Category: IELTS Reading

How Mobile Telephony Turned into a Health Scare

The technology which enabled mobile phones was previously used in the kind of two- way radio which could be found in taxis and emergency vehicles. Although this was a great development, it was not really considered mobile telephony because it could not be used to dial into existing phone networks. It was known as simplex technology, operating on the same principles as a walkie-talkie, which required that a user press a button, meaning that only one person at a time could talk. Simplex meant that there was only one communication frequency in use at any one time.

The first mobile phones to connect to telephone networks were often installed in cars before the hand-held version came on the market and the revolution in mobile technology began. The first generation of mobile phones (called 1G) were large, heavy and analogue and it was not until the invention of the second generation (2G) in the 1990s that digital networks could be used. The digital element enabled faster signalling. At the same time, developments in battery design and energy-saving electronics allowed the phones themselves to become smaller and therefore more truly mobile. The second generation allowed for text messaging too, and this began with the first person-to-person text message in Finland in 1993, although a machine-generated text message had been successfully sent two years earlier.

None of this would have been possible without the development of duplex technology to replace the relatively primitive simplex technology of the first phase of mobile communication. In duplex technology, there are two frequencies available simultaneously. These two frequencies can be obtained by the principle of Frequency Division Duplex (FDD). To send two signals wirelessly, it is necessary to create a paired spectrum, where one band carries the uplink (from phone to antenna) and the other carries the downlink (from antenna to phone).Time Division Duplex (TDD) can achieve the same thing, but instead of splitting the frequency, the uplink and downlink are switched very rapidly, giving the impression that one frequency is used.

For mobile telephony to work to its fullest potential, it needs to have a network through which it can relay signals.This network depends on base stations which send and receive the signals. The base stations tend to be simple constructions, or masts, on top of which are mounted the antennas. With the rapid increase in demand for mobile services, the infrastructure of antennas in the United Kingdom is now huge.

Many thousands of reports have appeared claiming that the signals relayed by these antennas are harmful to human and animal health. The claims focus on the fact that the antennas are transmitting radio waves in microwave form. In some ways, public demand is responsible for the increase in the alleged threat to health. Until quite recently, voice and text messages were transmitted using 2G technology. A 2G mast can send a low-frequency microwave signal approximately 35 kilometres. Third generation (3G) technology allows users to wirelessly download information from the internet and is extremely popular. The difference is that 3G technology uses a higher frequency to carry the signals, allowing masts to emit more radiation. This problem Is intensified by the need to have masts in closer proximity to each other and to the handsets themselves. Whatever danger there was in 2G signals is greatly multiplied by the fact that the 3G masts are physically much closer to people.

Government authorities have so far refused to accept that there is a danger to public health, and tests carried out by governments and telecommunications companies have been restricted to testing to see if heat is being produced from these microwaves. According to many, however, the problem is not heat, but electromagnetic waves which are found near the masts.

It is believed that some people, though not all, have a condition known as electro- sensitivity or electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), meaning that the electromagnetism makes them ill in some way. The actual health threat from these pulsed microwave signals is an area which greatly needs more research. It has been claimed that the signals affect all living organisms, including plants, at a cellular level and cause symptoms in people ranging from tiredness and headaches to cancer. Of particular concern is the effect that increased electromagnetic fields may have on children and the fear is that the negative effects on their health may not manifest themselves until they have had many years of continued exposure to high levels. Tests carried out on animals living close to this form of radiation are particularly useful because scientists can rule out the psychological effect that humans might be exhibiting due to their fear of possible contamination.

Of course, the danger of exposure exists when using a mobile phone but since we do this for limited periods, between which it is believed our bodies can recover, it is not considered as serious as the effect of living or working near a mast (sometimes mounted on the very building we occupy) which is transmitting electromagnetic waves 24 hours a day.

Questions 1-6
Answer the questions below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

1. What were early two-way radios unable to use?
2. What do you have to do in order to talk on a radio using simplex tech?
3. Where were early mobile phones generally used?
4. What development introduced digital technology into mobile telephony?
5. Apart from the area of electronics, in which area did developments help make phones more mobile?
6. What type of text message was the first one ever sent?

Questions 7-10
Complete the diagram. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Questions 11-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

11. 3G technology is believed to be more of a threat to health because
A the signals are transmitted over much greater distances than before.
B the masts are closer together and emit higher frequencies.
C the signals are carrying both voice and text messages.
D the modern handsets needed emit more radiation.

12. Why might the testing of animals give us more reliable results?
A because most of them live closer to the masts
B because they are continually exposed to higher levels of radiation
C because they are not affected at a cellular level
D because they are not afraid of the effects of radiation

13. What is believed to limit the danger from mobile phones?
A not using them continuously
B turning them off when not in use
C mounting a mast on the building where you live or work
D keeping healthy and getting enough sleep

Some Facts and Theories about Flu

The flu, more properly known as influenza, takes its name from the fact that it is so easily transmitted from person to person (influenza is the Italian word for ’influence’). Usually, contamination occurs through direct contact with secretions from an infected person. Its spread is also possible from contaminated airborne particles, such as those that occur when someone coughs or sneezes. However, it should be made clear that the risk is not great from simply being in the same room as an infected person, since the flu virus, unlike other respiratory viruses, does not dissolve in the air. Within 4-6 hours of someone catching the flu, the virus multiplies in infected cells and the cells burst, spreading the virus to other cells nearby.

The spread continues for up to 72 hours, the exact length of time depending on the body’s immune system response and the strength of the particular strain of flu. The range of human responses to the flu virus has been of interest to scientists for many years. This is because the effect can vary from no infection to a rapid and deadly spread of the virus to many people. One area of study that has received particular attention is the immune system response of the individual. Where a person’s immune system is healthy, the virus is attacked as it enters the body, usually in the respiratory tract. This lessens the severity of the illness. In contrast, people with compromised immune systems (typical in the young, where it is not fully developed, or in the old and the sick, where it is not working efficiently), often suffer the worst effects.

One of the body’s responses to flu is the creation of antibodies which recognise and destroy that particular strain of flu virus. What fascinates most researchers in the field is that the human body seems capable of storing these antibodies over a whole lifetime in case of future attack from the same or similar strains of flu. It was while researching these antibodies that scientists turned their attention back to what was possibly the worst ever flu pandemic in the world. The actual number of deaths is disputed, but the outbreak in 1918 killed between 20 and 50 million people. It is also estimated that one fifth of the population of the world may have been infected.

Through tests done on some of the survivors of the 1918 outbreak, it was discovered that, 90 years later, they still possessed the antibodies to that strain of flu, and some of them were actually still producing the antibodies. Work is now focused on why these people survived in the first place, with one theory being that they had actually been exposed to an earlier, similar strain, therefore developing immunity to the 1918 strain. It is hoped that, in the near future, we might be able to isolate the antibodies and use them to vaccinate people against further outbreaks.

Yet vaccination against the flu is an imprecise measure. At best, the vaccine protects us from the variations of flu that doctors expect that year. If their predictions are wrong in any particular year, being vaccinated will not prevent us from becoming infected. This is further complicated by the fact that there are two main types of flu, known as influenza A and influenza B. Influenza B causes less concern as its effects are usually less serious. Influenza A, however, has the power to change its genetic make-up. Although these genetic changes are rare, they create entirely new strains of flu against which we have no protection. It has been suggested that this is what had happened immediately prior to the 1918 outbreak, with research indicating that a genetic shift had taken place in China.

In 2005, another genetic shift in an influenza A virus was recorded, giving rise to the H5N1 strain, otherwise known as avian flu, or bird flu. Typical of such new strains, we have no way of fighting it and many people who are infected with it die. Perhaps more worrying is that it is a strain only previously found in birds but which changed its genetic make-up in a way that allowed it to be transmitted to humans. Most of the fear surrounding this virus is that it will change again, developing the ability to pass from human to human. If that change does happen, scientists and doctors can reasonably expect a death rate comparable to that which occurred in 1918 and, given that we can now travel more quickly and more easily between countries, infecting many more people than was previously possible, it could be several times worse.

Questions 14-20
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

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

14. The only way to catch flu is if someone coughs or sneezes near you.
15. You become aware of the symptoms of flu within 4-6 hours of infection.
16. The effect of a flu infection can depend on how strong the strain is.
17. Those who are more likely to suffer badly with the flu include very young or very old people
18. Although antibodies last a lifetime, scientists have found they get weaker with age.
19. Vaccination is largely ineffective against flu.
20. Another change in the genetic make-up of the H5N1 strain could kill more people than the 1918 epidemic.

Questions 21 -24
Classify the following statements as characterising

A something known by scientists to be true
B something believed by scientists to be true
C something known by scientists to be false

21. Sharing a room with a flu sufferer presents a very high risk to your health.
22. One fifth of the people in the world caught the flu in 1918.
23. Influenza A viruses do not change their genetic make-up frequently.
24. The H5N1 strain evolved in or before 2005.

Questions 25-26
Answer the questions below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

25. In which part of the body do antibodies normally attack the flu virus?
26. What kind of transmission of the H5N1 strain are people afraid might become reality?

Changes in International Commerce How ethics and fair trade can make a difference

The purpose of international commerce is to buy things from and sell things to people in other countries. Hundreds, and indeed thousands, of years ago, this actually worked quite well. People who travelled to foreign lands, often by ship, would take with them items for trade. Agricultural countries would, for example, trade olive oil or wine for weapons or other worked items. All that needed to be negotiated was a fair ’price’ for the items. (How many axes is a barrel of oil worth, for example?) Currency did not enter into the first deals but, even when it did, few problems existed to complicate matters barring disagreements over the value of goods.

Today, fixing a fair price remains at the centre of international commerce. When we look at the deal from the point of view of the seller, market research must determine the price at which the goods will be sold. This may vary greatly from country to country and people are often surprised to see exactly the same item for sale at two or three times the price it sells for in another country. Taxation and local government controls are sometimes behind this, but often it comes down to the fact that people in poor countries simply cannot afford to pay the same amount of money as those in rich countries. These are the things a seller has to bear in mind when preparing a price list for goods in each country.

In most cases, the purpose of setting a suitable price is to sell the maximum number of units. Usually, this is the way to guarantee the biggest profit. One exception is in the selling of luxury or specialist goods. These are often goods for which there is a limited market Here, slightly different rules apply because the profit margin (the amount of money a producer makes on each item) is much higher. For instance, nearly everyone wants to own a television or a mobile phone, and there is a lot of competition in the area of production, forcing the prices to be competitive too. The producers have to sell a large number of items to make a profit because their profit margin is small. But not everyone wants to buy hand-made jewellery, or a machine for sticking labels onto bottles. This enables the producer to charge a price much higher than the cost of making the item, increasing the profit margin. But at the heart of any sale, whether they sell many items for a small profit, or a few items for a large profit the prime motivation for the producer is to make as much profit as possible.

At least, that was the case until relatively recently when, to the great surprise of many, companies started trading without profit as their main objective. Ethical trade began as an attempt to cause as little damage as possible to the producers of raw materials and manufactured goods in poor countries. This movement put pressure on the industry to see to it that working conditions and human rights were not damaged by the need for poorer people to produce goods. In short, it drew to the world’s attention the fact that many poor people were being exploited by big businesses in their drive to make more profit.

There have been many examples throughout the developing world where local producers were forced by economic pressure to supply cash crops such as tea, coffee and cotton to major industries. These people are frequently not in a position to fix their prices, and are often forced by market conditions to sell for a price too low to support the producers and their community. Worse still, while the agricultural land is given over to cash crops, it robs the local people of the ability to grow their own food. In time, through over-production, the land becomes spent and infertile, leading to poverty, starvation, and sometimes the destruction of the whole community.

Fair trade policies differ from ethical trade policies in that they take the process a stage further. Where ethical policies are designed to keep the damage to a minimum, fair trade organisations actually work to improve conditions among producers and their communities. Fair trade organisations view sustainability as a key aim. This involves implementing policies where producers are given a fair price for the goods they sell, so that they and their communities can continue to operate.

Although many big businesses are cynical about an operation that does not regard profit as a main driving force, the paradox is that it will help them too. With sustainability as their main aim, fair trade organisations not only help the poorer producers obtain a reasonable standard of living, but they also help guarantee a constant supply of raw materials. This form of sustainability benefits everyone, whether their motive is making a profit or improving the lives of the world’s poorer people.

Questions 27-31
Classify the following as being a result of

A fair trade policies
B ethical trade policies
C a country being poor

27. Manufactured goods are obtainable at a lower price than elsewhere.
28. Harm to producers of raw materials is minimised.
29. Human rights are respected.
30. Land is not used to produce food for the local population.
31. The local community has more chance of survival.

Questions 32-36
Complete the summary below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Companies carry out (32)…………………….to decide the price that their goods are sold at in each country. The prices of the same goods can vary in different countries because of (33)…………………..or taxes. The (34)…………………is finalised, depending on how much customers in a particular market can afford. To ensure a profit, manufacturers aim to sell the (35)………………..of a particular item. Manufacturers can have a higher profit margin on luxury or specialist goods which often have a (36)………………….

Questions 37-40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

37. According to the writer, what might early traders have disagreed about?
A the comparative values of the goods
B which currency to use for their deal
C which items they wanted as exchange
D the quality of the goods being traded

38. What is the main consequence of a product being in demand?
A higher prices
B smaller profit margins
C fewer items being produced
D less market competition

39. How might an agricultural community be destroyed?
A because companies in richer countries steal from them
B because they ask an unrealistically high price for their produce
C because they over-use the land in order to grow cash crops
D because the crops take much too long to grow

40. The word paradox in the final paragraph refers to the fact that
A poorer people will become richer than the people who run big businesses.
B by being cynical, the big businesses have helped produce a result they do not want.
C the suppliers of raw materials will sell them to big businesses for a huge profit.
D big businesses will gain from these policies although they don’t support them.

Can Animals Count?

Prime among basic numerical faculties is the ability to distinguish between a larger and a smaller number, says psychologist Elizabeth Brannon. Humans can do this with ease – providing the ratio is big enough – but do other animals share this ability? In one experiment, rhesus monkeys and university students examined two sets of geometrical objects that appeared briefly on a computer monitor. They had to decide which set contained more objects. Both groups performed successfully but, importantly, Brannon’s team found that monkeys, like humans. make more errors when two sets of objects are close in number. The students’ performance ends up looking just like a monkey’s. It’s practically identical.’ she says.

Humans and monkeys are mammals, in the animal family known as primates. These are not the only animals whose numerical capacities rely on ratio, however. The same seems to apply to some amphibians. Psychologist Claudia Uller’s team tempted salamanders with two sets of fruit flies held in clear tubes. In a series of trials, the researchers noted which tube the salamanders scampered towards, reasoning that if they had a capacity to recognize number, they would head for the larger number. The salamanders successfully discriminated between tubes containing 8 and 16 flies respectively, but not between 3 and 4. 4 and 6, or 8 and 12. So it seems that for the salamanders to discriminate between two numbers, the larger must be at least twice as big as the smaller. However, they could differentiate between 2 and 3 flies just as well as between 1 and 2 flies, suggesting they recognize small numbers in a different way from larger numbers.

Further support for this theory comes from studies of mosquitofish, which instinctively join the biggest shoals they can. A team at the University of Padova found that while mosquitofish can tell the difference between a group containing 3 shoal-mates and a group containing 4, they did not snow a preference between groups of 4 and 5. The team also found that mosquitofish can discriminate between numbers up to 16, but only if the ratio between the fish in each shoal was greater than 2:1. This indicates that the fish, like salamanders, possess both the approximate and precise number systems found in more intelligent animals such as infant humans and other primates.

While these findings are highly suggestive, some critics argue that the animals might be relying on other factors to complete the tasks, without considering the number itself. ‘Any study that’s claiming an animal is capable of representing number should also be controlling for other factors,’ says Brannon. Experiments have confirmed that primates can indeed perform numerical feats without extra clues, but what about the more primitive animals? To consider this possibility, the mosquitofish tests were repeated, this time using varying geometrical shapes in place of fish. The team arranged these shapes so that they had the same overall surface area and luminance even though they contained a different number of objects. Across hundreds of trials on 14 different fish, the team found they consistently discriminated 2 objects from 3. The team is now testing whether mosquitofish can also distinguish 3 geometric objects from 4.

Even more primitive organisms may share this ability. Entomologist Jurgen Tautz sent a group of bees down a corridor, at the end of which lay two chambers – one which contained sugar water, which they like, while the other was empty. To test the bees’ numeracy, the team marked each chamber with a different number of geometrical shapes – between 2 and 6. The bees quickly learned to match the number of shapes with the correct chamber. Like the salamanders and fish, there was a limit to the bees’ mathematical prowess – they could differentiate up to 4 shapes, but failed with 5 or 6 shapes.

These studies still do not show whether animals learn to count through training, or whether they are born with the skills already intact. If the latter is true, it would suggest there was a strong evolutionary advantage to a mathematical mind. Proof that this may be the case has emerged from an experiment testing the mathematical ability of three- and four-day-old chicks. Like mosquitofish, chicks prefer to be around as many of their siblings as possible, so they will always head towards a larger number of their kin. It chicks spend their first few days surrounded by certain objects, they become attached to these objects as if they were family. Researchers placed each chick in the middle of a platform and showed it two groups of balls of paper. Next, they hid the two piles behind screens, changed the quantities and revealed them to the chick. This forced the chick to perform simple computations to decide which side now contained the biggest number of its “brothers”. Without any prior coaching, the chicks scuttled to the larger quantity at a rate well above chance. They were doing some very simple arithmetic, claim the researchers.

Why these skills evolved is not hard to imagine, since it would help almost any animal forage for food. Animals on the prowl for sustenance must constantly decide which tree has the most fruit, or which patch of flowers will contain the most nectar. Them are also other, less obvious, advantages of numeracy. In one compelling example, researchers in America found that female coots appear to calculate how many eggs they have laid – and add any in the nest laid by an intruder – before making any decisions about adding to them. Exactly how ancient these skills are is difficult to determine, however. Only’ by studying the numerical abilities of more and more creatures using standardized procedures can we hope to understand the basic preconditions for the evolution of number.

Questions 1-7
Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Subjects	Experiment	Results
Rhesus monkeys and humans	looked at two sets of geometrical on computer screen	performance of two groups is almost (1)………………..
Chicks	chose between two sets of (2)…………………which are altered	chicks can do calculations in order to choose larger group
Coots	behaviour of (3)…………………birds was observed	birds seem to have ability to count eggs
Salamanders	offered clear tubes containing different quantities of (4)……………………….	salamanders distinguish between numbers over four if bigger number is at least two times larger
(5)………………..	shown real shoals and later artificial ones of geometrical shapes; there are used to check influence of total (6)……………. and brightness	subjects know difference between two and three and possibly three and four, but not between four and five
Bees	had to learn where (7)…………………was stored	could soon choose correct place

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write

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

8. Primates are better at identifying the larger of two numbers if one is much bigger than the other.
9. Jurgen Tautz trained the insects in his experiment to recognize the shapes of individual numbers.
10. The research involving young chicks took place over two separate days.
11. The experiment with chicks suggests that some numerical ability exists in newborn animals.
12. Researchers have experimented by altering quantities of nectar or fruit available to certain wild animals.
13. When assessing the number of eggs in their nest, coots take into account those of other birds.

Is It Time To Halt The Rising Tide Of Plastic Packaging?

