Month: May 2024

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 460

    THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOGRAPHY

    The Department of Ethnography was created as a separate deportment within the British Museum in 1946, offer 140 years of gradual development from the original Department of Antiquities. If is concerned with the people of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Pacific and parts of Europe. While this includes complex kingdoms, as in Africa, and ancient empires, such as those of the Americas, the primary focus of attention in the twentieth century has been on small-scale societies. Through its collections, the Department’s specific interest is to document how objects are created and used, and to understand their importance and significance to those who produce them. Such objects can include both the extraordinary and the mundane, the beautiful and the banal.

    The collections of the Department of Ethnography include approximately 300,000 artefacts, of which about half are the product of the present century. The Department has a vital role to play in providing information on non-Western cultures to visitors and scholars. To this end, the collecting emphasis has often been less on individual objects than on groups of material which allow the display of a broad range of a society’s cultural expressions.

    Much of the more recent collecting was carried out in the field, sometimes by Museum staff working on general anthropological projects in collaboration with a wide variety of national governments and other institutions. The material collected includes great technical series – for instance, of textiles from Bolivia, Guatemala, Indonesia and areas of West Africa – or of artefact types such as boats. The latter include working examples of coracles from India, reed boars from Lake Titicaca in the Andes, kayaks from the Arctic, and dug-out canoes from several countries. The field assemblages, such as those from the Sudan, Madagascar and Yemen, include a whole range of material culture representative of one people. This might cover the necessities of life of an African herdsman or on Arabian farmer, ritual objects, or even on occasion airport art. Again, a series of acquisitions might represent a decade’s fieldwork documenting social experience as expressed in the varieties of clothing and jewellery styles, tents and camel trappings from various Middle Eastern countries, or in the developing preferences in personal adornment and dress from Papua New Guinea. Particularly interesting are a series of collections which continue to document the evolution of ceremony and of material forms for which the Department already possesses early (if nor the earliest) collections formed after the first contact with Europeans.

    The importance of these acquisitions extends beyond the objects themselves. They come from the Museum with documentation of the social context, ideally including photographic records. Such acquisitions have multiple purposes. Most significantly they document for future change. Most people think of the cultures represented in the collection in terms of the absence of advanced technology. In fact, traditional practices draw on a continuing wealth of technological ingenuity. Limited resources and ecological constraints are often overcome by personal skills that would be regarded as exceptional in the West. Of growing interest is the way in which much of what we might see as disposable is, elsewhere, recycled and reused.

    With the Independence of much of Asia and Africa after 1945, it was assumed that economic progress would rapidly lead to the disappearance or assimilation of many small-scale societies. Therefore, it was felt that the Museum should acquire materials representing people whose art or material culture, ritual or political structures were on the point of irrevocable change. This attitude altered with the realisation that marginal communities can survive and adapt in spite of partial integration into a notoriously fickle world economy. Since the seventeenth century, with the advent of trading companies exporting manufactured textiles to North America and Asia, the importation of cheap goods has often contributed to the destruction of local skills and indigenous markets. On the one hand modern imported goods may be used in an everyday setting, while on the other hand other traditional objects may still be required for ritually significant events. Within this context trade and exchange attitudes are inverted. What are utilitarian objects to a Westerner may be prized objects in other cultures – when transformed by local ingenuity – principally for aesthetic value. In the some way, the West imports goods from other peoples and in certain circumstances categorizes them as ‘art’.

    Collections act as an ever-expanding database, nor merely for scholars and anthropologists, bur for people involved in a whole range of educational and artistic purposes. These include schools and universities as well as colleges of art and design. The provision of information about non-Western aesthetics and techniques, not just for designers and artists but for all visitors, is a growing responsibility for a Department whose own context is an increasingly multicultural European society.

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

    TRUE                        if the statement is true according to the passage
    FALSE                      if the statement is false according to the passage
    NOT GIVEN           if the information is not given in the passage

    1 The twentieth-century collections come mainly from mainstream societies such as the US and Europe.
    2 The Department of Ethnography focuses mainly on modern societies.
    3 The Department concentrates on collecting single unrelated objects of great value.
    4 The textile collection of the Department of Ethnography is the largest in the world.
    5 Traditional societies are highly inventive in terms of technology.
    6 Many small-scale societies have survived and adapted in spite of predictions to the contrary.

    Questions 7-12
    Some of the exhibits at the Department of Ethnography are listed below (Questions 7-12). The writer gives these exhibits as examples of different collection types. Match each exhibit with the collection type with which it is associated in Reading Passage 1. Write the appropriate letters in boxes 7-12 on your answer sheet.
    NB You may use any collection type more than once.

    Example: Boats (Answer) AT
    7 Bolivian textiles
    8 Indian coracles
    9 airport art
    10 Arctic kayaks
    11 necessities of life of an Arabian farmer
    12 tents from the Middle East

    Collection Types
    AT Artefact Types
    EC Evolution of Ceremony
    FA Field Assemblages
    SE Social Experiences
    TS Technical Series

    Secrets of the Forest

    A In 1942 Allan R Holmberg, a doctoral student in anthropology from Yale University, USA, ventured deep into the jungle of Bolivian Amazonia and searched out an isolated band of Siriono Indians. The Siriono, Holmberg later wrote, led a “strikingly backward” existence. Their villages were little more than clusters of thatched huts. Life itself was a perpetual and punishing search for food: some families grew manioc and other starchy crops in small garden plots cleared from the forest, while other members of the tribe scoured the country for small game and promising fish holes. When local resources became depleted, the tribe moved on. As for technology, Holmberg noted, the Siriono “may be classified among the most handicapped people of the world”. Other than bows, arrows and crude digging sticks, the only tools the Siriono seemed to possess were “two machetes worn to the size of pocket- knives”.

    B Although the lives of the Siriono have changed in the intervening decades, the image of them as Stone Age relics has endured. Indeed, in many respects the Siriono epitomize the popular conception of life in Amazonia. To casual observers, as well as to influential natural scientists and regional planners, the luxuriant forests of Amazonia seem ageless, unconquerable, a habitat totally hostile to human civilization. The apparent simplicity of Indian ways of life has been judged an evolutionary adaptation to forest ecology, living proof that Amazonia could not – and cannot – sustain a more complex society. Archaeological traces of far more elaborate cultures have been dismissed as the ruins of invaders from outside the region, abandoned to decay in the uncompromising tropical environment.

    C The popular conception of Amazonia and its native residents would be enormously consequential if it were true. But the human history of Amazonia in the past 11,000 years betrays that view as myth. Evidence gathered in recent years from anthropology and archaeology indicates that the region has supported a series of indigenous cultures for eleven thousand years; an extensive network of complex societies – some with populations perhaps as large as 100,000 – thrived there for more than 1,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. (Indeed, some contemporary tribes, including the Siriono, still live among the earthworks of earlier cultures.) Far from being evolutionarily retarded, prehistoric Amazonian people developed technologies and cultures that were advanced for their time. If the lives of Indians today seem “primitive”, the appearance is not the result of some environmental adaptation or ecological barrier; rather it is a comparatively recent adaptation to centuries of economic and political pressure. Investigators who argue otherwise have unwittingly projected the present onto the past.

    D The evidence for a revised view of Amazonia will take many people by surprise. Ecologists have assumed that tropical ecosystems were shaped entirely by natural forces and they have focused their research on habitats they believe have escaped human influence. But as the University of Florida ecologist, Peter Feinsinger, has noted, an approach that leaves people out of the equation is no longer tenable. The archaeological evidence shows that the natural history of Amazonia is to a surprising extent tied to the activities of its prehistoric inhabitants.

    E The realization comes none too soon. In June 1992 political and environmental leaders from across the world met in Rio de Janeiro to discuss how developing countries can advance their economies without destroying their natural resources. The challenge is especially difficult in Amazonia. Because the tropical forest has been depicted as ecologically unfit for large-scale human occupation, some environmentalists have opposed development of any kind.

    Ironically, one major casualty of that extreme position has been the environment itself. While policy makers struggle to define and implement appropriate legislation, development of the most destructive kind has continued apace over vast areas.

    F The other major casualty of the “naturalism” of environmental scientists has been the indigenous Amazonians, whose habits of hunting, fishing, and slash-and-burn cultivation often have been represented as harmful to the habitat. In the clash between environmentalists and developers, the Indians, whose presence is in fact crucial to the survival of the forest, have suffered the most. The new understanding of the pre-history of Amazonia, however, points toward a middle ground. Archaeology makes clear that with judicious management selected parts of the region could support more people than anyone thought before. The long- buried past, it seems, offers hope for the future.

    Questions 13-15
    Reading Passage 2 has six sections A-F. Choose the most suitable headings for sections A, B and D from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers i-vii in boxes 13-15 on your answer sheet.

    List of headings

    i Amazonia as unable to sustain complex societies
    ii The role of recent technology in ecological research in Amazonia
    iii The hostility of the indigenous population to North American influences
    iv Recent evidence
    v Early research among the Indian Amazons
    vi The influence of prehistoric inhabitants on Amazonian natural history
    vii The great difficulty of changing local attitudes and practices

    Example: Section C iv
    13 Section A
    14 Section B
    15 Section D

    Questions 16-21
    Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 16—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

    16 The reason for the simplicity of the Indian way of life is that Amazonia has always been unable to support a more complex society.
    17 There is a crucial popular misconception about the human history of Amazonia.
    18 There are lessons to be learned from similar ecosystems in other parts of the world.
    19 Most ecologists were aware that the areas of Amazonia they were working in had been shaped by human settlement.
    20 The indigenous Amazonian Indians are necessary to the well-being of the forest.
    21 It would be possible for certain parts of Amazonia to support a higher population.

    Questions 22-25

    22 In 1942 the US anthropology student concluded that the Siriono
    A were unusually aggressive and cruel
    B had had their way of life destroyed by invaders
    C were an extremely primitive society
    D had only recently made permanent settlements

    23 The author believes recent discoveries of the remains of complex societies in Amazonia
    A are evidence of early indigenous communities
    B are the remains of settlements by invaders
    C are the ruins of communities established since the European invasions
    D show the region has only relatively recently been covered by forest

    24 The assumption that the tropical ecosystem of Amazonia has been created solely by natural forces
    A has often been questioned by ecologists in the past
    B has been shown to be incorrect by recent research
    C was made by Peter Feinsinger and other ecologists
    D has led to some fruitful discoveriesx

    25 The application of our new insights into the Amazonian past would
    A warn us against allowing any development at all
    B cause further suffering to the Indian communities
    C change present policies on development in the region
    D reduce the amount of hunting, fishing, and ‘slash-and-burn’

    HIGHS and LOWS

    Hormone levels – and hence our moods -may be affected by the weather. Gloomy weather can cause depression, but sunshine appears to raise the spirits. In Britain, for example, the dull weather of winter drastically cuts down the amount of sunlight that is experienced which strongly affects some people. They become so depressed and lacking in energy that their work and social life are affected. This condition has been given the name SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Sufferers can fight back by making the most of any sunlight in winter and by spending a few hours each day under special, full-spectrum lamps. These provide more ultraviolet and blue-green light than ordinary fluorescent and tungsten lights. Some Russian scientists claim that children learn better after being exposed to ultraviolet light. In warm countries, hours of work are often arranged so that workers can take a break, or even a siesta, during the hottest part of the day. Scientists are working to discover the links between the weather and human beings’ moods and performance.

    It is generally believed that tempers grow shorter in hot, muggy weather. There is no doubt that crimes against the person rise in the summer, when the weather is hotter and fall in the winter when the weather is colder. Research in the United States has shown a relationship between temperature and street riots. The frequency of riots rises dramatically as the weather gets warmer, hitting a peak around 27-30°C. But is this effect really due to a mood change caused by the heat? Some scientists argue that trouble starts more often in hot weather merely because there are more people in the street when the weather is good.

    Psychologists have also studied how being cold affects performance. Researchers compared divers working in icy cold water at 5°C with others in water at 20°C (about swimming pool temperature). The colder water made the divers worse at simple arithmetic and other mental tasks. But significantly, their performance was impaired as soon as they were put into the cold water – before their bodies had time to cool down. This suggests that the low temperature did not slow down mental functioning directly, but the feeling of cold distracted the divers from their tasks.

    Psychologists have conducted studies showing that people become less sceptical and more optimistic when the weather is sunny. However, this apparently does not just depend on the temperature. An American psychologist studied customers in a temperature-controlled restaurant. They gave bigger tips when the sun was shining and smaller tips when it wasn’t, even though the temperature in the restaurant was the same. A link between weather and mood is made believable by the evidence for a connection between behaviour and the length of the daylight hours. This in turn might involve the level of a hormone called melatonin, produced in the pineal gland in the brain.

    The amount of melatonin falls with greater exposure to daylight. Research shows that melatonin plays an important part in the seasonal behaviour of certain animals. For example, food consumption of stags increases during the winter, reaching a peak in February/ March. It falls again to a low point in May, then rises to a peak in September, before dropping to another minimum in November. These changes seem to be triggered by varying melatonin levels.

    In the laboratory, hamsters put on more weight when the nights are getting shorter and their melatonin levels are falling. On the other hand, if they are given injections of melatonin, they will stop eating altogether. It seems that time cues provided by the changing lengths of day and night trigger changes in animals’ behaviour – changes that are needed to cope with the cycle of the seasons. People’s moods too, have been shown to react to the length of the daylight hours. Sceptics might say that longer exposure to sunshine puts people in a better mood because they associate it with the happy feelings of holidays and freedom from responsibility. However, the belief that rain and murky weather make people more unhappy is borne out by a study in Belgium, which showed that a telephone counselling service gets more telephone calls from people with suicidal feelings when it rains.

    When there is a thunderstorm brewing, some people complain of the air being ‘heavy’ and of feeling irritable, moody and on edge. They may be reacting to the fact that the air can become slightly positively charged when large thunderclouds are generating the intense electrical fields that cause lightning flashes. The positive charge increases the levels of serotonin (a chemical involved in sending signals in the nervous system). High levels of serotonin in certain areas of the nervous system make people more active and reactive and, possibly, more aggressive. When certain winds are blowing, such as the Mistral in southern France and the Fohn in southern Germany, mood can be affected – and the number of traffic accidents rises. It may be significant that the concentration of positively charged particles is greater than normal in these winds. In the United Kingdom, 400,000 ionizers are sold every year. These small machines raise the number of negative ions in the air in a room. Many people claim they feel better in negatively charged air.

    Questions 26-28
    Choose the appropriate letters A—D and write them in boxes 26—28 on your answer sheet.

    26 Why did the divers perform less well in colder conditions?
    A They were less able to concentrate
    B Their body temperature fell too quickly
    C Their mental functions were immediately affected by the cold
    D They were used to swimming pool conditions

    27 The number of daylight hours
    A affects the performance of workers in restaurants
    B influences animal feeding habits
    C makes animals like hamsters more active
    D prepares humans for having greater leisure time

    28 Human irritability may be influenced by
    A how nervous and aggressive people are
    B reaction to certain weather phenomena
    C the number of ions being generated by machines
    D the attitude of people to thunderstorms

    Questions 29-34
    Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 29-34 on your answer sheet write

    TRUE                        if the statement is true according to the passage
    FALSE                      if the statement is false according to the passage
    NOT GIVEN           if the information is not given in the passage

    29 Seasonal Affective Disorder is disrupting children’s education in Russia.
    30 Serotonin is an essential cause of human aggression.
    31 Scientific evidence links ‘happy associations with weather’ to human mood.
    32 A link between depression and the time of year has been established.
    33 Melatonin levels increase at certain times of the year.
    34 Positively charged ions can influence eating habits.

    Questions 35-37
    According to the text which THREE of the following conditions have been scientifically proved to have a psychological effect on humans? Choose THREE letters A—G and write them in boxes 35—37 on your answer sheet.

    A lack of negative ions
    B rainy weather
    C food consumption
    D high serotonin levels
    E sunny weather
    F freedom from worry
    G lack of counselling facilities

    Questions 38-40
    Complete each of the following statements with the best ending from the box below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 38—40 on your answer sheet.

    38 It has been established that social tension increases significantly in the United States during
    39 Research has shown that a hamster’s bodyweight increases according to its exposure to
    40 Animals cope with changing weather and food availability because they are influenced by

    A daylight                   B hot weather                  C melatonin                 D moderate temperatures

    E poor coordination    F time cues                      G impaired performance

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 459

    A Remarkable Beetle

    Some of the most remarkable beetles are the dung beetles, which spend almost their whole lives eating and breeding in dung’.

    More than 4,000 species of these remarkable creatures have evolved and adapted to the world’s different climates and the dung of its many animals. Australia’s native dung beetles are scrub and woodland dwellers, specialising in coarse marsupial droppings and avoiding the soft cattle dung in which bush flies and buffalo flies breed.

    In the early 1960s George Bornemissza, then a scientist at the Australian Government’s premier research organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), suggested that dung beetles should be introduced to Australia to control dung-breeding flies. Between 1968 and 1982, the CSIRO imported insects from about 50 different species of dung beetle, from Asia, Europe and Africa, aiming to match them to different climatic zones in Australia. Of the 26 species that are known to have become successfully integrated into the local environment, only one, an African species released in northern Australia, has reached its natural boundary.

    Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

    Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately 20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants.

    For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a variety of species with overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments of the state of Victoria, the large French species (2.5 cms long) is matched with smaller (half this size), temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are slow to recover from the winter cold and produce only one or two generations of offspring from late spring until autumn. The latter, which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations annually. The South African ball-rolling species, being a subtropical beetle, prefers the climate of northern and coastal New South Wales where it commonly works with the South African tunnelling species. In warmer climates, many species are active for longer periods of the year.

    Dung beetles were initially introduced in the late 1960s with a view to controlling buffalo flies by removing the dung within a day or two and so preventing flies from breeding. However, other benefits have become evident. Once the beetle larvae have finished pupation, the residue is a first-rate source of fertiliser. The tunnels abandoned by the beetles provide excellent aeration and water channels for root systems. In addition, when the new generation of beetles has left the nest the abandoned burrows are an attractive habitat for soil-enriching earthworms. The digested dung in these burrows is an excellent food supply for the earthworms, which decompose it further to provide essential soil nutrients. If it were not for the dung beetle, chemical fertiliser and dung would be washed by rain into streams and rivers before it could be absorbed into the hard earth, polluting water courses and causing blooms of blue-green algae. Without the beetles to dispose of the dung, cow pats would litter pastures making grass inedible to cattle and depriving the soil of sunlight. Australia’s 30 million cattle each produce 10-12 cow pats a day. This amounts to 1.7 billion tonnes a year, enough to smother about 110,000 sq km of pasture, half the area of Victoria.

