Science - Test Compilation

The Earth and Space Foundation
The community that focuses its efforts on the exploration of space has largely been different from
the community focused on the study and protection of the Earth's environment, despite the fact that
both fields of interest involve what might be referred to as "scientific exploration'. The reason for this
dichotomous existence is chiefly historical. The exploration of the Earth has been occurring over
many centuries, and the institutions created to do it are often very different from those founded in the
second part of the 20th century to explore space. This separation is also caused by the fact that
space exploration has attracted experts from mainly non-biological disciplines - primarily engineers
and physicists - but the study of Earth and its environment is a domain heavily populated by
biologists.
The separation between the two communities is often reflected in attitudes. In the environmental
community, it is not uncommon for space exploration to be regarded as a waste of money,
distracting governments from solving major environmental problems here at home. In the space
exploration community, it is not uncommon for environmentalists to be regarded as introspective
people who divert attention from the more expansive visions of the exploration of space - the ‘new
frontier’. These perceptions can also be negative in consequence because the full potential of both
communities can be realised better when they work together to solve problems. For example, those
involved in space exploration can provide the satellites to monitor the Earth’s fragile environments,
and environmentalists can provide information on the survival of life in extreme environments.
In the sense that Earth and space exploration both stem from the same human drive to understand
our environment and our place within it, there is no reason for the split to exist. A more accurate view
of Earth and space exploration is to see them as a continuum of exploration with many
interconnected and mutually beneficial links. The Earth and Space Foundation, a registered charity,
was established for the purposes of fostering such links through field research and by direct practical
action.
Projects that have been supported by the Foundation include environmental projects using
technologies resulting from space exploration: satellite communications, GPS, remote sensing,
advanced materials and power sources. For example, in places where people are faced with
destruction of the forests on which their livelihood depends, rather than rejecting economic progress
and trying to save the forests on their intrinsic merit, another approach is to enhance the value of the
forests - although these schemes must be carefully assessed to be successful. In the past, the
Foundation provided a grant to a group of expeditions that used remote sensing to plan eco-tourism
routes in the forests of Guatemala, thus providing capital to the local communities through the tourist
trade. This novel approach is now making the protection of the forests a sensible economic decision.
The Foundation funds expeditions making astronomical observations from remote, difficult-to-access
Earth locations, archaeological field projects studying the development of early civilisations that
made significant contributions to astronomy and space sciences, and field expeditions studying the
way in which views of the astronomical environment shaped the nature of past civilisations. A part of
Syria - ‘the Fertile Crescent’ - was the birthplace of astronomy, accountancy, animal domestication
and many other fundamental developments of human civilisation. The Foundation helped fund a
large archaeology project by the Society for Syrian Archaeology at the University of California, Los
Angeles, in collaboration with the Syrian government that used GPS and satellite imagery to locate
mounds, or ’tels’, containing artefacts and remnants of early civilisations. These collections are being
used to build a better picture of the nature of the civilisations that gave birth to astronomy.
Field research also applies the Earth’s environmental and biological resources to the human
exploration and settlement of space. This may include the use of remote environments on Earth, as
well as physiological and psychological studies in harsh environments. In one research project, the
Foundation provided a grant to an international caving expedition to study the psychology of
explorers subjected to long-term isolation in caves in Mexico. The psychometric tests on the cavers
were used to enhance US astronaut selection criteria by the NASA Johnson Space Center.
Space-like environments on Earth help us understand how to operate in the space environment or
help us characterise extraterrestrial environments for future scientific research. In the Arctic, a 24-
kilometrewide impact crater formed by an asteroid or comet 23 million years ago has become home
tc a Mars- analogue programme. The Foundation helped fund the NASA Haughton-Mars Project to
use this crater to test communications and exploration technologies in preparation for the human
exploration of Mars. The crater, which sits in high Arctic permafrost, provides an excellent replica of
the physical processes occurring on Mars, a permafrosted, impact-altered planet. Geologists and
biologists can work at the site to help understand how impact craters shape the geological
characteristics and possibly biological potential of Mars.
In addition to its fieldwork and scientific activities. the Foundation has award programmes. These
include a series of awards for the future human exploration of Mars, a location with a diverse set of
exploration challenges. The awards will honour a number of ‘firsts’ on Mars that include landing on
the surface, undertaking an overland expedition to the Martian South Pole, undertaking an overland
expedition to the Martian North Pole, climbing Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the solar
system, and descending to the bottom of Valles Marineris, the deepest canyon on Mars. The
Foundation will offer awards for expeditions further out in the solar system once these Mars awards
have been claimed. Together, they demonstrate that the programme really has no boundary in what
it could eventually support, and they provide longevity for the objectives of the Foundation.
Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the reading passage?
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1 Activities related to environmental protection and space exploration have a common theme.
2 It is unclear why space exploration evolved in a different way from environmental studies on
Earth.
3 Governments tend to allocate more money to environmental projects than space exploration.
4 Unfortunately, the environmental and space exploration communities have little to offer each
other in terms of resources.
5 The Earth and Space Foundation was set up later than it was originally intended.
Questions 6-9
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
6 What was the significance of the ’novel approach' adopted in the Guatemala project?
A It minimised the need to protect the forests.
B It reduced the impact of tourists on the forests.
C It showed that preserving the forests can be profitable.
D It gave the Foundation greater control over the forests.
7 GPS and satellite imagery were used in the Syrian project to
A help archaeologists find ancient items.
B explore land that is hard to reach.
C reduce the impact of archaeological activity.
D evaluate some early astronomical theories.
8 One of the purposes of the Foundation’s awards is to
A attract non-scientists to its work.
B establish priorities for Mars exploration.
C offer financial incentives for space exploration.
D establish the long-term continuity of its activities.
9 What is the writer’s purpose in the passage?
A to persuade people to support the Foundation
B to explain the nature of the Foundation’s work
C to show how views on the Foundation have changed
D to reject earlier criticisms of the Foundation’s work
Questions 10-14
Complete the summary using the words, A-l, below.
Field research: Applying the Earth's environment to the settlement of space Some studies have
looked at how humans function in 10 ABCDEFGHI situations.
In one project, it was decided to review cave explorers in Mexico who
tolerate 11 ABCDEFGHI periods on their own.
It is also possible to prepare for space exploration by studying environments on Earth that
are 12 ABCDEFGHI to those on Mars.
A huge crater in the Arctic is the 13 ABCDEFGHI place to test the technologies needed to explore
Mars and gather other relevant 14 ABCDEFGHI information.
A comparable D ideal G scientific
B extreme E unexpected H extended
C connected F beneficial I individual

Solution for: The Earth and Space Foundation
Answer Table
1. YES 8. D
2. NO 9. B
3. NOT GIVEN 10. B
4. NO 11. H
5. NOT GIVEN 12. A
6. C 13. D
7. A 14. G
The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence
The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has haunted humanity for centuries, but we
may now stand poised on the brink of the answer to that question, as we search for radio signals
from other intelligent civilisations. This search, often known by the acronym SETI (search for extra-
terrestrial intelligence], is a difficult one. Although groups around the world have been searching
intermittently for three decades, it is only now that we have reached the level of technology where
we can make a determined attempt to search all nearby stars for any sign of life.
A
The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity - the same curiosity about the natural world that
drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe. We want to know
whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there is something very special
about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that we see around us on the planet. The
simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to answer this most basic of all questions. In this
sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery of pure science which is continually pushing out the
horizon of our knowledge. However, there are other reasons for being interested in whether life
exists elsewhere. For example, we have had civilisation on Earth for perhaps only a few thousand
years, and the threats of nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have told us that our
survival may be tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe ourselves out?
Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that, if other
civilisations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. Thus
any other civilisation that we hear from is likely to be far older, on average, than ourselves. The mere
existence of such a civilisation will tell us that long-term survival is possible, and gives us some
cause for optimism. It is even possible that the older civilisation may pass on the benefits of their
experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and other
threats that we haven’t yet discovered.
B
In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First, UFQs
(Unidentified Flying Objects) are generally ignored since most scientists don’t consider the evidence
for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration (although it is also important to keep an
open mind in case any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we make a very
conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like us, since if it differs
radically from us we may well not recognise it as a life form, quite apart from whether we are able to
communicate with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads
and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows,
be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and perhaps most
restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.
C
Even when we make these assumptions, our understanding of other life forms is still severely
limited. We do not even know, for example, how many stars have planets, and we certainly do not
know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions. However, when we look at
the 100 billion stars in our galaxy (the Milky Way), and 100 billion galaxies in the observable
Universe, it seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life form on it; in
fact, the best educated guess we can make, using the little that we do know about the conditions for
carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing
planet orbiting it. That means that our nearest neighbours are perhaps 100 light years away, which
is almost next door in astronomical terms.
D
An alien civilisation could choose many different ways of sending information across the galaxy, but
many of these either require too much energy, or else are severely attenuated while traversing the
vast distances across the galaxy. It turns out that, for a given amount of transmitted power, radio
waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance, and so all searches to
date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. So far there have been a
number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian searches using the
radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales. Until now there have not been any detections from the
few hundred stars which have been searched. The scale of the searches has been increased
dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to
conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this project is being
spent on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies at once. The
project has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world’s largest radio telescopes,
the American-operated telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and the French telescope in Nancy in
France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with high sensitivity for
signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other part of the project is an undirected
search which is monitoring all of space with a lower sensitivity, using the smaller antennas of
NASA’s Deep Space Network.
E
There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien
civilisation. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart from
the impracticality of sending a reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host of
ethical questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any reply could
be sent. Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior and much older
civilisation? Luckily, there is no urgency about this. The stars being searched are hundreds of light
years away, so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to reach us, and a further few hundred
years for our reply to reach them. It’s not important, then, if there’s a delay of a few years, or
decades, while the human race debates the question of whether to reply, and perhaps carefully
drafts a reply.
Questions 1-4
Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A-E.
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
Example Answer i Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets
Paragraph ii Appropriate responses to signals from other civilisations

