Category: IELTS Reading

SECTION 1: Questions 1-14
Read the text below and answer Questions 1-8.

The best travel wallets

Keep all your bank cards, documents, passports and ID in one of these convenient carriers, which have been selected by Becca Meier.

A Kipling Travel Doc Travel Document Holder
This zip-around wallet comes in five different patterns and is made of nylon. It also has a space where users can put a pen, pockets for cards, an ID window and a pocket for change.

B Lifeventure Mini Travel Document Wallet
This is a waterproof wallet, which uses anti-RFID (radio frequency identification) material so your financial details will be safe. It is black with smart sky-blue finishing touches and has a small internal compartment, a smartphone pocket and an external pocket, It can fit two passports.

C Cath Kidston Breton Stripe
A wallet so slim it could easily pass for a small notebook. The inside compartment labels identifying each separate section all have silver lettering on them. The wallet has a special coating which makes it easy to wipe anything like sand off.

D Ted Baker Voyager’s Travel Wallet
This wallet comes in smooth black leather, and is no bigger than a passport, but roomy enough for any insurance documents or flight tickets. A small navy-blue pen is supplied inside.

E Radley Abbey Travel Wallet
This plain travel wallet opens up to reveal pockets in various colours labelled ‘cards’, ‘passport’ and ‘tickets’, as well as others left blank for extras. It comes in a handy drawstring bag.

F Gotravel Organiser
The black wallet features seven slip-in card compartments, two small interior zip pockets and a load of other slip-in compartments, it can fit at least four passports.

G Gotravel Glo Travel Wallet
This is a simple, very reasonably priced wallet. It is made of PVC plastic and will suit those who like a wallet that is easy to spot. It comes in a range of bright colours with a white holiday-related design on the front. It has five compartments that can fit a passport with other cards/tickets.

Questions 1-8
Look at the seven reviews of travel wallets, A-G, on page 84.
For which travel wallet are the following statements true?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. This wallet will suit people who prefer natural materials.
2. Users of this wallet do not need to worry about taking it out in the rain.
3. Parts of the inside of this wallet have categories printed on them in one colour.
4. This wallet would suit someone who needs to keep several passports together.
5. Something is provided for writing.
6. This will suit people who want to be able to find their document wallet easily in their luggage.
7. Something to keep this wallet in is provided.
8. This wallet has been specially made to prevent people detecting the numbers on any bank cards, etc. inside it.

Read the text below and answer Questions 9-14.

UK rail services – how do l claim for my delayed train?

Generally, if you have been delayed on a train journey, you may be able to claim compensation, but train companies all have different rules, so it can be confusing to work out what you’re entitled to. The type of delay you can claim for depends on whether the train company runs a Delay Repay scheme or a less generous, older-style scheme.

Delay Repay is a train operator scheme to compensate passengers when trains are late, and the train company will pay out even if it was not responsible for the delay. The scheme varies between companies, but up to 2016 most paid 50 percent of the single ticket cost for 30 minutes’ delay and 100 percent for an hour. On the London Underground, you get a full refund for 15-minute delays.

Companies that do not use Delay Repay and still use the older scheme will not usually pay compensation if the problem is considered to be out of their control. But it is still worth asking them for compensation, as some may pay out. You are unlikely to get compensation for a delay if any of the following occur:
• Accidents involving people getting onto the line illegally
• Gas leaks or fires in buildings next to the line which were not caused by a train company
• Line closures at the request of the emergency services
• Exceptionally severe weather conditions
• Strike action

National Rail Conditions of Travel state that you are entitled to compensation in the same form that you paid for the ticket. Some train companies are still paying using rail vouchers, which they are allowed to do if you do not ask for a cash refund.

Since 2016, rail passengers have acquired further rights for compensation through the Consumer Rights Act. This means that passengers could now be eligible for compensation due to: a severely overcrowded train with too few carriages available; a consistently late running service; and a service that is delayed for less than the time limit that applied under existing compensation schemes.

However, in order to exercise their rights beyond the existing compensation schemes, for instance Delay Repay, and where the train operating company refuses to compensate despite letters threatening court action, passengers may need to bring their claims to a court of law.

Questions 9-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text on page 86?
In boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet, write

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

9. The system for claiming compensation varies from one company to another.
10. Under Delay Repay, a train company will only provide compensation if it caused the delay.
11. Under Delay Repay, underground and other train companies give exactly the same amounts of money in compensation.
12. An increasing number of train companies are willing to pay compensation for problems they are not responsible for.
13. It is doubtful whether companies using the older scheme will provide compensation if a delay is caused by a strike.
14. Passengers may receive compensation in the form of a train voucher if they forget to request cash.

SECTION 2: Questions 15-27
Read the text below and answer Questions 15-19.

Vacancy for food preparation assistant

Durrant House pic runs restaurants and cafes as concessions in airports, train stations and other busy environments around the country. We currently have a vacancy for a food preparation assistant in our restaurant at Locksley Stadium, serving football fans and concert-goers before, during and after events. In addition, we cater for private parties several times a week. If you have relevant experience and a passion for preparing food to a very high standard, we’ll be delighted to hear from you. You must be able to multitask and to work in a fast-paced environment. It goes without saying that working as an effective and supportive member of a team is essential so you need to be happy in this type of work.

The role includes the usual responsibilities, such as treating hygiene as your number one priority, cleaning work areas, and doing whatever is required to provide food of excellent quality. The person appointed will carry out a range of tasks, including ensuring all raw food items are fresh, preparing vegetables to be cooked, making sure frozen food products are used in rotation, and throwing away any food products that are near or have passed their expiry date. He or she will be required to familiarise themselves with the storage system, so as to put food product supplies in the proper place and retrieve them in the right order. In particular; we are looking for someone with skill at baking, to play a large role in the production of pies and cakes.

Given the nature of the venue, working hours vary from week to week, depending on the events being held, and will often involve starting early in the morning or finishing late at night. You can expect to work an average of around 18 hours a week, although this cannot be guaranteed. You will also have the opportunity to work in another of our sites for one or two days a week, or for longer periods, and will be paid for ten days of holidays a year, Training will be provided in food safety.

If this sounds like the job for you, please contact Jo Simmons at simmons.j@durrant-house.com.

Questions 15-19
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 15-19 on your answer sheet,

Vacancy for food preparation assistant
Location of restaurant: in a (15)……………………

Requirements:
• relevant experience
• ability to multitask
• must enjoy working in a (16)…………………..

Responsibilities include:
• maintaining high standards of (17)…………………….
• checking the freshness of raw food
• ensuring no food is used after its expiry date
• learning the procedure for the (18)……………………….
• doing a considerable amount of the baking

Conditions:
• working hours are not (19)……………………..
• payment is made for holidays

Read the text below and answer Questions 20-27

Setting up a business partnership in the UK

Two or more people can go into business together by setting up either a limited company or a partnership. A partnership is the easier way to get started, and simply links two or more people together in a simple business structure. Unlike a limited company, a partnership doesn’t have a separate legal status. The partners are usually self-employed individuals, although a limited company counts as a ‘legal person’ and can also be a partner.

In a partnership, you and your partner or partners personally share responsibility for your business. This means, among other things, that if your business cannot afford to pay its debts, you must pay them yourselves. Again, this is not the case with a limited company. Partners share the business’s profits, and each partner pays tax on their share.

When you set up a business partnership you need to choose a name. You can trade under your own names, for example, ‘Smith and Jones’, or you can choose another name for your business. You don’t need to register your name. However, you should register your name as a trademark if you want to stop people from trading under your business name.

Business partnership names must not include ‘limited’, ‘Ltd’, ‘limited liability partnership’, ‘LLP’, ‘public limited company’ or ‘pic’, be offensive, or be the same as an existing trademark. Your name also can’t suggest a connection with government or local authorities, unless you get permission. There is no central database of partnership names in the UK, so to avoid using the same name as another business, it is advisable to search on the internet for the name you are considering.

You must include all the partners’ names and the business name (if you have one) on official paperwork, for example invoices. You must choose a ‘nominated partner’ who is responsible for registering your partnership with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the government department responsible for the collection of taxes. This person is responsible for managing the partnership’s tax returns and keeping business records. Alternatively, you can appoint an agent to deal with HMRC on your behalf.

All partners need to register with HMRC separately and send their own tax returns as individuals. You must register by 5 October in your business’s second tax year, or you could be charged a penalty. You must also register for VAT if your VAT taxable turnover is more than £85,000. You can choose to register if it’s below this, for example to reclaim VAT on business supplies.

Questions 20-27
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-27 on your answer sheet.

20. A partnership is different from a limited company in not having its own…………………as a legal body.
21. The partners are personally responsible for paying all the partnership’s……………………….
22. The partnership’s…………………………..are divided between the partners.
23. Registering the partnership’s name prevents others from using that name when……………………….
24. The best way to find out if a name is already in use is to use the…………………………
25. The names of the partners and the partnership must appear on…………………and other documents.
26. You must have a nominated partner, or someone to act as your……………….for all contact with HIVIRC.
27. You will have to pay a………………………if you miss the deadline for registering the partnership

SECTION 3: Questions 28-46
Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.

THE ROLE OF THE SWISS POSTBUS

The Swiss PostBus Limited is the largest of the country’s 78 coach companies. Administered by the Motor Services Department of the Post Office, it carries over 120 million passengers each year and is carefully integrated with other public transport services: trains, boats and mountain cableways. The Swiss transportation system resembles a tree, with the larger branches representing federal and private railways, the smaller branches being the coaches, and the twigs being the urban transit operators running trams, city buses, boats, chairlifts and so on. But the trunk that holds the tree together is the vast postbus network, without which the whole network would not function.

There isn’t an inhabited place in Switzerland that cannot be reached by some sort of public transport. Federal law and the Swiss Constitution stipulate that every village with a population greater than 40 is entitled to regular bus services. The frequency of these services is directly related to population density. Timetables are put together four years in advance, and seldom change. If a new route is to be introduced, the population of the area affected is invited to vote in a referendum.

At times, postbuses are the main — sometimes the only — links between settlements. These coaches, often with a trailer in tow to increase their capacity, are a common sight in high-altitude regions, and their signature sound — part of Rossini’s William Tell Overturn, played by the drivers on three-tone post horns with electrical compressors at every road turn — is one of the most familiar Swiss sounds.

The three-tone horns can still be used to ‘talk’ to post offices (and each other) from a distance. By altering the combination of the tones, a driver can announce ‘departure of post1, ‘arrival of post’, ‘arrival of special post’, and so on – so much more romantic and often more reliable than radio or mobile phones. This musical ‘language’ started in the mid-nineteenth century, when the coach drivers could also blow their horns a certain number of times on approaching the station to indicate the number of horses needing to be fed, giving the stationmaster time to prepare the fodder.

The postbus history goes back to 1849, when the Swiss postal service was made a monopoly. The role of today’s modern yellow buses was, back then, played by horse-drawn carriages (or in winter by sleighs, in order to travel on snow), which were the same colour. By 1914, eight years after the first motor coaches were introduced, there were still 2,500 horses, 2,231 coaches (or carriages) and 1,059 sleighs in service.

After the First World War, Swiss Post bought a fleet of decommissioned military trucks which were converted into postbuses, but it was not until 1961 that the last horse-drawn coach was replaced with a motorised version.

Today, the Swiss Post Office boasts one of the worlds most advanced coach fleets, including fuel-cell models and the world’s first driverless bus. This was launched in 2015 in the town of Sion, the capital of the canton of Valais, one of the 26 cantons, or administrative regions, that make up the country.

Postbuses often go to places that other means of transport cannot reach. Most of the drivers therefore see themselves as educators and tour guides. Although it’s not in their job description, they’re likely to point out the sights — waterfalls, gorges, and so on — and are always ready to pull over for a photo opportunity.

Switzerland’s longest postbus journey, and one of the highest, crosses four mountain passes – an eight-hour trip undertaken by a single postbus. The route goes through several cantons; two languages (German and Italian); all four seasons – from burning sunshine to showers and heavy snowfalls; and countless places of interest, One of the passes, the Gotthard, is often described as ‘the People’s Road’, probably because it connects the German-speaking canton of Uri with Italian-speaking Ticino. Like Switzerland itself, postbuses ‘speak’ all four state languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh – and by law, their automated intercom announcements are given in the language of whichever canton the bus is currently passing through.

Irrespective of their previous driving experience, drivers undergo lots of training. During the first year, they have, to drive postbuses under the supervision of a more experienced driver. Only after two years of safe driving in the valleys can they be pronounced ready for a mountain bus.

Some routes are not at all busy, with the bus often carrying just two or three passengers at a time. But for most people living in small mountain villages, the postbus is of the utmost importance. It not only carries the villagers to town and back, it takes village children to and from school, delivers mail, transports milk from the village farms down to the valley, collects rubbish from the village (Swiss laws do not allow dumping anywhere in the mountains), and brings building materials to households. It takes elderly villagers to shops and carries their shopping up the hill to their homes. More a friend than just a means of transportation, for the dwellers of mountain villages the postbus is an essential part of life.

Questions 28-32
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

28. When comparing the Swiss transportation system to a tree, the writer emphasises
A the size of the postbus system.
B how competitive the postbus system is.
C how important the postbus system is.
D the threat to the postbus system.

29. What is said about bus services in the second paragraph?
A Villages have the chance to request more buses every four years.
B New routes are often introduced to reflect an increase in population.
C Bus timetables tend to change every four years.
D The number of buses that call at a village depends on how many people live there,

30. According to the fourth paragraph, what were three-tone horns first used to indicate?
A how many coach horses required food
B how long the bus would stay at the station
C how many passengers wanted a meal
D how soon the bus would arrive at the station

31. What point does the writer make about the postbus drivers?
A Many choose to give passengers information about the surroundings.
B Most are proud of driving buses to places without other forms of transport.
C They are required to inform passengers about the sights seen from the bus.
D They are not allowed to stop for passengers to take photographs.

32. What is said about the buses’ automated announcements?
A They are given in the language of the bus’s starting point.
B The language they are given in depends on where the bus is at the time.
C They are always given in all the four languages of Switzerland.
D The language they are given in depends on the bus’s destination.

Questions 33-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text on pages 92 and 93?
in boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet, write

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

33. Some postbuses after the First World War were originally army vehicles.
34. The number of driverless buses has increased steadily since 2015.
35. On the longest postbus route in Switzerland, passengers have to change buses.
36. The weather on the longest postbus route is likely to include extreme weather conditions.
37. There is a widely used nickname for part of the longest route used by postbuses.
38. Bus drivers’ training can be shortened if they have driven buses before joining Postbus.
39. In some villages most passengers are school children.
40. Buses carry only rubbish that can be recycled.

SECTION 1: Questions 1-14
Read the text below and answer Questions 1-7.

Your Guide To Entertainment In Westhaven

A. TRAX INDOOR KARTING CENTRE Experience the fun and thrills of indoor racing driving in our mini open-topped karts. No experience necessary. Individuals and groups welcome. Refreshments available in new burger bar. Spectators welcome. All drivers must meet the minimum height requirement of 5 feet (1.52 m) and participate at their own risk. Open: all year daily 10 am to 6 pm (later times by appointment) except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day Charges: from £ 11 per person	B. WESTHAVEN LIFEBOAT MUSEUM The Westhaven Lifeboat Museum is an exciting display illustrating over 150 years of courage – photos with texts of epic rescues, models of lifeboats and video displays. Try our hands-on-simulator – take charge of a daring rescue on a stormy sea. Ideal for school groups. A must for all ages. Souvenir shop. No charge for admission but donations welcome. Open: 25th March to 26th October, 10 am to 5 pm 27th October to 2nd January, 10 am to 4 pm
C. STAR LEISURE CENTRE Exciting leisure complex with four pools, wave machine, two thrilling flumes, bubble pool, fitness suite, special programme for under-fives, organized holiday activities and much, much more! Open: all year daily Charges: check our website at www.starleisure.co.uk for current rates	D. LLOYD’S LANES 20 fully computerized ten-pin bowling lanes, amusement area, fast food area, large screen Sky TV – Lloyd’s Lanes is ideal for a whole fun day out. Open: ten-pin bowling daily, 10 am till late – 7 days a week Charges: Monday to Friday 10 am to 6 pm, non-members £ 3.50, members £ 2.50 Other times: non-members £ 4.50, members £ 3.75, appropriate footgear essential to protect bowling surfaces shoe hire £ 1.00 at all times
E. WESTHAVEN GOLF CLUB Beautiful lakeside course, a pleasant, manageable walk through nine challenging holes 24-bay driving range, suitable in rain, wind or sun, three golf professionals can give affordable coaching. Restaurant good food served all day. Visitors welcome. Open: all year from 7.30 am to 10 pm Charges: 9 holes £ 10; 18 holes £ 15

Questions 1-7
The text on pages above has five advertisements labelled A-E. Which advertisement contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. Payment at this venue is optional.
2. Expert instructors are available for lessons.
3. There is a restriction on what you can wear.
4. Some basic information is published in another place.
5. This has particular provision for very young children.6. It has a feature especially recommended for educational parties.
7. They will open at unscheduled times if you make an arrangement.

Read the text below and answer Questions 8-14.

Do You Have A Music Project In Mind That Might Benefit From Funding?

Music is wonderfully therapeutic! This is recognised by The Dosoco Foundation, which supports local projects that use music for social good.

The next round of Dosoco grant funding will shortly be open for applications. Grants are available from £700 to £1,000 (for organisations) and up to £300 (for individuals) in the areas of music education (e.g. working with a talented music student with either physical, social or learning disabilities), music access (e.g. a music club for groups that might struggle to start something on their own), music innovation (e.g. using an electronic device such as Raspberry Pi to help disabled people make music) and music therapy (e.g. an idea for using music to support positive mental health).