    Dung beetles have become an integral part of the successful management of dairy farms in Australia over the past few decades. A number of species are available from the CSIRO or through a small number of private breeders, most of whom were entomologists with the CSIRO’s dung beetle unit who have taken their specialised knowledge of the insect and opened small businesses in direct competition with their former employer.

    Questions 1-5
    Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet write

    YES                             if the statement reflects the claims of the writer
    NO                               if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
    NOT GIVEN            if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

    1 Bush flies are easier to control than buffalo flies.
    2 Four thousand species of dung beetle were initially brought to Australia by the CSIRO.
    3 Dung beetles were brought to Australia by the CSIRO over a fourteen-year period.
    4 At least twenty-six of the introduced species have become established in Australia.
    5 The dung beetles cause an immediate improvement to the quality of a cow pasture.

    Questions 6-8
    Label the tunnels on the diagram below. Choose your labels from the box given with the diagram

    Section B
    No activity affects more of the earth’s surface than farming. It shapes a third of the planet’s land area, not counting Antarctica, and the proportion is rising. World food output per head has risen by 4 per cent between the 1970s and 1980s mainly as a result of increases in yields from land already in cultivation, but also because more land has been brought under the plough. Higher yields have been achieved by increased irrigation, better crop breeding, and a doubling in the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Section C
    All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example, land clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation; chemical fertilisers and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more intensive farming and the abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate soil erosion; and the spread of mono-Culture and use of high-yielding varieties of crops have been accompanied by the disappearance of old varieties of food plants which might have provided some insurance against pests or diseases in future. Soil erosion threatens the productivity of land in both rich and poor countries. The United States, where the most careful measurements have been done, discovered in 1982 that about one-fifth of its farmland as losing topsoil at a rate likely to diminish the soil’s productivity. The country subsequently embarked upon a program to convert 11 per cent of its cropped land to meadow or forest. Topsoil in India and China is vanishing much faster than in America.

    Section D
    Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage that farming can cause. In the rich countries, subsidies for growing crops and price supports for farm output drive up the price of land. The annual value of these subsidies is immense: about $250 billion, or more than all World Bank lending in the 1980s.To increase the output of crops per acre, a farmer’s easiest option is to use more of the most readily available inputs: fertilisers and pesticides. Fertiliser use doubled in Denmark in the period 1960-1985 and increased in The Netherlands by 150 per cent. The quantity of pesticides applied has risen too; by 69 per cent in 1975-1984 in Denmark, for example, with a rise of 115 per cent in the frequency of application in the three years from 1981.

    In the late 1980s and early 1990s some efforts were made to reduce farm subsidies. The most dramatic example was that of New Zealand, which scrapped most farm support in 1984. A study of the environmental effects, conducted in 1993, found that the end of fertiliser subsidies had been followed by a fall in fertiliser use (a fall compounded by the decline in world commodity prices, which cut farm incomes). The removal of subsidies also stopped land-clearing and over-stocking, which in the past had been the principal causes of erosion. Farms began to diversify. The one kind of subsidy whose removal appeared to have been bad for the environment was the subsidy to manage soil erosion.

    In less enlightened countries, and in the European Union, the trend has been to reduce rather than eliminate subsidies, and to introduce new payments to encourage farmers to treat their land in environmentally friendlier ways, or to leave it follow. It may sound strange but such payments need to be higher than the existing incentives for farmers to grow food crops. Farmers, however, dislike being paid to do nothing. In several countries they have become interested in the possibility of using fuel produced from crop residues either as a replacement for petrol (as ethanol) or as fuel for power stations (as biomass). Such fuels produce far less carbon dioxide than coal or oil, and absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. They are therefore less likely to contribute to the greenhouse effect. But they die rarely competitive with fossil fuels unless subsidised – and growing them does no less environmental harm than other crops.

    Section E
    In poor countries, governments aggravate other sorts of damage. Subsidies for pesticides and artificial fertilisers encourage farmers to use greater quantities than are needed to get the highest economic crop yield. A study by the International Rice Research Institute Of pesticide use by farmers in South East Asia found that, with pest-resistant varieties of rice, even moderate applications of pesticide frequently cost farmers more than they saved. Such waste puts farmers on a chemical treadmill: bugs and weeds become resistant to poisons, so next year’s poisons must be more lethal. One cost is to human health, every year some 10,000 people die from pesticide poisoning, almost all of them in the developing countries, and another 400,000 become seriously ill. As for artificial fertilisers, their use world-wide increased by 40 per cent per unit of farmed land between the mid 1970s and late 1980s, mostly in the developing countries. Overuse of fertilisers may cause farmers to stop rotating crops or leaving their land fallow. That, In turn, may make soil erosion worse.

    Section F
    A result of the Uruguay Round of world trade negotiations is likely to be a reduction of 36 per cent in the average levels of farm subsidies paid by the rich countries in 1986-1990. Some of the world’s food production will move from Western Europe to regions where subsidies are lower or non-existent, such as the former communist countries and parts of the developing world. Some environmentalists worry about this outcome.

    It will undoubtedly mean more pressure to convert natural habitat into farmland. But it will also have many desirable environmental effects. The intensity of farming in the rich world should decline, and the use of chemical inputs will diminish. Crops are more likely to be grown up in the environments to which they are naturally suited. And more farmers in poor countries will have the money and the incentive to manage their land in ways that are sustainable in the long run. That is important. To feed an increasingly hungry world, farmers need every incentive to use their soil and water effectively and efficiently.

    Questions 14-18
    Reading Passage 2 has six sections A-F. Choose the most suitable headings for sections A-D and F from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers i-ix in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

    List of Headings
    i The probable effects of the new international trade agreement
    ii The environmental impact of modern farming
    iii Farming and soil erosion
    iv The effects of government policy in rich countries
    v Governments and management of the environment
    vi The effects of government policy in poor countries
    vii Farming and food output
    viii The effects of government policy on food output
    ix The new prospects for world trade

    14 Paragraph A
    15 Paragraph B
    16 Paragraph C
    17 Paragraph D
    18 Paragraph F

    Questions 19-22
    Complete the table below using the information in sections B and C of Reading Passage 2. Choose your answers A-G from the box below the table and write them in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.

    Agricultural practiceEnvironment damage that may result
    (19)……………………..deforestation
    (20)……………………degraded water supply
    More intensive farming(21)……………………
    Expansion of monoculture(22)…………………..
    A abandonment of fallow periodB disappearance of old plant varietiesC increased use of chemical inputs
    D increased irrigationE insurance against pets and diseasesF soil erosion
    G clearing land for cultivation

    Questions 23-27
    Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.

    23 Research completed in 1982 found that in the United States soil erosion
    A reduced the productivity of farmland by 20 per cent.
    B was almost as severe as in India and China.
    C was causing significant damage to 20 per cent of farmland.
    D could be reduced by converting cultivated land to meadow or forest.

    24 By the mid-1980s, farmers in Denmark
    A used 50 per cent less fertiliser than Dutch farmers.
    B used twice as much fertiliser as they had in 1960.
    C applied fertiliser much more frequently than in 1960.
    D more than doubled the amount of pesticide they used in just 3 years.

    25 Which one of the following increased in New Zealand after 1984?
    A farm incomes
    B use of fertilizer
    C over-stocking
    D farm diversification

    26 The writer refers to some rich countries as being ‘less enlightened’ than New Zealand because
    A they disapprove of paying farmers for not cultivating the land.
    B their new fuel crops are as harmful as the ones they have replaced.
    C their policies do not recognise the long-term benefit of ending subsidies.
    D they have not encouraged their farmers to follow environmentally friendly practices.

    27 The writer believes that the Uruguay Round agreements on trade will
    A encourage more sustainable farming practices in the long term.
    B do more harm than good to the international environment.
    C increase pressure to cultivate land in the rich countries.
    D be more beneficial to rich than to poor countries.

    Question 28
    From the list below choose the most suitable title for Reading Passage 2. Write the appropriate letter A-E in box 28 on your answer sheet.

    A Environmental management
    B Increasing the world’s food supply
    C Soil erosion
    D Fertilisers and pesticides – the way forward
    E Farm subsidies

    The Concept Of Role Theory

    Role set
    Any individual in any situation occupies a role in relation to other people. The particular individual with whom one is concerned in the analysis of any situation is usually given the name of focal person. He has the focal role and can be regarded as sitting in the middle of a group of people, with whom he interacts in some way in that situation. This group of people is called his role set. For instance, in the family situation, an individual’s role set might be shown as in Figure 6. The role set should include all those with whom the individual has more than trivial interactions.

    Role definition
    The definition of any individual’s role in any situation will be a combination of the role expectations that the members of the role set have of the focal role. These expectations are often occupationally denned, sometimes even legally so. The role definitions of lawyers and doctors are fairly clearly defined both in legal and in cultural terms. The role definitions of, say, a film star or bank manager, are also fairly clearly defined in cultural terms, too clearly perhaps.

    Individuals often find it hard to escape from the role that cultural traditions have defined for them. Not only with doctors or lawyers is the required role behaviour so constrained that if you are in that role for long it eventually becomes part of you, part of your personality. Hence, there is some likelihood that all accountants will be alike or that all blondes are similar – they are forced that way by the expectations of their role.

    It is often important that you make it clear what your particular role is at a given time. The means of doing this are called, rather obviously, role signs. The simplest of role signs is a uniform. The number of stripes on your arm or pips on your shoulder is a very precise role definition which allows you to do certain very prescribed things in certain situations. Imagine yourself questioning a stranger on a dark street at midnight without wearing the role signs of a policeman!

    In social circumstances, dress has often been used as a role sign to indicate the nature and degree of formality of any gathering and occasionally the social status of people present. The current trend towards blurring these role signs in dress is probably democratic, but it also makes some people very insecure. Without role signs, who is to know who has what role?

    Place is another role sign. Managers often behave very differently outside the office and in it, even to the same person. They use a change of location to indicate a change in role from, say, boss to friend. Indeed, if you wish to change your roles you must find some outward sign that you are doing so or you won’t be permitted to change – the subordinate will continue to hear you as his boss no matter how hard you try to be his friend. In very significant cases of role change, e.g. from a soldier in the ranks to officer, from bachelor to married man, the change of role has to have a very obvious sign, hence rituals. It is interesting to observe, for instance, some decline in the emphasis given to marriage rituals. This could be taken as an indication that there is no longer such a big change in role from single to married person, and therefore no need for a public change in sign.

    In organisations, office signs and furniture are often used as role signs. These and other perquisites of status are often frowned upon, but they may serve a purpose as a kind of uniform in a democratic society; roles without signs often lead to confused or differing expectations of the role of the focal person.

    Role ambiguity
    Role ambiguity results when there is some uncertainty in the minds, either of the focal person or of the members of his role set, as to precisely what his role is at any given time. One of the crucial expectations that shape the role definition is that of the individual, the focal person himself. If his occupation of the role is unclear, or if it differs from that of the others in the role set, there will be a degree of role ambiguity. Is this bad? Not necessarily, for the ability to shape one’s own role is one of the freedoms that many people desire, but the ambiguity may lead to role stress which will be discussed later on. The virtue of job descriptions is that they lessen this role ambiguity. Unfortunately, job descriptions are seldom complete role definitions, except at the lower end of the scale. At middle and higher management levels, they are often a list of formal jobs and duties that say little about the more subtle and informal expectations of the role. The result is therefore to give the individual an uncomfortable feeling that there are things left unsaid, i. e. to heighten the sense of role ambiguity.

    Looking at role ambiguity from the other side, from the point of view of the members of the role set, lack of clarity in the role of the focal person can cause insecurity, lack of confidence, irritation and even anger among members of his role set. One list of the roles of a manager identified the following: executive, planner, policy maker, expert, controller of rewards and punishments, counsellor, friend, teacher. If it is not clear, through role signs of one sort or another, which role is currently the operational one, the other party may not react in the appropriate way — we may, in fact, hear quite another message if the focal person speaks to us, for example, as a teacher and we hear her as an executive.

    Questions 29-35
    Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 29-35 on your answer sheet write

    YES                           if the statement reflects the views of the writer
    NO                             if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
    NOT GIVEN          if it is impossible to know what the writer thinks about this

    29 It would be a good idea to specify the role definitions of soldiers more clearly.
    30 Accountants may be similar to one another because they have the same type of job.
    31 It is probably a good idea to keep dress as a role sign even nowadays.
    32 The decline in emphasis on marriage rituals should be reversed.
    33 Today furniture operates as a role sign in the same way as dress has always done.
    34 It is a good idea to remove role ambiguity.
    35 Job descriptions eliminate role ambiguity for managers.

    Questions 36-39
    Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 3 for each answer.
    Write your answers in boxes 36-39 on your answer sheet.

    36 A new headmaster of a school who enlarges his office and puts in expensive carpeting is using the office as a……………………….
    37 The graduation ceremony in many universities is an important……………….
    38 The wig which judges wear in UK courts is a………………….
    39 The parents of students in a school are part of the headmaster’s………………………

    Question 40
    Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 40 on your answer sheet.

    This text is taken from
    A a guide for new managers in a company.
    B a textbook analysis of behaviour in organisations.
    C a critical study of the importance of role signs in modern society.
    D a newspaper article about role changes.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 458

    THE ROCKET – FROM EAST TO WEST

    A The concept of the rocket, or rather the mechanism behind the idea of propelling an object into the air, has been around for well over two thousand years. However, it wasn’t until the discovery of the reaction principle, which was the key to space travel and so represents one of the great milestones in the history of scientific thought that rocket technology was able to develop. Not only did it solve a problem that had intrigued man for ages, but, more importantly, it literally opened the door to exploration of the universe.

    B An intellectual breakthrough, brilliant though it may be, does not automatically ensure that the transition is made from theory to practice. Despite the fact that rockets had been used sporadically for several hundred years, they remained a relatively minor artefact of civilisation until the twentieth century. Prodigious efforts, accelerated during two world wars, were required before the technology of primitive rocketry could be translated into the reality of sophisticated astronauts. It is strange that the rocket was generally ignored by writers of fiction to transport their heroes to mysterious realms beyond the Earth, even though it had been commonly used in fireworks displays in China since the thirteenth century. The reason is that nobody associated the reaction principle with the idea of travelling through space to a neighbouring world.

    C A simple analogy can help us to understand how a rocket operates. It is much like a machine gun mounted on the rear of a boat. In reaction to the backward discharge of bullets, the gun, and hence the boat, move forwards. A rocket motor’s ‘bullets’ are minute, high-speed particles produced by burning propellants in a suitable chamber. The reaction to the ejection of these small particles causes the rocket to move forwards. There is evidence that the reaction principle was applied practically well before the rocket was invented. In his Noctes Atticae or Greek Nights, Aulus Gellius describes ‘the pigeon of Archytas’, an invention dating back to about 360 BC. Cylindrical in shape, made of wood, and hanging from string, it was moved to and fro by steam blowing out from small exhaust ports at either end. The reaction to the discharging steam provided the bird with motive power.

    D The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of ‘black powder’. Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies. One such weapon was the ‘basket of fire’ or, as directly translated from Chinese, the ‘arrows like flying leopards’. The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the ‘arrow as a flying sabre’, which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to increase the arrow’s stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position below the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the ‘egg which moves and burns’. This ‘egg’ was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail. It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail.

    E It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India as ‘an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick’. In the early nineteenth century the British began to experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and having a stick almost five metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the body of the rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of the rockets in flight was less than predictable.

    F Since then, there have been huge developments in rocket technology, often with devastating results in the forum of war. Nevertheless, the modern day space programs owe their success to the humble beginnings of those in previous centuries who developed the foundations of the reaction principle. Who knows what it will be like in the future?

    Questions 1-4
    Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.
    Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

    List of Headings
    i How the reaction principle works
    ii The impact of the reaction principle
    iii Writers’ theories of the reaction principle
    iv Undeveloped for centuries
    v The first rockets
    vi The first use of steam
    vii Rockets for military use
    viii Developments of fire
    ix What’s next?

    1 Paragraph B
    2 Paragraph C
    3 Paragraph D
    4 Paragraph E

    Question 5 and 6
    Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 5 and 6 on your answer sheet.

    5 The greatest outcome of the discovery of the reaction principle was that
    A rockets could be propelled into the air
    B space travel became a reality
    C a major problem had been solved
    D bigger rockets were able to be built

    6 According to the text, the greatest progress in rocket technology was made
    A from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries
    B from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
    C from the early nineteenth to the late nineteenth century
    D from the late nineteenth century to the present day

    Questions 7-10
    From the information in the text, indicate who FIRST invented or used the items in the list below.

    Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
    NB You may use any letter more than once.

    7 black powder ……………….. .
    8 rocket-propelled arrows for fighting ……………….. .
    9 rockets as war weapons ……………….. .
    10 the rocket launcher ……………….. .

    FIRST invented or used by
    A the Chinese
    B the Indians
    C the British
    D the Arabs
    E the Americans

    Questions 11-14

    Look at the drawings of different projectiles below, A-H, and the names of types of projectiles given in the Reading Passage 1, Questions 11-14.
    Write the appropriate letters A-H in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.

    11 The Chinese ‘basket of fire’ …………………
    12 The Arab ‘egg which moves and burns’ …………………
    13 The Indian rocket …………………
    14 The British barrage rocket …………………

    The Risks of Cigarette Smoke

    Discovered in the early 1800s and named ‘nicotianine’, the oily essence now called nicotine is the main active ingredient of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is only a small component of cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including 43 cancer-causing substances. In recent times, scientific research has been providing evidence that years of cigarette smoking vastly increases the risk of developing fatal medical conditions.