A Close up, plastic packaging can be a marvellous thing. Those who make a living from it call it a forgotten infrastructure that allows modem urban life to exist. Plastics have helped society defy natural limits such as the seasons, the rotting of food and the distance most of us live from where our food is produced. And yet we do not like it. Partly we do not like waste, but plastic waste, with its hydrocarbon roots and industrial manufacture, is especially galling. In 2008, the UK, for example, produced around two million tonnes of plastic waste, twice as much as in tire early 1990s. The very qualities of plastic – its cheapness, its indestructible aura – make it a reproachful symbol of an unsustainable way of life. The facts, however, do not justify our unease. All plastics are, at least theoretically, recyclable. Plastic packaging makes up just 6 to 7 per cent of the contents of British dustbins by weight and less than 3 per cent of landfill. Supermarkets and brands, which are under pressure to reduce the quantity of packaging of all types that they use, are finding good environmental reasons to turn to plastic: it is lighter, so requires less energy for transportation than glass, for example; it requires relatively little energy to produce; and it is often re-usable. An Austrian study found that if plastic packaging were removed from tire supply chain, other packaging would have to increase fourfold to make up for it.

B So are we just wrong about plastic packaging?

Is it time to stop worrying and learn to love the disposable plastic wrapping around sandwiches? Certainly there are bigger targets for environmental savings such as improving household insulation and energy emissions. Naturally, tire plastics industry is keen to point them out. What’s more, concern over plastic packaging has produced a squall of conflicting initiatives from retailers, manufacturers and local authorities. It’s a squall that dies down and then blows harder from one month to the next. ‘It is being left to the individual conscience and supermarkets playing the market,’ says Tim Lang, a professor specializing in food polio’. ‘It’s a mess.’

C Dick Scarle of the Packaging Federation points out that societies without sophisticated packaging lose half their food before it reaches consumers and that in the UK, waste in supply chains is about 3 per cent. In India, it is more titan 50 per cent. The difference comes later: the British throw out 30 per cent of the food they buy – an environmental cost in terms of emissions equivalent to a fifth of the cars on their roads. Packagers agree that cardboard, metals and glass all have their good points, but there’s nothing quite like plastic. With more than 20 families of polymers to choose from and then sometimes blend, packaging designers and manufacturers have a limitless variety of qualities to play with.

D But if there is one law of plastic that, in environmental terms at least, prevails over all others, it is this: a little goes a long way. This means, first, that plastic is relatively cheap to use – it represents just over one-third of the UK packaging market by value but it wraps more than half die total number of items bought. Second, it means that even though plastic encases about 53 per cent of products bought, it only makes up 20 per cent by weight of the packaging consumed. And in the packaging equation, weight is the main issue because die heavier something is, the more energy you expend moving it around. In view of this, righteous indignation against plastic can look foolish.

E One store commissioned a study to find precise data on which had less environmental impact: selling apples loose or ready-wrapped. Helene Roberts, head of packaging, explains that in fact they found apples in fours on a tray covered by plastic film needed 27 per cent less packaging in transportation than those sold loose. Sieve Kelsey, a packaging designer, finds die debate frustrating. He argues that the hunger to do something quickly is diverting effort away from more complicated questions about how you truly alter supply chains. Rather than further reducing the weight of a plastic bottle, more thought should be given to how packaging can be recycled. Helene Roberts explains that their greatest packaging reduction came when the company switched to re-usable plastic crates and stopped consuming 62,000 tonnes of cardboard boxes every year. Plastic packaging is important, and it might provide a way of thinking about broader questions of sustainability. To target plastic on its own is to evade the complexity’ of the issues. There seems to be a universal eagerness to condemn plastic. Is this due to an inability to make die general changes in society that are really required? ‘Plastic as a lightweight food wrapper is now built in as the logical thing,’ Lang says. ‘Does that make it an environmentally sound system of packaging? It only makes sense if you have a structure such as exists now. An environmentally driven packaging system would look completely different’ Dick Scarle put the challenge another way. “The amount of packaging used today is a reflection of modern life.”

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has five paragraphs A-E. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph, A-E from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-viii in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i A lack of consistent policy
ii Learning from experience
iii The greatest advantage
iv The role of research
v A unique material
vi An irrational anxiety
vii Avoiding the real challenges
viii A sign of things to come

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E

Questions 19-23
Look at the following statements (Questions 19-23) and the list of people below. Match each statement to the correct person A-D. Write the correct letter, A-D in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

19. Comparison of two approaches to packaging revealed an interesting result.
20. People are expected to do the right thing.
21. Most food roaches UK shops in good condition.
22. Complex issues are ignored in the search for speedy solutions.
23. It is merely because of the way societies operate that using plastic seems valid.

People
A Tim Lang
B Dick Seatle
C Helene Roberts
D Steve Kelsey

Questions 24-26
Complete the summary below. Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the text for each answer.

A revolutionary material

Plastic packaging has changed the way we consume food. However, we instinctively dislike it partly because it is the product of (24)…………………….processes, but also because it seems to be (25)……………….so we feel it is wasteful. Nevertheless, it is thanks to plastic that for many people their choice of food is no longer restricted by the (26)………………………in which it is available or the location of its source.

The Growth Of Intelligence

No one doubts that intelligence develops as children grow older. Yet the concept of intelligence has proved both quite difficult to define in unambiguous terms and unexpectedly controversial in some respects. Although, at one level, there seem to be almost as many definitions of intelligence as people who have tried to define it, there is broad agreement on two key features. That is, intelligence involves the capacity not only to learn from experience but also to adapt to one’s environment. However, we cannot leave the concept there. Before turning to what is known about the development of intelligence, it is necessary to consider whether we are considering the growth of one or many skills. That question has been tackled in rather different ways by psychometricians and by developmentalists.

The former group has examined the issue by determining how children’s abilities on a wide range of tasks intercorrelate, or go together. Statistical techniques have been used to find out whether the pa Hems are best explained by one broad underlying capacity’, general intelligence, or by a set of multiple, relatively separate, special skills in domains such as verbal and visuospatial ability’. While it cannot be claimed that everyone agrees on what the results mean, most people now accept that for practical purposes it is reasonable 10 suppose that both are involved. In brief, the evidence in favour of some kind of general intellectual capacity is that people who are superior (or inferior) on one type of task tend also to be superior (or inferior) on others. Moreover, general measures of intelligence tend to have considerable powers to predict a person’s performance on a wide range of tasks requiring special skills. Nevertheless, it is plain that it is not at all uncommon for individuals to be very’ good at some sons of task and yet quite poor at some others. Furthermore the influences that affect verbal skills are not quite the same as those that affect other skills.

This approach to investigating intelligence is based on the nature of the task involved but studies of age-related changes show that this is not the only, or necessarily the most important, approach. For instance, some decades ago, Horn and Cattell argued fora differentiation between what they termed ‘fluid’ and ‘crystallized’ intelligence. Fluid abilities are best assessed by tests that require mental manipulation of abstract symbols. Crystallized abilities, by contrast, reflect knowledge of the environment in which we live and past experience of similar tasks; they may be assessed by tests of comprehension and information. It scents that fluid abilities peak in early adult life, whereas crystallized abilities increase up to advanced old age.

Developmental studies also show that the interconnection’s between different skills vary with age. Titus in the first year of life an interest in perceptual patterns is a major contributor to cognitive abilities, whereas verbal abilities are more important later on. These findings seemed to suggest a substantial lack of continuity between infancy and middle childhood. However, it is important to realize that the apparent discontinuity will vary according to which of the cognitive skills were assessed in infancy. It has been found that tests of coping with novelty do predict later intelligence. These findings reinforce the view that voting children’s intellectual performance needs to be assessed from their interest in and curiosity about the environment, and the extent to which this is applied to new situations, as well as by standardized intelligence testing.

These psychometric approaches have focused on children’s increase in cognitive skills as they grow older. Piaget brought about a revolution in the approach to cognitive development through his arguments (backed up by observations) that the focus should be on the thinking processes involved rather than on levels of cognitive achievement. These ideas of Piaget gave rise to an immense body of research and it would be true to say that subsequent thinking has been heavily dependent on his genius in opening up new ways of thinking about cognitive development. Nevertheless, most of his concepts have had to be so radically revised, or rejected, that his theory’ no longer provides an appropriate basis for thinking about cognitive development. To appreciate why that is so, we need to focus on some rather different elements of Piaget s theorizing.

The first element, which has stood the test of time, is his view that the child is an active agent of learning and of the importance of this activity in cognitive development. Numerous studies have shown how infants actively scan their environment; how they prefer patterned to non-patterned objects, how they choose novel over familiar stimuli, and how they explore their environment as if to see how it works. Children’s questions and comments vividly illustrate the ways in which they are constantly constructing schemes of what they know and trying out their ideas of how to fit new knowledge into those schemes or deciding that the schemes need modification. Moreover, a variety’ of studies have shown that active experiences have a greater effect on learning than comparable passive experiences. However, a second element concerns the notion that development proceeds through a scries of separate stages that have to he gone through step-by-step, in a set order, each of which is characterized by a particular cognitive structure. That has tinned out to be a rather misleading way of thinking about cognitive development, although it is not wholly wrong.

Questions 27-30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

27. Most researchers accept that one feature of intelligence is the ability to ________
A change our behaviour according to our situation.
B react to others’ behaviour patterns.
C experiment with environmental features.
D cope with unexpected setbacks.

28. What have psychometricians used statistics for?
A to find out if cooperative tasks are a useful tool In measuring certain skills
B to explore whether soveral abilities are involved in the development of intelligence
C to demonstrate that mathematical models can predict test results for different skills
D to discover whether common sense is fundamental to developing children’s abilities

29. Why are Horn and Cattell mentioned?
A They disagreed about the interpretation of different intelligence tests.
B They research concerned both linguistic and mathematical abilities.
C They were the first to prove that intelligence can be measured by testing a range of special skills.
D Their work was an example of research into how people’s cognitive skills vary with age.

30. What was innovative about Piaget’s research?
A He refused to accept that children developed according to a set pattern.
B He emphasised the way children thought more than how well they did in tests.
C He used visually appealing materials instead of traditional intelligence tests.
D He studied children of all ages and levels of intelligence.

Questions 31-36
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 31-36 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

31. A surprising number of academics have come to the same conclusion about what the term intelligence means.
32. A general test of intelligence is unlikely to indicate the level of performance in every type of task.
33. The elderly perform less well on comprehension tests than young adults.
34. We must take into account which skills are tested when comparing intelligence at different ages.
35. Piaget’s work influenced theoretical studies more than practical research.
36. Piaget’s emphasis on active learning has been discredited by later researchers.

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I below.

Researchers investigating the development of intelligence have shown that (37)………………skills become more significant with age. One good predictor of (38)……………….intelligence is the degree to which small children are (39)……………..about their surroundings and how much interest they show on finding themselves in an (40)…………………setting.

A adult
B practical
C verbal
D spatial
E inquisitive
F uncertain
G academic
H plentiful
I unfamiliar

The Need To Belong

No one likes to feel left out, ignored by colleagues at meetings or not be invited to the big party that everyone is talking about Imagine not being part of a joke, or worse still, if the joke is on you. For most people, living the life of an outsider can have a negative effect on self­esteem and mood. It can even lead to negative behaviour. The pull to belong is extremely strong. Scientists believe that, in part, there is an evolutionary explanation for why we have this need to belong.

In the past, people hunted and cooked together in tribes and each member of the group would be assigned a role. As each member had a purpose, it meant that in the event of the loss of one person, the group as a whole would suffer. For this reason, they had a vested interest in protecting each other. To our prehistoric ancestors, membership of a group meant the difference between survival and death. Those who were rejected and excluded from joining a group had to fend for themselves and struggled to stay alive alone in the wild. Apart from protection, being part of a group also ensured that genes could be passed on to future generations. Although it is very different now from the way our primitive ancestors lived, our brains have not had time to evolve to fit today’s lifestyles. In this day and age, it is no longer a matter of survival to be affiliated to a tribe or group, but the evolutionary instinct to find protection still lingers.

This inherent feeling of security that comes with being part of a group is powerful enough to make people employ both conscious and unconscious strategies to gain membership. One obvious way people try to be accepted into a group is self-presentation, which is the act of portraying yourself in the best possible light An individual will attempt to outwardly display the characteristics which are important to the group’s advancement At the same time, they will conceal any parts of their personality that may be seen as undesirable or not useful to a group. An example of self-presentation is the job application process. A candidate applying for a job will promote themselves as motivated, but is likely to hide the fact that they are disorganised. These conscious tactics that people use are not a surprise to anyone, but we also use other strategies unknowingly.

Psychologists Jessica Larkin, Tanya Chartrand and Robert Arkin suggested that people often resort to automatic mimicry to gain affiliation into groups, much like our primitive ancestors used to do. Before humans had the ability to speak, physical imitation was a method of begging for a place in the group. Most will be unaware they are doing it Larkin and her co-workers decided to test this hypothesis.

They took a group of student volunteers and had them play a game called Cyberball, a ball­tossing arcade game that resembled American football. The volunteers were led to believe they were all playing against each other, but in actual fact they were not The computer was manipulating the game by passing the ball to some volunteers and excluding others.

The ‘accepted’ and ‘rejected’ students were then asked if they enjoyed the game and about their opinions of the other players. Participants were then put alone in a room and their natural foot movements were filmed. Then a female entered the room under the pretence of conducting a fake photo description task. The female deliberately moved her foot during the task, but not in a way that would be noticeable to the volunteer. It turned out that the rejected students mimicked the female’s foot movements the most This revealed that after exclusion, people will automatically mimic to affiliate with someone new.

However, Larkin and her colleagues wanted to go further. They believed that more often than not, in the real world, we actually know the people that reject us. How do we behave towards the group that we know has excluded us? The experiment was repeated with this question in mind. In the second experiment, only female volunteers played the Cyberball game, during which they experienced rejection by either men or women. Then each volunteer did the fake photo task, but this time with a man and then a woman. The results clearly indicated that the female students that felt rejected would unconsciously make more of an effort to mimic members of their own in-group – that is, other women – rather than men. This deep-wired instinct to mimic was not only directed towards random people, as initially thought, but targeted to specific groups, the particular group that did the rejecting in the first place.

To some, it is inconceivable why people will go to great lengths to be accepted into one of life’s social groups or clubs, enduring rejection and sometimes humiliation in order to be accepted. You only have to look at college campuses, which are notorious for strict initiations inflicted on candidates desperately seeking membership. But it happens and will continue to happen, because the desire to belong is a very powerful force and a fundamental part of human nature.

Questions 1-5
Complete the summary. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Modern mans basic need to belong to clubs and groups dates back to early history. Each person within the group had a (1)…………………….to play and was considered integral to the entire groups dynamics and success. For an individual, belonging to a group could affect their chances of (2)……………………..In those times, few could avoid death living alone in (3)………………………. Living with other humans offered (4)…………………….from danger. Staying in a group also meant that (5)…………………….could be passed down to descendants.

Question 6-10
Complete the flow chart below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

PROCEDURE FOR LARKIN’S EXPERIMENT

• Volunteers believed they were playing a computer game, similar to (6)……………………….
• The computer was controlling the gameplay, (7)………………………to some and not others.
• The volunteers gave their (8)…………………….after the game.
• Each volunteer first sat on their own in a room and had their foot movements (9)……………….
• The volunteer took part in a task with a woman who (10)……………………on purpose

Question 11-13
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

11. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the first paragraph?
A one experts view on evolution
B the consequences of being excluded
C being made fun of by the people around you
D a social event that people are eagerly awaiting

12. According to the article, which method do people consciously use to obtain membership into their chosen group?
A They tell the group they are strongly motivated.
B They convey the best parts of their personality to the group.
C They show how the group will be important to their lives. They show how the group will be important to their lives.
D They alter aspects of their personality to suit others.

13. The writers main purpose in writing this article is to
A explain how people feel when they face rejection.
B encourage people to go it alone and not be part of a group.
C show the unconscious drive behind the need to belong.
D compare how the modern lifestyle is different to the past.

Is Technology Harming Our Children’s Health?

Technology is moving at such a breakneck speed that it is enough to make your head spin. It can be difficult to keep up. However, with each new technological marvel come consequences. Much of the research conducted has shown the extent of the damage being done to our health by technology. It is a scary thought, and with teenagers and children being heavy consumers and users of these gadgets, they run the risk of being harmed the most.

The digital revolution in music has enabled people to download, store and listen to songs on a tiny, portable device called an MP3 player. The process is quick and afterwards you can have access to a library of thousands of songs that can fit into your palm. But experts say that continuously listening to loud music on these small music players can permanently damage hair cells in the inner ear, resulting in hearing loss. Tor instance, old-fashioned headphones have been replaced with smaller ones that fit neatly into the ear, instead of over them, which intensifies the sound. In addition to that, digital music does not distort and keeps its crystal clear sound, even on loud settings, which encourages children to crank up the volume. Combine that with the fact that many children will spend hours listening to their iPods, and you have the recipe for hearing loss. Put into further perspective, most MP3 players can reach levels of 120 decibels, which is louder than a chainsaw or lawnmower. When you consider 85 decibels is the maximum safe decibel level set by hearing experts over the course of a working day, and that children will listen to music at higher decibel levels than that for long periods of time, hearing will invariably suffer.

Apart from hearing damage, there are other serious health risks. We are living in a wireless age. Calls can be made and received on mobiles from anywhere and the internet can be accessed without the need for cables. The advantages are enormous, bringing ease and convenience to our lives. It is clear that mobiles and wireless technology are here to stay but are we paying the price for new technology? Studies have shown that the rapid expansion in the use of wireless technology has brought with it a new form of radiation called ‘electropollution’.

Compared to two generations ago, we are exposed to 100 million times more radiation. The human body consists of trillions of cells which use faint electromagnetic signals to communicate with each other, so that the necessary biological and physiological changes can happen. It is a delicate, natural balance. But this balance is being upset by the constant exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that we face in our daily lives and it is playing havoc with our bodies. EMR can disrupt and alter the way in which our cells communicate and this can result in abnormal cell behaviour. Some studies have shown that exposure to wireless technology can affect our enzyme production, immune systems, nervous system and even our moods and behaviour. The most dangerous part of the phone is around the antenna. This area emits extremely potent radiation which has been shown to cause genetic damage and an increase in the risk of cancer.

Research shows that teenagers and young adults are the largest group of mobile phone users. According to a recent Eurobarometer survey, 70 per cent of Europeans aged 12-13 own a mobile phone and the number of children five to nine years old owning mobiles has greatly increased over the years. Children are especially vulnerable because their brains and nervous systems are not as immune to attack as adults. Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board, says there is mounting evidence to prove the harmful effects of wireless technologies and that families should monitor their children’s use of them.

Besides the physical and biological damage, technology can also have serious mental implications for children. It can be the cause of severe, addictive behaviour. In one case, two children had to be admitted into a mental health clinic in Northern Spain because of their addiction to mobile phones. An average of six hours a day would be spent talking, texting and playing games on their phones. The children could not be separated from their phones and showed disturbed behaviour that was making them fail at school. They regularly deceived family members to obtain money to buy phone cards to fund their destructive habit. There have been other cases of phone addiction like this. Technology may also be changing our brain patterns. Professor Greenfield, a top specialist in brain development, says that, thanks to technology, teenage minds are developing differently from those of previous generations. Her main concern is over computer games. She claims that living in a virtual world where actions are rewarded without needing to think about the moral implications makes young people lose awareness of who they are’. She claims that technology brings a decline in linguistic creativity.

As technology keeps moving at a rapid pace and everyone clamours for the new must- have gadget of the moment, we cannot easily perceive the long-term effects on our health. Unfortunately, it is the most vulnerable members of our society that will be affected.

Questions 14-18
Complete the table below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

HOW MP3 PLAYERS CAN THREATEN HEALTH

	MP3 players features	Harmful results	Effects
Problem A	new (14)……………..fit inside ears	creates intense sound	damage to hair cells and loss of hearing
Problem B	(15)………………..is distortion free with clear quality sound	invites children to increase (16)…………………..	damage to hair cells and loss of hearing
Problem C	capable of producing sound at (17)……………….	as loud as a lawnmower or chainsaw – over recommended safe (18)……………….	damage to hair cells and loss of hearing

Questions 19-23
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2? 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

19. There are considerable benefits to our wireless world.
20. Wireless technology is a permanent part of our lives.
21. Exposure to EMR can lead to criminal behaviour.
22. It is possible to become obsessed with technology.
23. Using technology always helps with academic success.