Case study
Dosoco recently awarded a grant to Alexia Sioame, a young composer with sight loss, to enable her to attend the sound-and-music summer-school composition course at the Purcell School. Alexia has since gained a place as a composer with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain – the first blind composer to be appointed – and has also been awarded the title of Young Composer of the Year. She was the first female composer ever to receive this honour in its ten-year history.

Organisations, families and individuals can apply by completing a simple form. Dosoco can contribute up to 50% towards project costs. Projects must be locally based and must be new ideas for using music to make a positive impact on people’s lives where help is really needed.

For more information please visit www.thedosocofoundation.org

Questions 8-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text on page 63?
In boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet, write

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

8. You can apply to Dosoco now for grant funding.
9. You can apply for a grant that will help to educate a musician.
10. Alexia Sloane lost her sight after attending a summer-school composition course
11. Alexia now plays several instruments with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
12. Alexia has received an award for her work in music.
13. Applications can be made by filling in an online form.
14. In some cases Dosoco will cover the full cost of the project.

SECTION 2: Questions 15-27
Read the text below and answer Questions 15-21.

Guide To Employees On Workplace Monitoring

What is workplace monitoring?
Employers have the right to monitor your activities in many situations at work. For example, your activities may be recorded on CCTV cameras, and your letters may be opened and read. In addition, your employer may use an automated software programme to check the emails you receive at work. Phone calls may be listened to and recorded, and the log of websites you use may be checked.

All of these forms of monitoring are covered by data protection law. Data protection law doesn’t prevent monitoring in the workplace. However, it does set down rules about the circumstances and the way in which monitoring should be carried out.

Before deciding whether to introduce monitoring, your employer should identify any negative effects the monitoring may have on staff. This is called impact assessment.

Monitoring electronic communications at work
Your employer can legally monitor your use of electronic communications in the workplace if the monitoring relates to the business and the equipment being monitored is provided partly or wholly for work.

Except in extremely limited circumstances, employers must take reasonable steps to let staff know that monitoring is happening, what is being monitored and why it is necessary.

As long as your employer sticks to these rules, they don’t need to get your consent before they monitor your electronic communications, but only if the monitoring is for specific reasons. These may be to establish facts which are relevant to the business or to check standards, for example, listening in to phone calls to assess the quality of your work. Monitoring is also allowed if its purpose is to prevent or detect crime. It may be necessary to make sure electronic systems are operating effectively, for example, to prevent computer viruses entering the system. Your employer is also allowed to listen in to any calls you make to confidential helplines, but in this case he or she is not allowed to record these calls.

Questions 15-21
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet.

Guide to employees on workplace monitoring
Your employer may monitor you at work by checking
• recordings of your activities
• your letters and (15)……………………..
• your phone calls and which websites you have visited
Rules for monitoring are established by data protection law. This states that employers must carry out a procedure that is known as (16)……………………..before introducing monitoring,

In general, monitoring is legal if
• it relates to the business
• you are using (17)…………………..intended for work
• the worker has been informed

Monitoring may be used
• to evaluate the (18)…………………….of your work
• to stop of find out about (19)…………………….
• to stop the possibility of (20)………………………affecting systems
• to check calls to (21)……………………….(these cannot be recorded)

Read the text below and answer Questions 22-27.

International Experience Canada: Application Process

If you want to travel and work temporarily in Canada as part of International Experience Canada (IEC), your first step is to become a candidate in one or more IEC pools. There are three categories of pool: International Co-op (Internship), Working Holiday and Young Professionals.

To apply, first use our questionnaire to see if you meet the criteria to get into the IEC pools. This should take you about ten minutes. You can find it at www.cic.gc.ca/ctc-vac/ cometocanada.asp. After completing this, if you are eligible you will be sent a personal reference code, which you should use to create your online account. At the same time, you should fill in any remaining fields in your profile with the required information, including which IEC pools you want to be in. (Some parts will already have been completed for you.)

If you are sent an invitation to proceed with your application, you will have 10 days to decide whether to accept this or not. If you accept, click the ‘Start Application’ button. You then have 20 days to complete your application.

For International Co-op and Young Professionals categories, your employer in Canada must pay the compliance fee and inform you of your offer of employment number. (This does not apply to the Working Holiday pool.)

Once you have received this, you should then upload copies of police and medical certificates, if required. If you do not have these, you should upload proof that you have applied for them. You should then pay your participation fee of C$126 online by credit card. (There is an additional payment of C$100 if you are applying for the Working Holiday category.)

Your application will then be assessed. You can apply to withdraw at this stage and will be given a refund if you do this within 56 days. If your application is successful, you will receive a letter of introduction which you can show to Immigration when you enter Canada.

Questions 22-27
Complete the flow-chart below. Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER ONLY from the text for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 22-27 on your answer sheet.

Applying To International Experience Canada

Fill in the online (22)………………..to get a personal reference code

Create your (23)…………………and provide the necessary information for the profile in your application

If sent an invitation, you must accept this within (24)………………….. you then have a limited time to (25)…………………..the application

Your (26)…………………….is required to send you an offer of employment number

Upload copies of any necessary certificates or proof of application

Make the payment for participation online. You may receive a (27)………………..later if you change your mind

If successful you will receive a letter of introduction to be shown at immigration

SECTION 3: Questions 23-40
Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.

Research On Improving Agricultural Yields In Africa

Three programmes are investigating ways of improving agricultural productivity in Africa.

More than, half of the global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa, and more people means a requirement for more food.

Ethiopia, for example, has the largest livestock population in Africa but with a growing population even its 53 million cattle are not enough. And now efforts to develop fanning there are bringing a significant health concern. Professor James Wood from the University of Cambridge explains that new breeds that are being introduced are more vulnerable to bovine TB (tuberculosis) than the zebu cattle which were previously reared there. ‘This may have health implications for those who work with and live alongside infected cattle, and also raises concerns about transmission to areas which previously had low levels of TB,’ he warns.

Wood leads a research programme which is looking at the feasibility of control strategies, including cattle vaccination. The programme brings together veterinary scientists, epidemiologists, geneticists, immunologists and social scientists in eight Ethiopian and UK institutions. ‘We need this mix because we are not only asking how effective strategies will be, but also whether farmers will accept them, and what the consequences are for prosperity and wellbeing,’ says Wood.

The impact that increasing productivity can have on farmers’ livelihoods is not lost on an insect expert at the University of Ghana, Dr Ken Fening, who is working on another food-related research project. Cabbages are not indigenous to Africa but have become a major cash crop for Ghanaian farmers and an important source of income for traders from markets and hotels. ‘A good crop can bring in money to buy fertilisers and farm equipment, and also help to pay for healthcare and education for the family,’ he says. Recently, however, fields of stunted, yellowing cabbages, their leaves curled and dotted with mould, have become a familiar and devastating sight for the farmers of Ghana.

From his field station base in Kpong, Ghana, Fening works closely with smallholder farmers on pest-control strategies. Two years ago they started reporting that a new disease was attacking their crops. ‘It seemed to be associated with massive infestations of pink and green aphids,’ says Fening, ‘and from my studies of the way insects interact with many different vegetables, I’m familial* with the types of damage they can cause.’

But farmers were typically seeing the total loss of their crops, and he realised that the devastation couldn’t just be caused by sap-sucking insects. Despite no previous reports of viral diseases affecting cabbage crops in Ghana, the symptoms suggested a viral pathogen.

Together with Cambridge plant biologist Dr John Carr, Fening collected samples of cabbage plants in Ghana showing signs of disease, and also aphids on the diseased plants. Back in Cambridge, Fening used screening techniques including a type of DNA ‘fingerprinting’ to identify the aphid species, and sophisticated molecular biology methods to try to identify the offending virus.

‘Aphids are a common carrier of plant-infecting viruses,’ explains Carr. ‘The “usual suspects” are turnip mosaic virus and cauliflower mosaic virus, which affect cabbages in Europe and the US.’

‘We found that two different species of aphids, pink and green, were generally found on the diseased cabbages,’ says Fening. ‘It turned out this was the first record of the green aphid species ever being seen in Ghana.’ The pink aphid was identified as Myzus persicae (Sulzer).

What’s more, the virus was not what they expected, and work is now ongoing to identify the culprit. The sooner it can be characterised, the sooner sustainable crop protection strategies can be developed to prevent further spread of the disease not only in Ghana, but also in other countries in the region. Another researcher who hopes that eradication strategies will be the outcome of her research project is Dr Theresa Manful. Like Fening, she is a researcher at the University of Ghana. She has been working with Cambridge biochemist Professor Mark Carrington on a disease known as trypanosomiasis.

‘This is a major constraint to cattle fearing in Africa,’ she explains. ‘Although trypanosomiasis is also a disease of humans, the number of cases is low, and the more serious concerns about the disease relate to the economic impact on agricultural production.’

The parasite that causes the disease is carried by the tsetse fly, which colonises vast swathes of sub-Saharan Africa. Carrington says that a lot is now known about the parasite’s molecular mechanisms, in particular the way it evades the immune system of the animal acting as its host by altering the proteins in its coat so as to remain ‘invisible’. ‘But then when you look at the effect on large animals, you realise that there is almost nothing known about the dynamics of an infection, and even whether an infection acquired at an early age persists for its lifetime,’ he says. So Manful and Carrington set about testing cattle in Ghana. They discovered that nearly all were infected most of the time.

For Manful, one of the important gains has been the ability to expand the research in Ghana: ‘I now have a fully functional lab and can do DNA extraction and analysis in Ghana -1 don’t have to bring samples to Cambridge. We are teaching students from five Ghanaian institutions the diagnostic methods.’

‘Agriculture faces increasing challenges,’ adds Carr. ‘Bioscience is playing a crucial part in developing ways to mitigate pest impact and reduce the spread of parasites. We want to ensure not only that every harvest is successful, but also that it’s maximally successful.’

Questions 28-32
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

28. What is the main problem faced by cattle farmers in Ethiopia, according to Professor Wood?
A TB is being transmitted from people to cattle.
B New breeds of cattle have led to an increase in TB.
C The traditional breeds of cattle are being affected by TB.
D TB has spread into places where it was previously unknown.

29. When discussing the cultivation of cabbages in Ghana, the writer says that this crop
A was introduced from outside Africa.
B is not eaten much by local people.
C is not grown correctly by many farmers.
D requires the use of fertiliser and special equipment.

30. Fening believed that the new disease destroying cabbages was
A caused by overuse of pesticides.
B also affecting other locally grown vegetables.
C linked to insect attacks on these vegetables.
D connected with the development of new insect breeds.

31. Fening first suspected that the cabbage disease was caused by a virus because
A evidence of viral disease could be seen on the cabbage leaves.
B pink and green aphids did not commonly attack cabbages.
C viral diseases affecting vegetables had occurred elsewhere in Africa.
D aphids would not have caused so much damage to the crops.

32. When doing further research in Cambridge, Fening and Carr discovered that
A the virus was unfamiliar to them.
B two different viruses were present.
C the aphids’ DNA was more complex than expected.
D one aphid was more harmful than the other.

Questions 33-36
Look at the following statements (Questions 33-36) and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

33. A particular crop may make an important contribution to the local economy in one African country.
34. Tests will be carried out by local people in the country where the research is focused.
35. Different specialists must work together to ensure the success of a programme.
36. One type of insect attacking plants in Ghana was previously unknown there.

List of Researchers
A James Wood
B Ken Fening
C John Carr
D Theresa Manful
E Mark Carrington

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Trypanosomiasis

Trypanosomiasis is a disease caused by a parasite which is spread by an insect called the (37)…………………….The parasite can remain unaffected by the host’s (38) …………………… because it is able to change the (39)……………………. on its outer covering. It is uncommon among humans but has been found to affect most (40)…………………………….in Ghana.

SECTION 1: Questions 1-14
Read the text below and answer Questions 1-7.

Five reviews of the Wellington Hotel

A My husband and I first stayed at the Wellington a few years ago, and we’ve returned every year since then. When we arrive and check in, we’re always treated like old friends by the staff, so we very much feel at home. Our one disappointment during our last visit was that our room overlooked the car park, but that didn’t spoil our stay.

B The hotel hardly seems to have changed in the last hundred years, and we prefer that to many modern hotels, which tend to look the same as each other. The Wellington has character! Our room was very comfortable and quite spacious. We can strongly recommend the breakfast, though we had to wait for a table as the hotel was so full. That was a bit annoying, and there was also nowhere to sit in the lounge.

C We made our reservation by phone without problem, but when we arrived the receptionist couldn’t see it on the computer system. Luckily there was a room available. It wasn’t quite what we would have chosen, but it was a pleasure to sit in it with a cup of tea, and look out at the swimmers and surfers in the sea.

D We’d be happy to stay at the Wellington again. Although there’s nothing special about the rooms, the view from the lounge is lovely, and the restaurant staff were friendly and efficient. Breakfast was a highlight – there was so much on offer we could hardly decide what to eat. We’d stay another time just for that!

E The staff all did their jobs efficiently, and were very helpful when we asked for information about the area. The only difficulty we had was making our reservation online – it wasn’t clear whether payment for our deposit went through or not, and I had to call the hotel to find out. Still, once we’d arrived, everything went very smoothly, and we had a delicious dinner in the restaurant.

Questions 1-7
Look at the five online reviews of the Wellington Hotel, A-E, above. Which review mentions the following?
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. liking the view from the bedroom window
2. finding the receptionists welcoming
3. being pleased with the bedroom
4. becoming confused when booking a room
5. being impressed by the wide choice of food
6. staying in the hotel regularly
7. finding it inconvenient that the hotel was crowded

Read the text below and answer Questions 8-14.

Come and play walking football or walking netball

Walking football and netball have become increasingly popular in recent years, but do you know you can take part in this area? The names make it clear what they are – two of the country’s favourite sports where, instead of running, the players walk. It’s as simple as that.

Walking football was invented in the UK in 2011, but it was a 2014 TV commercial for a bank, showing it providing financial support to someone who wanted to set up a website for the game, that brought it to people’s attention. Since then, tens of thousands of people — mostly, though not only, over the age of 50 — have started playing, and there are more than 800 walking football clubs. Both men and women play walking football, but at the moment the netball teams consist only of women. However, men are beginning to show an interest in playing.

The two games are designed to help people to be active or get fit, whatever their age and level of fitness. In particular, they were invented to encourage older men and women to get more exercise, and to give them a chance to meet other people. Regular physical activity helps to maintain energy, strength and flexibility. You can start gently and do a little more each session. The benefits include lower heart rate and blood pressure, greater mobility, less fat and more muscle.

Many players have given up a sport – either through age or injury – and can now take it up again. They’re great ways for people to enjoy a sport they used to play and love, and keep active at the same time, though people who have never played the standard game before are also very welcome.

The local councils Active Lifestyles Team runs sessions at all the council’s leisure centres. Come alone or with a friend, and enjoy a friendly game on Monday or Saturday afternoons, or Tuesday or Thursday evenings. Each session costs £3 per person, and you don’t have to come regularly or at the same time each week. Our aim is to set up netball and football clubs as soon as there are enough regular players.

Questions 8-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text on page 41?
In boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet, write

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

8. Walking football became well-known when a club featured in a TV programme about the sport.
9. The majority of walking netball players are men.
10. Most clubs arrange social activities for their members,
11. Players are tested regularly to measure changes in their fitness.
12. People who have never played football are encouraged to play walking football.
13. People can take part in the Active Lifestyles Team’s sessions whenever they wish
14. The Active Lifestyles Team intends to start clubs in the future.

SECTION 2: Questions 15-27
Read the text below and answer Questions 15-20.

Dress regulations at work

Your contract may state that you need to dress in a certain manner or wear a uniform. Your contract might also state that you need to dress ‘smartly’, rather than specifying any particular garments. As you might well have conflicting ideas of what counts as smart’, you should ask your employer for clarification. Many employers that have a strict dress code choose to provide clothing or a discount on clothing. However, this is not necessarily compulsory for the employer and is a factor you need to consider when taking a job.

Protective clothing and equipment
Your employer can tell you to put on protective clothing and equipment (such as gloves, a visor, boots, etc.). If you don’t, your employer is entitled to take disciplinary action, which can include excluding you from the workplace.
You are required to:
• co-operate with your employer on health and safety
• correctly use work items provided by your employer, including protective equipment, in accordance with instructions
• not interfere with or misuse anything provided for your health and safety or welfare.

Of course, any protective gear has to fit and be appropriate for the situation. It shouldn’t cause you pain. If it does, you should negotiate alternative equipment or arrangements. Don’t be put off. Sometimes employers can, out of caution, interpret health and safety rules unnecessarily rigidly. And of course you shouldn’t be required to pay for any protective equipment or clothing that you need. However, if your employer buys the gear, they are entitled to keep it when you leave.

The obligation to maintain protective clothing lies with the employer. The employer is also required to provide an appropriate storage space to keep the protective equipment in when it is not being used. And finally, the employer must provide the equipment and service free of charge to the employee.

Jewellery
Banning employees from wearing jewellery and loose clothing may be justified to prevent a potential hygiene hazard if you work in areas of food production or areas which need to be kept sterile.

Likewise, your employer can judge that loose jewellery may constitute a snagging hazard if you operate machinery. If you think restrictions are not justified by health and safety concerns, talk to your workplace union rep if you have one, as they may know of solutions to the problem which other employees have used before.

Questions 15-20
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 15-20 on your answer sheet.