    In addition to being responsible for more than 85 per cent of lung cancers, smoking is associated with cancers of, amongst others, the mouth, stomach and kidneys, and is thought to cause about 14 per cent of leukemia and cervical cancers. In 1990, smoking caused more than 84,000 deaths, mainly resulting from such problems as pneumonia, bronchitis and influenza. Smoking, it is believed, is responsible for 30 per cent of all deaths from cancer and clearly represents the most important preventable cause of cancer in countries like the United States today.

    Passive smoking, the breathing in of the side-stream smoke from the burning of tobacco between puffs or of the smoke exhaled by a smoker, also causes a serious health risk. A report published in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emphasized the health dangers, especially from side-stream smoke. This type of smoke contains more smaller particles and is therefore more likely to be deposited deep in the lungs. On the basis of this report, the EPA has classified environmental tobacco smoke in the highest risk category for causing cancer.

    As an illustration of the health risks, in the case of a married couple where one partner is a smoker and one a non-smoker, the latter is believed to have a 30 per cent higher risk of death from heart disease because of passive smoking. The risk of lung cancer also increases over the years of exposure and the figure jumps to 80 per cent if the spouse has been smoking four packs a day for 20 years. It has been calculated that 17 per cent of cases of lung cancer can be attributed to high levels of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke during childhood and adolescence.

    A more recent study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that second-hand cigarette smoke does more harm to non-smokers than to smokers. Leaving aside the philosophical question of whether anyone should have to breathe someone else’s cigarette smoke, the report suggests that the smoke experienced by many people in their daily lives is enough to produce substantial adverse effects on a person’s heart and lungs.

    The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), was based on the researchers’ own earlier research but also includes a review of studies over the past few years. The American Medical Association represents about half of all US doctors and is a strong opponent of smoking. The study suggests that people who smoke cigarettes are continually damaging their cardiovascular system, which adapts in order to compensate for the effects of smoking. It further states that people who do not smoke do not have the benefit of their system adapting to the smoke inhalation. Consequently, the effects of passive smoking are far greater on non-smokers than on smokers.

    This report emphasizes that cancer is not caused by a single element in cigarette smoke; harmful effects to health are caused by many components. Carbon monoxide, for example, competes with oxygen in red blood cells and interferes with the blood’s ability to deliver life-giving oxygen to the heart. Nicotine and other toxins in cigarette smoke activate small blood cells called platelets, which increases the likelihood of blood clots, thereby affecting blood circulation throughout the body.

    The researchers criticize the practice of some scientific consultants who work with the tobacco industry for assuming that cigarette smoke has the same impact on smokers as it does on non-smokers. They argue that those scientists are underestimating the damage done by passive smoking and, in support of their recent findings, cite some previous research which points to passive smoking as the cause for between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths from heart attacks each year in the United States. This means that passive smoking is the third most preventable cause of death after active smoking and alcohol-related diseases.

    The study argues that the type of action needed against passive smoking should be similar to that being taken against illegal drugs and AIDS (SIDA). The UCSF researchers maintain that the simplest and most cost-effective action is to establish smoke-free work places, schools and public places.

    Questions 15-17
    Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 15-17 on your answer sheet.

    15 According to information in the text, leukaemia and pneumonia
    A are responsible for 84,000 deaths each year
    B are strongly linked to cigarette smoking
    C are strongly linked to lung cancer
    D result in 30 per cent of deaths per year

    16 According to information in the text, intake of carbon monoxide
    A inhibits the flow of oxygen to the heart
    B increases absorption of other smoke particles
    C inhibits red blood cell formation
    D promotes nicotine absorption

    17 According to information in the text, intake of nicotine encourages
    A blood circulation through the body
    B activity of other toxins in the blood
    C formation of blood clots
    D an increase of platelets in the blood

    Questions 18-21
    Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2.

    YES                             if the statement reflects the claims of the writer
    NO                               if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
    NOT GIVEN            if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

    18 Thirty per cent of deaths in the United States are caused by smoking-related diseases.
    19 If one partner in a marriage smokes, the other is likely to take up smoking.
    20 Teenagers whose parents smoke are at risk of getting lung cancer at some time during their lives.
    21 Opponents of smoking financed the UCSF study.

    Questions 22-24
    Choose ONE phrase from the list of phrases A-J below to complete each of the following sentences
    22 Passive smoking ……………….. .
    23 Compared with a non-smoker, a smoker ……………….. .
    24 The American Medical Association ……………….. .

    A includes reviews of studies in its reports.
    B argues for stronger action against smoking in public places.
    C is one of the two most preventable causes of death.
    D is more likely to be at risk from passive smoking diseases.
    E is more harmful to non-smokers than to smokers.
    F is less likely to be at risk of contracting lung cancer.
    G is more likely to be at risk of contracting various cancers.
    H opposes smoking and publishes research on the subject.
    I is just as harmful to smokers as it is to non-smokers.
    J reduces the quantity of blood flowing around the body.

    Questions 25-28
    Classify the following statements as being

    A a finding of the UCSF study
    B an opinion of the UCSF study
    C a finding of the EPA report
    D an assumption of consultants to the tobacco industry

    25 Smokers’ cardiovascular systems adapt to the intake of environmental smoke.
    26 There is a philosophical question as to whether people should have to inhale others’ smoke.
    27 Smoke-free public places offer the best solution.
    28 The intake of side-stream smoke is more harmful than smoke exhaled by a smoker.

    THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

    A ‘Hypotheses,’ said Medawar in 1964, ‘are imaginative and inspirational in character’; they are ‘adventures of the mind’. He was arguing in favour of the position taken by Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1972, 3rd edition) that the nature of scientific method is hypothetico-deductive and not, as is generally believed, inductive.

    B It is essential that you, as an intending researcher, understand the difference between these two interpretations of the research process so that you do not become discouraged or begin to suffer from a feeling of ‘cheating’ or not going about it the right way.

    C The myth of scientific method is that it is inductive: that the formulation of scientific theory starts with the basic, raw evidence of the senses – simple, unbiased, unprejudiced observation. Out of these sensory data – commonly referred to as ‘facts’ — generalisations will form. The myth is that from a disorderly array of factual information an orderly, relevant theory will somehow emerge. However, the starting point of induction is an impossible one.

    D There is no such thing as an unbiased observation. Every act of observation we make is a function of what we have seen or otherwise experienced in the past. All scientific work of an experimental or exploratory nature starts with some expectation about the outcome. This expectation is a hypothesis. Hypotheses provide the initiative and incentive for the inquiry and influence the method. It is in the light of an expectation that some observations are held to be relevant and some irrelevant, that one methodology is chosen and others discarded, that some experiments are conducted and others are not. Where is, your naive, pure and objective researcher now?

    E Hypotheses arise by guesswork, or by inspiration, but having been formulated they can and must be tested rigorously, using the appropriate methodology. If the predictions you make as a result of deducing certain consequences from your hypothesis are not shown to be correct then you discard or modify your hypothesis. If the predictions turn out to be correct then your hypothesis has been supported and may be retained until such time as some further test shows it not to be correct. Once you have arrived at your hypothesis, which is a product of your imagination, you then proceed to a strictly logical and rigorous process, based upon deductive argument — hence the term ‘hypothetico-deductive’.

    F So don’t worry if you have some idea of what your results will tell you before you even begin to collect data; there are no scientists in existence who really wait until they have all the evidence in front of them before they try to work out what it might possibly mean. The closest we ever get to this situation is when something happens by accident; but even then the researcher has to formulate a hypothesis to be tested before being sure that, for example, a mould might prove to be a successful antidote to bacterial infection.

    G The myth of scientific method is not only that it is inductive (which we have seen is incorrect) but also that the hypothetico-deductive method proceeds in a step-by-step, inevitable fashion. The hypothetico-deductive method describes the logical approach to much research work, but it does not describe the psychological behaviour that brings it about. This is much more holistic — involving guesses, reworkings, corrections, blind alleys and above all inspiration, in the deductive as well as the hypothetic component -than is immediately apparent from reading the final thesis or published papers. These have been, quite properly, organised into a more serial, logical order so that the worth of the output may be evaluated independently of the behavioural processes by which it was obtained. It is the difference, for example between the academic papers with which Crick and Watson demonstrated the structure of the DNA molecule and the fascinating book The Double Helix in which Watson (1968) described how they did it. From this point of view, ‘scientific method’ may more usefully be thought of as a way of writing up research rather than as a way of carrying it out.

    Questions 29-30
    Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs A-G.
    Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs C-G from the list of headings below.
    Write the appropriate numbers i-x in boxes 29-33 on your answer sheet.

    List of Headings
    i The Crick and Watson approach to research
    ii Antidotes to bacterial infection
    iii The testing of hypotheses
    iv Explaining the inductive method
    v Anticipating results before data is collected
    vi How research is done and how it is reported
    vii The role of hypotheses in scientific research
    viii Deducing the consequences of hypotheses
    ix Karl Popper’s claim that the scientific method is hypothetico-deductive
    x The unbiased researcher

    29 Paragraph C
    30 Paragraph D
    31 Paragraph E
    32 Paragraph F
    33 Paragraph G

    Questions 34 and 35
    In which TWO paragraphs in Reading Passage 3 does the writer give advice directly to the reader?

    Write the TWO appropriate letters (A-G) in boxes 34 and 35 on your answer sheet.

    34 …………………
    35 ………………

    Questions 36-39
    Do the following statements reflect the opinions of the writer in Reading Passage 3.
    In boxes 36-39 on your answer sheet write

    YES                            if the statement reflects the claims of the writer
    NO                              if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
    NOT GIVEN           if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

    36 Popper says that the scientific method is hypothetico-deductive ……………….. .
    37 If a prediction based on a hypothesis is fulfilled, then the hypothesis is confirmed as true ……………….. .
    38 Many people carry out research in a mistaken way ……………….. .
    39 The ‘scientific method’ is more a way of describing research than a way of doing it ……………….. .

    Question 40
    Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 40 on your answer sheet.

    Which of the following statements best describes the writer’s main purpose in Reading Passage 3?

    A to advise Ph.D students not to cheat while carrying out research
    B to encourage Ph.D students to work by guesswork and inspiration
    C to explain to Ph.D students the logic which the scientific research paper follows
    D to help Ph.D students by explaining different conceptions of the research process

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 457

    How much higher? How much faster?

    Since the early years of the twentieth century, when the International Athletic Federation began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how high they jump and how far they are able to hurl massive objects, themselves included, through space. For the so-called power events –that require a relatively brief, explosive release of energy, like the 100-metre sprint and the long jump-times and distances have improved ten to twenty percent. In the endurance events the results have been more dramatic. At the 1908 Olympics, John Hayes of the U.S. team ran to marathon in a time of 2:55:18. In 1999, Morocco’s Khalid Khannouchi set a new world record of 2:05:42, almost thirty percent faster.

    No one theory can explain improvements in performance, but the most important factor has been genetics. ‘The athlete must choose his parents carefully,’ says Jesus Dapena, a sports scientist at Indiana University, invoking an oft-cited adage. Over the past century, the composition of the human gene pool has not changed appreciably, but with increasing global participation in athletics-and greater rewards to tempt athletes-it is more likely that individuals possessing the unique complement of genes for athletic performance can be identified early. ‘Was there someone like [sprinter] Michael Johnson in the 1920s?’ Dapena asks. ‘I’m sure there was, but his talent was probably never realized.’

    Identifying genetically talented individuals is only the first step. Michael Yessis, an emeritus professor of Sports Science at California State University at Fullerton, maintains that ‘genetics only determines about one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right training we can go much further with that one third than we’ve been going.’ Yesis believes that U.S. runners, despite their impressive achievements, are ‘running on their genetics’. By applying more scientific methods, ‘they’re going to go much faster’. These methods include strength training that duplicates what they are doing in their running events as well as plyometrics, a technique pioneered in the former Soviet Union.

    Whereas most exercises are designed to build up strength or endurance, plyometrics focuses on increasing power-the rate at which an athlete can expend energy. When a sprinter runs, Yesis explains, her foot stays in contact with the ground for just under a tenth of a second, half of which is devoted to landing and the other half to pushing off. Plyometric exercises help athletes make the best use of this brief interval.

    Nutrition is another area that sports trainers have failed to address adequately. ‘Many athletes are not getting the best nutrition, even though supplements,’ Yessis insists. Each activity has its own nutritional needs. Few coaches, for instance, understand how deficiencies in trace minerals can lead to injuries.

    Focused training will also play a role in enabling records to be broken. ‘If we applied the Russian training model to some of the outstanding runners we have in this country,’ Yessis asserts, ‘they would be breaking records left and right.’ He will not predict by how much, however: ‘Exactly what the limits are it’s hard to say, but there will be increases even if only by hundredths of a second, as long as our training continues to improve.’

    One of the most important new methodologies is biomechanics, the study of the body in motion. A biomechanic films an athlete in action and then digitizes her performance, recording the motion of every joint and limb in three dimensions. By applying Newton’s law to these motions, ‘we can say that this athlete’s run is not fast enough; that this one is not using his arms strongly enough during take-off,’ says Dapena, who uses these methods to help high jumpers. To date, however, biomechanics has made only a small difference to athletic performance.

    Revolutionary ideas still come from the athletes themselves. For example, during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, a relatively unknown high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the gold by going over the bar backwards, in complete contradiction of all the received high-jumping wisdom, a move instantly dubbed the Fosbury flop. Fosbury himself did not know what he was doing. That understanding took the later analysis of biomechanics specialists. Who put their minds to comprehending something that was too complex and unorthodox ever to have been invented through their own mathematical simulations. Fosbury also required another element that lies behind many improvements in athletic performance: an innovation in athletic equipment. In Fosbury’s case, it was the cushions that jumpers land on. Traditionally, high jumpers would land in pits filled with sawdust. But by Fosbury’s time, sawdust pits had been replaced by soft foam cushions, ideal for flopping.

    In the end, most people who examine human performance are humbled by the resourcefulness of athletes and the powers of the human body. ‘Once you study athletics, you learn that it’s a vexingly complex issue,’ says John S.Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University. ‘Core performance is not a simple or mundane thing of higher, faster, longer. So many variables enter into the equation, and our understanding in many cases is fundamental. We’re got a long way to go.’ For the foreseeable future, records will be made to be broken.

    Questions 1-6
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? 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 Modern official athletic records date from about 1900.
    2 There was little improvement in athletic performance before the twentieth century,
    3 Performance has improved most greatly in events requiring an intensive burst of energy.
    4 Improvements in athletic performance can be fully explained by genetics.
    5 The parents of top athletes have often been successful athletes themselves.
    6 The growing international importance of athletics means that gifted athletes can be recognised at a younger age.

    Questions 7-10
    Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 1. Use ONE WORD for each answer.
    Write your answers in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.

    7 According to Professor Yessis, American runners are relying for their current success on………………..
    8 Yessis describes a training approach from the former Soviet Union that aims to develop an athlete’s…………
    9 Yessis links an inadequate diet to…………………
    10 Yessis claims that the key to setting new records is better……………..

    Questions 11-13
    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

    11 Biomechanics films are proving particularly useful because they enable trainers to
    A highlight areas for improvement in athletes
    B assess the fitness levels of athletes
    C select top athletes
    D predict the success of athletes

    12 Biomechanics specialists used theoretical models to
    A soften the Fosbury flop
    B create the Fosbury flop
    C correct the Fosbury flo
    D explain the Fosbury flop.

    13 John S. Raglin believes our current knowledge of athletics is
    A mistaken
    B basic
    C diverse
    D theoretical

    The Nature and Aims of Archaeology

    Archaeology is partly the discovery of treasures of the past, partly the work of the scientific analyst, partly the exercise of the creative imagination. It is toiling in the sun on an excavation in the Middle East, it is working with living Inuit in the snows of Alaska, and it is investigating the sewers of Roman Britain. But it is also the painstaking task of interpretation, so that we come to understand what these things mean for the human story. And it is the conservation of the world’s cultural heritage against looting and careless harm.

    Archaeology, then, is both a physical activity out in the field, and an intellectual pursuit in the study or laboratory. That is part of its great attraction. The rich mixture of danger and detective work has also made it the perfect vehicle for fiction writers and film-makers, from Agatha Christie with Murder in Mesopotamia to Stephen Spielberg with Indiana Jones. However far from reality such portrayals are, they capture the essential truth that archaeology is an exciting quest – the quest for knowledge about ourselves and our past.

    But how does archaeology relate to other disciplines such as anthropology and history that are also concerned with the human story? Is archaeology itself a science? And what are the responsibilities of the archaeologist in today’s world?

    Anthropology, at its broadest, is the study of humanity- our physical characteristics as animals and our unique non-biological characteristics that we call culture. Culture in this sense includes what the anthropologist, Edward Tylor, summarised in 1871 as ‘knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Anthropologists also use the term ‘culture’ in a more restricted sense when they refer to the ‘culture’ of a particular society, meaning the non-biological characteristics unique to that society, which distinguish it from other societies. Anthropology is thus a broad discipline – so broad that it is generally broken down into three smaller disciplines: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and archaeology.

    Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology as it is called, concerns the study of human biological or physical characteristics and how they evolved. Cultural anthropology – or social anthropology – analyses human culture and society. Two of its branches are ethnography (the study at first hand of individual living cultures) and ethnology (which sets out to compare cultures using ethnographic evidence to derive general principles about human society).

    Archaeology is the ‘past tense of cultural anthropology’. Whereas cultural anthropologists will often base their conclusions on the experience of living within contemporary communities, archaeologists study past societies primarily through their material remains – the buildings, tools, and other artefacts that constitute what is known as the material culture left over from former societies.

    Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks for the archaeologist today is to know how to interpret material culture in human terms. How were those pots used? Why are some dwellings round and others square. Here the methods of archaeology and ethnography overlap. Archaeologists in recent decades have developed ‘ethnoarchaeology’ where, like ethnographers, they live among contemporary communities, but with the specific purpose of learning how such societies use material culture – how they make their tools and weapons, why they build their settlements where they do, and so on. Moreover, archaeology has a role to play in the field of conservation. Heritage studies constitute a developing field, where it is realised that the world’s cultural heritage is a diminishing resource which holds different meanings for different people.

