short supply. This particularly applies to birds that breed in the temperate and Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where food is abundant during the short growing season. Many species can tolerate cold temperatures if food is plentiful, but when food is not available, they must migrate. However, intriguing questions remain.

C One puzzling fact is that many birds journey much further than would be necessary just to find food and good weather. Nobody knows, for instance, why British swallows, which could presumably survive equally well if they spent the winter in equatorial Africa, instead of fly several thousands of miles further to their preferred winter home in South Africa’s Cape Province. Another mystery involves the huge migrations performed by arctic terns and mudflat-feeding shorebirds that breed close to Polar Regions. In general, the further north a migrant species breeds, the further south it spends the winter. For arctic terns, this necessitates an annual round trip of 25,000 miles. Yet, en route to their final destination in far-flung southern latitudes, all these individuals overfly other areas of seemingly suitable habitat spanning two hemispheres. While we may not fully understand birds’ reasons for going to particular places, we can marvel at their feats.

D One of the greatest mysteries is how young birds know how to find the traditional wintering areas without parental guidance. Very few adults migrate with juveniles in tow, and youngsters may even have little or no inkling of their parents’ appearance. A familiar example is that of the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in another species’ nest and never reencounters its young. It is mind-boggling to consider that, once raised by its host species, the young cuckoo makes its way to ancestral wintering grounds in the tropics before returning single-handedly to northern Europe the next season to seek out a mate among its kind. The obvious implication is that it inherits from its parents an inbuilt route map and direction-finding capability, as well as a mental image of what another cuckoo looks like. Yet nobody has the slightest idea as to how this is possible.

E Mounting evidence has confirmed that birds use the positions of the sun and stars to obtain compass directions. They also seem to be able to detect the earth’s magnetic field, probably due to having minute crystals of magnetite in the region of their brains. However, accurate navigation also requires an awareness of position and time, especially when lost. Experiments have shown that after being taken thousands of miles over an unfamiliar landmass, birds are still capable of returning rapidly to nest sites. Such phenomenal powers are the product of computing several sophisticated cues, including an inborn map of the night sky and the pull of the earth’s magnetic field. How the birds use their ‘instruments’ remains unknown, but one thing is clear: they see the world with a superior sensory perception to ours. Most small birds migrate at night and take their direction from the position of the setting sun. However, as well as seeing the sun go down, they also seem to see the plane of polarized light caused by it, which calibrates their compass. Travelling at night provides other benefits. Daytime predators are avoided and the danger of dehydration due to flying for long periods in warm, sunlit skies is reduced. Furthermore, at night the air is generally cool and less turbulent and so conducive to sustained, stable flight.

F Nevertheless, all journeys involve considerable risk, and part of the skill in arriving safely is setting off at the right time. This means accurate weather forecasting and utilizing favourable winds. Birds are adept at both, and, in laboratory tests, some have been shown to detect the minute difference in barometric pressure between the floor and ceiling of a room. Often birds react to weather changes before there is any visible sign of them. Lapwings, which feed on grassland, flee west from the Netherlands to the British Isles, France, and Spain at the onset of a cold snap. When the ground surface freezes, the birds could starve. Yet they return to Holland ahead of a thaw, their arrival linked to a pressure change presaging an improvement in the weather.

G In one instance a Welsh Manx shearwater carried to America and released was back in its burrow on Skokholm Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast, one day before a letter announcing its release! Conversely, each autumn a small number of North American birds are blown across the Atlantic by fast-moving westerly tailwinds. Not only do they arrive safely in Europe, but, based on ringing evidence, some make it back to North America the following spring, after probably spending the winter with European migrants in sunny African climes.

Questions 1-7
Reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

List of headings
i The best moment to migrate
ii The unexplained rejection of closer feeding ground
iii The influence of weather on the migration route
iv Physical characteristics that allow birds to migrate
v The main reason why birds migrate
vi The best wintering grounds for birds
vii Research findings on how birds migrate
viii Successful migration despite the trouble of wind
ix The contrast between long-distance migration and short-distance migration
x Mysterious migration despite lack of teaching

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G

Questions 8-9
Choose TWO letters, A-E. Write the correct letters in your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are true of bird migration?

A Birds often fly further than they need to
B Birds traveling in family groups are safe
C Birds flying at night need less wate
D Birds have much sharper eyesight than humans
E Only shorebirds are resistant to strong winds

Question 10-13
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN ONE WORD OR NUMBER from the passage.

It is a great mystery that young birds like cuckoos can find their wintering grounds without (10)…………….. Evidence shows birds can tell directions like a (11)……………… by observing the sun and the stars. One advantage for birds flying at night is that they can avoid contact with (12)…………………. Laboratory tests show that birds can detect weather without (13)…………………. signs.

Food for thought

A There are not enough classrooms at the Msekeni primary school, so half the lessons take place in the shade of yellow-blossomed acacia trees. Given this shortage, it might seem odd that one of the school’s purpose-built classrooms has been emptied of pupils and turned into a storeroom for sacks of grain. But it makes sense. Food matters more than shelter.

B Msekeni is in one of the poorer parts of Malawi, a landlocked southern African country of exceptional beauty and great poverty. No war lays waste Malawi, nor is the land unusually crowed or infertile, but Malawians still have trouble finding enough to eat. Half of the children under five are underfed to the point of stunting. Hunger blights most aspects of Malawian life, so the country is as good a place as any to investigate how nutrition affects development, and vice versa.

C The headmaster at Msekeni, Bernard Kumanda, has strong views on the subject. He thinks food is a priceless teaching aid. Since 1999, his pupils have received free school lunches. Donors such as the World Food Programme (WFP) provide the food: those sacks of grain (mostly mixed maize and soya bean flour, enriched with vitamin A) in that converted classroom. Local volunteers do the cooking – turning the dry ingredients into a bland but nutritious slop and spooning it out on to plastic plates. The children line up in large crowds, cheerfully singing a song called “We are getting porridge”.

D When the school’s feeding programme was introduced, enrolment at Msekeni doubled. Some of the new pupils had switched from nearby schools that did not give out free porridge, but most were children whose families had previously kept them at home to work. These families were so poor that the long-term benefits of education seemed unattractive when setting against the short-term gain of sending children out to gather firewood or help in the fields. One plate of porridge a day completely altered the calculation. A child fed at school will not howl so plaintively for food at home. Girls, who are more likely than boys to be kept out of school, are given extra snacks to take home.

E When a school takes in a horde of extra students from the poorest homes, you would expect standards to drop. Anywhere in the world, poor kids tend to perform worse than their better-off classmates. When the influx of new pupils is not accompanied by an increase in the number of teachers, as was the case at Msekeni, you would expect standards to fall even further. But they have not. Pass rates at Msekeni improved dramatically, from 30% to 85%. Although this was an exceptional example, the nationwide results of school feeding programmes were still pretty good. On average, after a Malawian school started handing out free food it attracted 38% more girls and 24% more boys. The pass rate for boys stayed about the same, while for girls it improved by 9.5%.

F Better nutrition makes for brighter children. Most immediately, well-fed children find it easier to concentrate. It is hard to focus the mind on long division when your stomach is screaming for food. Mr Kumanda says that it used to be easy to spot the kids who were really undernourished. “They were the ones who stared into space and didn’t respond when you asked the question,” he says. More crucially, though, more and better food helps brains grow and develop. Like any other organ in the body, the brain needs nutrition and exercise. But if it is starved of the necessary calories, proteins and micronutrients, it is stunted, perhaps not as severely as a muscle would be, but stunted nonetheless. That is why feeding children at schools work so well. And the fact that the effect of feeding was more pronounced in girls than in boys gives a clue to who eats first in rural Malawian households. It isn’t the girls.

G On a global scale, the good news is that people are eating better than ever before. Homo sapiens has grown 50% bigger since the industrial revolution. Three centuries ago, chronic malnutrition was more or less universal. Now, it is extremely rare in rich countries. In developing countries, where most people live, plates and rice bowls are also fuller than ever before. The proportion of children under five in the developing world who are malnourished to the point of stunting fell from 39% in 1990 to 30% in 2000, says the World Health Organisation (WHO). In other places, the battle against hunger is steadily being won. Better nutrition is making people cleverer and more energetic, which will help them grow more prosperous. And when they eventually join the ranks of the well off, they can start fretting about growing too fast.

Questions 14-20
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list below. Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Why better food helps students’ learning
ii A song for getting porridge
iii Surprising use of school premises
iv Global perspective
v Brains can be starved
vi Surprising academics outcome
vii Girls are specially treated in the program
viii How food program is operated
ix How food program affects school attendance
x None of the usual reasons
xi How to maintain an academic standard

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G

Questions 21-24
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage?

(21)………………….. are exclusively offered to girls in the feeding programme. Instead of going to school, many children in poverty are sent to collect (22)………………… in the fields. The pass rate as Msekeni has risen to (23)………………… with the help of the feeding programme. Since the industrial revolution, the size of the modern human has grown by (24)………………….

Questions 25-26
Choose TWO letters, A-F Write your answers in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are true?

A Some children are taught in the open air
B Malawi has trouble to feed its large population
C No new staffs were recruited when attendance rose
D Girls enjoy a higher status than boys in the family
E Boys and girls experience the same improvement in the pass rate
F WHO has cooperated with WFP to provide grain to the school at Msekeni

The Persuaders

A We have long lived in an age where powerful images, catchy soundbites and too-good-to miss offers to bombard us from every quarter. All around us the persuaders are at work. Occasionally their methods are unsubtle –the planting kiss on a baby’s head by a wannabe political leader, or a liquidation sale in a shop that has been “closing down” for well over a year, but generally the persuaders know what they are about and are highly capable. Be they politicians, supermarket chains, salespeople or advertisers, they know exactly what to do to sell us their images, ideas or produce. When it comes to persuasion, these giants rule supreme. They employ the most skilled image-makers and use the best psychological tricks to guarantee that even the most cautious among us are open to manipulation.

B We spend more time in them than we mean to, we buy 75 percent of our food from them and end up with products that we did not realize we wanted. Right from the start, supermarkets have been ahead of the game. For example, when Sainsbury introduced shopping baskets into its 1950s stores, it was a stroke of marketing genius. Now shoppers could browse and pick up items they previously would have ignored. Soon after came trolleys, and just as new roads attract more traffic, the same applied to trolley space. Pro Merlin Stone, IBM Professor of Relationship Marketing at Bristol Business School, says aisles are laid out to maximize profits. Stores pander to our money-rich, time-poor lifestyle. Low turnover products —clothes and electrical goods—are stocked at the back while high—turnover items command position at the front.

C Stone believes supermarkets work hard to “stall” us because the more time we spend in them, the more we buy. Thus, great efforts are made to make the environment pleasant. Stores play music to relax us and some even pipe air from the in-store bakery around the shop. In the USA, fake aromas are sometimes used. The smell is both the most evocative and subliminal sense. In experiments, pleasant smells are effective in increasing our spending. A casino that fragranced only half its premise saw profit soar in the aroma—filled areas. The other success story from the supermarkets’ perspective is the loyalty card. Punters may assume that they are being rewarded for their fidelity, but all the while they are trading information about their shopping habits. Loyal shoppers could be paying 30% more by sticking to their favourite shops for essential cosmetics.

D Research has shown that 75 percent of profit comes from just 30 percent of customers. Ultimately, reward cards could be used to identify and better accommodate these “elite” shoppers. It could also be used to make adverts more relevant to individual consumers – rather like Spielberg’s futuristic thriller Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise’s character is bombarded with interactive personalized ads. If this sounds far-fetched, the data-gathering revolution has already seen the introduction of radio – frequency identification – away to electronically tag products to see who is buying what, FRID means they can follow the product into people homes.

E No matter how savvy we think we are to their ploys, the ad industry still wins. Adverts focus on what products do or on how they make us feel. Researcher Laurette Dube, in the Journal of Advertising Research, says when attitudes are base on “cognitive foundations” (logical reasoning), advertisers use informative appeals. This works for products with a little emotional draw but high functionality, such as bleach. Where attitude is based on effect (i.e, emotions), ad teams try to tap into our feelings. Researchers at the University of Florida recently concluded that our emotional responses to adverts dominate over “cognition”.

F Advertisers play on our need to be safe (commercials for insurance), to belong (make a customer feel they are in the group in fashion ads) and for self – esteem (aspirational adverts). With time and space at a premium, celebrities are often used as a quick way of meeting these needs – either because the celeb epitomizes success or because they seem familiar and so make the product seem “safe”. A survey of 4,000 campaigns found ads with celebs were 10 percent more effective than without. Humor also stimulates a rapid emotional response. Heiman Chung, writing in the International Journal of Advertising, found that funny ads were remembered for longer than straight ones. Combine humor with sexual imagery – as in Wonderbra’s “Hello Boys” ads—and you are on to a winner.

G Slice-of-life ads are another tried and tested method—they paint a picture of life as you would like it, but still, one that feels familiar. Abhilasha Mehta, in the Journal of Advertising Research, noted that the more one’s self-image tallies with the brand being advertised, the stronger the commercial. Ad makers also use behaviorist theories, recognizing that the more sensation we receive from an object, the better we know it. If an advert for a chocolate bar fails to cause salivation, it has probably failed. No wonder advertisements have been dubbed the “nervous system of the business world”.