15. If employees are unsure what their company wishes them to wear for work, they should request…………
16. Some companies offer their employees a…………when they buy items to wear for work.
17. Employees who fail to wear protective clothing when required could be subject to…………procedures.
18. Employees ought not to be in……………because of protective clothing or equipment.
19. It is the company’s responsibility to ensure that there is a suitable place for the……………of protective equipment.
20. Employees who work with certain types of…………………may have to remove jewellery to avoid potential injuries.

Read the text below and answer Questions 21-27.

How to achieve a better work—life balance

As more and more employees work from home full time and everyone has 24/7 access to email, balancing work and family may not seem like an easily attainable goal. So how can you juggle the demands of both worlds? Below are some tips to help you get started.

It’s easy to get sucked into habits that, make us less efficient without realizing it — like keeping your social media page open at work so you don’t miss something ‘important’. Draw up a list with all the activities that don’t enhance your life or career. Then minimize the time you spend on them.

It’s hard to say no’, especially to a supervisor or loved one, but sometimes that powerful little word is essential. Learn to use ‘no’ judiciously and it will become a powerful tool in balancing work and family.

Research shows that exercise helps you remain alert. Finding time to hit the gym may be hard, but it will ultimately help you get more things done because exercise really boosts energy and improves your ability to concentrate.

Study after study shows that significant sleep deprivation affects your health and well-being. Exposure to electronics can significantly negatively impact your sleep, so try to unplug an hour before you go to sleep.

What would you do if you had a whole day to yourself with no demands on your time? While most people don’t have the luxury of a whole day dedicated to relaxation, constantly putting off that downtime and putting everyone’s needs before yours will wear you down. Pick a time to do something just for you. Even just a few minutes of ‘me time’ a day will help to recharge your batteries.

Don’t assume your family and manager are aware of your concerns. If you feel you have to adjust your schedule to discover a better work—life balance, then voice that requirement. If that means asking your boss for permission to leave a few minutes early once a week so you can hit that yoga class on the way home, do it.

All new habits require time to build, so if you find yourself sneaking your smartphone to bed, that’s okay. Leave your phone downstairs tomorrow night. Tiny steps are the key to finding that balance, so start small, and go from there. Most of all, know your limitations and what works best for you; then decide what really matters, what advice you want to follow, and prioritize.

Questions 21-27
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer. Write your answers in Boxes 21-27 on your answer sheet.

Achieving a better work-life balance
How to begin
• Make a complete (21)……………of things that are not helpful and reduce involvement in them
• Refuse some requests as this can be a useful (22)……………in gaining a better work-life balance
Things that cars help
• Regular exercise
o can increase (23)………………significantly
• Sleep
o insufficient sleep can make people ill
o avoid focusing on (24)………………in the lead-up to bedtime
Issues that require attention
• Those who see other people’s (25)……………as more important than their own will suffer
• If the working day is too long, get (26)…………to shorten it occasionally
• People should learn to recognise their own (27)…………

SECTION 3: Questions 23-40
Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.

San Francisco’s Golden Gale Bridge

A For several decades in the nineteenth century, there were calls to connect the rapidly growing metropolis of San Francisco to its neighbours across the mile-wide Golden Gate Strait, where San Francisco Bay opens onto the Pacific Ocean. Eventually, in 1919, officials asked the city engineer, Michael O’Shaughnessy, to explore the possibility of building a bridge. He began to consult engineers across the USA about the feasibility of doing so, and the cost. Most doubted whether a bridge could be built at all, or estimated that it would cost $100 million. However, a Chicago-based engineer named Joseph Strauss believed he could complete the project for a modest $25 to $30 million. After his proposal was accepted, Strauss set about convincing the communities on the northern end of the strait that the bridge would be to their benefit, as well as to that of San Francisco. With population centres growing fast, there was severe traffic congestion at the ferry docks, and motor vehicle travel by ferry was fast exceeding capacity.

B The bridge could not be constructed without the agreement of the US War Department, which owned the land on each side of the Strait and had the power to prevent any harbour construction that might affect shipping traffic. In 1924, San Francisco and Marin counties applied for a permit to build a bridge, and after hearing overwhelming arguments in favour of the project, the Secretary of War agreed. Despite the economic benefits promised by its supporters, the project met fierce resistance from a number of businesses – particularly ferry companies – and civic leaders. Not only would the bridge be an obstacle to shipping and spoil the bay’s natural beauty, they argued, it wouldn’t survive the sort of earthquake that had devastated the city in 1906. Eight years of legal actions followed as opponents tried to prevent it from being built.

C Meanwhile, Strauss’s team scrapped their original plans in favour of a suspension span capable of moving more than two feet to each side: this would withstand strong wind far better than a rigid structure. They also planned the two towers, and decided on a paint colour they called ‘international orange’.

D O’Shaughnessy, Strauss and the Secretary to the Mayor of San Francisco believed a special district needed to be created, with responsibility for planning, designing and financing construction. The formation of this district would enable all the counties affected by the bridge to have a say in the proceedings. This happened in 1928, when the California legislature passed an act to establish the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, consisting of six counties. In 1930, residents voted on the question of whether to put up their homes, their farms and their business properties as security for a $35 million bond issue to finance construction. The outcome was a large majority in favour.

However, the District struggled to find a financial backer amid the difficulties of the Great Depression, a problem made worse by years of expensive legal proceedings. Now desperate, Strauss personally sought help from the President of Bank of America, who provided a crucial boost by agreeing to buy $6 million in bonds in 1932.

E Construction began in January 1933, with the excavation of a vast amount of rock to establish the bridge’s two anchorages – the structures in the ground that would take the tension from the suspension cables. The crew consisted of virtually anyone capable of withstanding the physical rigours of the job, as out-of-work cab drivers, farmers and clerks lined up for the chance to earn steady wages as ironworkers and cement mixers.

The attempt to build what would be the first bridge support in the open ocean proved an immense challenge. Working from a long framework built out from the San Francisco side, divers plunged to depths of 90 feet through strong currents to blast away rock and remove the debris. The framework was damaged when it was struck by a ship in August 1933 and again during a powerful storm later in the year, setting construction back five months.

F The two towers were completed in June 1935, and a New Jersey-based company was appointed to handle the on-site construction of the suspension cables. Its engineers had mastered a technique in which individual steel wires were banded together in spools and carried across the length of the bridge on spinning wheels. Given a year to complete the task, they instead finished in just over six months, having spun more than 25,000 individual wires into each massive cable.

The roadway was completed in April 1937, and the bridge officially opened to pedestrians the following month. The next day, President Roosevelt announced its opening via White House telegraph.

G The Golden Gate has endured as a marvel of modern engineering; its main span was the longest in the world for a suspension bridge until 1981, while its towers made it the tallest bridge of any type until 1993. It withstood a destructive earthquake in 1989 and was closed to traffic only three times in its first 75 years due to weather conditions. Believed to be the most, photographed bridge in the world, this landmark was named one of the seven civil engineering wonders of the United States by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1994.

Questions 28-35
The text above has seven sections, A-G.
Which section mentions the following?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 28-35 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

28. why it was easy to recruit workers to build the bridge
29. a change in the design of the bridge
30. opposition to building the bridge
31. why a bridge was desirable
32. problems with raising funding for the bridge
33. permission being given to build the bridge
34. which records the bridge broke
35. the idea that building a bridge might be impossible

Questions 36-40
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

38. Building the bridge required a……………issued by the Secretary of War.
37. One objection to building the bridge was that another………………would destroy it.
38. Construction was delayed when the framework was damaged by a ship and again by a………
39. The last part of the bridge to be constructed was the………………
40. The bridge was first used by………………in May 1937.

SECTION 1: Questions 1-14
Read the text below and answer Questions 1-6.

TRANSITION CAKE FOR THE ELOEHLY

What is transition care?
Transition care is for older people who have been receiving medical treatment, but need more help to recover, and time to make a decision about the best place for them to live in the longer term. You can only access transition care directly from hospital.

Transition care is focused on individual goals and therapies and is given for a limited time only. It offers access to a package of services that may include:
• low-intensity therapy such as physiotherapy (exercise, mobility, strength and balance) and podiatry (foot care)
• access to a social worker
• nursing support for clinical care such as wound care
• personal care

Who provides transition care services?
Transition care is often provided by non-government organisations and is subsidised by the government. If your circumstances allow, it is expected you’ll contribute to the cost of your care.

Daily care fees are set by the organisation that provides your transition care services (your service provider). They should explain these fees to you, and the amount charged should form part of the agreement between you and the service provider. The fee is calculated on a daily basis.

Where do I receive transition care?
Transition care is provided in your own home or in a ‘live-in’ setting. This setting can be part of an existing aged-care home or health facility such as a separate wing of a hospital.

What if I’m already receiving services through a different programme?
If you’re already receiving subsidised residential care in an aged-care home, but you need to go somewhere else for transition care, your place in the aged-care home will be held until you return.

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text on page 16?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

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

1. Only hospital patients can go on to have transition care.
2. Transition care may be long term or short term.
3. Everyone receiving transition care must contribute to the cost.
4. Transition care at home is only available for patients who live alone.
5.Transition care may be given on a hospital site.
6. You may lose your place in a care home if you have to leave it to receive transition care.

Read the text below and answer Questions 7-14.

CABIN BAGS FOR AIR TRAVEL

If you want a small bag with wheels that you can take onto the plane with you, there’s a wide choice. Here are some of the best.

A The Flyer B3 is an ultra-lightweight cabin bag which can withstand some pretty harsh treatment, its nylon and polyester sides won’t rip or burst open if it’s dropped or thrown whilst in transit. However, the trolley handle feels quite thin and flimsy. The top carrying handle is hard and flat, and the side handle isn’t easy to grip.

B The Lightglide has two external pockets, both of which are zipped and lockable, but the inside pocket does not zip. In tests, we found the contents remain dry when given a good soaking, even around the zips. The trolley handle has a choice of two heights and the plastic hand grip doesn’t have any sharp ridges that’ll make your hands sore. For carrying there are fabric handles at the top and side.

C The Foxton is easy to control across most surfaces. However, the zips don’t always run smoothly especially around the corners, so you may have to give them a good tug, especially if the case is very full. This is definitely one to avoid if you’re going somewhere rainy as it lets loads of water in, and documents in the pockets will also get pretty wet unless they’re in plastic folders.

D The Skybag has a single external zipped pocket and another located inside the lid. Your clothes are kept in place by two adjustable straps. The zips, are easy to grip and they run smoothly around the case. However, this cabin bag felt a little heavy to pull on all but smooth floors, and it was hard to steer compared with some of the other suitcases.

E The Travelsure 35 is available in a huge range of fabric designs including leopard print or lipstick kisses. The retractable trolley handle is comfortable but can’t be adjusted to suit users of different heights. There’s no internal divider, but there are two handy zipped pockets in the lid. We test each bag by letting it fall onto a hard . floor – and our results show that you’ll have to treat this bag with great care if you want it to last. The fabric tore so badly at one of the corners that it was unusable.

Questions 7-14
The text above has five paragraphs, A-E.
Which paragraph mentions the following?

Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 7-14 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

7. The zips on this cabin bag may be difficult to use.
8. This cabin bag may be badly damaged if it is dropped.
9. The handles of this cabin bag have a number of different problems.
10. This cabin bag is very resistant to water.
11. There’s a good choice of patterns for the fabric of this cabin bag.
12. This cabin bag isn’t very easy to move around.
13. This cabin bag has just one internal zipped pocket.
14. The trolley handle of this cabin bag is adjustable.

SECTION 2: Questions 15-27
Read the text below and answer Questions 15-20

College car parking policy – staff

Parking permits and tickets
Staff permits are required to park a motor vehicle (other than a motorcycle parked in the cycle bays) on campus between 8.30 am and 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday, during term time. Annual permits can be purchased from the Hospitality Department. Application forms can be downloaded from the College website. All permits/tickets must be clearly displayed in the windscreen of vehicles during the dates of term time, as published in the academic calendar. Please inform the Services Administrator of any changes to registration details on telephone ext. 406. Annual car parking permits can be purchased from 20th September and are valid for one academic year from 1st October to 30th June. The annual charges for car parking are displayed on the application form.

Enforcement
The nominated contractor will issue fixed Penalty Charge Notices (see below) on vehicles that fail to display a valid permit and/or parking ticket, or vehicles that are parked on yellow lines or in disabled parking bays without displaying a blue disabled-parking permit. Reductions of parking space availability may arise in order to accommodate College recruitment activities and/or estate development/maintenance projects. Vehicles that are in breach of the policy will be issued with a Penalty Charge Notice.

Penalty Charge Notice (PCM)
The PCN is £30, increasing to £60 seven days after issue. The nominated contractor is responsible for the collection of unpaid PCNs and may use legal action where necessary to recover unpaid PCNs. If issued with a PCN, appeals must be taken up directly with the parking enforcement company (details included on the notice) not the college.

Disabled parking
The college has designated car parking spaces for disabled car drivers. The college will make all reasonable efforts to ensure these parking spaces are used only by drivers who display their blue disabled-parking permits, and a valid pay-and-display or annual permit, as appropriate.

If issues arise concerning the availability of the parking spaces, those concerned should raise the matter with the Domestic Services Department in order to effect a temporary solution.

Visitors
The College welcomes visitors and provides parking arrangements through pre-arranged permits, which must be displayed in the vehicle. Please contact the Hospitality Department for further information, On Open Days, sections of car parking on campus may be reserved for visitors.

Short-term drop-off/pick-up provision
There will be two short-term drop-off/pick-up spaces for users of the nursery, with a maximum often minutes’ waiting time allowed. These are located outside Concorde Building. The nursery staff bays may not be used under any circumstances.

Questions 15-20
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 15-20 on your answer sheet

15. Where can you buy parking permits at the college?
16. Which document shows the dates of term time?
17. What is the start date of annual parking permits?
18. Who is responsible for giving out parking fines if you park in the wrong place?
19. What do visitors need to show when parking?
20. Where can the nursery pick-up point be found?

Read the text below and answer Questions 21-27.

Maternity benefits

If you are expecting a baby, there are a number of benefit schemes that could help you financially. However, eligibility differs for each individual scheme.

Statutory Maternity Pay (SSVSP)
You may be entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) from your employer. This is a weekly payment, to help make it easier for you to take time off, both before and after the birth of your baby. SMP can be paid for up to 39 weeks.

You are entitled to SMP if you have been employed by the same company for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before your baby is due. You must also be earning an average of at least £87 per week (before tax). The amount you get depends on how much you earn. For 6 weeks, you will receive 90% of your average weekly earnings. Then you will receive £112.75 per week for the remaining 33 weeks.

Maternity Allowance (MA)
Maternity Allowance (MA) is available to those who are employed or self-employed but not eligible for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP). You may be entitled to Maternity Allowance if you have been employed or self-employed for at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before you are due to give birth. You don’t have to work for the same employer for those 26 weeks. You also don’t have to work full weeks (as a part week counts as a full week) during the same period. Maternity Allowance can be paid for up to 39 weeks, and is either paid at the same standard rate as SMP or 90% of your average weekly earnings. You’ll receive whichever amount is the lower. You can find Maternity Allowance forms at antenatal clinics throughout the country.

Child Tax Credit
If you’re on a low income, over 16, and are responsible for at least one child, you may also be entitled to Child Tax Credit. The amount you get will depend on your personal circumstances and income. When your income is being assessed, any child benefit, maintenance payments or Maternity Allowance payments will not be classed as income. This means that it will not be taken into account when calculating your Child Tax Credit.

Sure Start Maternity Payments
If you get benefits or Child Tax Credit because you’re on a low income, then you may be entitled to Sure Start Maternity Payments. These are individual grants to help towards the cost of a new baby.

Questions 21-27
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 21-27 on your answer sheet.

21. What is the minimum period you must have worked for an employer in order to be eligible for SMP?
22. For how long is SMP payable every week as a percentage of your average weekly earnings?
23. What sum is payable every week as the second part of SMP entitlement?
24. What is the maximum length of time MA is payable?
25. Where can MA forms be obtained?
26. Apart from income, what else is considered when assessing how much Child Tax Credit is paid?
27. What are Sure Start Maternity Payments?

SECTION 3 Questions 28-40
Questions 28-32
The text below has five sections, A-E.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Solving the puzzle of a papyrus document
ii The importance of written records and different ways of recording them
iii The use of papyrus for a range of purposes
iv Suggestions for future possibilities for papyrus
v How papyrus was cultivated and different manufacturing methods
vi The decline of papyrus use
vii The preservation and destruction of papyrus documents
viii The process of papyrus production

28. Section A
29. Section B
30. Section C
31. Section D
32. Section E

PAPYRUS
Used by the ancient Egyptians to make paper, the papyrus plant has
helped to shape the world we live in

A Libraries and archives are cultural crossroads of knowledge exchange, where the past transmits information to the present, and where the present has the opportunity to inform the future. Bureaucracies have become the backbone of civilizations, as governments try to keep track of populations, business transactions and taxes. At a personal level, our lives are governed by the documents we possess; we are certified on paper literally from birth to death. And written documentation carries enormous cultural importance: consider the consequences of signing the Foundation Document of the United Nations or the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Documentation requires a writing tool and a surface upon which to record the information permanently. About 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians started to use reeds or sticks to make marks on mud blocks which were then baked, but despite being fireproof, these were difficult to store. Other cultures used more flexible but less permanent surfaces, including animal skins and wood strips. In western culture, the adoption of papyrus was to have a great impact. Sheets of papyrus not only provide an invaluable record of people’s daily lives, they can also be dated using carbon-dating techniques, giving precise information about the age of the text written on them.