Questions 24-26
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

24. According to Professor Greenfield, what kind of world do children occupy when playing computer games?
25. What does Professor Greenfield feel children don’t pay attention to when playing computer games?
26. According to Professor Greenfield, what may be lower in teenagers who play a lot of computer games?

A History Of Fingerprinting

A To detectives, the answers lie at the end of our fingers. Fingerprinting offers an accurate and infallible means of personal identification. The ability to identify a person from a mere fingerprint is a powerful tool in the fight against crime. It is the most commonly used forensic evidence, often outperforming other methods of identification. These days, older methods of ink fingerprinting, which could take weeks, have given way to newer, faster techniques like fingerprint laser scanning, but the principles stay the same. No matter which way you collect fingerprint evidence, every single person’s print is unique. So, what makes our fingerprints different from our neighbour’s?

B A good place to start is to understand what fingerprints are and how they are created. A fingerprint is the arrangement of skin ridges and furrows on the tips of the fingers. This ridged skin develops fully during foetal development, as the skin cells grow in the mother’s womb. These ridges are arranged into patterns and remain the same throughout the course of a person’s life. Other visible human characteristics, like weight and height, change over time whereas fingerprints do not. The reason why every fingerprint is unique is that when a baby’s genes combine with environmental influences, such as temperature, it affects the way the ridges on the skin grow. It makes the ridges develop at different rates, buckling and bending into patterns. As a result, no two people end up having the same fingerprints. Even identical twins possess dissimilar fingerprints.

C It is not easy to map the journey of how the unique quality of the fingerprint came to be discovered. The moment in history it happened is not entirely dear. However, the use of fingerprinting can be traced back to some ancient civilisations, such as Babylon and China, where thumbprints were pressed onto clay tablets to confirm business transactions. Whether people at this time actually realised the full extent of how fingerprints were important for identification purposes is another matter altogether. One cannot be sure if the act was seen as a means to confirm identity or a symbolic gesture to bind a contract, where giving your fingerprint was like giving your word.

D Despite this uncertainty, there are those who made a significant contribution towards the analysis of fingerprinting. History tells us that a 14th century Persian doctor made an early statement that no two fingerprints are alike. Later, in the 17th century, Italian physician Marcello Malpighi studied the distinguishing shapes of loops and spirals in fingerprints.

In his honour, the medical world later named a layer of skin after him. It was, however, an employee for the East India Company, William Herschel, who came to see the true potential of fingerprinting. He took fingerprints from the local people as a form of signature for contracts, in order to avoid fraud. His fascination with fingerprints propelled him to study them for the next twenty years. He developed the theory that fingerprints were unique to an individual and did not change at all over a lifetime. In 1880 Henry Faulds suggested that fingerprints could be used to identify convicted criminals. He wrote to Charles Darwin for advice, and the idea was referred on to Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton. Galton eventually published an in-depth study of fingerprint science in 1892.

E Although the fact that each person has a totally unique fingerprint pattern had been well documented and accepted for a long time, this knowledge was not exploited for criminal identification until the early 20th century. In the past branding, tattooing and maiming had been used to mark the criminal for what he was. In some countries, thieves would have their hands cut off. France branded criminals with the fleur-de-lis symbol. The Romans tattooed mercenary soldiers to stop them from becoming deserters.

F For many years police agencies in the Western world were reluctant to use fingerprinting, much preferring the popular method of the time, the Bertillon System, where dimensions of certain body parts were recorded to identify a criminal. The turning point was in 1903 when a prisoner by the name of Will West was admitted into Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Amazingly, Will had almost the same Bertillon measurements as another prisoner residing at the very same prison, whose name happened to be William West. It was only their fingerprints that could tell them apart. From that point on, fingerprinting became the standard for criminal identification.

G Fingerprinting was useful in identifying people with a history of crime and who were listed on a database. However, in situations where the perpetrator was not on the database and a crime had no witnesses, the system fell short. Fingerprint chemistry is a new technology that can work alongside traditional fingerprinting to find more clues than ever before. From organic compounds left behind on a print, a scientist can tell if the person is a child, an adult, a mature person or a smoker, and much more. It seems, after all these years, fingers continue to point the way.

Questions 27-32
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings
i Key people that made a difference
ii An alternative to fingerprinting
iii The significance of prints
iv How to identify a criminal
v Patterns in the making
vi Family connections
vii Exciting new developments
viii A strange coincidence
ix Punishing a criminal
x An uncertain past

Example Paragraph A iii

27. Paragraph B
28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
31. Paragraph F
32. Paragraph G

Questions 33-35
Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Unlike other (33)…………………….that you can see, fingerprints never change.
Although genetically the same, (34)…………………….do not share the same fingerprints.
A fingerprint was a substitute for a (35)………………………..in Indian contracts.

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? 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. Fingerprinting is the only effective method for identifying criminals.
37. The ridges and patterns that make up fingerprints develop before birth.
38. Malpighi conducted his studies in Italy.
39. Roman soldiers were tattooed to prevent them from committing violent crimes.
40. Fingerprint chemistry can identify if a fingerprint belongs to an elderly person.

The politics of pessimism

Newspaper headlines and TV or radio news bulletins would have us believe erroneously that a new age has come upon us, the Age of Cassandra. People are being assailed not just with contemporary doom, or past gloom, but with prophecies of disasters about to befall. The dawn of the new millennium has now passed; the earth is still intact, and the fin de siècle Jeremiahs have now gone off to configure a new date for the apocalypse.

It can, I believe, be said with some certainty that the doom-mongers will never run out of business. Human nature has an inclination for pessimism and anxiety, with each age hav­ing its demagogues, foretelling doom or dragging it in their wake. But what makes the modern age so different is that the catastrophes are more “in your face”, Their assault on our senses is relentless. Whether it be sub-conscious or not, this is a situation not lost on politicians. They play upon people’s propensity for unease, turning it into a very effective political tool.

Deluding the general public
All too often, when politicians want to change the status quo, they take advantage of peo­ple’s fears of the unknown and their uncertainties about the future. For example, details about a new policy may be leaked to the press. Of course, the worst case scenario is pre­sented in all its depressing detail. When the general public reacts in horror, the government appears to cave in. And then accepting some of the suggestions from their critics, ministers water down their proposals. This allows the government to get what It wants, while at the same time fooling the public into believing that they have got one over on the government. Or even that they have some say in the making of policy.

There are several principles at play here. And both are rather simple: unsettle people and then play on their fears; and second, people must be given an opportunity to make a con­tribution, however insignificant, in a given situation; otherwise, they become dissatisfied, not fearful or anxious.

A similar ruse, at a local level, will further illustrate how easily people’s base fears are ex­ploited. A common practice is to give people a number of options, say in a housing devel­opment, ranging from no change to radical transformation of an area. The aim is to persuade people to agree significant modifications, which may involve disruption to their lives, and possibly extra expenditure. The individuals, fearful of the worst possible outcome, plump for the middle course. And this, incidentally, is invariably the option favoured by the authorities. Everything is achieved under the guise of market research, but it is obviously a blatant exercise in the manipulation of people’s fears.

Fear and survival
Fear and anxieties about the future affect us still. People are wracked with self-doubt and low self-esteem. In the struggle to exist and advance in life, a seemingly endless string, of obstacles is encountered, so many, in fact, that any accomplishment seems surprising. liven when people do succeed they are still nagged by uncertainty.

Not surprisingly, feelings like doubt, fear, anxiety and pessimism are usually associated with failure. Yet, if properly harnessed, they are the driving force behind success, the very engines of genius.

if things turn out well for a long time, there is a further anxiety: that of constantly waiting for something to go wrong. People then find themselves propitiating the gods: not walking on lines on the pavements, performing rituals before public performances, wearing particu­lar clothes and colours so that they can blame the ritual not themselves when things go wrong,

But surely the real terror cornea when success continues uninterrupted for such a long period of time that we forget what failure is like!

We crave for and are fed a daily diet of anxiety, Horror films and disaster movies have an increasing appeal. Nostradamus pops his head up now and again. And other would-be prophets make a brief appearance, predicting the demise of human kind. Perhaps, this is all just a vestige of the hardships of early man – our attempt to recreate the struggles of a past age, as it’s becomes more and more comfortable.

Mankind cannot live by contentment alone. And so, a world awash with anxieties and pessimism has been created. Being optimistic is you struggle. Hut survival dictates that mankind remain ever sanguine.

Questions 1-5
Choose one phrase (A-K) from the List of phrases to complete each Key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A-K) in Boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of the points made by the writer. NB. There are more phrases (A-K) than sentences, so you wilt not need to use them all. You may use each phrase once only.

Key points

1. Newspaper headlines and TV or radio news bulletins
2. Doom-mongers are popular, because people
3. Today, catastrophes
4. To politicians, people’s Inclination for fear
5. The government

List of phrases
A are not as threatening as in the past
B tell the truth
C blame them
D try to make us believe mistakenly that we are in a new era
E calm people down
F are uncertain about the future
G are less comfortable
H are natural pessimists and worriers
I are more immediate
J get what they want by deceiving the public
K is something they can make use of

Questions 6-9
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in Boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

6. The housing development example shows that people …
A are not that easily deceived
B like market research
C lead their fears
D are easy to delude

7. Which one of the following statements is true, according to the passage?
A Market research uses people’s fears for their own good
B People are scared by market research techniques
C Market research techniques are used as a means of taking advantage of people’s fears
D Market research makes people happy

8. The engines of genius are …
A properly harnessed
B the driving force behind success
C driven by feelings like fear
D usually associated with failure

9. Continual success …
A makes people arrogant
B worries people
C does not have any negative effects on people
D increases people’s self-esteem

Questions 10-13
Do the statements below agree with the information in Reading Passage 1? In Boxes 10-13, 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

10. The complex relationship between failure and success needs to be addressed carefully.
11. People perform certain rituals to try to avoid failure.
12. Anxiety in daily life is what we want.
13. The writer believes that Nostradamus and certain other prophets are right about their predictions for the end of the human race.

Crows Can be Craftsmen too

A remarkable colony of inventors has emerged on an isolated Pacific island. They can fashion tools out of materials scavenged from the rainforest. They can even customise a tool for a given job. Meet the crows of New Caledonia.

Thinkers as diverse as Freud, Engels and Thomas Carlyle once pointed to the use of tools as being a defining behaviour of human beings. Then it was found that many animals also used them, from the ’fishing sticks’ of apes to the rocks dropped on ostrich eggs by Egyptian vultures. Crows are particularly crafty. Earlier studies showed that they are almost human-like in their use of tools, with technological features that match the stone and bone tool cultures that emerged among primitive humans between 2.5 million and 70,000 BC.

But only humans were thought to have the brain power required for cumulative technological evolution. This is the skill for innovation that took our ancestors two million years ago from creating flakes of flint, for use in cutting, to honing knives, blades, arrowheads and axeheads.

Now this ‘unique’ attribute of humans has also turned out to be a flattering delusion. A new study shows that the crows of New Caledonia are inventive. With their evolving leaf tools, the birds have levered man off his pedestal.

Dr Gavin Hunt and Dr Russell Gray of the University of Auckland have spent the past decade studying feathered technology in New Caledonia, 900 miles north-east of Australia. After an intensive field survey of local crow industry, the scientists found that the birds rip the leaves of the pandanus tree to fashion three distinct types of tool for grub and insect extraction: wide, narrow and tapered.

Long ago, the birds discovered that they could rip the serrated edge off the leaves to make a wide tool. The skill spread and the crows honed tools with finer working tips, by either narrowing tools or tapering them. (Because the leaves are reinforced by tough parallel fibres, the tapered design is made in steps. The crow nips the leaf, rips along the fibres, makes another cut and tears again, repeating until it has a tool with usually two, three or four steps.)

Leaf tool manufacture is an example of culture: the birds leam through example and their tool-making wisdom grows in sophistication down the generations. The crows appear to have the cognitive requirements for cumulative, though rudimentary, technological evolution, said Dr Gray. Tool manufacture in New Caledonian crows shows striking flexibility and innovation.’ The ability of the birds to innovate is further shown by their making of other tools. They often strip a twig of leaves and cut it off just below a shortened offshoot to create a hook to get bugs out. They also use simpler tools to extract grubs from the dead wood of trees.

Prof Alex Kacelnik, fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, praised the study as extremely important’. It complements his own research, with Dr Jackie Chappell and Alex Weir, which has turned Betty the New Caledonian crow into a star by revealing her to be the first animal, other than man, to show a basic understanding of cause and effect.

Betty began making tools after her partner snatched away a hook made for her by the researchers, forcing her to make her own from garden wire to fish out morsels from a tube. She wedged the end of the wire into the base of the food tube and turned her head to form the hook. What amazed the researchers is that she can even adapt her hooks if they are not up to the job, something that even chimpanzees are unable to do. Although chimps use sticks in experiments, they have not shown any human-like understanding of basic physical laws. ’When she starts bending the wire it is as if she has a clear objective, even correcting the angle of the hook if it is not right,’ said Prof Kacelnik. ’Although many animals use tools, purposeful modification of objects to solve new problems, without training or prior experience, is virtually unknown.’

‘While we have been emphasising the individual ability of animals like Betty to solve problems, the New Zealand team has been emphasising tool manufacture, the cultural traditions and transmission of information in the wild,’ said Prof Kacelnik. Both strands of research are related by how the crows are not genetically programmed to use a tool, like a spider and his web. Instead, the birds creatively invent new kinds of tools to solve problems and can share skills with others.

The crow family are the Einsteins of the avian world, though Prof Kacelnik added that, at least in terms of tool making, the Pacific crows are smarter than their British cousins. We have not yet identified what it is that makes these crows so special, though it is something to do with ecological circumstances, ’said Prof Kacelnik.

Once scientists have got to the bottom of what makes Pacific crows master toolmakers, they may have to think again about how this skill evolved in humans.

Questions 14-17
Complete the diagrams. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Questions 18-22
Classify the following statements as referring to the crow(s) in

A the study by Hunt and Gray
B the study by Kacelnik, Chappell and Weir
C both studies

18. can share tool-making skills with other crows
19. can make special tools for a particular purpose
20. can solve problems by understanding rather than learning
21. can make tools better than British crows can
22. can manufacture hooks to extract food

Questions 23-26
Complete the summary. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

It used to be thought that only human beings used tools. Even after we learned that many other (23)…………….also do so, it was still believed that only humans were intelligent enough to gradually evolve better tools. A study of crows in (24)…………………..however, shows that these birds use a leaf tool which has been evolved over several generations. A crow in another study has shown the human­like ability to understand (25)…………………..in order to manufacture tools, which not even (26)………………………can do.

Coming into the World A little-known island community comes in from the cold

Back in early 1961, few outside the corridors of dwindling British power had heard of the archipelago centred on the main island of Tristan da Cunha, from which the scattered islands that make up the group took their name.

It would take a dramatic volcanic eruption, and an emergency evacuation that would grab the attention of the media, to bring attention to this mysterious outpost of the British Empire. It seemed that the islands, no more than pin-pricks in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, almost equidistant between Buenos Aires in South America and Cape Town in South Africa, preferred not to be found.

The same can be said of the 290 or so residents of Tristan da Cunha at that time. They lived on the remotest island on the entire planet. There was no airport, nor was there space to build one on this mountainous carbuncle projecting from the ocean. The only harbour, impenetrable during rough weather, was 1,500 miles distant from the nearest mainland port. Cape Town. Communications with the outside world relied predominantly on signals to passing fishing boats and the annual visit of the vessel that supplied the islanders with the goods they could not produce themselves.

For this was a self-reliant community, proud of their ability to survive and help each other in times of adversity. Colonised early in the 19th century, until December 1942, money had not been exchanged on the island. However, war-time conditions and new development, in particular a new fishing industry, saw the beginnings of links which meant that the islanders had to accept they were now part of the modern world, however much the older members of the community might resist such change.

The lives of the islanders ticked quietly along, largely ignored as the government of Britain struggled with larger events on the world stage, until the beginning of August 1961. Earth tremors and rock falls began on the 6th, but by October the situation had got so bad that the island had to be evacuated. The entire population eventually found themselves in England, where they were met with unwanted and unexpected attention from the media. They were housed at a military camp just outside the port of Southampton.

Coming from a sub-tropical island and having had little exposure to the illnesses and chill endured by the natives of the British Isles during winter, several of the elder islanders succumbed. The government did not seem to know what to offer the islanders, there was no news about what was happening to their homeland, and the future looked very bleak. These were people who had built up their own way of life for over one hundred and fifty years. They were a compact community who shared only seven family names between them, and now it seemed that their way of life was to be destroyed.

Fortunately, and despite the islanders reluctance to have any dealings with the media, who they suspected looked on them as historical curiosities, the attention helped keep their plight in the public eye. Eventually, word came through that the island was again habitable and, despite strong resistance from the British Government, the vast majority of the islanders voted to return, turning their backs on the temptations of the brighter lights of their temporary home in favour of their own.

The last of the returning islanders arrived in November 1963 and, with the rebuilding of the crawfish canning industry and a growing demand for the island’s stamps amongst dedicated collectors following the publicity caused by the volcanic eruption, the local economy soon recovered, although communications remained as difficult as they had ever been. Michael Parsons, a young British teacher who was employed on the island, recalls that there was no television and mail from the outside world arrived just eight times a year. ‘I was allowed to send a 100-word telegram home once a month, ’he recalls,’ and getting news from home brought a lump to my throat’

Things have changed with developments in technology, but at the beginning of the present century the island was again cut off from the rest of the world when, on May 23rd2001, a hurricane tore through the area. It caused extensive damage, knocking out the radio station and satellite telephone link as well as leaving the islanders without electricity. It would be a week before news of the disaster reached London and several more weeks before a rescue package could be agreed to help the islanders rebuild.

Today the island boasts its own internet café. For the first time people can see what the items they wish to obtain from abroad actually look like before they purchase them – a big bonus in a place where you have to wait many months to receive an order which might prove to be unsuitable for the purpose you had in mind. At last, it seems, Tristan da Cunha has joined the world.

Questions 27-28
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

27. The writer describes the islands of Tristan da Cunha as
A difficult to find in an emergency.
B a place the media didn’t understand.
C somewhere different countries claimed to own.
D unknown to most members of the public.

28. What does the writer say about the islanders?
A They could go for years with no contact with outsiders.
B They had no means of leaving the island to speak to others.
C They exchanged messages with boats that went past them.
D They travelled to the mainland on the supply ship.

Questions 29-34
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? 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

29. People living on Tristan da Cunha are totally self-sufficient.
30. The islanders often get ill.
31. Some islanders were reluctant to return after the volcanic eruption.
32. The selling of postage stamps has generated revenue for the islanders.
33. There is no television service on Tristan da Cunha.
34. Communications with the island are often interrupted.

Questions 35-40
Complete the summary. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

First colonised in the early part of the 19th century, Tristan da Cunha remained unknown to many people in the rest of the world until a (35)…………………….forced the small population of this remote island to evacuate their homes and brought their existence to the attention of (36)……………………After spending two years as refugees in (37)…………………………, the British Government reluctantly allowed them to return to the island once it had been established that the danger had passed. The (38)………………………of the island improved when rebuilding work had been completed, partly because of a new interest in the (39)……………………..Disaster was to strike the island again nearly forty years later when a (40)…………………………destroyed many buildings on the island.

