STUDENT COPY Name : MENTORS”READING PRACTICE PASSAGES, Reading Passage 1 You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. THE HISTORY OF ASPIRIN In the late 1890s, Felix Hoffman, a chemist with Germany's Friedrich Bayer (pronounced "Byer”) & Company, started looking for a new treatment to help relieve his father’s painful rheumatism, Drugs to treat the pain and inflammation of rheumatism had been around for 2000 years. In 200 B.C,, Hippocrates, the “father of medicine”, observed that chewing on the bark of the white willow tree soothed aches and pains. In 1823, chemists finally succeeded in isolating the bark’s active Ingredient. It was salicylic acid. The problem was that this acid wasn’t safe. In its pure form, it was so powerful that it did damage at the same time it was doing good. Unless you mixed it with water, it would burn your mouth and throat. And even with water, it was so hard on the stomach lining that people who took it became violently ill, complaining that their stomachs felt like they were “crawling with ants.” Salicylic acid had given Hoffman's father multiple ulcers. He had literally burned holes in his stomach trying to relieve his rheumatic"pain-and=was"desperate"for-something\milder. So Hoffman read through all the scientific literature he-could find. He discovered that evéry scientist who had tried to neutralize the acidic properties of salicylit acid had failéd~except one. In 1853, a French chemist named Charles Frederic Gerhart.had improved. the. acid by adding sodium and acetyl chloride- creating a new compound,called. acetylsalicylic acid. However, the. substance was so unstable and difficult to make that Gerhart had abandoned it. Hoffman decided to make his own batch of Gerhart’s acetylsalicylic acid. Working on it in his spare time, he managed to produce a purer, more stable form than anyone had been able to make. He tested the powder on himself successfully. Then he gave some to his father. It eased the elder Hoffman's pain, with virtually no side-effects. Hoffman reported his findings to his superiors at Bayer. His immediate supervisor was Heinrich Dreser, the inventor of heroin. (At that time, it was thought to be a non-addictive substitute for morphine. Heroin was a brand name, selected to describe the drug’s heroic painkilling properties). Dreser studied Hoffman's acid, found that it worked, and in 1899 Bayer began selling their patented acetylsalicylic acid powder to physicians under the brand name Aspirin. The name was derived from the Latin term for the “queen of the meadow” plant, Spiraea ulmaria, which was an important source of salicylic acid. A year later, they introduced aspirin pills. Within 10 years of its introduction, aspirin became the most commonly prescribed medicine in the world for 2 reasons: (1) it actually worked, and (2) unlike heroin, morphine, and other powerful drugs at that time, it had few side-effects. There was nothing on the market like it, and when it proved effective at reducing fever during the influenza epidemics at the start of the twentieth century, its reputation as a miracle drug spread around the world Copyright © HEMORS’ CRASH Reading3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentorscom.bd | page2“This was a period of time when a person only had a life expectancy of 44 years because there was no medicine available,” says Bayer representative Dr. Steven Weisman. “Aspirin very quickly became the most important drug avallable.” It seemed to be able to solve any problem, large or small- gargling aspirin dissolved in water eased sore throats, and rubbing aspirin against a baby's gums even helped sooth teething pain, Aspirin was initially a prescription- only medicine, but it became available over the counter in 1915. Sales exploded, and demand for the new drug grew at a faster rate than ever. Since Bayer owned the patent on aspirin- and there was no other drug like it, the company did not have to worry about competition; it had the worldwide market to itself. But the focus of history would soon get in the way. In 1916, Bayer used its aspirin profits to build a massive new factory in upstate New York. They immediately started manufacturing the drug for the American market, and sold $6 million- worth aspirin in its first year. Then they ran into problems. World War 1 made Germany America’s enemy and in 1918, the U.S. Government seized Bayer’s American assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act. They auctioned the factory off to the Sterling Products Company of West Virginia. (The two Bayers would not reunite again until 1995, when the German Bayer bought Sterling’s over- the counterdrug business for $1 billion). Sterling continued marketing aspirin under the Bayer brand name, which by now had been ‘Americanized to “Bay-er”, ‘The original patent for aspirin expired ih 1917 and the “Aspirin® trademark was lost in 1921. Anyone who wanted to make and sell aspirin was!now legally free to dovso. By the 1930s, there were more than a thousand brands of pure aspirin.on the, market;,there were, also hundreds of products (Anacin, for example) thatscombined. aspirin.with.caffeine.or.other drugs. A bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet was as common in American households as salt and pepper were on the kitchen table, Questions 1-4 Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS to answer the following questions. 