B Papyrus is strongly associated with Egyptian culture, although all the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean used it. The papyrus sedge is a tall grass-like plant. It was harvested from shallow water and swamplands on the banks of the River Nile. Manufacturing sheets of papyrus from papyrus sedge was a complex, messy process. Pith from inside the plant’s stem was cut into long strips that were laid side by side. These were then covered with a second layer of strips which were laid at right angles to the first, then soaked in water and hammered together. The sheet was then crushed to extract the water, dried and then polished to produce a high-quality writing surface, individual sheets could be glued together and rolled up to make scrolls or folded and bound to form books.

C In moist climates the cellulose-rich sheets of papyrus would readily decay, becoming covered by mould or full of holes from attacks by insects. But in dry climates, such as the Middle East, papyrus is a stable, rot-resistant writing surface. The earliest known roll of papyrus scroll was found in the tomb of an official called Hemeka near Memphis, which was then the capital city of Egypt, and is around five thousand years old. in 79CE, nearly 2,000 papyrus scrolls in the library of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law were protected at Herculaneum by ash from the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. However, the most famous discoveries of papyrus have come from the rubbish dumps of the ancient town of Oxyrhynchus, some 160km south-west of Cairo, in the desert to the west of the Nile. Oxyrhynchus was a regional administrative capital and for a thousand years generated vast amounts of administrative documentation, including accounts, tax returns and correspondence, which was periodically discarded to make room for more. Over time, a thick layer of sand covered these dumps, andthey were forgotten. But the documents were protected by the sand, creating a time capsule that allowed astonishing glimpses into the lives of the town’s inhabitants over hundreds of years.

Collections of documents that record information and ideas have frequently been viewed as potentially dangerous. For thousands of years, governments, despots and conquerors have resorted to burning libraries and books to rid themselves of inconvenient evidence or obliterate cultures and ideas that they found politically, morally or religiously unacceptable. One such calamity, the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, and the papyrus scrolls and books it contained, has been mythologized and has come to symbolize the global loss of cultural knowledge.

D Besides their use in record-keeping, papyrus stems were used in many other aspects of Mediterranean life, such as for boat construction and making ropes, sails and baskets, as well as being a source of food. In 1969 the adventurer Thor Heyerdahl attempted to cross the Atlantic from Morocco in the boat Ra, to show that it was possible for mariners in ancient times to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Ra was made from bundles of papyrus stems and modelled on ancient Egyptian craft. As a marshland plant, papyrus sedge stabilizes soils and reduces erosion, while some investigations show that it has potential for water purification and sewage treatment.

E True paper was probably invented in China in the first century CE. Like papyrus, it was constructed from a meshwork of plant fibres, but the Chinese used fibres from the white mulberry tree, which yielded a tough, flexible material that could be folded, stretched, and compressed. The adoption of this paper by western cultures soon rendered papyrus obsolete.

Despite dreams of paper-free societies, western cultures still use enormous quantities of paper, often in ways that it would be inconceivable to use papyrus for. As a paper substitute, the role of the papyrus sedge in western cultures has been superseded; papyrus is little more than a niche product for the tourist market. What makes papyrus noteworthy for western societies nowadays is its use as the surface upon which our ancient ancestors recorded their lives, their art and their science. In the words of the ancient Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, it is ‘the material on which the immortality of human beings depends’.

Questions 33-37
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.

33. What was the problem with using animal skins and wood strips for writing on?
A They did not last for a long time.
B They were not easy to store.
C They were insufficiently flexible.
D They could be destroyed by fire.

34. Why did papyrus manufacturers hammer the papyrus?
A to remove water from the pith strips
B to join the layers of pith strips together
C to allow the pith strips to be easily cut
D to position the layers of pith strips at the correct angle

35. When referring to burning libraries and books, the writer is suggesting that
A information can be used for harm as well as for good.
B new ways must be found to ensure information is not lost.
C cultural knowledge depends on more than written texts.
D those in power may Wish to keep others in ignorance.

36. The writer refers to Thor Heyerdahl to illustrate the point that
A papyrus could be used as a food on long sea voyages.
B the ancient Egyptians already had advanced navigation skills.
C papyrus could be used to build boats for long sea journeys.
D the ancient Egyptians knew of the environmental benefits of papyrus

37. What does the writer conclude about papyrus today?
A It is better for the environment than using paper.
B Its significance is restricted to its role in the past.
C It is still the best writing surface for some purposes.
D More efforts need to be made to ensure it stays in use.

Questions 38-40
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

How papyrus documents have survived

Papyrus is rich in cellulose and in some conditions will be destroyed by fungal growths or be consumed by (38)…………………….However, it can survive for long periods in an environment that is dry. It has been found in a 5,000-year-old (39)………………………..in Egypt, and in Herculaneum many papyrus documents were preserved following a huge (40)………………………….in 79 CE. in the town of Oxyrhynchus, unwanted administrative documents were left on rubbish dumps which were covered with sand, preserving them for many years.

The secret of staying young

Pheidole dentata, a native ant of the south-eastern U.S., isn’t immortal. But scientists have found that it doesn’t seem to show any signs of aging. Old worker ants can do everything just as well as the youngsters, and their brains appear just as sharp. ‘We get a picture that these ants really don’t decline,’ says Ysabel Giraldo, who studied the ants for her doctoral thesis at Boston University.

Such age-defying feats are rare in the animal kingdom. Naked mole rats can live for almost 30 years and stay fit for nearly their entire lives. They can still reproduce even when old, and they never get cancer. But the vast majority of animals deteriorate with age just like people do. Like the naked mole rat, ants are social creatures that usually live in highly organised colonies. ‘It’s this social complexity that makes P. dentata useful for studying aging in people,’ says Giraldo, now at the California Institute of Technology. Humans are also highly social, a trait that has been connected to healthier aging. By contrast, most animal studies of aging use mice, worms or fruit flies, which all lead much more isolated lives.

In the lab, P. dentata worker ants typically live for around 140 days. Giraldo focused on ants at four age ranges: 20 to 22 days, 45 to 47 days, 95 to 97 days and 120 to 122 days. Unlike all previous studies, which only estimated how old the ants were, her work tracked the ants from the time the pupae became adults, so she knew their exact ages. Then she put them through a range of tests.

Giraldo watched how well the ants took care of the young of the colony, recording how often each ant attended to, carried and fed them. She compared how well 20-day-old and 95-day-old ants followed the telltale scent that the insects usually leave to mark a trail to food. She tested how ants responded to light and also measured how active they were by counting how often ants in a small dish walked across a line. And she experimented with how ants react to live prey: a tethered fruit fly. Giraldo expected the older ants to perform poorly in all these tasks. But the elderly insects were all good caretakers and trail-followers—the 95-day-old ants could track the scent even longer than their younger counterparts. They all responded to light well, and the older ants were more active. And when it came to reacting to prey, the older ants attacked the poor fruit fly just as aggressively as the young ones did, flaring their mandibles or pulling at the fly’s legs.

Then Giraldo compared the brains of 20-day-old and 95-day-old ants, identifying any cells that were close to death. She saw no major differences with age, nor was there any difference in the location of the dying cells, showing that age didn’t seem to affect specific brain functions. Ants and other insects have structures in their brains called mushroom bodies, which are important for processing information, learning and memory. She also wanted to see if aging affects the density of synaptic complexes within these structures—regions where neurons come together. Again, the answer was no. What was more, the old ants didn’t experience any drop in the levels of either serotonin or dopamine—brain chemicals whose decline often coincides with aging. In humans, for example, a decrease in serotonin has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

‘This is the first time anyone has looked at both behavioral and neural changes in these ants so thoroughly,’ says Giraldo, who recently published the findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Scientists have looked at some similar aspects in bees, but the results of recent bee studies were mixed—some studies showed age-related declines, which biologists call senescence, and others didn’t. ‘For now, the study raises more questions than it answers,’ Giraldo says, ‘including how P. dentata stays in such good shape.’

Also, if the ants don’t deteriorate with age, why do they die at all? Out in the wild, the ants probably don’t live for a full 140 days thanks to predators, disease and just being in an environment that’s much harsher than the comforts of the lab. ‘The lucky ants that do live into old age may suffer a steep decline just before dying,’ Giraldo says, but she can’t say for sure because her study wasn’t designed to follow an ant’s final moments.

‘It will be important to extend these findings to other species of social insects,’ says Gene E. Robinson, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This ant might be unique, or it might represent a broader pattern among other social bugs with possible clues to the science of aging in larger animals. Either way, it seems that for these ants, age really doesn’t matter.

Questions 1 – 8
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answer in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Ysabel Giraldo’s research

Focused on a total of (1)………………different age groups of ants, analysing

Behaviour:
• how well ants looked after their (2)………………
• their ability to locate (3)……………..using a scent trail
• the effect that (4)………….had on them
• how (5)………………they attacked prey

Brains:
• comparison between age and the (6)……………….of dying cells in the brains of ants
• condition of synaptic complexes (areas in which (7)……………….meet) in the brain’s ‘mushroom bodies’
• level of two (8)…………….in the brain associated with ageing

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 Pheidole dentata ants are the only known animals which remain active for almost their whole lives.
10 Ysabel Giraldo was the first person to study Pheidole dentata ants using precise data about the insects’ ages.
11 The ants in Giraldo’s experiments behaved as she had predicted that they would.
12 The recent studies of bees used different methods of measuring age- related decline.
13 Pheidole dentata ants kept in laboratory conditions tend to live longer lives.

Why zoos are good

A In my view, it is perfectly possible for many species of animals living in zoos or wildlife parks to have a quality of life as high as, or higher than, in the wild. Animals in good zoos get a varied and high-quality diet with all the supplements required, and any illnesses they might have will be treated. Their movement might be somewhat restricted, but they have a safe environment in which to live, and they are spared bullying and social ostracism by others of their kind. They do not suffer from the threat or stress of predators, or the irritation and pain of parasites or injuries. The average captive animal will have a greater life expectancy compared with its wild counterpart, and will not die of drought, of starvation or in the jaws of a predator. A lot of very nasty things happen to truly ‘wild’ animals that simply don’t happen in good zoos, and to view a life that is ‘free’ as one that is automatically ‘good’ is, I think, an error. Furthermore, zoos serve several key purposes.

B Firstly, zoos aid conservation. Colossal numbers of species are becoming extinct across the world, and many more are increasingly threatened and therefore risk extinction. Moreover, some of these collapses have been sudden, dramatic and unexpected, or were simply discovered very late in the day. A species protected in captivity can be bred up to provide a reservoir population against a population crash or extinction in the wild. A good number of species only exist in captivity, with many of these living in zoos. Still more only exist in the wild because they have been reintroduced from zoos, or have wild populations that have been boosted by captive bred animals. Without these efforts there would be fewer species alive today. Although reintroduction successes are few and far between, the numbers are increasing, and the very fact that species have been saved or reintroduced as a result of captive breeding proves the value of such initiatives.

C Zoos also provide education. Many children and adults, especially those in cities, will never see a wild animal beyond a fox or pigeon. While it is true that television documentaries are becoming ever more detailed and impressive, and many natural history specimens are on display in museums, there really is nothing to compare with seeing a living creature in the flesh, hearing it, smelling it, watching what it does and having the time to absorb details. That alone will bring a greater understanding and perspective to many, and hopefully give them a greater appreciation for wildlife, conservation efforts and how they can contribute.

D In addition to this, there is also the education that can take place in zoos through signs, talks and presentations which directly communicate information to visitors about the animals they are seeing and their place in the world. This was an area where zoos used to be lacking, but they are now increasingly sophisticated in their communication and outreach work. Many zoos also work directly to educate conservation workers in other countries, or send their animal keepers abroad to contribute their knowledge and skills to those working in zoos and reserves, thereby helping to improve conditions and reintroductions all over the world.

E Zoos also play a key role in research. If we are to save wild species and restore and repair ecosystems we need to know about how key species live, act and react. Being able to undertake research on animals in zoos where there is less risk and fewer variables means real changes can be effected on wild populations. Finding out about, for example, the oestrus cycle of an animal or its breeding rate helps us manage wild populations. Procedures such as capturing and moving at-risk or dangerous individuals are bolstered by knowledge gained in zoos about doses for anaesthetics, and by experience in handling and transporting animals. This can make a real difference to conservation efforts and to the reduction of human-animal conflicts, and can provide a knowledge base for helping with the increasing threats of habitat destruction and other problems.

F In conclusion, considering the many ongoing global threats to the environment, it is hard for me to see zoos as anything other than essential to the long-term survival of numerous species. They are vital not just in terms of protecting animals, but as a means of learning about them to aid those still in the wild, as well as educating and informing the general population about these animals and their world so that they can assist or at least accept the need to be more environmentally conscious. Without them, the world would be, and would increasingly become, a much poorer place.

Questions 14 – 17
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

14 a reference to how quickly animal species can die out
15 reasons why it is preferable to study animals in captivity rather than in the wild
16 mention of two ways of learning about animals other than visiting them in zoos
17 reasons why animals in zoos may be healthier than those in the wild

Questions 18 – 22
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 18-22 on your answer sheet, write

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

18 An animal is likely to live longer in a zoo than in the wild.
19 There are some species in zoos which can no longer be found in the wild.
20 Improvements in the quality of TV wildlife documentaries have resulted in increased numbers of zoo visitors.
21 Zoos have always excelled at transmitting information about animals to the public.
22 Studying animals in zoos is less stressful for the animals than studying them in the wild.

Questions 23 and 24
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following are stated about zoo staff in the text?
A Some take part in television documentaries about animals.
B Some travel to overseas locations to join teams in zoos.
C Some get experience with species in the wild before taking up zoo jobs.
D Some teach people who are involved with conservation projects.
E Some specialise in caring for species which are under threat.

Questions 25 and 26
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of these beliefs about zoos does the writer mention in the text?
A They can help children overcome their fears of wild animals.
B They can increase public awareness of environmental issues.
C They can provide employment for a range of professional people.
D They can generate income to support wildlife conservation projects.
E They can raise animals which can later be released into the wild.

READING PASSAGE 3

Chelsea Rochman, an ecologist at the University of California, Davis, has been trying to answer a dismal question: Is everything terrible, or are things just very, very bad?

Rochman is a member of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis’s marine-debris working group, a collection of scientists who study, among other things, the growing problem of marine debris, also known as ocean trash. Plenty of studies have sounded alarm bells about the state of marine debris; in a recent paper published in the journal Ecology, Rochman and her colleagues set out to determine how many of those perceived risks are real.

Often, Rochman says, scientists will end a paper by speculating about the broader impacts of what they’ve found. For example, a study could show that certain seabirds eat plastic bags, and go on to warn that whole bird populations are at risk of dying out. ‘But the truth was that nobody had yet tested those perceived threats,’ Rochman says. ‘There wasn’t a lot of information.’

Rochman and her colleagues examined more than a hundred papers on the impacts of marine debris that were published through 2013. Within each paper, they asked what threats scientists had studied – 366 perceived threats in all – and what they’d actually found.

In 83 percent of cases, the perceived dangers of ocean trash were proven true. In the remaining cases, the working group found the studies had weaknesses in design and content which affected the validity of their conclusions – they lacked a control group, for example, or used faulty statistics.

Strikingly, Rochman says, only one well-designed study failed to find the effect it was looking for, an investigation of mussels ingesting microscopic plastic bits. The plastic moved from the mussels’ stomachs to their bloodstreams, scientists found, and stayed there for weeks – but didn’t seem to stress out the shellfish.

While mussels may be fine eating trash, though, the analysis also gave a clearer picture of the many ways that ocean debris is bothersome.

Within the studies they looked at, most of the proven threats came from plastic debris, rather than other materials like metal or wood. Most of the dangers also involved large pieces of debris – animals getting entangled in trash, for example, or eating it and severely injuring themselves.

But a lot of ocean debris is ‘microplastic’, or pieces smaller than five millimeters. These may be ingredients used in cosmetics and toiletries, fibers shed by synthetic clothing in the wash, or eroded remnants of larger debris. Compared to the number of studies investigating large-scale debris, Rochman’s group found little research on the effects of these tiny bits. ‘There are a lot of open questions still for microplastic,’ Rochman says, though she notes that more papers on the subject have been published since 2013, the cutoff point for the group’s analysis.

There are also, she adds, a lot of open questions about the ways that ocean debris can lead to sea-creature death. Many studies have looked at how plastic affects an individual animal, or that animal’s tissues or cells, rather than whole populations. And in the lab, scientists often use higher concentrations of plastic than what’s really in the ocean. None of that tells us how many birds or fish or sea turtles could die from plastic pollution – or how deaths in one species could affect that animal’s predators, or the rest of the ecosystem.

‘We need to be asking more ecologically relevant questions,’ Rochman says. Usually, scientists don’t know exactly how disasters such as a tanker accidentally spilling its whole cargo of oil and polluting huge areas of the ocean will affect the environment until after they’ve happened. ‘We don’t ask the right questions early enough,’ she says. But if ecologists can understand how the slow-moving effect of ocean trash is damaging ecosystems, they might be able to prevent things from getting worse.

Asking the right questions can help policy makers, and the public, figure out where to focus their attention. The problems that look or sound most dramatic may not be the best places to start. For example, the name of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ – a collection of marine debris in the northern Pacific Ocean – might conjure up a vast, floating trash island. In reality though, much of the debris is tiny or below the surface; a person could sail through the area without seeing any trash at all. A Dutch group called ‘The Ocean Cleanup’ is currently working on plans to put mechanical devices in the Pacific Garbage Patch and similar areas to suck up plastic. But a recent paper used simulations to show that strategically positioning the cleanup devices closer to shore would more effectively reduce pollution over the long term.