Thomas Young The Last True Know-It-All

Thomas Young (1773-1829) contributed 63 articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and classicists) and substantial essays on “Bridge,” “Chromatics,” “Egypt,” “Languages” and “Tides”. Was someone who could write authoritatively about so many subjects a polymath, a genius or a dilettante? In an ambitious new biography, Andrew Robinson argues that Young is a good contender for the epitaph “the last man who knew everything.” Young has competition, however: The phrase, which Robinson takes for his title, also serves as the subtitle of two other recent biographies: Leonard Warren’s 1998 life of paleontologist Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) and Paula Findlen’s 2004 book on Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), another polymath.

Young, of course, did more than write encyclopedia entries. He presented his first paper to the Royal Society of London at the age of 20 and was elected a Fellow a week after his 21st birthday. In the paper, Young explained the process of accommodation in the human eye —on how the eye focuses properly on objects at varying distances. Young hypothesised that this was achieved by changes in the shape of the lens. Young also theorised that light traveled in waves and ho believed that, to account for the ability to see in color, there must be three receptors in the eye corresponding to the three “principal colors” to which the retina could respond: red, green, violet. All these hypotheses Were subsequently proved to be correct.

Later in his life, when he was in his forties, Young was instrumental in cracking the code that unlocked the unknown script on the Rosetta Stone, a tablet that was “found” in Egypt by the Napoleonic army in 1799. The stone contains text in three alphabets: Greek, something unrecognisable and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The unrecognisable script is now known as demotic and, as Young deduced, is related directly to hieroglyphic. His initial work on this appeared in his Britannica entry on Egypt. In another entry, he coined the term Indo-European to describe the family of languages spoken throughout most of Europe and northern India. These are the landmark achievements of a man who was a child prodigy and who, unlike many remarkable children, did not disappear into oblivion as an adult.

Bom in 1773 in Somerset in England, Young lived from an early age with his maternal grandfather, eventually leaving to attend boarding school. He had devoured books from the age of two, and through his own initiative he excelled at Latin, Greek, mathematics and natural philosophy. After leaving school, he was greatly encouraged by his mother’s uncle, Richard Brocklesby, a physician and Fellow of the Royal Society. Following Brocklesby’s lead, Young decided to pursue a career in medicine. He studied in London, following the medical circuit, and then moved on to more formal education in Edinburgh, Gottingen and Cambridge. After completing his medical training at the University of Cambridge in 1808, Young set up practice as a physician in London. He soon became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a few years later was appointed physician at St. George’s Hospital.

Young’s skill as a physician, however, did not equal his skill as a scholar of natural philosophy or linguistics. Earlier, in 1801, he had been appointed to a professorship of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, where he delivered as many as 60 lectures in a year. These were published in two volumes in 1807. In 1804 Young had become secretary to the Royal Society, a post he would hold until his death. His opinions were sought on civic and national matters, such as the introduction of gas lighting to London and methods of ship construction. From 1819 he was superintendent of the Nautical Almanac and secretary to the Board of Longitude. From 1824 to 1829 he was physician to and inspector of calculations for the Palladian Insurance Company. Between 1816 and 1825 he contributed his many and various entries to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and throughout his career he authored numerous books, essays and papers.

Young is a perfect subject for a biography — perfect, but daunting. Few men contributed so much to so many technical fields. Robinson’s aim is to introduce non-scientists to Young’s work and life. He succeeds, providing clear expositions of the technical material (especially that on optics and Egyptian hieroglyphs). Some readers of this book will, like Robinson, find Young’s accomplishments impressive; others will see him as some historians have —as a dilettante. Yet despite the rich material presented in this book, readers will not end up knowing Young personally. We catch glimpses of a playful Young, doodling Greek and Latin phrases in his notes on medical lectures and translating the verses that a young lady had written on the walls of a summerhouse into Greek elegiacs. Young was introduced into elite society, attended the theatre and learned to dance and play the flute. In addition, he was an accomplished horseman. However, his personal life looks pale next to his vibrant career and studies.

Young married Eliza Maxwell in 1804, and according to Robinson, “their marriage was a happy one and she appreciated his work,” Almost all we know about her is that she sustained her husband through some rancorous disputes about optics and that she worried about money when his medical career was slow to take off. Very little evidence survives about the complexities of Young’s relationships with his mother and father. Robinson does not credit them, or anyone else, with shaping Young’s extraordinary mind. Despite the lack of details concerning Young’s relationships, however, anyone interested in what it means to be a genius should read this book.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? 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. ‘The last man who knew everything’ has also been claimed to other people.
2. All Young’s articles were published in Encyclopedia Britannica.
3. Like others, Young wasn’t so brilliant when growing up.
4. Young’s talent as a doctor surpassed his other skills.
5. Young’s advice was sought by people responsible for local and national issues.
6. Young took part in various social pastimes.
7. Young suffered from a disease in his later years.

Questions 8-13
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

8. How many life stories did Young write for the Encyclopedia Britannica?
9. What aspect of scientific research did Young focus on in his first academic paper?
10. What name did Young introduce to refer to a group of languages?
11. Who inspired Young to start his medical studies?
12. Where did Young get a teaching position?
13. What contribution did Young make to London?

Antarctica – In From The Cold?

A A little over a century ago, men of the ilk of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson battled against Antarctica’s blizzards, cold and deprivation. In the name of Empire and in an age of heroic deeds they created an image of Antarctica that was to last well into the 20th century—an image of remoteness, hardship, bleakness and isolation that was the province of only the most courageous of men. The image was one of a place removed from everyday reality, of a place with no apparent value to anyone.

B As we enter the 21st century, our perception of Antarctica has changed. Although physically Antarctica is no closer and probably no warmer, and to spend time there still demands a dedication not seen in ordinary life, the continent and its surrounding ocean are increasingly seen to be an integral part of Planet Earth, and a key component in the Earth System. Is this because the world seems a little smaller these days, shrunk by TV and tourism, or is it because Antarctica really does occupy a central spot on Earth’s mantle? Scientific research during the past half century has revealed—and continues to reveal—that Antarctica’s great mass and low temperature exert a major influence on climate and ocean circulation, factors which influence the lives of millions of people all over the globe.

C Antarctica was not always cold. The slow break-up of the super-continent Gondwana with the northward movements of Africa, South America, India and Australia eventually created enough space around Antarctica for the development of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), that flowed from west to east under the influence of the prevailing westerly winds. Antarctica cooled, its vegetation perished, glaciation began and the continent took on its present-day appearance. Today the ice that overlies the bedrock is up to 4km thick, and surface temperatures as low as -89.2deg C have been recorded. The icy blast that howls over the ice cap and out to sea—the so-called katabatic wind—can reach 300 km/hr, creating fearsome wind-chill effects,

D Out of this extreme environment come some powerful forces that reverberate around the world. The Earth’s rotation, coupled to the generation of cells of low pressure off the Antarctic coast, would allow Astronauts a view of Antarctica that is as beautiful as it is awesome. Spinning away to the northeast, the cells grow and deepen, whipping up the Southern Ocean into the mountainous seas so respected by mariners. Recent work is showing that the temperature of the ocean may be a better predictor of rainfall in Australia than is the pressure difference between Darwin and Tahiti—the Southern Oscillation Index. By receiving more accurate predictions, graziers in northern Queensland are able to avoid overstocking in years when rainfall will be poor. Not only does this limit their losses but it prevents serious pasture degradation that may take decades to repair. CSIRO is developing this as a prototype forecasting system, but we can confidently predict that as we know more about the Antarctic and Southern Ocean we will be able to enhance and extend our predictive ability.

E The ocean’s surface temperature results from the interplay between deep-water temperature, air temperature and ice. Each winter between 4 and 19 million square km of sea ice form, locking up huge quantities of heat close to the continent. Only now can we start to unravel the influence of sea ice on the weather that is experienced in southern Australia. But in another way the extent of sea ice extends its influence far beyond Antarctica. Antarctic krill—the small shrimp-like crustaceans that are the staple diet for baleen whales, penguins, some seals, flighted sea birds and many fish—breed well in years when sea ice is extensive and poorly when it is not. Many species of baleen whales and flighted sea birds migrate between the hemispheres and when the krill are less abundant they do not thrive.

F The circulatory system of the world’s oceans is like a huge conveyor belt, moving water and dis-solved minerals and nutrients from one hemisphere to the other, and from the ocean’s abyssal depths to the surface. The ACC is the longest current in the world, and has the largest flow. Through it, the deep flows of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans are joined to form part of a single global thermohaline circulation, During winter, the howling katabatics sometimes scour the ice off patches of the sea’s surface leaving large ice-locked lagoons, or ’polynyas’. Recent research has shown that as fresh sea ice forms, it is continuously stripped away by the wind and may be blown up to 90km in a single day. Since only fresh water freezes into ice, the water that remains becomes increasingly salty and dense, sinking until it spills over the continental shelf. Cold water carries more oxygen than warm water, so when it rises, well into the northern hemi-sphere, it reoxygenates and revitalises the ocean. The state of the northern oceans, and their biological productivity, owe much to what happens in the Antarctic.

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information?

14. The example of a research on building weather prediction for agriculture
15. An explanation of how Antarctic sea ice brings back oceans’ vitality
16. The description of a food chain that influences animals’ living pattern
17. The reference of an extreme temperature and a cold wind in Antarctica
18. The reference of how Antarctica was once thought to be a forgotten and insignificant continent

Questions 19-21
Match the natural phenomenon with the correct determined factor.

Globally, Antarctica’s massive size and (19)……………..would influence our climate.

(20)………………circulated under contributory force from wind blowing from the west.

The ocean temperature and index based on air pressure can help predict (21)………………..in Australia.

A Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)
B katabatic winds
C rainfall
D temperature
E glaciers
F pressure

Questions 22-26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

22. In paragraph B, the author intends to
A show Antarctica has been a central topic of global warming discussion in Mass media.
B illustrate how its huge sea ice brings food to millions of lives in the world.
C emphasise the significance of Antarctica to the global climate and ocean currents.
D illustrate the geographical location of Antarctica as the central spot on Earth.

23. Why should Australian farmers keep an eye on the Antarctic ocean temperature?
A It can help farmers reduce their economic loss.
B It allows for recovery of grassland lost to overgrazing.
C It can help to prevent animals from dying
D It enables astronauts to have a clear view of the Antarctic continent.

24. The decrease in the number of whales and seabirds is due to
A killer whales’ activity around Antarctica.
B the correlation between sea birds’ migration and the salinity level of the ocean.
C the lower productivity of food source resulting from less sea ice.
D the failure of seals to produce babies.

25. What is the final effect of the katabatic winds?
A Increasing the moving speed of ocean current
B Increasing the salt level near ocean surface
C Bringing fresh ice into the oceans
D Piling up the mountainous ice cap respected by mariners

26. What factor drives Antarctic water to move beyond the continental shelf?
A A The increase of salt and density of the water
B The decrease of salt and density of the water
C The rising temperature due to global warming
D The melting of fresh ice into the ocean

Source Of Knowledge

A What counts as knowledge? What do we mean when we say that we know some-thing? What is the status of different kinds of knowledge? In order to explore those questions we are going to focus on one particular area of knowledge medicine.

B How do you know when you are ill? This may seem to be an absurd question. You know you are ill because you feel ill; your body tells you that you are ill. You may know that you feel pain or discomfort knowing you are ill is a bit. more complex. At times, people experience the symptoms of illness, but intact they are simply tired or over-worked or they may just have a hangover. At other times, people may be suffering from a disease and fail to be aware of the illness until it has reached a late stage in its development. So how do we know we are ill, and what counts as knowledge?

C Think about this example. You feel unwell. You have a bad cough and always seem to be tired. Perhaps it could be stress at work, or maybe you should give up smoking. You tool worse. You visit the doctor who listens to your chest and heart, take’s your temperature and blood pressure, and then finally prescribes antibiotics for your cough.

D Things do not improve but you struggle on thinking you should pull yourself together, perhaps things will ease off at work soon. A return visit to your doctor shocks you. This time the doctor, drawing on yours of training and experience, diagnoses pneumonia. This means that you will need bed rest and a consider able time off work. The scenario is transformed. Although you still have the same symptoms, you no longer think that these are caused by pressure at work. You now have proof that you are ill. This is the result of the combination of your own subjective experience and the diagnosis of someone who has the stains of a medical expert. You have a medically authenticated diagnosis and it appears that you are seriously ill; you know you are ill and have evidence upon which to base this knowledge.

E This scenario shows many different sources of knowledge. For example, you decide to consult the doctor in the first place because you feel unwell – this is personal knowledge about your own body. However, the doctor’s expert diagnosis is based on experience and training, with sources of knowledge as diverse as other experts, laboratory reports, medical textbooks and yours of experience.

F One source of knowledge is the experience of our own bodies; the personal knowledge we have of change’s that might be significant, as well as the subjective experience of pain and physical distress. These experiences are mediated by other forms of knowledge such as the words we have available to describe our experience and the common sense of our families and friends as well as that drown from popular culture. Over the post decade, for example, Western culture has seen a significant emphasis on stress-related illness in the media. Reference to being ‘stressed end’ has become a common response in daily exchanges in the workplace and has become port of popular common-sense knowledge. It is thus not surprising that we might seek such an explanation of physical symptoms of discomfort.

G We might also rely on the observations of others who know us. Comments from friends and family such as ‘you do look ill’ or ‘that’s a bad cough’ might be another source of knowledge. Complementary health practices, such as holistic medicine, produce their own sets of knowledge upon which we might also draw in deciding the nature and degree of our ill health and about possible treatments.

H Perhaps the most influential and authoritative source of knowledge is the medical knowledge provided by the general practitioner. We expect the doctor to have access to expert knowledge. This is socially sanctioned. It would not be acceptable to notify our employer Unit we simply felt too unwell to turn up for work or that our faith healer, astrologer, therapist or even our priest thought it was not a good idea. We need on expert medical diagnosis in order to obtain the necessary certificate it we need to be off work for more than the statutory self-certificaion period. The knowledge of the medical sciences is privileged in this respect in contemporary Western culture. Medical practitioners are also seen as having the required expert knowledge that permits then legally to pre-scribe drugs and treatment to which patients would not. otherwise have access. However there is a range of different knowledge upon which we draw when making decisions about our own state of health.

I However, there is more than existing knowledge in this little story; new knowledge is constructed within it. Given the doctor’s medical training and background, she may hypothesize ‘is this now pneumonia?’ and then proceed to look for evidence about it. She will use observations and instruments to assess the evidence and-critically-interpret it in the light of her training and new experience both for you and for the doctor. This will then be added to the doctor’s medical knowledge and may help in future diagnosis of pneumonia.

Questions 35-40
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Source of knowledge	Examples
Personal experience	– symptoms of a (35)…………….and tiredness – doctor’s measurement by taking (36)………………..and temperature – common judgement from (37)…………….around you
Scientific evidence	– medical knowledge from the general (38)………………… – e.g. doctor’s medical (39)……………….. – examine the medical hypothesis with the previous drill and (40)……………….

Morse Code

Morse code is being replaced by a new satellite-based system for sending dis-tress calls at sea. Its dots and dashes have had a good run for their money.

A “Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.” Surprisingly this message, which flashed over the airwaves in the dots and dashes of Morse code on January 31st 1997, was not a desperate transmission by a radio operator on a sinking ship. Rather, it was a message signal-ling the end of the use of Morse code for distress calls in French waters. Since 1992 countries around the world have been decommissioning their Morse equipment with similar (if less poetic) sign-offs, as the world’s shipping switches over to a new satellite-based arrangement, the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. The final deadline for the switch-over to GMDSS is February 1st, a date that is widely seen as the end of art era.

B The code has, however, had a good history. Appropriately for a technology commonly associated with radio operators on sinking ships, the idea of Morse code is said to have occurred to Samuel Morse while he was on board a ship crossing the Atlantic, At the time Morse Was a painter and occasional inventor, but when another of the ships passengers informed him of recent advances in electrical theory, Morse was suddenly taken with the idea of building an electric telegraph to send messages in codes. Other inventors had been trying to do just that for the best part of a century. Morse succeeded and is now remembered as “the father of the tele-graph” partly thanks to his single-mindedness—it was 12 years, for example, before he secured money from Congress to build his first telegraph line—but also for technical reasons.

C Compared with rival electric telegraph designs, such as the needle telegraph developed by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain, Morses design was very simple: it required little more than a “key” (essentially, a spring-loaded switch) to send messages, a clicking “sounder” to receive them, and a wire to link the two. But although Morses hardware was simple, there was a catch: in order to use his equipment, operators had to learn the special code of dots and dashes that still bears his name. Originally, Morse had not intended to use combinations of dots and dashes to represent individual letters. His first code, sketched in his notebook during that transatlantic voyage, used dots and dashes to represent the digits 0 to 9. Morses idea was that messages would consist of strings of numbers corresponding to words and phrases in a special numbered dictionary. But Morse later abandoned this scheme and, with the help of an associate, Alfred Vail, devised the Morse alphabet, which could be used to spell out messages a letter at a time in dots and dashes.

D At first, the need to learn this complicated-looking code made Morses telegraph seem impossibly tricky compared with other, more user-friendly designs, Cookes and Wheatstones telegraph, for example, used five needles to pick out letters on a diamond-shaped grid. But although this meant that anyone could use it, it also required five wires between telegraph stations. Morses telegraph needed only one. And some people, it soon transpired, had a natural facility for Morse code.

E As electric telegraphy took off in the early 1850s, the Morse telegraph quickly became dominant. It was adopted as the European standard in 1851, allowing direct connections between the telegraph networks of different countries. (Britain chose not to participate, sticking with needle telegraphs for a few more years.) By this time Morse code had been revised to allow for accents and other foreign characters, resulting in a split between American and International Morse that continues to this day.

F On international submarine cables, left and right swings of a light-beam reflected from a tiny rotating mirror were used to represent dots and dashes. Meanwhile a distinct telegraphic sub-culture was emerging, with its own customs and vocabulary, and a hierarchy based on the speed at which operators could send and receive Morse code. First-class operators, who could send and receive at speeds of up to 45 words a minute, handled press traffic, securing the best-paid jobs in big cities. At the bottom of the pile were slow, inexperienced rural operators, many of whom worked the wires as part-timers. As their Morse code improved, however, rural opera-tors found that their new-found skill was a passport to better pay in a city job. Telegraphers soon, swelled the ranks of the emerging middle classes. Telegraphy was also deemed suitable work for women. By 1870, a third of the operators in the Western Union office in New York, the largest telegraph office in America, were female.

G In a dramatic ceremony in 1871, Morse himself said goodbye to the global community of telegraphers he had brought into being. After a lavish banquet and many adulatory speeches, Morse sat down behind an operators table and, placing his finger on a key connected to every telegraph wire in America, tapped out his final farewell to a standing ovation. By the time of his death in 1872, the world was well and truly wired: more than 650,000 miles of telegraph line and 30,000 miles of submarine cable were throbbing with Morse code; and 20,000 towns and villages were connected to the global network. Just as the Internet is today often called an “information superhighway”, the telegraph was described in its day as an “instantaneous highway of thought”,

H But by the 1890s the Morse telegraph’s heyday as a cutting-edge technology was coming to an end, with the invention of the telephone and the rise of automatic telegraphs, precursors of the teleprinter, neither of which required specialist skills to operate. Morse code, however, was about to be given a new lease of life thanks to another new technology: wireless. Following the invention of radiotelegraphy by Guglielmo Marconi in 1896, its potential for use at sea quickly became apparent. For the first time, ships could communicate with each other, and with the shore, whatever the weather and even when out of visual range. In 1897 Marconi successfully sent Morse code messages between a shore station and an Italian warship 19km (12 miles) away. By 1910, Morse radio equipment was commonplace on ships.