H Probably all of us could make a sale if the product was something we truly believed in, but professional salespeople are in a different league—the best of them can always sell different items to suitable customers in the best time. They do this by using very basic psychological techniques. Stripped to its simplest level, selling works by heightening the buyer’s perception of how much they need a product or service. Buyers normally have certain requirements by which they will judge the suitability of a product. The seller, therefore, attempts to tease out what these conditions are and then explains how their products’ benefit can meet these requirements.

I Richard Hession, author of Be a Great Salesperson says it is human nature to prefer to speak rather listen, and good salespeople pander to this. They ask punters about their needs and offer to work with them to achieve their objectives. As a result, the buyer feels they are receiving a “consultation” rather than a sales pitch. All the while, the salesperson presents with a demeanour that takes it for granted that the sale will be made. Never will the words “if you buy” be used, but rather “when you buy”.

J Dr Rob Yeung, a senior consultant at business psychologists Kiddy and Partner, says most salespeople will build up a level of rapport by asking questions about hobbies, family and lifestyle. This has the double benefit of making the salesperson likeable while furnishing him or her with more information about the client’s wants. Yeung says effective salespeople try as far as possible to match their style of presenting themselves to how the buyer comes across. If the buyer cracks jokes, the salespeople will respond in kind. If the buyer wants detail, the seller provides it, if they are more interested in the feel of the product, the seller will focus on this. At its most extreme, appearing empathetic can even include the salesperson attempting to “mirror” the hobby language of the buyer.

K Whatever the method used, all salespeople work towards one aim: “closing the deal”. In fact, they will be looking for “closing signals” through their dealings with potential clients. Once again the process works by assuming success. The buyer is not asked “are you interested?” as this can invite a negative response. Instead, the seller takes it for granted that the deal is effectively done: when the salesman asks you for a convenient delivery date or asks what color you want, you will probably respond accordingly. Only afterwards might you wonder why you proved such a pushover.

Questions 27-29
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

27. What is the supermarket’s purpose of using “basket” in paragraph B?
A Create a convenient atmosphere of supermarket
B Make customers spend more time on shopping
C Relieve pressure on the supermarket’s traffic
D More than half items bought need to be carried

28. What is the quality of the best salesman possessed according to this passage?
A Sell the right product to the right person
B Clearly state the instruction of one product
C Show professional background of one product
D Persuade customers to buy the product they sell

29. What’s the opinion of Richard Hession?
A Pretend to be nice instead of selling goods
B Prefer to speak a lot to customers
C Help buyers to conclude their demands for ideal items
D Show great interpersonal skill

Questions 30-35
Reading passage has 7 paragraphs A-K. which paragraph contains the following information? Write your answers in boxes 30-35 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

30. how do supermarkets distract consumers
31. how to build a close relationship between salespeople and buyer
32. people would be impressed by the humor advertisement
33. methods for salespeople to get the order
34. how question work for salespeople
35. different customer groups bring different profits

Questions 36-40
Complete the notes below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Trolleys are born for the increasing traffic in the supermarket. The width of (36)……………… in supermarkets is broadened in order to generate the most profits. Research from (37)……………… , satisfying aromas can motivate people to buy more products. Except for the effort of creating a comfortable surrounding, (38)………………. is another card that supermarkets play to reward their regular customers. For example, loyal customers spend 30% more in their loved shops for everyday necessary (39)………………. . Clothes shops use advertisements to make the buyer think they are belonging to part of a (40)………………… ; research from 4,000 campaigns reflect that humor advertisement received more emotional respect.

Plain English Campaign

A We launched Plain English Campaign in 1979 with a ritual shredding of appalling government and municipal council forms in Parliament Square, London. We had become so fed up of people visiting our advice centre in Salford, Greater Manchester, to complain about incomprehensible forms that we thought we ought to take action. At the time the shredding seemed like merely throwing sand in the eyes of the charging lion, but it briefly caught the public imagination and left an impression on government and business. Although we’re pleased with the new plain English awareness in government departments, many local councils and businesses maintain a stout resistance to change. One council began a letter to its tenants about a rent increase with two sentences averaging 95 words, full of bizarre housing finance jargon and waffle about Acts of Parliament. The London Borough of Ealing sent such an incomprehensible letter to ISO residents that 40 of them wrote or telephoned to complain and ask for clarification. Many were upset and frightened that the council was planning to imprison them if they didn’t fill in the accompanying form. In fact, the letter meant nothing of the sort, and the council had to send another letter to explain.

B Plain legal English can be used as a marketing tactic. Provincial Insurance issued their plain English Home Cover policy in 1983 and sold it heavily as such. In the first 18 months, its sales rocketed, drawing in about an extra £1.5 million of business. Recently, the Eagle Star Group launched a plain English policy to a chorus of congratulatory letters from policyholders. People, it seems, prefer to buy a policy they can understand.

C Two kinds of instructions give us a lot of concern – medical labels and do-it-yourself products. With medical labels, there is a serious gap between what the professionals think is clear and what is really clear to patients. A survey by pharmacists Raynor and Sillito found that 31% of patients misunderstood the instruction on eye drops ‘To be instilled’, while 33% misunderstood ‘Use sparingly’. The instruction ‘Take two tablets 4 hourly’ is so prone to misunderstanding (for example, as 8 tablets an hour) that we think it should be banned. Unclear instructions on do-it-yourself products cause expense and frustration to customers. Writing the necessary instructions for these products is usually entrusted to someone who knows the product inside out, yet the best qualification for writing instructions is ignorance. The writer is then like a first-time user, discovering how to use the product in a step-by-step way. Instructions never seem to be tested with first-time users before being issued. So vital steps are missed out or components are mislabeled or not labelled at all. For example, the instructions for assembling a sliding door gear say: ‘The pendant bolt centres are fixed and should be at an equal distance from the centre of the door.’ This neglects to explain who should do the fixing and how the bolt centres will get into the correct position. By using an imperative and an active verb the instruction becomes much clearer: ‘Make sure you fix the centres of the pendant bolts at an equal distance from the centre of the door.’

D Effectively, the Plain English movement in the US began with President Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12044 of 23 March 1978, that required regulations to be written in plain language. There were earlier government efforts to inform consumers about their rights and obligations, such as the Truth in Lending Act (1969) and the Fair Credit Billing Act (1975), which emphasized a body of information that consumers need in simple language. But President Carter’s executive order gave the prestige and force of a president to the movement. All over the country isolated revolts or efforts against legalistic gobbledygook at the federal, state and corporate levels seemed to grow into a small revolution. These efforts and advances between the years 1978 and 1985 are described in the panel ‘The Plain English Scorecard’.

E The Bastille has not fallen yet. The forces of resistance are strong, as one can see from the case of Pennsylvania as cited in the Scorecard. In addition, President Ronald Reagan’s executive order of 19 February 1981, revoking President Carter’s earlier executive order, has definitely slowed the pace of plain English legislation in the United States. There are there main objections to the idea of plain English. They are given below, with the campaign’s answer to them:

F The statute would cause unending litigation and clog the courts. Simply not true in all the ten states with plain English laws for consumer contracts and the 34 states with laws or regulations for insurance policies. Since 1978 when plain English law went into effect in New York there have been only four litigations and only two decisions. Massachusetts had zero cases. The cost of compliance would be enormous. Translation of legal contracts into non-legal everyday language would be a waster of time and money. The experience of several corporations has proved that the cost of compliance is often outweighed by solid benefits and litigation savings. Citibank of New York made history in 1975 by introducing a simplified promissory note and afterwards simplified all their forms. Citibank counsel Carl Falsenfield says: ‘We have lost no money and there has been no litigation as a result of simplification.’ The cost-effectiveness of clarity is demonstrable. A satisfied customer more readily signs on the bottom line and thus contributes to the corporation’s bottom line. Some documents simply can’t be simplified. The only legal language that has been tested for centuries in the courts is precise enough to deal with a mortgage, a deed, a lease, or an insurance policy. Here, too, the experience of several corporations and insurance companies has proved that contracts and policies can be made more understandable without sacrificing legal effectiveness.

G What does the future hold for the Plain English movement? Today, American consumers are buffeted by an assortment of pressures. Never before have consumers had as many choices in areas like financial services, travel, telephone services, and supermarket products. There are about 300 long-distance phone companies in the US. Not long ago, the average supermarket carried 9,000 items; today, it carries 22,000. More importantly, this expansion of options – according to a recent report – is faced by a staggering 30 million Americans lacking the reading skills to handle the minimal demands of daily living. The consumer’s need, therefore, for information expressed in plain English is more critical than ever.

H What is needed today is not a brake on the movement’s momentum but another push toward plain English contracts from consumers. I still hear plain English on the TV and in the streets, and read plain English in popular magazines and best-sellers, but not yet in many functional documents. Despite some victories, the was against gobbledygook is not over yet. We do well to remember, the warning of Chrissie Maher, organizer of Plain English Campaign in the UK: ‘People are not just injured when medical labels are written in gobbledygook – they die. Drivers are not just hurt when their medicines don’t tell them they could fall asleep at the wheel – they are killed.’

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                   if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                  if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN         if there is no information on this

1. In marketing area, the spread of Plain English can generate economic benefit.
2. Because doctors tend to use jargon when they talk with patients, thereafter many patients usually get confused with medicine dose.
3. After successive election over U.S president Jimmy Carter, the effect of Plain English Campaign is less distinctive than that of the previous one.
4. The Plain English campaigner has a problem of talking with the officials.
5. Work check is made regularly by the judge in the court scenario.
6. Compared with the situation of the past, consumers are now facing less intensity of label reading pressure in a supermarket in America.

Questions 7-14
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of reading passage. Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

Campaigners experienced a council renting document full of strange (7)…………… of housing in terms of an Act. They are anxious in some other field, for instance, when reading a label of medicine, there was an obvious (8)……………. for patients. Another notable field was on (9)……………… products, it not only additionally cost buyers but caused (10)…………….., thus writer should regard himself as a (11)…………….. However, oppositions against the Plain English Campaign under certain circumstances, e.g. (12)………………language had been embellished as an accurate language used in the (13)……………..The author suggested that nowadays new compelling force is needed from (14)……………………

Photovoltaics on the rooftop

A In the past, urban homeowners have not always had much choice in the way electricity is supplied to their homes. Now, however, there is a choice, and a rapidly increasing number of households worldwide are choosing the solar energy option. Solar energy, the conversion of sunlight into energy, is made possible through the use of ‘photovoltaics’, which are simple appliances that fit onto the roof of a house.

B The photovoltaics-powered home remains connected to the power lines, but no storage is required on-site, only a box of electronics (the inverter) to the interface between the photovoltaics and the grid network. Figure 1 illustrates the system. During the day, when the home may not be using much electricity, excess power from the solar array is fed back to the grid, to factories and offices that need daytime power. At night, power flows the opposite way. The grid network effectively provides storage. If the demand for electricity is well matched to when the sun shines, solar energy is especially valuable. This occurs in places like California in the US and Japan, where air-conditioning loads for offices and factories are large but heating loads for homes are small.

C The first systematic exploration of the use of photovoltaics on homes began in the US during the 1970s. A well-conceived program started with the sitting of a number of residential experiment stations’ at selected locations around the country, representing different climatic zones. These stations contained a number of ‘dummy’ houses, each with different solar-energy system design. Homes within the communities close to these stations were monitored to see how well their energy use matched the energy generated by the stations’ dummy roofs. A change in US government priorities in the early 1980s halted this program.

D With the US effort dropping away, the Japanese Sunshine Project came to the fore. A large residential test station was installed on Rokko Island beginning in 1986. This installation consists of 18 ‘dummy’ homes. Each equipped with its own 2-5 kilowatt photovoltaic system (about 20 – 50 square meters for each system). Some of these simulated homes have their own electrical appliances inside, such as TV sets, refrigerators and air conditioning units, which switch on and off under computer control providing a lavish lifestyle for the non-existent occupants. For the other systems, electronics simulate these household loads. This test station has allowed being explored in a systematic way, under well-controlled test conditions. With no insurmountable problems identified, the Japanese have used the experience gained from this station to begin their own massive residential photovoltaics campaign.

E Meanwhile, Germany began a very important ‘1,000 roof program’ in 1990, aimed at installing photovoltaics on the roofs of 1,000 private homes. Large federal and regional government subsidies were involved, accounting in most cases for 70% of the total system costs. The program proved immensely popular, forcing its extension to over 2,000 homes scattered across Germany. The success of this program stimulated other European countries to launch a similar program.

F Japan’s ‘one million roof program’ was prompted by the experience gained in the Rokko Island test site and the success of the German 1,000 roof program. The initially quoted aims of the Japanese New Energy Development Organization were to have 70,000 homes equipped with the photovoltaics by the year 2000, on the way to 1 million by 2010. The program made a modest start in 1994 when 539 systems were installed with a government subsidy of 50 percent. Under this program, entire new suburban developments are using photovoltaics.

G This is good news, not only for the photovoltaic industry but for everyone concerned with the environment. The use of fossil fuels to generate electricity is not only costly in financial terms, but also in terms of environmental damage. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels in the production of electricity are a major contributor to the greenhouse effect. To deal with this problem, many governments are now proposing stringent targets on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions permitted. These targets mean that all sources of greenhouse gas emissions including residential electricity use will receive closer attention in the future.

H It is likely that in the future, governments will develop building codes that attempt to constrain the energy demands of new housing. For example, the use of photovoltaics or the equivalent may be stipulated to lessen demands on the grid network and hence reduce fossil fuel emissions. Approvals for building renovations may also be conditional upon taking such energy-saving measures. If this were to happen, everyone would benefit. Although there is an initial cost in attaching the system to the rooftop, the householder’s outlay is soon compensated with the savings on energy bills. In addition, everyone living on the planet stands to gain from the more benign environmental impact.