‘I think clearing up some of these misperceptions is really important,’ Rochman says. Among scientists as well as in the media, she says, ‘A lot of the images about strandings and entanglement and all of that cause the perception that plastic debris is killing everything in the ocean.’ Interrogating the existing scientific literature can help ecologists figure out which problems really need addressing, and which ones they’d be better off- like the mussels – absorbing and ignoring.

Questions 27 – 33
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet, write

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

27 Rochman and her colleagues were the first people to research the problem of marine debris.
28 The creatures most in danger from ocean trash are certain seabirds.
29 The studies Rochman has reviewed have already proved that populations of some birds will soon become extinct.
30 Rochman analysed papers on the different kinds of danger caused by ocean trash.
31 Most of the research analysed by Rochman and her colleagues was badly designed.
32 One study examined by Rochman was expecting to find that mussels were harmed by eating plastic.
33 Some mussels choose to eat plastic in preference to their natural diet.

Questions 34 – 39
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 34-39 on your answer sheet.

Findings related to marine debris

Studies of marine debris found the biggest threats were
• plastic (not metal or wood)
• bits of debris that were (34)……………..(harmful to animals)

There was little research into (35)……………….e.g. from synthetic fibres.

Drawbacks of the studies examined
• most of them focused on individual animals, not entire 36
• the (37)…………………….of plastic used in the lab did not always reflect those in the ocean
• there was insufficient information on
– numbers of animals which could be affected
– the impact of a reduction in numbers on the (38)……………….of that species
– the impact on the ecosystem

Rochman says more information is needed on the possible impact of future (39)………….(e.g. involving oil).

Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

40 What would be the best title for this passage?
A Assessing the threat of marine debris
B Marine debris: who is to blame?
C A new solution to the problem of marine debris
D Marine debris: the need for international action

The concept of intelligence

A Looked at in one way, everyone knows what intelligence is; looked at in another way, no one does. In other words, people all have unconscious notions – known as ‘implicit theories’ – of intelligence, but no one knows for certain what it actually is. This chapter addresses how people conceptualize intelligence, whatever it may actually be. But why should we even care what people think intelligence is, as opposed only to valuing whatever it actually is? There are at least four reasons people’s conceptions of intelligence matter.

B First, implicit theories of intelligence drive the way in which people perceive and evaluate their own intelligence and that of others. To better understand the judgments people make about their own and others’ abilities, it is useful to learn about people’s implicit theories. For example, parents’ implicit theories of their children’s language development will determine at what ages they will be willing to make various corrections in their children’s speech. More generally, parents’ implicit theories of intelligence will determine at what ages they believe their children are ready to perform various cognitive tasks. Job interviewers will make hiring decisions on the basis of their implicit theories of intelligence. People will decide who to be friends with on the basis of such theories. In sum, knowledge about implicit theories of intelligence is important because this knowledge is so often used by people to make judgments in the course of their everyday lives.

C Second, the implicit theories of scientific investigators ultimately give rise to their explicit theories. Thus it is useful to find out what these implicit theories are. Implicit theories provide a framework that is useful in defining the general scope of a phenomenon – especially a not-well-understood phenomenon. These implicit theories can suggest what aspects of the phenomenon have been more or less attended to in previous investigations.

D Third, implicit theories can be useful when an investigator suspects that existing explicit theories are wrong or misleading. If an investigation of implicit theories reveals little correspondence between the extant implicit and explicit theories, the implicit theories may be wrong. But the possibility also needs to be taken into account that the explicit theories are wrong and in need of correction or supplementation. For example, some implicit theories of intelligence suggest the need for expansion of some of our explicit theories of the construct.

E Finally, understanding implicit theories of intelligence can help elucidate developmental and cross-cultural differences. As mentioned earlier, people have expectations for intellectual performances that differ for children of different ages. How these expectations differ is in part a function of culture. For example, expectations for children who participate in Western-style schooling are almost certain to be different from those for children who do not participate in such schooling.

F I have suggested that there are three major implicit theories of how intelligence relates to society as a whole (Sternberg, 1997). These might be called Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian. These views are not based strictly, but rather, loosely, on the philosophies of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson, three great statesmen in the history of the United States.

G The Hamiltonian view, which is similar to the Platonic view, is that people are born with different levels of intelligence and that those who are less intelligent need the good offices of the more intelligent to keep them in line, whether they are called government officials or, in Plato’s term, philosopher-kings. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) seem to have shared this belief when they wrote about the emergence of a cognitive (high-IQ) elite, which eventually would have to take responsibility for the largely irresponsible masses of non-elite (low-IQ) people who cannot take care of themselves. Left to themselves, the unintelligent would create, as they always have created, a kind of chaos.

H The Jeffersonian view is that people should have equal opportunities, but they do not necessarily avail themselves equally of these opportunities and are not necessarily equally rewarded for their accomplishments. People are rewarded for what they accomplish, if given equal opportunity. Low achievers are not rewarded to the same extent as high achievers. In the Jeffersonian view, the goal of education is not to favor or foster an elite, as in the Hamiltonian tradition, but rather to allow children the opportunities to make full use of the skills they have. My own views are similar to these (Sternberg, 1997).

I The Jacksonian view is that all people are equal, not only as human beings but in terms of their competencies – that one person would serve as well as another in government or on a jury or in almost any position of responsibility. In this view of democracy, people are essentially intersubstitutable except for specialized skills, all of which can be learned. In this view, we do not need or want any institutions that might lead to favoring one group over another.

J Implicit theories of intelligence and of the relationship of intelligence to society perhaps need to be considered more carefully than they have been because they often serve as underlying presuppositions for explicit theories and even experimental designs that are then taken as scientific contributions. Until scholars are able to discuss their implicit theories and thus their assumptions, they are likely to miss the point of what others are saying when discussing their explicit theories and their data.

Questions 1 – 3
Reading Passage 1 has ten sections, A-J.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.

1 information about how non-scientists’ assumptions about intelligence influence their behaviour towards others
2 a reference to lack of clarity over the definition of intelligence
3 the point that a researcher’s implicit and explicit theories may be very different

Questions 4 – 6
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 4-6 on your answer sheet, write

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

4 Slow language development in children is likely to prove disappointing to their parents.
5 People’s expectations of what children should gain from education are universal.
6 Scholars may discuss theories without fully understanding each other.

Questions 7 – 13
Look at the following statements (Questions 7-13) and the list of theories below. Match each statement with the correct theory, A, B, or C.
Write the correct letter, A, B, or C, in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

7 It is desirable for the same possibilities to be open to everyone.
8 No section of society should have preferential treatment at the expense of another.
9 People should only gain benefits on the basis of what they actually achieve.
10 Variation in intelligence begins at birth.
11 The more intelligent people should be in positions of power.
12 Everyone can develop the same abilities.
13 People of low intelligence are likely to lead uncontrolled lives.

List of Theories
A Hamiltonian
B Jeffersonian
C Jacksonian

Saving bugs to find new drugs

A More drugs than you might think are derived from, or inspired by, compounds found in living things. Looking to nature for the soothing and curing of our ailments is nothing new – we have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. You only have to look at other primates – such as the capuchin monkeys who rub themselves with toxin-oozing millipedes to deter mosquitoes, or the chimpanzees who use noxious forest plants to rid themselves of intestinal parasites – to realise that our ancient ancestors too probably had a basic grasp of medicine.

B Pharmaceutical science and chemistry built on these ancient foundations and perfected the extraction, characterisation, modification and testing of these natural products. Then, for a while, modern pharmaceutical science moved its focus away from nature and into the laboratory, designing chemical compounds from scratch. The main cause of this shift is that although there are plenty of promising chemical compounds in nature, finding them is far from easy. Securing sufficient numbers of the organism in question, isolating and characterising the compounds of interest, and producing large quantities of these compounds are all significant hurdles.

C Laboratory-based drug discovery has achieved varying levels of success, something which has now prompted the development of new approaches focusing once again on natural products. With the ability to mine genomes for useful compounds, it is now evident that we have barely scratched the surface of nature’s molecular diversity. This realisation, together with several looming health crises, such as antibiotic resistance, has put bioprospecting – the search for useful compounds in nature – firmly back on the map.

D Insects are the undisputed masters of the terrestrial domain, where they occupy every possible niche. Consequently, they have a bewildering array of interactions with other organisms, something which has driven the evolution of an enormous range of very interesting compounds for defensive and offensive purposes. Their remarkable diversity exceeds that of every other group of animals on the planet combined. Yet even though insects are far and away the most diverse animals in existence, their potential as sources of therapeutic compounds is yet to be realised.

E From the tiny proportion of insects that have been investigated, several promising compounds have been identified. For example, alloferon, an antimicrobial compound produced by blow fly larvae, is used as an antiviral and antitumor agent in South Korea and Russia. The larvae of a few other insect species are being investigated for the potent antimicrobial compounds they produce. Meanwhile, a compound from the venom of the wasp Polybia paulista has potential in cancer treatment.

F Why is it that insects have received relatively little attention in bioprospecting? Firstly, there are so many insects that, without some manner of targeted approach, investigating this huge variety of species is a daunting task. Secondly, insects are generally very small, and the glands inside them that secrete potentially useful compounds are smaller still. This can make it difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of the compound for subsequent testing. Thirdly, although we consider insects to be everywhere, the reality of this ubiquity is vast numbers of a few extremely common species. Many insect species are infrequently encountered and very difficult to rear in captivity, which, again, can leave us with insufficient material to work with.

G My colleagues and I at Aberystwyth University in the UK have developed an approach in which we use our knowledge of ecology as a guide to target our efforts. The creatures that particularly interest us are the many insects that secrete powerful poison for subduing prey and keeping it fresh for future consumption. There are even more insects that are masters of exploiting filthy habitats, such as faeces and carcasses, where they are regularly challenged by thousands of micro¬organisms. These insects have many antimicrobial compounds for dealing with pathogenic bacteria and fungi, suggesting that there is certainly potential to find many compounds that can serve as or inspire new antibiotics.

H Although natural history knowledge points us in the right direction, it doesn’t solve the problems associated with obtaining useful compounds from insects. Fortunately, it is now possible to snip out the stretches of the insect’s DNAthat carry the codes for the interesting compounds and insert them into cell lines that allow larger quantities to be produced. And although the road from isolating and characterising compounds with desirable qualities to developing a commercial product is very long and full of pitfalls, the variety of successful animal-derived pharmaceuticals on the market demonstrates there is a precedent here that is worth exploring.

I With every bit of wilderness that disappears, we deprive ourselves of potential medicines. As much as I’d love to help develop a groundbreaking insect-derived medicine, my main motivation for looking at insects in this way is conservation. I sincerely believe that all species, however small and seemingly insignificant, have a right to exist for their own sake. If we can shine a light on the darker recesses of nature’s medicine cabinet, exploring the useful chemistry of the most diverse animals on the planet, I believe we can make people think differently about the value of nature.

Questions 14 – 20
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-l.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-l, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

14 mention of factors driving a renewed interest in natural medicinal compounds
15 how recent technological advances have made insect research easier
16 examples of animals which use medicinal substances from nature
17 reasons why it is challenging to use insects in drug research
18 reference to how interest in drug research may benefit wildlife
19 a reason why nature-based medicines fell out of favour for a period
20 an example of an insect-derived medicine in use at the moment

Questions 21 and 22

Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 21 and 22 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following make insects interesting for drug research?
A the huge number of individual insects in the world
B the variety of substances insects have developed to protect themselves
C the potential to extract and make use of insects’ genetic codes
D the similarities between different species of insect
E the manageable size of most insects

Questions 23 – 26
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

Research at Aberystwyth University

Ross Piper and fellow zoologists at Aberystwyth University are using their expertise in (23)……………..when undertaking bioprospecting with insects. They are especially interested in the compounds that insects produce to overpower and preserve their (24)…………………They are also interested in compounds which insects use to protect themselves from pathogenic bacteria and fungi found in their (25)………………Piper hopes that these substances will be useful in the development of drugs such as (26)………………

The power of play

Virtually every child, the world over, plays. The drive to play is so intense that children will do so in any circumstances, for instance when they have no real toys, or when parents do not actively encourage the behavior. In the eyes of a young child, running, pretending, and building are fun. Researchers and educators know that these playful activities benefit the development of the whole child across social, cognitive, physical, and emotional domains. Indeed, play is such an instrumental component to healthy child development that the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (1989) recognized play as a fundamental right of every child.

Yet, while experts continue to expound a powerful argument for the importance of play in children’s lives, the actual time children spend playing continues to decrease. Today, children play eight hours less each week than their counterparts did two decades ago (Elkind 2008). Under pressure of rising academic standards, play is being replaced by test preparation in kindergartens and grade schools, and parents who aim to give their preschoolers a leg up are led to believe that flashcards and educational ‘toys’ are the path to success. Our society has created a false dichotomy between play and learning.

Through play, children learn to regulate their behavior, lay the foundations for later learning in science and mathematics, figure out the complex negotiations of social relationships, build a repertoire of creative problem-solving skills, and so much more. There is also an important role for adults in guiding children through playful learning opportunities.

Full consensus on a formal definition of play continues to elude the researchers and theorists who study it. Definitions range from discrete descriptions of various types of play such as physical, construction, language, or symbolic play (Miller & Almon 2009), to lists of broad criteria, based on observations and attitudes, that are meant to capture the essence of all play behaviors (e.g. Rubin et al. 1983).

A majority of the contemporary definitions of play focus on several key criteria. The founder of the National Institute for Play, Stuart Brown, has described play as ‘anything that spontaneously is done for its own sake’. More specifically, he says it ‘appears purposeless, produces pleasure and joy, [and] leads one to the next stage of mastery’ (as quoted in Tippett 2008). Similarly, Miller and Almon (2009) say that play includes ‘activities that are freely chosen and directed by children and arise from intrinsic motivation’. Often, play is defined along a continuum as more or less playful using the following set of behavioral and dispositional criteria (e.g. Rubin et al. 1983):

Play is pleasurable: Children must enjoy the activity or it is not play. It is intrinsically motivated: Children engage in play simply for the satisfaction the behavior itself brings. It has no extrinsically motivated function or goal. Play is process oriented: When children play, the means are more important than the ends. It is freely chosen, spontaneous and voluntary. If a child is pressured, they will likely not think of the activity as play. Play is actively engaged: Players must be physically and/or mentally involved in the activity. Play is non-literal. It involves make-believe.

According to this view, children’s playful behaviors can range in degree from 0% to 100% playful. Rubin and colleagues did not assign greater weight to any one dimension in determining playfulness; however, other researchers have suggested that process orientation and a lack of obvious functional purpose may be the most important aspects of play (e.g. Pellegrini 2009).

From the perspective of a continuum, play can thus blend with other motives and attitudes that are less playful, such as work. Unlike play, work is typically not viewed as enjoyable and it is extrinsically motivated (i.e. it is goal oriented). Researcher Joan Goodman (1994) suggested that hybrid forms of work and play are not a detriment to learning; rather, they can provide optimal contexts for learning. For example, a child may be engaged in a difficult, goal-directed activity set up by their teacher, but they may still be actively engaged and intrinsically motivated. At this mid-point between play and work, the child’s motivation, coupled with guidance from an adult, can create robust opportunities for playful learning.

Critically, recent research supports the idea that adults can facilitate children’s learning while maintaining a playful approach in interactions known as ‘guided play’ (Fisher et al. 2011). The adult’s role in play varies as a function of their educational goals and the child’s developmental level (Hirsch-Pasek et al. 2009).

Guided play takes two forms. At a very basic level, adults can enrich the child’s environment by providing objects or experiences that promote aspects of a curriculum. In the more direct form of guided play, parents or other adults can support children’s play by joining in the fun as a co-player, raising thoughtful questions, commenting on children’s discoveries, or encouraging further exploration or new facets to the child’s activity. Although playful learning can be somewhat structured, it must also be child-centered (Nicolopolou et al. 2006). Play should stem from the child’s own desire.

Both free and guided play are essential elements in a child-centered approach to playful learning. Intrinsically motivated free play provides the child with true autonomy, while guided play is an avenue through which parents and educators can provide more targeted learning experiences. In either case, play should be actively engaged, it should be predominantly child-directed, and it must be fun.

Questions 27 – 31
Look at the following statements (Questions 27-31) and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

27 Play can be divided into a number of separate categories.
28 Adults’ intended goals affect how they play with children.
29 Combining work with play may be the best way for children to learn.
30 Certain elements of play are more significant than others.
31 Activities can be classified on a scale of playfulness.

List of Researchers
A Elkind
B Miller &Almon
C Rubin et al.
D Stuart Brown
E Pellegrini
F Joan Goodman
G Hirsch-Pasek et al.

Questions 32 – 36
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write

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

32 Children need toys in order to play.
33 It is a mistake to treat play and learning as separate types of activities.
34 Play helps children to develop their artistic talents.
35 Researchers have agreed on a definition of play.
36 Work and play differ in terms of whether or not they have a target.

Questions 37 – 40
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Guided play

In the simplest form of guided play, an adult contributes to the environment in which the child is playing. Alternatively, an adult can play with a child and develop the play, for instance by (37)…………….the child to investigate different aspects of their game. Adults can help children to learn through play, and may make the activity rather structured, but it should still be based on the child’s (38)………………..to play. Play without the intervention of adults gives children real (39)…………………..; with adults, play can be (40)…………………at particular goals. However, all forms of play should be an opportunity for children to have fun .

Alexander Henderson

Alexander Henderson was born in Scotland in 1831 and was the son of a successful merchant. His grandfather, also called Alexander, had founded the family business, and later became the first chairman of the National Bank of Scotland. The family had extensive landholdings in Scotland. Besides its residence in Edinburgh, it owned Press Estate, 650 acres of farmland about 35 miles southeast of the city. The family often stayed at Press Castle, the large mansion on the northern edge of the property, and Alexander spent much of his childhood in the area, playing on the beach near Eyemouth or fishing in the streams nearby.