Questions 1-8
Reading passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A-H. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-H from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i The advantage of Morse’s invention
ii A suitable job for women
iii Morse’s invention was developed
iv Sea rescue after the invention of radiotelegraphy
v The emergence of many job opportunities
vi Standard and variations
vii Application of Morse code in a new technology
viii The discovery of electricity
ix International expansion of Morse Code
x The beginning of an end
xi The move of using code to convey information

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

Questions 9-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

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

9. Morse had already been famous as an inventor before his invention of Morse code.
10. Morse waited a long time before receiving support from the Congress.
11. Morse code is difficult to learn compared with other designs.
12. Companies and firms prefer to employ telegraphy operators from rural areas.
13. Morse died from overwork.

From A Novice to An Expert

Expertise is commitment coupled with creativity. Specifically, it is the commitment of time, energy, and resources to a relatively narrow field of study and the creative energy necessary to generate new knowledge in that field. It takes a considerable amount of time and regular exposure to a large number of cases to become an expert.

An individual enters a field of study as a novice. The novice needs to learn the guiding principles and rules of a given task in order to perform that task. Concurrently, the novice needs to be exposed to specific cases, or instances, that lest the boundaries of such principles. Generally, a novice will find a mentor to guide her through the process of acquiring new knowledge. A fairly simple example would he someone learning to play chess. The novice chess player seeks a mentor to leach her the object of the game, the number of spaces, the names of the pieces, the function of each piece, how each piece is moved, and the necessary conditions for winning, or losing the game.

In lime, and with much practice, the novice begins to recognise patterns of behavior within cases and, thus, becomes a journeyman. With more practice and exposure to increasingly complex cases. The journeyman finds patterns not only within cases but also between cases. More importantly, the journeyman learns that these patterns often repeat themselves over time. The journeyman still maintains regular contact with a mentor to solve specific problems and learn more complex strategies. Returning to the example of the chess player, the individual begins to learn patterns of opening moves, offensive and defensive game-playing, strategies, and patterns of victory and defeat.

When a journeyman starts to make and test hypotheses about future behavior based on past experiences, she begins the next transition. Once she creatively generates knowledge, rather than simply matching, superficial patterns, she becomes an expert. At this point, she is confident in her knowledge and no longer needs a mentor as a guide she becomes responsible for her own knowledge. In the chess example, once a journeyman begins competing against experts, makes predictions based on patterns, and tests those predictions against actual behavior, she is generating new knowledge and a deeper understanding of the game. She is creating her own case, rather than relying on the cases of others.

The Power of Expertise
An expert perceives meaningful patterns in her domain better than non-experts. Where a novice perceives random or disconnected data points, an expert connects regular patterns within and between cases. This ability to identify patterns is not an innate perceptual skill; rather it reflects the organisation of knowledge after exposure to and experience with thou-sands of cases.

Experts have a deeper understanding of their domains than novices do, and utilise higher-order principles to solve- problems. A novice, for example, might group objects together by color or size, whereas an expert would group the same objects according to their function or utility. Experts comprehend the meaning of data and weigh variables with different criteria within their domains belter than novices. Experts recognise variables that have the largest influence on a particular problem and focus their attention on those variables.

Experts have better domain-specific short-term and long-term memory than novices do. Moreover, experts perform tasks in their domains faster than novices and commit fewer errors while problem solving. Interestingly, experts go about solving problems differently than novices. Experts spend more time thinking, about a problem to fully understand it at the beginning of a task than do novices, who immediately seek to find a solution, Experts use their knowledge of previous cases as context tor creating mental models to solve given problems.

Better at self-monitoring than novices, experts are more aware of instances where they have committed errors or failed to understand a problem. Experts check their solution more often than novices and recognise when they are missing, information necessary for solving a problem. Experts are aware of the limits of their domain knowledge and apply their domain’s heuristics to solve problems that fall outside of their experience base.

The Paradox of Expertise
The strengths of expertise can also be weaknesses. Although one would expect experts to be good forecasters, they are not particularly good at making predictions about the future. Since the 1930s, researchers have been testing, the ability of experts to make forecasts. The performance of experts has been tested against actuarial tables to determine if they are better at making predictions than simple statistical models. Seventy years later, with more than two hundred experiments in different domains, it is clear that the answer is no. If sup-plied with an equal amount of data about a particular case, an actuarial table is as good, or better, than an expert at making, calls about the future. Even if an expert is given more specific case information than is available to the statistical model, the expert does not tend to outperform the actuarial table.

Theorists and researchers differ when trying, to explain why experts are less accurate fore-casters than statistical models. Some have argued that experts, like all humans, are inconsistent when using mental models to make predictions. That is, the model an expert uses for predicting X in one month is different from the model used for predicting X in a following, month, although precisely the same case and same data set are used in both instances.

A number of researchers point to human biases to explain unreliable expert predictions. During, the last 30 years, researchers have categorised, experimented, and theorised about the cognitive aspects of forecasting. Despite such efforts, the literature shows little consensus regarding the causes or manifestations of human bias.

Questions 14-18
Complete the flow-chart below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

• Novice: needs (14)………………….and to perform a given task; exposed to specific cases; guided by a (15)………………….through learning
• Journeyman: starts to identify (16)…………………….within and between cases; often exposed to (17)……………………cases; contacts a mentor when facing difficult problems
• Expert: creates predictions and new (18)………………….; performs task independently without the help of a mentor

Questions 19-23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet, write

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

19. Novices and experts use the same system to classify objects.
20. A novice’s training is focused on memory skills.
21. Experts have higher efficiency than novices when solving problems in their own field.
22. When facing a problem, a novices always tries to solve it straight away.
23. Experts are better at recognising their own mistakes and limits.

Questions 24-26
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Though experts are quite effective at solving problems in their own domains, their strengths can also be turned against them. Studies have shown that experts are less (24)……………………at making predictions than statistical models. Some researchers theorise it is because experts can also be inconsistent like all others. Yet some believe it is due to (25)……………………..but there isn’t a great deal of (26)………………..as to its cause and manifestation.

High speed photography

A Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge’s study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used by amateurs to preserve memories, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment. Various technological improvements and techniques have even allowed for visualising events that are too fast or too slow for the human eye.

B One of such techniques is called fast motion or professionally known as time-lapse. Time-lapse photography is the perfect technique for capturing events and movements in the natural world that occur over a timescale too slow for human perception to follow. The life cycle of a mushroom, for example, is incredibly subtle to the human eye. To present its growth in front of audiences, the principle applied is a simple one: a series of photographs are taken and used in sequence to make a moving-image film, but since each frame is taken with a lapse at a time interval between each shot, when played back at normal speed, a continuous action is produced and it appears to speed up. Put simply: we are shrinking time. Objects and events that: would normally take several minutes, days or even months can be viewed to completion in seconds having been sped up by factors of tens to millions.

C Another commonly used technique is high-speed photography, the science of taking pictures of very fast phenomena. High-speed photography can be considered to be the opposite of time-lapse photography. One of the many applications is found in biology studies to study birds, bats and even spider silk. Imagine a hummingbird hovering almost completely still in the air, feeding on nectar. With every flap, its wings bend, flex and change shape. These subtle movements precisely control the lift its wings generate, making it an excellent hoverer. But a hummingbird flaps its wings up to 80 times every second. The only way to truly capture this motion is with cameras that will, in effect, slow down time. To do this, a greater length of film is taken at a high sampling frequency or frame rate, which is much faster than it will be projected on screen. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be slowed down proportionately. That is why high-speed cameras have become such a mainstay of biology.

D In common usage, high-speed photography can also refer to the use of high-speed cameras that the photograph itself may be taken in a way as to appear to freeze the motion, especially to reduce motion blur. It requires a sensor with good sensitivity and either a very good shuttering system or a very fast strobe light. The recent National Geographic footage—captured last summer during an intensive three-day shoot at the Cincinnati Zoo—is unprecedented in its clarity and detail. “I’ve watched cheetahs run for 30 years,” said Cathryn Milker, founder of the zoo’s Cat Ambassador Program. “But I saw things in that super slow-motion video that I’ve never seen before.” The slow-motion video is entrancing. Every part of the sprinting cat’s anatomy—supple limbs, rippling muscles, hyperflexible spine—works together in a symphony of speed, revealing the fluid grace of the world’s fastest land animal.

E But things can’t get any more complicated in the case of filming a frog catching its prey. Frogs can snatch up prey in a few thousandths of a second—striking out with elastic tongues. Biologists would love to see how a frog’s tongue roll out, adhere to prey, and roll back into the frog’s mouth. But this all happened too fast, 50 times faster than an eye blink. So naturally people thought of using high-speed camera to capture this fantastic movement in slow motion. Yet one problem still remains—viewers would be bored if they watch the frog swim in slow motion for too long. So how to skip this? The solution is a simple one—adjust the playback speed, which is also called by some the film speed adjustment. The film will originally be shot at a high frame (often 300 frames per second, because it can be converted to much lower frame rates without major issues), but at later editing stage this high frame rate will only be preserved for the prey catching part, while the swimming part will be converted to the normal speed at 24 frames per second. Voila, the scientists can now sit back and enjoy watching without having to go through the pain of waiting.

F Sometimes taking a good picture or shooting a good film is not all about technology, but patience, like in the case of bat. Bats are small, dark-colored; they fly fast and are active only at night. To capture bats on film, one must use some type of camera-tripping device. Photographers or film-makers often place camera near the bat cave, on the path of the flying bats. The camera must be hard-wired with a tripping device so that every time a bat breaks the tripping beam the camera fires and it will keep doing so through the night until the camera’s battery runs out. Though highly-advanced tripping device can now allow for unmanned shooting, it still may take several nights to get a truly high quality film.

G Is it science? Is it art? Since the technique was first pioneered around two hundred years ago, photography has developed to a state where it is almost unrecognisable. Some people would even say the future of photography will be nothing like how we imagine it. No matter what future it may hold, photography will continue to develop as it has been repeatedly demonstrated in many aspects of our life that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Questions 27-30
Look at the following organisms (Questions 27-30) and the list of features below. Match each organism with the correct feature, A-D.

27. Mushroom
28. Hummingbird
29. Frog
30. Bat

A too fast to be perceived
B film at the place where the animal will pass
C too slow to be visible to human eyes
D adjust the filming speed to make it interesting

Questions 31-35
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Fast motion (professionally known as time-lapse photography) and slow motion (or high-speed photography) are two commonest techniques of photography. To present before audiences something that occurs naturally slow, photographers take each picture at a (31)………………..before another picture. When these pictures are finally shown on screen in sequence at a normal motion picture rate, audiences see a (32)…………………….that is faster than what it naturally is. This technique can make audiences feel as if (33)………………………is shrunk. On the other hand, to demonstrate how fast things move, the movement is exposed on a (34)……………………of film, and then projected on screen at normal playback speed. This makes viewers feel time is (35)……………….

Questions 36-40
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

36. a description of photography’s application in various fields
37. a reference to why high-speed photography has a significant role in biology
38. a traditional wisdom that assures readers of the prospects of photography
39. a reference to how film is processed before final release
40. a description of filming shooting without human effort

Otters

A Otters are semiaquatic (or in the case of the sea otter, aquatic) mammals. They are members of the Mustelid family which includes badgers, polecats, martens, weasels, stoats and minks, and have inhabited the earth for the last 30 million years and over the years have undergone subtle changes to the carnivore bodies to exploit the rich aquatic environment. Otters have long thin body and short legs—ideal for pushing dense undergrowth or hunting in tunnels. An adult male may be up to 4 feet long and 30 pounds. Females are smaller, around 16 pounds typically. The Eurasian otter’s nose is about the smallest among the otter species and has a characteristic shape described as a shallow “W”. An otter’s tail (or rudder, or stern) is stout at the base and tapers towards the tip where it flattens. This forms part of the propulsion unit when swimming fast under water. Otter fur consists of two types of hair: stout guard hairs which form a waterproof outer covering, and under-fur which is dense and fine, equivalent to an otter’s thermal underwear. The fur must be kept in good condition by grooming. Sea water reduces the waterproofing and insulating qualities of otter fur when salt water gets in the fur. This is why freshwater pools are important to otters living on the coast:. After swimming, they wash the salts off in the pools and then squirm on the ground to rub dry against vegetation.

B Scent is used for hunting on land, for communication and for detecting danger. Otterine sense of smell is likely to be similar in sensitivity to dogs. Otters have small eyes and are probably short-sighted on land. But they do have the ability to modify the shape of the lens in the eye to make it more spherical, and hence overcome the refraction of water. In clear water and good light, otters can hunt fish by sight. The otter’s eyes and nostrils arc placed high on its head so that it can see and breathe even when the rest of the body is submerged. The long whiskers growing around the muzzle are used to detect the presence of fish. They detect regular vibrations caused by the beat of the fish’s tail as it swims away. This allows otters to hunt even in very murky water. Underwater, the otter holds its legs against the body, except for steering, and the hind end of the body is flexed in a series of vertical undulations. River otters have webbing which extends for much of the length of each digit, though not to the very end. Giant otters and sea otters have even more prominent webs, while the Asian short-clawed otter has no webbing—they hunt for shrimps in ditches and paddy fields so they don’t need the swimming speed. Otter ears are protected by valves which close them against water pressure.

C A number of constraints and preferences limit suitable habitats for otters. Water is a must and the rivers must be large enough to support a healthy population of fish. Being such shy and wary creatures, they will prefer territories where man’s activities do not impinge greatly. Of course, there must also be no other otter already in residence—this has only become significant again recently as populations start to recover. A typical range for a male river otter might be 25km of river, a female’s range less than half this. However, the productivity of the river affects this hugely and one study found male ranges between 12 and 80km. Coastal otters have a much more abundant food supply and ranges for males and females may be just a few kilometers of coastline. Because male ranges are usually larger, a male otter may find his range overlaps with two or three females. Otters will eat anything that they can get hold of—there are records of sparrows and snakes and slugs being gobbled. Apart from fish the most common prey are crayfish, crabs and water birds. Small mammals are occasionally taken, most commonly rabbits but sometimes even moles.

D Eurasian otters will breed any time where food is readily available. In places where condition is more severe, Sweden for example where the lakes are frozen for much of winter, cubs are born in Spring. This ensures that they are well grown before severe weather returns. In the Shetlands, cubs are born in summer when fish is more abundant. Though otters can breed every year, some do not. Again, this depends on food availability. Other factors such as food range and quality of the female may have an effect. Gestation for Eurasian otter is 63 days, with the exception of North American river otter whose embryos may undergo delayed implantation.

E Otters normally give birth in more secure dens to avoid disturbances. Nests are lined with bedding (reeds, waterside plants, grass) to keep the cubs warm while mummy is away feeding. Litter Size varies between 1 and 5 (2 or 3 being the most common). For some unknown reason, coastal otters tend to produce smaller litters. At five weeks they open their eyes—a tiny cub of 700g. At seven weeks they’re weaned onto solid food. At ten weeks they leave the nest, blinking into daylight for the first time. After three months they finally meet the water and learn to swim. After eight months they are hunting, though the mother still provides a lot of food herself. Finally, after nine months she can chase them all away with a clear conscience, and relax—until the next fella shows up.

F The plight of the British otter was recognised in the early 60s, but it wasn’t until the late 70s that the chief cause was discovered. Pesticides, such as dieldrin and aldrin, were first used in ‘1955 in agriculture and other industries—these chemicals are very persistent and had already been recognised as the cause of huge declines in the population of peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks and other predators. The pesticides entered the river systems and the food chain—micro-organisms, fish and finally otters, with every step increasing the concentration of the chemicals. From 1962 the chemicals were phased out, but while some species recovered quickly, otter numbers did not—and continued to fall into the 80s. This was probably due mainly to habitat destruction and road deaths. Acting on populations fragmented by the sudden decimation in the 50s and 60s, the loss of just a handful of otters in one area can make an entire population enviable and spell the end.

G Otter numbers are recovering all around Britain—populations are growing again in the few areas where they had remained and have expanded from those areas into the rest of the country. This is almost entirely due to law and conservation efforts, slowing down and reversing the destruction of suitable otter habitat and reintroductions from captive breeding programs. Releasing captive-bred otters is seen by many as a last resort. The argument runs that where there is no suitable habitat for them they will not survive after release and when1 there is suitable habitat;, natural populations should be able to expand into the area. However, reintroducing animals into a fragmented and fragile population may add just enough impetus for it to stabilise and expand, rather than die out. This is what the Otter Trust accomplished in Norfolk, where the otter population may have been as low as twenty animals at the beginning of the 1980s. The Otter Trust has now finished its captive breeding program entirely. Great news because it means it is no longer’ needed.

Questions 1-9
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. A description of how otters regulate vision underwater
2. The fit-for-purpose characteristics of otter’s body shape
3. A reference to an underdeveloped sense
4. An explanation of why agriculture failed in otter conservation efforts
5. A description of some of the otter’s social characteristics
6. A description of how baby otters grow
7. The conflicted opinions on how to preserve
8. A reference to a legislative act
9. An explanation of how otters compensate for heat loss

Questions 10-13
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

10. What affects the outer fur of otters?
11. What skill is not necessary for Asian short-clawed otters?
12. Which type of otters has the shortest range?
13. Which type of animals do otters hunt occasionally?

Wealth in A Cold Climate

A Dr William Masters was reading a book about mosquitoes when inspiration struck. “There was this anecdote about the great yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793,” Masters recalls. “This epidemic decimated the city until the first frost came.” The inclement weather froze out the insects, allowing Philadelphia to recover.

B If weather could be the key to a city’s fortunes, Masters thought, then why not to the historical fortunes of nations? And could frost lie at the heart of one of the most enduring economic mysteries of all—why are almost all the wealthy, industrialised nations to be found at latitudes above 40 degrees? After two years of research, he thinks that he has found a piece of the puzzle. Masters, an agricultural economist from Purdue University in Indiana, and Margaret McMillan at Tufts University, Boston, show that annual frosts are among the factors that distinguish rich nations from poor ones. Their study is published this month in the Journal of Economic Growth. The pair speculate that cold snaps have two main benefits – they freeze pests that would otherwise destroy crops, and also freeze organisms, such as mosquitoes, that carry disease. The result is agricultural abundance and a big workforce.

C The academics took two sets of information. The first was average income for countries, the second climate data from the University of East Anglia. They found a curious tally between the sets. Countries having five or more frosty days a month are uniformly rich, those with fewer than five are impoverished. The authors speculate that the five-day figure is important; it could be the minimum time needed to kill pests in the soil. Masters says: “For example, Finland is a small country that is growing quickly, but Bolivia is a small country that isn’t growing at all. Perhaps climate has something to do with that.” In fact, limited frosts bring huge benefits to farmers. The chills kill insects or render them inactive; cold weather slows the break-up of plant and animal material in the soil, allowing it to become richer; and frosts ensure a build-up of moisture in the ground for spring, reducing dependence on seasonal rains. There are exceptions to the “cold equals rich” argument. There are well-heeled tropical places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, a result of their superior trading positions. Like-wise, not all European countries are moneyed in the former communist colonies, economic potential was crushed by politics.

D Masters stresses that climate will never be the overriding factor – the wealth of nations is too complicated to be attributable to just one factor. Climate, he feels, somehow combines with other factors such as the presence of institutions, including governments, and access to trading routes to determine whether a country will do well. Traditionally, Masters says, economists thought that institutions had the biggest effect on the economy, because they brought order to a country in the form of, for example, laws and property rights. With order, so the thinking went, came affluence. “But there are some problems that even countries with institutions have not been able to get around,” he says. “My feeling is that, as countries get richer, they get better institutions. And the accumulation of wealth and improvement in governing institutions are both helped by a favourable environment, including climate.”

E This does not mean, he insists, that tropical countries are beyond economic help and destined to remain penniless. Instead, richer countries should change the way in which foreign aid is given. Instead of aid being geared towards improving governance, it should be spent on technology to improve agriculture and to combat disease. Masters cites one example: “There are regions in India that have been provided with irrigation, agricultural productivity has gone up and there has been an improvement in health.” Supplying vaccines against tropical diseases and developing crop varieties that can grow in the tropics would break the poverty cycle.