Questions 15-20
The Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

15. examples of countries where electricity use is greater during the day than at night
16. a detailed description of an experiment that led to photovoltaics being promoted throughout the country
17. the negative effects of using conventional means of generating electricity
18. an explanation of the photovoltaic system.
19. the long-term benefits of using photovoltaics
20. a large campaign inspired by a country’s successful example

Questions 21-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 21-27 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                      if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                     if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN           if there is no information on this

21. Photovoltaics are used to store electricity.
22.Since the 1970s, the US government has provided continuous support for the use of photovoltaics on homes.
23. The solar-powered house on Rokko Island is uninhabited.
24. In 1994, the Japanese government was providing half the money required for installing photovoltaics on homes.
25. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia all have strict goals with regard to greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Residential electricity use is the major source of greenhouse gas emission.
27. Energy-saving measures must now be included in the design of all new homes and improvements to buildings.

Water Filter

A An ingenious invention is set to bring clean water to the third world, and while the science may be cutting edge, the materials are extremely down to earth. A handful of clay yesterday’s coffee grounds and some cow manure are the ingredients that could bring clean, safe drinking water to much of the third world.

B The simple new technology, developed by ANU materials scientist Mr. Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using cow manure as the source of heat, without the need for a kiln. The filters have been tested and shown to remove common pathogens (disease-producing organisms) including E-coli. Unlike other water filtering devices, the filters are simple and inexpensive to make. “They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere,” says Mr. Flynn. “They don’t require any western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, a compliant cow and a match.”

C The production of the filters is extremely simple. Take a handful of dry, crushed clay, mix it with a handful of organic material, such as used tea leaves, coffee grounds or rice hulls, add enough water to make a stiff biscuit-like mixture and form a cylindrical pot that has one end closed, then dry it in the sun. According to Mr. Flynn, used coffee grounds have given the best results to date. Next, surround the pots with straw; put them in a mound of cow manure, light the straw and then top up the burning manure as required. In less than 60 minutes the filters are finished. The walls of the finished pot should be about as thick as an adult’s index. The properties of cow manure are vital as the fuel can reach a temperature of 700 degrees in half an hour and will be up to 950 degrees after another 20 to 30 minutes. The manure makes a good fuel because it is very high in organic material that bums readily and quickly; the manure has to be dry and is best used exactly as found in the field, there is no need to break it up or process it any further.

D “A potter’s din is an expensive item and can could take up to four or five hours to get upto 800 degrees. It needs expensive or scarce fuel, such as gas or wood to heat it and experience to run it. With no technology, no insulation and nothing other than a pile of cow manure and a match, none of these restrictions apply,” Mr. Flynn says.

E It is also helpful that, like terracotta clay and organic material, cow dung is freely available across the developing world. “A cow is a natural fuel factory. My understanding is that cow dung as a fuel would be pretty much the same wherever you would find it.” Just as using manure as a fuel for domestic uses is not a new idea, the porosity of clay is something that potters have known about for years, and something that as a former ceramics lecturer in the ANU School of Art, Mr. Flynn is well aware of. The difference is that rather than viewing the porous nature of the material as a problem — after all not many people want a pot that won’t hold water — his filters capitalize on this property.

F Other commercial ceramic filters do exist, but, even if available, with prices starting at US$5 each, they are often outside the budgets of most people in the developing world. The filtration process is simple, but effective. The basic principle is that there are passages through the filter that are wide enough for water droplets to pass through, but too narrow for pathogens. Tests with the deadly E-coli bacterium have seen the filters remove 96.4 to 99.8 per cent of the pathogen — well within safe levels. Using only one filter it takes two hours to filter a litre of water. The use of organic material, which burns away after firing, helps produce the structure in which pathogens will become trapped. It overcomes the potential problems of finer clays that may not let water through and also means that cracks are soon halted. And like clay and cow dung, it is universally available.

G The invention was born out of a World Vision project involving the Manatuto community in East Timor The charity wanted to help set up a small industry manufacturing water filters, but initial research found the local clay to be too fine — a problem solved by the addition of organic material. While the AF problems of producing a working ceramic filter in East Timor were overcome, the solution was kiln-based and particular to that community’s materials and couldn’t be applied elsewhere. Manure firing, with no requirement for a kiln, has made this zero technology approach available anywhere it is needed. With all the components being widely available, Mr. Flynn says there is no reason the technology couldn’t be applied throughout the developing world, and with no plans to patent his idea, there will be no legal obstacles to it being adopted in any community that needs it. “Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely,” says Mr. Flynn.

Questions 28-33
Complete the flow chart, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

Guide to Making Water Filters

Step one: combination of (28)………………. and organic material, with sufficient (29)……………. to create a thick mixture sun dried.

Step two: pack (30)………………….. around the cylinders place them in (31)……………… which is as burning fuel for firing (maximum temperature: (32)………………….) filter being baked in under (33)…………………..

Questions 34-37
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 34-37 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                    if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                   if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN          if there is no information on this

34. It takes half an hour for the manure to reach 950 degrees
35. Clay was initially found to be unsuitable for pot making
36. Coffee grounds are twice as effective as other materials
37. E-coli is the most difficult bacteria to combat

Questions 38-40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

38. When making the pot, the thickness of the wall
A is large enough to let the pathogens to pass.
B varied according to the temperature of the fuel,
C should be the same as an adult’s forefinger.
D is not mentioned by Mr. Flynn.

39. What is true about the charity, it
A failed in searching the appropriate materials.
B successfully manufacture a kiln based ceramic filter to be sold worldwide
C found that the local clay are good enough.
D intended to help build a local filter production factory.

40. Mr. Flynn’s design is purposely not being patented
A because he hopes it can be freely used around the world
B because he doesn’t think the technology is perfect enough,
C because there are some legal obstacles.
D because the design has already been applied thoroughly.

Plant Scents

A Everyone is familiar with scented flowers, and many people have heard that floral Odors help the plant attract pollinators. This common notion is mostly correct, but it is surprising how little scientific proof of it exists. Of course, not all flowers are pollinated by biological agents – for example, many grasses are wind-pollinated – but the flowers of the grasses may still emit volatiles. In fact, plants emit organic molecules all the time, although they may not be obvious to the human nose. As for flower scents that we can detect with our noses, bouquets that attract moths and butterflies generally smell “sweet,” and those that attract certain flies seem “rotten” to us.

B The release of volatiles from vegetative parts of the plant is familiar, although until recently the physiological functions of these chemicals were less clear and had received much less attention from scientists. When the trunk of a pine tree is injured – for example, when a beetle tries to burrow into it – it exudes a very smelly resin. This resin consists mostly of terpenes – hydrocarbons with a backbone of 10, 15 or 20 carbons that may also contain atoms of oxygen. The heavier C20 terpenes, called diterpenes, are glue-like and can cover and immobilize insects as they plug the hole. This defense mechanism is as ancient as it is effective: Many samples of fossilized resin, or amber, contain the remains of insects trapped inside. Many other plants emit volatiles when injured, and in some cases the emitted signal helps defend the plant. For example, (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate, which is known as a “green leaf volatile” because it is emitted by many plants upon injury, deters females of the moth Heliothis virescens from laying eggs on injured tobacco plants. Interestingly, the profile of emitted tobacco volatiles is different at night than during the day, and it is the nocturnal blend, rich in several (Z)-3-hexen-1-olesters, that is most effective in repelling the night-active H. virescens moths.

C Herbivore induced volatiles often serve as indirect defenses. These bulwarks exist in a variety of plant species, including corn, beans, and the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. Plants not only emit volatiles acutely, at the site where caterpillars, mites, aphids or similar insects are eating them but also generally from non-damaged parts of the plant. These signals attract a variety of predatory insects that prey on the plant-eaters. For example, some parasitic wasps can detect the volatile signature of a damaged plant and will lay their eggs inside the offending caterpillar; eventually, the wasp eggs hatch, and the emerging larvae feed on the caterpillar from the inside hatch, and the emerging larvae feed on the caterpillar from the inside out. The growth of infected caterpillars is retarded considerably, to the benefit of the plant. Similarly, volatiles released by plants in response to herbivore egg laying can attract parasites of the eggs, thereby preventing them from hatching and avoiding the onslaught of hungry herbivores that would have emerged. Plant volatiles can also be used as a kind of currency in some very indirect defensive schemes. In the rainforest understory tree Leonardoxa Africana, ants of the species Petalomyrmex phylax patrol young leaves and attack any herbivorous insects that they encounter. The young leaves emit high levels of the volatile compound methyl salicylate, a compound that the ants use either as a pheromone or as an antiseptic in their nests. It appears that methyl salicylate is both an attractant and a reward offered by the tree to get the ants to perform this valuable deterrent role.

D Floral scent has a strong impact on the economic success of many agricultural crops that rely on insect pollinators, including fruit trees such as the bee-pollinated cherry, apple, apricot and peach, as well as vegetables and tropical plants such as papaya. Pollination not only affects crop yield, but also the quality and efficiency of crop production. Many crops require most, if not all, ovules to be fertilized for optimum fruit size and shape. A decrease in fragrance emission reduces the ability of flowers to attract pollinators and results in considerable losses for growers, particularly for introduced species that had a specialized pollinator in their place of origin. This problem has been exacerbated by recent disease epidemics that have killed many honeybees, the major insect pollinators in the United States.

E One means by which plant breeders circumvent the pollination problem is by breeding self-compatible, or apomictic, varieties that do not require fertilization. Although this solution is adequate, its drawbacks include near genetic uniformity and consequent susceptibility to pathogens. Some growers have attempted to enhance honeybee foraging by spraying scent compounds on orchard trees, but this approach was costly, had to be repeated, had potentially toxic effects on the soil or local biota, and, in the end, proved to be inefficient. The poor effectiveness of this strategy probably reflects inherent limitations of the artificial, topically applied compounds, which clearly fail to convey the appropriate message to the bees. For example, general spraying of the volatile mixture cannot tell the insects where exactly the blossoms are. Clearly, a more refined strategy is needed. The ability to enhance existing floral scent, which could all be accomplished by genetic engineering, would allow us to manipulate the types of insect pollinators and the frequency of their visits. Moreover, the metabolic engineering of fragrance could increase crop protection against pathogens and pests.

F Genetic manipulation of the scent will also benefit the floriculture industry. Ornamentals, including cut flowers, foliage and potted plants, play an important aesthetic role in human life. Unfortunately, traditional breeding has often produced cultivars with improved vase life, shipping characteristics, color and shape while sacrificing desirable perfumes. The loss of scent among ornamentals, which have a worldwide value of more than $30 billion, makes them important targets for the genetic manipulation of flower fragrance. Some work has already begun in this area, as several groups have created petunia and carnation plants that express the linalool synthase gene from C. Breweri. These experiments are still preliminary: For technical reasons, the gene was expressed everywhere in the plant, and although the transgenic plants did create small amounts of linalool, the level was below the threshold of detection for the human nose. Similar experiments in tobacco used genes for other monoterpene synthases, such as the one that produces limonene, but gave similar results.

G The next generation of experiments, already in progress, includes sophisticated schemes that target the expression of scent genes specifically to flowers or other organs – such as special glands that can store antimicrobial or herbivore-repellent compounds.

Questions 1-4
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

1. Substance released to help plants themselves.
2. Scent helps plant’s pollination.
3. Practice on genetic experiment of fragrance.
4. Plant’s scent attracts herbivore’s enemy for protection.

Questions 5-8
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE               if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE              if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN     if there is no information on this

5. We have few evidence to support the idea that scent attracts pollinators.
6. Heliothis virescens won’t eat those tobacco leaves on which they laid eggs.
7. Certain ants are attracted by volatiles to guard plants in rainforest.
8. Pollination only affects fruit trees’ production rather than other crop trees.

Questions 9-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

9. How do wasps protect plants when they are attracted by scents according to the passage?
A plants induce wasps to prey herbivore.
B wasps lay eggs into caterpillars.
C wasps laid eggs on plants to expel herbivore.
D offending caterpillars and wasp eggs coexist well.

10. What reason caused a number of honeybees decline in the United States.
A pollination process
B spread illness
C crop trees are poisonous
D grower’s overlook

11. Which of the following drawbacks about artificial fragrance is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A it’s very expensive
B it can’t tell correct information to pollinators.
C it needs massive manual labour
D it poisons local environment

12. The number of $30 billion quoted in the passage is to illustrate the fact that:
A favorable perfumes are made from ornamental flowers.
B traditional floriculture industry needs reform.
C genetic operation on scent can make a vast profit.
D Scent plays a significant role in Ornamental industry.

13. What is weakness of genetic experiments on fragrance?
A Linalool level is too low to be smelt by nose
B no progress made in linalool emission.
C experiment on tobacco has a better result
D transgenic plants produce intense scent

We have Star performers!

A The difference between companies is people. With capital and technology in plentiful supply, the critical resource for companies in the knowledge era will be human talent. Companies full of achievers will, by definition, outperform organisations of plodders. Ergo, compete ferociously for the best people. Poach and pamper stars; ruthlessly weed out second-raters. This, in essence, has been the recruitment strategy of the ambitious company of the past decade. The ‘talent mindset’ was given definitive form in two reports by the consultancy McKinsey famously entitled The War for Talent. Although the intensity of the warfare subsequently subsided along with the air in the internet bubble, it has been warming up again as the economy tightens: labour shortages, for example, are the reason the government has laid out the welcome mat for immigrants from the new Europe.