Even after he went to school at Murcheston Academy on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Henderson returned to Press at weekends. In 1849 he began a three-year apprenticeship to become an accountant. Although he never liked the prospect of a business career, he stayed with it to please his family. In October 1855, however, he emigrated to Canada with his wife Agnes Elder Robertson and they settled in Montreal.

Henderson learned photography in Montreal around the year 1857 and quickly took it up as a serious amateur. He became a personal friend and colleague of the Scottish-Canadian photographer William Notman. The two men made a photographic excursion to Niagara Falls in 1860 and they cooperated on experiments with magnesium flares as a source of artificial light in 1865. They belonged to the same societies and were among the founding members of the Art Association of Montreal. Henderson acted as chairman of the association’s first meeting, which was held in Notman’s studio on 11 January 1860.

In spite of their friendship, their styles of photography were quite different. While Notman’s landscapes were noted for their bold realism, Henderson for the first 20 years of his career produced romantic images, showing the strong influence of the British landscape tradition. His artistic and technical progress was rapid and in 1865 he published his first major collection of landscape photographs. The publication had limited circulation (only seven copies have ever been found), and was called Canadian Views and Studies. The contents of each copy vary significantly and have proved a useful source for evaluating Henderson’s early work.

In 1866, he gave up his business to open a photographic studio, advertising himself as a portrait and landscape photographer. From about 1870 he dropped portraiture to specialize in landscape photography and other views. His numerous photographs of city life revealed in street scenes, houses, and markets are alive with human activity, and although his favourite subject was landscape he usually composed his scenes around such human pursuits as farming the land, cutting ice on a river, or sailing down a woodland stream. There was sufficient demand for these types of scenes and others he took depicting the lumber trade, steamboats and waterfalls to enable him to make a living. There was little competing hobby or amateur photography before the late 1880s because of the time-consuming techniques involved and the weight of the equipment. People wanted to buy photographs as souvenirs of a trip or as gifts, and catering to this market, Henderson had stock photographs on display at his studio for mounting, framing, or inclusion in albums.

Henderson frequently exhibited his photographs in Montreal and abroad, in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, New York, and Philadelphia. He met with greater success in 1877 and 1878 in New York when he won first prizes in the exhibition held by E and H T Anthony and Company for landscapes using the Lambertype process. In 1878 his work won second prize at the world exhibition in Paris.

In the 1870s and 1880s Henderson travelled widely throughout Quebec and Ontario, in Canada, documenting the major cities of the two provinces and many of the villages in Quebec. He was especially fond of the wilderness and often travelled by canoe on the Blanche, du Lievre, and other noted eastern rivers. He went on several occasions to the Maritimes and in 1872 he sailed by yacht along the lower north shore of the St Lawrence River. That same year, while in the lower St Lawrence River region, he took some photographs of the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. This undertaking led in 1875 to a commission from the railway to record the principal structures along the almost-completed line connecting Montreal to Halifax. Commissions from other railways followed. In 1876 he photographed bridges on the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway between Montreal and Ottawa. In 1885 he went west along the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) as far as Rogers Pass in British Columbia, where he took photographs of the mountains and the progress of construction.

In 1892 Henderson accepted a full-time position with the CPR as manager of a photographic department which he was to set up and administer. His duties included spending four months in the field each year. That summer he made his second trip west, photographing extensively along the railway line as far as Victoria. He continued in this post until 1897, when he retired completely from photography.

When Henderson died in 1913, his huge collection of glass negatives was stored in the basement of his house. Today collections of his work are held at the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, and the McCord Museum of Canadian History, Montreal.

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

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

1 Henderson rarely visited the area around Press estate when he was younger.
2 Henderson pursued a business career because it was what his family wanted.
3 Henderson and Notman were surprised by the results of their 1865 experiment.
4 There were many similarities between Henderson’s early landscapes and those of Notman.
5 The studio that Henderson opened in 1866 was close to his home.
6 Henderson gave up portraiture so that he could focus on taking photographs of scenery.
7 When Henderson began work for the Intercolonial Railway, the Montreal to Halifax line had been finished.
8 Henderson’s last work as a photographer was with the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Questions 9 – 13
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.

Alexander Henderson

Early life
• was born in Scotland in 1831 – father was a (9)…………….
• trained as an accountant, emigrated to Canada in 1855

Start of a photographic career
• opened up a photographic studio in 1866
• took photos of city life, but preferred landscape photography
• people bought Henderson’s photos because photography took up considerable time and the (10)…………… was heavy
• the photographs Hederson sold were (11)……………….or souvenirs

Travelling as a professional photographer
• travelled widely in Quebec and Ontario in 1870s and 1880s
• took many trips along eastern rivers in a (12)……………..
• worked for Canadian railways between 1875 and 1897
• worked for CPR in 1885 and photographed the (13)…………….and the railway at Rogers Pass

Back to the future of skyscraper design

A The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture by Professor Alan Short is the culmination of 30 years of research and award-winning green building design by Short and colleagues in Architecture, Engineering, Applied Maths and Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. The crisis in building design is already here,’ said Short. ‘Policy makers think you can solve energy and building problems with gadgets. You can’t. As global temperatures continue to rise, we are going to continue to squander more and more energy on keeping our buildings mechanically cool until we have run out of capacity.’

B Short is calling for a sweeping reinvention of how skyscrapers and major public buildings are designed – to end the reliance on sealed buildings which exist solely via the ‘life support’ system of vast air conditioning units. Instead, he shows it is entirely possible to accommodate natural ventilation and cooling in large buildings by looking into the past, before the widespread introduction of air conditioning systems, which were ‘relentlessly and aggressively marketed’ by their inventors.

C Short points out that to make most contemporary buildings habitable, they have to be sealed and air conditioned. The energy use and carbon emissions this generates is spectacular and largely unnecessary. Buildings in the West account for 40-50% of electricity usage, generating substantial carbon emissions, and the rest of the world is catching up at a frightening rate. Short regards glass, steel and air-conditioned skyscrapers as symbols of status, rather than practical ways of meeting our requirements.

D Short’s book highlights a developing and sophisticated art and science of ventilating buildings through the 19th and earlier-20th centuries, including the design of ingeniously ventilated hospitals. Of particular interest were those built to the designs of John Shaw Billings, including the first Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US city of Baltimore (1873-1889). ‘We spent three years digitally modelling Billings’ final designs,’ says Short. ‘We put pathogens in the airstreams, modelled for someone with tuberculosis (TB) coughing in the wards and we found the ventilation systems in the room would have kept other patients safe from harm.

E ‘We discovered that 19th-century hospital wards could generate up to 24 air changes an hour – that’s similar to the performance of a modern-day, computer-controlled operating theatre. We believe you could build wards based on these principles now. Single rooms are not appropriate for all patients. Communal wards appropriate for certain patients – older people with dementia, for example – would work just as well in today’s hospitals, at a fraction of the energy cost.’ Professor Short contends the mindset and skill-sets behind these designs have been completely lost, lamenting the disappearance of expertly designed theatres, opera houses, and other buildings where up to half the volume of the building was given over to ensuring everyone got fresh air.

F Much of the ingenuity present in 19th-century hospital and building design was driven by a panicked public clamouring for buildings that could protect against what was thought to be the lethal threat of miasmas – toxic air that spread disease. Miasmas were feared as the principal agents of disease and epidemics for centuries, and were used to explain the spread of infection from the Middle Ages right through to the cholera outbreaks in London and Paris during the 1850s. Foul air, rather than germs, was believed to be the main driver of ‘hospital fever’, leading to disease and frequent death. The prosperous steered clear of hospitals. While miasma theory has been long since disproved, Short has for the last 30 years advocated a return to some of the building design principles produced in its wake.

G Today, huge amounts of a building’s space and construction cost are given over to air conditioning. ‘But I have designed and built a series of buildings over the past three decades which have tried to reinvent some of these ideas and then measure what happens. To go forward into our new low-energy, low-carbon future, we would be well advised to look back at design before our high-energy, high-carbon present appeared. What is surprising is what a rich legacy we have abandoned.’

H Successful examples of Short’s approach include the Queen’s Building at De Montfort University in Leicester. Containing as many as 2,000 staff and students, the entire building is naturally ventilated, passively cooled and naturally lit, including the two largest auditoria, each seating more than 150 people. The award-winning building uses a fraction of the electricity of comparable buildings in the UK. Short contends that glass skyscrapers in London and around the world will become a liability over the next 20 or 30 years if climate modelling predictions and energy price rises come to pass as expected.

I He is convinced that sufficiently cooled skyscrapers using the natural environment can be produced in almost any climate. He and his team have worked on hybrid buildings in the harsh climates of Beijing and Chicago – built with natural ventilation assisted by back-up air conditioning – which, surprisingly perhaps, can be switched off more than half the time on milder days and during the spring and autumn. Short looks at how we might reimagine the cities, offices and homes of the future. Maybe it’s time we changed our outlook.

Questions 14 – 18
Reading Passage 2 has nine sections, A-l.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-l, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

14 why some people avoided hospitals in the 19th century
15 a suggestion that the popularity of tall buildings is linked to prestige
16 a comparison between the circulation of air in a 19th-century building and modern standards
17 how Short tested the circulation of air in a 19th-century building
18 an implication that advertising led to the large increase in the use of air conditioning

Questions 19 – 26
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 19-26 on your answer sheet.

Ventilation in 19th-century hospital wards

Professor Alan Short examined the work of John Shaw Billings, who influenced the architectural (19)…………….. of hospitals to ensure they had good ventilation. He calculated that (20)……………in the air coming from patients suffering from (21)……………..would not have harmed other patients. He also found that the air in (22)…………………in hospitals could change as often as in a modern operating theatre. He suggests that energy use could be reduced by locating more patients in (23)……………..areas. A major reason for improving ventilation in 19th-century hospitals was the demand from the (24)……………for protection against bad air, known as (25)………………..These were blamed for the spread of disease for hundreds of years, including epidemics of (26)……………..in London and Paris in the middle of the 19th century.

Why companies should welcome disorder

A Organisation is big business. Whether it is of our lives – all those inboxes and calendars – or how companies are structured, a multi-billion dollar industry helps to meet this need. We have more strategies for time management, project management and self-organisation than at any other time in human history. We are told that we ought to organise our company, our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this. This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right. The number of business schools and graduates has massively increased over the past 50 years, essentially teaching people how to organise well.

B Ironically, however, the number of businesses that fail has also steadily increased. Work-related stress has increased. A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed. This begs the question: what has gone wrong? Why is it that on paper the drive for organisation seems a sure shot for increasing productivity, but in reality falls well short of what is expected?

C This has been a problem for a while now. Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers of scientific management. Writing in the first half of the 20th century, he designed a number of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become widespread in modern companies. So the approach has been around for a while.

D New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided. The problem is not necessarily the management theories or strategies we use to organise our work; it’s the basic assumptions we hold in approaching how we work. Here it’s the assumption that order is a necessary condition for productivity. This assumption has also fostered the idea that disorder must be detrimental to organisational productivity. The result is that businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.

E What’s more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process of organisation, and the benefit it yields, reduce until the point where any further increase in order reduces productivity. Some argue that in a business, if the cost of formally structuring something outweighs the benefit of doing it, then that thing ought not to be formally structured. Instead, the resources involved can be better used elsewhere.

F In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group. These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in terms of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines) would never be reached.

G In recent times companies have slowly started to embrace this disorganisation. Many of them embrace it in terms of perception (embracing the idea of disorder, as opposed to fearing it) and in terms of process (putting mechanisms in place to reduce structure). For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a ‘spaghetti’ structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies. This involved scrapping formal job titles and giving staff huge amounts of ownership over their own time and projects. This approach proved to be highly successful initially, with clear improvements in worker productivity in all facets of the business. In similar fashion, the former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation, putting forward the idea of the ‘boundaryless’ organisation. Again, it involves breaking down the barriers between different parts of a company and encouraging virtual collaboration and flexible working. Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced (at least in part) these kinds of flexible structures, facilitated by technology and strong company values which glue people together.

H A word of warning to others thinking of jumping on this bandwagon: the evidence so far suggests disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can also have detrimental effects on performance if overused. Like order, disorder should be embraced only so far as it is useful. But we should not fear it – nor venerate one over the other. This research also shows that we should continually question whether or not our existing assumptions work.

Questions 27 – 34
Reading Passage 3 has eight sections, A-H.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Complaints about the impact of a certain approach
ii Fundamental beliefs that are in fact incorrect
iii Early recommendations concerning business activities
iv Organisations that put a new approach into practice
v Companies that have suffered from changing their approach
vi What people are increasingly expected to do
vii How to achieve outcomes that are currently impossible
viii Neither approach guarantees continuous improvement
ix Evidence that a certain approach can have more disadvantages than advantages

27 Section A
28 Section B
29 Section C
30 Section D
31 Section E
32 Section F
33 Section G
34 Section H

Questions 35 – 37
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35 Numerous training sessions are aimed at people who feel they are not…………….enough.
36 Being organised appeals to people who regard themselves as………………
37 Many people feel…………….with aspects of their work.

Questions 38 – 40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet, write

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

38 Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value.
39 Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.
40 Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY

Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.

Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.

‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’

Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.

But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.

International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable – but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.

‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes – it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’

If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego , with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’

Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.

‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’

Questions 1 – 8
Complete the notes below. Choose ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Children’s Play

Uses of children’s play
– building a magical kingdom may help develop (1)………………..
– board games involve (2)…………….and turn-taking

Recent changes affecting children’s play
– populations of (3)…………….have grown
– opportunities for free play are limited due to
– fear of (4)……………
– fear of (5)……………
– increased (6)………………in schools

International policies on children’s play
– it is difficult to find (7)…………….to support new policies
– research needs to study the impact of play on the rest of the child’s (8)……………..

Questions 9 – 13

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

In the boxes 9-13 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. Children with good self-control are known to be likely to do well at school later on.
10. The way a child plays may provide information about possible medical problems.
11. Playing with dolls was found to benefit girls’ writing more than boys’ writing.
12. Children had problems thinking up ideas when they first created the story with Lego.
13. People nowadays regard children’s play as less significant than they did in the past.

The growth of bike-sharing schemes around the world

A The original idea for an urban bike-sharing scheme dates back to a summer’s day in Amsterdam in 1965. Provo, the organisation that came up with the idea, was a group of Dutch activists who wanted to change society. They believed the scheme, which was known as the Witte Fietsenplan, was an answer to the perceived threats of air pollution and consumerism. In the centre of Amsterdam, they painted a small number of used bikes white. They also distributed leaflets describing the dangers of cars and inviting people to use the white bikes. The bikes were then left unlocked at various locations around the city, to be used by anyone in need of transport.

B Luud Schimmelpennink, a Dutch industrial engineer who still lives and cycles in Amsterdam, was heavily involved in the original scheme. He recalls how the scheme succeeded in attracting a great deal of attention – particularly when it came to publicising Provo’s aims – but struggled to get off the ground. The police were opposed to Provo’s initiatives and almost as soon as the white bikes were distributed around the city, they removed them. However, for Schimmelpennink and for bike-sharing schemes in general, this was just the beginning. The first Witte Fietsenplan was just a symbolic thing,’ he says. ‘We painted a few bikes white, that was all. Things got more serious when I became a member of the Amsterdam city council two years later.’

C Schimmelpennink seized this opportunity to present a more elaborate Witte Fietsenplan to the city council. ‘My idea was that the municipality of Amsterdam would distribute 10,000 white bikes over the city, for everyone to use,’ he explains. ‘I made serious calculations. It turned out that a white bicycle – per person, per kilometre – would cost the municipality only 10% of what it contributed to public transport per person per kilometre.’ Nevertheless, the council unanimously rejected the plan. They said that the bicycle belongs to the past. They saw a glorious future for the car,’ says Schimmelpennink. But he was not in the least discouraged.

D Schimmelpennink never stopped believing in bike-sharing, and in the mid-90s, two Danes asked for his help to set up a system in Copenhagen. The result was the world’s first large-scale bike-share programme. It worked on a deposit: ‘You dropped a coin in the bike and when you returned it, you got your money back.’ After setting up the Danish system, Schimmelpennink decided to try his luck again in the Netherlands – and this time he succeeded in arousing the interest of the Dutch Ministry of Transport. Times had changed,’ he recalls. ‘People had become more environmentally conscious, and the Danish experiment had proved that bike-sharing was a real possibility.’A new Witte Fietsenplan was launched in 1999 in Amsterdam. However, riding a white bike was no longer free; it cost one guilder per trip and payment was made with a chip card developed by the Dutch bank Postbank. Schimmelpennink designed conspicuous, sturdy white bikes locked in special racks which could be opened with the chip card – the plan started with 250 bikes, distributed over five stations.

E Theo Molenaar, who was a system designer for the project, worked alongside Schimmelpennink. ‘I remember when we were testing the bike racks, he announced that he had already designed better ones. But of course, we had to go through with the ones we had.’ The system, however, was prone to vandalism and theft. ‘After every weekend there would always be a couple of bikes missing,’ Molenaar says. ‘I really have no idea what people did with them, because they could instantly be recognised as white bikes.’ But the biggest blow came when Postbank decided to abolish the chip card, because it wasn’t profitable. That chip card was pivotal to the system,’ Molenaar says. To continue the project we would have needed to set up another system, but the business partner had lost interest.’