v
A iii Vast distances to Earth’s closest neighbours
1 Paragraph B
iv Assumptions underlying the search for extra-terrestrial
2 Paragraph C intelligence
3 Paragraph D v Reasons for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
4 Paragraph E vi Knowledge of extra-terrestrial life forms
vii Likelihood of life on other planets
Questions 5-7
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
Write your answers in boxes 5-7 on your answer sheet.
5 What is the life expectancy of Earth?
6 What kind of signals from other intelligent civilisations are SETI scientists searching for?
7 How many stars are the world’s most powerful radio telescopes searching?
Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage?
In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write
8 Alien civilisations may be able to help the human race to overcome serious problems.
9 SETI scientists are trying to find a life form that resembles humans in many ways.
10 The Americans and Australians have co-operated on joint research projects.
11 So far SETI scientists have picked up radio signals from several stars.
12 The NASA project attracted criticism from some members of Congress.
13 If a signal from outer space is received, it will be important to respond promptly.
Solution for: The Search for Extra-terrestrial
Intelligence
Answer Table
1. iv 8. YES
2. vii 9. YES
3. i 10. NOT GIVEN
4. ii 11. NO
5. several billion years 12. NOT GIVEN
6. radio (waves/signals) 13. NO
7. 1000 (stars)
The Triune Brain
The first of our three brains to evolve is what scientists call the reptilian cortex. This brain
sustains the elementary activities of animal survival such as respiration, adequate rest
and a beating heart. We are not required to consciously “think” about these activities.
The reptilian cortex also houses the “startle centre”, a mechanism that facilitates swift
reactions to unexpected occurrences in our surroundings. That panicked lurch you
experience when a door slams shut somewhere in the house, or the heightened
awareness you feel when a twig cracks in a nearby bush while out on an evening stroll
are both examples of the reptilian cortex at work. When it comes to our interaction with
others, the reptilian brain offers up only the most basic impulses: aggression, mating,
and territorial defence. There is no great difference, in this sense, between a crocodile
defending its spot along the river and a turf war between two urban gangs.
Although the lizard may stake a claim to its habitat, it exerts total indifference toward the
well-being of its young. Listen to the anguished squeal of a dolphin separated from its
pod or witness the sight of elephants mourning their dead, however, and it is clear that a
new development is at play. Scientists have identified this as the limbic cortex. Unique to
mammals, the limbic cortex impels creatures to nurture their offspring by delivering
feelings of tenderness and warmth to the parent when children are nearby. These same
sensations also cause mammals to develop various types of social relations and kinship
networks. When we are with others of “our kind” - be it at soccer practice, church,
school or a nightclub - we experience positive sensations of togetherness, solidarity and
comfort. If we spend too long away from these networks, then loneliness sets in and
encourages us to seek companionship.
Only human capabilities extend far beyond the scope of these two cortexes. Humans
eat, sleep and play, but we also speak, plot, rationalise and debate finer points of
morality. Our unique abilities are the result of an expansive third brain - the neocortex -
which engages with logic, reason and ideas. The power of the neocortex comes from its
ability to think beyond the present, concrete moment. While other mammals are mainly
restricted to impulsive actions (although some, such as apes, can learn and remember
simple lessons), humans can think about the “big picture”. We can string together simple
lessons (for example, an apple drops downwards from a tree; hurting others causes
unhappiness) to develop complex theories of physical or social phenomena (such as the
laws of gravity and a concern for human rights).
The neocortex is also responsible for the process by which we decide on and commit to
particular courses of action. Strung together over time, these choices can accumulate
into feats of progress unknown to other animals. Anticipating a better grade on the
following morning’s exam, a student can ignore the limbic urge to socialise and go to
sleep early instead. Over three years, this ongoing sacrifice translates into a first class
degree and a scholarship to graduate school; over a lifetime, it can mean ground¬
breaking contributions to human knowledge and development. The ability to sacrifice our
drive for immediate satisfaction in order to benefit later is a product of the neocortex.
Understanding the triune brain can help us appreciate the different natures of brain
damage and psychological disorders. The most devastating form of brain damage, for
example, is a condition in which someone is understood to be brain dead. In this state a
person appears merely unconscious - sleeping, perhaps - but this is illusory. Here, the
reptilian brain is functioning on autopilot despite the permanent loss of other cortexes.
Disturbances to the limbic cortex are registered in a different manner. Pups with limbic
damage can move around and feed themselves well enough but do not register the
presence of their littermates. Scientists have observed how, after a limbic lobotomy2,
“one impaired monkey stepped on his outraged peers as if treading on a log or a rock”.
In our own species, limbic damage is closely related to sociopathic behaviour.
Sociopaths in possession of fully-functioning neocortexes are often shrewd and
emotionally intelligent people but lack any ability to relate to, empathise with or express
concern for others.
One of the neurological wonders of history occurred when a railway worker named
Phineas Gage survived an incident during which a metal rod skewered his skull, taking a
considerable amount of his neocortex with it. Though Gage continued to live and work
as before, his fellow employees observed a shift in the equilibrium of his personality.
Gage’s animal propensities were now sharply pronounced while his intellectual abilities
suffered; garrulous or obscene jokes replaced his once quick wit. New findings suggest,
however, that Gage managed to soften these abrupt changes over time and rediscover
an appropriate social manner. This would indicate that reparative therapy has the
potential to help patients with advanced brain trauma to gain an improved quality of life.
Questions 1-9
Classify the following as typical of
A the reptilian cortex
B the limbic cortex
C the neocortex
Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 1-9 on your answer sheet.
1 giving up short-term happiness for future gains
2 maintaining the bodily functions necessary for life
3 experiencing the pain of losing another
4 forming communities and social groups
5 making a decision and carrying it out
6 guarding areas of land
7 developing explanations for things
8 looking after one’s young
9 responding quickly to sudden movement and noise
Questions 10-13
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
10 A person with only a functioning reptilian cortex is known as
11 in humans is associated with limbic disruption.
12 An industrial accident caused Phineas Gage to lose part of his
13 After his accident, co-workers noticed an imbalance between Gage’s
and higher-order thinking.
Solution for: The Triune Brain
Answer Table
1. A 8. A
2. A 9. A
3. A 10. A
4. A 11. A
5. A 12. A
6. A 13. A
7. A
So you think humans are unique
There was a time when we thought humans were special in so many ways. Now we know better. We
are not the only species that feels emotions, empathises with others or abides by a moral code.
Neither are we the only ones with personalities, cultures and the ability to design and use tools. Yet
we have steadfastly clung to the notion that one attribute, at least, makes us unique: we alone have
the capacity for language.
Alas, it turns out we are not so special in this respect either. Key to the revolutionary reassessment
of our talent for communication is the way we think about language itself. Where once it was seen as
a monolith, a discrete and singular entity, today scientists find it is more productive to think of
language as a suite of abilities. Viewed this way, it becomes apparent that the component parts of
language are not as unique as the whole.
Take gesture, arguably the starting point for language. Until recently, it was considered uniquely
human - but not any more. Mike Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
in Leipzig, Germany, and others have compiled a list of gestures observed in monkeys, gibbons,
gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orang-utans, which reveals that gesticulation plays a large role
in their communication. Ape gestures can involve touch, vocalising or eye movement, and
individuals wait until they have another ape’s attention before making visual or auditory gestures. If
their gestures go unacknowledged, they will often repeat them or touch the recipient.
In an experiment carried out in 2006 by Erica Cartmill and Richard Byrne from the University of St
Andrews in the UK, they got a person to sit on a chair with some highly desirable food such as
banana to one side of them and some bland food such as celery to the other. The orang-utans, who
could see the person and the food from their enclosures, gestured at their human partners to
encourage them to push the desirable food their way. If the person feigned incomprehension and
offered the bland food, the animals would change their gestures - just as humans would in a similar
situation. If the human seemed to understand while being somewhat confused, giving only half the
preferred food, the apes would repeat and exaggerate their gestures - again in exactly the same way
a human would. Such findings highlight the fact that the gestures of nonhuman primates are not
merely innate reflexes but are learned, flexible and under voluntary control - all characteristics that
are considered prerequisites for human-like communication. As well as gesturing, pre-linguistic
infants babble. At about five months, babies start to make their first speech sounds, which some
researchers believe contain a random selection of all the phonemes humans can produce. But as
children learn the language of their parents, they narrow their sound repertoire to fit the model to
which they are exposed, producing just the sounds of their native language as well as its classic
intonation patterns. Indeed, they lose their polymath talents so effectively that they are ultimately
unable to produce some sounds - think about the difficulty some speakers have producing the
English th.
Dolphin calves also pass through a babbling phase, Laurance Doyle from the SETI Institute in
Mountain View, California, Brenda McCowan from the University of California at Davis and their
colleagues analysed the complexity of baby dolphin sounds and found it looked remarkably like that
of babbling infants, in that the young dolphins had a much wider repertoire of sound than adults. This
suggests that they practise the sounds of their species, much as human babies do, before they
begin to put them together in the way characteristic of mature dolphins of their species.
Of course, language is more than mere sound - it also has meaning. While the traditional, cartoonish
version of animal communication renders it unclear, unpredictable and involuntary, it has become
clear that various species are able to give meaning to particular sounds by connecting them with
specific ideas. Dolphins use 'signature whistles’, so called because it appears that they name
themselves. Each develops a unique moniker within the first year of life and uses it whenever it
meets another dolphin.
One of the clearest examples of animals making connections between specific sounds and
meanings was demonstrated by Klaus Zuberbuhler and Katie Slocombe of the University of St
Andrews in the UK. They noticed that chimps at Edinburgh Zoo appeared to make rudimentary
references to objects by using distinct cries when they came across different kinds of food. Highly
valued foods such as bread would elicit high- pitched grunts, less appealing ones, such as an apple,
got low-pitched grunts. Zuberbuhler and Slocombe showed not only that chimps could make
distinctions in the way they vocalised about food, but that other chimps understood what they meant,
When played recordings of grunts that were produced for a specific food, the chimps looked in the
place where that food was usually found. They also searched longer if the cry had signalled a prized
type of food.
Clearly animals do have greater talents for communication than we realised. Humans are still
special, but it is a far more graded, qualified kind of special than it used to be.
Questions 1-5
1 What point does the writer make in the first paragraph?

A We know more about language now than we used to.
B We recognise the importance of talking about emotions.
C We like to believe that language is a strictly human skill.
D We have used tools for longer than some other species.
2 According to the writer, what has changed our view of communication?

A analysing different world languages
B understanding that language involves a range of skills

C studying the different purposes of language
D realising that we can communicate without language
3 The writer quotes the Cartmill and Byrne experiment because it shows
A the similarities in the way humans and apes use gesture.
B the abilities of apes to use gesture in different environments.
C how food can be used to encourage ape gestures.
D how hard humans find it to interpret ape gestures.
4 In paragraph 7, the writer says that one type of dolphin sound is

A used only when dolphins are in danger.
B heard only at a particular time of day.
C heard at a range of pitch levels.
D used as a form of personal identification.

5 Experiments at Edinburgh Zoo showed that chimps were able to
A use grunts to ask humans for food.
B use pitch changes to express meaning.
C recognise human voices on a recording.

D tell the difference between a false grunt and a real one.
Questions 6-10
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? Write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
6 It could be said that language begins with gesture.
7 Ape gestures always consist of head or limb movements.
8 Apes ensure that other apes are aware of their gesturing.
9 Primate and human gestures share some key features.
10 Cartoons present an amusing picture of animal communication.

Questions 11-14
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-H, below.
Babbling
It seems that humans are not the only species that babble.
Before young infants speak, some experts think that they produce the 11 ……………….. mixture of
human sounds.
Over time, however, they copy the language of their parents, and this affects their ability to
pronounce 12 ……………….. sounds from other languages.
A 13 ……………….. pattern has been found among dolphins.