B Yet while the diagnosis – people are important – is evident to the point of platitude, the apparently logical prescription – hire the best – like so much in management is not only not obvious: it is in fact profoundly wrong. The first suspicions dawned with the crash to earth of the dotcom meteors, which showed that dumb is dumb whatever the IQ of those who perpetrate it. The point was illuminated in brilliant relief by Enron, whose leaders, as a New Yorker article called ‘The Talent Myth’ entertainingly related, were so convinced of their own cleverness that they never twigged that collective intelligence is not the sum of a lot of individual intelligence. In fact, in a profound sense, the two are opposites. Enron believed in stars, noted author Malcolm Gladwell, because they didn’t believe in systems. But companies don’t just create: ‘they execute and compete and coordinate the efforts of many people, and the organisations that are most successful at that task are the ones where the system is the star’. The truth is that you can’t win the talent wars by hiring stars – only lose it. New light on why this should be so is thrown by an analysis of star behaviour in this months’ Harvard Business Review. In a study of the careers of 1,000 star-stock analysts in the 1990s, the researchers found that when a company recruited a star performer, three things happened.

C First, stardom doesn’t easily transfer from one organisation to another. In many cases, performance dropped sharply when high performers switched employers and in some instances never recovered. More of success than commonly supposed is due to the working environment – systems, processes, leadership, accumulated embedded learning that are absent in and can’t be transported to the new firm. Moreover, precisely because of their past stellar performance, stars were unwilling to learn new tricks and antagonised those (on whom they now unwittingly depended) who could teach them. So they moved, upping their salary as they did – 36 per cent moved on within three years, fast even for Wall Street. Second, group performance suffered as a result of tensions and resentment by rivals within the team. One respondent likened hiring a star to an organ transplant. The new organ can damage others by hogging the blood supply, other organs can start aching or threaten to stop working or the body can reject the transplants altogether, he said. ‘You should think about it very carefully before you do a transplant to a healthy body.’ Third, investors punished the offender by selling its stock. This is ironic since the motive for importing stars was often a suffering share price in the first place. Shareholders evidently believe that the company is overpaying, the hiree is cashing in on a glorious past rather than preparing for a glowing present, and a spending spree is in the offing.

D The result of mass star hirings as well as individual ones seems to confirm such doubts. Look at County NatWest and Barclays de Zoete Wedd, both of which hired teams of stars with loud fanfare to do great things in investment banking in the 1990s. Both failed dismally. Everyone accepts the cliche that people make the organisation – but much more does the organisation make the people. When researchers studied the performance of fund managers in the 1990s, they discovered that just 30 per cent of the variation in fund performance was due to the individual, compared to 70 per cent to the company-specific setting.

E That will be no surprise to those familiar with systems thinking. W Edwards Deming used to say that there was no point in beating up on people when 90 per cent of performance variation was down to the system within which they worked. Consistent improvement, he said, is a matter not of raising the level of individual intelligence, but of the learning of the organisation as a whole. The star system is glamorous – for the few. But it rarely benefits the company that thinks it is working it. And the knock-on consequences indirectly affect everyone else too. As one internet response to Gladwell’s New Yorker article put it: after Enron, ‘the rest of corporate America is stuck with overpaid, arrogant, underachieving, and relatively useless talent.’

F Football is another illustration of the star vs systems strategic choice. As with investment banks and stockbrokers, it seems obvious that success should ultimately be down to money. Great players are scarce and expensive. So the club that can afford more of them than anyone else will win. But the performance of Arsenal and Manchester United on one hand and Chelsea and Real Madrid on the other proves that it’s not as easy as that. While Chelsea and Real have the funds to be compulsive star collectors – as with Juan Sebastian Veron – they are less successful than Arsenal and United which, like Liverpool before them, have put much more emphasis on developing a setting within which stars-in-the-making can flourish. Significantly, Thierry Henry, Patrick Veira and Robert Pires are much bigger stars than when Arsenal bought them, their value (in all senses) enhanced by the Arsenal system. At Chelsea, by contrast, the only context is the stars themselves – managers with different outlooks come and go every couple of seasons. There is no settled system for the stars to blend into. The Chelsea context has not only not added value, but it has also subtracted it. The side is less than the sum of its exorbitantly expensive parts. Even Real Madrid’s galacticos, the most extravagantly gifted on the planet, are being outperformed by less talented but better-integrated Spanish sides. In football, too, stars are trumped by systems.

G So if not by hiring stars, how do you compete in the war for talent? You grow your own. This worked for investment analysts, where some companies were not only better at creating stars but also at retaining them. Because they had a much more sophisticated view of the interdependent relationship between star and system, they kept them longer without resorting to the exorbitant salaries that were so destructive to rivals.

Questions 14-17
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

14. One example from non-commerce/business settings that better system win bigger stars
15. One failed company that believes stars rather than the system
16. One suggestion that the author made to acquire employees than to win the competition nowadays
17. One metaphor to human medical anatomy that illustrates the problems of hiring stars.

Questions 18-21
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet, write

YES                    if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                     if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN       if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

18. McKinsey who wrote The War for Talent had not expected the huge influence made by this book.
19. Economic condition becomes one of the factors which decide whether or not a country would prefer to hire foreign employees.
20. The collapse of Enron is caused totally by an unfortunate incident instead of company’s management mistake.
21. Football clubs that focus making stars in the setting are better than simply collecting stars

Questions 22-26
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of reading passage. Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

An investigation carried out on 1000 (22)………………. Participants of a survey by Harvard Business Review found a company hire a (23)……………… has negative effects. For instance, they behave considerably worse in a new team than in the (24)…………….. that they used to be. They move faster than wall street and increase their (25)…………………. Secondly, they faced rejections or refuse from those (26)…………….. within the team. Lastly, the one who made mistakes had been punished by selling his/her stock share.

Compliance Or Noncompliance For Children

A Many Scientists believe that socialization takes a long process, while compliance is the outset of it. Accordingly, compliance for the education of children is the priority. Motivationally distinct forms of child compliance, mutually positive affect, and maternal control, observed in 3 control contexts in 103 dyads of mothers and their 26-41-month-old children, were examined as correlates of internalization, assessed using observations of children while alone with prohibited temptations and maternal ratings. One form of compliance (committed compliance), when the child appeared committed wholeheartedly to the maternal agenda and eager to endorse and accept it, was emphasized. Mother-child mutually positive affect was both a predictor and a concomitant of committed compliance. Children who shared positive effect with their mothers showed a high level of committed compliance and were also more internalized. Differences and similarities between children’s compliance with requests and prohibitions (“Do” vs. “Don’t” demand contexts) were also explored. Maternal “Dos” appeared more challenging to toddlers than the “Don’ts.” Some individual coherence of behavior was also found across both demand contexts. The implication of committed compliance for emerging internalized regulators of conduct is discussed.

B A number of parents were not easy to be aware of the compliance, some even overlooked their children’s noncompliance. Despite good education, these children did not follow the words from their parents on several occasion, especially boys in certain ages. Fortunately, this rate was acceptable, some parents could be patient with the noncompliance. Someone held that noncompliance is probably not a wrong thing. In order to determine the effects of different parental disciplinary techniques on young children’s compliance and noncompliance, mothers were trained to observe emotional incidents involving their own toddler-aged children. Reports of disciplinary encounters were analyzed in terms of the types of discipline used (reasoning, verbal prohibition, physical coercion, love withdrawal, and combinations thereof) and children’s responses to that discipline (compliance/ noncompliance and avoidance). The relation between compliance/ noncompliance and type of misdeed (harm to persons, harm to property, and lapses of self-control) was also analyzed. Results indicated that love withdrawal combined with other techniques was most effective in securing children’s compliance and that its effectiveness was not a function of the type of technique with which it was combined. Avoidant responses and affective reunification with the parent were more likely to follow love withdrawal than any other technique. Physical coercion was somewhat less effective than love withdrawal, while reasoning and verbal prohibition were not at all effective except when both were combined with physical coercion.

C “Noncompliant Children sometimes prefer to say to directly as they were younger, they are easy to deal with the relationship with contemporaries. When they are growing up. During the period that children are getting elder, who may learn to use more advanced approaches for their noncompliance. They are more skillful to negotiate or give reasons for refusal rather than show their opposite idea to parents directly.” Said Henry Porter, a scholar working in Psychology Institute of UK. He indicated that noncompliance means growth in some way, may have benefit for children. Many Experts held different viewpoints in recent years, they tried drilling compliance into children. His collaborator Wallace Friesen believed that Organizing a child’s daily activities so that they occur in the same order each day as much as possible. This first strategy for defiant children is ultimately the most important. Developing a routine helps a child to know what to expect and increases the chances that he or she will comply with things such as chores, homework, and hygiene requests. When undesirable activities occur in the same order at optimal times during the day, they become habits that are not questioned but done without thought.

Chances are that you have developed some type of routine for yourself in terms of showering, cleaning your house, or doing other types of work. You have an idea in your mind when you will do these things on a regular basis and this helps you to know what to expect. In fact, you have probably already been using most of these compliance strategies for yourself without realizing it. For children, without setting these expectations on a daily basis by making them part of a regular routine, they can become very upset. Just like adults, children think about what they plan to do that day and expect to be able to do what they want. So, when you come along and ask them to do something they weren’t already planning to do that day, this can result in automatic refusals and other undesirable defiant behaviors. However, by using this compliance strategy with defiant children, these activities are done almost every day in the same general order and the child expects to already do them.

D Doctor Steven Walson addressed that organizing fun activities to occur after frequently refused activities. This strategy also works as a positive reinforcer when the child complies with your requests. By arranging your day so that things often refused to occur right before highly preferred activities, you are able to eliminate defiant behavior and motivate your child’s behavior of doing the undesirable activity. This is not to be presented in a way that the preferred activity is only allowed if a defiant child does the non-preferred activity. However, you can word your request in a way so that your child assumes that you have to do the non-preferred activity before moving on to the next preferred activity. For example, you do not want to say something such as, “If you clean your room we can play a game.” Instead of the word your request like this, “As soon as you are done cleaning your room we will be able to play that really fun game you wanted to play.”

E Psychologist Paul Edith insisted praise is the best way to make children comply with. This is probably a common term you are used to hearing by now. If you praise your child’s behavior, he or she will be more likely to do that behavior. So, it is essential to use praise when working with defiant children. It also provides your child with positive attention. However, it is important to know how to praise children in a way that encourages future automatic reinforcement for your child when doing a similar behavior.

Questions 27-31
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

27. The children, especially boys received good education may
A always comply with their parents’ words
B be good at math
C have a high score at school
D disobey their parents’ order sometimes

28. Face to their children’s compliance and noncompliance, parents
A must be aware of the compliance
B ask for help from their teachers
C some of them may ignore their noncompliance
D pretend not to see

29. According to Henry Porter, noncompliance for children
A are entirely harmful
B may have positive effects
C needs medicine assistance
D should be treated by an expert doctor

30. When children are growing up, they
A always try to directly say no
B are more skillful to negotiate
C learn to cheat instead of noncompliance
D tend to keep silent

31. Which is the possible reaction the passage mentioned for elder children and younger ones if they don’t want to comply with the order
A elder children prefer to refuse directly
B elder ones refuse to answer
C younger children may reject directly
D younger ones may save any words

Questions 32-35
Look at the following people and list of statements below. Match each person with the correct statement.

32. Henry Porter
33. Wallace Friesen
34. Steven Walson
35. Paul Edith

List of statements
A children of all ages will indirectly show noncompliance
B elder children tend to negotiate rather than show noncompliance
C converse behavior means noncompliance
D organizing fun activities to occur after frequently refused activities
E organizing child’s daily activities in the same order as much as possible.
F use praise in order to make children compliant
G take the children to school at an early age

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in reading passage? In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES                    if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                     if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN       if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

36. Socialization takes a long process, while compliance is the beginning of it.
37. Many parents were difficult to be aware of compliance or noncompliance.
38. Noncompliant Children are simple to deal with the relationship with the people at the same age when they are growing up.
39. Experts never tried drilling compliance into children.
40. Psychologist Paul Edith negated the importance that knowing how to praise children in an encouraging way.

The Exploration of Mars

A In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, made drawings and maps of the Martian surface that suggested strange features. The images from telescopes at this time were not as sharp as today’s. Schiaparelli said he could see a network of lines, or canali. In 1894, an American astronomer, Percival Lowell, made a series of observations of Mars from his own observations of Mars from his own observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Lowell was convinced a great network of canals had been dug to irrigate crops for the Martian race! He suggested that each canal had fertile vegetation on either side, making them noticeable from Earth. Drawings and globes he made show a network of canals and oases all over the planet.

B The idea that there was intelligent life on Mars gained strength in the late 19th century. In 1898, H.G. Wells wrote a science fiction classic, The War of the Worlds about an invading force of Martians who try to conquer Earth. They use highly advanced technology (advanced for 1898) to crush human resistance in their path. In 1917, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the first in a series of 11 novels about Mars. Strange beings and rampaging Martian monsters gripped the public’s imagination. A radio broadcast by Orson Welles on Halloween night in 1938 of The War of the Worlds caused widespread panic across America. People ran into the streets in their pyjamas-millions believed the dramatic reports of a Martian invasion.