    If, then, archaeology deals with the past, in what way does it differ from history? In the broadest sense, just as archaeology is an aspect of anthropology, so too is it a part of history – where we mean the whole history of humankind from its beginnings over three million years ago. Indeed, for more than ninety-nine percent of that huge span of time, archaeology – the study of past material culture – is the only significant source of information. Conventional historical sources begin only with the introduction of written records around 3,000 BC in western Asia, and much later in most other parts in the world.

    A commonly drawn distinction is between pre-history, i.e. the period before written records – and history in the narrow sense, meaning the study of the past using written evidence. To archaeology, which studies all cultures and periods, whether with or without writing, the distinction between history and pre-history is a convenient dividing line that recognises the importance of the written word, but in no way lessens the importance of the useful information contained in oral histories.

    Since the aim of archaeology is the understanding of humankind, it is a humanistic study, and since it deals with the human past, it is a historical discipline. But is differs from the study of written history in a fundamental way. The material the archaeologist finds does not tell us directly what to think. Historical records make statements, offer opinions and pass judgements. The objects the archaeologists discover, on the other hand, tell us nothing directly in themselves. In this respect, the practice of the archaeologist is rather like that of the scientist, who collects data, conducts experiments, formulates a hypothesis tests the hypothesis against more data, and then, in conclusion, devises a model that seems best to summarise the pattern observed in the data. The archaeologist has to develop a picture of the past, just as the scientist has to develop a coherent view of the natural world.

    Questions 14-19
    Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet write:

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

    14 Archaeology involves creativity as well as investigative work.
    15 Archaeologist must be able to translate texts from ancient languages.
    16 Movies give a realistic picture of the work of archaeologists.
    17 Anthropologist define culture in more than one way.
    18 Archaeology is a more demanding field of study than anthropology.
    19 The history of Europe has been documented since 3,000 BC.

    Questions 20 and 21
    Choose TWO letters A – E. Write your answer in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet.

    The list below gives some statements about anthropology.

    Which TWO statements are mentioned by the writer of the text?

    A It is important for government planners
    B It is a continually growing field of study
    C It often involves long periods of fieldwork
    D It is subdivided for study purposes
    E It studies human evolutionary patterns

    Questions 22 and 23
    Choose TWO letters A – E. Write your answer in boxes 22 and 23 on your answer sheet.

    The list below gives some of the tasks of an archaeologist.

    Which TWO of these tasks are mentioned by the writer of the text?

    A examining ancient waste sites to investigate diet
    B studying cave art to determine its significance
    C deducing reasons for the shape of domestic buildings
    D investigating the way different cultures make and use objects
    E examining evidence for past climate changes

    Questions 24-27
    Complete the summary of the last two paragraphs of Reading Passage 2. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

    Much of the work of archaeologists can be done using written records, but they find (24) ………………………… equally valuable. The writer describes archaeology as both a (25) …………………………. and a (26) …………………… However, as archaeologists do not try to influence human behaviour, the writer compares their style of working to that of a (27) ……………..

    The Problem of Scarce Resources

    Section A
    The problem of how health-care resources should be allocated or apportioned, so that they are distributed in both the most just and most efficient way, is not a new one. Every health system in an economically developed society is faced with the need to decide (either formally or informally) what proportion of the community’s total resources should be spent on health-care; how resources are to be apportioned; what diseases and disabilities and which forms of treatment are to be given priority; which members of the community are to be given special consideration in respect of their health needs; and which forms of treatment are the most cost-effective.

    Section B
    What is new is that, from the 1950s onwards, there have been certain general changes in outlook about the finitude of resources as a whole and of health-care resources in particular, as well as more specific changes regarding the clientele of health-care resources and the cost to the community of those resources. Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s, there emerged an awareness in Western societies that resources for the provision of fossil fuel energy were finite and exhaustible and that the capacity of nature or the environment to sustain economic development and population was also finite. In other words, we became aware of the obvious fact that there were ‘limits to growth’. The new consciousness that there were also severe limits to health-care resources was part of this general revelation of the obvious. Looking back, it now seems quite incredible that in the national health systems that emerged in many countries in the years immediately after the 1939-45 World War, it was assumed without question that all the basic health needs of any community could be satisfied, at least in principle; the ‘in visible hand’ of economic progress would provide.

    Section C
    However, at exactly the same time as this new realization of the finite character of health-care resources was sinking in, an awareness of a contrary kind was developing in Western societies: that people have a basic right to health-care as a necessary condition of a proper human life. Like education, political and legal processes and institutions, public order, communication, transport and money supply, health-care came to be seen as one of the fundamental social facilities necessary for people to exercise their other rights as autonomous human beings. People are not in a position to exercise personal liberty and to be self-determining if they are poverty-stricken, or deprived of basic education, or do not live within a context of law and order. In the same way, basic health-care is a condition of the exercise of autonomy.

    Section D
    Although the language of ‘rights’ sometimes leads to confusion, by the late 1970s it was recognized in most societies that people have a right to health-care (though there has been considerable resistance in the United Sates to the idea that there is a formal right to health-care). It is also accepted that this right generates an obligation or duty for the state to ensure that adequate health-care resources are provided out of the public purse. The state has no obligation to provide a health-care system itself, but to ensure that such a system is provided. Put another way, basic health-care is now recognized as a ‘public good’, rather than a ‘private good’ that one is expected to buy for oneself. As the 1976 declaration of the World Health Organisation put it: ‘The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition’. As has just been remarked, in a liberal society basic health is seen as one of the indispensable conditions for the exercise of personal autonomy.

    Section E
    Just at the time when it became obvious that health-care resources could not possibly meet the demands being made upon them, people were demanding that their fundamental right to health-care be satisfied by the state. The second set of more specific changes that have led to the present concern about the distribution of health-care resources stems from the dramatic rise in health costs in most OECD countries, accompanied by large-scale demographic and social changes which have meant, to take one example, that elderly people are now major (and relatively very expensive) consumers of health-care resources. Thus in OECD countries as a whole, health costs increased from 3.8% of GDP in 1960 to 7% of GDP in 1980, and it has been predicted that the proportion of health costs to GDP will continue to increase. (In the US the current figure is about 12% of GDP, and in Australia about 7.8% of GDP.)

    As a consequence, during the 1980s a kind of doomsday scenario (analogous to similar doomsday extrapolations about energy needs and fossil fuels or about population increases) was projected by health administrators, economists and politicians. In this scenario, ever-rising health costs were matched against static or declining resources.

    Questions 28-31
    Reading Passage 3 has five sections A-E. Choose the correct heading for section A and C-E from the list of headings below.

    Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.

    List of Headings

    i The connection between health-care and other human rights
    ii The development of market-based health systems.
    iii The role of the state in health-care
    iv A problem shared by every economically developed country
    v The impact of recent change
    vi The views of the medical establishment
    vii The end of an illusion
    viii Sustainable economic development

    28 Section A
    Example:  Section B           viii
    29 Section C
    30 Section D
    31 Section E

    Questions 32-35
    Classify the following as first occurring

    A between 1945 and 1950
    B between 1950 and 1980
    C after 1980

    32 the realisation that the resources of the national health system were limited
    33 a sharp rise in the cost of health-care.
    34 a belief that all the health-care resources the community needed would be produced by economic growth
    35 an acceptance of the role of the state in guaranteeing the provision of health-care.

    Questions 36-40
    Do the following statements agree with the view of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 136-40 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 Personal liberty and independence have never been regarded as directly linked to health-care.
    37 Health-care came to be seen as a right at about the same time that the limits of health-care resources became evident.
    38 IN OECD countries population changes have had an impact on health-care costs in recent years.
    39 OECD governments have consistently underestimated the level of health-care provision needed.
    40 In most economically developed countries the elderly will to make special provision for their health-care in the future.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 456

    MICRO ENTERPRISE CREDIT FOR STREET YOUTH

    ‘I am from a large, poor family and for many years we have done without breakfast. Ever since I joined the Street Kids International Program I have been able to buy my family sugar and buns for breakfast. I have also bought myself decent second hand clothes and shoes.’ – Doreen Soko

    ‘We have had business experience. Now I am confident to expand what we have been doing. I have learnt cash management and the way of keeping money so we save for reinvestment. Now business is a part of our lives. As well, we did not know each other before – now we have made new friends.’ – Fan Kaoma

    Participants in the Youth Skill Enterprise Initiative Program, Zambia

    Introduction
    Although small-scale business training and credit programs have become more common throughout the world, relatively little attention has been paid to the need to direct such opportunities to young people. Even less attention has been paid to children living on the street or in difficult circumstances.

    Over the past nine years, Street Kids International (S.K.I.) has been working with partner organisations in Africa, Latin America and India to support the economic lives of street children. The purpose of this paper is to share some of the lessons S.K.I. and our partners have learned.

    Background
    Typically, children do not end up on the streets due to a single cause, but to a combination of factors: a dearth of adequately funded schools, the demand for income at home, family breakdown and violence. The street may be attractive to children as a place to find adventurous play and money. However, it is also a place where some children are exposed, with little or no protection, to exploitative employment, urban crime, and abuse.

    Children who work on the streets are generally involved in unskilled, labour-intensive tasks which require long hours, such as shining shoes, carrying goods, guarding or washing cars, and informal tracing. Some may also earn income through begging, or through theft and illegal activities. At the same time, there are street children who take pride in supporting themselves and their families and who often enjoy their work. Many children may choose entrepreneurship because it allows them a degree of independence, is less exploitative than many forms of paid employment, and is flexible enough to allow them to participate in other activities such as education and domestic tasks.

    Street Business Partnerships
    S.K.I. has worked with partner organisations in Latin America, Africa and India to develop innovative opportunities for street children to earn income.
    • The S.K.I. Bicycle Courier Service first started in the Sudan. Participants in this enterprise were supplied with bicycles, which they used to deliver parcels and messages, and which they were required to pay for gradually from their wages. A similar program was taken up in Bangalore, India.
    • Another successful project, The Shoe Shine Collective, was a partnership program with the Y.W.C.A. in the Dominican Republic. In this project, participants were lent money to purchase shoe shine boxes. They were also given a sale place to store their equipment, and facilities for individual savings plans.
    • The Youth Skills Enterprise initiative in Zambia is a joint program with the Red Cross Society and the Y.W.C.A. Street youths are supported to start their own small business through business training, life skills training and access to credit.

    Lessons learned
    The following lessons have emerged from the programs that S.K.I. and partner organisations have created.
    • Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, nor for every street child. Ideally, potential participants will have been involved in the organisation’s programs for at least six months, and trust and relationship building will have already been established.• The involvement of the participants has been essential to the development of relevant programs. When children have had a major role in determining procedures, they are more likely to abide by and enforce them.
    • It is critical for all loans to be linked to training programs that include the development of basic business and life skills.
    • There are tremendous advantages to involving parents or guardians in the program, where such relationships exits. Home visits allow staff the opportunity to know where the participants live, and to understand more about each individual’s situation.
    • Small loans are provided initially for purchasing fixed assets such as bicycles, shoe shine kits and basic building materials for a market stall. As the entrepreneurs gain experience, the enterprises can be gradually expanded and consideration can be given to increasing loan amounts. The loan amounts in S.K.I. programs have generally ranged from US$90-$100.
    • All S.K.I. programs have charged interest on the loans, primarily to get the entrepreneurs used to the concept of paying interest on borrowed money. Generally the rates have been modest (lower than bank rates)

    Conclusion
    There is a need to recognise the importance of access to credit for impoverished young people seeking to fulfill economic needs. The provision of small loans to support the entrepreneurial dreams and ambitions of youth can be an effective means to help them change their lives. However, we believe that credit must be extended in association with other types of support that help participants develop critical kills as well as productive businesses.

    Questions 1-4
    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

    1 The quotations in the box at the beginning of the article
    A exemplify the effects of S.K.I.
    B explain why S.K.I. was set up
    C outline the problems of street children
    D highlight the benefits to society of S.K.I.

    2 The main purpose of S.K.I. is to
    A draw the attention of governments to the problem of street children.
    B provide schools and social support for street children.
    C encourage the public to give money to street children.
    D give business training and loans to street children.

    3 Which of the following is mentioned by the writer as a reason why children end up living on the streets?
    A unemployment
    B war
    C poverty
    D crime

    4 In order to become more independent, street children may
    A reject paid employment
    B leave their families
    C set up their own business
    D employ other children

    Questions 5-8
    Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.

    CountryOrganisations involvedType of projectSupport provided
    (5)……………… and ………….– S.K.I.courier service– provision of (6)…………….
    Dominican Republic– S.K.I
    – Y.W.C.A.
    (7)…………………– loans
    – storage facilities
    – saving plans
    Zambia– S.K.I.
    – The Red Cross
    – Y.W.C.A.
    setting up small business– business training
    – (8)……………. training
    – access to credit

    Questions 9-12
    In boxes 9-12 on your answer sheet write:

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

    9. Any street child can set up their own small business if given enough support.
    10. In some cases, the families of street children may need financial support from S.K.I.
    11. Only one fixed loan should be given to each child.
    12. The children have to pay back slightly more money than they borrowed.

    Question 13
    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answer in box 13 on your answer sheet.

    The writers conclude that money should only be lent to street children

    A as part of a wider program of aid
    B for programs that are not too ambitious
    C when programs are supported by local businesses
    D if the projects planned are realistic and useful

    VOLCANOES – EARTH SHATTERING NEWS

    A Volcanoes are the ultimate earth-moving machinery. A violent eruption can blow the top few kilometres off a mountain, scatter fine ash practically all over the globe and hurl rock fragments into the stratosphere to darken the skies a continent away.

    But the classic eruption – cone-shaped mountain, big bang, mushroom cloud and surges of molten lava – is only a tiny part of a global story. Volcanism, the name given to volcanic processes, really has shaped the world. Eruptions have rifted continents, raised mountain chains, constructed islands and shaped the topography of the earth. The entire ocean floor has a basement of volcanic basalt.

    Volcanoes have not only made the continents, they are also thought to have made the world’s first stable atmosphere and provided all the water for the oceans, rivers and ice-caps. There are now about 600 active volcanoes. Every year they add two or three cubic kilometres of rock to the continents. Imagine a similar number of volcanoes smoking away for the last 3,500 million years. That is enough rock to explain the continental crust.

    What comes out of volcanic craters is mostly gas. More than 90% of this gas is water vapour from the deep earth: enough to explain, over 3,500 million years, the water in the oceans. The rest of the gas is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane, ammonia and hydrogen. The quantity of these gases, again multiplied over 3,500 million years, is enough to explain the mass of the world’s atmosphere. We are alive because volcanoes provided the soil, air and water we need.

    B Geologists consider the earth as having a molten core, surrounded by a semi-molten mantle and a brittle, outer skin. It helps to think of a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk, a firm but squishy white and a hard shell. If the shell is even slightly cracked during boiling, the white material bubbles out and sets like a tiny mountain chain over the crack – like an archipelogo of volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian Islands. But the earth is so much bigger and the mantle below is so much hotter.

    Even though the mantle rocks are kept solid by overlying pressure, they can still slowly ‘flow’ like thick treacle. The flow, thought to be in the form of convection currents, is powerful enough to fracture the ‘eggshell’ of the crust into plates, and keep them bumping and grinding against each other, or even overlapping, at the rate of a few centimetres a year. These fracture zones, where the collisions occur, are where earthquakes happen. And, very often, volcanoes.

    C These zones are lines of weakness, or hot spots. Every eruption is different, but put at its simplest, where there are weaknesses, rocks deep in the mantle, heated to 1,350oC, will start to expand and rise. As they do so, the pressure drops, and they expand and become liquid and rise more swiftly.

    Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma – molten rock from the mantle – inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England). Sometimes – as in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Karoo in South Africa – the magma rose faster, and then flowed out horizontally on to the surface in vast thick sheets. In the Deccan plateau in western India, there are more than two million cubic kilometres of lava, some of it 2,400 metres thick, formed over 500,000 years of slurping eruption.

    Sometimes the magma moves very swiftly indeed. It does not have time to cool as it surges upwards. The gases trapped inside the boiling rock expand suddenly, the lava glows with heat, it begins to froth, and it explodes with tremendous force. Then the slightly cooler lava following it begins to flow over the lip of the crater. It happens on Mars, it happened on the moon, it even happens on some of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus. By studying the evidence, volcanologists can read the force of the great blasts of the past. Is the pumice light and full of holes? The explosion was tremendous. Are the rocks heavy, with huge crystalline basalt shapes, like the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland? It was a slow, gentle eruption.

    The biggest eruption are deep on the mid-ocean floor, where new lava is forcing the continents apart and widening the Atlantic by perhaps five centimetres a year. Look at maps of volcanoes, earthquakes and island chains like the Philippines and Japan, and you can see the rough outlines of what are called tectonic plates – the plates which make up the earth’s crust and mantle. The most dramatic of these is the Pacific ‘ring of fire’ where there have the most violent explosions – Mount Pinatubo near Manila, Mount St Helen’s in the Rockies and El Chichón in Mexico about a decade ago, not to mention world-shaking blasts like Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits in 1883.

    D But volcanoes are not very predictable. That is because geological time is not like human time. During quiet periods, volcanoes cap themselves with their own lava by forming a powerful cone from the molten rocks slopping over the rim of the crater; later the lava cools slowly into a huge, hard, stable plug which blocks any further eruption until the pressure below becomes irresistible. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, this took 600 years.

    Then, sometimes, with only a small warning, the mountain blows its top. It did this at Mont Pelée in Martinique at 7.49 a.m. on 8 May, 1902. Of a town of 28,000, only two people survived. In 1815, a sudden blast removed the top 1,280 metres of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The eruption was so fierce that dust thrown into the stratosphere darkened the skies, canceling the following summer in Europe and North America. Thousands starved as the harvest failed, after snow in June and frosts in August. Volcanoes are potentially world news, especially the quiet ones.

    Questions 14-17
    Reading Passage 2 has four sections A-D. Choose the correct heading for the each section from the list of headings below. Write the correct number i-vi in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

    List of Headings

    i Causes of volcanic eruption
    ii Efforts to predict volcanic eruption
    iii Volcanoes and the features of our planet
    iv Different types of volcanic eruption
    v International relief efforts
    vi The unpredictability of volcanic eruption

    14 Section A
    15 Section B
    16 Section C
    17 Section D

    Questions 18-21
    Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
    Write your answers in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.