They produce a range of individual sounds when they are babies, and then combine some of these
to produce the sounds of 14 ……………….. dolphins later on.
A adult
B rare
C similar
D full
E restricted
F sociable
G different
H random
Solution for: So you think humans are unique
Answer Table
1. C 8. YES
2. B 9. YES
3. A 10. NOT GIVEN
4. D 11. D
5. B 12. G
6. YES 13. C
7. NO 14. A
Anesthesiology
Since the beginning of time, man has sought natural remedies for pain. Between 40 and 60 A.D.,
Greet? physician, Dioscorides traveled with the Roman armies, studying the medicinal properties of
plants and minerals. His book, De materia medica, written in five volumes and translated into at least
seven languages, was the primary reference source for physicians for over sixteen centuries. The
field of anesthesiology1, which was once nothing more than a list of medicinal plants and makeshift
remedies, has grown into one of the most important fields in medicine.
Many of the early pain relievers were based on myth and did little to relieve the suffering of an ill or
injured person. The mandragora (now known as the mandrabe plant) was one of the first plants to
be used as an anesthetic1. Due to the apparent screaming that the plant made as it was pulled from
the ground, people in the Middle Ages believed that the person who removed the mandrabe from the
earth would either die or go insane. This superstition may have resulted because the split root of the
mandrabe resembled the human form. In order to pull the root from the ground, the plant collector
would loosen it and tie the stem to an animal. It was believed that the safest time to uproot a
mandrabe was in the moonlight, and the best animal to use was a black dog. In his manual,
Dioscorides suggested boiling the root with wine and having a man drinb the potion to remove
sensation before cutting his flesh or burning his skin. Opium and Indian hemp were later used to
induce sleep before a painful procedure or to relieve the pain of an illness. Other remedies such as
cocaine did more harm to the patient than good as people died from their addictions. President
Ulysses S. Grant became addicted to cocaine before he died of throat cancer in 1885.
The modern field of anesthetics dates to the incident when nitrous oxide (more commonly known as
laughing gas) was accidentally discovered. Humphrey Davy, the inventor of the miner’s lamp,
discovered that inhaling the toxic compound caused a strange euphoria, followed by fits of laughter,
tears, and sometimes unconsciousness. U.S. dentist, Horace Wells, was the first on record to
experiment with laughing gas, which he used in 1844 to relieve pain during a tooth extraction. Two
years later. Dr. William Morton created the first anesthetic machine. This apparatus was a simple
glass globe containing an ether-soaked sponge. Morton considered ether a good alternative to
nitrous oxide because the numbing effect lasted considerably longer. His apparatus allowed the
patient to inhale vapors1 whenever the pain became unbearable. In 1846, during a trial experiment in
Boston, a tumor2 was successfully removed from a man's jaw area while he was anesthetized with
Morton’s machine.
The first use of anesthesia in the obstetric field occurred in Scotland by Dr. James Simpson. Instead
of ether, which he considered irritating to the eyes, Simpson administered chloroform to reduce the
pain of childbirth. Simpson sprinkled chloroform on a handkerchief and allowed laboring3 women to
inhale the fumes at their own discretion. In 1853, Queen Victoria agreed to use chloroform during the
birth of her eighth child. Soon the use of chloroform during childbirth was both acceptable and
fashionable. However, as chloroform became a more popular anesthetic, knowledge of its toxicity
surfaced, and it was soon obsolete.
After World War II, numerous developments were made in the field of anesthetics. Surgical
procedures that had been unthinkable were being performed with little or no pain felt by the patient.
Rather than physicians or nurses who administered pain relief as part of their profession,
anesthesiologists became specialists in suppressing consciousness and alleviating pain.
Anesthesiologists today are classified as perioperative physicians, meaning they take care of a
patient before, during, and after surgical procedures. It takes over eight years of schooling and four
years of residency until an anesthesiologist is prepared to practice in the United States. These
experts are trained to administer three different types of anesthetics: general, local, and regional.
General anesthetic is used to put a patient into a temporary state of unconsciousness. Local
anesthetic is used only at the affected site and causes a loss of sensation. Regional anesthetic is
used to block the sensation and possibly the movement of a larger portion of the body. As u/ell as
controlling the levels of pain for the patient before and throughout an operation, anesthesiologists
are responsible for monitoring and controlling the patient's vital functions during the procedure and
assessing the medical needs in the post-operative room.
The number of anesthesiologists in the United States has more than doubled since the 1970s, as
has the improvement and success of operative care. In addition, complications from anesthesiology
have declined dramatically. Over 40 million anesthetics are administered in the United States each
year, with only 1 in 250,000 causing death.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information in Passage 3? In boxes 1-6 on your Answer
Sheet write
TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage.
FALSE if the statement contradicts the passage.
NOT GIVEN inhere is no information about this in the passage.
1 Dioscorides’ book, De materia medica, fell out of use after 60 A.D.
2 Mandragora was used as an anesthetic during the Middle Ages.
3 Nitrous oxide can cause the user to both laugh and cry.
4 During the second half of the 19th century, most dentists used anesthesia.
5 Anesthesiologists in the United States are required to have 12 years of education and training.
6 There are fewer anesthesiologists in the United States now than in the past.
Questions 7-12
Match each fact about anesthesia with the type of anesthetic that it refers to.
There are more types of anesthetics listed than facts, so you won’t use them all.
Write the correct letter, A-H in boxes 7-12 on your Answer Sheet.
Types of Anesthetic
A general anesthetic
B local anesthetic
C regional anesthetic
D chloroform
E ether
F nitrous oxide
G opium
H mandrake
7 used by sprinkling on a handkerchief
8 used on only one specific part of the body
9 used by boiling with wine
10 used first during a dental procedure
11 used to stop feeling over a larger area of the body
12 used in the first anesthetic machine
Solution for: Anesthesiology
Answer Table
1. FALSE 7. D
2. TRUE 8. B
3. TRUE 9. H
4. NOT GIVEN 10. F
5. TRUE 11. C
6. FALSE 12. E
Striking Back at Lightning With Lasers
Seldom is the weather more dramatic than when thunderstorms strike. Their electrical fury inflicts
death or serious injury on around 500 people each year in the United States alone. As the clouds roll
in, a leisurely round of golf can become a terrifying dice with death - out in the open, a lone golfer
may be a lightning bolt’s most inviting target. And there is damage to property too. Lightning damage
costs American power companies more than $100 million a year.
But researchers in the United States and Japan are planning to hit back. Already in laboratory trials
they have tested strategies for neutralising the power of thunderstorms, and this winter they will
brave real storms, equipped with an armoury of lasers that they will be pointing towards the heavens
to discharge thunderclouds before lightning can strike.
The idea of forcing storm clouds to discharge their lightning on command is not new. In the early
1960s, researchers tried firing rockets trailing wires into thunderclouds to set up an easy discharge
path for the huge electric charges that these clouds generate. The technique survives to this day at a
test site in Florida run by the University of Florida, with support from the Electrical Power Research
Institute (EPRI), based in California. EPRI, which is funded by power companies, is looking at ways
to protect the United States’ power grid from lightning strikes. ‘We can cause the lightning to strike
where we want it to using rockets,’ says Ralph Bernstein, manager of lightning projects at EPRI. The
rocket site is providing precise measurements of lightning voltages and allowing engineers to check
how electrical equipment bears up.
Bad behaviour
But while rockets are fine for research, they cannot provide the protection from lightning strikes that
everyone is looking for. The rockets cost around $1,200 each, can only be fired at a limited
frequency and their failure rate is about 40 per cent. And even when they do trigger lightning, things
still do not always go according to plan. ‘Lightning is not perfectly well behaved,’ says Bernstein.
‘Occasionally, it will take a branch and go someplace it wasn’t supposed to go.’
And anyway, who would want to fire streams of rockets in a populated area? ‘What goes up must
come down,’ points out Jean-Claude Diels of the University of New Mexico. Diels is leading a
project, which is backed by EPRI, to try to use lasers to discharge lightning safely- and safety is a
basic requirement since no one wants to put themselves or their expensive equipment at risk. With
around $500,000 invested so far, a promising system is just emerging from the laboratory.
The idea began some 20 years ago, when high-powered lasers were revealing their ability to extract
electrons out of atoms and create ions. If a laser could generate a line of ionisation in the air all the
way up to a storm cloud, this conducting path could be used to guide lightning to Earth, before the
electric field becomes strong enough to break down the air in an uncontrollable surge. To stop the
laser itself being struck, it would not be pointed straight at the clouds. Instead it would be directed at
a mirror, and from there into the sky. The mirror would be protected by placing lightning conductors
close by. Ideally, the cloud-zapper (gun) would be cheap enough to be installed around all key
power installations, and portable enough to be taken to international sporting events to beam up at
brewing storm clouds.
A stumbling block
However, there is still a big stumbling block. The laser is no nifty portable: it’s a monster that takes
up a whole room. Diels is trying to cut down the size and says that a laser around the size of a small
table is in the offing. He plans to test this more manageable system on live thunderclouds next
summer. Bernstein says that Diels’s system is attracting lots of interest from the power companies.
But they have not yet come up with the $5 million that EPRI says will be needed to develop a
commercial system, by making the lasers yet smaller and cheaper. I cannot say I have money yet,
but I’m working on it,’ says Bernstein. He reckons that the forthcoming field tests will be the turning
point - and he’s hoping for good news. Bernstein predicts ‘an avalanche of interest and support’ if all
goes well. He expects to see cloud-zappers eventually costing $50,000 to $100,000 each.
Other scientists could also benefit. With a lightning ‘switch’ at their fingertips, materials scientists
could find out what happens when mighty currents meet matter. Diels also hopes to see the birth of
‘interactive meteorology’ - not just forecasting the weather but controlling it. ‘If we could discharge
clouds, we might affect the weather,’ he says.
And perhaps, says Diels, we’ll be able to confront some other meteorological menaces. ‘We think we
could prevent hail by inducing lightning,’ he says. Thunder, the shock wave that comes from a
lightning flash, is thought to be the trigger for the torrential rain that is typical of storms. A laser
thunder factory could shake the moisture out of clouds, perhaps preventing the formation of the giant
hailstones that threaten crops. With luck, as the storm clouds gather this winter, laser-toting
researchers could, for the first time, strike back.
Questions 1-3
Write the correct letter in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
1 The main topic discussed in the text is

A the damage caused to US golf courses and golf players by lightning strikes.
B the effect of lightning on power supplies in the US and in Japan.
C a variety of methods used in trying to control lightning strikes.
D a laser technique used in trying to control lightning strikes.
2 According to the text, every year lightning

A does considerable damage to buildings during thunderstorms.
B kills or injures mainly golfers in the United States.
C kills or injures around 500 people throughout the world.
D damages more than 100 American power companies.
3 Researchers at the University of Florida and at the University of New Mexico

A receive funds from the same source.
B are using the same techniques.
C are employed by commercial companies.
D are in opposition to each other.
Questions 4-6
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
4 EPRI receives financial support from
5 The advantage of the technique being developed by Diels is that it can be used
6 The main difficulty associated with using the laser equipment is related to its
Questions 7-10
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
In this method, a laser is used to create a line of ionisation by removing

electrons from 7 …………….. This laser is then directed at 8 …………….. in order to control
electrical charges, a method which is less dangerous than using 9 …………….. As a protection for
the lasers, the beams are aimed firstly at 10 …………….. .
A cloud-zappers B atoms C storm clouds
D mirrors E technique F ions
G rockets H conductors I thunder
Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet write
11 Power companies have given Diels enough money to develop his laser.
12 Obtaining money to improve the lasers will depend on tests in real storms.
13 Weather forecasters are intensely interested in Diels’s system.
Solution for: Striking Back at Lightning With Lasers
Answer Table
1. D 8. C
2. A 9. G
3. A 10. D
4. power companies 11. NO
5. safely 12. YES
6. size 13. NOT GIVEN
7. B
Green virtues of green sand
Revolution in gloss recycling could help keep water clean
A For the past 100 years special high grade white sand dug from the ground at Leighton Buzzard in
the UK. has been used to filter tap water to remove bacteria and impurities but this may no longer be
necessary. A new factory that turns used wine bottles into green sand could revolutionise the
recycling industry and help to filter Britain’s drinking water. Backed by $1.6m from the European
Union and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), a company based in
Scotland is building the factory, which will turn beverage bottles back into the sand from which they
were made in the first place. The green sand has already been successfully tested by water
companies and is being used in 50 swimming pools in Scotland to keep the water clean.
B The idea is not only to avoid using up an increasingly scarce natural resource, sand but also to
solve a crisis in the recycling industry. Britain uses 5.5m tonnes of glass a year, but recycles only
750,000 tonnes of it. The problem is that half the green bottle glass in Britain is originally from
imported wine and beer bottles. Because there is so much of it, and it is used less in domestic
production than other types, green glass is worth only $25 a tonne. Clear glass, which is melted
down and used for whisky bottles, mainly for export, is worth double that amount.
C Howard Drvden. a scientist and managing director of the company. Drvden Aqua, of Bonnyrigg,
near Edinburgh, has spent six years working on the product he calls Active Filtration Media, or AFM.
He concedes that he has given what is basically recycled glass a ‘fancy name' to remove the stigma
of what most people would regard as an inferior product. He says he needs bottles that have already
contained drinkable liquids to be sure that drinking water filtered through the AFM would not be
contaminated. Crushed down beverage glass has fewer impurities than real sand and it performed
better in trials. *The fact is that tests show that AFM does the job better than sand, it is easier to
clean and reuse and has all sorts of properties that make it ideal for other applications.' he claimed.
D The factory is designed to produce 100 tonnes of AFM a day, although Mr Dryden regards this as
a large-scale pilot project rather than full production. Current estimates of the UK market for this
glass for filtering drinking water, sewage, industrial water, swimming pools and fish farming are
between 175.000 to 217.000 tonnes a year, which w ill use up most of the glass available near the
factory. So he intends to build five or six factories in cities where there are large quantities of bottles,
in order to cut down on transport costs.
E The current factory will be completed this month and is expected to go into full production on
January 14th next year. Once it is providing a ‘regular’ product, the government’s drinking water
inspectorate will be asked to perform tests and approve it for widespread use by water companies. A
Defra spokesman said it was hoped that AFM could meet approval within six months. The only
problem that they could foresee was possible contamination if some glass came from sources other
than beverage bottles.
F Among those who have tested the glass already is Caroline Fitzpatrick of the civil and
environmental engineering department of University College London. ‘We have looked at a number
of batches and it appears to do the job.' she said. ‘Basically, sand is made of glass and Mr Dryden is
turning bottles back into sand. It seems a straightforward idea and there is no reason we can think of
why it would not work. Since glass from wine bottles and other beverages has no impurities and
clearly did not leach any substances into the contents of the bottles, there was no reason to believe
there would be a problem,’ Dr Fitzpatrick added.
G Mr Dryden has set up a network of agents round the world to sell AFM. It is already in use in
central America to filter water on banana plantations where the fruit has to he washed before being
despatched to European markets. It is also in use in sewage works to filter water before it is returned
to rivers, something which is becoming legally necessary across the European Union because of
tighter regulations on sewage works. So there are a great number of applications involving cleaning
up water. Currently, however, AFM costs $670 a tonne, about four times as much as good quality
sand. ‘Hut that is because we haven't got large-scale production. Obviously, when we get going it
will cost a lot less, and be competitive with sand in price as well.’ Mr Dryden said. ‘I believe it
performs better and lasts longer than sand, so it is going to be better value too.'
H If AFM takes off as a product it will be a big boost for the government agency which is charged
with finding a market for recycled products. Crushed glass is already being used in road surfacing
and in making tiles and bricks. Similarly. AFM could prove to have a widespread use and give green
glass a cash value.
Questions 1-10
Reading Passage 1 has 8 paragraphs labelled A-H Which paragraph contains the following
information?
Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 1-10 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1 a description of plans to expand production of AFM
2 the identification of a potential danger in the raw material for AFM
3 an example of AFM use in the export market
4 a comparison of the value of green glass and other types of glass
5 a list of potential applications of AFM in the domestic market
6 the conclusions drawn from laboratory checks on the process of AFM production
7 identification of current funding for the production of green sand
8 an explanation of the chosen brand name for crushed green glass
9 a description of plans for exporting AFM
10 a description of what has to happen before AFM is accepted for general use
Questions 11-14
Complete the summary below.
Green sand
The use of crushed green glass (AFM) may have two significant impacts: it may help to save a
diminishing 11 ……………… while at the same time solving a major problem for
the 12 ……………… in the UK. However, according to Howard Dryden, only glass from bottles that
have been used for 13 ……………… can be used in the production process. AFM is more effective
than 14 ……………… as a water filter, and also has other uses.
Solution for: Green virtues of green sand
Answer Table
1. D 8. C
2. E 9. G
3. G 10. E
4. B 11. natural resource
5. D 12. recycling industry
6. F 13. drinkable liquids/ beverages
7. A 14. (real) sand