C Probes are very important to our understanding of other planets. Much of our recent knowledge comes from these robotic missions into space. The first images sent back from Mars came from Mariner 4 in July 1965. They showed a cratered and barren landscape, more like the surface of our moon than Earth. In 1969, Mariners 6 and 7 were launched and took 200 photographs of Mars’s southern hemisphere and pole on fly-by missions. But these showed little more information. In 1971, Mariner 9’s mission was to orbit the planet every 12 hours. In 1975, The USA sent two Viking probes to the planet, each with a lander and an orbiter. The Landers had sampler arms to scoop up Maritain rocks and did experiments to try and find signs of life. Although no life was found, they sent back the first colour pictures of the planet’s surface and atmosphere from pivoting cameras.

D The Martian meteorite found in Earth aroused doubts to the above analysis. ALH84001 meteorite was discovered in December 1984 in Antarctica, by members of the ANSMET project; The sample was ejected from Mars about 17 million years ago and spent 11,000 years in or on the Antarctic ice sheets. Composition analysis by NASA revealed a kind of magnetite that on Earth, is only found in association with certain microorganisms. Some structures resembling the mineralized casts of terrestrial bacteria and their appendages fibrils or by-products occur in the rims of carbonate globules and pre-terrestrial aqueous alteration regions. The size and shape of the objects is consistent with Earthly fossilized nanobacteria but the existence of nanobacteria itself is still controversial.

E In 1965, the Mariner 4 probe discovered that Mars had no global magnetic field that would protect the planet from potentially life-threatening cosmic radiation and solar radiation; observations made in the late 1990s by the Mars Global Surveyor confirmed this discovery. Scientists speculate that the lack of magnetic shielding helped the solar wind blow away much of Mars’s atmosphere over the course of several billion years. After mapping cosmic radiation levels at various depths on Mars, researchers have concluded that any life within the first several meters of the planet’s surface would be killed by lethal doses of cosmic radiation. In 2007, it was calculated that DNA and RNA damage by cosmic radiation would limit life on Mars to depths greater than 7.5 metres below the planet’s surface. Therefore, the best potential locations for discovering life on Mars may be at subsurface environments that have not been studied yet. Disappearance of the magnetic field may played an significant role in the process of Martian climate change. According to the valuation of the scientists, the climate of Mars gradually transits from warm and wet to cold and dry after magnetic field vanished.

F NASA’s recent missions have focused on another question: whether Mars held lakes or oceans of liquid water on its surface in the ancient past. Scientists have found hematite, a mineral that forms in the presence of water. Thus, the mission of the Mars Exploration Rovers of 2004 was not to look for present or past life, but for evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars in the planet’s ancient past. Liquid water, necessary for Earth life and for metabolism as generally conducted by species on Earth, cannot exist on the surface of Mars under its present low atmospheric pressure and temperature, except at the lowest shaded elevations for short periods and liquid water does not appear at the surface itself. In March 2004, NASA announced that its rover Opportunity had discovered evidence that Mars was, in the ancient past, a wet planet. This had raised hopes that evidence of past life might be found on the planet today. ESA confirmed that the Mars Express orbiter had directly detected huge reserves of water ice at Mars’ south pole in January 2004.

G Researchers from the Center of Astrobiology (Spain) and the Catholic University of the North in Chile have found an ‘oasis’ of microorganisms two meters below the surface of the Atacama Desert, SOLID, a detector for signs of life which could be used in environments similar to subsoil on Mars. “We have named it a ‘microbial oasis’ because we found microorganisms developing in a habitat that was rich in rock salt and other highly hygroscopic compounds that absorb water” explained Victor Parro, researcher from the Center of Astrobiology in Spain. “If there are similar microbes on Mars or remains in similar conditions to the ones we have found in Atacama, we could detect them with instruments like SOLID” Parro highlighted.

H Even more intriguing, however, is the alternative scenario by Spanish scientists: If those samples could be found to that use DNA, as Earthly life does, as their genetic code. It is extremely unlikely that such a highly specialised, complex molecule like DNA could have evolved separately on the two planets, indicating that there must be a common origin for Martian and Earthly life. Life based on DNA first appeared on Mars and then spread to Earth, where it then evolved into the myriad forms of plants and creatures that exist today. If this was found to be the case, we would have to face the logical conclusion: we are all Martian. If not, we would continue to search the life of signs.

Questions 1-6
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

1. Martian evidence on Earth
2. Mars and Earth may share the same life origin
3. certain agricultural construction was depicted specifically
4. the project which aims to identify life under similar condition of Mars
5. Mars had experienced terrifying climate transformation
6. Attempts in scientific investigation to find liquid water

Questions 7-10
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

7. How did Percival Lowell describe Mars in this passage?
A Perfect observation location is in Arizona.
B Canals of Mars are broader than that of the earth.
C Dedicated water and agriculture trace is similar to the earth.
D Actively moving Martian lives are found by observation.

8. How did people change their point of view towards Mars from 19th century?
A They experienced Martian attack.
B They learned knowledge of mars through some literature works.
C They learned new concept by listening famous radio program.
D They attended lectures given by famous writers.

9. In 1960s, which information is correct about Mars by a number of Probes sent to the space?
A It has a landscape full of rock and river
B It was not as vivid as the earth
C It contained the same substance as in the moon
D It had different images from the following probes

10. What is the implication of project proceeded by technology called SOLID in Atacama Desert?
A It could be employed to explore organisms under Martian condition.
B This technology could NOT be used to identify life on similar condition of Mars.
C Atacama Desert is the only place that has a suitable environment for organisms.
D Life had not yet been found yet in Atacama Desert.

Questions 11-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                       if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                      if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN             if there is no information on this

11. Technology of Martian creature was superior than what human had at that time in every field according to The War of the Worlds
12. Proof sent by Viking probes has not been challenged yet
13. Analysis on meteorite from Mars found a substance which is connected to some germs
14. According to Victor Parro, their project will be deployed on Mars after they identified DNA substance on earth

Global warming: Prevent poles from melting

A Such is our dependence on fossil fuels, and such the volume of carbon dioxide we have already released into the atmosphere, that most climate scientists agree that significant global warming is now inevitable – the best we can hope to do is keep it at a reasonable level, and even that going to be an uphill task.

At present, the only serious option on the table for doing this is cutting back on our carbon emissions, but a few countries are making major strides in this regard, the majority are having great difficulty even stemming the rate of increase, let alone reversing Consequently, an increasing number of scientists are beginning to explore the alternatives. They under the banner of geoengineering generally defined as the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment.

B Geoengineering has been shown to work, at least on a small, localised scale, for decades. May Day parades in Moscow have taken place under clear blue skies, aircraft having deposited dry ice, silver iodide (m $1) and cement powder to disperse clouds. Many of the schemes now suggested look to do the opposite, and reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet.

One scheme focuses on achieving a general cooling of the Earth and involves the concept of releasing aerosol sprays into the stratosphere above the Arctic to create clouds of sulphur dioxide, which would, in turn, lead to a global dimming. The idea is modelled on historical volcanic explosions, such as that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991; which led to a short-term cooling of global temperatures by 0.5°c. The aerosols could be delivered by artillery, high-flying aircraft or balloons.

C Instead of concentrating on global cooling, other schemes look specifically at reversing the melting at the poles. One idea is to bolster an ice cap by spraying it with water. Using pumps to carry water from below the sea ice the spray would come out as snow or ice particles, producing thicker sea ice with a higher albedo (the ratio of sunlight reflected from a surface) to reflect summer radiation. Scientists have also scrutinised whether it is possible to block iceflow in Greenland with cables which have been reinforced, preventing icebergs from moving into the sea.

Veil Albert Kallio, a Finnish scientist, says that such an idea is impractical, because the force of the ice would ultimately snap the cables and rapidly release a large quantity of frozen ice into the sea. However, Kallio believes that the sort of cables used in suspension bridges could potentially be used to divert, rather than halt, the southward movement of ice from Spitsbergen. It would stop the ice moving south, and local currents would see them float northwards’ he says.

D A number of geoengineering ideas are currently being examined in the Russian Arctic. These include planting millions of birch trees: the thinking, according to Kallio, is that their white bark would increase the amount of reflected sunlight. The loss of their leaves in winter would also enable the snow to reflect radiation. In contrast, the native evergreen pines tend to shade the snow and absorb radiation.

Using ice-breaking vessels to deliberately break up and scatter coastal sea ice in both Arctic and Antarctic waters in their respective autumns, and diverting Russian rivers to increase cold-water flow to ice-forming areas, could also be used to slow down warming, Kallio says. 1 You would need the wind to blow the right way, but in the right conditions, by letting ice float free and head north, you would enhance ice growth.’

E But will such ideas ever be implemented? The major counter-arguments to geoengineering schemes are, first, that they are a ‘cop-out’ that allow US to continue living the way we do, rather than reducing carbon emissions; and, second, even if they do work, would the side-effects outweigh the advantages? Then there’s the daunting prospect of upkeep and repair of any scheme as well as the consequences of a technical failure. ‘I think all of US agree that if we were to end geoengineering on a given day, then the planet would return to its pre-engineered condition very rapidly, and probably within 10 to 20 years’ says Dr Phil Rasch, chief scientist for climate change at the US-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

That’s certainly something to worry about. I would consider geoengineering as a strategy to employ only we manage the conversion to a non-fossil- fuel economy. ‘The risk with geoengineering projects is that you can “overshoot”,’ says Dr Dan hunt, from the University of Bristol. ‘You may bring global temperatures back to pre-industrial levels, but the risk is that the poles will still be warmer than they should be and the tropics be cooler than before industrialization.’

F The main reason why geoengineering is countenanced by the mainstream scientific community is that most researchers have little faith in the of politicians to agree – and then bring in the necessary carbon cuts. Even leading conservation organisations believe the subject worth exploring. As Dr Martin Sommerkorn, a climate change advisor says.’

But human-induced climate change has brought humanity to a position where it important not to exclude thinking thoroughly about this topic and its possibilities despite the potential drawbacks. If, over the coming years, the science US about an ever-increased climate sensitivity of the planet and this isn’t unrealistic – then we may be best served by not having to start our thinking from scratch.

Questions 15-19
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information?

15. the existence of geoengineering projects distracting from the real task of changing the way we live
16. circumstances in which geoengineering has demonstrated success
17. Frustrating maintenance problems associated with geoengineering projects
18. support for geoengineering being due to a lack of confidence in governments
19. more success in fighting climate change in some parts of the world than others

Questions 20-24
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Geoengineering projects

A range of geoengineering ideas has been put forward, which aim either to prevent the melting of the ice caps or to stop the general rise in global temperatures. One scheme to discourage the melting of ice and snow involves introducing (20)……………. to the Arctic because of their colour. The build-up of ice could be encouraged by dispersing ice along the coasts using special ships and changing the direction of some (21)…………….. but this scheme is dependent on certain weather conditions. Another way of increasing the amount of ice involves using (22)……………… to bring water to the surface. A scheme to stop ice moving would apply (23)……………..but this method is more likely to be successful in preventing the ice from travelling in one direction rather than stopping it altogether. A suggestion for cooling global temperatures is based on what has happened in the past after (24)……………. and it involves creating clouds of gas.

Questions 25-27
Look at the following people (Questions 25-27) and the list of opinions below. Match each person with the correct opinion, A-E. Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 25-27 on your answer sheet.

25. Phil Rasch
26. DanLunt
27. Martin Sommerkorn

List of opinions
A The problems of geoengineering shouldn’t mean that ideas are not seriously considered.
B Some geoengineering projects are more likely to succeed than others.
C Geoengineering only offers a short-term relief.
D A positive outcome of geoengineering may have a negative consequence elsewhere.
E Most geoengineering projects aren’t clear in what they are aiming at.

Rainwater Harvesting

For two years southern Sri Lanka suffered a prolonged drought, described by locals as “the worst in 50 years”. Some areas didn’t see a successful crop for four or five consecutive seasons. Livestock died, water in wells dropped to dangerously low levels, children were increasingly malnourished and school attendance has fallen. An estimated 1.6 million people were affected.

A Muthukandiya is a village in Moneragala district, one of the drought-stricken areas in the “dry zone” of southern Sri Lanka, where half the country’s population of 18 million lives. Rainfall in the area varies greatly from year to year, often bringing extreme dry spells in between monsoons. But this drought was much worse than usual. Despite some rain in November, only half of Moneragala’s 1,400 tube wells were in working order by March. The drought devastated supplies of rice and freshwater fish, the staple diet of inland villages. Many local industries closed down and villagers headed for the towns in search of work.

B The villagers of muthukandiya arrived in the 1970s as part of a government resettlement scheme. Each family was given six acres of land, with no irrigation system. Because crop production, which relies entirely on rainfall, is insufficient to support most families, the village economy relies on men and women working as day-laborers in nearby sugar-cane plantations. Three wells have been dug to provide domestic water, but these run dry for much of the year. Women and children may spend several hours each day walking up to three miles (five kilometers) to fetch water for drinking, washing, and cooking.

C In 1998, communities in the district discussed water problems with Practical Action South Asia. What followed was a drought mitigation initiative based on a low-cost “rainwater harvesting” technology already used in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in the region. It uses tanks to collect and store rain channeled by gutters and pipes as it runs off the roofs of houses.