F Other minds have applied themselves to the split between poor and rich nations, citing anthropological, climatic and zoological reasons for why temperate nations are the most affluent. In 350 BC, Aristotle observed that “those who live in a cold climate…are full of spirit”. Jared Diamond, from the University of California at Los Angeles, pointed out in his book Guns, Germs and Steel that Eurasia is broadly aligned east-west, while Africa and the Americas are aligned north-south. So, in Europe, crops can spread quickly across latitudes because climates are similar. One of the first domesticated crops, einkorn wheat, spread quickly from the Middle East into Europe; it took twice as long for corn to spread from Mexico to what is now the eastern United States. This easy movement along similar latitudes in Eurasia would also have meant a faster dissemination of other technologies such as the wheel and writing, Diamond speculates. The region also boasted domesticated livestock, which could provide meat, wool and motive power in the fields. Blessed with such natural advantages, Eurasia was bound to take off economically.

G John Gallup and Jeffrey Sachs, two US economists, have also pointed out striking correlations between the geographical location of countries and their wealth. They note that tropical countries between 23.45 degrees north and south of the equator are nearly all poor. In an article for the Harvard International Review, they concluded that “development surely seems to favour the temperate-zone economies, especially those in the northern hemisphere, and those that have managed to avoid both socialism and the ravages of war”. But Masters cautions against geographical determinism, the idea that tropical countries are beyond hope: “Human health and agriculture can be made better through scientific and technological research,” he says, “so we shouldn’t be writing off these countries. Take Singapore: without air conditioning, it wouldn’t be rich.”

Questions 14-20
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the most suitable heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings
i The positive correlation between climate and wealth
ii Other factors besides climate that influence wealth
iii Inspiration from reading a book
iv Other researchers’ results do not rule out exceptional cases
v Different attributes between Eurasia and Africa
vi Low temperature benefits people and crops
vii The importance of institution in traditional views
viii The spread of crops in Europe, Asia and other places
ix The best way to use aid
x Confusions and exceptions

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

Questions 21-26
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Dr William Masters read a book saying that a(an) (21)…………………….epidemic which struck an American city hundreds of years ago was terminated by a cold frost. And academics found that there is a connection between climate and country’s wealth as in the rich but small country of (22)…………………Yet besides excellent surroundings and climate, one country still needs to improve their (23)…………………….to achieve long prosperity.

Thanks to resembling weather conditions across latitude in the continent of (24)……………………. crops such as (25)……………………….is bound to spread faster than from South America to the North. Other researchers also noted that even though geographical factors are important, tropical country such as (26)…………………..still became rich due to scientific advancement.

Musical Maladies

Music and the brain are both endlessly fascinating subjects, and as a neuroscientist specialising in auditory learning and memory, I find them especially intriguing. So I had high expectations of Musicophilia, the latest offering from neurologist and prolific author Oliver Sacks. And I confess to feeling a little guilty reporting that my reactions to the book are mixed.

Sacks himself is the best part of Musicophilia. He richly documents his own life in the book and reveals highly personal experiences. The photograph of him on the cover of the book— which shows him wearing headphones, eyes closed, clearly enchanted as he listens to Alfred Brendel perform Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata—makes a positive impression that is borne out by the contents of the book. Sacks’s voice throughout is steady and erudite but never pontifical. He is neither self-conscious nor self-promoting.

The preface gives a good idea of what the book will deliver. In it Sacks explains that he wants to convey the insights gleaned from the “enormous and rapidly growing body of work on the neural underpinnings of musical perception and imagery, and the complex and often bizarre disorders to which these are prone ” He also stresses the importance of “the simple art of observation” and “the richness of the human context.” He wants to combine “observation and description with the latest in technology,” he says, and to imaginatively enter into the experience of his patients and subjects. The reader can see that Sacks, who has been practicing neurology for 40 years, is torn between the “old-fashioned” path of observation and the new-fangled, high-tech approach: He knows that he needs to take heed of the latter, but his heart lies with the former.

The book consists mainly of detailed descriptions of cases, most of them involving patients whom Sacks has seen in his practice. Brief discussions of contemporary neuroscientific reports are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Part I, “Haunted by Music,” begins with the strange case of Tony Cicoria, a nonmusical, middle-aged surgeon who was consumed by a love of music after being hit by lightning. He suddenly began to crave listening to piano music, which he had never cared for in the past. He started to play the piano and then to compose music, which arose spontaneously in his mind in a “torrent” of notes. How could this happen? Was the cause psychological? (He had had a near-death experience when the lightning struck him.) Or was it the direct result of a change in the auditory regions of his cerebral cortex? Electro-encephalography (EEG) showed his brain waves to be normal in the mid-1990s, just after his trauma and subsequent “conversion” to music. There are now more sensitive tests, but Cicoria has declined to undergo them; he does not want to delve into the causes of his musicality. What a shame!

Part II, “A Range of Musicality,” covers a wider variety of topics, but unfortunately, some of the chapters offer little or nothing that is new. For example, chapter 13, which is five pages long, merely notes that the blind often have better hearing than the sighted. The most interesting chapters are those that present the strangest cases. Chapter 8 is about “amusia,” an inability to hear sounds as music, and “dysharmonia,” a highly specific impairment of the ability to hear harmony, with the ability to understand melody left intact. Such specific “dissociations” are found throughout the cases Sacks recounts.

To Sacks’s credit, part III, “Memory, Movement and Music,” brings us into the underappreciated realm of music therapy. Chapter 16 explains how “melodic intonation therapy” is being used to help expressive aphasie patients (those unable to express their thoughts verbally fol-lowing a stroke or other cerebral incident) once again become capable of fluent speech. In chapter 20, Sacks demonstrates the near-miraculous power of music to animate Parkinson’s patients and other people with severe movement disorders, even those who are frozen into odd postures. Scientists cannot yet explain how music achieves this effect.

To readers who are unfamiliar with neuroscience and music behavior, Musicophilia may be something of a revelation. But the book will not satisfy those seeking the causes and implications of the phenomena Sacks describes. For one thing, Sacks appears to be more at ease dis-cussing patients than discussing experiments. And he tends to be rather uncritical in accepting scientific findings and theories. It’s true that the causes of music-brain oddities remain poorly understood. However, Sacks could have done more to draw out some of the implications of the careful observations that he and other neurologists have made and of the treatments that have been successful. For example, he might have noted that the many specific dissociations among components of music comprehension, such as loss of the ability to perceive harmony but not melody, indicate that there is no music center in the brain. Because many people who read the book are likely to believe in the brain localisation of all mental functions, this was a missed educational opportunity.

Another conclusion one could draw is that there seem to be no “cures” for neurological problems involving music. A drug can alleviate a symptom in one patient and aggravate it in another, or can have both positive and negative effects in the same patient. Treatments mentioned seem to be almost exclusively antiepileptic medications, which “damp down” the excitability of the brain in general; their effectiveness varies widely.

Finally, in many of the cases described here the patient with music-brain symptoms is reported to have “normal” EEG results. Although Sacks recognises the existence of new technologies, among them far more sensitive ways to analyze brain waves than the standard neurological EEG test, he does not call for their use. In fact, although he exhibits the greatest com-passion for patients, he conveys no sense of urgency about the pursuit of new avenues in the diagnosis and treatment of music-brain disorders. This absence echoes the hook’s preface, in which Sacks expresses fear that “the simple art of observation may be lost” if we rely too much on new technologies. He does call for both approaches, though, and we can only hope that the neuro logical community will respond.

Questions 27-30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

27. Why does the writer have a mixed feeling about the book?
A The guilty feeling made him so.
B The writer expected it to be better than it was.
C Sacks failed to include his personal stories in the book.
D This is the only book written by Sacks.

28. What is the best part of the book?
A the photo of Sacks listening to music
B the tone of voice of the book
C the autobiographical description in the book
D the description of Sacks’s wealth

29. In the preface, what did Sacks try to achieve?
A make terms with the new technologies
B give detailed description of various musical disorders
C explain how people understand music
D explain why he needs to do away with simple observation

30. What is disappointing about Tony Cicoria’s case?
A He refuses to have further tests.
B He can’t determine the cause of his sudden musicality.
C He nearly died because of the lightening.
D His brain waves were too normal to show anything.

Questions 31-36
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 31-36 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

31. It is difficult to give a well-reputable writer a less than favorable review.
32. Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata is a good treatment for musical disorders.
33. Sacks believes technological methods is not important compared with observation when studying his patients.
34. It is difficult to understand why music therapy is undervalued.
35. Sacks should have more skepticism about other theories and findings.
36. Sacks is impatient to use new testing methods.

Questions 37-40
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.

37. The dissociations between harmony and melody
38. The study of treating musical disorders
39. The EEG scans of Sacks’s patients
40. Sacks believes testing based on new technologies

A show no music brain disorders.
B indicates that medication can have varied results.
C is key for the neurological community to unravel the mysteries.
D should not be used in isolation.
E indicate that not everyone can receive good education.
F show that music is not localised in the brain.

CLASSIFYING SOCIETIES

Although humans have established many types of societies throughout history, sociologists and anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as resources, prestige or power, and usually refer to four basic types of societies. From least to most socially Complex they are clans, tribes, chiefdoms and states.

Clan
These are small-scale societies of hunters and gatherers, generally of fewer than 100 people, who move seasonally to exploit wild (undomesticated) food resources. Most surviving hunter-gatherer groups are of this kind, such as the Hadza of Tanzania or the San of southern Africa. Clan members are generally kinsfolk, related by descent or marriage. Clans lack formal leaders, so there are no marked economic differences or disparities in status among their members.

Because clans are composed of mobile groups of hunter-gatherers, their sites consist mainly of seasonally occupied camps, and other smaller and more specialised sites. Among the latter are kill or butchery sites—locations where large mammals are killed and sometimes butchered— and work sites, where tools are made or other specific activities carried out. The base camp of such a group may give evidence of rather insubstantial dwellings or temporary shelters, along with the debris of residential occupation.

Tribe
These are generally larger than mobile hunter-gatherer groups, but rarely number more than a few thousand, and their diet or subsistence is based largely on cultivated plants and domesticated animals. Typically, they are settled farmers, but they may be nomadic with a very different, mobile economy based on the intensive exploitation of livestock. These are generally multi-community societies, with the individual communities integrated into the larger society through kinship ties. Although some tribes have officials and even a “capital” or seat of government, such officials lack the economic base necessary for effective use of

The typical settlement pattern for tribes is one of settled agricultural homesteads or villages. Characteristically, no one settlement dominates any of the others in the region. Instead, the archaeologist finds evidence for isolated, permanently occupied houses or for permanent villages. Such villages may be made up of a collection of free-standing houses, like those of the first farms of the Danube valley in Europe. Or they may be clusters of buildings grouped together, for example, the pueblos of the American Southwest, and the early farming village or small town of catalhoyuk in modern Turkey.

Chiefdom
These operate on the principle of ranking—differences in social status between people. Different lineages (a lineage is a group claiming descent from a common ancestor) are graded on a scale of prestige, and the senior lineage, and hence the society as a whole, is governed by a chief. Prestige and rank are determined by how closely related one is to the chief, and there is no true stratification into classes. The role of the chief is crucial.

Often, there is local specialisation in craft products, and surpluses of these and of foodstuffs are periodically paid as obligation to the chief. He uses these to maintain his retainers, and may use them for redistribution to his subjects. The chiefdom generally has a center of power, often with temples, residences of the chief and his retainers, and craft specialists. Chiefdoms vary greatly in size, but the range is generally between about 5000 and 20,000 persons.

Early State
These preserve many of the features of chiefdoms, but the ruler (perhaps a king or sometimes a queen) has explicit authority to establish laws and also to enforce them by the use of a standing army. Society no longer depends totally upon kin relationships: it is now stratified into different classes. Agricultural workers and the poorer urban dwellers form the lowest classes, with the craft specialists above, and the priests and kinsfolk of the ruler higher still. The functions of the ruler are often separated from those of the priest: palace is distinguished from temple. The society is viewed as a territory owned by the ruling lineage and populated by tenants who have an obligation to pay taxes. The central capital houses a bureaucratic administration of officials; one of their principal purposes is to collect revenue (often in the form of taxes and tolls) and distribute it to government, army and craft specialists. Many early states developed complex redistribution systems to support these essential services.

This rather simple social typology, set out by Elman Service and elaborated by William Sanders and Joseph Marino, can be criticised, and it should not be used unthinkingly. Nevertheless, if we are seeking to talk about early societies, we must use words and hence concepts to do so. Service’s categories provide a good framework to help organise our thoughts.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? 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. There’s little economic difference between members of a clan.
2. The farmers of a tribe grow a wide range of plants.
3. One settlement is more important than any other settlements in a tribe.
4. A member’s status in a chiefdom is determined by how much land he owns.
5. There are people who craft goods in chiefdoms.
6. The king keeps the order of a state by using an army.
7. Bureaucratic officers receive higher salaries than other members.

Questions 8-13
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR/AND A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

8. What are made at the clan work sites?
9. What is the other way of life for tribes besides settled farming?
10. How are Catalhoyuk’s housing units arranged?
11. What does a chief give to his subjects as rewards besides crafted goods?
12. What is the largest possible population of a chiefdom?
13. Which group of people is at the bottom of an early state but higher than the farmers?

Tasmanian Tiger

Although it was called tiger, it looked like a dog with black stripes on its back and it was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Yet, despite its fame for being one of the most fabled animals in the world, it is one of the least understood of Tasmania’s native animals. The scientific name for the Tasmanian tiger is Thylacine and it is believed that they have become extinct in the 20th century.

Fossils of thylacines dating from about almost 12 million years ago have been dug up at various places in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. They were widespread in Australia 7,000 years ago, but have probably been extinct on the continent for 2,000 years. This is believed to be because of the introduction of dingoes around 8,000 years ago. Because of disease, thylacine numbers may have been declining in Tasmania at the time of European settlement 200 years ago, but the decline was certainly accelerated by the new arrivals. The last known Tasmanian Tiger died in Hobart Zoo in 1936 and the animal is officially classified as extinct. Technically, this means that it has not been officially sighted in the wild or captivity for 50 years. However, there are still unsubstanti-ated sightings.

Hans Naarding, whose study of animals had taken him around the world, was conducting a survey of a species of endangered migratory bird. What he saw that night is now regarded as the most credible sighting recorded of thylacine that many believe has been extinct for more than 70 years.

“I had to work at night,” Naarding takes up the story. “I was in the habit of intermittently shining a spotlight around. The beam fell on an animal in front of the vehicle, less than 10m away. Instead of risking movement by grabbing for a camera, I decided to register very carefully what I was seeing. The animal was about the size of a small shepherd dog, a very healthy male in prime condition. What set it apart from a dog, though, was a slightly sloping hindquarter, with a fairly thick tail being a straight continuation of the backline of the animal. It had 12 distinct stripes on its back, continuing onto its butt. I knew perfectly well what I was seeing. As soon as I reached for the camera, it disap-peared into the tea-tree undergrowth and scrub.”

The director of Tasmania’s National Parks at the time, Peter Morrow, decided in his wisdom to keep Naarding’s sighting of the thylacine secret for two years. When the news finally broke, it was accompanied by pandemonium. “I was besieged by television crews, including four to live from Japan, and others from the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand and South America,” said Naarding.

Government and private search parties combed the region, but no further sightings were made. The tiger, as always, had escaped to its lair, a place many insist exists only in our imagination. But since then, the thylacine has staged something of a comeback, becoming part of Australian mythology.

There have been more than 4,000 claimed sightings of the beast since it supposedly died out, and the average claims each year reported to authorities now number 150. Associate professor of zoology at the University of Tasmania, Randolph Rose, has said he dreams of seeing a thylacine. But Rose, who in his 35 years in Tasmanian academia has fielded countless reports of thylacine sightings, is now convinced that his dream will go unfulfilled.

“The consensus among conservationists is that, usually, any animal with a population base of less than 1,000 is headed for extinction within 60 years,” says Rose. “Sixty years ago, there was only one thylacine that we know of, and that was in Hobart Zoo,” he says.

Dr. David Pemberton, curator of zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, whose PhD thesis was on the thylacine, says that despite scientific thinking that 500 animals are required to sustain a population, the Florida panther is down to a dozen or so animals and, while it does have some inbreeding problems, is still ticking along. “I’ll take a punt and say that, if we manage to find a thylacine in the scrub, it means that there are 50-plus animals out there.” After all, animals can be notoriously elusive. The strange fish known as the coelacanth, with its “proto-legs”, was thought to have died out along with the dinosaurs 700 million years ago until a specimen was dragged to the surface in a shark net off the south-east coast of South Africa in 1938.

Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney has the unenviable task of investigating all “sightings” of the tiger totalling 4,000 since the mid-1980s, and averaging about 150 a year. It was Mooney who was first consulted late last month about the authenticity of digital photographic images purportedly taken by a German tourist while on a recent bushwalk in the state. On face value, Mooney says, the account of the sighting, and the two photographs submitted as proof, amount to one of the most convincing cases for the species’ survival he has seen.

And Mooney has seen it all—the mistakes, the hoaxes, the illusions and the plausible accounts of sightings. Hoaxers aside, most people who report sightings end up believing they have seen a thylacine, and are themselves believable to the point they could pass a lie-detector test, according to Mooney. Others, having tabled a creditable report, then become utterly obsessed like the Tasmanian who has registered 99 thylacine sightings to date. Mooney has seen individuals bankrupted by the obsession, and families destroyed. “It is a blind optimism that something is, rather than a cynicism that something isn’t,” Mooney says. “If something crosses the road, it’s not a case of ‘I wonder what that was?’ Rather, it is a case of ‘that’s a thylacine!’ It is a bit like a gold prospector’s blind faith, ‘it has got to be there’.”

However, Mooney treats all reports on face value. “I never try to embarrass people, or make fools of them. But the fact that 1 don’t pack the car immediately they ring can often be taken as ridicule. Obsessive characters get irate that someone in my position is not out there when they think the thy-lacine is there.”

But Hans Naarding, whose sighting of a striped animal two decades ago was the highlight of “a life of animal spotting”, remains bemused by the time and money people waste on tiger searches. He says resources would be better applied to saving the Tasmanian devil, and helping migratory bird populations that are declining as a result of shrinking wetlands across Australia.

Gould the thylacine still be out there? “Sure,” Naarding says. But be also says any discovery of surviving thylacines would be “rather pointless”. “How do you save a species from extinction? What could you do with it? If there are thylacines out there, they are better off right where they are,”

Questions 14-17
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

The Tasmanian tiger, also called thylacine, resembles the look of a dog and has (14)…………………..on its fur coat. Many fossils have been found, showing that thylacines had existed as early as (15)………………years ago. They lived throughout (16)……………………..before disappearing from the mainland. And soon after the (17)………………….settlers arrived the size of thylacine population in Tasmania shrunk at a higher speed.

Questions 18-23
Look at the following statements (Questions 18-23) and the list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D. NB You may use any letter more than once.

18. His report of seeing a live thylacine in the wild attracted international interest.
19. Many eyewitnesses’ reports are not trustworthy.
20. It doesn’t require a certain number of animals to ensure the survival of a species.
21. There is no hope of finding a surviving Tasmanian tiger.
22. Do not disturb them if there are any Tasmanian tigers still living today.
23. The interpretation of evidence can be affected by people’s beliefs.

List of People
A Hans Naarding
B Randolph Rose
C David Pemberton
D Nick Mooney

Questions 24-26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

24. Hans Naarding’s sighting has resulted in
A government and organisations’ cooperative efforts to protect thylacine.
B extensive interests to find a living thylacine.
C increase of the number of reports of thylacine worldwide.
D growth of popularity of thylacine in literature.