Beyond the blue horizon
Ancient voyagers who settled the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean
(1)
An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of
Vanuatu has revealed traces of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of todays,
Polynesians. The site came to light only by chance. An agricultural worker, digging in the grounds of
a derelict plantation, scraped open a grave – the first of dozens in a burial ground some 3,000 years
old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, and it harbors the remains of an
ancient people archaeologists call the Lapita.
(2)
They were daring blue-water adventurers who used basic canoes to rove across the ocean. But they
were not just explorers. They were also pioneers who carried with them everything they would need
to build new lives – their livestock, taro seedlings and stone tools. Within the span of several
centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua
New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga.
(3)
The Lapita left precious few clues about themselves, but Efate expands the volume of data
available to researchers dramatically. The remains of 62 individuals have been uncovered so far,
and archaeologists were also thrilled to find six complete Lapita pots. Other items included a Lapita
burial urn with modeled birds arranged on the rim as though peering down at the human remains
sealed inside. ‘It’s an important discovery,’ says Matthew Spriggs, professor of archaeology at the
Australian National University and head of the international team digging up the site, ‘for it
conclusively identifies the remains as Lapita.’
(4)
DNA teased from these human remains may help answer one of the most puzzling questions in
Pacific anthropology: did all Pacific islanders spring from one source or many? Was there only one
outward migration from a single point in Asia, or several from different points? ‘This represents the
best opportunity we’ve had yet,’ says Spriggs, ‘to find out who the Lapita actually were, where they
came from, and who their closest descendants are today.’
(5)
There is one stubborn question for which archaeology has yet to provide any answers: how did the
Lapita accomplish the ancient equivalent of a moon landing, many times over? No-one has found
one of their canoes or any rigging, which could reveal how the canoes were sailed. Nor do the oral
histories and traditions of later Polynesians offer any insights, for they turn into myths long before
they reach as far back in time as the Lapita.
(6)
‘All we can say for certain is that the Lapita had canoes that were capable of ocean voyages, and
they had the ability to sail them,’ says Geoff Irwin, a professor of archaeology at the University of
Auckland. Those sailing skills, he says, were developed and passed down over thousands of years
by earlier mariners who worked their way through the archipelagoes of the western Pacific, making
short crossings to nearby islands. The real adventure didn’t begin, however, until their Lapita
descendants sailed out of sight of land, with empty horizons on every side. This must have been as
difficult for them as landing on the moon is for us today. Certainly it distinguished them from their
ancestors, but what gave them the courage to launch out on such risky voyages?
(7)
The Lap it as thrust into the Pacific was eastward, against the prevailing trade winds, Irwin notes.
Those nagging headwinds, he argues, may have been the key to their success. ‘They could sail out
for days into the unknown and assess the area, secure in the knowledge that if they didn’t find
anything, they could turn about and catch a swift ride back on the trade winds. This is what would
have made the whole thing work.’ Once out there, skilled seafarers would have detected abundant
leads to follow to land: seabirds, coconuts and twigs carried out to sea by the tides, and the
afternoon pile-up of clouds on the horizon which often indicates an island in the distance.
(8)
For returning explorers, successful or not, the geography of their own archipelagoes would have
provided a safety net. Without this to go by, overshooting their home ports, getting lost and sailing off
into eternity would have been all too easy. Vanuatu, for example, stretches more than 500 miles in a
northwest-southeast trend, its scores of inrervisible islands forming a backstop for mariners riding
the trade winds home.
(9)
All this presupposes one essential detail, says Atholl Anderson, professor of prehistory at the
Australian National University: the Lapita had mastered the advanced art of sailing against the wind.
‘And there’s no proof they could do any such thing,’ Anderson says. ‘There has been this
assumption they did, and people have built canoes to re-create those early voyages based on that
assumption. But nobody has any idea what their canoes looked like or how they were rigged.’
(10)
Rather than give all the credit to human skill, Anderson invokes the winds of chance. El Nino, the
same climate disruption that affects the Pacific today, may have helped scatter the Lapita, Anderson
suggests. He points out that climate data obtained from slow-growing corals around the Pacific
indicate a series of unusually frequent El Ninos around the time of the Lapita expansion. By
reversing the regular east-to-west flow of the trade winds for weeks at a time, these super El Ninos
might have taken the Lapita on long unplanned voyages.
(11)
However they did it, the Lapita spread themselves a third of the way across the Pacific, then called it
quits for reasons known only to them. Ahead lay the vast emptiness of the central Pacific and
perhaps they were too thinly stretched to venture farther. They probably never numbered more than
a few thousand in total, and in their rapid migration eastward they encountered hundreds of islands –
more than 300 in Fiji alone.
Questions 1-5
Completing Summary
Complete the summary using the list of words and phrases, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 1-5 on your sheet.
The Efate burial site
A 3,000-year-old burial ground of a seafaring people called the Lapita has been found on an
abandoned 1 …………………. on the Pacific island of Efate.
The cemetery, which is a significant 2 …………………. , was uncovered accidentally by an
agricultural worker.
The Lapita explored and colonised many Pacific islands over several centuries. They took many
things with them on their voyages including 3 …………………. and tools.
The burial ground increases the amount of information about the Lapita available to scientists. A
team of researchers, led by Matthew Spriggs from the Australian National University, are helping
with the excavation of the site. Spriggs believes the 4 …………………. which was found at the site
is very important since it confirms that the 5 …………………. found inside are Lapita.
A proof
B plantation
C harbour
D bones
E data
F archaeological discovery
G burial urn
H source
I animals
J maps
Questions 6-9
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
6 According to the writer, there are difficulties explaining how the Lapita accomplished their
journeys because
A the canoes that have been discovered offer relatively few clues.
B archaeologists have shown limited interest in this area of research.
C little information relating to this period can be relied upon for accuracy.
D technological advances have altered the way such achievements are viewed.
7 According to the sixth paragraph, what was extraordinary about the Lapita?
A They sailed beyond the point where land was visible.
B Their cultural heritage discouraged the expression of fear.
C They were able to build canoes that withstood ocean voyages.
D Their navigational skills were passed on from one generation to the next.
8 What does ‘This’ refer to in the seventh paragraph?

A the Lapita’s seafaring talent
B the Lapita s ability to detect signs of land
C the Lapita’s extensive knowledge of the region
D the Lapita’s belief they would be able to return home
9 According to the eighth paragraph, how was the geography of the region significant?
A It played an important role in Lapita culture.
B It meant there were relatively few storms at sea.
C It provided a navigational aid for the Lapita.
D It made a large number of islands habitable.
Questions 10-14
10 It is now clear that the Lapita could sail into a prevailing wind.
11 Extreme climate conditions may have played a role in Lapita migration.
12 The Lapita learnt to predict the duration of El Ninos.
13 It remains unclear why the Lapita halted their expansion across the Pacific.
14 It is likely that the majority of Lapita settled on Fiji.
Solution for: Beyond the blue horizon
Answer Table
1. B 8. D
2. F 9. C
3. I 10. NO
4. G 11. YES
5. D 12. NOT GIVEN
6. C 13. YES
7. A 14. NOT GIVEN

Sleep helps reduce errors in memory
Sleep may reduce mistakes in memory, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a scientist at
Michigan State University.
The findings, which appear in the September issue of the journal Learning El Memory, have practical
implications for many people, from students doing multiple-choice tests to elderly people confusing
their medicine, says Kimberly Fenn, principal investigator and assistant professor of psychology.
‘It’s easy to muddle things in your mind,’ Fenn says. This research suggests that after sleep, you’re
better able to pick out the incorrect parts of that memory.’ Fenn and colleagues from the University
of Chicago and Washington University in St Louis studied the presence of incorrect or false memory
in groups of college students. While previous research has shown that sleep improves memory, this
study is the first one that looks at errors in memory, she said.
Study participants were ‘trained’ by being shown or listening to lists of words. Then, twelve hours
later, they were shown individual words and asked to identify which words they had seen or heard in
the earlier session. One group of students was trained at 10 a.m. and tested at 10 p.m. after the
course of a normal sleepless day. Another group was trained at night and tested twelve hours later
in the morning, after about six hours of sleep. Three experiments were conducted. In each
experiment, the results showed that students who had slept did not have as many problems with
false memory and chose fewer incorrect words.
How does sleep help? The answer isn’t known, Fenn said, but she suspects it may be due to sleep
strengthening the source of the memory. The source, or context in which the information is acquired,
is a vital element of the memory process.
In other words, it may be easier to remember something if you can also remember where you first
heard or saw it. Or perhaps the people who didn’t sleep as much during the study received so much
other information during the day that this affected their memory ability, Fenn said.
Further research is needed, she said, adding that she plans to study different population groups,
particularly the elderly. ‘We know older individuals generally have worse memory performance than
younger individuals.
We also know from other research that elderly individuals tend to be more prone to false memories,’
Fenn said. ‘Given the work we’ve done, it’s possible that sleep may actually help them to reject this
false information. And potentially this could help to improve their quality of life.’
Questions 1-5
Complete the summary using the list of words and phrases, A-J, below.
Fenn’s Memory Experiments