D Despite an indigenous tradition of rain-water harvesting and irrigation systems going back to the third century BC, policy-makers in modern times have often overlooked the value of such technologies, and it is only recently that officials have taken much interest in household-level structures. Government and other programmes have, however, been top-down in their conception and application, installing tanks free of charge without providing training in the skills needed to build and maintain them properly. Practical Action South Asia’s project deliberately took a different approach, aiming to build up a local skills base among builders and users of the tanks, and to create structures and systems so that communities can manage their own rainwater harvesting schemes.

E The community of Muthukandiya was involved throughout. Two meetings were held where villagers analysed their water problems, developed a mitigation plan and selected the rainwater harvesting technology. Two local masons received several days’ on-the-job training in building the 5,000-litre household storage tanks: surface tanks out of Ferro-cement and underground tanks out of brick. Each system, including tank, pipes, gutters and filters, cost US$195 – equivalent to a month’s income for an average village family. Just over half the cost was provided by the community, in the form of materials and unskilled labour. Practical Action South Asia contributed the rest, including cement, transport and payment for the skilled labour. Households learned how to use and maintain the tanks, and the whole community was trained to keep domestic water supplies clean. A village rainwater harvesting society was set up to run the project. To date, 37 families in and around Muthukandiya have storage tanks. Evaluations show clearly that households with rainwater storage tanks have considerably more water for domestic needs than households relying entirely on wells and ponds. During the driest months, households with tanks may have up to twice as much water available. Their water is much cleaner, too.

F Nandawathie, a widow in the village, has taken full advantage of the opportunities that rainwater harvesting has brought her family. With a better water supply now close at hand, she began by growing a few vegetables. The income from selling these helped her to open a small shop on her doorstep. This increased her earnings still further, enabling her to apply for a loan to install solar power in her house. She is now thinking of building another tank in her garden so that she can grow more vegetables. Nandawathie also feels safer now that she no longer has to fetch water from the village well in the early morning or late evening. She says that her children no longer complain so much of diarrhoea. And her daughter Sandamalee has more time for school work.

G In the short term, and on a small scale, the project has clearly been a success. The challenge lies in making such initiatives sustainable and expanding their coverage. At a purely technical level, rainwater harvesting is evidently sustainable. In Muthukandiya, the skills required to build and maintain storage tanks were taught fairly easily and can be shared by the two trained masons, who are now finding work with other development agencies in the district.

H The non-structural elements of the work, especially it’s financial and organizational, present a bigger challenge. A revolving fund was set up, with households that had already benefited agreeing to contribute a small monthly amount to pay for maintenance, repairs and new tanks. However, it appears that the revolving fund concept was not fully understood and it has proved difficult to get households to contribute. Recovering costs from interventions that do not generate income directly will always be a difficult proposition, although this can be overcome if the process is explained more fully at the outset.

I The Muthkandiya initiative was planned as a demonstration project, to show that community-based drought mitigation through rainwater harvesting was feasible. Several other organizations have begun their own projects using the same approach. The feasibility of introducing larger tanks is being investigated.

J However, a lot of effort and patience are needed to generate the interest, develop the skills and organize the management structures needed to implement sustainable community-based projects. It will probably be some time before rainwater harvesting technologies can spread rapidly and spontaneously across the district’s villages, without external support.

Questions 28-33
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

28. What is the major way for local people make barely support of living in Muthukandiya village?
29. Where can adult workers make extra money from in daytime?
30. What has been dug to supply water for daily household life?
31. In which year did the plan of a new project to lessen the effect of drought begins?
32. Where do the gutters and pipes collect rainwater from?
33. What helps the family obtain more water for domestic needs than those relying on only wells and ponds?

Questions 34-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES                  if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                   if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN      if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

34. Most of the government’s actions and other programs have somewhat failed.
35. Masons were trained for the constructing parts of the rainwater harvesting system.
36. The cost of rainwater harvesting systems was shared by local villagers and the local government.
37. Tanks increase both the amount and quality of the water for domestic use.
38. To send her daughter to school, a widow had to work for a job in a rainwater harvesting scheme.
39. Households benefited began to pay part of the maintenance or repairs.
40. Training two masons at the same time is much more preferable to training a single one.

Ambergris

A The name ambergris is derived from the Spanish “ambar gris”, ambar meaning amber and gris meaning grey, thus the name signifies grey amber. Theuse of ambergris in Europe is now entirely confined to perfumery-as a material of perfumery. Its high price varies from$15 to$25 an ounce, though it formerly occupied on inconsiderable place in medicine. Ambergris was also decorated and worn as jewelry, particularly during the Renaissance．It occupies a very important place in the perfumery of the East, and there it is also used in pharmacy and as a flavouring material in cookery.

B Amber, however, is quite a different substance from ambergris and this discrepancy has puzzled some people. Amber is the fossilized resin from trees that was quite familiar to Europeans long before the discovery of the New World, and prized for jewelry. Although considered a gem, amber is a hard, transparent and wholly-organic material derived from the resin of extinct species of trees. In the dense forests of the Middle Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, between 10 and 100 million years ago, these resin-bearing trees fell and were carried by rivers to coastal regions. There, the trees and their resins became covered with sediment, and over millions of years the resin hardened into amber.

C Ambergris and amber are related by the fact that both wash up on beaches. Ambergris is a solid, waxy and flammable substance of a dull 2rey or blackish color, with the shades being variegated 1ike marble. It possesses a peculiar sweet，earthy odour not unlike isopropyl alcohol. It is now known to be a morbid secretion formed in the intestines of the sperm whale, found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Being a very lightweight material, ambergris is found floating upon the sea, on the sea coast, or in the sand near the sea coast．It is met with in the Atlantic Ocean, on the coasts Of Brazil and Madagascar; also on the coast Of Africa, of the East Indies, China, Japan, and the Molucca Islands; but most of the ambergris which is brought to England comes from the Bahama Islands. It is also sometimes found in the abdomen of whales; it is always in lumps in various shapes and sizes, weighing from 1/ 2 oz. to 100 or more lb. A piece which the Dutch East India Company bought from the King of Tydore weighed 182 lb. An American fisherman from Antigua found, Inside a whale, about 52 1eagues south-east from the Windward Islands, a piece of ambergris which weighed about l 30 lb, and sold for 500 sterling.

D Like many other substances regarding the origin of which there existed some obscurity or mystery, ambergris in former times possessed a value, and had properties attributed to it, more on account of the source from which it was drawn than from its inherent qualities. Many ridiculous hypotheses were started to account for its origin, and among others it was conjectured to be the solidified foam of the sea, a fungous growth in the ocean similar to the fungi which form on trees.

E The true source and character of ambergris was first satisfactorily established by Dr. Swediaur in a communication to the Royal Society. It was found by Dr. Swediaur that ambergris very frequently contained the horny mandibles or beaks of the squid, on which the sperm whales are known to feed. That observation, in connection with the fact of ambergris being frequently taken from the intestines of the sperm whale, sufficiently proved that the substance is produced by the whale’s intestine as a means of facilitating the passage of undigested hard, sharp beaks of squid that the whale has eaten.

F It was further observed that the whales in which ambergris was found were either dead or much wasted and evidently in a sickly condition. From this it was inferred that ambergris is in some way connected with a morbid condition of the sperm whale. Often expelled by vomiting, ambergris floats in chunks on the water and is of a deep grey colour, soft consistence, and an offensive, disagreeable smell. Following months to years of photo-degradation and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black colour, a crusty and waxy texture, and a peculiar odour that is at once sweet, earthy, marine, and animalist. Its smell has been described by many as a vastly richer and smoother version of isopropanol without its stinging harshness.

G In that condition its specific gravity ranges from 0.780 to 0.926. It melts at a temperature of about 145 F into a fatty yellow resin-like liquid．It is soluble in ether, volatile and fixed oils, but only feebly acted on by acids. By digesting in hot alcohol, a peculiar substance termed ambrein is obtained. In chemical constitution ambrein very closely resembles cholesterin, a principle found abundantly in biliary calculi . It is therefore more than probable that ambergris, from the position in which it is found and its chemical constitution, is a biliary concretion analogous to what is formed in other mammals.

H The industries founded on ambergris resulted in the slaughter of sperm whales almost to extinction. Sperm whales were killed in two massive hunts, the Moby Dick whalers who worked mainly between 1740-1 880, and the modem whalers whose operations peaked in 1 964, when 29,255 were killed. Most recent estimates suggest a global population of about 360,000 animals down from about 1,100,000 before whaling. In the 20th century, 90% of ambergris was derived in the processing of killing sperm whales. To this day, ambergris is still the most expensive product in the whole body of sperm whale. Depending on its quality, raw ambergris fetches approximately 20 USD per gram. In the United States, possession of any part of an endangered species-including ambergris that has washed ashore-is a violation of the Endangered Species Act of 1978.

I Historically, the primary commercial use of ambergris has been in fragrance chemistry. However, it is difficult to get a consistent and reliable supply of high quality ambergris. Due to demand for ambergris and its high price, replacement compounds have been sought out by the fragrance industry and chemically synthesized. The most important of these is Ambrox, which has taken its place as the most widely used amber odorant in perfume manufacture. Procedures for the microbial production of Ambrox have also been devised.

Questions 1-5
Classify the following statement as applying to

A Ambergris only
B Amber only
C Both amber and ambergris
D Neither amber nor ambergris

1. very expensive
2. food flavor
3. used as currency
4. referred to in a communication
5. could be seen through

Questions 6-9
Complete the Summary paragraph described below in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet. Write the correct answer with ONE WORD.

The formation of ambergris experiences several stages. First, when sperm whale eats the hard and sharp (6)……………. of squid, its intestine will produce ambergris to facilitate the (7)…………………. Then, ambergris can be (8)……………….. up by sperm whale and float on the water. After months of exposure on air, it (9)…………… and the color turns dark grey or black.

Question 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? In boxes 10-13 on your sheet, write

TRUE                   if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                  if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN         if there is no information on this

10. In the 20th century, most ambergris was made in the process of killing sperm whale.
11. Ambergris’s cost increased recently.
12. Ambergris still remains in the perfume making.
13. Ambergris is still the most important amber odorant in perfume manufacture.

Language Strategy in Multinational Company

A The importance of language management in multinational companies has never been greater than today. Multinationals are becoming ever more conscious of the importance of global coordination as a source of competitive advantage and language remains the ultimate barrier to aspirations of international harmonization. Before attempting to consider language management strategies, companies will have to evaluate the magnitude of the language barrier confronting them and in doing so they will need to examine it in three dimensions: the Language Diversity, the Language Penetration and the Language Sophistication. Companies next need to turn their attention to how they should best manage language. There is a range of options from which MNCs can formulate their language strategy.

B Lingua Franca: The simplest answer, though realistic only for English speaking companies, is to rely on ones native tongue. As recently as 1991 a survey of British exporting companies found that over a third used English exclusively in dealings with foreign customers. This attitude that —one language fits all has also been carried through into the Internet age. A survey of the web sites of top American companies confirmed that over half made no provision for foreign language access, and another found that less than 10% of leading companies were able to respond adequately to emails other than in the company‘s language. Widespread though it is however, reliance on a single language is a strategy that is fatally flawed. It makes no allowance for the growing trend in Linguistic Nationalism whereby buyers in Asia, South America and the Middle East in particular are asserting their right to —work in the language of the customer!. It also fails to recognize the increasing vitality of languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Chinese that overtime are likely to challenge the dominance of English as a lingua franca. In the IT arena it ignores the rapid globalization of the Internet where the number of English-language ecommerce transactions, emails and web sites, is rapidly diminishing as a percentage of the total. Finally, the total reliance on a single language puts the English speaker at risk in negotiations. Contracts, rules and legislation are invariably written in the local language, and a company unable to operate in that language is vulnerable.

C Functional Multilingualism: Another improvised approach to Language is to rely on what has been termed —Functional Multilingualism!. Essentially what this means is to muddle through, relying on a mix of languages, pidgins and gestures to communicate by whatever means the parties have at their disposal. In a social context such a shared effort to make one another understand might be considered an aid to the bonding process with the frustration of communication being regularly punctuated by moments of absurdity and humor. However, as the basis for business negotiations it appears very hit-and-nuts. And yet Hagen‘s recent study suggests that 16% of international business transaction; are conducted in a —cocktail of languages.! Functional Multilingualism shares the same defects as reliance on a lingua franca and increases the probability of cognitive divergence between the parties engaged in the communication.

D External Language Resources: A more rational and obvious response to the language barrier is to employ external resources such as translators and interpreters, and certainly there are many excellent companies specialized in these fields. However, such a response is by no means an end to the language barrier. For a start these services can be very expensive with a top Simultaneous Interpreter, commanding daily rates as high as a partner in an international consulting company. Secondly, any good translator or interpreter will insist that to be fully effective they must understand the context of the subject matter. This is not always possible. In some cases it is prohibited by the complexity or specialization of the topic. Sometimes by lack of preparation time but most often the obstacle is the reluctance of the parties to explain the wider context to an outsider. Another problem is that unless there has been considerable pre-explaining between the interpreter and his clients it is likely that there will be ambiguity and cultural overtones in the source messages the interpreter has to work with. They will of course endeavor to provide a hifidelity translation but in this circumstance the interpreter has to use initiative and guess work. This clearly injects a potential source of misunderstanding into the proceedings. Finally while a good interpreter will attempt to convey not only the meaning but also the spirit of any communication, there can be no doubt that there is a loss of rhetorical power when communications go through a third party. So in situations requiring negotiation, persuasion, humor etc. the use of an interpreter is a poor substitute for direct communication.

