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Reading PTE
Reading PTE
Insects do not have (1) vision as sharp as that of mammals or birds. The insect
compound eye is more familiar to movement and so it cannot (2) precisely position
distant objects. So, insects tend to take a rather unsteady flight path to navigate to a
particular object. For example, in order to locate the caterpillar, the wasp needs to
balance the odour signals (3) received by its two antennae.
C. S. Lewis, or Jack Lewis, as he preferred to be called, was born in Belfast, Ireland (now
Northern Ireland) on November 29, 1898. He was the second son of Albert Lewis, a lawyer,
and Flora Hamilton Lewis. His older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis, who was known as
Warnie, had been born three years ago in 1895.
Lewis's early childhood was relatively happy and carefree. In those days Northern Ireland
was not yet plagued by bitter civil strife, and the Lewises were comfortably off. The family
home, called Little Lea, was a large, gabled house with dark, narrow passages and an
overgrown garden, which Warnie and Jack played in and explored together. There was
also a library that was crammed with books - two of Jack's favorites were Treasure Island by
Robert Louis Stevenson and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
This somewhat idyllic boyhood came to an end for Lewis when his mother became ill and
died of cancer in 1908. Barely a month after her death the two boys were sent away from
home to go to boarding school in England.
Lewis hated the school, with its strict rules and hard, unsympathetic headmaster, and he
missed Belfast terribly. Fortunately for him, the school closed in 1910, and he was able to
return to Ireland.
After a year, however, he was sent back to England to study. This time, the experience
proved to be mostly positive. As a teenager, Lewis learned to love poetry, especially the
works of Virgil and Homer. He also developed an interest in modern languages, mastering
French, German, and Italian.
1. Earlier/previously/subsequently
2. Bothered pested doubted
3. Watched/instigated/inspired
4. Careless/desensitized/deliberative
5. Essence/understanding/suffering
The roots of our modern scientific tradition can be traced back to the Babylonians
who began to predict weather from cloud formations and, more particularly, the
Ancient Greeks. As is the case in so many other fields, Aristotle is considered to
have founded the modern science of meteorology when he correctly identified
the hydrologic cycle in 350 BC. This cycle, which describes the continuous
movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth, is fundamental to
much of modern weather forecasting. However, Aristotle himself and his follower
and pupil Theophrastus largely failed to make the connection between the water
cycle and weather forecasting and their science was scarcely more reliable than the
aboriginal rain dance. Indeed, the word “meteorology” literally means the study of
heavenly bodies and the Greeks attempted to explain weather conditions through
heavenly signs such as colours of the sky, rings and halos.
The influence of Aristotle on weather forecasting lasted for almost 2000 years and
was only gradually eroded by a combination of a series of scientific discoveries and
advances in communication technology. One important step forward was made in
1654 when Fernando de Medici set up the first weather observation network with
meteorological stations in eleven separate European cities. When this data was
centrally collected in Florence, it became possible to analyse weather patterns on a
grander scale than ever before by allowing maps to be produced that showed
atmospheric conditions over a large area of the Earth’s surface. The invention of the
telegraph in 1837 allowed such observations to be collected more quickly and from a
wider region than ever before and as a consequence meteorologists were able to
identify the global nature of weather patterns.
ANSWERS
1) a) founded 2) b) ensuring 3) b) landowners 4) c) under 5) a) dissolved 6) a) fortune 7) b) received 8) a) ideals 9) c)
returned 10) d) figure 11) a) generous 12) b) walk
1)_________
The Pitcairn Islands are in the South Pacific Ocean, about
2) ____________
halfway Peru and New Zealand. The larger island of Pitcairn
3) _____________
was in 1767 by the British and settled in 1790 by the mutineers from the
4) _____________
English ship 'Bounty' and their Tahitian companions. Pitcairn was the
5) _____________
Pacific island to become a British colony (in 1838) and today the last
vestige of the British empire in the South Pacific. The population of about 50 are
6) _____________
the of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian wives. English is the
official language, but many islanders communicate in Pitcairnese (a pidgin language comprising of
elements of 18th century English and a Tahitian dialect).
7) ______________
The of this tiny island exist on fishing, subsistence farming, handicrafts,
8) _____________
and postage stamps. The fertile soil of the valleys produces a wide of
fruits and vegetables, including citrus, sugarcane, watermelons, bananas, yams, and beans. Bartering
9) ________________
is an part of the economy. The major sources of revenue are the sale
10) _______
of postage stamps to collectors and the sale of handicrafts to passing . It has
11) ______________
no port or harbour; and supplies must be transported by rowed
12) ______________
longboat from larger ships stationed .
How has weather forecasting evolved in the past 20 years? There have been a
number of influences and perhaps the most visible is the use of satellite technology.
It is almost impossible to watch a forecast on television nowadays without seeing a
satellite picture showing where the areas of high pressure and low pressure are and
how the weather is likely to develop. Indeed, a whole new industry of “nowcasting”
has developed, telling us what the weather is like now and what we could expect to
see if we could be bothered to look out of the window. A less evident, but equally
relevant, innovation has been the application of the comparatively new science of
mathematical modelling to weather forecasting. This involves using the massive
computational powers of supercomputers to process all the different variables so as
to provide some likely forecasts of what will happen next with the weather. Even
here, however, the science is by no means complete and the weather experts still
need to choose between different possible forecasts. How do they do that?
Experience and judgment – not perhaps that different from the ancient Babylonians
who decided if it was going to rain by
looking at the shape of the cloud.