25. The example of coelacanth is to illustrate
A it lived in the same period with dinosaurs.
B how dinosaurs evolved legs.
C some animals are difficult to catch in the wild.
D extinction of certain species can be mistaken.

26. Mooney believes that all sighting reports should be
A given some credit as they claim even if they are untrue.
B acted upon immediately.
C viewed as equally untrustworthy.
D questioned and carefully investigated.

Accidental Scientists

A A paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In the philosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivism and inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up.

B As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible-to-realise extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a position something like that. It’s a fascinating word, and the late Robert King Merton—“the father of the sociology of science”—liked it well enough to compose its biography, assisted by the French cultural historian Elinor Barber.

C The word did not appear in the published literature until the early 19th century and did not become well enough known to use without explanation until sometime in the first third of the 20th century. Serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”, specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The first noted use of “serendipity” in the English language was by Horace Walpole. He explained that it came from the fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip (the ancient name for Ceylon, or present day Sri Lanka), whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of’.

D Antiquarians, following Walpole, found use for it, as they were always rummaging about for curiosities, and unexpected but pleasant surprises were not unknown to them. Some people just seemed to have a knack for that sort of thing, and serendipity was used to express that special capacity. The other community that came to dwell on serendipity to say something important about their practice was that of scientists, and here usages cut to the heart of the matter and were often vigorously contested. Many scientists, including the Flarvard physiologist Walter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist Peter Medawar, liked to emphasise how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and even accidental. One of the examples is Hans Christian Orsted’s discovery of electromagnetism when he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a magnetic needle. Rhetoric about the sufficiency of rational method was so much hot air. Indeed, as Medawar insisted, “There is no such thing as The Scientific Method,” no way at all of systematising the process of discovery. Really important discoveries had a way of showing up when they had a mind to do so and not when you were looking for them. Maybe some scientists, like some book collectors, had a happy knack; maybe serendipity described the situation rather than a personal skill or capacity.

E Some scientists using the word meant to stress those accidents belonging to the situation; some treated serendipity as a personal capacity; many others exploited the ambiguity of the notion. Yet what Cannon and Medawar took as a benign nose-thumbing at Dreams of Method, other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a significant serendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientific discovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expert authority? In this connection, the aphorism of choice came from no less an authority on scientific discovery than Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Accidents may happen, and things may turn up unplanned and unforeseen, as one is looking for something else, but the ability to notice such events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to exploit their occurrence and make constructive use of them—these are the results of systematic mental preparation. What seems like an accident is just another form of expertise. On closer inspection, it is insisted, accident dissolves into sagacity.

F The context in which scientific serendipity was most contested and had its greatest resonance was that connected with the idea of planned science. The serendipitists were not all inhabitants of academic ivory towers. As Merton and Barber note, two of the great early-20th-century American pioneers of industrial research—Willis Whitney and Irving Langmuir, both of General Electric—made much play of serendipity, in the course of arguing against overly rigid research planning. Langmuir thought that misconceptions about the certainty and ratio-nality of the research process did much harm and that a mature acceptance of uncertainty was far more likely to result in productive research policies. For his own part, Langmuir said that satisfactory outcomes “occurred as though we were just drifting with the wind. These things came about by accident.” If there is no very determinate relationship between cause and effect in research, he said, “then planning does not get us very far.” So, from within the bowels of corporate capitalism came powerful arguments, by way of serendipity, for scientific spontaneity and autonomy. The notion that industry was invariably committed to the regimentation of scientific research just doesn’t wash.

G For Merton himself—who one supposes must have been the senior author-serendipity rep-resented the keystone in the arch of his social scientific work. In 1936, as a very young man, Merton wrote a seminal essay on “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action.” It is, he argued, the nature of social action that what one intends is rarely what one gets: Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christian religion, the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for secularism; people wanting to be alone with nature in Yosemite Valley wind up crowding one another. We just don’t know enough—and we can never know enough—to ensure that the past is an adequate guide to the future: Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our best-laid plans, is endemic. All social action, including that undertaken with the best evidence and formulated according to the most rational criteria, is uncertain in its consequences.

Questions 27-32
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Choose the most suitable heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate number, i-x, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Examples of some scientific discoveries
ii Horace Walpole’s fairy tale
iii Resolving the contradiction
iv What is the Scientific Method
v The contradiction of views on scientific discovery
vi Some misunderstandings of serendipity
vii Opponents of authority
viii Reality doesn’t always match expectation
ix How the word came into being
x Illustration of serendipity in the business sector

27. Paragraph A

Example Answer Paragraph B iii

28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
31. Paragraph F
32. Paragraph G

Questions 33-37
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

33. In paragraph A, the word “inductivism” means
A anticipate results in the beginning.
B work with prepared premises.
C accept chance discoveries.
D look for what you want.

34. Medawar says “there is no such thing as The Scientific Method” because
A discoveries are made by people with determined mind.
B discoveries tend to happen unplanned.
C the process of discovery is unpleasant.
D serendipity is not a skill.

35. Many scientists dislike the idea of serendipity because
A it is easily misunderstood and abused.
B it is too unpredictable.
C it is beyond their comprehension.
D it devalues their scientific expertise.

36. The writer mentions Irving Langmuir to illustrate
A planned science should be avoided.
B industrial development needs uncertainty.
C people tend to misunderstand the relationship between cause and effect.
D accepting uncertainty can help produce positive results.

37. The example of Yosemite is to show
A the conflict between reality and expectation.
B the importance of systematic planning.
C the intention of social action.
D the power of anticipation.

Questions 38-40
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38. Who is the person that first used the word “serendipity”?
39. What kind of story does the word come from?
40. What is the present name of serendipity?

The Forgotten Forest

Found only in the Deep South of America, longleaf pine woodlands have dwindled to about 3 percent of their former range, but new efforts are under way to restore them.

THE BEAUTY AND THE BIODIVERSITY of the longleaf pine forest are well-kept secrets, even in its native South. Yet it is among the richest ecosystems in North America, rivaling tallgrass prairies and the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest in the number of species it shelters. And like those two other disappearing wildlife habitats, longleaf is also critically endangered.

In longleaf pine forests, trees grow widely scattered, creating an open, parklike environment, more like a savanna than a forest. The trees are not so dense as to block the sun. This openness creates a forest floor that is among the most diverse in the world, where plants such as many-flowered grass pinks, trumpet pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, lavender ladies and pineland bog-buttons grow. As many as 50 different species of wildflowers, shrubs, grasses and ferns have been cataloged in just a single square meter.

Once, nearly 92 million acres of longleaf forest flourished from Virginia to Texas, the only place in the world where it is found. By the turn of the 2lst century, however, virtually all of it had been logged, paved or farmed into oblivion. Only about 3 percent of the original range still supports longleaf forest, and only about 10,000 acres of that is uncut old-growth—the rest is forest that has regrown after cutting. An estimated 100,000 of those acres are still vanishing every year. However, a quiet movement to reverse this trend is rippling across the region. Governments, private organisations (including NWF) and individual conservationists are looking for ways to protect and preserve the remaining longleaf and to plant new forests for future generations.

Figuring out how to bring back the piney woods also will allow biologists to help the plants and animals that depend on this habitat. Nearly two-thirds of the declining, threatened or endangered species in the southeastern United States are associated with longleaf. The outright destruction of longleaf is only part of their story, says Mark Danaher, the biologist for South Carolina’s Francis Marion National Forest. He says the demise of these animals and plants also is tied to a lack of fire, which once swept through the southern forests on a regular basis. “Fire is absolutely critical for this ecosystem and for the species that depend on it,” says Danaher.

Name just about any species that occurs in longleaf and you can find a connection to fire. Bachman’s sparrow is a secretive bird with a beautiful song that echoes across the longleaf flatwoods. It tucks its nest on the ground beneath clumps of wiregrass and little bluestem in the open under-story. But once fire has been absent for several years, and a tangle of shrubs starts to grow, the sparrows disappear. Gopher tortoises, the only native land tortoises east of the Mississippi, are also abundant in longleaf. A keystone species for these forests, its burrows provide homes and safety to more than 300 species of vertebrates and invertebrates ranging from eastern diamond-back rattlesnakes to gopher frogs. If fire is suppressed, however, the tortoises are choked out. “If we lose fire,” says Bob Mitchell, an ecologist at the Jones Center, “we lose wildlife.”

Without fire, we also lose longleaf. Fire knocks back the oaks and other hardwoods that can grow up to overwhelm longleaf forests. “They are fire forests,” Mitchell says. “They evolved in the lightning capital of the eastern United States.” And it wasn’t only lightning strikes that set the forest aflame. “Native Americans also lit fires to keep the forest open,” Mitchell says. “So did the early pioneers. They helped create the longleaf pine forests that we know today.”

Fire also changes how nutrients flow throughout longleaf ecosystems, in ways we are just beginning to understand. For example, researchers have discovered that frequent fires provide extra calcium, which is critical for egg production, to endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Frances James, a retired avian ecologist from Florida State University, has studied these small black-and-white birds for more than two decades in Florida’s sprawling Apalachicola National Forest. When she realised female woodpeckers laid larger clutches in the first breeding season after their territories were burned, she and her colleagues went searching for answers. “We learned calcium is stashed away in woody shrubs when the forest is not burned,” James says. “But when there is a fire, a pulse of calcium moves down into the soil and up into the longleaf.” Eventually, this calcium makes its way up the food chain to a tree-dwelling species of ant, which is the red-cockaded’s favorite food. The result: more calcium for the birds, which leads to more eggs, more young and more woodpeckers.

Today, fire is used as a vital management tool for preserving both longleaf and its wildlife. Most of these fires are prescribed burns, deliberately set with a drip torch. Although the public often opposes any type of fire—and the smoke that goes with it—these frequent, low-intensity burns reduce the risk of catastrophic conflagrations. “Forests are going to burn,” says Amadou Diop, NWF’s southern forests restoration manager. “It’s just a question of when. With prescribed burns, we can pick the time and the place.”

Diop is spearheading a new NWF effort to restore longleaf. “It’s a species we need to go back to,” he says. Educating landowners about the advantages of growing longleaf is part of the program, he adds, which will soon be under way in nine southern states. “Right now, most longleaf is on public land,” says Jerry McCollum, president of the Georgia Wildlife Federation. “Private land is where we need to work,” he adds, pointing out that more than 90 percent of the acreage within the historic range of longleaf falls under this category.

Interest among private landowners is growing throughout the South, but restoring longleaf is not an easy task. The herbaceous layer—the understory of wiregrasses and other plants – also needs to be re-created. In areas where the land has not been chewed up by farming, but converted to loblolly or slash pine plantations, the seed bank of the longleaf forest usually remains viable beneath the soil. In time, this original vegetation can be coaxed back. Where agriculture has destroyed the seeds, however, wiregrass must be replanted. Right now, the expense is prohibitive, but researchers are searching for low-cost solutions.

Bringing back longleaf is not for the short-sighted, however. Few of us will be alive when the pines being planted today become mature forests in 70 to 80 years. But that is not stopping longleaf enthusiasts. “Today, it’s getting hard to find longleaf seedlings to buy,” one of the private landowners says. “Everyone wants them. Longleaf is in a resurgence.”

Questions 1-5
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Forest fire ensures that:

• Birds can locate their (1)…………………in the ground.

• The burrows of a species of (2)…………………..provide homes to many other animals.

• Hardwoods such as (3)……………..can grow and outnumber long-leaf trees.

Apart from fires lit by lightning:

• Fires are created by (4)………………………..and settlers.

• Fires deliberately lit are called (5)…………………….

Questions 6-9
Complete the flow-chart below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

How to increase the number of cockaded woodpeckers
• Calcium stored in (6)………………….
• Shrubs are burned
• Calcium released into (7)…………………….and travels up to the leaves
• a kind of (8)………………………….eats the leaves
• Red-cockaded woodpeckers eat those ants
• The number of (9)……………………..increases
• More cockaded woodpeckers

Questions 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet, write

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

10. The sparse distribution of longleaf pine trees leads to the most diversity of species.
11. It is easier to restore forests converted to farms than forests converted to plantations.
12. The cost to restore forest is increasing recently.
13. Few can live to see the replanted forest reach its maturity.

Storytelling, From Prehistoric Craves To Modern Cinemas

A It was told, we suppose, to people crouched around a fire: a tale of adventure, most likely—relating some close encounter with death: a remarkable hunt, an escape from mortal danger; a vision, or something else out of the ordinary. Whatever its thread, the weaving of this story was done with a prime purpose. The listeners must be kept listening. They must not fall asleep. So, as the story went on, its audience should be sustained by one question above all: What happens next?

B The first fireside stories in human history can never be known. They were kept in the heads of those who told them. This method of storage is not necessarily inefficient. From documented oral traditions in Australia, the Balkans and other parts of the world we know that specialised storytellers and poets can recite from memory literally thousands of lines, in verse or prose, verbatim – word for word. But while memory is rightly considered an art in itself, it is clear that a primary purpose of making symbols is to have a system of reminders or mnemonic cues – signs that assist us to recall certain information in the mind’s eye.

C In some Polynesian communities, a notched memory stick may help to guide a storyteller through successive stages of recitation. But in other parts of the world, the activity of storytelling historically resulted in the development or even the invention of writing systems. One theory about the arrival of literacy in ancient Greece, for example, argues that the epic tales about the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus traditionally attributed to Homer were just so enchanting to hear that they had to be preserved. So the Greeks, c. 750-700BC. borrowed an alphabet from their neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean, the Phoenicians.

D The custom of recording stories on parchment and other materials can be traced in many manifestations around the world, from the priestly papyrus archive of ancient Egypt to the birch-bark scrolls on which the North American Ojibway Indians set down their creation myth. It is a well-tried and universal practice: so much so that to this day storytime is probably most often associated with words on paper. The formal practice of narrating a story aloud would seem-so we assume-to have given way to newspapers, novels and comic strips. This, however, is not the case. Statistically it is doubtful that the majority of humans currently rely upon the written word to get access to stories. So what is the alternative source?

E Each year, over 7 billion people will go to watch the latest offering from Hollywood. Bollywood and beyond. The supreme storyteller of today is cinema. The movies, as distinct from still photography, seem to be an essentially modern phenomenon. This is an illusion, for there are, as we shall see, certain ways in which the medium of film is indebted to very old precedents of arranging ‘sequences’ of images. But any account of visual storytelling must begin with the recognition that all storytelling beats with a deeply atavistic pulse: that is, a ‘good story’ relies upon formal patterns of plot and characterisation that have been embedded in the practice of storytelling over many generations.

F Thousands of scripts arrive every week at the offices of the major film studios. But aspiring screenwriters really need look no further for essential advice than the fourth-century BC Greek Philosopher Aristotle. He left some incomplete lecture notes on the art of telling stories in various literary and dramatic modes, a slim volume known as the Poetics. Though he can never have envisaged the popcorn-fuelled actuality of a multiplex cinema, Aristotle is almost prescient about the key elements required to get the crowds flocking to such a cultural hub. He analyzed the process with cool rationalism. When a story enchants us, we lose the sense of where we arc; we are drawn into the story so thoroughly that we forget it is a story being told. This is. in Aristotle’s phrase, ‘the suspension of disbelief.

G We know the feeling. If ever we have stayed in our seats, stunned with grief, as the credits roll by, or for days after seeing that vivid evocation of horror have been nervous about taking a shower at home, then we have suspended disbelief. We have been caught, or captivated, in the storyteller’s wet). Did it all really happen? We really thought so for a while. Aristotle must have witnessed often enough this suspension of disbelief. Ho taught at Athens, the city where theater developed as a primary form of civic ritual and recreation. Two theatrical types of storytelling, tragedy and comedy, caused Athenian audiences to lose themselves in sadness and laughter respectively. Tragedy, for Aristotle, was particularly potent in its capacity to enlist and then purge the emotions of those watching the story unfold on the stage, so he tried to identify those factors in the storyteller’s art that brought about such engagement. He had, as an obvious sample for analysis, not only the fifth-century BC masterpieces of Classical Greek tragedy written by Aeschylus. Sophocles and Euripides. Beyond them stood Homer. whose stories oven then had canonical status: The lliad and The Odyssey were already considered literary landmarks-stories by which all other stories should he measured. So what was the secret of Homer’s narrative art?

H It was not hard to find. Homer created credible heroes. His heroes belonged to the past, they were mighty and magnificent, yet they were not, in the end, fantasy figures. He made his heroes sulk, bicker, cheat and cry. They were, in short, characters-protagonists of a story that an audience would care about, would want to follow, would want to know what happens next. As Aristotle saw, the hero who shows a human side some flaw or weak-ness to which mortals are prone is intrinsically dramatic.

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs, A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

14. A misunderstanding of how people today get stories
15. The categorisation of stories
16. The fundamental aim of storytelling
17. A description of reciting stories without any assistance
18. How to make story characters attractive

Questions 19-22
Classify the following information as referring to

A adopted the writing system from another country
B used organic materials to record stories
C used tools to help to tell stories

19. Egyptians
20. Ojibway
21. Polynesians
22. Greek

Questions 23-26
Complete the sentences below with ONE WORD ONLY from the passage.

Aristotle wrote a book on the art of storytelling called the (23)……………………..

Aristotle believed the most powerful type of story to move listeners is (24)………………………

Aristotle viewed Homer’s works as (25)……………………

Aristotle believed attractive heroes should have some (26)………………………

Living Dunes

When you think of a sand dune, you probably picture a barren pile of lifeless sand. But sand dunes are actually dynamic natural structures. They grow, shift and travel. They crawl with living things. Some sand dunes even sing.

A Although no more than a pile of wind-blown sand, dunes can roll over trees and buildings, march relentlessly across highways, devour vehicles on its path, and threaten crops and factories in Africa, the Middle East, and China. In some places, killer dunes even roll in and swallow up towns. Entire villages have disappeared under the sand. In a few instances the government built new villages for those displaced only to find that new villages themselves were buried several years later. Preventing sand dunes from overwhelming cities and agricultural areas has become a priority for the United Nations Environment Program.

B Some of the most significant experimental measurements on sand movement were performed by Ralph Bagnold, a British engineer who worked in Egypt prior to World War II. Bagnold investigated the physics of particles moving through the atmosphere and deposited by wind. He recognised two basic dune types, the crescentic dune, which he called “barchan,” and the linear dune, which he called longitudinal or “sief ’ (Arabic for “sword”). The crescentic barchan dune is the most common type of sand dune. As its name suggests, this dune is shaped like a crescent moon with points at each end, and it is usually wider than it is long. Some types of barchan dunes move faster over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. The linear dune is straighter than the crescentic dune with ridges as its prominent feature. Unlike crescentic dunes, linear dunes are longer than they are wide—in fact, some are more than 100 miles (about 160 kilometers) long. Dunes can also be comprised of smaller dunes of different types, called complex dunes.

C Despite the complicated dynamics of dune formation, Bagnold noted that a sand dune generally needs the following three things to form: a large amount of loose sand in an area with little vegetation—usually on the coast or in a dried-up river, lake or sea bed; a wind or breeze to move the grains of sand; and an obstacle, which could be as small as a rock or as big as a tree, that causes the sand to lose momentum and settle. Where these three variables merge, a sand dune forms.

D As the wind picks up the sand, the sand travels, but generally only about an inch or two above the ground, until an obstacle causes it to stop. The heaviest grains settle against the obstacle, and a small ridge or bump forms. The lighter grains deposit themselves on the other side of the obstacle. Wind continues to move sand up to the top of the pile until the pile is so steep that it collapses under its own weight. The collapsing sand comes to rest when it reaches just the right steepness to keep the dune stable. The repeating cycle of sand inching up the windward side to the dune crest, then slipping down the dune’s slip face allows the dune to inch forward, migrating in the direction the wind blows.