F Schimmelpennink was disappointed, but – characteristically – not for long. In 2002 he got a call from the French advertising corporation JC Decaux, who wanted to set up his bike-sharing scheme in Vienna. That went really well. After Vienna, they set up a system in Lyon. Then in 2007, Paris followed. That was a decisive moment in the history of bike-sharing.’ The huge and unexpected success of the Parisian bike-sharing programme, which now boasts more than 20,000 bicycles, inspired cities all over the world to set up their own schemes, all modelled on Schimmelpennink’s. ‘It’s wonderful that this happened,’ he says. ‘But financially I didn’t really benefit from it, because I never filed for a patent.’

G In Amsterdam today, 38% of all trips are made by bike and, along with Copenhagen, it is regarded as one of the two most cycle-friendly capitals in the world – but the city never got another Witte Fietsenplan. Molenaar believes this may be because everybody in Amsterdam already has a bike. Schimmelpennink, however, cannot see that this changes Amsterdam’s need for a bike-sharing scheme. ‘People who travel on the underground don’t carry their bikes around. But often they need additional transport to reach their final destination.’Although he thinks it is strange that a city like Amsterdam does not have a successful bike¬sharing scheme, he is optimistic about the future. ‘In the ’60s we didn’t stand a chance because people were prepared to give their lives to keep cars in the city. But that mentality has totally changed. Today everybody longs for cities that are not dominated by cars.’

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

14 a description of how people misused a bike-sharing scheme
15 an explanation of why a proposed bike-sharing scheme was turned down
16 a reference to a person being unable to profit from their work
17 an explanation of the potential savings a bike-sharing scheme would bring
18 a reference to the problems a bike-sharing scheme was intended to solve

Questions 19 and 20

Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 19 and 20 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about the Amsterdam bike-sharing scheme of 1999?
A It was initially opposed by a government department.
B It failed when a partner in the scheme withdrew support.
C It aimed to be more successful than the Copenhagen scheme.
D It was made possible by a change in people’s attitudes.
E It attracted interest from a range of bike designers.

Questions 21 and 22
Choose TWO letters, A-E
Write the correct letters in boxes 21 and 22 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about Amsterdam today?
A The majority of residents would like to prevent all cars from entering the city.
B There is little likelihood of the city having another bike-sharing scheme.
C More trips in the city are made by bike than by any other form of transport.
D A bike-sharing scheme would benefit residents who use public transport.
E The city has a reputation as a place that welcomes cyclists.

Questions 23 – 26
Complete the summary below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

The first urban bike-sharing scheme

The first bike-sharing scheme was the idea of the Dutch group Provo. The people who belonged to this group were (23)……………….They were concerned about damage to the environment and about (24)…………………, and believed that the bike-sharing scheme would draw attention to these issues. As well as painting some bikes white, they handed out (25)………………….that condemned the use of cars. However, the scheme was not a great success: almost as quickly as Provo left the bikes around the city, the (26)………………..took them away. According to Schimmelpennink, the scheme was intended to be symbolic. The idea was to get people thinking about the issues.

Motivational factors and the hospitality industry

A critical ingredient in the success of hotels is developing and maintaining superior performance from their employees. How is that accomplished? What Human Resource Management (HRM) practices should organizations invest in to acquire and retain great employees?

Some hotels aim to provide superior working conditions for their employees. The idea originated from workplaces – usually in the non-service sector – that emphasized fun and enjoyment as part of work-life balance. By contrast, the service sector, and more specifically hotels, has traditionally not extended these practices to address basic employee needs, such as good working conditions.

Pfeffer (1994) emphasizes that in order to succeed in a global business environment, organizations must make investment in Human Resource Management (HRM) to allow them to acquire employees who possess better skills and capabilities than their competitors. This investment will be to their competitive advantage. Despite this recognition of the importance of employee development, the hospitality industry has historically been dominated by underdeveloped HR practices (Lucas, 2002).

Lucas also points out that ‘the substance of HRM practices does not appear to be designed to foster constructive relations with employees or to represent a managerial approach that enables developing and drawing out the full potential of people, even though employees may be broadly satisfied with many aspects of their work’ (Lucas, 2002). In addition, or maybe as a result, high employee turnover has been a recurring problem throughout the hospitality industry. Among the many cited reasons are low compensation, inadequate benefits, poor working conditions and compromised employee morale and attitudes (Maroudas et al., 2008).

Ng and Sorensen (2008) demonstrated that when managers provide recognition to employees, motivate employees to work together, and remove obstacles preventing effective performance, employees feel more obligated to stay with the company. This was succinctly summarized by Michel et al. (2013): ‘[Providing support to employees gives them the confidence to perform their jobs better and the motivation to stay with the organization.’ Hospitality organizations can therefore enhance employee motivation and retention through the development and improvement of their working conditions. These conditions are inherently linked to the working environment.

While it seems likely that employees’ reactions to their job characteristics could be affected by a predisposition to view their work environment negatively, no evidence exists to support this hypothesis (Spector et al., 2000). However, given the opportunity, many people will find something to complain about in relation to their workplace (Poulston, 2009). There is a strong link between the perceptions of employees and particular factors of their work environment that are separate from the work itself, including company policies, salary and vacations.

Such conditions are particularly troubling for the luxury hotel market, where high-quality service, requiring a sophisticated approach to HRM, is recognized as a critical source of competitive advantage (Maroudas et al., 2008). In a real sense, the services of hotel employees represent their industry (Schneider and Bowen, 1993). This representation has commonly been limited to guest experiences. This suggests that there has been a dichotomy between the guest environment provided in luxury hotels and the working conditions of their employees.

It is therefore essential for hotel management to develop HRM practices that enable them to inspire and retain competent employees. This requires an understanding of what motivates employees at different levels of management and different stages of their careers (Enz and Siguaw, 2000). This implies that it is beneficial for hotel managers to understand what practices are most favorable to increase employee satisfaction and retention.

Herzberg (1966) proposes that people have two major types of needs, the first being extrinsic motivation factors relating to the context in which work is performed, rather than the work itself. These include working conditions and job security. When these factors are unfavorable, job dissatisfaction may result. Significantly, though, just fulfilling these needs does not result in satisfaction, but only in the reduction of dissatisfaction (Maroudas et al., 2008).

Employees also have intrinsic motivation needs or motivators, which include such factors as achievement and recognition. Unlike extrinsic factors, motivator factors may ideally result in job satisfaction (Maroudas et al., 2008). Herzberg’s (1966) theory discusses the need for a ‘balance’ of these two types of needs.

The impact of fun as a motivating factor at work has also been explored. For example, Tews, Michel and Stafford (2013) conducted a study focusing on staff from a chain of themed restaurants in the United States. It was found that fun activities had a favorable impact on performance and manager support for fun had a favorable impact in reducing turnover. Their findings support the view that fun may indeed have a beneficial effect, but the framing of that fun must be carefully aligned with both organizational goals and employee characteristics. ‘Managers must learn how to achieve the delicate balance of allowing employees the freedom to enjoy themselves at work while simultaneously maintaining high levels of performance’ (Tews et al., 2013).

Deery (2008) has recommended several actions that can be adopted at the organizational level to retain good staff as well as assist in balancing work and family life. Those particularly appropriate to the hospitality industry include allowing adequate breaks during the working day, staff functions that involve families, and providing health and well-being opportunities.

Questions 27 – 31
Look at the following statements (Questions 27-31) and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

27 Hotel managers need to know what would encourage good staff to remain.
28 The actions of managers may make staff feel they shouldn’t move to a different employer.
29 Little is done in the hospitality industry to help workers improve their skills.
30 Staff are less likely to change jobs if cooperation is encouraged.
31 Dissatisfaction with pay is not the only reason why hospitality workers change jobs.

List of Researchers
A Pfeffer
B Lucas
C Maroudas et al.
D Ng and Sorensen
E Enz and Siguaw
F Deery

Questions 32 – 35
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet, write

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

32 One reason for high staff turnover in the hospitality industry is poor morale.
33 Research has shown that staff have a tendency to dislike their workplace.
34 An improvement in working conditions and job security makes staff satisfied with their jobs.
35 Staff should be allowed to choose when they take breaks during the working day.

Questions 36 – 40
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

Fun at work

Tews, Michel and Stafford carried out research on staff in an American chain of (36)……………….They discovered that activities designed for staff to have fun improved their (37)………………., and that management involvement led to lower staff (38)……………….They also found that the activities needed to fit with both the company’s (39)……………….and the (40)………………..of the staff. A balance was required between a degree of freedom and maintaining work standards.

Section 1
Read the text below and answer questions 1-7.

New cycle path to Marshbrook Country Park

A A new dual-purpose cycle and pedestrian route has been built from Atherton bus station to the country park’s main entrance at Marshbrook. It avoids the main road into Atherton on the south side, and keeps mainly to less busy roads. Once the path leaves the built-up area, it goes through countryside until it reaches Marshbrook.

B Funding for the cycle path has come largely from the county and town councils, while almost a third of it was raised through crowdfunding. Maintenance of the path is the responsibility of the county council. The cycle path was completed ahead of schedule – partly thanks to perfect weather for construction – and under budget.

C Annie Newcome is the chief executive of Cycle Atherton, the organisation that aims to get people cycling more often and more safely. Cycle Atherton proposed the 12-kilometre-long cycle path initially, and has been active in promoting it, Ms Newcome says she is delighted that all the hard work to achieve the funding proved successful.

D Marshbrook Country Park is a very popular recreational area, and the new path makes it much easier to reach from the town in an environmentally friendly way. At 2.5 metres wide, it is also suitable for users of wheelchairs, mobility scooters and buggies, who have not previously had access to the park without using motor vehicles.

E Although the path is now open, work is continuing to improve the signs along it, such as warnings when the path approaches a road. New hedges and trees will also be planted along stretches of the path, to provide some shelter from the wind and to benefit wildlife.

F Further information and a detailed map of the path including a proposed 5-kilometre extension are available online. The map can easily be downloaded and printed. Visit the county council website and follow the links to Atherton Cycle Path.

Questions 1-7
The text has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph mentions the following? Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-7. NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. what still needs to be done
2. the original suggestion for creating the path
3. a reason why the path opened early
4. people who no longer need to get to the park by car
5. the route of the path
6. the length of the path
7. who paid for the path

Read the text below and answer Questions 8-14.

Study dramatic arts at Thornley

If you are hoping for a career in the theatre., Thornley College of Dramatic Arts is the place to come. For fifty years we have been providing top-quality courses for actors, directors, producers, musicians and everyone else who wishes to work professionally in the theatre or related industries. We also have expertise in preparing students for the specialised requirements of TV, film and radio. We’ll make sure you’re thoroughly prepared for the reality of work in your chosen field.

Our college-based tutors all have extensive practical experience in the entertainment industry as well as academic qualifications, and we also collaborate with some of the country’s best directors, writers and actors to create challenging, inspiring and exciting projects with our students.

We are well-known around the world, with our students coming from every continent. Every year, we receive two thousand applications for the one hundred places on our degree courses. Only the most talented get places, and we are proud that over ninety percent of our students gain professional work within a year of graduating – a figure few other drama colleges in the UK can match.

To mark our fiftieth anniversary this year, we are putting on a production of Theatre 500. Written by two staff members especially for this occasion, this multimedia show celebrates five hundred years of drama, and involves all our students in one way or another.

Another major development is that the college is about to move. Our new premises are now under construction in the heart of Thornley, next to the council building, which has won a prize for its architecture. For the last two years, we have been developing designs with Miller Furbank Architects for our new home, and one aim has been to ensure the buildings complement the council offices. Work started on the foundations of the buildings in March last year, and we plan to move to the new site this coming September.

We have also been talking to cultural organisations in the district, and considering how we can bring cost-free benefits to the local community, as well as to our students. As a result, part of the space in the new buildings has been designed to be adaptable, in order to accommodate classes, performances and workshops for different-sized groups of local people.

Questions 8-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text? In boxes 8-14, 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. The college has introduced new courses since it opened.
9. The college provides training for work in the film industry.
10. Students have the chance to work with relevant professionals.
11. Many more people apply to study at the college than are accepted.
12. Theatre 500 was created by students.
13. The new building and the council building were designed by the same architects.
14. Local groups will be charged for using college premises.

Section 2

Read the text below and answer Questions 15-20.

How to make your working day more enjoyable

Research shows that work takes up approximately a third of our lives. Most of us get so bogged down with day-to-day tasks though, that we easily forget why we originally applied for the job and what we can get out of it. Here are a few ideas for how to make your working day better.

Physical changes to your work environment can make a massive difference to how you feel. Get some green plants or a family photo for your desk. File all those odd bits of paper or throw them away. All of these little touches can make your work environment feel like it’s yours. Make sure any screens you have are at a suitable height so you’re not straining your neck and shoulders.

Humans need a change of environment every now and then to improve productivity. Go out at lunchtime for a quick walk. If you have the option, it’s a good idea to work from home occasionally. And if there’s a conference coming up, ask if you can go along to it. Not only will you practise your networking skills, but you’ll also have a day away from the office.

Use coffee time to get to know a colleague you don’t usually speak to. There’s no point in getting away from staring at one thing though, only to replace it with another; so leave your mobile alone! Another tip is to try and stay out of office gossip. In the long run it could get you in more trouble than you realise.

When you’re trying to focus on something, hunger is the worst thing, if you can, keep some healthy snacks in your desk because if you have something you can nibble on, it will make you work more effectively and you’ll enjoy it more. Also, if you’re dehydrated, you won’t be able to focus properly. So keep drinking water.

Finally, if you’ve been dreaming about starting up a big project for some time, do it! There are so many different things you can do to get you enjoying work more each day.

Questions 15-20
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.

15. Bringing a personal ……………….. to work will make the place feel more homely.
16. It is important to check the position of all ………………… before use to avoid pulling any muscles.
17. Leaving the office in the middle of the day may help to raise ………………. later on.
18. It is advisable to avoid checking a ………………… during breaks.
19. Getting involved in …………………. at work may have negative results.
20. Having a few …………………… available can help people concentrate better at work.

Read the text below and answer Questions 21-27.

How to get promoted

If you’re sitting at your desk wondering whether this will be the year you finally get promoted, here are some tips.

It starts with you. You are perhaps the most important part in the ‘promotion process’, so you need to know what you want – and why you want it. Take an honest look at yourself – your achievements and also your skills, particularly those you could exploit to take on a different role.

Your boss is the gatekeeper. If you think your boss is likely to be on your side, ask for a meeting to discuss your serious commitment to the organisation and how this could translate into a more defined career plan. If you are less sure about your boss’s view of your prospects and how they may react, start softly with a more deliberate focus on increasing your boss’s understanding of the work you do and the added value you deliver.

Think about how you are perceived at work. In order for you to get your promotion, who needs to know about you? Who would be on the interview panel and whose opinion and input would they seek? And once you’ve got a list of people to impress, ask yourself – do they know enough about you? And I mean really know – what you do day to day at your desk, your contribution to the team, and perhaps most importantly, your potential.

The chances are that those decision-makers won’t know ail they should about you. Raising your profile in your organisation is critical so that when those in charge start looking at that empty office and considering how best to fill it, the first name that pops into their heads is yours. If your firm has a newsletter, volunteer to write a feature to include in it. If they arrange regular client events, get involved in the organisation of them. And so on.

If you think your experience needs enhancing, then look at ways you can continue to improve it. If you are confident in your professional expertise but lack the latest management theory, enrol on some relevant courses that fit around your day job.

So what are you waiting for?

Questions 21-27
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text.

Steps to take to achieve a promotion

• First step: examine past successes and any (21) ………………… that would help gain promotion

• Set up a meeting with your boss to talk about:
o how best to use your high level of (22) ………………… in future
o or how much extra (23) ………………… you already bring to the company

• Focus on the important people in the company:
o find out which ones will be members of the (24) ………………… who decide on the promotion
o consider how much they are aware of your (25) ………………… for the future

• Take steps to raise your profile by:
o offering to create a feature for a company publication
o participating in the (26) ……………………… of events for customers

• Work on self-development: take any (27) ……………… that fill in gaps in knowledge

Section 3

Animals can tell right from wrong

Until recently, humans were thought to be the only species to experience complex emotions and have a sense of morality. But Professor Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, US, believes that morals are ‘hard-wired’ into the brains of all mammals and provide the social glue’ that allows animals to live together in groups.

His conclusions will assist animal welfare groups pushing to have animals treated more humanely. Professor Bekoff, who presents his case in his book Wild Justice, said: ‘Just as in humans, the moral nuances of a particular culture or group will be different from another, but they are certainly there. Moral codes are species specific, so they can be difficult to compare with each other or with humans.’ Professor Bekoff believes morals developed in animals to help regulate behaviour in social groups. He claims that these help to limit fighting within the group and encourage co-operative behaviour.

His ideas have met with some controversy in the scientific community. Professor Frans de Waal, who examines the behaviour of primates, including chimpanzees, at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, US, said: ‘I don’t believe animals are moral in the sense we humans are – with a well-developed and reasoned sense of right and wrong – rather that human morality incorporates a set of psychological tendencies and capacities such as empathy, reciprocity, a desire for co-operation and harmony that are older than our species. Human morality was not formed from scratch, but grew out of our primate psychology. Primate psychology has ancient roots and I agree that other animals show many of the same tendencies and have an intense sociality.’

Wolves live in tight-knit social groups that are regulated by strict rules. Wolves also demonstrate fairness. During play, dominant wolves will appear to exchange roles with lower-ranking wolves. They pretend to be submissive and go so far as to allow biting by the lower-ranking wolves, provided it is not too hard. Prof Bekoff argues that without a moral code governing their actions, this kind of behaviour would not be possible. Astonishingly, if an animal becomes aggressive, it will perform a play bow’ to ask forgiveness before play resumes.