The groups in the study saw or heard lists of words at 1 ………………….. times of the day.
After 2 ………………….. hours, the groups tried to identify these words correctly in a test. Before
the test, one group had 3 ………………….. sleep and chose the words in the evening. The other
group had their test in the morning.
In three experiments, the results were 4 ………………….. the groups that had slept during the
experiment remembered 5 ………………….. words correctly than the other groups.
A more F ten
B complex G different
C 12 H no
D six I fewer
E less J the same
Solution for: Sleep helps reduce errors in memory
Answer Table
1. G 4. J
2. C 5. A
3. H
Johnson's Dictionary
For the century before Johnson's Dictionary was published in 1775. there had been concern about
the state of the English language.There was no standard way of speaking or writing and no
agreement as to the best way of bringing some order to the chaos' of English spelling. Dr Johnson
provided the solution.
There had, of course, been dictionaries in the past, the first of these being a little book of some 120
pages, compiled by a certain Robert Cawdray, published in 1604 under the title A Table
Alphabetical! ‘of hard usual English wordes'. Like the various dictionaries that came after it during
the seventeenth century, Cawdray's tended to concentrate on 'scholarly' words; one function of the
dictionary was to enable its student to convey an impression of fine learning.
Beyond the practical need to make order out of chaos, the rise of dictionaries is associated with the
rise of the English middle class, who were anxious to define and circumscribe the various worlds to
conquer - lexical as well as social and commercial. It is highly appropriate that Dr Samuel Johnson,
the very model of an eighteenth-century literary man, as famous in his own time as in ours, should
have published his dictionary at the very beginning of the heyday of the middle class.
Johnson was a poet and critic who raised common sense to the heights of genius. His approach to
the problems that had worried writers throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
was intensely practical. Up until his time, the task of producing a dictionary on such a large scale
had seemed impossible without the establishment of an academy to make decisions about right and
wrong usage Johnson decided he did not need an academy to settle arguments about language; he
would write a dictionary himself; and he would do it single-handed. Johnson signed the contract for
the Dictionary with the bookseller Robert Dosley at a breakfast held at the Golden Anchor Inn near
Holbom Bar on 18 June 1764. He was to be paid £ 1.575 in instalments, and from this he took
money to rent 17 Gough Square, in which he set up his 'dictionary workshop'.
James Boswell, his biographer described the garret where Johnson worked as ‘fitted up like a
counting house' with a long desk running down the middle at which the copying clerks would work
standing up. Johnson himself was stationed on a rickety chair at an 'old crazy deal table' surrounded
by a chaos of borrowed books. He was also helped by six assistants, two of whom died whilst the
Dictionary was still in preparation.
The work was immense; filling about eighty large notebooks (and without a library to hand). Johnson
wrote the definitions of over 40,000 words, and illustrated their many meanings with some I 14.000
quotations drawn from English writing on every subject, from the Elizabethans to his own time. He
did not expect to achieve complete originality. Working to a deadline, he had to draw on the best of
all previous dictionaries, and to make his work one of heroic synthesis. In fact it was very much
more. Unlike his predecessors.Johnson treated English very practically, as a living language, with
many different shades of meaning. He adopted his definitions on the principle of English common
law - according to precedent. After its publication, his Dictionary was not seriously rivalled for over a
century.
After many vicissitudes the Dictionary was finally published on 15 April 1775. It was instantly
recognised as a landmark throughout Europe. This very noble work.’ wrote the leading Italian
lexicographer;‘will be a perpetual monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in
particular, and a general Benefit to the republic of Letters throughout Europe.' The fact that Johnson
had taken on the Academies of Europe and matched them (everyone knew that forty French
academics had taken forty years to produce the first French national dictionary) was cause for much
English celebration.
Johnson had worked for nine years.‘with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage
of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but
amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow'. For all its faults and eccentricities
his two-volume work is a masterpiece and a landmark, in his own words, 'setting the orthography,
displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the significations of English
words’. It is the corner-stone of Standard English, an achievement which, in James Boswell’s
words,‘conferred stability on the language of his country'.
The Dictionary, together with his other writing, made Johnson famous and so well esteemed that his
friends were able to prevail upon King George III to offer him a pension. From then on, he was to
become the Johnson of folklore.
Questions 1-3
Choose THREE letters A-H.
NB Your answers may be given in any order.
Which THREE of the following statements are true of Johnson’s Dictionary?

A It avoided all scholarly words.
B It was the only English dictionary in general use for 200 years.
C It was famous because of the large number of people involved.
D It focused mainly on language from contemporary texts.
E There was a time limit for its completion.
F It ignored work done by previous dictionary writers.
G It took into account subtleties of meaning.
H Its definitions were famous for their originality.
Questions 4-7
Complete the summary.
In 1764 Dr Johnson accepted the contract to produce a dictionary. Having rented a garret, he took
on a number of 4 ……………….. who stood at a long central desk.
Johnson did not have a 5 ……………….. available to him, but eventually produced definitions of in
excess of 40,000 words written down in 80 large notebooks. On publication, the Dictionary was
immediately hailed in many European countries as a landmark. According to his biographer, James
Boswell, Johnson’s principal
achievement was to bring 6 ……………….. to the English language. As a reward for his hard work,
he was granted a 7 ……………….. by the king.
Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage ?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
8 The growing importance of the middle classes led to an increased demand for dictionaries.
9 Johnson has become more well known since his death.
10 Johnson had been planning to write a dictionary for several years.
11 Johnson set up an academy to help with the writing of his Dictionary.
12 Johnson only received payment for his Dictionary on its completion.
13 Not all of the assistants survived to see the publication of the Dictionary.
Solution for: Johnson's Dictionary
Answer Table
1. D, E, G IN ANY ORDER 8. TRUE
2. D, E, G IN ANY ORDER 9. FALSE
3. D, E, G IN ANY ORDER 10. NOT GIVEN
4. clerks / copying clerks 11. FALSE
5. library 12. FALSE
6. stability 13. TRUE
7. pension
Nature or Nurture?
A
A few years ago, in one of the most fascinating and disturbing experiments in behavioural
psychology, Stanley Milgram of Yale University tested 40 subjects from all walks of life for their
willingness to obey instructions given by a ‘leader’ in a situation in which the subjects might feel a
personal distaste for the actions they were called upon to perform. Specifically, Milgram told each
volunteer 'teacher-subject' that the experiment was in the noble cause of education, and was
designed to test whether or not punishing pupils for their mistakes would have a positive effect on
the pupils' ability to learn.
B
Milgram’s experimental set-up involved placing the teacher-subject before a panel of thirty switches
with labels ranging from '15 volts of electricity (slight shock)' to ‘450 volts (danger - severe shock)' in
steps of 15 volts each. The teacher-subject was told that whenever the pupil gave the wrong answer
to a question, a shock was to be administered, beginning at the lowest level and increasing in
severity with each successive wrong answer. The supposed 'pupil' was in reality an actor hired by
Milgram to simulate receiving the shocks by emitting a spectrum of groans, screams and writhings
together with an assortment of statements and expletives denouncing both the experiment and the
experimenter. Milgram told the teacher-subject to ignore the reactions of the pupil, and to administer
whatever level of shock was called for. as per the rule governing the experimental situation of the
moment.
C
As the experiment unfolded, the pupil would deliberately give the wrong answers to questions posed
by the teacher, thereby bringing on various electrical punishments, even up to the danger level of
300 volts and beyond. Many of the teacher-subjects balked at administering the higher levels of
punishment, and turned to Milgram with questioning locks and/or complaints about continuing the
experiment. In these situations, Milgram calmly explained that the teacher-subject was to ignore the
pupil's cries for mercy and carry on with the experiment. If the subject was still reluctant to proceed,
Milgram said that it was important for the sake of the experiment that the procedure be followed
through to the end. His final argument was, ‘You have no other choice. You must go on.' What
Milgram was trying to discover was the number of teacher-subjects who would be willing to
administer the highest levels of shock, even in the face of strong persona! and moral revulsion
against the rules and conditions of the experiment.
D
Prior to carrying out the experiment, Milgram explained his idea to a group of 39 psychiatrists and
asked them to predict the average percentage of people in an ordinary population who would be
willing to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts. The overwhelming consensus was that
virtually all the teacher-subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. The psychiatrists felt that
'most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts' and they further anticipated that only four per cent
would go up to 300 volts. Furthermore, they thought that only a lunatic fringe of about one in 1.000
would give the highest shock of 450 volts.
E
What were the actual results? Well, over 60 per cent of the teacher-subjects continued to obey
Milgram up to the 450-volt limit! In repetitions of the experiment in other countries, the percentage of
obedient teacher-subjects was even higher, reaching 85 per cent in one country How can we
possibly account for this vast discrepancy between what calm, rational, knowledgeable people
predict in the comfort of their study and what pressured, flustered, but cooperative teachers’ actually
do in the laboratory of real life?
F
One’s first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression
instinct that was activated by the experiment, and that Milgram’s teacher- subjects were just
following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil by administering the
electrical shock. A modern hard-core sociobiologist might even go so far as to claim that this
aggressive instinct evolved as an advantageous trait, having been of survival value to our ancestors
in their struggle against the hardships of life on the plains and in the caves, ultimately finding its way
into our genetic make-up as a remnant of our ancient animal ways.
G
An alternative to this notion ot genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects' actions as a
result of the social environment under which the experiment was carried out. As Milgram himself
pointed out. Most subjects in the experiment see their behaviour in a larger context that is
benevolent and useful to society - the pursuit of scientific truth. The psychological laboratory has a
strong claim to legitimacy and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform there. An action
such as shocking a victim, which in isolation appears evil, acquires a completely different meaning
when placed in this setting.’
H
Thus, in this explanation the subject merges his unique personality and personal and moral code
with that of larger institutional structures, surrendering individual properties like loyalty, self-sacrifice
and discipline to the service of malevolent systems of authority.
I
Here we have two radically different explanations for why so many teacher-subjects were willing to
forgo their sense of personal responsibility for the sake of an institutional authority figure. The
problem for biologists, psychologists and anthropologists is to sort out which of these two polar
explanations is more plausible. This, in essence, is the problem of modem sociobiology - to discover
the degree to which hard-wired genetic programming dictates, or at least strongly biases, the
interaction of animals and humans with their environment, that is, their behaviour. Put another way.
sociobiology is concerned with elucidating the biological basis of all behaviour.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs, A-I.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
1 a biological explanation of the teacher-subjects’ behaviour
2 the explanation Milgram gave the teacher-subjects for the experiment
3 the identity of the pupils
4 the expected statistical outcome
5 the general aim of sociobiological study
6 the way Milgram persuaded the teacher-subjects to continue
Questions 7-9
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
7. The teacher-subjects were told that they were testing whether
A a 450-volt shock was dangerous.
B punishment helps learning.
C the pupils were honest.
D they were suited to teaching.
8. The teacher-subjects were instructed to

A stop when a pupil asked them to.
B denounce pupils who made mistakes.
C reduce the shock level after a correct answer.
D give punishment according to a rule.
9. Before the experiment took place the psychiatrists

A believed that a shock of 150 volts was too dangerous.
B failed to agree on how the teacher-subjects would respond to instructions.
C underestimated the teacher-subjects’ willingness to comply with experimental procedure.
D thought that many of the teacher-subjects would administer a shock of 450 volts.
Questions 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
10 Several of the subjects were psychology students at Yale University.
11 Some people may believe that the teacher-subjects’ behaviour could be explained as a positive
survival mechanism.
12 In a sociological explanation, personal values are more powerful than authority.
13 Milgram’s experiment solves an important question in sociobiology.
Solution for: Nature or Nurture?
Answer Table
1. F 8. D
2. A 9. C
3. B 10. NOT GIVEN
4. D 11. TRUE
5. I 12. FALSE
6. C 13. FALSE
7. B
A spark, a flint: How fire leapt to life
The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of humanity’s steps towards a life-
enhancing technology.
To early man, fire was a divine gift randomly delivered in the form of lightning, forest fire or burning
lava. Unable to make flame for themselves, the earliest peoples probably stored fire by keeping slow
burning logs alight or by carrying charcoal in pots.
How and where man learnt how to produce flame at will is unknown. It was probably a secondary
invention, accidentally made during tool-making operations with wood or stone. Studies of primitive
societies suggest that the earliest method of making fire was through friction. European peasants
would insert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate it briskly between their palms This process
could be speeded up by wrapping a cord around the drill and pulling on each end.
The Ancient Greeks used lenses or concave mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays and
burning glasses were also used by Mexican Aztecs and the Chinese.
Percussion methods of fire-lighting date back to Paleolithic times, when some Stone Age tool-
makers discovered that chipping flints produced sparks. The technique became more efficient after
the discovery of iron, about 5000 years ago In Arctic North America, the Eskimos produced a slow-
burning spark by striking quartz against iron pyrites, a compound that contains sulphur. The Chinese
lit their fires by striking porcelain with bamboo. In Europe, the combination of steel, flint and tinder
remained the main method of fire-lighting until the mid 19th century.
Fire-lighting was revolutionised by the discovery of phosphorus, isolated in 1669 by a German
alchemist trying to transmute silver into gold. Impressed by the element’s combustibility, several 17th
century chemists used it to manufacture fire-lighting devices, but the results were dangerously
inflammable. With phosphorus costing the equivalent of several hundred pounds per ounce, the
first matches were expensive.
The quest for a practical match really began after 1781 when a group of French chemists came up
with the Phosphoric Candle or Ethereal Match, a sealed glass tube containing a twist of paper tipped
with phosphorus. When the tube was broken, air rushed in, causing the phosphorus to self-combust.
An even more hazardous device, popular in America, was the Instantaneous Light Box — a bottle
filled with sulphuric acid into which splints treated with chemicals were dipped.
The first matches resembling those used today were made in 1827 by John Walker, an English
pharmacist who borrowed the formula from a military rocket-maker called Congreve. Costing a
shilling a box, Congreves were splints coated with sulphur and tipped with potassium chlorate. To
light them, the user drew them quickly through folded glass paper.
Walker never patented his invention, and three years later it was copied by a Samuel Jones, who
marketed his product as Lucifers. About the same time, a French chemistry student called Charles
Sauria produced the first “strike-anywhere” match by substituting white phosphorus for the
potassium chlorate in the Walker formula. However, since white phosphorus is a deadly poison, from
1845 match-makers exposed to its fumes succumbed to necrosis, a disease that eats away jaw-
bones. It wasn’t until 1906 that the substance was eventually banned.
That was 62 years after a Swedish chemist called Pasch had discovered non-toxic red or
amorphous phosphorus, a development exploited commercially by Pasch’s compatriot J E
Lundstrom in 1885. Lundstrom’s safety matches were safe because the red phosphorus was non-
toxic; it was painted on to the striking surface instead of the match tip, which contained potassium
chlorate with a relatively high ignition temperature of 182 degrees centigrade.
America lagged behind Europe in match technology and safety standards. It wasn’t until 1900 that
the Diamond Match Company bought a French patent for safety matches — but the formula did not
work properly in the different climatic conditions prevailing in America and it was another 11 years
before scientists finally adapted the French patent for the US.
The Americans, however, can claim several “firsts” in match technology and marketing. In 1892 the
Diamond Match Company pioneered book matches. The innovation didn’t catch on until after 1896,
when a brewery had the novel idea of advertising its product in match books. Today book matches
are the most widely used type in the US, with 90 percent handed out free by hotels, restaurants and
others.
Other American innovations include an anti-after-glow solution to prevent the match from
smouldering after it has been blown out; and the waterproof match, which lights after eight hours in
water.
Questions 1-8
Complete the summary below. Choose your answers from the box at the bottom of the page and
write them in boxes 1 8 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more words than spaces so you will not use them all You may use any of the words
more than once.
EARLY FIRE-LIGHTING METHODS