E Depending on the speed and direction of the wind and the weight of the local sand, dunes will develop into different shapes and sizes. Stronger winds tend to make taller dunes; gentler winds tend to spread them out. If the direction of the wind generally is the same over the years, dunes gradually shift in that direction. But a dune is “a curiously dynamic creature”, wrote Farouk El-Baz in National Geographic. Once formed, a dune can grow, change shape, move with the wind and even breed new dunes. Some of these offspring may be carried on the back of the mother dune. Others are born and race downwind, outpacing their parents.

F Sand dunes even can be heard ‘singing’ in more than 30 locations worldwide, and in each place the sounds have their own characteristic frequency, or note. When the thirteenth century explorer Marco Polo encountered the weird and wonderful noises made by desert sand dunes, he attributed them to evil spirits. The sound is unearthly. The volume is also unnerving. Adding to the tone’s otherworldliness is the inability of the human ear to localise the source of the noise. Stéphane Douady of the French national research agency CNRS and his colleagues have been delving deeper into dunes in Morocco, Chile, China and Oman, and believe they can now explain the exact mechanism behind this acoustic phenomenon.

G The group hauled sand back to the laboratory and set it up in channels with automated pushing plates. The sands still sang, proving that the dune itself was not needed to act as a resonating body for the sound, as some researchers had theorised. To make the booming sound, the grains have to be of a small range of sizes, all alike in shape: well-rounded. Douady’s key discovery was that this synchronised frequency—which determines the tone of sound—is the result of the grain size. The larger the grain, the lower the key. He has successfully predicted the notes emitted by dunes in Morocco, Chile and the US simply by measuring the size of the grains they contain. Douady also discovered that the singing grains had some kind of varnish or a smooth coating of various minerals: silicon, iron and manganese, which probably formed on the sand when the dunes once lay beneath an ancient ocean. But in the muted grains this coat had been worn away, which explains why only some dunes can sing. He admits he is unsure exactly what role the coating plays in producing the noise. The mysterious dunes, it seems, aren’t quite ready yet to give up all of their secrets.

Questions 27-33
Reading passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Shaping and reforming
ii Causes of desertification
iii Need combination of specific conditions
iv Potential threat to industry and communication
v An old superstition demystified
vi Differences and similarities
vii A continuous cycling process
viii Habitat for rare species
ix Replicating the process in laboratory
x Commonest type of dune

27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
33. Paragraph G

Questions 34-36
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

(34)……………………..dune is said to have long ridges that can extend hundreds of miles.

According to Bagnold, an (35)…………………..is needed to stop the sand from moving before a dune can form.

Stéphane Douady believes the singing of dunes is not a spiritual phenomenon, but purely (36)…………………….

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

There are many different types of dunes, two of which are most commonly found in deserts throughout the world, the linear dune and the (37)…………………..dune, some times also known as the crescentic dune. It’s been long known that in some places dunes can even sing and the answer lies in the sand itself. To produce singing sand in lab, all the sands must have similar (38)……………………….. And scientists have discovered that the size of the sand can affect the (39)………………………………of the sound. But the function of the varnish composed by a mixture of (40)………………………….still remains puzzling

Review Of Research On The Effects Of Food Promotion To Children

This review was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency to examine the current research evidence on:

• the extent and nature of food promotion to children

• the effect, if any, that this promotion has on their food knowledge, preferences and behaviour.

A Children’s food promotion is dominated by television advertising, and the great majority of this promotes the so-called ‘Big Four’ of pre-sugared breakfast cereals, soft-drinks, confectionary and savoury snacks. In the last ten years advertising for fast food outlets has rapidly increased. There is some evidence that the dominance of television has recently begun to wane. The importance of strong, global branding reinforces a need for multi-faceted communications combining television with merchandising, ‘tie-ins’ and point of sale activity. The advertised diet contrasts sharply with that recommended by public health advisors, and themes of fun and fantasy or taste, rather than health and nutrition, are used to promote it to children. Meanwhile, the recommended diet gets little promotional support.

B There is plenty of evidence that children notice and enjoy food promotion. However, establishing whether this actually influences them is a complex problem. The review tackled it by looking at studies that had examined possible effects on what children know about food, their food preferences, their actual food behaviour (both buying and eating), and their health outcomes (eg. obesity or cholesterol levels). The majority of studies examined food advertising, but a few examined other forms of food promotion. In terms of nutritional knowledge, food advertising seems to have little influence on children’s general perceptions of what constitutes a healthy diet, but, in certain contexts, it does have an effect on more specific types of nutritional knowledge. For example, seeing soft drink and cereal adverts reduced primary aged children’s ability to determine correctly whether or not certain products contained real fruit.

C The review also found evidence that food promotion influences children’s food preferences and their purchase behaviour. A study of primary school children, for instance, found that exposure to advertising influenced which foods they claimed to like; and another showed that labelling and signage on a vending machine had an effect on what was bought by secondary school pupils. A number of studies have also shown that food advertising can influence what children eat. One, for example, showed that advertising influenced a primary class’s choice of daily snack at playtime.

D The next step, of trying to establish whether or not a link exists between food promotion and diet or obesity, is extremely difficult as it requires research to be done in real world settings. A number of studies have attempted this by using amount of television viewing as a proxy for exposure to television advertising. They have established a clear link between television viewing and diet, obesity, and cholesterol levels. It is impossible to say, however, whether this effect is caused by the advertising, the sedentary nature of television viewing or snacking that might take place whilst viewing. One study resolved this problem by taking a detailed diary of children’s viewing habits. This showed that the more food adverts they saw, the more snacks and calories they consumed.

E Thus the literature does suggest food promotion is influencing children’s diet in a number of ways. This does not amount to proof; as noted above with this kind of research, incontrovertible proof simply isn’t attainable. Nor do all studies point to this conclusion; several have not found an effect. In addition, very few studies have attempted to measure how strong these effects are relative to other factors influencing children’s food choices. Nonetheless, many studies have found clear effects and they have used sophisticated methodologies that make it possible to determine that i) these effects are not just due to chance; ii) they are independent of other factors that may influence diet, such as parents’ eating habits or attitudes; and iii) they occur at a brand and category level.

F Furthermore, two factors suggest that these findings actually downplay the effect that food promotion has on children. First, the literature focuses principally on television advertising; the cumulative effect of this combined with other forms of promotion and marketing is likely to be significantly greater. Second, the studies have looked at direct effects on individual children, and understate indirect influences. For example, promotion for fast food outlets may not only influence the child, but also encourage parents to take them for meals and reinforce the idea that this is a normal and desirable behaviour.

G This does not amount to proof of an effect, but in our view does provide sufficient evidence to conclude that an effect exists. The debate should now shift to what action is needed, and specifically to how the power of commercial marketing can be used to bring about improvements in young people’s eating.

Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the most suitable heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate number, i-x, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i General points of agreements and disagreements of researchers
ii How much children really know about food
iii Need to take action
iv Advertising effects of the “Big Four”
v Connection of advertising and children’s weight problems
vi Evidence that advertising affects what children buy to eat
vii How parents influence children’s eating habits
viii Advertising’s focus on unhealthy options
ix Children often buy what they want
x Underestimating the effects advertising has on children

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

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 8-13 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

8. There is little difference between the number of healthy food advertisements and the number of unhealthy food advertisements.
9. TV advertising has successfully taught children nutritional knowledge about vitamins and others.
10. It is hard to decide which aspect of TV viewing has caused weight problems of children.
11. The preference of food for children is affected by their age and gender.
12. Wealthy parents tend to buy more “sensible food” for their children.
13. There is a lack of investigation on food promotion methods other than TV advertising.

The Bridge That Swayed

When the London Millennium footbridge was opened in June 2000, it swayed alarmingly. This generated huge public interest and the bridge became known as London’s “wobbly bridge.”

The Millennium Bridge is the first new bridge across the river Thames in London since Tower Bridge opened in 1894, and it is the first ever designed for pedestrians only. The bridge links the City of London near St Paul’s Cathedral with the Tate Modern art gallery on Bankside.

The bridge opened initially on Saturday 10th June 2000. For the opening ceremony, a crowd of over 1,000 people had assembled on the south half of the bridge with a band in front. When they started to walk across with the band playing, there was immediately an unexpectedly pronounced lateral movement of the bridge deck. “It was a fine day and the bridge was on the route of a major charity walk,” one of the pedestrians recounted what ho saw that day. “At first, it was still. Then if began to sway sideways, just slightly. Then, almost from one moment to the next, when large groups of people were crossing, the wobble intensified. Everyone had to stop walking to retain balance and sometimes to hold onto the hand rails for support.” Immediately it was decided to limit the number of people on the bridge, and the bridge was dubbed the ‘wobbly’ bridge by the media who declared it another high-profile British Millennium Project failure. In older to fully investigate and resolve the issue the decision was taken to close the bridge on 12th June 2000.

Arup, the leading member of the committee in charge of the construction of the bridge, decided to tackle the issue head on. They immediately undertook a fast-track research project to seek the cause and the cure. The embarrassed engineers found the videotape that day which showed the center span swaying about 3 inches sideways every second and the south span 2 inches every 1.25 seconds. Because there was a significant wind blowing on the opening days (force 3-4) and the bridge had been decorated with large flags, the engineers first thought that winds might be exerting excessive force on the many large flags and banners, but it was rapidly concluded that wind buffeting had not contributed significantly to vibration of the bridge. But after measurements were made in university laboratories of the effects of people? walking on swaying platforms and after large-scale experiments with crowds of pedestrians were conducted on the bridge itself, a new understanding and a new theory were developed.

The unexpected motion was the result of a natural human reaction to small lateral movements. It is well known that a suspension bridge has tendency to sway when troops march over it in lockstep, which is why troops are required to break step when crossing such a bridge. “If we walk on a swaying surface we tend to compensate and stabilise ourselves by spreading our legs further apart but this increases the lateral push”. Pat Dallard, the engineer at Arup, says that you change the way you walk to match what the bridge is doing. It is an unconscious tendency for pedestrians to match their footsteps to the sway, thereby exacerbating it even more. “It’s rather like walking on a rolling ship deck you move one way and then the other to compensate for the roll.” The way people walk doesn’t have to match exactly the natural frequency of the bridge as in resonance the interaction is more subtle. As the bridge moves, people adjust the way they walk in their own manner. The problem is that when there are enough people on the bridge the total sideways push can overcome the bridge’s ability to absorb it. The movement becomes excessive and continues to increase until people begin to have difficulty in walking they may even have to hold on to the rails.

Professor Fujino Yozo of Tokyo University, who studied the earth-resistant Toda Bridge in Japan, believes the horizontal forces caused by walking, running or jumping could also in turn cause excessive dynamic vibration in the lateral direction in the bridge. He explains that as the structure began moving, pedestrians adjusted their gait to the same lateral rhythm as the bridge; the adjusted footsteps magnified the motion just like when four people all stand up in small boat at the same time. As more pedestrians locked into the same rhythm, the increasing oscillation led to the dramatic swaying captured on film until people stopped walking altogether, because they could not even keep upright. In order to design a method of reducing the movements, an immediate research program was launched by the bridge’s engineering designer Arup. It was decided that the force exerted by the pedestrians had to be quantified and related to the motion of the bridge. Although there are some descriptions of this phenomenon in existing literature, none of these actually quantifies the force. So there was no quantitative analytical way to design the bridge against this effect. The efforts to solve the problem quickly got supported by a number of universities and research organisations.

The tests at the University of Southampton involved a person walking on the spot on a small shake table. The tests at Imperial College involved persons walking along a specially built, 7.2m-long platform, which could be driven laterally at different frequencies and amplitudes. These tests have their own limitations. While the Imperial College test platform was too short that only seven or eight steps could be measured at one time, the “walking on the spot” test did not accurately replicate forward walking, although many footsteps could be observed using this method. Neither test could investigate any influence of other people in a crowd on the behavior of the individual tested.

The results of the laboratory tests provided information which enabled the initial design of a retrofit to be progressed. However, unless the usage of the bridge was to be greatly restricted, only two generic options to improve its performance were considered feasible. The first was to increase the stiffness of the bridge to move all its lateral natural frequencies out of the range that could be excited by the lateral footfall forces, and the second was to increase the damping of the bridge to reduce the resonant response.

Questions 14-17
Choose FOUR letters, A-I.

Which FOUR of the following could be seen on the day when the bridge opened to the public?

A the bridge moved vertically
B the bridge swayed from side to side
C the bridge swayed violently throughout the opening ceremony
D it was hard to keep balance on the bridge
E pedestrians walked in synchronized steps
F pedestrians lengthened their footsteps
G a music band marched across the bridge
H the swaying rhythm varied to the portions of the bridge
I flags and banners kept still on the bridge

Questions 18-23
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

To understand why the Millennium Bridge swayed, engineers of Arup studied the videotape taken on the day of the opening ceremony. In the beginning they thought the forces of (18)……………………might have caused the movement because there were many flags and banners on the bridge that day. But quickly new understandings arose after series of tests were conducted on how people walk on (19)……………………..floors. The tests showed people would place their leg (20)……………………….to keep balance when the floor is shaking. Pat Dallard even believes pedestrians may unknowingly adjust their (21)………………….to match the sway of the bridge. Professor Fujino Yozo’s study found that the vibration of a bridge could be caused by the (22)…………………..of people walking, running and jumping on it because the lateral rhythm of the sway could make pedestrians adjust their walk and reach the same step until it is impossible to stand (23)……………………

Questions 24-26
Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Test conducted by	Problems of the test
(24)……………………	not enough data collection
(25)…………………….	not long enough
(26)……………………	not like the real walking experience

Internal Market: Selling The Inside

When you think of marketing, you more than likely think of marketing to your customers: How can you persuade more people to buy what you sell? But another “market” is just as important: your employees, the very people who can make the brand come alive for your customers. Yet in our work helping executives develop and carry out branding campaigns, my colleagues and I have found that companies very often ignore this critical constituency.

Why is internal marketing so important? First, because it’s the best way to help employees make a powerful emotional connection to the products and services you sell. Without that connection, employees are likely to undermine the expectations set by your advertising. In some cases, this is because they simply don’t understand what you have promised the public, so they end up working at cross-purposes. In other cases, it may be they don’t actually believe in the brand and feel disengaged or, worse, hostile toward the company. We’ve found that when people care about and believe in the brand, they’re motivated to work harder and their loyalty to the company increases. Employees are united and inspired by a common sense of purpose and identity.

Unfortunately, in most companies, internal marketing is done poorly, if at all. While executives recognise the need to keep people informed about the company’s strategy and direction, few understand the need to convince employees of the brand’s power—they take it as a given.

Employees need to hear the same messages that you send out to the marketplace. At most companies, however, internal and external communications are often mismatched. This can be very confusing, and it threatens employees’ perceptions of the company’s integrity: They are told one thing by management but observe that a different message is being sent to the public. One health insurance company, for instance, advertised that the welfare of patients was the company’s number one priority, while employees were told that their main goal was to increase the value of their stock options through cost reductions. And one major financial services institution told customers that it was making a major shift in focus from being a financial retailer to a financial adviser, but, a year later, research showed that the customer experience with the company had not changed. It turned out that company leaders had not made an effort to sell the change internally, so employees were still churning out transactions and hadn’t changed their behavior to match their new adviser role.

Enabling employees to deliver on customer expectations is important, of course, but it’s not the only reason a company needs to match internal and external messages. Another reason is to help push the company to achieve goals that might otherwise be out of reach. In 1997, when IBM launched its e-business campaign (which is widely credited for turning around the company’s image), it chose to ignore research that suggested consumers were unpre-pared to embrace IBM as a leader in e-business. Although to the outside world this looked like an external marketing effort, IBM was also using the campaign to align employees around the idea of the Internet as the future of technology. The internal campaign changed the way employees thought about everything they did, from how they named products to how they organised staff to how they approached selling. The campaign was successful largely because it gave employees a sense of direction and purpose, which in turn restored their confidence in IBM’s ability to predict the future and lead the technology industry. Today, research shows that people are four times more likely to associate the term “e-business” with IBM than with its nearest competitor.

Perhaps even more important, by taking employees into account, a company can avoid creating a message that doesn’t resonate with staff or, worse, one that builds resentment. In 1996, United Airlines shelved its “Come Fly the Friendly Skies” slogan when presented with a survey that revealed the depth of customer resentment toward the airline industry. In an effort to own up to the industry’s shortcomings, United launched a new campaign, “Rising,” in which it sought to differentiate itself by acknowledging poor service and promising incremental improvements such as better meals. While this was a logical premise for the campaign given the tenor of the times, a campaign focusing on customers’ distaste for flying was deeply discouraging to the staff. Employee resentment, ultimately made it impossible for United to deliver the improvements it was promising, which in turn undermined the “Rising” pledge. Three years later, United decided employee opposition was under-mining its success and pulled the campaign. It has since moved to a more inclusive brand message with the line “United,” which both audiences can embrace. Here, a fundamental principle of advertising—find and address a customer concern—failed United because it did not consider the internal market.

When it comes to execution, the most common and effective way to link internal and external marketing campaigns is to create external advertising that targets both audiences. IBM used this tactic very effectively when it launched its e-business campaign, It took out an eight-page ad in the Wall Street Journal declaring its new vision, a message directed at both customers and internal stakeholders. This is an expensive way to capture attention, but if used sparingly, it is the most powerful form of communication; in fact, you need do it only once for everyone in the company to read it. There’s a symbolic advantage as well. Such a tactic signals that the company is taking its pledge very seriously; it also signals transparency—the same message going out to both audiences.

Advertising isn’t the only way to link internal and external marketing. At Nike, a number of senior executives now hold the additional title of “Corporate Storyteller.” They deliberately avoid stories of financial successes and concentrate on parables of “just doing it,” reflecting and reinforcing the company’s ad campaigns. One tale, for example, recalls how legendary coach and Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman, in an effort to build a better shoe for his team, poured rubber into the family waffle iron, giving birth to the prototype of Nike’s famous Waffle Sole. By talking about such inventive moves, the company hopes to keep the spirit of innovation that characterises its ad campaigns alive and well within the company.

But while their messages must be aligned, companies must also keep external promises a little ahead of internal realities. Such promises provide incentives for employees and give them something to live up to. In the 1980s, Ford turned “Quality Is Job 1” from an internal rallying cry into a consumer slogan in response to the threat from cheaper, more reliable Japanese cars. It did so before the claim was fully justified, but by placing it in the public arena, it gave employees an incentive to match the Japanese. If the promise is pushed too far ahead, however, it loses credibility. When a beleaguered British Rail launched a campaign announcing service improvements under the banner “We’re Getting There,” it did so prematurely. By drawing attention to the gap between the promise and the reality, it prompted destructive press coverage. This, in turn, demoralised staff, who had been legitimately proud of the service advances they had made.

Questions 27-32
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below. Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet. NB You can use any letter more than once.

27. A health company
28. A financial institution
29. A computer company
30. An airline
31. A sport shoe company
32. A railway company

A alienated its employees by its apologetic branding campaign.
B attracted negative publicity through its advertising campaign.
C produced conflicting image between its employees and the general public.
D successfully used an advertising campaign to inspire employees
E draws on the legends of the company spirit.

Questions 33-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet, write

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

33. A strong conviction in the brand can contribute to higher job performance.
34. It is common for companies to overlook the necessity for internal communication.
35. Consumers were ready to view IBM as a leader in e-business before the advertising campaign.
36. United Airlines’ failure in its branding campaign was due to the bad advice of an advertisement agency.
37. United Airlines eventually abolished its campaign to boost image as the result of a market research.
38. It is an expensive mistake for IBM to launch its new e-business campaign.
39. Nike employees claimed that they were inspired by their company tales.
40. A slight difference between internal and external promises can create a sense of purpose.