1. Name the main reason that acetylsalicylic acid was better than salicylic acid. 2. What event made Bayer unpopular with the Americans? 3. Why were so many companies able to copy Aspirin after 1921? 4, Besides going toa doctor, in what other way could you buy Aspirin after 1915? Copyright © MENTORS’ CRASH Reading'3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | page3Questions 5-9 Complete the table on the following page. USE NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. NB: An answer may be used more than once. YEAR EVENT PERSON/ COMPANY 7823 Creation of 5. Chemists 1853) Mixed acetyl chloride and | Gerhart 6. 7. Introduction of Aspirin Bayer 1995, Sold its business to Bayer 8 1918 Bayer's assets were | US. Government Questions 10-14 Look at the following lists of inventors:and.inventions: Match each inventor to an invention. Choose.£ f.there is.no, information about it in the reading passage. NB: You may use a letter more than once. INVENTORS INVENTIONS (10) Hippocrates Anacin (11) Chemists in 1823 Salicylic Acid (12) Hoffman Acetylsalicylic Acid gop p Heroin (13) Dreser E._ Not Mentioned (14) Gerhart Copyrigl MEMOS" CRASH Reading'y Diol: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentorscombd | pageREADING PASSAGE 2 You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 15-27 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. WHEEL OF FORTUNE Emma Duncan discusses the potential effects on the entertainment industry of the digital revolution. A Since moving pictures were invented a century ago, a new way of distributing entertainment to consumers has emerged about once every generation. Each such innovation has changed the industry irreversibly; each has been accompanied by a period of tear mixed with exhilaration. The arrival of digital technology, which translates music, pictures and text into the zeros and ones of computer language, marks one of those periods B this may sound familiar, because the digital revolution, and the explosion of choice that would go with it, has been heralded for some time. In 1999, John Malone, chief executive of TCI, an ‘American cable giant, welcomed the '50 channel universe’. Digital television was about to deliver everything except pizzas to people's living rooms. When the entertainment companies tried out the technology, it worked fine - but not ata price that people were prepared to pay. C Those 500 channels eventually arrived but via the Internet and the PC rather than through television. The digital revolution was starting to affect the entertainment business in unexpected ways. Eventually it will change every aspect of it, rom the way cartoons are made to the way films are screened to the way people buy music. That much is clear. What nobody is sure of is how it will affect the economics ofthe business. D__ new technologies always contain within them both threats and opportunities. They have the potential both to make the companies in the business a great deal richer, and to sweep them away. Old companies always fear new technology. Hollywood was hostile to television, television terrified by the VCR. Go back far enough, points out Hal Varian, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, and you find publishers complaining that ‘circulating-libraries’ would cannibalize their sales. Yet whenever a new technology has come in, it has made more money for existing entertainment companies. The proliferation of the means of distribution results, gratifyingly in the proliferation of dollars, pounds, pesetas and the rest to pay for it, E llthe same, there is something in the old companies’ fears. New technologies may not threaten their lives, but they usually change their role. Once television became widespread, film and radio stopped being the staple form of entertainment. Cable television has undermined the power of the broadcasters. And as power has shifted the movie studios, the radio companies and the television broadcasters have been swallowed up. These days, the’ grand old names of entertainment have more resonance than power Paramount is part of Viacom, a cable company; Universal, part of Seagram, a drinks-and-entertainment company; MGM, once the roaring lion of Hollywood, has been reduced to a whisper because it is not part of one of the giants. And RCA, ‘once the most important broadcasting company in the world, is now a recording label belonging to Bertelsmann, a large German entertainment company. Copyright © MENTORS CRASH Reading'3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | pagesF part of the reason why incumbents got pushed aside was that they did not see what was corning. But they also faced a tighter regulatory environment than the present one. In America, laws preventing television broadcasters from owning programme companies were repealed earlier this decade, allowing the creation of vertically integrated businesses. Greater freedom, combined with a sense of history, prompted the smarter companies in the entertainment business to re- invent themselves. They saw what happened to those of their predecessors who were stuck with ‘one form of distribution. So, these days, the powers in the entertainment business are no longer movie studios, or television broadcasters, or publishers; all those businesses have become part of bigger businesses still, companies that can both create content and distribute it in a range of different ways. G__ out of all this, seven huge entertainment companies have emerged -Time Warner, Walt Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, News Corp, Seagram and Sony. They cover pretty well every bit of the entertainment business except pornography. Three are American, one is Australian, one Canadian, one German and one Japanese. ‘What you are seeing’, says Christopher Dixon, Managing Director of Media Research at PaineWebber, a stockbroker, ‘is the creation of a global oligopoly. It happened to the oil and automotive businesses earlier this century; now it is happening to the entertainment business.’ It remains to be seen whether the latest technology will weaken those great companies, or make them stronger than ever. Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph mentions the points on the following page? NB- Some of the paragraphs will be used more than once. 15. the contrasting effects that new technology can have on existing business 16. the fact that a total transformation is going to take place in the future in the delivery of all forms of entertainment 17. the confused feelings that people are known to have experienced in response to technological innovation 18. the fact that some companies have learnt from the mistakes of others 19. the high cost to the consumer of new ways of distributing entertainment 20. uncertainty regarding the financial impact of wider media access 21. the fact that some companies were the victims of strict government policy 22. the fact that the digital revolution could undermine the giant entertainment companies. Copyright © WENTORS’ CRASH Reading-3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 6959796 mentors.combd | page 6Questions 23 -26 The writer refers to various individuals and companies in the reading passage. Match the people or companies (A-E) with the points made in Questions 23-26 about the introduction of new technology. 23. Historically, new forms of distributing entertainment have alarmed those well-established in the business. 24. The merger of entertainment companies follows 2 pattern evident in other industries. 25. Major entertainment bodies that have remained independent have lost their influence. John Malone Hal Varian Maw Walt Disney Christopher Dixon 26. News of the most recent technological development was published some years ago. Question 27 Choose the appropriate letters A-D in the following questions. 27. Which of the following best summarizes the writer's views in.Reading Passage 2? ‘A. the publi¢ should cease resisting the introduction of new technology B. Digital technology will increase-profits in the entertainment business C._Entertainrient companies should adapt to technological innovation D. Technological change only benefits big entertainment companies. Copyright © MENTORS’ CRASH Reading'3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | page7Reading Passage 3 You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Questions 28-33 Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs A-H. From the list of headings below, choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers (i-xi) corresponding to the different paragraphs. ist of Headings Gathering the information Cigarettes produced to match an image Financial outlay on marketing The first advertising methods Pressure causes a drop in sales Changing attitudes allow new marketing tactics Background to the research A public uproar is avoided The innovative move to written advertisements 00 Acentury of uninhibited smoking (xd) Conclusions of the research 28. Paragraph A 29, Paragraph B 30. Paragraph C Example Paragraph D ‘Answer iv 31. Paragraph E 32. Paragraph F 33, Paragraph G Example Paragraph H Answer xi Copyright © WENTORS CRASH Reading:3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.combd | page 8LOOKING FOR A MARKET AMONG ADOLESCENTS A. 1n 1992, the most recent year for which data are available, the US tobacco industry spent $5 billion on domestic marketing, That figure represents a huge increase from the approximate $250: million budget in 1971, when tobacco advertising was banned from television and radio. The current expenditure translates to about $75 for every adult smoker or to $4,500 for every adolescent who became a smoker that year. This apparently high cost to attract a new smoker is very likely recouped over the average 25 years that this teen will smoke. B inthe first half of this century, leaders of the tobacco companies boasted that innovative mass-marketing strategies built the industry. Recently, however, the tobacco business has maintained that its advertising is geared to draw established smokers to particular brands. But public health advocates insist that such advertising plays a role in generating new demand, with adolescents being the primary target. To explore the issue, we examined several marketing campaigns undertaken over the years and correlated them with the ages smokers say they began their habit. We find that, historically, there is considerable evidence that such campaigns led to an increase in cigarette smoking among adolescents of the targeted group. C_ National surveys collected the ages at which people started smoking. The 1955 Current Population Survey (CPS) was the first to query respondents for this information, although only summary data