    18 What are the sections of the earth’s crust, often associated with volcanic activity, called?
    19 What is the name given to molten rock from the mantle?
    20 What is the earthquake zone on the Pacific Ocean called?
    21 For how many years did Mount Pinatubo remain inactive?

    Questions 22-26
    Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

    Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheets.

    Volcanic eruptions have shaped the earth’s land surface. They may also have produced the world’s atmosphere and (22) …………………. Eruptions occur when molten rocks from the earth’s mantle rise and expand. When they become liquid, they move more quickly through cracks in the surface. There are different types of eruption. Sometimes the (23) …………………… moves slowly and forms outcrops of granite on the earth’s surface. When it moves more quickly it may flow out in thick horizontal sheets. Examples of this type of eruption can be found in Northern Ireland, Wales, South Africa and (24) …………………… A third type of eruption occurs when the lava emerges very quickly and (25) ………………. violently. This happens because the magma moves so suddenly that (26) ……………….. are emitted.

    OBTAINING LINGUISTIC DATA

    A Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection about one’s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.

    B In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data — an informant. Informants are (ideally) native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other kinds of information about the language (e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or judgments on usage). Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own informants, judging the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against their own intuitions. The convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is considered the norm in the generative approach to linguistics. But a linguist’s personal judgments are often uncertain, or disagree with the judgments of other linguists, at which point recourse is needed to more objective methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as informants. The latter procedure is unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.

    C Many factors must be considered when selecting informants – whether one is working with single speakers (a common situation when language has not been described before), two people interacting small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind of language used. The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting (e.g. the level of formality) are also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the informants (e.g. their fluency and consistency). For large studies, scrupulous attention has been paid to the sampling theory employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made about the best investigative techniques to use.

    D Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist’s claims about the language to be checked, and provides a way of making those claims more accurate (“difficult” pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly). But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being recorded, and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimize the “observer’s paradox” (how to observe the way people behave when they are not being observed). Some recordings are made without the speakers being aware of the fact- a procedure that obtains very natural data, though ethical objections must be anticipated. Alternatively, attempts can be made to make the speaker forget about the recording, such as keeping the tape recorder out of sight, or using radio microphones. A useful technique is to introduce a topic that quickly involves the speaker, and stimulates a natural language style (e.g. asking older informants about how times have changed in their locality).

    E An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist’s problems, however. Speech is often unclear and ambiguous. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be supplemented by the observer’s written comments on the non-verbal behavior of the participants, and about the context in general. A facial expression, for example, can dramatically alter the meaning of what is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a large extent, but even they have limitations (the camera cannot be everywhere), and transcriptions always benefit from any additional commentary provided by an observer.

    F Linguists also make great use of structured sessions, in which they systematically ask their informants for utterances that describe certain actions, objects or behaviour. With a bilingual informant, or through use of an interpreter, it is possible to use translation techniques (‘How do you say table in your language?’). A large number of points can be covered in a short time, using interview worksheets and questionnaires. Often , the researcher wishes to obtain information about just s single variable, in which case a restricted set of questions may be used a particular feature of pronunciation, for example, can be elicited by asking the informant to say a restricted set of words. There are also several direct methods of elicitation, such as asking informants to fill in the blanks in a substitution frame (e.g. I___ see a car), or feeding them the wrong stimulus of correction (‘is it possible to say I no can see?’)

    G A representative sample of language, compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is known as a corpus. A corpus enables the linguist to make unbiased statements about frequency of usage, and it provides accessible data for the use of different researchers. Its range and size are variable. Some corpora attempt to cover the language as a whole, taking extracts from many kinds of text, others are extremely selective, providing a collection of material that deals only with a particular linguistic feature. The size of the corpus depends on practical factors, such as the time available to collect, process and store the data it can take up to several hours to provide an accurate transcription of a few minutes of speech. Sometimes a small sample of data will be enough to decide a linguistic hypothesis; by contrast, corpora in major research projects can total millions of words. An important principle is that all corpora, whatever their size, are inevitably limited in their coverage, and always need to be supplemented by data derived from the intuitions of native speakers of the language, through either introspection or experimentation.

    Questions 27-31
    Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs labeled A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?
    Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

    27 the effect of recording on the way people talk
    28 the importance of taking notes on body language
    29 the fact that language is influenced by social situation
    30 how informants can be helped to be less self-conscious
    31 various methods that can be used to generate specific data

    Questions 32-36
    Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAT THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
    Write your answers in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.

    Methods of obtaining linguistic dataAdvantagesDisadvantages
    (32)………………as informantconvenientmethod of enquiry not objective enough
    Non-linguistic as informantnecessary with (33)…………….. and child speechthe number of factors to be considered
    Recording as informantallows linguistics’ claims to be checked(34)…………………. of sound
    Videoing as informantallows speakers’ (35)………………to be observed(36)………………might miss certain things

    Questions 37-40
    Complete the summary of paragraph G below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

    A linguist can use a corpus to comment objectively on (37)…………….. Some corpora include a wide range of language while others are used to focus on a (38)……..…….…. The length of time the process takes will affect the (39)……….…..… of the corpus. No corpus can ever cover the whole language and so linguists often find themselves relying on the additional information that can be gained from the (40)…….…….…of those who speak the language concerned.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 455

    Lost for Words

    In the Native American Navajo nation, which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-aged or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street signs’, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English, Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

    Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations – that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. ‘At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world,’ says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’

    Isolation breeds linguistic diversity: as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairbanks.

    Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old traditions.’

    The change is not always voluntary quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation schools in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he says. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English.’ But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

    Language is also intimately bound up with culture, so it may be difficult to preserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world,’ says Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in the brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

    So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism,’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produced about 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer ‘apprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to the next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using it every day. ‘Preserving a language is more like preserving fruits in a jar’ he says.

    However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by later generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.

    Questions 1-4
    Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

    There are currently approximately 6,800 languages in the world. This great variety of languages came about largely as a result of geographical (1)……………………..But in today’s world, factors such as government initiatives and (2)…………………..are contributing to a huge decrease in the number of languages. One factor which may help to ensure that some endangered languages do not die out completely is people’s increasing appreciation of their (3)…………………….This has been encouraged through programmes of language classes for children and through ‘apprentice’ schemes, in which the endangered language is used as the medium of instruction to teach people a (4)…………………….Some speakers of endangered languages have even produced writing systems in order to help secure the survival of their mother tongue.

    Questions 5-9
    Look at the following statements (Questions 5-9) and the list of people in the box below. Match each statement with the correct person A—E. Write the appropriate letter A-E in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet.
    NB You may use any letter more than once.

    5 Endangered languages cannot be saved unless people learn to speak more than one language.
    6 Saving languages from extinction is not in itself a satisfactory goal.
    7 The way we think may be determined by our language.
    8 Young people often reject the established way of life in their community.
    9 A change of language may mean a loss of traditional culture

    A Michael Krauss                 B Salikoko Mufwene                      C Nicholas Ostler

    D Mark Pagel                       E Doug Whalen

    Questions 10-13

    Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the passage? In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet write

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

    10. The Navajo language will die out because it currently has too few speakers.
    11. A large number of native speakers fails to guarantee the survival of a language.
    12. National governments could do more to protect endangered languages.
    13. The loss of linguistic diversity is inevitable.

    Alternative Medicine in Australia

    The first students to study alternative medicine at university level in Australia began their four-year, full-time course at the University of Technology, Sydney, in early 1994. Their course covered, among other therapies, acupuncture. The theory they learnt is based on the traditional Chinese explanation of this ancient healing art: that it can regulate the flow of ‘Qi’ or energy through pathways in the body. This course reflects how far some alternative therapies have come in their struggle for acceptance by the medical establishment.

    Australia has been unusual in the Western world in having a very conservative attitude to natural or alternative therapies, according to Dr Paul Laver, a lecturer in Public Health at the University of Sydney. ‘We’ve had a tradition of doctors being fairly powerful and I guess they are pretty loath to allow any pretenders to their position to come into it.’ In many other industrialized countries, orthodox and alternative medicines have worked ‘hand in glove’ for years. In Europe, only orthodox doctors can prescribe herbal medicine. In Germany, plant remedies account for 10% of the national turnover of pharmaceutical. Americans made more visits to alternative therapist than to orthodox doctors in 1990, and each year they spend about $US 12 billion on the therapies that have not been scientifically tested.

    Disenchantment with orthodox medicine has seen the popularity of alternative therapies in Australia climb steadily during the past 20 years. In a 1983 national health survey, 1.9% of people said they had contacted a chiropractor, naturopath, osteopath, acupuncturist or herbalist in the two weeks prior to the survey. By 1990, this figure had risen to 2.6% of the population. The 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists reported in the 1990 survey represented about an eighth of the total number of consultations with medically qualified personnel covered by the survey, according to Dr Laver and colleagues writing in the Australian Journal of Public Health in 1993. ‘A better educated and less accepting public has become disillusioned with the experts in general and increasingly skeptical about science and empirically based knowledge,’ they said. ‘The high standing of professionals, including doctors, has been eroded as a consequence.’

    Rather than resisting or criticizing this trend, increasing numbers of Australian doctors, particularly younger ones, are forming group practices with alternative therapists or taking courses themselves, particularly in acupuncture and herbalism. Part of the incentive was financial, Dr Laver said. ‘The bottom line is that most general practitioners are business people. If they see potential clientele going elsewhere, they might want to be able to offer a similar service.’

    In 1993, Dr Laver and his colleagues published a survey of 289 Sydney people who attended eight alternative therapists’ practices in Sydney. These practices offered a wide range of alternative therapies from 25 therapists. Those surveyed had experience chronic illnesses, for which orthodox medicine had been able to provide little relief. They commented that they liked the holistic approach of their alternative therapists and the friendly, concerned and detailed attention they had received. The cold, impersonal manner of orthodox doctors featured in the survey. An increasing exodus from their clinics, coupled with this and a number of other relevant surveys carried out in Australia, all pointing to orthodox doctors’ inadequacies, have led mainstream doctors themselves to begin to admit they could learn from the personal style of alternative therapists. Dr Patrick Store, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, concurs that orthodox doctors could learn a lot about beside manner and advising patients on preventative health from alternative therapists.

    According to the Australian Journal of Public Health, 18% of patients visiting alternative therapists do so because they suffer from muscular-skeletal complaints; 12% suffer from digestive problems, which is only 1% more than those suffering from emotional problems. Those suffering from respiratory complaints represent 7% of their patients, and candida sufferers represent an equal percentage. Headache sufferers and those complaining of general ill health represent 6% and 5% of patients respectively, and a further 4% see therapists for general health maintenance.

    The survey suggested that complementary medicine is probably a better term than alternative medicine. Alternative medicine appears to be an adjunct, sought in times of disenchantment when conventional medicine seems not to offer the answer.

    Questions 14 and 15
    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

    14 Traditionally, how have Australian doctors differed from doctors in many Western countries?
    A They have worked closely with pharmaceutical companies.
    B They have often worked alongside other therapists.
    C They have been reluctant to accept alternative therapists.
    D They have regularly prescribed alternative remedies.

    15 In 1990, Americans
    A were prescribed more herbal medicines than in previous years.
    B consulted alternative therapists more often than doctors.
    C spent more on natural therapies than orthodox medicines.
    D made more complaints about doctors than in previous years.

    Questions 16-23
    Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?

    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

    16 Australians have been turning to alternative therapies in increasing numbers over the past 20 years.
    17 Between 1983 and 1990 the numbers of patients visiting alternative therapists rose to include a further 8% of the population.
    18 The 1990 survey related to 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists.
    19 In the past, Australians had a higher opinion, of doctors than they do today.
    20 Some Australian doctors -are retraining in alternative therapies.
    21 Alternative therapists earn higher salaries than doctors.
    22 The 1993 Sydney survey involved 289 patients who visited alternative therapists for acupuncture treatment.
    23 All the patients in the 1993 Sydney survey had long-term medical complaints.

    Questions 24-26
    Complete the vertical axis in the chart below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS.

    PLAY IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS

    A Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play-fighting or kittens teasing a ball of string aren’t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there’s much more to it than that. For a start, play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty per cent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three per cent of their energy cavorting, and in children that figure can be closer to fifteen per cent. ‘Even wo or three per cent is huge,’ says John Byers of Idaho University. ‘You just don’t find animals wasting energy like that,’ he adds. There must be a reason.

    B But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? The latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you intelligent. Playfulness, it seems, is common only among mammals, although a few of the larger-brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs – tail- wagging in dogs, for example – to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behavior is not really in earnest. A popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt, mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent years.

    C Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training, then you would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the benefits of increased exercise disappear rapidly after training stops, so any improvement in endurance resulting from juvenile play would be lost by adulthood. ‘If the function of play was to get into shape,’ says Byers, ‘the optimum time for playing would depend on when it was most advantageous for the young of a particular species to do so, But it doesn’t work like that.’ Across species, play tends to peak about halfway through the suckling stage and then decline.

    D Then there’s the skills-training hypothesis. At first glance, playing animals do appear to be practising die complex manoeuvres they will need in adulthood. But a closer inspection reveals this interpretation as too simplistic. In one study, behavioural ecologist Tim Caro, from the University of California, looked at the predatory play of kittens and their predatory behaviour when they reached adulthood. He found that the way the cats played had no significant effect on their hunting prowess in later life.

    E Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada, reported that there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general. Comparing measurements for fifteen orders of mammal, he and his team found larger brains (for a given body size) are linked to greater playfulness. The converse was also found to be true. Robert Barton of Durham University believes that, because large brains are more sensitive to developmental stimuli than smaller brains, they require more play to help mould them for adulthood. “I concluded it’s to do with learning, and with the importance of environmental data to the brain during development,” he says.

    F According to Byers, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to what’s going on. If you plot the amount of time a juvenile devotes to play each day over the course of its development, you discover a pattern typically associated with a ‘sensitive period’ – a brief development window during which the brain can actually be modified in ways that are not possible earlier or later in life. Think of the relative ease with which young children – but not infants or adults – absorb language. Other researchers have found that play in cats, rats and mice is at its most intense just as this ‘window of opportunity’ reaches its peak.

    G ‘People have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,’ says Marc Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoff studied coyote pups at play and found that the kind of behaviour involved was markedly more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. Such behaviour activates many different parts of the brain, he reasons. Bekoff likens it to a behavioural kaleidoscope, with animals at play jumping rapidly between activities. ‘They use behaviour from a lot of different contexts – predation, aggression, reproduction/ he says. ‘Their developing brain is getting all sorts of stimulation.

    H Not only is more of the brain involved in play than was suspected, but it also seems to activate higher cognitive processes. ‘There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play’, says Bekoff. He points out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates, ideas of reciprocity and the use of specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of a particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights everything up/ he says. By allowing link-ups between brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other, play may enhance creativity.

    I What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?

    Questions 27-32
    Reading Passage 3 has nine paragraphs labelled A-I. Which paragraph contains the following information?
    Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

    27 the way play causes unusual connections in the brain which are beneficial
    28 insights from recording how much time young animals spend playing
    29 a description of the physical hazards that can accompany play
    30 a description of the mental activities which are exercised and developed during play
    31 the possible effects that a reduction in play opportunities will have on humans
    32 the classes of animals for which play is important

    Questions 33-35
    Choose THREE letters A-F. Write your answers in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
    The list below gives some ways of regarding play.

    Which THREE ways are mentioned by the writer of the text?

    A a rehearsal for later adult activities
    B a method animals use to prove themselves to their peer group
    C an activity intended to build up strength for adulthoood
    D a means of communicating feelings
    E a defensive strategy
    F an activity assisting organ growth

    Questions 36-40
    Look at the following researchers (Questions 36-40) and the list of findings below. Match each researcher with the correct finding. Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

    36 Robert Barton
    37 Marc Bekofif
    38 John Byers
    39 Sergio Pellis
    40 Stephen Siviy

    List of Findings
    A There is a link between a specific substance in the brain and playing
    B Play provides input concerning physical surroundings
    C Varieties of play can be matched to different stages of evolutionary history
    D There is a tendency for mammals with smaller brains to play less
    E Play is not a form of fitness training for the future
    F Some species of larger brained birds engage in play
    G A wide range of activities are combined during play
    H Play is a method of teaching survival techniques

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 454

    Reading Passage 1

    4 For example, one graphic illustration to which children might readily relate is the estimate that rainforests are being destroyed at a rate equivalent to one thousand football fields every forty minutes – about the duration of a normal classroom period. In the face of the frequent and often vivid media coverage, it is likely that children will have formed ideas about rainforests – what and where they are, why they are important, what endangers them – independent of any formal tuition. It is also possible that some of these ideas will be mistaken.

    Many studies have shown that children harbour misconceptions about ‘pure’, curriculum science. These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted, but organised, conceptual framework, making it and the component ideas, some of which are erroneous, more robust but also accessible to modification. These ideas may be developed by children absorbing ideas through the popular media. Sometimes this information may be erroneous. It seems schools may not be providing an opportunity for children to re-express their ideas and so have them tested and refined by teachers and their peers.

    Despite the extensive coverage in the popular media of the destruction of rainforests, little formal information is available about children’s ideas in this area. The aim of the present study is to start to provide such information, to help teachers design their educational strategies to build upon correct ideas and to displace misconceptions and to plan programmes in environmental studies in their schools.

    The study surveys children’s scientific knowledge and attitudes to rainforests. Secondary school children were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open-form questions. The most frequent responses to the first question were descriptions which are self-evident from the term ‘rainforest’. Some children described them as damp, wet or hot. The second question concerned the geographical location of rainforests. The commonest responses were continents or countries: Africa (given by 43% of children), South America (30%), Brazil (25%). Some children also gave more general locations, such as being near the Equator.

    Responses to question three concerned the importance of rainforests. The dominant idea, raised by 64% of the pupils, was that rainforests provide animals with habitats. Fewer students responded that rainforests provide plant habitats, and even fewer mentioned the indigenous populations of rainforests. More girls (70%) than boys (60%) raised the idea of rainforest as animal habitats.

    Similarly, but at a lower level, more girls (13%) than boys (5%) said that rainforests provided human habitats. These observations are generally consistent with our previous studies of pupils’ views about the use and conservation of rainforests, in which girls were shown to be more sympathetic to animals and expressed views which seem to place an intrinsic value on non-human animal life.