Primitive societies saw fire as a ... (Example) ... gift. Answer: heavenly
They tried to 1 ………………………… burning logs or

charcoal 2 ………………………… that they could create fire themselves.
It is suspected that the first man-made flames were produced by 3 …………………………
The very first fire-lighting methods involved the creation of 4 ………………………… by, for
example, rapidly 5 ………………………… a wooden stick in a round hole.
The use of 6 ………………………… or persistent chipping was also widespread in Europe and
among other peoples such as the Chinese and 7 ………………………… .
European practice of this method continued until the 1850s 8 ………………………… the
discovery of phosphorus some years earlier.
List of Words
Mexicans random rotating
despite preserve realising
sunlight lacking heavenly
percussion chance friction
unaware without make
heating Eskimos surprised
until smoke
Questions 9-15
Look at the following notes that have been made about the matches described in Reading
Passage. Decide which type of match (A-H) corresponds with each description and write your
answers in boxes 9-15 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more matches than descriptions so you will not use them all.
You may use any match more than once.
Example Answer
could be lit after soaking in water H
Types of Matches
A the Ethereal Match
B the Instantaneous Lightbox
C Congreves
D Lucifers
E the first strike-anywhere match
F Lundstrom’s safety match
G book matches
H waterproof matches
NOTES
9 made using a less poisonous type of phosphorus
10 identical to a previous type of match
11 caused a deadly illness
12 first to look like modern matches
13 first matches used for advertising
14 relied on an airtight glass container
15 made with the help of an army design
Solution for: A spark, a flint: How fire leapt to life
Answer Table
1. preserve 9. F
2. unaware 10. D
3. chance 11. E
4. friction 12. C
5. rotating 13. G
6. percussion 14. A
7. Eskimos 15. C
8. despite
Right and left-handedness in humans
Why do humans, virtually alone among all animal species, display a distinct left or right-
handedness? Not even our closest relatives among the apes possess such decided lateral
asymmetry, as psychologists call it. Yet about 90 per cent of every human population that has ever
lived appears to have been right-handed. Professor Bryan Turner at Deakin University has studied
the research literature on left-handedness and found that handedness goes with sidedness. So nine
out of ten people are right-handed and eight are right-footed. He noted that this distinctive
asymmetry in the human population is itself systematic. “Humans think in categories: black and
white, up and down, left and right. It”s a system of signs that enables us to categorise phenomena
that are essentially ambiguous.’
Research has shown that there is a genetic or inherited element to handedness. But while left-
handedness tends to run in families, neither left nor right handers will automatically produce off-
spring with the same handedness; in fact about 6 per cent of children with two right-handed parents
will be left-handed. However, among two left-handed parents, perhaps 40 per cent of the children
will also be left-handed. With one right and one left-handed parent, 15 to 20 per cent of the offspring
will be left-handed. Even among identical twins who have exactly the same genes, one in six pairs
will differ in their handedness.
What then makes people left-handed if it is not simply genetic? Other factors must be at work and
researchers have turned to the brain for clues. In the 1860s the French surgeon and anthropologist,
Dr Paul Broca, made the remarkable finding that patients who had lost their powers of speech as a
result of a stroke (a blood clot in the brain) had paralysis of the right half of their body. He noted that
since the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right half of the body, and vice versa, the brain
damage must have been in the brain’s left hemisphere. Psychologists now believe that among right-
handed people, probably 95 per cent have their language centre in the left hemisphere, while 5 per
cent have right sided language. Left-handers, however, do not show the reverse pattern but instead
a majority also have their language in the left hemisphere. Some 30 per cent have right hemisphere
language.
Dr Brinkman, a brain researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, has suggested
that evolution of speech went with right-handed preference. According to Brinkman, as the brain
evolved, one side became specialised for fine control of movement (necessary for producing
speech) and along with this evolution came right- hand preference. According to Brinkman, most left-
handers have left hemisphere dominance but also some capacity in the right hemisphere. She has
observed that if a left-handed person is brain-damaged in the left hemisphere, the recovery of
speech is quite often better and this is explained by the fact that left-handers have a more bilateral
speech function.
In her studies of macaque monkeys, Brinkman has noticed that primates (monkeys) seem to learn a
hand preference from their mother in the first year of life but this could be one hand or the other. In
humans, however, the specialisation in function of the two hemispheres results in anatomical
differences: areas that are involved with the production of speech are usually larger on the left side
than on the right. Since monkeys have not acquired the art of speech, one would not expect to see
such a variation but Brinkman claims to have discovered a trend in monkeys towards the asymmetry
that is evident in the human brain.
Two American researchers, Geschwind and Galaburda, studied the brains of human embryos and
discovered that the left-right asymmetry exists before birth. But as the brain develops, a number of
things can affect it. Every brain is initially female in its organisation and it only becomes a male brain
when the male foetus begins to secrete hormones. Geschwind and Galaburda knew that different
parts of the brain mature at different rates; the right hemisphere develops first, then the left.
Moreover, a girl’s brain develops somewhat faster than that of a boy. So, if something happens to
the brain’s development during pregnancy, it is more likely to be affected in a male and the
hemisphere more likely to be involved is the left. The brain may become less lateralised and this in
turn could result in left-handedness and the development of certain superior skills that have their
origins in the left hemisphere such as logic, rationality and abstraction. It should be no surprise then
that among mathematicians and architects, left-handers tend to be more common and there are
more left-handed males than females.
The results of this research may be some consolation to left-handers who have for centuries lived in
a world designed to suit right-handed people. However, what is alarming, according to Mr. Charles
Moore, a writer and journalist, is the way the word “right” reinforces its own virtue. Subliminally he
says, language tells people to think that anything on the right can be trusted while anything on the
left is dangerous or even sinister. We speak of lefthanded compliments and according to Moore, “it is
no coincidence that lefthanded children, forced to use their right hand, often develop a stammer as
they are robbed of their freedom of speech”. However, as more research is undertaken on the
causes of left-handedness, attitudes towards left-handed people are gradually changing for the
better. Indeed when the champion tennis player Ivan Lendl was asked what the single thing was that
he would choose in order to improve his game, he said he would like to become a lefthander.
Questions 1-7
Use the information in the text to match the people (listed A-E) with the opinions (listed 1-7) below.
Write the appropriate letter (A-E) in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
Some people match more than one opinion.
A Dr Broca
B Dr Brinkman
C Geschwind and Galaburda
D Charles Moore
E Professor Turner
Example Answer
Monkeys do not show a species specific preference for left or right-handedness. B
1 Human beings started to show a preference for right-handedness when they first developed
language.
2 Society is prejudiced against left-handed people.
3 Boys are more likely to be left-handed.
4 After a stroke, left-handed people recover their speech more quickly than righthanded people.
5 People who suffer strokes on the left side of the brain usually lose their power of speech.
6 The two sides of the brain develop different functions before birth.
7 Asymmetry is a common feature of the human body.
Questions 8-10
Using the information in the passage, complete the table below.
Percentage of children left-handed
One parent left-handed One parent right-handed 8
Both parents left-handed 9
Both parents right-handed 10

Questions 11-12
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 11-12 on your answer sheet.
11. A study of monkeys has shown that

A monkeys are not usually right-handed.
B monkeys display a capacity for speech.
C monkey brains are smaller than human brains.
D monkey brains are asymmetric.
12. According to the writer, left-handed people

A will often develop a stammer.
B have undergone hardship for years.
C are untrustworthy.
D are good tennis players.
Solution for: Right and left-handedness in humans
Answer Table
1. B 7. E
2. D 8. 15-20%
3. C 9. 40%
4. B 10. 6%
5. A 11. D
6. C 12. B
Young children's sense of identity
A
A sense of self develops in young children by degrees. The process can usefully be thought of in
terms of the gradual emergence of two somewhat separate features: the self as a subject, and the
self as an object. William James introduced the distinction in 1892, and contemporaries of his, such
as Charles Cooley, added to the developing debate. Ever since then psychologists have continued
building on the theory.
B
According to James, a child's first step on the road to self-understanding can be seen as the
recognition that he or she exists. This is an aspect of the self that he labelled 'self-as-subject', and
he gave it various elements. These included an awareness of one's own agency (i.e. one's power to
act), and an awareness of one's distinctiveness from other people. These features gradually emerge
as infants explore their world and interact with caregivers. Cooley (1902) suggested that a sense of
the self-as-subject was primarily concerned with being able to exercise power. He proposed that the
earliest examples of this are an infant's attempts to control physical objects, such as toys or his or
her own limbs. This is followed by attempts to affect the behaviour of other people. For example,
infants learn that when they cry or smile someone responds to them.
C
Another powerful source of information for infants about the effects they can have on the world
around them is provided when others mimic them. Many parents spend a lot of time, particularly in
the early months, copying their infant's vocalizations and expressions. In addition, young children
enjoy looking in mirrors, where the movements they can see are dependent upon their own
movements.
This is not to say that infants recognize the reflection as their own image (a later development).
However, Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) suggest that infants' developing understanding that the
movements they see in the mirror are contingent on their own, leads to a growing awareness that
they are distinct from other people. This is because they, and only they, can change the reflection in
the mirror.
D
This understanding that children gain of themselves as active agents continues to develop in their
attempts to co-operate with others in play. Dunn (1988) points out that it is in such day-to-day
relationships and interactions that the child's understanding of his- or herself emerges. Empirical
investigations of the self-as-subject in young children are, however, rather scarce because of
difficulties of communication: even if young infants can reflect on their experience, they
certainly cannot express this aspect of the self directly.
E
Once children have acquired a certain level of self-awareness, they begin to place themselves in a
whole series of categories, which together play such an important part in defining them uniquely as
'themselves'. This second step in the development of a full sense of self is what James called the
'self-as-object'. This has been seen by many to be the aspect of the self which is most influenced by
social elements, since it is made up of social roles (such as student, brother, colleague)
and characteristics which derive their meaning from comparison or interaction with other people
(such as trustworthiness, shyness, sporting ability).
F
Cooley and other researchers suggested a close connection between a person's own understanding
of their identity and other people's understanding of it. Cooley believed that people build up their
sense of identity from the reactions of others to them, and from the view they believe others have of
them. He called the self-as-object the 'looking-glass self', since people come to see themselves as
they are reflected in others. Mead (1934) went even further, and saw the self and the social world as
inextricably bound together: 'The self is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social
experience ... it is impossible to conceive of a self arising outside of social experience.'
G
Lewis and Brooks-Gunn argued that an important developmental milestone is reached when children
become able to recognize themselves visually without the support of seeing contingent movement.
This recognition occurs around their second birthday. In one experiment, Lewis and Brooks-Gunn
(1979) dabbed some red powder on the noses of children who were playing in front of a mirror, and
then observed how often they touched their noses. The psychologists reasoned that if the children
knew what they usually looked like, they would be surprised by the unusual red mark and would start
touching it. On the other hand, they found that children of 15 to 18 months are generally not able to
recognize themselves unless other cues such as movement are present.
H
Finally, perhaps the most graphic expressions of self-awareness in general can be seen in the
displays of rage which are most common from 18 months to 3 years of age. In a longitudinal study of
groups of three or four children, Bronson (1975) found that the intensity of the frustration and anger
in their disagreements increased sharply between the ages of 1 and 2 years. Often, the
children's disagreements involved a struggle over a toy that none of them had played with before or
after the tug-of-war: the children seemed to be disputing ownership rather than wanting to play with
it. Although it may be less marked in other societies, the link between the sense of 'self' and of
'ownership' is a notable feature of childhood in Western societies.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A-H.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1 an account of the method used by researchers in a particular study