In other members of the dog family, play is controlled in a similar way. Among coyotes, cubs which are too aggressive are ignored by the rest of the group and often end up having to leave entirely. Experiments with domestic dogs, where one animal was given some sweets’ and another wasn’t, have shown that they possess a sense of fairness as they allowed their companion to eat some.

Elephants are intensely sociable and emotional animals. Research by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, from the department of zoology at Oxford University, suggests elephants experience compassion and has found evidence of elephants helping injured members of their herd. In 2003, a herd of 11 elephants rescued antelopes which were being held inside an enclosure in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The top female elephant unfastened all of the metal latches holding the gates closed and swung them open, allowing the antelopes to escape. This is thought to be a rare example of animals showing empathy for members of another species – a trait previously thought to be the exclusive preserve of humankind.

A laboratory experiment involved training Diana monkeys to insert a token into a slot to obtain food. A male who had become skilled at the task was found to be helping the oldest female, who had not learned how to do it. On three occasions the male monkey picked up tokens she dropped and inserted them into the slot and allowed her to have the food. As there was no benefit for the male monkey, Professor Bekoff argues that this is a clear example of an animal’s actions being driven by some internal moral compass.

Since chimpanzees are known to be among the most cognitively advanced of the great apes and our closest cousins, it is perhaps not remarkable that scientists should suggest they live by moral codes. A chimpanzee known as Knuckles is the only known captive chimpanzee to suffer from cerebral palsy, which leaves him physically and mentally impaired. What is extraordinary is that scientists have observed other chimpanzees interacting with him differently and he is rarely subjected to intimidating displays of aggression from older males. Chimpanzees also demonstrate a sense of justice and those who deviate from the code of conduct of a group are set upon by other members as punishment.

Experiments with rats have shown that they will not take food if they know their actions will cause pain to another rat. In lab tests, rats were given food which then caused a second group of rats to receive an electric shock. The rats with the food stopped eating rather than see this happen.

Whales have been found to have spindle cells in their brains. These specialised cells were thought to be restricted to humans and great apes, and appear to play a role in empathy and understanding the emotions of others. Humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales have all been found to have spindle cells. They also have three times as many spindle cells as humans and are thought to be older in evolutionary terms. This finding suggests that emotional judgements such as empathy may have evolved considerably earlier in history than formerly thought and could be widespread in the animal kingdom.

Questions 28-32
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.

Complex social behaviour in wolf packs

Wolves live in packs and it is clear that there are a number of (28) ……………….. concerning their behaviour. Some observers believe they exhibit a sense of (29) ……………….. The stronger, more senior wolves seem to adopt the roles of the junior wolves when they are playing together. They act as if they are (30) …………………. to the juniors and even permit some gentle (31) …………………. What is even more surprising is that when one of the juniors gets too forceful, it bends down begging for (32) ………………. Only when that has been granted will the wolves continue playing.

Questions 33-37
Look at the following animals (Questions 33-37) and the list of descriptions below. Match each animal with the correct description, A-G. Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 33-37.

33. coyotes
34. domestic dogs
35. elephants
36. Diana monkeys
37. rats

List of Descriptions
A often attack peers who fail to follow the moral code
B appear to enjoy playing with members of a different species
C sometimes share treats with a peer
D may assist a peer who is failing to complete a task
E may be driven away by their peers if they do not obey the moral code
F seem unwilling to benefit from something that hurts their peers
G may help a different type of animal which is in difficulty

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

38. What view is expressed by Professor de Waal?
A Apes have advanced ideas about the difference between good and evil.
B The social manners of some animals prove that they are highly moral.
C Some human moral beliefs developed from our animal ancestors.
D The desire to live in peace with others is a purely human quality.

39. Why does Professor Bekoff mention the experiment on Diana monkeys?
A it shows that this species of monkey is not very easy to train.
B It confirms his view on the value of research into certain monkeys.
C It proves that female monkeys are generally less intelligent than males.
D It illustrates a point he wants to make about monkeys and other creatures.

40. What does the writer find most surprising about chimpanzees?
A They can suffer from some of the same illnesses as humans.
B They appear to treat disabled peers with consideration.
C They have sets of social conventions that they follow.
D The males can be quite destructive at times.

Section 1
Read the text below and answer questions 1-7.

Young Fashion Designer UK competition

Young Fashion Designer UK is an exciting national competition which aims to showcase and promote the exceptional work achieved by students studying courses in textile design, product design and fashion throughout the UK.

The competition is designed for students to enter the coursework they are currently working on rather than specifically producing different pieces of work. If you would like to add to your coursework, that is for you and your teacher to decide.

You can apply independently or through your school/college. To enter please ensure you follow these steps:
1. Provide three A3 colour copies from your design folder.
You must include:
– initial ideas about the clothing
– a close-up photograph of the front and back view of the finished clothing.
2. Please label each sheet clearly with your name and school (on the back).
3. Print off a copy of your registration form and attach it to your work.
4. Post your entry to the Young Fashion Designer Centre.

Once the entry deadline has passed, the judges will select the shortlist of students who will be invited to the Finals. You will be notified if you are shortlisted. You will need to bring originals of the work that you entered. Each finalist will have their own stand consisting of a table and tabletop cardboard display panels. Feel free to add as much creativity to your stand as possible. Some students bring tablets/ laptops with slideshows or further images of work but it should be emphasised that these may not necessarily improve your chances of success.

The judges will assess your work and will ask various questions about it. They will look through any supporting information and the work you have on display before coming together as a judging panel to decide on the winners. You are welcome to ask the judges questions. In fact, you should make the most of having experts on hand!

There are 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners for each category. The judges can also decide to award special prizes if the work merits this. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive a glass trophy and prize from a kind donor.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text? In boxes 1-7, 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. Participants are required to create a new item of clothing for the Young Fashion Designer UK competition.
2. Participants must send information about the thoughts that led to the item they are entering for the competition.
3. The shortlist will consist of a fixed number of finalists.
4. Finalists can choose how to present their work to the judges on their stand.
5. It is strongly recommended that finalists support their entry with additional photographs.
6. Questions that the students ask the judges may count towards the final decisions.
7. Extra prizes may be awarded depending on the standard of the entries submitted.

Read the text below and answer questions 8-14

Which keyboard should you buy?

It’s worth remembering that a bad keyboard can significantly affect your entire computing experience. So make sure you pick the right keyboard for your needs.

A Logitech K120
Logitech’s K120 offers a number of extra features, it’s spill-resistant, draining small amounts of liquid if you have an accident. It isn’t particularly eye-catching, but it feels very solid. For the price, it’s a tempting choice.

B Cherry MX 3.0 Keyboard
The Cherry MX 3.0 looks simple and neat, thanks to its compact build. It’s solid, durable and you don’t need to push keys all the way down to activate them. It’s also rather loud though, which can take some getting used to.

C Logitech K780
The K780 is a compact, pleasantly modern-looking keyboard. There’s an integrated stand for smartphones and tablets too. It’s quiet to type on, and the circular keys are easy to familiarise yourself with, well-spaced and large enough to hit accurately. For this price though, the lack of backlighting is disappointing.

D Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic
The Sculpt’s curved, strange-looking build serves a purpose, it provides wrist support and lifts your forearms into a relaxed position so you don’t hurt yourself from typing for lengthy periods. It feels weird, but it seems to do the trick.

E Microsoft Universal Bluetooth Keyboard
Microsoft’s Bluetooth keyboard has one very handy feature – you can fold it in half and carry it around in your jacket pocket or bag, and it feels rather like a large wallet. It has generously sized keys, though the two-piece spacebar takes some getting used to. Another useful feature is that you can get up to three months’ use from a single charge.

F Corsair Strafe RGB Keyboard
Corsair’s keyboard is expensive, flashy and extremely impressive. Ail of its keys are programmable, there’s eye-catching backlighting and the buttons are textured for improved grip. All this is because it’s designed for gamers. However, it’s also silent, meaning it is suitable for everyday office work too.

Questions 8-14
Look at the six reviews of computer keyboards A-F. For which keyboard are the following statements true?

8. This keyboard may not suit users who prefer the keys to be almost silent.
9. This keyboard is easily portable because it can be made to fit into a small space.
10. This keyboard includes a special place to put small devices.
11. This keyboard is designed to prevent injury to those who spend a lot of time on the computer.
12. This keyboard offers good value for money.
13. This keyboard is primarily aimed at people who use their computer for entertainment.
14. It should not take long for users to get used to the shape of the keys on this keyboard.

Section 2
Read the text below and answer questions 15-20.

Working for a small company may be better than you think

Recent research shows that many job-seekers believe their ideal position would be in a large company. However, working for a small or medium-sized business has many advantages that are too easily overlooked. Here are just a few of them.

Working in a small organisation with a small workforce means it’s likely to be easy to become part of it. it won’t be long before you’re familiar with the staff and the departments that you need to deal with. This can provide a feeling of comfort that takes much longer to develop in a large company. Departments are likely to be small and have close connections with each other, which helps to make internal communication work well – everyone knows what’s going on. You’ll also gain a better understanding of how your own role fits into the company as a whole.

In a small business you’re likely to have considerable variety in your workload, including opportunities to work in different areas of the company, which will allow you to identify abilities that you didn’t know you had. An introduction to new activities could even lead to a change of career. This variety in your work will help to make it stimulating, so you have a good reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

There will be plenty of opportunities to show initiative, and you’ll also learn to function well as part of a team. Because it’s much harder to overlook someone within a small workforce than a large one, your efforts are more likely to attract the attention of those higher up. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to show what you can do, and to have your potential noticed. The result is very likely to be that promotion comes to you faster.

Small businesses are usually flexible, something that is rarely true of large organisations. This means that if they’re well managed, they can adapt to make the most of changes in the wider economy, which in turn can help you. Don’t dismiss them as a place to work because of the myths about them. Small firms can be ideal places for developing your career.

Questions 15-20
Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage.

15. In a small business it is easy to become …………………. with colleagues and other departments.
16. You may find you have …………………. you were not aware of.
17. Finding that your work is ………………. will make you enjoy doing it.
18. Other people are likely to realise that you have ………………….
19. Opportunities for …………………… will come sooner than in a larger business.
20. You can benefit from a small company being more ………………….. than a large one.

Read the text below and answer questions 21-27.

Starting a new job

A Make sure you know when and where you are expected to report on your first day. If the route from home is unfamiliar to you, make a practice run first the normal first activity in a new job is a meeting with your boss, and it would be embarrassing to be late. Dress formally until you’re sure of the dress code.

B You should expect to have an induction programme planned for you; a security pass; visits to whatever parts of the organisation you need to understand to do your job properly; meetings with anyone who could affect your success in the role; and someone to show you where everything is and tell you all the real rules of the culture – the ones that are never written down but which everyone is meant to follow.

C It can be a shock to join a new organisation. When you are a newcomer, feeling uncertain and perhaps a little confused, there can be a strong temptation to talk about your old job and organisation as a way of reminding yourself and telling others that you really know what you are doing, because you did it in your previous role. Unfortunately, this will suggest that you have a high opinion of yourself, and that you think your old place was better. It has enormous power to annoy, so don’t do it.

D All employers have a core product or service paid for by customers which justifies their existence. If you are not part of this core activity, remember that your role is to provide a service to the people who are part of it. Understanding their concerns and passions is essential for understanding why your own role exists, and for knowing how to work alongside these colleagues. This is why you must see this product or service in action.

E When I worked for a television company, all of us, whatever our job, were strongly encouraged to visit a studio and see how programmes were made. This was wise. Make sure you do the equivalent for whatever is the core activity of your new employer.

F Don’t try to do the job too soon. This may seem strange because, after all, you have been appointed to get on and do the job. But in your first few weeks your task is to learn what the job really is, rather than immediately starting to do what you assume it is.

G Starting a new job is one of life’s major transitions. Treat it with the attention it deserves and you will find that all your work in preparing and then going through the selection process has paid off magnificently.

Questions 21-27
The text has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

21. the emotions that new employees are likely to experience at first
22. a warning to be patient at first
23. how colleagues might react to certain behaviour
24. travelling to your new workplace before you start working there
25. an example of observing an activity carried out within an organisation
26. some things that the organisation should arrange for when you begin
27. a division of jobs within an organisation into two categories

Section 3

How animals keep fit

No one would dream of running a marathon without first making a serious effort to train for it. But no matter how well they have stuck to their training regime, contestants will find that running non-stop for 42 kilometres is going to hurt.

Now consider the barnacle goose. Every year this bird carries out a 3000-kilometre migration. So how do the birds prepare for this? Do they spend months gradually building up fitness? That’s not really the barnacle goose’s style. Instead, says environmental physiologist Lewis Halsey, ‘They just basically sit on the water and eat a lot.’

Until recently, nobody had really asked whether exercise is as tightly connected to fitness in the rest of the animal kingdom as it is for us. The question is tied up in a broader assumption: that animals maintain fitness because of the exercise they get finding food and escaping predators.

Halsey points out that this may not necessarily be the case. Take the house cat. Most domestic cats spend much of the day lounging around, apparently doing nothing, rather than hunting for food. But over short distances, even the laziest can move incredibly fast when they want to. Similarly, black and brown bears manage to come out of several months’ hibernation with their muscle mass intact – without having to lift so much as a paw during this time.
Barnacle geese go one better. In the process of sitting around, they don’t just maintain their fitness. They also develop stronger hearts and bigger flight muscles, enabling them to fly for thousands of kilometres in a migration that may last as little as two days.

So, if exercise isn’t necessarily the key to physical strength, then what is? One clue comes from a broader view of the meaning of physical fitness. Biologically speaking, all it means is that the body has undergone changes that make it stronger and more efficient. In animals such as bears these changes appear to be triggered by cues such as falling temperatures or insufficient food. In the months of hibernation, these factors seem to prompt the release of muscle-protecting compounds which are then carried to the bears’ muscles in their blood and prevent muscle loss.

Barnacle geese, Halsey suggests, may be responding to an environmental change such as temperature, which helps their bodies somehow ‘know’ that a big physical challenge is looming. In other bird species, that cue may be something different. Chris Guglielmo, a physiological ecologist, has studied the effect of subjecting migratory songbirds known as yellow-rumped warblers to changing hours of daylight. ‘We don’t need to take little songbirds and train them up to do a 6- or 10-hour flight,’ he says. If they are subjected to the right daylight cycle, ‘we can take them out of the cage and put them in the wind tunnel, and they fly for 10 hours.’

Unlike migratory birds, however, humans have no biological shortcut to getting fit. Instead, pressures in our evolutionary history made our bodies tie fitness to exercise.

Our ancestors’ lives were unpredictable. They had to do a lot of running to catch food and escape danger, but they also needed to keep muscle mass to a minimum because muscle is biologically expensive. Each kilogram contributes about 10 to 15 kilocalories a day to our metabolism when resting — which doesn’t sound like much until you realise that muscles account for about 40 percent of the average person’s body mass. ‘Most of us are spending 20 percent of our basic energy budget taking care of muscle mass,’ says Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist and marathon runner.

So our physiology evolved to let our weight and fitness fluctuate depending on how much food was available. ‘This makes us evolutionarily different from most other animals,’ says Lieberman. In general, animals merely need to be capable of short bouts of intense activity, whether it’s the cheetah chasing prey or the gazelle escaping. Cats are fast, but they don’t need to run very far. Perhaps a few mad dashes around the house are all it takes to keep a domestic one fit enough for feline purposes. ‘Humans, on the other hand, needed to adapt to run slower, but for longer,’ says Lieberman.

He argues that long ago on the African savannah, natural selection made us into ‘supremely adapted’ endurance athletes, capable of running prey into the ground and ranging over long distances with unusual efficiency. But only, it appears, if we train. Otherwise we quickly degenerate into couch potatoes.

As for speed, even those animals that do cover impressive distances don’t have to be the fastest they can possibly be. Barnacle geese needn’t set world records when crossing the North Atlantic; they just need to be able to get to their destination. ‘And,’ says exercise physiologist Ross Tucker, ‘humans may be the only animal that actually cares about reaching peak performance.’ Other than racehorses and greyhounds, both of which we have bred to race, animals aren’t directly competing against one another. ‘I don’t know that all animals are the same, performance-wise … and we don’t know whether training would enhance their ability,’ he says.

Questions 28-30
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

28. The writer discusses marathon runners and barnacle geese to introduce the idea that
A marathon runners may be using inefficient training methods.
B the role of diet in achieving fitness has been underestimated.
C barnacle geese spend much longer preparing to face a challenge.
D serious training is not always necessary for physical achievement.

29. The writer says that human muscles
A use up a lot of energy even when resting.
B are heavier than other types of body tissue.
C were more efficiently used by our ancestors.
D have become weaker than they were in the past.

30. The writer says that in order to survive, early humans developed the ability to
A hide from their prey.
B run long distances.
C adapt their speeds to different situations.
D predict different types of animal movements.

Questions 31-35
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage.

What is the key to physical fitness?

In biological terms, when an animal is physically fit, its body changes, becoming more powerful and (31) …………….. For bears, this change may be initially caused by colder weather or a lack of (32) …………………, which during (33) ………………….. causes certain compounds to be released into their (34) ………………… and to travel around the body. These compounds appear to prevent muscle loss. In the case of barnacle geese, the change may be due to a variation in (35) …………………..

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

36. One belief about how animals stay fit is possibly untrue.
37. It may not be possible to train all animals to improve their speed.
38. One type of bird has demonstrated fitness when exposed to a stimulus in experimental conditions.
39. Human energy use developed in a different way from that of animals.
40. One type of bird may develop more strength when the weather becomes warmer or cooler.

List of Researchers
A Lewis Halsey
B Chris Guglielmo
C Daniel Lieberman
D Ross Tucker