    The fourth question concerned the causes of the destruction of rainforests. Perhaps encouragingly, more than half of the pupils (59%) identified that it is human activities which are destroying rainforests, some personalising the responsibility by the use of terms such as ‘we are’. About 18% of the pupils referred specifically to logging activity.

    One misconception, expressed by some 10% of the pupils, was that acid rain is responsible for rainforest destruction; a similar proportion said that pollution is destroying rainforests. Here, children are confusing rainforest destruction with damage to the forests of Western Europe by these factors. While two fifths of the students provided the information that the rainforests provide oxygen, in some cases this response also embraced the misconception that rainforest destruction would reduce atmospheric oxygen, making the atmosphere incompatible with human life on Earth.

    In answer to the final question about the importance of rainforest conservation, the majority of children simply said that we need rainforests to survive. Only a few of the pupils (6%) mentioned that rainforest destruction may contribute to global warming. This is surprising considering the high level of media coverage on this issue. Some children expressed the idea that the conservation of rainforests is not important.

    The results of this study suggest that certain ideas predominate in the thinking of children about rainforests. Pupils’ responses indicate some misconceptions in basic scientific knowledge of rainforests’ ecosystems such as their ideas about rainforests as habitats for animals, plants and humans and the relationship between climatic change and destruction of rainforests.

    Pupils did not volunteer ideas that suggested that they appreciated the complexity of causes of rainforest destruction. In other words, they gave no indication of an appreciation of either the range of ways in which rainforests are important or the complex social, economic and political factors which drive the activities which are destroying the rainforests. One encouragement is that the results of similar studies about other environmental issues suggest that older children seem to acquire the ability to appreciate, value and evaluate conflicting views. Environmental education offers an arena in which these skills can be developed, which is essential for these children as future decision – makers.

    Questions 1-8

    Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1.

    In boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet, write

    TRUE                       if the statement is true according to the passage
    FALSE                     if the statement is false according to the passage
    NOT GIVEN         if the information is not given in the passage

    1 The plight of the rainforests has largely been ignored by the media.
    2 Children only accept opinions on rainforests that they encounter in their classrooms.
    3 It has been suggested that children hold mistaken views about the ‘pure’ science that they study at school.
    4 The fact that children’s ideas about science form part of a larger framework of ideas means that it is easier to change them.
    5 The study involved asking children a number of yes/no questions such as ‘Are there any rainforests in Africa?’
    6 Girls are more likely than boys to hold mistaken views about the rainforests’ destruction.
    7 The study reported here follows on from a series of studies that have looked at children’s understanding of rainforests.
    8 A second study has been planned to investigate primary school children’s ideas about rainforests.

    Questions 9-13

    The box below gives a list of responses A–P to the questionnaire discussed in Reading Passage 1.
    Answer the following questions by choosing the correct responses A–P.
    Write your answers in boxes 9–13 on your answer sheet.

    List of Responses
    A There is a complicated combination of reasons for the loss of the rainforests.
    B The rainforests are being destroyed by the same things that are destroying the forests of Western Europe.
    C Rainforests are located near the Equator.
    D Brazil is home to the rainforests.
    E Without rainforests some animals would have nowhere to live.
    F Rainforests are important habitats for a lot of plants.
    G People are responsible for the loss of the rainforests.
    H The rainforests are a source of oxygen.
    I Rainforests are of consequence for a number of different reasons.
    J As the rainforests are destroyed, the world gets warmer.
    K Without rainforests there would not be enough oxygen in the air.
    L There are people for whom the rainforests are home.
    M Rainforests are found in Africa.
    N Rainforests are not really important to human life.
    O The destruction of the rainforests is the direct result of logging activity.
    P Humans depend on the rainforests for their continuing existence.

    9 What was the children’s most frequent response when asked where the rainforests were?
    10 What was the most common response to the question about the importance of the rainforests?
    11 What did most children give as the reason for the loss of the rainforests?
    12 Why did most children think it important for the rainforests to be protected?
    13 Which of the responses is cited as unexpectedly uncommon, given the amount of time spent on the issue by the newspapers and television?

    Question 14
    Choose the best answer A, B, C, D or E.

    14 Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 1?
    A The development of a programme in environmental studies within a science curriculum
    B Children’s ideas about the rainforests and the implications for course design
    C The extent to which children have been misled by the media concerning the rainforests.
    D How to collect, collate and describe the ideas of secondary school children.
    E The importance of the rainforests and the reasons for their destruction.

    What Do Whales Feel?

    Some of the senses that we and other terrestrial mammals take for granted are either reduced or absent in cetaceans or fail to function well in water. For example, it appears from their brain structure that toothed species are unable to smell. Baleen species, on the other hand, appear to have some related brain structures but it is not known whether these are functional. It has been speculated that, as the blowholes evolved and migrated to the top of the head, the neural pathways serving sense of smell may have been nearly all sacrificed. Similarly, although at least some cetaceans have taste buds, the nerves serving these have degenerated or are rudimentary.

    The sense of touch has sometimes been described as weak too, but this view is probably mistaken. Trainers of captive dolphins and small whales often remark on their animals’ responsiveness to being touched or rubbed, and both captive and freeranging cetacean individuals of all species (particularly adults and calves, or members of the same subgroup) appear to make frequent contact. This contact may help to maintain order within a group, and stroking or touching are part of the courtship ritual in most species. The area around the blowhole is also particularly sensitive and captive animals often object strongly to being touched there.

    The sense of vision is developed to different degrees in different species. Baleen species studied at close quarters underwater – specifically a grey whale calf in captivity for a year, and free-ranging right whales and humpback whales studied and filmed off Argentina and Hawaii – have obviously tracked objects with vision underwater, and they can apparently see moderately well both in water and in air. However, the position of the eyes so restricts the field of vision in baleen whales that they probably do not have stereoscopic vision.

    On the other hand, the position of the eyes in most dolphins and porpoises suggests that they have stereoscopic vision forward and downward. Eye position in freshwater dolphins, which often swim on their side or upside down while feeding, suggests that what vision they have is stereoscopic forward and upward. By comparison, the bottlenose dolphin has extremely keen vision in water. Judging from the way it watches and tracks airborne flying fish, it can apparently see fairly well through the air–water interface as well. And although preliminary experimental evidence suggests that their in-air vision is poor, the accuracy with which dolphins leap high to take small fish out of a trainer’s hand provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

    Such variation can no doubt be explained with reference to the habitats in which individual species have developed. For example, vision is obviously more useful to species inhabiting clear open waters than to those living in turbid rivers and flooded plains. The South American boutu and Chinese beiji, for instance, appear to have very limited vision, and the Indian susus are blind, their eyes reduced to slits that probably allow them to sense only the direction and intensity of light.

    Although the senses of taste and smell appear to have deteriorated, and vision in water appears to be uncertain, such weaknesses are more than compensated for by cetaceans’ well-developed acoustic sense. Most species are highly vocal, although they vary in the range of sounds they produce, and many forage for food using echolocation. Large baleen whales primarily use the lower frequencies and are often limited in their repertoire. Notable exceptions are the nearly song-like choruses of bowhead whales in summer and the complex, haunting utterances of the humpback whales. Toothed species in general employ more of the frequency spectrum, and produce a wider variety of sounds, than baleen species (though the sperm whale apparently produces a monotonous series of high-energy clicks and little else). Some of the more complicated sounds are clearly communicative, although what role they may play in the social life and ‘culture’ of cetaceans has been more the subject of wild speculation than of solid science.

    Questions 15-21
    Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 2 for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 15–21 on your answer sheet.

    SenseSpeciesAbilityComments
    Tastesome typespoornerves linked to their (15)…………………..are underdeveloped
    Vision(16)…………….yesprobably do not have stereoscopic vision
    Visiondolphins, porpoisesyesprobably have stereoscopic vision (17)…………………and………………….
    Vision(18)………………….yesprobably have stereoscopic vision forward and upward
    Visionbottlenose dolphinyesexceptional in (19)…………………and good in air water interface
    Visionboutu and beijipoorhave limited vision
    VisionIndian susnoprobably only sense direction and intensity of light
    Hearingmost large baleenyesusually are (20)…………………repertoire limited
    Hearing(21)………………whales and …………… whalesyessong like
    Hearingtoothedyesuse more of frequency spectrum; have wider repertoire

    Questions 22-26

    Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

    Write your answers in boxes 22–26 on your answer sheet.

    22 Which of the senses is described here as being involved in mating?
    23 Which species swims upside down while eating?
    24 What can bottlenose dolphins follow from under the water?
    25 Which type of habitat is related to good visual ability?
    26 Which of the senses is best developed in cetaceans?

    Visual Symbols And The Blind

    Part 1
    From a number of recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives to describe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations. This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle (Fig. 1). I was taken aback. Lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration. Indeed, as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, used virtually no motion lines in his popular figures until about 1877.

    When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever rendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel’s spokes as curved lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines – or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were apt ways of showing movement or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.

    To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.

    All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel’s perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.

    In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.

    Part 2
    We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well. One blind woman drew a picture of a child inside a heart – choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surrounded the child. With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from China, I have begun exploring how well blind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly represent their meaning.

    We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair the term that best related to a circle and the term that best related to a square. For example, we asked: What goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?

    All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard. A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle, instead of sad. But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak to strong, respectively. And only 51% linked deep to circle and shallow to square. (See Fig. 2.) When we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closely resembled those made by the sighted subjects. One man, who had been blind since birth, scored extremely well. He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ‘far’ to square and ‘near’ to circle. In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects – 53% – had paired far and near to the opposite partners. Thus, we concluded that the blind interpret abstract shapes as sighted people do.

    Questions 27-29

    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 27–29 on your answer sheet.

    27 In the first paragraph the writer makes the point that blind people
    A may be interested in studying art.
    B can draw outlines of different objects and surfaces.
    C can recognise conventions such as perspective.
    D can draw accurately.

    28 The writer was surprised because the blind woman
    A drew a circle on her own initiative.
    B did not understand what a wheel looked like.
    C included a symbol representing movement.
    D was the first person to use lines of motion.

    29 From the experiment described in Part 1, the writer found that the blind subjects
    A had good understanding of symbols representing movement.
    B could control the movement of wheels very accurately.
    C worked together well as a group in solving problems.
    D got better results than the sighted undergraduates.

    Questions 30-32

    Look at the following diagrams (Questions 30–32), and the list of types of movement below.
    Match each diagram to the type of movement A–E generally assigned to it in the experiment.
    Choose the correct letter A–E and write them in boxes 30–32 on your answer sheet.

    Questions 33-39
    Complete the summary below using words from the box. Write your answers in boxes 33–39 on your answer sheet.
    NB You may use any word more than once.

    In the experiment described in Part 2, a set of word (33) ……………….. was used to investigate whether blind and sighted people perceived the symbolism in abstract (34) ……………….. in the same way. Subjects were asked which word fitted best with a circle and which with a square. From the (35) ……………….. volunteers, everyone thought a circle fitted ‘soft’ while a square fitted ‘hard’. However, only 51% of the (36) ……………….. volunteers assigned a circle to (37) ………………… When the test was later repeated with (38) ……………….. volunteers, it was found that they made (39) ……………….. choices.

    associationsblinddeephardhundred
    identicalpairsshapessightedsimilar
    shallowsoftwords

    Question 40
    Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answer in box 40 on your answer sheet.

    Which of the following statements best summarises the writer’s general conclusion?
    A The blind represent some aspects of reality differently from sighted people.
    B The blind comprehend visual metaphors in similar ways to sighted people.
    C The blind may create unusual and effective symbols to represent reality.
    D The blind may be successful artists if given the right training.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 453

    Section 1

    Walk For Charity

    Dear Friend,

    Please join us for our annual Walk for Charity, starting in Weldown, you and your friends can choose a delightful 10, 20 or 30 km route. The money raised will provide support to help people all over the world. Start collecting your sponsors now and then simply come along on the day. Please read the instructions below carefully especially if you require transport to and from Weldown. See you on Sunday 14 May.

    V Jessop, Walk Co-ordinator

    P.S. Well done to last years’ walkers for helping to raise a grand total of £ 21,000. The money has already been used to build a children’s playground.

    START TIMES:

    30 km: 8-10 am, 20 km: 8-10.30 am, 10 km: 8-11.30 am

    The organisers reserve the right to refuse late comers.

    CLOTHING should be suitable for the weather. If rain is forecast, bring some protection and be prepared for all eventualities. It is better to wear shoes that have been worn in rather than ones that are new.

    ROUTE MAPS will be available from the registration point. The route will be sign-posted and marshelled. Where the route runs along the road, walkers should keep to one side in single file, facing oncoming traffic at all times. If you need help along the route please inform one of the marshals. Free car parking available in car parks and on streets in Weldown.

    BUSES – For the 10 and 20 km routes a bus will be waiting at Fenton to take walkers back to Weldown. The bus will leave every half hour starting at midday. The service is free and there is no need to book.

    Questions 1-7
    Look at the information on the given page about a walk for charity.
    Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.

    Write your answers in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
    1. What is the starting point for the 30 km walk?
    2. What is the latest start time for the 20 km walk?
    3. Regarding footwear, what are you warned against wearing?
    4. What are the officials who help participants on the route called?
    5. Where does the 20 km walk finish?
    6. What is the frequency of the Fenton to Weldown bus?
    7. Which walk does not pass through Lower Brene?

    Question 8-14
    Read the information below and answer question 8-14

    The Week’s Best

    A Wild Rose
    (Tuesday 19.00)
    This TV drama is about a young private detective employed by a team of New York businessmen who send her to Brazil to look into a series of hotel robberies. When she gets there, she discovers that the hotels, which are owned by the businessmen, have been empty for the last two years and the local authorities have no record of any robberies.

    B Animal Planet
    (Wednesday 23.00)
    This is a classic black-and-white film from the forties in which astronaut Charlie Huston crash-lands on a planet ruled entirely by animals. It is a first-class suspense adventure which also looks at the human condition, although this is not always a successful part of the film.

    C Strange Encounter
    (Saturday 21.00)
    Suspense is skilfully built up in this clever, small-scale supernatural story. A young couple view a deserted old house that they are interested in buying. They meet a strange old lady who tells them of the mystical powers of the house and haw previous owners have been able to travel back through the centuries to meet their. ancestors.

    D The Longest Walk
    (Tuesday 21.30)
    Ffyona Campbell is nearly there. All she has to do now is walk the length of France and Britain and she has succeeded in walking around the world. Tonight she drinks coffee in a tent and tells her story to Janet Street-Porter before she sets off for the Pyrenees mountains.

    E Rubicon 5
    (Thursday 20.30)
    This is a TV film being used to launch a new science fiction series. It has impressive special effects and a strong, believable cast of characters who travel to the twenty-third century. The action takes place in underground cities where the environment is controlled by computers.

    F New Science
    (Friday 19.30)
    This popular half-hour science magazine continues into its twenty-ninth year, proving itself to be a hardy survivor in the television world. Tonight it is presented by Carol Vorderman who introduces five reports, which include computer-driven cars and in-flight ten-pin bowling.

    G There and Back Again
    (Sunday 22.00)
    Paul Theroux’s account of his recent journey from London to Japan and back makes ideal material for this evening’s travel slot. Based on his own novel, the progress of his journey on the railways of Europe and Asia (Victoria station, Paris, Istanbul…) acts as a fascinating travelogue as the inhabitants gradually shift from the West to the East.

    Questions 8-14
    Look at the seven television programmes A-G on the given page and answer Questions 8-14.
    For which programme are the following statements true? Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet.

    NB You may use any letter more than once.
    8. This programme is in the form of a personal interview.
    9. This programme is a documentary about technological developments.
    10. These TWO programmes are about time travel.
    11. This programme is taken from a book.
    12. This film is the introduction to a set of programmes.
    13. These TWO programmes are about present-day travellers.
    14. This programme is about investigating a possible crime.

    SECTION 2

    Question 15-27

    BINGHAM REGIONAL COLLEGE

    International Students’ Orientation Programme

    What is it?
    It is a course which will introduce you to the College and to Bingham. It takes place in the week before term starts, from 24th – 28th September inclusive, but you should plan to arrive in Bingham on the 22nd or 23rd September.

    Why do we think it is important?
    We want you to have the best possible start to your studies and you need to find out about all the opportunities that college life offers. This programme aims to help you do just that. It will enable you to get to know the College, its facilities and services. You will also have the chance to meet staff and students.

    How much will it cost?
    International students (non-European Union students)
    For those students who do not come from European Union (EU) countries, and who are not used to European culture and customs, the programme is very important and you are strongly advised to attend. Because of this, the cost of the programme, exclusive of accommodation, is built into your tuition fees.

    EU students
    EU students are welcome to take part in this programme for a fee of £195, exclusive of accommodation. Fees are not refundable.

    Accommodation costs (international and EU students)
    If you have booked accommodation for the year ahead (41 weeks) through the College in one of the College residences (Cambourne House, Hanley House, the Student Village or a College shared house), you do not have to pay extra for accommodation during the Orientation programme. If you have not booked accommodation in the College residences, you can ask us to pre-book accommodation for you for one week only (Orientation Programme week) in a hotel with other international students. The cost of accommodation for one week is approximately £165. Alternatively, you can arrange your own accommodation for that week in a flat, with friends or a local family.

    What is included during the programme?
    Meals: lunch and an evening meal are provided as part of the programme, beginning with supper on Sunday 23rd September and finishing with lunch at midday on Friday 28th September. Please note that breakfast is not available.

    Information sessions: including such topics as accommodation, health, religious matters, welfare, immigration, study skills, careers and other ‘essential information’.

    Social activities: including a welcome buffet and a half-day excursion round Bingham.

    Transport: between your accommodation and the main College campus, where activities will take place.

    Questions 15-20
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text above.
    In boxes 15-20 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

    15. Participants are advised to arrive one or two days early.
    16. The cost of the programme for European Union students, excluding accommodation, is £195.
    17. The number of places available is strictly limited.
    18. Some students are not charged extra for accommodation during the programme.
    19. The College will arrange accommodation with local families.
    20. You can obtain breakfast at the College for an extra charge.