2 the role of imitation in developing a sense of identity
3 the age at which children can usually identify a static image of themselves
4 a reason for the limitations of scientific research into ‘self-as-subject’
5 reference to a possible link between culture and a particular form of behaviour
6 examples of the wide range of features that contribute to the sense of ‘self-as-object’
Questions 7-10
Look at the following findings (Questions 7-10) and the list of researchers below.
Match each finding with the correct researcher or researchers, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
List of Researchers
A James
B Cooley
C Lewis and Brooks-Gunn
D Mead E Bronson
7 A sense of identity can never be formed without relationships with other people.
8 A child’s awareness of self is related to a sense of mastery over things and people.
9 At a certain age, children’s sense of identity leads to aggressive behaviour.
10 Observing their own reflection contributes to children’s self awareness.
Questions 11-13
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
How children acquire a sense of identity

First, children come to realise that they can have an effect on the world around them, for example by
handling objects, or causing the image to move when they face a 11……………………. . This aspect
of self-awareness is difficult to research directly, because of 12 ……………………. problems.
Secondly, children start to become aware of how they are viewed by others. One important stage in
this process is the visual recognition of themselves which usually occurs when they reach the age of
two. In Western societies at least, the development of self awareness is often linked to a sense
of 13 ……………………. , and can lead to disputes.
Solution for: Young children's sense of identity
Answer Table
1. G 8. B
2. C 9. E
3. G 10. C
4. D 11. mirror
5. H 12. communication
6. E 13. ownership
7. D
Flawed Beauty: the problem with toughened
glass
On 2nd August 1999, a particularly hot day in the town of Cirencester in the UK, a large pane of
toughened glass in the roof of a shopping centre at Bishops Walk shattered without warning and fell
from its frame.
When fragments were analysed by experts at the giant glass manufacturer Pilkington. which had
made the pane, they found that minute crystals of nickel sulphide trapped inside the glass had
almost certainly caused the failure.
'The glass industry is aware of the issue,' says Brian Waldron, chairman of the standards committee
at tine Glass and Glazing Federation, a British trade association, and standards development officer
at Pilkington. But he insists that cases are few and far between. ‘It's a very rare phenomenon.' he
says.
Others disagree. 'On average I see about one or two buildings a month suffering from nickel
sulphide related failures,' says Barrie Josie, a consultant engineer involved in the Bishops Walk
investigation. Other experts tell of similar experiences. Tony Wilmott of London based consulting
engineers Sandberg, and Simon Armstrong at CladTech Associates in Hampshire both say they
know of hundreds of cases. 'What you hear is only the tip of the iceberg.' says Trevor Ford, a glass
expert at Resolve Engineering in Brisbane. Queensland. He believes the reason is simple: 'No-one
wants bad press.'
Toughened glass is found everywhere, from cars and bus shelters to the windows, walls and roofs of
thousands of buildings around the world. It's easy to see why. This glass has five times the strength
of standard glass, and when it does break it shatters into tiny cubes rather than large, razor-sharp
shards. Architects love it because large panels can be bolted together to make transparent walls,
and turning it into ceilings and floors is almost as easy.
It is made by heating a sheet of ordinary glass to about 620°C to soften it slightly, allowing its
structure to expand, and then cooling it rapidly with jets of cold air. This causes the outer layer of the
pane to contract and solidify before the interior. When the interior finally solidifies and shrinks, it
exerts a pull on the outer layer that leaves It in permanent compression and produces a tensile force
inside the glass. As cracks propagate best in materials under tension, the compressive force on the
surface must be overcome before the pane will break, making it more resistant to cracking.
The problem starts when glass contains nickel sulphide impurities. Trace amounts of nickel and
sulphur are usually present in the raw materials used to make glass, and nickel can also be
introduced by fragments of nickel alloys falling into the molten glass. As the glass is heated, these
atoms react to form tiny crystals of nickel sulphide. Just a tenth of a gram of nickel in the furnace can
create up to 50,000 crystals.
These crystals can exist in two forms: a dense form called the alpha phase, which is stable at high
temperatures, and a less dense form called the beta phase, which is stable at room temperatures.
The high temperatures used in the toughening process convert all the crystals to the dense, compact
alpha form. But the subsequent cooling is so rapid that the crystals don't have time to change back
to the beta phase. This leaves unstable alpha crystals in the glass, primed like a coiled spring, ready
to revert to the beta phase without warning.
When this happens, the crystals expand by up to 4%. And if they are within the central, tensile
region of the pane, the stresses this unleashes can shatter the whole sheet. The time that elapses
before failure occurs is unpredictable. It could happen just months after manufacture, or decades
later, although if the glass is heated - by sunlight, for example - the process is speeded up. Ironically,
says Graham Dodd, of consulting engineers Arup in London, the oldest pane of toughened glass
known to have failed due to nickel sulphide inclusions was in Pilkington's glass research building in
Lathom, Lancashire. The pane was 27 years old.
Data showing the scale of the nickel sulphide problem Is almost Impossible to find. The picture is
made more complicated by the fact that these crystals occur in batches. So even if, on average,
there is only one inclusion in 7 tonnes of glass, if you experience one nickel sulphide failure in your
building, that probably means you've got a problem in more than one pane. Josie says that in the
last decade he has worked on over 15 buildings with the number of failures into double figures.
One of the worst examples of this is Waterfront Place, which was completed in 1990. Over the
following decade the 40- storey Brisbane block suffered a rash of failures. Eighty panes of its
toughened glass shattered due to inclusions before experts were finally called in. John Barry, an
expert in nickel sulphide contamination at the University of Queensland, analysed every glass pane
in the building. Using a studio camera, a photographer went up in a cradle to take photos of every
pane. These were scanned under a modified microfiche reader for signs of nickel sulphide crystals.
‘We discovered at least another 120 panes with potentially dangerous inclusions which were then
replaced,’ says Barry. ‘It was a very expensive and time consuming process that took around six
months to complete.'
Though the project cost A$1.6 million (nearly £700,000), the alternative - re-cladding the entire
building - would have cost ten times as much.
Questions 1-4
Look at the following people and the list of statements below.
Match each person with the correct statement.
List of Statements
suggests that publicity about nickel sulphide failure has been

A
suppressed
B regularly sees cases of nickel sulphide failure
C closely examined all the glass in one building
D was involved with the construction of Bishops Walk
E recommended the rebuilding of Waterfront Place
F thinks the benefits of toughened glass are exaggerated
G claims that nickel sulphide failure is very unusual
H refers to the most extreme case of delayed failure
1 Brian Waldron
2 Trevor Ford
3 Graham Dodd
4 John Barry
Questions 5-10
Complete the summary with the list of words A-P below.
A numerous B detected C quickly D agreed
E warm F sharp G expands H slowly

I unexpectedly J removed K contracts L disputed
M cold N moved O small P calculated
Toughened Glass
Toughened glass is favoured by architects because it is much stronger than ordinary glass, and the
fragments are not as 5 ……………………. when it breaks. However, it has one disadvantage: it can
shatter 6 ……………………. . This fault is a result of the manufacturing process. Ordinary glass is
firs' heated, then cooled very 7 ……………………. . The outer layer 8 ……………………. before the
inner layer, and the tension between the two layers which is created because of this makes the glass
stronger. However, if the glass contains nickel sulphide impurities, crystals of nickel sulphide are
formed. These are unstable, and can expand suddenly, particularly if the weather
is 9 ……………………. . If this happens, the pane of glass may break. The frequency with which
such problems occur is 10 ……………………. by glass experts Furthermore, the crystals cannot be
detected without sophisticated equipment.
Questions 11-13
11 Little doubt was expressed about the reason for the Bishops Walk accident.
12 Toughened glass has the same appearance as ordinary glass.
13 There is plenty of documented evidence available about the incidence of nickel sulphide failure.
Solution for: Flawed Beauty: the problem with toughened
glass
Answer Table
1. G 8. K
2. A 9. E
3. H 10. L
4. C 11. TRUE
5. F 12. NOT GIVEN
6. I 13. FALSE
7. C
Play is a serious business
Does play help develop bigger, better brains?

Bryant Furlow investigates
A
Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play-fighting or
kittens teasing a ball of string aren’t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way
to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there’s much more to it than
that. For a start, play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty per cent of deaths among juvenile fur
seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive
in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three per cent of their energy cavorting,
and in children that figure can be closer to fifteen per cent. ‘Even two or three per cent is huge,’ says
John Byers of Idaho University. ‘You just don’t find animals wasting energy like that,’ he adds. There
must be a reason.
B
But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? The
latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you
intelligent. Playfulness, it seems, is common only among mammals, although a few of the larger-
brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs - tail- wagging in dogs, for
example - to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behaviour is not really in earnest. A
popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt,
mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult
life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent
years.
C
Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training, then you
would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the benefits of increased exercise
disappear rapidly after training stops, so any improvement in endurance resulting from juvenile play
would be lost by adulthood. ‘If the function of play was to get into shape,’ says Byers, ‘the optimum
time for playing would depend on when it was most advantageous for the young of a particular
species to do so. But it doesn’t work like that.’ Across species, play tends to peak about halfway
through the suckling stage and then decline.
D
Then there’s the skills-training hypothesis. At first glance, playing animals do appear to be practising
the complex manoeuvres they will need in adulthood. But a closer inspection reveals this
interpretation as too simplistic. In one study, behavioural ecologist Tim Caro, from the University of
California, looked at the predatory play of kittens and their predatory behaviour when they reached
adulthood. He found that the way the cats played had no significant effect on their hunting prowess
in later life.
E
Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada, reported that there is a strong
positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general. Comparing
measurements for fifteen orders of mammal, he and his team found larger brains (for a given body
size) are linked to greater playfulness. The converse was also found to be true. Robert Barton of
Durham University believes that, because large brains are more sensitive to developmental stimuli
than smaller brains, they require more play to help mould them for adulthood. ‘I concluded it’s to do
with learning, and with the importance of environmental data to the brain during development,’ he
says.
F
According to Byers, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to
what’s going on. If you plot the amount of time a juvenile devotes to play each day over the course of
its development, you discover a pattern typically associated with a ‘sensitive period’ - a brief
development window during which the brain can actually be modified in ways that are not possible
earlier or later in life. Think of the relative ease with which young children - but not infants or adults -
absorb language. Other researchers have found that play in cats, rats and mice is at its most intense
just as this ‘window of opportunity’ reaches its peak.
G
‘People have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,’ says Marc
Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoff studied coyote pups at play and found that the kind of
behaviour involved was markedly more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. Such
behaviour activates many different parts of the brain, he reasons. Bekoff likens it to a behavioural
kaleidoscope, with animals at play jumping rapidly between activities. ‘They use behaviour from a lot
of different contexts - predation, aggression, reproduction,’ he says. ‘Their developing brain is getting
all sorts of stimulation.’
H
Not only is more of the brain involved in play than was suspected, but it also seems to activate
higher cognitive processes. ‘There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play,’ says Bekoff. He points
out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates, ideas of reciprocity and the use of
specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural
flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of
Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of a
particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by
the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights everything up,’ he says. By allowing link-ups between
brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other, play may enhance creativity.
I
What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies
today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components
and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling
beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a
look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs labelled A-I.
Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1 the way play causes unusual connections in the brain which are beneficial
2 insights from recording how much time young animals spend playing
3 a description of the physical hazards that can accompany play
4 a description of the mental activities which are exercised and developed during play
5 the possible effects that a reduction in play opportunities will have on humans
6 the classes of animals for which play is important
Questions 7-9
Choose THREE letters A-F.
The list below gives some ways of regarding play.
Which THREE ways are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A a rehearsal for later adult activities