E Training: The immediate and understandable reaction to any skills shortage in a business is to consider personnel development and certainly the language training industry is well developed. Offering programs at almost every level and in numerous languages. However, without doubting the value of language training no company should be deluded into believing this to be assured of success. Training in most companies is geared to the economic cycle. When times are good, money is invested in training. When belts get tightened training is one of the first —luxuries! to be pared down. In a study conducted across four European countries, nearly twice as many companies said they needed language training in coming years as had conducted training in past years. This disparity between —good intentions! and —actual delivery!, underlines the problems of relying upon training for language skills. Unless the company is totally committed to sustaining the strategy even though bad times, it will fail.

F One notable and committed leader in the field of language training has been the Volkswagen Group. They have developed a language strategy over many years and in many respects can be regarded as a model of how to manage language professionally. However, the Volkswagen approach underlines that language training has to be considered a strategic rather than a tactical solution. In their system to progress from —basics! to —communications competence! in a language requires the completion of 6 language stages each one demanding approximately 90 hours of refresher course, supported by many more hours of self-study, spread over a 6-9 month period. The completion of each stage is marked by a post-stage achievement test, which is a pre-requisite for continued training. So even this professionally managed program expects a minimum of three years of fairly intensive study to produce an accountant. Engineer, buyer or salesperson capable of working effectively in a foreign language. Clearly companies intending to pursue this route need to do so with realistic expectations and with the intention of sustaining the program over many years. Except in terms of —brush-up! courses for people who were previously fluent in a foreign language, training cannot be considered a quick fix and hence other methods will have to be considered.

Questions 14-19
Complete the following summary of the whole paragraphs of reading passage, choosing ONE WORD from the passage only.

Language Diversity, the Language Penetration and the Language Sophistication. Companies next need to turn their attention to how they should best manage language. There is a range of options from which (14)…………….. can formulate their language strategy. This attitude that —one language fits(15)…………….l has also been carried through into the Internet age. Widespread though it is however, reliance on a single language is a strategy that is fatally flawed. It makes no allowance for the growing trend in Linguistic Nationalism whereby (16)…………… in Asia, South America and the Middle East in particular are asserting their right to —work in the language of the customer. In some cases it is prohibited by the (17)…………… or specialization of the topic. Sometimes by lack of preparation time but most often the obstacle is the reluctance of the parties to explain the wider context to an outsider. The immediate and understandable reaction to any skills (18)……………. in a business is to consider personnel development and certainly the language training industry is well developed. Offering programs at almost every level and in numerous languages. The completion of each stage is marked by a post-stage (19)…………….. test, which is a pre-requisite for continued training.

Questions 20-26
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

20. What understandable reaction does Training pay attention to according to the author?
21. In what term does the writer describe training during economy depression?
22. What contribution does Volkswagen Group do for multinational companies?
23. What does Volkswagen Group consider language training as in their company?
24. How many stages are needed from basic course to advanced in training?
25. How long does a refresher course need normally?
26. At least how long is needed for a specific professional to acquire a foreign language?

Question 27
Choose the correct option A, B, C or D.

27. What is the main function of this passage?
A to reveal all kinds of language problems that companies may encounter
B to exhibits some well-known cases in dealing with language difficulties
C to evaluate various approaches for language barrier in multinational companies
D to testify that training is only feasible approach to solve language problem

Finding our way

A “Drive 200 yards, and then turn right,” says the car’s computer voice. You relax in the driver’s seat, follow the directions and reach your destination without error. It’s certainly nice to have the Global Positioning System (GPS) to direct you to within a few yards of your goal. Yet if the satellite service’s digital maps become even slightly outdated, you can become lost. Then you have to rely on the ancient human skill of navigating in three-dimensional space. Luckily, your biological finder has an important advantage over GPS: it does not go awry if only one part of the guidance system goes wrong, because it works in various ways. You can ask questions of people on the sidewalk. Or follow a street that looks familiar. Or rely on a navigational rubric: “If I keep the East River on my left, I will eventually cross 34th Street.” The human positioning system is flexible and capable of learning. Anyone who knows the way from point A to point B—and from A to C—can probably figure out how to get from B to c, too.

B But how does this complex cognitive system really work? Researchers are looking at several strategies people use to orient themselves in space: guidance, path integration and route following. We may use all three or combinations thereof. And as experts learn more about these navigational skills, they are making the case that our abilities may underlie our powers of memory and logical thinking. Grand Central, Please Imagine that you have arrived in a place you have never visited-New York City. You get off the train at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. You have a few hours to explore before you must return for your ride home. You head uptown to see popular spots you have been told about: Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You meander in and out of shops along the way. Suddenly, it is time to get back to the station. But how?

C If you ask passersby for help, most likely you will receive information in many different forms. A person who orients herself by a prominent landmark would gesture southward: “Look down there. See the tall, broad MetLife Building? Head for that “the station is right below it.” Neurologists call this navigational approach “guidance,” meaning that a landmark visible from a distance serves as the marker for one’s destination.

D Another city dweller might say: “What places do you remember passing? … Okay. Go toward the end of Central Park, then walk down to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A few more blocks, and Grand Central will be off to your left.” In this case, you are pointed toward the most recent place you recall, and you aim for it. Once there you head for the next notable place and so on, retracing your path. Your brain is adding together the individual legs of your trek into a cumulative progress report. Researchers call this strategy “path integration.” Many animals rely primarily on path integration to get around, including insects, spiders, crabs and rodents. The desert ants of the genus Cataglyphis employ this method to return from foraging as far as 100 yards away. They note the general direction they came from and retrace then steps, using the polarization of sunlight to orient themselves even under overcast skies. On their way back they are faithful to this inner homing vector. Even when a scientist picks up an ant and puts it in a totally different spot, the insect stubbornly proceeds in the originally determined direction until it has gone “back” all of the distance it wandered from its nest. Only then does the ant realize it has not succeeded, and it begins to walk in successively larger loops to find its way home.

E Whether it is trying to get back to the anthill or the train station, any animal using path integration must keep track of its own movements so it knows, while returning, which segments it has already completed. As you move, your brain gathers data from your environment—sights, sounds, smells, lighting, muscle contractions, a sense of time passing—to determine which way your body has gone. The church spire, the sizzling sausages on that vendor’s grill, the open courtyard, and the train station—all represent snapshots of memorable junctures during your journey.

F In addition to guidance and path integration, we use a third method for finding our way. An office worker you approach for help on a Manhattan street comer might say: “Walk straight down Fifth, turn left on 47th, turn right on Park, go through the walkway under the Helmsley Building, then cross the street to the MetLife Building into Grand Central.” This strategy, called route following, uses landmarks such as buildings and street names, plus directions-straight, turn, go through—for reaching intermediate points. Route following is more precise than guidance or path integration, but if you forget the details and take a wrong turn, the only way to recover is to backtrack until you reach a familiar spot, because you do not know the general direction or have a reference landmark for your goal. The route-following navigation strategy truly challenges the brain. We have to keep all the landmarks and intermediate directions in our head. It is the most detailed and therefore most reliable method, but it can be undone by routine memory lapses. With path integration, our cognitive memory is less burdened; it has to deal with only a few general instructions and the homing vector. Path integration works because it relies most fundamentally on our knowledge of our body’s general direction of movement, and we always have access to these inputs. Nevertheless, people often choose to give route-following directions, in part because saying “Go straight that way!” just does not work in our complex, man-made surroundings.

G Road Map or Metaphor? On your next visit to Manhattan you will rely on your memory to get around. Most likely you will use guidance, path integration and route following in various combinations. But how exactly do these constructs deliver concrete directions? Do we humans have, as an image of the real world, a kind of road map in our heads—with symbols for cities, train stations and churches; thick lines for highways; narrow lines for local streets? Neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists do call the portion of our memory that controls navigation a “cognitive map.” The map metaphor is obviously seductive: maps are the easiest way to present geographic information for convenient visual inspection. In many cultures, maps were developed before writing, and today they are used in almost every society. It is even possible that maps derive from a universal way in which our spatial-memory networks are wired.

H Yet the notion of a literal map in our heads may be misleading; a growing body of research implies that the cognitive map is mostly a metaphor. It may be more like a hierarchical structure of relationships. To get back to Grand Central, you first envision the large scale-that is, you visualize the general direction of the station. Within that system you then imagine the route to the last place you remember. After that, you observe your nearby surroundings to pick out a recognizable storefront or street comer that will send you toward that place. In this hierarchical, or nested, scheme, positions and distances are relative, in contrast with a road map, where the same information is shown in a geometrically precise scale.

Questions 28-32
Use the information in the passage to match the category of each navigation method (listed A-C) with correct statement. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. NB you may use any letter more than once

A Guidance
B Path integration
C Route following

28. Using basic direction from starting point and light intensity to move on
29. Using combination of place and direction heading for destination
30. Using an iconic building near your destination as orientation
31. Using a retrace method from a known place if a mistake happens
32. Using a passed spot as reference for a new integration

Questions 33-35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

33. What does the ant of Cataglyphis respond if it has been taken to another location according to the passage?
A Changes the orientation sensors improvingly
B Releases biological scent for help from others
C Continues to move by the original orientation
D Totally gets lost once disturbed

34. Which of the followings is true about “cognitive map” in this passage?
A There is not obvious difference contrast by real map
B It exists in our head and is always correct
C It only exists under some cultures
D It was managed by brain memory

35. Which of following description of way findings correctly reflects the function of cognitive map?
A It visualises a virtual route in a large scope
B It reproduces an exact details of every landmark
C Observation plays a more important role
D Store or supermarket is a must in file map

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                     if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE                    if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN          if there is no information on this

36. Biological navigation has a state of flexibility
37. You will always receive good reaction when you ask direction
38. When someone follows a route, he or she collects comprehensive perceptional information in mind on the way
39. Path integration requires more thought from brain compared with route- following
40. In a familiar surrounding, an exact map of where you are will automatically emerge in your head

Can Scientists tell us: What happiness is?

A Economists accept that if people describe themselves as happy, then they are happy. However, psychologists differentiate between levels of happiness. The most immediate type involves a feeling; pleasure or joy. But sometimes happiness is a judgment that life is satisfying, and does not imply an emotional state. Esteemed psychologist Martin Seligman has spearheaded an effort to study the science of happiness. The bad news is that we’re not wired to be happy. The good news is that we can do something about it. Since its origins in a Leipzig laboratory 130 years ago, psychology has had little to say about goodness and contentment. Mostly psychologists have concerned themselves with weakness and misery. There are libraries full of theories about why we get sad, worried, and angry. It hasn’t been respectable science to study what happens when lives go well. Positive experiences, such as joy, kindness, altruism and heroism, have mainly been ignored. For every 100 psychology papers dealing with anxiety or depression, only one concerns a positive trait.

B A few pioneers in experimental psychology bucked the trend. Professor Alice Isen of Cornell University and colleagues have demonstrated how positive emotions make people think faster and more creatively. Showing how easy it is to give people an intellectual boost, Isen divided doctors making a tricky diagnosis into three groups: one received candy, one read humanistic statements about medicine, one was a control group. The doctors who had candy displayed the most creative thinking and worked more efficiently. Inspired by Isen and others, Seligman got stuck in. He raised millions of dollars of research money and funded 50 research groups involving 150 scientists across the world. Four positive psychology centres opened, decorated in cheerful colours and furnished with sofas and baby-sitters. There were get-togethers on Mexican beaches where psychologists would snorkel and eat fajitas, then form “pods” to discuss subjects such as wonder and awe. A thousand therapists were coached in the new science.

C But critics are demanding answers to big questions. What is the point of defining levels of haziness and classifying the virtues? Aren’t these concepts vague and impossible to pin down? Can you justify spending funds to research positive states when there are problems such as famine, flood and epidemic depression to be solved? Seligman knows his work can be belittled alongside trite notions such as “the power of positive thinking”. His plan to stop the new science floating “on the waves of self- improvement fashion” is to make sure it is anchored to positive philosophy above, and to positive biology below.

D And this takes us back to our evolutionary past Homo sapiens evolved during the Pleistocene era (1.8 m to 10,000 years ago), a time of hardship and turmoil. It was the Ice Age, and our ancestors endured long freezes as glaciers formed, then ferocious floods as the ice masses melted. We shared the planet with terrifying creatures such as mammoths, elephant-sized ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats. But by the end of the Pleistocene, all these animals were extinct. Humans, on the other hand, had evolved large brains and used their intelligence to make fire and sophisticated tools, to develop talk and social rituals. Survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into a persistent mould. Professor Seligman says: “Because our brain evolved during a time of ice, flood and famine, we have a catastrophic brain. The way the brain works is looking for what’s wrong. The problem is, that worked in the Pleistocene era. It favoured you, but it doesn’t work in the modem world”.

E Although most people rate themselves as happy, there is a wealth of evidence to show that negative thinking is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. Experiments show that we remember failures more vividly than success. We dwell on what went badly, not what went well. Of the six universal emotions, four anger, fear, disgust and sadness are negative and only one, joy, is positive. (The sixth, surprise, is neutral). According to the psychologist Daniel Nettle, author of Happiness, and one of the Royal Institution lectures, the negative emotion each tells us “something bad has happened” and suggest a different course of action.