    Student Accommodation

    The College offers five basic accommodation options. Here is some information to help you make your choice

    A CAMBOURNE HOUSE – self-catering, student residence, located in the town centre about 2 miles from the main College campus. Up to 499 students live in 6, 7 and 8 bedroom flats, all with en-suite shower rooms. Rent is £64 per week, including bills (not telephone). Broadband Internet connections and telephones, with communal kitchen/dining and lounge areas. Parking space is available, with permits costing £60 per term.

    B STUDENT VILLAGE – features 3, 4, 5 and 7 bedroom, self-catering shared houses for 250 students close to the main College campus. Rent is £60 per week inclusive of bills (except telephone). Parking is available with permits costing £90 for the academic year.

    C HANLEY HOUSE – a second, modern, self-catering residence in the town centre for 152 students. Eighteen rooms per floor with communal kitchens, lounges, bathrooms and toilets. Rent is £53 per week including bills (not telephone). There is no space for parking nearby.

    D GLENCARRICK HOUSE – a privately-owned and managed student residence in the town centre above a multi-storey car park, close to a major nightclub and housing 120 students. Rooms are allocated by the College Accommodation Service. Rents range from £58.50 to £68.50 for a single en-suite room or larger en-suite room respectively. A small extra charge is made for electricity.

    E HOUSE SHARES – this recent initiative is a range of shared houses for 140 students, conforming to standards set by us to meet all legal safety requirements. A room in a shared house costs between £45 and £55 per week, exclusive of bills, and will be within a 4-mile radius of both campuses. As with halls of residence, the rent is payable termly.

    Questions 21-27
    Look at the accommodation options A-E on previous page For which options are the following statements true?
    Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 21-27 on your answer sheet.

    NB You may use any letter more than once.
    21. This is possibly inconvenient for car owners.
    22. This is best if you like surfing the Web.
    23. Of the College residences, this has the fewest students.
    24. This is a new option offered by the College.
    25. You have to organise parking a year at a tim.
    26. This accommodation does not belong to the College.
    27. Here you definitely do not have your own bathroom.

    GLOW-WORMS

    A The glow-worm belongs to a family of beetles known as the Lampyridae or fireflies. The fireflies are a huge group containing over 2000 species, with new ones being discovered all the time. The feature which makes fireflies and glow-worms so appealing is their ability to produce an often dazzling display of light. The light is used by the adult fireflies as a signal to attract a mate, and each species must develop its own ‘call-sign’ to avoid being confused with other species glowing nearby. So within any one area each species will differ from its neighbours in some way, for example in the colour or pattern of its light, how long the pulses of light last, the interval between pulses and whether it displays in flight or from the ground.

    B The firefly’s almost magical light has attracted human attention for generations. It is described in an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia written over 2000 years ago by a pupil of Confucius. Fireflies often featured in Japanese and Arabian folk medicine. All over the world they have been the inspiration for countless poems, paintings and stories. In Britain, for example, there are plenty of anecdotes describing how glow-worms have been used to read by or used as emergency bicycle lamps when a cyclist’s batteries have failed without warning. Early travellers in the New World came back with similar stories, of how the native people of Central America would collect a type of click beetle and release them indoors to light up their huts. Girls threaded them around their feet to illuminate the forest paths at night.

    Fireflies very similar to those we see today have been found fossilised in rocks which were formed about 30 million years ago, and their ancestors were probably glowing long before then. It is impossible to be sure exactly when and where the first firefly appeared. The highest concentrations of firefly species today are to be found in the tropics of South America, which may mean either that this is where they first evolved, or simply that they prefer the conditions there.

    Wherever they first arose, fireflies have since spread to almost every part of the globe. Today members of the firefly family can be found almost anywhere outside the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

    C As with many insects, the glow-worm’s life is divided into four distinct stages: the egg, the larva (equivalent to the caterpillar of a butterfly), the pupa (or chrysalis) and the adult. The glow-worm begins its life in the autumn as a pale yellow egg. The freshly laid egg is extremely fragile but within a day its surface has hardened into a shell. The egg usually takes about 35 days to hatch, but the exact time varies according to the temperature, from about 27 days in hot weather to more than 45 days in cold weather. By the time it is due to hatch, the glow-worm’s light organ is fully developed, and its glow signals that the egg will soon hatch.

    After it has left the egg, the larva slowly grows from a few millimetres into the size and shape of a matchstick. The larval stage is the only time the insect can feed. The larva devotes much of its life to feeding and building up its food reserves so that as an adult it will be free to concentrate all its efforts on the task of finding a mate and reproducing. Throughout its time as a larva, approximately 15 months, the glow-worm emits a bright light. The larva’s light is much fainter than the adult female’s but it can still be seen more than five metres away.

    In the final stage of a glow-worm’s life, the larva encases itself in a pupa) skin while it changes from the simple larva to the more complex adult fly. When the adult fly emerges from the pupa the male seeks a female with whom it can mate. After mating, the female lays about 120 eggs. The adult flies have no mouth parts, cannot eat and therefore only live a few days. When people talk of seeing a glow-worm they normally mean the brightly glowing adult female.

    D In some countries the numbers of glow-worms have been falling. Evidence suggests that there has been a steady decrease in the British glow-worm population since the 1950s and possibly before that. Possible causes for the decline include habitat destruction, pollution and changes in climate. Thousands of acres of grassland have been built upon and glow-worm sites have become increasingly isolated from each other. The widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers may also have endangered the glow-worm. Being at the top of a food chain it is likely to absorb any pollutants eaten by the snails on which it feeds. The effect of global warming on rainfall and other weather patterns may also be playing a part in the disappearance of glow-worms. A lot more research will be needed, however, before the causes of the glow-worm’s gradual decline are clear.

    E Although glow-worms are found wherever conditions are damp, food is in good supply and there is an over-hanging wall, they are most spectacular in caves. For more than 100 years the glow-worm caves in New Zealand have attracted millions of people from all over the world. The caves were first explored in 1887 by a local Maori chief, Tane Tinorau, and an English surveyor, Fred Mace. They built a raft and, with candles as their only light, they floated into the cave where the stream goes underground. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness they saw myriad lights reflecting off the water. Looking up they discovered that the ceiling was dotted with the lights of thousands of glow-worms. They returned many times to explore further, and on an independent trip Tane discovered the upper level of the cave and an easier access. The authorities were advised and government surveyors mapped the caves. By 1888 Tane Tinorau had opened the cave to tourists.

    Questions 28-37
    The passage has five sections labelled A-E. Which section contains the following information?
    Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

    NB You may use any letter more than once.
    28. threats to the glow-worm
    29. ways in which glow-worms have been used
    30. variations in type of glow-worm
    31. glow-worm distribution
    32. glow-worms becoming an attraction
    33. the life-cycle of a glow-worm

    Questions 34-40
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage.
    In boxes 34-40 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

    34. Scientists have only recently been able to list the exact number of glow-worm species.
    35. The first fireflies appeared 30 million years ago.
    36. Glow-worm populations are decreasing faster in some countries than in others.
    37. Heat affects the production of glow-worm larvae.
    38. Adulthood is the longest stage of a glow-worm’s life.
    39. The exact reason why glow-worm numbers are decreasing is unknown.
    40. Glow-worms are usually found in wet areas.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 452

    Reading

    MAIL ORDER BROCHURE
    Want some great clothing ideas for your family?

    Our key for clothing specials in July:
    M for men                 W for women                  C for children

    For under $10
    Cotton socks C – made of pure cotton for long wearing
    Woollen socks C – to keep young feet warm in winter
    Sports socks M – to go with jeans and other casual clothes
    Patterned belts W – to go with jeans and other casual clothes

    For under $25
    Cotton shirts W – for day and evening wear
    Silk shirts M – five sizes, in designer colours, for that special social occasion
    T-shirts C – hard-wearing, white with a variety of animal motifs
    Colour T-shirts M W – cotton and polyester blend, plain colours, no ironing

    For under $50
    Blue jeans M W – non-shrink, colourfast, small sizes only
    Silk shirts M W – plain and patterned, all sizes
    Hooded jacket C – protects from the wind, 4 sizes, large strong pockets
    jacket W – waterproof with zipper front, all sizes

    Or you can buy a gift voucher so that someone else can choose. These come in $10, $20 and $50 amounts.

    Additional monthly specials for July to September
    July – $10 voucher with any purchase over $60
    August – Travel alarm clock worth $19.95 free with purchases of $80 or more!
    September – Children’s backpacks. Free with any credit card purchase over $75!

    Note: Postage and packing charges
    These are applied to each order as follows:

    Within Australia:
    $7.95 per address, regular post
    $17.95 for Express Delivery Service (overnight)

    Overseas:
    Surface Mail (allow a minimum of two months for delivery)
    Airmail (allow around two weeks delivery to most destinations)

    Questions 1-7
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

    In boxes 1-7 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. Women’s cotton socks cost less than men’s.
    2. Men’s silk shirts are available in more than five colours.
    3. Children’s 7-shirts come in a variety of colours.
    4. The child’s jacket has four pockets.
    5. If you buy clothes worth $80 in August, you will receive a free alarm clock.
    6. The charge for special next-day delivery in Australia is $7.95.
    7. All clothing is guaranteed to arrive within two months.

    Questions 8-14
    The list of New Book Releases on the following page has nine book descriptions A-I.

    Choose the correct title for each book from the list of book titles below.

    Write the correct number i-xi in boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet.

    List of Book Titles
    i Field Guide to Native Birds of Australia
    ii The Bush on Two Wheels: 100 Top Rides
    iii Bush Foods of Australian Aborigines
    iv A Pictorial History of the Dinosaur in Australia
    v Bushwalking in Australia
    vi World Geographica
    vii Driving Adventures for 4-wheel-drive Vehicles
    viii Survival Techniques in the Wild
    ix Encyclopaedia of Australian Wildlife
    x Guide to the Art of the Australian Desert
    xi Field Guide to Animals of the World

    8. Book A
    9. Book B
    10. Book C
    Example Book D vi
    11. Book E
    12. Book F
    13. Book G
    14. Book H
    Example Book I vii

    New Book Releases

    A This book describes the creativity of Aboriginal people living in the driest parts of Australia. Stunning reproductions of paintings, beautiful photography and informative text.

    B Pocket-sized maps and illustrations with detailed information on the nesting sites and migration patterns of Australia. This is a classic booklet suitable for both beginner and expert.

    C Packed full of information for the avid hiker, this book is a must. Photographs, maps and practical advice will guide your journeys on foot through the forests of the southern continent.

    D More than-an atlas – this book contains maps, photographs and an abundance of information on the land and climate of countries from around the globe.

    E Australia’s premier mountain biking guidebook – taking you through a host of national parks and state forests.

    F Here’s the A-Z of Australian native animals – take an in-depth look at their lives and characteristics, through fantastic photographs and informative text.

    G Graphic artists have worked with researchers and scientists to illustrate how these prehistoric animals lived and died on the Australian continent.

    H A definitive handbook on outdoor safety – with a specific focus on equipment, nutrition, first aid, special clothing and bush skills.

    I Detailed guides to 15 scenic car tours that will take you onto fascinating wilderness tracks and along routes that you could otherwise have missed.

    SECTION 2

    Read the advertisement below and answer questions 15-20.

    WORK & TRAVEL USA

    Do you want to have the best summer holiday ever?
    Have you just graduated and want to escape for a unique experience abroad?

    Only $1950 will make It all happen!
    This unbeatable program fee includes:
    • return flight from Sydney to Los Angeles (onward travel in USA not included)
    • 3 months’ insurance cover
    • 2 nights’ accommodation on arrival plus meet and greet and airport transfer
    • arrival orientation by experienced InterExchange staff
    • visa application fees

    You also have:
    • access to a J-l visa enabling you to work in the USA
    • an extensive directory of employers
    • InterExchange support throughout the program
    • 24-hour emergency support throughout the length of the program

    Call toll-free 1800 678 738

    InterExchange has 50 yeors’ experience in international student exchange programs. 18,000 students from around the world travel yearly to the USA on this very program. InterExchange con also offer you work opportunities in other countries.

    WHAT IS INTEREXCHANGE?
    InterExchange, one of the world’s leading operators of international exchange programs and related services:
    • is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation
    • has 700 professional staff in 30 countries worldwide
    • was founded in 1947

    InterExchange operates these programs for students all around the world. It offers you trained and travelled staff, plus full support during the application process. You can choose any job that interests you anywhere in the USA, whether that is working in a law firm in Boston, a famous ski resort in Colorado or serving coffee and doughnuts in the buzzing streets of New York. You can select the period you work and the period you travel; you may want to work for 1 month and travel for 3, or work the entire duration of your stay. The choice is yours.

    YOU CAN TAKE UP THIS OPPORTUNITY IF YOU ARE:
    • a full-time student at an Australian university or TAFE college
    • presently enrolled, or finishing this year, or you have deferred a year of study
    • over 18 years old by November in the academic year in which you apply to InterExchange
    • enthusiastic about the experience of a lifetime

    Questions 15-20
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the advertisement.
    In boxes 15-20 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

    15. The program cost includes internal flights within the USA.
    16. Emergency assistance offered in the program includes legal advice.
    17. InterExchange offers similar programs in countries other than the USA.
    18. InterExchange is part of a government program.
    19. There are no restrictions on the type of job you can do.
    20. There is an upper age limit for applicants.

    Questions 21-27
    Each of the short paragraphs below (21-27) gives information about Arthur Phillip College.
    Read each paragraph and choose which of the linked sections of the website, A-L, would contain this information.
    Write the correct letter A-L in boxes 21-17 on your answer sheet.

    21. All students receive a transcript of results and relevant award documentation when they end their studies with the College.

    22. On enrolment, all students receive automatic membership to the Social Club and Public Speaking Club. Students may choose to participate in any arranged activities. The College encourages and promotes interaction between students and teaching and non-teaching staff.

    23. Successful completion and the achievement of an A or B result in some courses will enable students to achieve advanced standing in these subjects if they proceed to university study. For a list of the courses acceptable to a particular university, e-mail us your request with the name of the university and the course you are interested in.

    24. Arthur Phillip College is one of the top business colleges in Sydney, Australia. The College offers a wide range of educational and training programs in business and related areas. Its accredited vocational training courses are designed to meet the needs of individual students and industry.

    25. At Arthur Phillip College you will learn from lectures, seminars, case studies, group projects, individual assignments and class workshops. Lectures and seminars present concepts and ideas and provide for question-and-answer sessions. Students are expected to take an active role in the learning process through class participation, presentations and projects.

    26. Courses at Arthur Phillip College involve an average of 25 hours per week of tuition time, with supervised group study accounting for a further 5 hours per week. At least 10 hours per week of individual study is also recommended for most courses.

    27. During this program, you will meet the Director of Studies, teachers and key administrative staff such as the Accommodation Officer and Student Counsellor so that, right from your first day, you will know how each of them can help you during your time at the College.

    SECTION 3

    The Lack Of Sleep

    Section A
    It is estimated that the average man or woman needs between seven-and-a-half and eight hours’ sleep a night. Some can manage on a lot less. Baroness Thatcher, for example, was reported to be able to get by on four hours’ sleep a night when she was Prime Minister of Britain. Dr Jill Wilkinson, senior lecturer in psychology at Surrey University and co-author of ‘Psychology in Counselling and Therapeutic Practice’, states that healthy individuals sleeping less than five hours or even as little as two hours in every 24 hours are rare, but represent a sizeable minority.

    Section B
    The latest beliefs are that the main purposes of sleep are to enable the body to rest and replenish, allowing time for repairs to take place and for tissue to be regenerated. One supporting piece of evidence for this rest-and-repair theory is that production of the growth hormone somatotropin, which helps tissue to regenerate, peaks while we are asleep. Lack of sleep, however, can compromise the immune system, muddle thinking, cause depression, promote anxiety and encourage irritability.

    Section C
    Researchers in San Diego deprived a group of men of sleep between Sam and lam on just one night, and found that levels of their bodies’ natural defences against viral infections had fallen significantly when measured the following morning. ‘Sleep is essential for our physical and emotional well-being and there are few aspects of daily living that are not disrupted by the lack of it’, says Professor William Regelson of Virginia University, a specialist in insomnia. ‘Because it can seriously undermine the functioning of the immune system, sufferers are vulnerable to infection.’

    Section D
    For many people, lack of sleep is rarely a matter of choice. Some have problems getting to sleep, others with staying asleep until the morning. Despite popular belief that sleep is one long event, research shows that, in an average night, there are five stages of sleep and four cycles, during which the sequence of stages is repeated. In the first light phase, the heart rate and blood pressure go down and the muscles relax. In the next two stages, sleep gets progressively deeper. In stage four, usually reached after an hour, the slumber is so deep that, if awoken, the sleeper would be confused and disorientated. It is in this phase that sleep-walking can occur, with an average episode lasting no more than 15 minutes.

    In the fifth stage, the rapid eye movement (REM) stage, the heartbeat quickly gets back to normal levels, brain activity accelerates to daytime heights and above and the eyes move constantly beneath closed lids as if the sleeper is looking at something. During this stage, the body is almost paralysed. This REM phase is also the time when we dream.

    Section E
    Sleeping patterns change with age, which is why many people over 60 develop insomnia. In America, that age group consumes almost half the sleep medication on the market. One theory for the age-related change is that it is due to hormonal changes. The temperature General Training: Reading and Writing rise occurs at daybreak in the young, but at three or four in the morning in the elderly. Age aside, it is estimated that roughly one in three people suffer some kind of sleep disturbance. Causes can be anything from pregnancy and stress to alcohol and heart disease. Smoking is a known handicap to sleep, with one survey showing that ex-smokers got to sleep in 18 minutes rather than their earlier average of 52 minutes.

    Section F
    Apart from self-help therapy such as regular exercise, there are psychological treatments, including relaxation training and therapy aimed at getting rid of pre-sleep worries and anxieties. There is also sleep reduction therapy, where the aim is to improve sleep quality by strictly regulating the time people go to bed and when they get up. Medication is regarded by many as a last resort and often takes the form of sleeping pills, normally benzodiazepines, which are minor tranquillizers.