survive. Beginning in: 1970,-however, the National-Health'Interview Surveys (NHIS) Included this question in some, polls. Answers from all the surveys.weré combined to produce a sample of more than 165,000 individuals. Using a respondent's age at the time of the survey and the reported age of initiation [age'they. started smoking], the year thé person began smoking could be determined. Dividing the number 6f adolescents (defined as those"12'to' 17 years old) who started smoking during a particular interval by the number who were “eligible” to begin at the start of the interval set the initiation rate for that group. D__Mass-marketing campaigns began as early as the 1880s, which boosted tobacco consumption six fold by 1900. Much of the rise was attributed to a greater number of people smoking cigarettes, as opposed to using cigars, pipes, snuff or chewing tobacco. Marketing strategies included painted billboards and an extensive distribution of coupons, which a recipient could redeem for free cigarettes. Some brands included soft-porn pictures of women in the packages. Such tactics inspired outery from educational leaders concerned about their corrupting influence on teenage boys. Thirteen percent of the males surveyed in 1955 who reached adolescence between 1890 and 1910 commenced smoking by 18 years of age, compared with almost no females. E the power of targeted advertising is more apparent if one considers the men born between 1890 and 1899, In 1912, when many of these men were teenagers, the RJ. Reynolds Company launched the Camel brand of cigarettes with a revolutionary approach. Every city in the country was bombarded with print advertising. According to the 1955 CPS, initiation by age 18 for males in this group jumped to 21.6 percent, a two thirds increase over those born before 1890. The NHIS initiation rate also reflected this change. For adolescent males it went up from 2.9 percent between 1910 and 1912 to 4.9 percent between 1918 and 1921. Copyright © WENTORS’ CRASH Reading:3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 6959796 mentors.combd | page 9F it was not until the mid-1920s that social mores permitted cigarette advertising to focus on women. In 1926 a poster depicted women imploring smokers of Chesterfield cigarettes to "Blow Some My Way". The most successful crusade, however, was for Lucky Strikes, which urged women to "Reach for a Lucky instead of a Sweet." The 1955 CPS data showed that 7 percent of the women who were adolescents during the mid- 1920s had started smoking by age 18, compared with only 2 percent in the preceding generation of female adolescents. Initiation rates from the NHIS data for adolescent girls were observed to increase threefold, from 0.6 percent between 1922 and 1925 to 1L8 percent between 1930 and 1933. In contrast, rates for males rose only slightly. G_Thenext major boost in smoking initiation in adolescent females occurred in the late 1960s. In 1967 the tobacco industry launched "niche" brands aimed exclusively at women. The most popular was Virginia Slims. The visuals of this campaign emphasized a woman who was strong, independent and very thin. Initiation in female adolescents nearly doubled, from 3.7 percent between 1964 and 1967 to 6.2 percent between 1972 and 1975 (NHIS data). During the same period, rates for adolescent males remained stable. H Thus, in four distinct instances over the past 100 years, innovative and directed tobacco marketing campaigns were associated with marked surges in primary demand from adolescents only in the target group. The first two were directed at males and the second two at females. Of course, other factors helped to entrench smoking in society. Yet its clear from the data that advertising has been an overwhelming force:in attracting new users: Questions 34:37 Do the following statements agr&é WithitHe information\ia Reading Passage 3? Yes if the statement is true according to the passage No if the statement contradicts the passage NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage. 34, Cigarette marketing has declined in the US since tobacco advertising was banned on TV. 35. Tobacco companies claim that their advertising targets existing smokers. 36. Women who took up smoking in the past lost weight. 37. The two surveys show different trends in cigarette initiation. Questions 38-40 Complete the sentences below with words taken from the Reading Passage. Use NO MORE THAN ‘THREE WORDS for each answer. Tobacco companies are currently being accused of aiming their advertisements mainly At BB. Statistics on smoking habits for men born between 1890 and 1899 were gathered in the year 39... The nO. brand of cigarettes was designed for a particular sex. Copyright © HEMORS’ CRASH Reading Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | pagesoHOME PRACTICE PASSAGES Reading Passage 1 You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. WORKING IN THE MOVIES Subtitling is an exacting part of the translation profession. Melanie Leyshon talks to Virginie Verdier of London translation company VSI about the glamour and the grind. ‘When people ask French translator Virginie Verdler what she does for a living, it must be tempting to say “Oh me? | am in the movies.” It’s strictly true, but her starring role is behind the scenes. As translating goes, it doesn’t get more entertaining or glamorous than subtitling films. If you are very lucky, you get to work on the blockbusters before they are even in the cinemas, and if you are just plain lucky, you get to work on the blockbuster movies that are going to video or DVD. Virginie is quick to point out that this is as exciting as any translating job. ‘You work hard. It’s not all entertainment as you are doing the translating. You need all the skills of a good translator and a top- notch editor. You have to be precise and, of course, much more concise than in traditional translation work.’ ‘The process starts when you get the original script and.a tape."We would start with translating and adapting the film script. The-next.step is what We call ‘timing’, which means synchronizing the subtitles to the dialogue and piletifes.{This:task requires discipline "Vou play the film, listen to the voice and subtitles are up OM'tHE Screen ready to'be’timed: YOU INSEFE'Your subtitle when you hear the corresponding dialogue and delete it when the dialogue finishes. The video tape carries a time code which runs in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. Think of it as a clock. The subtitling unit has an insert key to capture the time code where you want the subtitle to appear. When you press the delete key, it captures the time code where you want the subtitle to disappear. So each subtitle would have an ‘in’ point and an ‘out’ point which represent the exact time when the subtitle comes in and goes out. This process is then followed by 2 manual review, subtitle by subtitle, and time codes are adjusted to improve synchronization and capture shot changes. This process involves playing the film literally frame by frame as itis essential the subtitles respect the visual rhythm of the film.” Different subtitlers use different techniques. ‘I would go through the film and do the whole translation and then go right back from the beginning and start the timing process. But you could do it in different stages- translate, say 20 minutes of the film, then time this section and translate the ext 20 minutes, and so on. It’s just a different method.’ For multi-lingual projects, the timing is done first to create what is called a ‘spotting list’, a subtitle ‘template, which is in effect a list of English subtitles pre-timed and edited for translation purposes. This is then translated and the timing is adapted to the target language with the help of the translator for quality control. Copyright © MENTORS’ CRASH Reading:3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | pageaa‘Like any translating work, you can't hurry subtitling,’ says Virginie. ‘If subtitles are translated and timed in a rush, the quality will be affected and it will show.’ Mistakes usually occur when the translator does not master the source language and misunderstands the original dialogue. ‘Our work also involves checking and reworking subtitles when the translation is not up to standard. However, the reason for redoing subtitles is not just because of poor quality translation, We may need to adapt subtitles to a new version of the film: the time code may be different, the film may have been edited or the subtitles may have been created for the cinema rather than video. If subtitles were done for cinema on 35mm, we would need to reformat the timing for video, as subtitles could be out of synch or too fast. If the translation is good, we would obviously respect the work of the original translator.’ On a more practical note, there are several subtitling rules to follow, says Virginie. ‘Subtitles should appear at the bottom of the screen and usually in the centre.’ She says that different countries use different standards and rules. ‘in Scandinavian countries and Holland for example, subtitles are traditionally left justified. Characters usually appear in white with a thin black border for easy reading against a white or light background. We can also use different colors for each speaker when subtitling for the hearing impaired. Subtitles should also have a maximum of 2 lines and the maximum number of characters on each line should be between 32 and 39. Our company standard is 37 (different companies and countries have different standards}.’ Translators often have a favorite genre, whether it’s war films, musicals, comedies (one of the most difficult because of the subtleties. and..nuances..of-comedy..in.different countries), drama, or corporate programmes. Each requires @ certain ‘tone and: style= "VSI employs American subtitlers, which is incredibly useful asmany‘ofithe films'we subtitle ace’ American,’ says Virginie. ‘For an English person, it would not"be so easy to understand'the meaning behind typically American expressions and vice versa,’ ues ns 1-5 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? Write. TRUE if the statement agrees with the information provided FALSE if the statement does not agree with the information provided NOTGIVEN if there is no information provided about the statement. 2. For translators, all subtitling work on films is desirable. 2. Subtitling work involves a requirement that does not apply to other translation work. 3. Some subtitling techniques work better than others. 4 Few people are completely successful at subtitling comedies. Every single movie has the same tone and style. Copyright © MENTORS’ CRASH Reading:3 Dial: 9131828, 9348059, 8959796 mentors.com.bd | pageaz