F What is it about the structure of the brain that underlies our bias towards negative thinking? And is there a biology of joy? At Iowa University, neuroscientist studied what happens when people are shown pleasant and unpleasant pictures. When subjects see landscapes or dolphins playing, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active. But when they are shown unpleasant images a bird covered in oil, or a dead soldier with part of his face missing the response comes from more primitive parts of the brain. The ability to feel negative emotions derives from an ancient danger-recognition system formed early in the brain’s evolution. The pre-frontal cortex, which registers happiness, is the part used for higher thinking, an area that evolved later in human history.

G Our difficulty, according to Daniel Nettle, is that the brain systems for liking and wanting are separate. Wanting involves two ancient regions the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens that communicate using the chemical dopamine to form the brain’s reward system. They are involved in anticipating the pleasure of eating and in addiction to drugs. A rat will press a bar repeatedly， ignoring sexually available partners, to receive electrical stimulation of the “wanting” parts of the brain. But having received brain stimulation, the rat eats more but shows no sign of enjoying the food it craved. In humans, a drug like nicotine produces much craving but little pleasure.

H In essence, what the biology lesson tells us is that negative emotions are fundamental to the human condition and it’s no wonder they are difficult to eradicate. At the same time, by a trick of nature, our brains are designed to crave but never really achieve lasting happiness.

Questions 1-7
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

1. An experiment involving dividing several groups one of which received positive icon
2. Review of a poorly researched psychology area
3. Contrast being made about the brains’ action as response to positive or negative stimulus
4. The skeptical attitude toward the research seemed to be a waste of fund
5. A substance that produces much wanting instead of much liking
6. A conclusion that lasting happiness is hardly obtained because of the nature of brains
7. One description that listed the human emotional categories.

Questions 8-12
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of reading passage. Using NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.

A few pioneers in experimental psychology study what happens when lives go well. Professor Alice divided doctors, making a tricky experiment, into three groups: besides the one control group, the other two either are asked to read humanistic statements about drugs or received (8)……………….. The latter displayed the most creative thinking and worked more efficiently. Since critics are questioning the significance of the (9)……………… for both levels of happiness and classification for the virtues. Professor Seligman countered in an evolutional theory: survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into the way of thinking for what’s wrong because we have a (10)………………..

There is bountiful of evidence to show that negative thinking is deeply built in the human psyche. Later, at Iowa University, neuroscientists studied the active parts in brains to contrast when people are shown pleasant and unpleasant pictures. When positive images like (11)………………… are shown, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active. But when they are shown unpleasant image, the response comes from (12)………………. of the brain.

Question 13
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

13. According to Daniel Nettle in the last two paragraphs, what is true as the scientists can tell us about happiness
A Brain systems always mix liking and wanting together.
B Negative emotions can be easily rid of if we think positively.
C Happiness is like nicotine we are craving for but get little pleasure.
D The inner mechanism of human brains does not assist us to achieve durable happiness

Tattoo on Tikopia

A There are still debates about the origins of Polynesian culture, but one thing we can ensure is that Polynesia is not a single tribe but a complex one. Polynesians which include Marquesans, Samoans, Niueans, Tongans, Cook Islanders, Hawaiians, Tahitians, and Maori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of parts of Southeast Asia. It’s a sub-region of Oceania, comprising of a large grouping of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean, within a triangle that has New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island as its corners.

B Polynesian history has fascinated the western world since Pacific cultures were first contacted by European explorers in the late 18th century. The small island of Tikopia, for many people – even for many Solomon Islanders – is so far away that it seems like a mythical land; a place like Narnia, that magical land in C. S. Lewis’s classic, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia.’ Maybe because of it – Tikopia, its people, and their cultures have long fascinated scholars, travelers, and casual observers. Like the pioneers’ Peter Dillion, Dumont D’Urville and John Coleridge Patterson who visit and write about the island in the 1800s, Raymond Firth is one of those people captured by the alluring attraction of Tikopia. As a result, he had made a number of trips to the island since the 1920s and recorded his experiences, observations, and reflections on Tikopia, its people, cultures and the changes that have occurred.

C While engaged in the study of the kinship and religious life of the people of Tikopia, Firth made a few observations on their tattooing. Brief though these notes are they may be worth putting on record as an indication of the sociological setting of the practice in this primitive Polynesian community. The origin of the English word tattoo’ actually comes from the Tikopia word ‘tatau’. The word for tattoo marks, in general, is tau, and the operation of tattooing is known as ta tau, ta being the generic term for the act of striking.

D The technique of tattooing was similar through Polynesia. Traditional tattoo artists create their indelible tattoos using pigment made from the candlenut or kukui nut. First, they burn the nut inside a bowl made of half a coconut shell. They then scrape out the soot and use a pestle to mix it with liquid. Bluing is sometimes added to counteract the reddish hue of the carbon-based pigment. It also makes the outline of the inscribed designs bolder on the dark skin of tattooing subjects.

E For the instruments used when tattooing, specialists used a range of chisels made from albatross wing bone which were hafted onto a handle which was made from the heart wood of the bush and struck with a mallet. The tattooer began by sketching with charcoal a design on the supine subject, whose skin at that location was stretched taut by one or more apprentices. The tattooer then dipped the appropriate points – eighter a single one or a whole comb – into the ink (usually contained in a coconut-shell cup) and tapped it into the subject’s skin, holding the blade handle in one hand and tapping it with the other. The blood that usually trickled from the punctures was wiped away either by the tattooer or his apprentice, the latter having also inevitably painful – a test of fortitude that tattooers sought to shorten by working as fas as possible. In fact, tattoos nearly always festered and often led to sickness – and in some cases death.

F In ancient Polynesian society, nearly everyone was tattooed. It was an integral part of ancient culture and was much more than a body ornament. Tattooing indicated ones’ genealogy and/or rank in society. It was a sign of wealth, of strength and of the ability to endure pain. Those who went without them were seen as persons of lower social status. As such, chiefs and warriors generally had the most elaborate tattoos. Tattooing was generally begun at adolescence, and would often not be completed for a number of years. Receiving tattoos constituted an important milestone between childhood and adulthood, and was accompanied by many rites and rituals. Apart from signaling status and rank, another reason for the practice in traditional times was to make a person more attractive to the opposite sex.

G The male facial tattoo is generally divided into eight sections of the face. The center of the forehead designated a person’s general rank. The area around the brows designated his position. The area around the eyes and the nose designated his hapu, or sub-tribe rank. The area around the temples served to details his signature. This signature was once memorized by tribal chief’s who used it when buying property, signing deeds, and officiating orders. The cheek area designated the nature of the person’s work. The chin area showed the person’s mana. Lastly, the jaw area designated a person’s birth status.

H A person’s ancestry is indicated on each side of the face. The left side is generally the father’s side, and the right side was the mother’s. the manutahi design is worked on the men’s back. It consists of two vertical lines drawn down the spine, with short vertical lines between them. When a man had the manutahi on this back, he took pride in himself. At gatherings of the people he could stand forth in their midst and display his tattoo designs with songs. And rows of triangles design on the men’s chest indicate his bravery.

I Tattoo was a way of delivering information about its owner. It’s also a traditional method to fetch spiritual power, protection and strength. The Polynesians use this as a sign of character, position and levels in a hierarchy. Polynesian people believe that a person’s mana, their spiritual power or life force, is displayed through their tattoo.

Questions 14-17
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet, write

YES                    if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO                     if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN        if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

14. Scientists like to do research in Tikopia because this tiny place is of great remoteness.
15. Firth was the first scholar to study on Tikopia.
16. Firth studied the culture differences on Tikopia as well as on some other islands of Pacific.
17. The English word ‘tattoo’ is evolved from the local language of the island.

Questions 18-22
Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from reading passage for each answer.

Questions 23-27
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Location on the body: Significance
(23)…………………….. of male face: general rank
(24)…………………… of male face: prestige
Female’s right side of the face: (25)………………..

Location on the body: Geometric patterns
Male back: (26)………………
Male chest: (27)………………

Pollution In the Bay

A Pouring water into the sea sounds harmless enough. But in Florida Bay, a large and shallow section of the Gulf of Mexico that lies between the southern end of the Everglades and the Florida Keys, it is proving highly controversial. That is because researchers are divided over whether it will help or hinder the plants and animals that live in the bay.

B What is at risk is the future of the bay’s extensive beds of seagrasses. These grow on the bay’s muddy floor and act as nurseries for the larvae of shrimps, lobsters and fish – many of the important sport and commercial-fishing species. Also in danger is an impressive range of coral reefs that run the length of the Florida Keys and form the third-largest barrier reef in the world. Since the 1980s, coral cover has dropped by 40%, and a third of the coral species have gone. This has had a damaging effect on the animals that depend on the reef, such as crabs, turtles and nearly 600 species of fish.

C What is causing such ecological change is a matter of much debate. And the answer is of no small consequence. This is because the American government is planning to devote $8 billion over the next 30 years to revitalise the Everglades. Seasonal freshwater flows into the Everglades are to be restored in order to improve the region’s health. But they will then run off into the bay.

D Joseph Zieman, a marine ecologist at the University of Virginia, thinks this is a good idea. He believes that a lack of fresh water in the bay is its main problem. The blame, he says, lies with a century of drainage in the Everglades aimed at turning the marshes into farmland and areas for development. This has caused the flow of fresh water into Florida Bay to dwindle, making the water in the bay, overall, more saline. This, he argues, kills the seagrasses, and as these rots, nutrients are released that feed the microscopic plants and animals that live in the water. This, he says, is why the bay’s once crystal-clear waters often resemble pea soup. And in a vicious circle, these turbid blooms block out sunlight, causing more seagrasses to die and yet more turbidity.

E Brian Lapointe, a marine scientist at the Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution at Fort Pierce in Florida, disagrees. He thinks seagrasses can tolerate much higher levels of salinity than the bay actually displays. Furthermore, he notes that when freshwater flows through the Everglades were increased experimentally in the 1990s, it led to massive plankton blooms. Freshwater running off from well-fertilised farmlands, he says, caused a fivefold rise in nitrogen levels in the bay. This was like pouring fuel on a fire. The result was mass mortality of seagrasses because of increased turbidity from the plankton. Dr Lapointe adds that, because corals thrive only in waters where nutrient levels are low, restoring freshwater rich in nitrogen will do more damage to the reef.

F It is a plausible theory. The water flowing off crops that are grown on the750,000 acres of heavily fertilised farmland on the northern edge of the Everglades is rich in nitrogen, half of which ends up in the bay. But Bill Kruczynski, of America’s Environmental Protection Agency, is convinced that nitrogen from farmlands is not the chief problem. Some coral reefs well away from any nitrogen pollution are dying and, curiously, a few are thriving. Dr Kruczynski thinks that increased nutrients arriving from local sewage discharges from the thousands of cesspits along the Florida Keys are part of the problem.

G Such claims and counterclaims make the impact of the restoration plan difficult to predict. If increased salinity is the main problem, the bay’s ecology will benefit from the Everglades restoration project. If, however, nitrogen is the problem, increasing the flow of freshwater could mate matters much worse.

H If this second hypothesis proves correct, the cure is to remove nitrogen from farmland or sewage discharges, or perhaps both. Neither will be easy. Man-made wetlands, at present, being built to reduce phosphate runoff into the bay—also from fertilisers—would need an algal culture (a sort of contained algal bloom) added to them to deal with discharges from farmlands. That would be costly. So too would be the replacement of cesspits with proper sewerage—one estimate puts the cost at $650m. Either way, it is clear that when, on December 1st, 3,000 square miles of sea around the reef are designated as a “protective zone” by the deputy secretary of commerce, Sam Bodman, this will do nothing to protect the reef from pollution.

I Some argue, though, that there is a more fundamental flaw in the plans for the bay: the very idea of returning it to a Utopian ideal before man wrought his damage. Nobody knows what Florida Bay was like before the 1950s when engineers cut the largest canals in the Everglades and took most of the water away. Dr Kruczynski suspects it was more like an estuary. The bay that many people wish to re-create could have been nothing more than a changing phase in the bay’s history.

J These arguments do not merely threaten to create ecological problems but economic ones as well. The economy of the Florida Keys depends on tourism—the local tourist industry has an annual turnover of $2.5 billion. People come for fishing-boat trips, for manatee watching, or for scuba diving and snorkeling to view the exotically coloured corals. If the plan to restore the Everglades makes problems in the bay and the reef worse, it could prove a very expensive mistake.

Questions 28-31
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-J. Which paragraph contains the following information?

28. See grass turned to be more resistant to the saline water level in the Bay.
29. Significance of finding a specific reason in controversy
30. Expensive proposals raised to solve the nitrogen dilemma
31. A statistic of ecological changes in both the coral area and species

Questions 32-35
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-C) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet.

A Bill Kruczynski
B Brian Lapointe
C Joseph Zieman

32. Drainage system in everglades actually results in high salty water in the bay.
33. Restoring water high in nitrogen level will make more ecological side effect
34. High nitrogen levels may be caused by the nearby farmland.
35. Released sewage rather than nutrients from agricultural area increase the level of Nitrogen.

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage? In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE                         if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
FALSE                         if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN               if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

36. Everyone agrees with “pouring water into the sea is harmless enough” even in the Florida Bay area.
37. Nitrogen was poured in from different types of crops as water flows through.
38. Everglade restoration project can be effective regardless of the cause of the pollution.
39. Human has changed Florida Bay where old image before 1950s is unrecalled.
40. Tourism contributes fundamentally to the Florida Bay area.