    Section G
    Professor Regelson advocates the use of melatonin for treating sleep disorders. Melatonin is a naturally secreted hormone, located in the pineal gland deep inside the brain. The main function of the hormone is to control the body’s biological clock, so we know when to sleep and when to wake. The gland detects light reaching it through the eye; when there is no light, it secretes the melatonin into the bloodstream, lowering the body temperature and helping to induce sleep. Melatonin pills contain a synthetic version of the hormone and are commonly used for jet lag as well as for sleep disturbance. John Nicholls, sales manager of one of America’s largest health food shops, claims that sales of the pill have increased dramatically. He explains that it is sold in capsules, tablets, lozenges and mixed with herbs. It is not effective for all insomniacs, but many users have weaned themselves off sleeping tablets as a result of its application.

    Questions 28-40
    The passage has seven sections labelled A-G.
    Which section contains the following information?

    Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 28-35 on your answer sheet.

    NB You may use any letter more than once.

    28 the different amounts of sleep that people require
    29 an investigation into the results of sleep deprivation
    30 some reasons why people may suffer from sleep disorders
    31 lifestyle changes which can help overcome sleep-related problems
    32 a process by which sleep helps us to remain mentally and physically healthy
    33 claims about a commercialised man-made product for sleeplessness
    34 the role of physical changes in sleeping habits
    35 the processes involved during sleep

    Questions 36-40
    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the 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. Sleep can cure some illnesses.
    37. The various stages of sleep occur more than once a night.
    38. Dreaming and sleep-walking occur at similar stages of sleep.
    39. Sleepers move around a lot during the REM stage of sleep.
    40. The body temperature rises relatively early in elderly people.

  • IELTS Reading Practice Test – Exercise 451

    THE IMPACT OF WILDERNESS TOURISM

    A The market for tourism in remote areas is booming as never before. Countries all across the world are actively promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions – such as mountains, Arctic lands, deserts, small islands and wetlands – to high-spending tourists. The attraction of these areas is obvious: by definition, wilderness tourism requires little or no initial investment. But that does not mean that there is no cost. As the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recognized, these regions are fragile (i.e. highly vulnerable to abnormal pressures) not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants. The three most significant types of fragile environment in these respects, and also in terms of the proportion of the Earth’s surface they cover, are deserts, mountains and Arctic areas. An important characteristic is their marked seasonality, with harsh conditions prevailing for many months each year. Consequently, most human activities, including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year.

    Tourists are drawn to these regions by their natural landscape beauty and the unique cultures of their indigenous people. And poor governments in these isolated areas have welcomed the new breed of ‘adventure tourist’, grateful for the hard currency they bring. For several years now, tourism has been the prime source of foreign exchange in Nepal and Bhutan. Tourism is also a key element in the economies of Arctic zones such as Lapland and Alaska and in desert areas such as Ayers Rock in Australia and Arizona’s Monument Valley.

    B Once a location is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local community are profound. When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few weeks working as porters for foreign trekkers than they can in a year working in their fields, it is not surprising that many of them give up their farm-work, which is thus left to other members of the family. In some hill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm output and a change in the local diet, because there is insufficient labour to maintain terraces and irrigation systems and tend to crops. The result has been that many people in these regions have turned to outside supplies of rice and other foods.

    In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting animals and fish and collecting fruit over a relatively short season. However, as some inhabitants become involved in tourism, they no longer have time to collect wild food; this has led to increasing dependence on bought food and stores. Tourism is not always the culprit behind such changes. All kinds of wage labour, or government handouts, tend to undermine traditional survival systems. Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the same: what happens if these new, external sources of income dry up?

    The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth in adventure tourism. Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps more important are the deforestation and impacts on water supplies arising from the need to provide tourists with cooked food and hot showers. In both mountains and deserts, slow-growing trees are often the main sources of fuel and water supplies may be limited or vulnerable to degradation through heavy use.

    C Stories about the problems of tourism have become legion in the last few years. Yet it does not have to be a problem. Although tourism inevitably affects the region in which it takes place, the costs to these fragile environments and their local cultures can be minimized. Indeed, it can even be a vehicle for reinvigorating local cultures, as has happened with the Sherpas of Nepal’s Khumbu Valley and in some Alpine villages. And a growing number of adventure tourism operators are trying to ensure that their activities benefit the local population and environment over the long term.

    In the Swiss Alps, communities have decided that their future depends on integrating tourism more effectively with the local economy. Local concern about the rising number of second home developments in the Swiss Pays d’Enhaut resulted in limits being imposed on their growth. There has also been a renaissance in communal cheese production in the area, providing the locals with a reliable source of income that does not depend on outside visitors.

    Many of the Arctic tourist destinations have been exploited by outside companies, who employ transient workers and repatriate most of the profits to their home base. But some Arctic communities are now operating tour businesses themselves, thereby ensuring that the benefits accrue locally. For instance, a native corporation in Alaska, employing local people, is running an air tour from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where tourists eat Arctic food, walk on the tundra and watch local musicians and dancers.

    Native people in the desert regions of the American Southwest have followed similar strategies, encouraging tourists to visit their pueblos and reservations to purchase high-quality handicrafts and artwork. The Acoma and San Ildefonso pueblos have established highly profitable pottery businesses, while the Navajo and Hopi groups have been similarly successful with jewellery.

    Too many people living in fragile environments have lost control over their economies, their culture and their environment when tourism has penetrated their homelands. Merely restricting tourism cannot be the solution to the imbalance, because people’s desire to see new places will not just disappear. Instead, communities in fragile environments must achieve greater control over tourism ventures in their regions; in order to balance their needs and aspirations with the demands of tourism. A growing number of communities are demonstrating that, with firm communal decision-making, this is possible. The critical question now is whether this can become the norm, rather than the exception.

    Questions 1-3

    Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs, A-C.

    Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

    List of Headings
    i The expansion of international tourism in recent years
    ii How local communities can balance their own needs with the demands of wilderness tourism
    iii Fragile regions and the reasons for the expansion of tourism there
    iv Traditional methods of food-supply in fragile regions
    v Some of the disruptive effects of wilderness tourism
    vi The economic benefits of mass tourism

    1 Section A
    2 Section B
    3 Section C

    Questions 4-9

    Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?

    In boxes 4-9 on your answer sheet, write

    YES                            if the statement reflects the claims of the writer
    NO                              if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
    NOT GIVEN           if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

    4 The low financial cost of setting up wilderness tourism makes it attractive to many countries.
    5 Deserts, mountains and Arctic regions are examples of environments that are both ecologically and culturally fragile.
    6 Wilderness tourism operates throughout the year in fragile areas.
    7 The spread of tourism in certain hill-regions has resulted in a fall in the amount of food produced locally.
    8 Traditional food-gathering in desert societies was distributed evenly over the year.
    9 Government handouts do more damage than tourism does to traditional patterns of food-gathering.

    Questions 10-13
    Choose ONE WORD from Reading Passage 1 for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

    THE POSITIVE WAYS IN WHICH SOME LOCAL COMMUNITIES HAVE RESPONDED TO TOURISM
    People/ LocationActivity
    Swiss Pays d’Enhautrevived production of (10)………………..
    Arctic communitiesoperate (11)………………….businesses
    Acoma and San Ildefonsoproduce and sell (12)…………………..
    Navajo and Hopi Activityproduce and sell (13)…………………..
    FLAWED BEAUTY: THE PROBLEM WITH TOUGHENED GLASS

    On 2nd August 1999, a particularly hot day in the town of Cirencester in the UK, a large pane of toughened glass in the roof of a shopping centre at Bishops Walk shattered without warning and fell from its frame. When fragments were analysed by experts at the giant glass manufacturer Pilkington, which had made the pane, they found that minute crystals of nickel sulphide trapped inside the glass had almost certainly caused the failure.

    ‘The glass industry is aware of the issue,’ says Brian Waldron, chairman of the standards committee at the Glass and Glazing Federation, a British trade association, and standards development officer at Pilkington. But he insists that cases are few and far between. ‘It’s a very rare phenomenon,’ he says.

    Others disagree. ‘On average I see about one or two buildings a month suffering from nickel sulphide related failures,’ says Barrie Josie, a consultant engineer involved in the Bishops Walk investigation. Other experts tell of similar experiences. Tony Wilmott of London-based consulting engineers Sandberg, and Simon Armstrong at CIadTech Associates in Hampshire both say they know of hundreds of cases. ‘What you hear is only the tip of the iceberg,’ says Trevor Ford, a glass expert at Resolve Engineering in Brisbane, Queensland. He believes the reason is simple: ‘No-one wants bad press.’

    Toughened glass is found everywhere, from cars and bus shelters to the windows, walls and roofs of thousands of buildings around the world. It’s easy to see why. This glass has five times the strength of standard glass, and when it does break it shatters into tiny cubes rather than large, razor-sharp shards. Architects love it because large panels can be bolted together to make transparent walls, and turning it into ceilings and floors is almost as easy.

    It is made by heating a sheet of ordinary glass to about 620°C to soften it slightly, allowing its structure to expand, and then cooling it rapidly with jets of cold air.

    This causes the outer layer of the pane to contract and solidify before the interior. When the interior finally solidifies and shrinks, it exerts a pull on the outer layer that leaves it in permanent compression and produces a tensile force inside the glass. As cracks propagate best in materials under tension, the compressive force on the surface must be overcome before the pane will break, making it more resistant to cracking.

    The problem starts when glass contains nickel sulphide impurities. Trace amounts of nickel and sulphur are usually present in the raw materials used to make glass, and nickel can also be introduced by fragments of nickel alloys falling into the molten glass. As the glass is heated, these atoms react to form tiny crystals of nickel sulphide. Just a tenth of a gram of nickel in the furnace can create up to 50,000 crystals.

    These crystals can exist in two forms: a dense form called the alpha phase, which is stable at high temperatures, and a less dense form called the beta phase, which is stable at room temperatures. The high temperatures used in the toughening process convert all the crystals to the dense, compact alpha form. But the subsequent cooling is so rapid that the crystals don’t have time to change back to the beta phase. This leaves unstable alpha crystals in the glass, primed like a coiled spring, ready to revert to the beta phase without warning.

    When this happens, the crystals expand by up to 4%. And if they are within the central, tensile region of the pane, the stresses this unleashes can shatter the whole sheet. The time that elapses before failure occurs is unpredictable. It could happen just months after manufacture, or decades later, although if the glass is heated – by sunlight, for example – the process is speeded up. Ironically, says Graham Dodd, of consulting engineers Arup in London, the oldest pane of toughened glass known to have failed due to nickel sulphide inclusions was in Pilkington’s glass research building in Lathom, Lancashire. The pane was 27 years old.

    Data showing the scale of the nickel sulphide problem is almost impossible to find. The picture is made more complicated by the fact that these crystals occur in batches. So even if, on average, there is only one inclusion in 7 tonnes of glass, if you experience one nickel sulphide failure in your building, that probably means you’ve got a problem in more than one pane. Josie says that in the last decade he has worked on over 15 buildings with the number of failures into double figures.

    One of the worst examples of this is Waterfront Place, which was completed in 1990. Over the following decade the 40 storey Brisbane block suffered a rash of failures. Eighty panes of its toughened glass shattered due to inclusions before experts were finally called in. John Barry, an expert in nickel sulphide contamination at the University of Queensland, analysed every glass pane in the building. Using a studio camera, a photographer went up in a cradle to take photos of every pane. These were scanned under a modified microfiche reader for signs of nickel sulphide crystals. ‘We discovered at least another 120 panes with potentially dangerous inclusions which were then replaced,’ says Barry. ‘It was a very expensive and time-consuming process that took around six months to complete.’ Though the project cost A$1.6 million (nearly £700,000), the alternative – re-cladding the entire building – would have cost ten times as much.

    Questions 14-17

    Look at the following people and the list of statements below.
    Match each person with the correct statement.
    Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

    14 Brian Waldron
    15 Trevor Ford
    16 Graham Dodd
    17 John Barry

    List of Statements
    A suggests that publicity about nickel sulphide failure has been suppressed
    B regularly sees cases of nickel sulphide failure
    C closely examined all the glass in one building
    D was involved with the construction of Bishops Walk
    E recommended the rebuilding of Waterfront Place
    F thinks the benefits of toughened glass are exaggerated
    G claims that nickel sulphide failure is very unusual
    H refers to the most extreme case of delayed failure

    Questions 18-23

    Complete the summary with the list of words A-P below.
    Write your answers in boxes 18-23 on your answer sheet.

    Toughened Glass
    Toughened glass is favoured by architects because it is much stronger than ordinary glass, and the fragments are not as (18) ……………….. when it breaks. However, it has one disadvantage: it can shatter (19) ……………….. This fault is a result of the manufacturing process. Ordinary glass is first heated, then cooled very (20) ……………….. .
    The outer layer (21) ……………….. before the inner layer, and the tension between the two layers which is created because of this makes the glass stronger. However, if the glass contains nickel sulphide impurities, crystals of nickel sulphide are formed. These are unstable, and can expand suddenly, particularly if the weather is (22)…………………….. If this happens, the pane of glass may break. The frequency with which such problems occur is (23) ……………….. by glass experts. Furthermore, the crystals cannot be detected without sophisticated equipment.

    A numerousB detectedC quicklyD agreed
    E warmF sharpG expandsH slowly
    I unexpectedlyJ removedK contactsL disputed
    M coldN movedO smallP calculated

    Questions 24-26

    Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage?

    TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

    FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

    NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

    24. Little doubt was expressed about the reason for the Bishops Walk accident.

    25. Toughened glass has the same appearance as ordinary glass.

    26. There is plenty of documented evidence available about the incident of nickel sulphide failure.

    THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT ON PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES

    Light is important to organisms for two different reasons. Firstly it is used as a cue for the timing of daily and seasonal rhythms in both plant and animals, and secondly it is used to assist growth in plants.

    Breeding in most organisms occurs during a part of the year only, and so a reliable cue is needed to trigger breeding behaviour. Day length is an excellent cue, because it provides a perfectly predictable pattern of change within the year. In the temperate zone in spring, temperatures fluctuate greatly from day to day, but day length increases steadily by a predictable amount. The seasonal impact of day length on physiological responses is called photoperiodism, and the amount of experimental evidence for this phenomenon is considerable. For example, some species of birds’ breeding can be induced even in midwinter simply by increasing day length artificially (Wolfson 1964). Other examples of photoperiodism occur in plants. A short-day plant flowers when the day is less than a certain critical length. A long-day plant flowers after a certain critical day length is exceeded. In both cases the critical day length differs from species to species. Plant which flower after a period of vegetative growth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-neutral plants.

    Breeding seasons in animals such as birds have evolved to occupy the part of the year in which offspring have the greatest chances of survival. Before the breeding season begins, food reserves must be built up to support the energy cost of reproduction, and to provide for young birds both when they are in the nest and after fledging. Thus many temperate-zone birds use the increasing day lengths in spring as a cue to begin the nesting cycle, because this is a point when adequate food resources will be assured.

    The adaptive significance of photoperiodism in plant is also clear. Short-day plant that flower in spring in the temperate zone are adapted to maximising seedling growth during the growing season. Long-day plants are adapted for situations that require fertilization by insects, or a long period of seed ripening. Short-day plant that flower in the autumn in the temperate zone are able to build up food reserves over the growing season and over winter as seeds. Day-neutral plant have an evolutionary advantage when the connection between the favourable period for reproduction and day length is much less certain. For example, desert annuals germinate, flower and seed whenever suitable rainfall occurs, regardless of the day length.

    The breeding season of some plants can be delayed to extraordinary lengths. Bamboos are perennial grasses that remain in a vegetative state for many years and then suddenly flower, fruit and die (Evans 1976). Every bamboo of the species Chusquea abietifolio on the island of Jamaica flowered, set seed and died during 1884. The next generation of bamboo flowered and died between 1916 and 1918, which suggests a vegetative cycle of about 31 years. The climatic trigger for this flowering cycle is not-yet known, but the adaptive significance is clear. The simultaneous production of masses of bamboo seeds (in some cases lying 12 to 15 centimetres deep on the ground) is more than all the seed-eating animals can cope with at the time, so that some seeds escape being eaten and grow up to form the next generation (Evans 1976).

    The second reason light is important to organisms is that it is essential for photosynthesis. This is the process by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or water into organic material for growth. The rate of photosynthesis in a plant can be measured by calculating the rate of its uptake of carbon. There is a wide range of photosynthetic responses of plants to variations in light intensity. Some plants reach maximal photosynthesis at one-quarter full sunlight, and others, like sugarcane, never reach a maximum, but continue to increase photosynthesis rate as light intensity rises.

    Plants in general can be divided into two groups: shade-tolerant species and shade-intolerant species. This classification is commonly used in forestry and horticulture. Shade-tolerant plant have lower photosynthetic rates and hence have lower growth rates than those of shade-intolerant species. Plant species become adapted to living in a certain kind of habitat, and in the process evolve a series of characteristics that prevent them from occupying other habitats. Grime (1966) suggests that light may be one of the major components directing these adaptations. For example, eastern hemlock seedlings are shade-tolerant. They can survive in the forest understorey under very low light levels because they have a low photosynthetic rate.

    Questions 27-33

    Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

    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 There is plenty of scientific evidence to support photoperiodism.
    28 Some types of bird can be encouraged to breed out of season.
    29 Photoperiodism is restricted to certain geographic areas.
    30 Desert annuals are examples of long-day plants.
    31 Bamboos flower several times during their life cycle.
    32 Scientists have yet to determine the cue for Chusquea abietifolia’s seasonal rhythm.
    33 Eastern hemlock is a fast-growing plant.

    Questions 34-40

    Complete the sentences.

    Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

    Write your answers in boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet.

    34 Day length is a useful cue for breeding in areas where …………………………………. are unpredictable.
    35 Plants which do not respond to light levels are referred to as …………………………………..
    36 Birds in temperate climates associate longer days with nesting and the availability of ………………………………….
    37 Plants that Bower when days are long often depend on …………………………………. to help them reproduce.
    38 Desert annuals respond to …………………………………. as a signal for reproduction.
    39 There is no limit to the photosynthetic rate in plants such as …………………………………..
    40 Tolerance to shade is one criterion for the …………………………………. of plants in forestry and horticulture.