B a method animals use to prove themselves to their peer group
C an activity intended to build up strength for adulthood
D a means of communicating feelings
E a defensive strategy
F an activity assisting organ growth
Questions 10-14
Look at the following researchers (Questions 10-14) and the list of findings below.
Match each researcher with the correct finding.
List of Findings
A There is a link between a specific substance in the brain and playing.
B Play provides input concerning physical surroundings.
C Varieties of play can be matched to different stages of evolutionary history.
D There is a tendency for mammals with smaller brains to play less.
E Play is not a form of fitness training for the future.
F Some species of larger-brained birds engage in play.
G A wide range of activities are combined during play.
H Play is a method of teaching survival techniques.
10 Robert Barton
11 Marc Bekoff
12 John Byers
13 Sergio Pellis
14 Stephen Siviy
Solution for: Play is a serious business
Answer Table
1. H 8. A, C, F IN ANY ORDER
2. F 9. A, C, F IN ANY ORDER
3. A 10. B
4. H 11. G
5. I 12. E
6. B 13. D
7. A, C, F IN ANY ORDER 14. A

In search of the holy grail
It has been called the Holy Grail of modern biology. Costing more than £2 billion, it is the most
ambitious scientific project since the Apollo programme that landed a man on the moon. And it will
take longer to accomplish than the lunar missions, for it will not be complete until early next century.
Even before it is finished, according to those involved, this project should open up new
understanding of, and new treatments for, many of the ailments that afflict humanity. As a result of
the Human Genome Project, there will be new hope of liberation from the shadows of cancer, heart
disease, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and some psychiatric illnesses.
The objective of the Human Genome Project is simple to state, but audacious in scope: to map and
analyse every single gene within the double helix of humanity's DNA1. The project will reveal a new
human anatomy — not the bones, muscles and sinews, but the complete genetic blueprint for a
human being. Those working on the Human Genome Project claim that the new genetical anatomy
will transform medicine and reduce human suffering in the twenty-first century. But others see the
future through a darker glass, and fear that the project may open the door to a world peopled by
Frankenstein's monsters and disfigured by a new eugenics2.
The genetic inheritance a baby receives from its parents at the moment of conception fixes much of
its later development, determining characteristics as varied as whether it will have blue eyes or
suffer from a life- threatening illness such as cystic fibrosis. The human genome is the compendium
of all these inherited genetic instructions. Written out along the double helix of DNA are the chemical
letters of the genetic text, it is an extremely long text, for the human genome contains more than 3
billion letters:
On the printed page it would fill about 7,000 volumes. Yet, within little more than a decade, the
position of every letter and its relation to its neighbours will have been tracked down, analysed and
recorded.
Considering how many letters there are in the human genome, nature is an excellent proof-reader.
But sometimes there are mistakes. An error in a single 'word' — a gene - can give rise to the
crippling condition of cystic fibrosis, the commonest genetic disorder among Caucasians. Errors in
the genetic recipe for haemoglobin, the protein that gives blood its characteristic red colour and
which carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body, give rise to the most common single
gene disorder in the world: thalassaemia. More than 4,000 such single-gene defects are known to
afflict humanity.
The majority of them are fatal; the majority of the victims are children.
None of the single-gene disorders is a disease in the conventional sense, for which it would be
possible to administer a curative drug: the defect is pre-programmed into every cell of the sufferer's
body. But there is hope of progress. In 1986,. American researchers identified the genetic defect
underlying one type of muscular dystrophy. In 1989, a team of American and Canadian biologists
announced that they had found the site of the gene which, when defective, gives rise to cystic
fibrosis. Indeed, not only had they located the gene, they had analysed the sequence of letters within
it and had identified the mistake responsible for the condition. At the least, these scientific advances
may offer a way of screening parents who might be at risk of transmitting a single-gene defect to any
children that they conceive. Foetuses can be tested while in the womb, and if found free of the
genetic defect, the parents will be relieved of worry and stress, knowing that they will be delivered of
a baby free from the disorder.
In the mid-1980s, the idea gained currency within the scientific world that the techniques which were
successfully deciphering disorder-related genes could be applied to a larger project: if science can
learn the genetic spelling of cystic fibrosis, why not attempt to find out how to spell 'human'?
Momentum quickly built up behind the Human Genome Project and its objective of 'sequencing' the
entire genome - writing out all the letters in their correct order.
But the consequences of the Human Genome Project go far beyond a narrow focus on disease.
Some of its supporters have made claims of great extravagance - that the Project will bring us to
understand, at the most fundamental level, what it is to be human. Yet many people are concerned
that such an emphasis on humanity's genetic constitution may distort our sense of values, and lead
us to forget that human life is more than just the expression of a genetic program written in the
chemistry of DNA.
If properly applied, the new knowledge generated by the Human Genome Project may free humanity
from the terrible scourge of diverse diseases. But if the new knowledge is not used wisely, it also
holds the threat of creating new forms of discrimination and new methods of oppression. Many
characteristics, such as height and intelligence, result not from the action of genes alone, but from
subtle interactions between genes and the environment. What would be the implications if humanity
were to understand, with precision, the genetic constitution which, given the same environment, will
predispose one person towards a higher intelligence than another individual whose genes were
differently shuffled?
Once before in this century, the relentless curiosity of scientific researchers brought to light forces of
nature in the power of the atom, the mastery of which has shaped the destiny of nations and
overshadowed all our lives. The Human Genome Project holds the promise that, ultimately, we may
be able to alter our genetic inheritance if we so choose. But there is the central moral problem: how
can we ensure that when we choose, we choose correctly? That such a potential is a promise and
not a threat? We need only look at the past to understand the danger.
Questions 1-6
Complete the sentences below (Questions 1-6) with words taken from Reading Passage.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Example Answer
The passage compares the genetic instructions in DNA to chemical letters
1 The passage compares the Project in scale to the …………………

2 The possible completion date of the Project is …………………
3 To write out the human genome on paper would require ………………… books.
4 A genetic problem cannot be treated with drags because strictly speaking it is
not a …………………
5 Research into genetic defects had its first success in the discovery of the cause of one form
of …………………
6 The second success of research into genetic defects was to find the cause of …………………
Questions 7-14
Classify the following statements as representing
A the writer's fears about the Human Genome Project
B other people's fears about the Project reported by the writer
C the writer's reporting of facts about the Project
D the writer's reporting of the long-term hopes for the Project
Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 7-14 on your answer sheet.
7 The Project will provide a new understanding of major diseases.

8 All the components which make up DNA are to be recorded and studied.
9 Genetic monsters may be created.
10 The correct order and inter-relation of all genetic data in all DNA will be mapped.
11 Parents will no longer worry about giving birth to defective offspring.
12 Being 'human' may be defined solely in terms of describable physical data.
13 People may be discriminated against in new ways.
14 From past experience humans may not use this new knowledge wisely.
Solution for: In search of the holy grail
Answer Table
1. Apollo (space) programme 8. C
2. (early) next century 9. B
3. 7,000 10. C
4. disease 11. D
5. muscular dystrophy 12. B
6. cystic fibrosis 13. A
7. D 14. A
The harm that picture books can cause
A
There is a great concern in Europe and North America about declining standards of literacy in
schools. In Britain, the fact that 30 per cent of 16 year olds have a reading age of 14 or less has
helped to prompt massive educational changes. The development of literacy has far-reaching effects
on general intellectual development and thus anything which impedes the development of literacy is
a serious matter for us all. So the hunt is on for the cause of the decline in literacy. The search so far
has focused on socioeconomic factors, or the effectiveness of 'traditional' versus 'modern' teaching
techniques.
B
The fruitless search for the cause of the increase in illiteracy is a tragic example of the saying 'They
can't see the wood for the trees'. When teachers use picture books, they are simply continuing a
long-established tradition that is accepted without question. And for the past two decades,
illustrations in reading primers have become increasingly detailed and obtrusive, while language has
become impoverished — sometimes to the point of extinction.
C
Amazingly, there is virtually no empirical evidence to support the use of illustrations in teaching
reading. On the contrary, a great deal of empirical evidence shows that pictures interfere in a
damaging way with all aspects of learning to read. Despite this, from North America to the
Antipodes, the first books that many school children receive are totally without text.
D
A teacher's main concern is to help young beginner readers to develop not only the ability to
recognise words, but the skills necessary to understand what these words mean. Even if a child is
able to read aloud fluently, he or she may not be able to understand much of it: this is called 'barking
at text'. The teacher's task of improving comprehension is made harder by influences outside the
classroom. But the adverse effects of such things as television, video games, or limited language
experiences at home, can be offset by experiencing 'rich' language at school.
E
Instead, it is not unusual for a book of 30 or more pages to have only one sentence full of repetitive
phrases. The artwork is often marvellous, but the pictures make the language redundant, and the
children have no need to imagine anything when they read such books. Looking at a picture actively
prevents children younger than nine from creating a mental image, and can make it difficult for older
children. In order to learn how to comprehend, they need to practise making their own meaning in
response to text. They need to have their innate powers of imagination trained.
F
As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made
more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when
pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is
competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are
most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of
educators has been to extend the use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at
senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss
the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates.
G
Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read because they are beautiful and eye-
catching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children
imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them
understand the language. If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these
creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake.
H
Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning,
psycholinguistics, and so on cite experiments which demonstrate how detrimental pictures are for
beginner readers. Here is a brief selection:
I
The research results of the Canadian educationalist Dale Willows were clear and consistent: pictures
affected speed and accuracy and the closer the pictures were to the words, the slower and more
inaccurate the child's reading became. She claims that when children come to a word they already
know, then the pictures are unnecessary and distracting. If they do not know a word and look to the
picture for a clue to its meaning, they may well be misled by aspects of the pictures which are not
closely related to the meaning of the word they are trying to understand.
J
Jay Samuels, an American psychologist, found that poor readers given no pictures learnt
significantly more words than those learning to read with books with pictures. He examined the work
of other researchers who had reported problems with the use of pictures and who found that a word
without a picture was superior to a word plus a picture. When children were given words and
pictures, those who seemed to ignore the pictures and pointed at the words learnt more words than
the children who pointed at the pictures, but they still learnt fewer words than the children who had
no illustrated stimuli at all.
Questions 1-4
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet
1 Readers are said to 'bark' at a text when ...
A they read too loudly.
B there are too many repetitive words.
C they are discouraged from using their imagination.
D they have difficulty assessing its meaning.
2 The text suggests that...

A pictures in books should be less detailed.
B pictures can slow down reading progress.
C picture books are best used with younger readers.
D pictures make modem books too expensive.
3 University academics are concerned because ...

A young people are showing less interest in higher ed
B students cannot understand modem academic text
C academic books are too childish for their undergraduates
D there has been a significant change in student literacy
4 The youngest readers will quickly develop good reading

A learn to associate the words in a text with pictures.
B are exposed to modern teaching techniques.
C are encouraged to ignore pictures in the text.
D learn the art of telling stories.
Questions 5-8
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage
5 It is traditionally accepted that children's books should contain few pictures.
6 Teachers aim to teach both word recognition and word meaning.
7 Older readers are having difficulty in adjusting to texts without pictures.
8 Literacy has improved as a result of recent academic conferences.
Questions 9-12
Reading Passage has ten paragraphs, A-J.
Which paragraphs state the following information?
Write the appropriate letters A-J in boxes 9-12 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more paragraphs than summaries, so you will not use them all.
9 The decline of literacy is seen in groups of differing ages and abilities.

10 Reading methods currently in use go against research findings.
11 Readers able to ignore pictures are claimed to make greater progress.
12 Illustrations in books can give misleading information about word meaning.
Questions 13
From the list below choose the most suitable title for the whole of Reading Passage.
Write the appropriate letter A-E in box 13 on your answer sheet.
A The global decline in reading levels
B Concern about recent educational developments
C The harm that picture books can cause
D Research carried out on children's literature
E An examination of modern reading styles
Solution for: The harm that picture books can cause
Answer Table
1. D 8. NOT GIVEN
2. B 9. F
3. D 10. C
4. C 11. J
5. NO 12. I
6. YES 13. C
7. YES
Psychology and personality ASSESSMENT
A
Our daily lives are largely made up of contacts with other people, during which we are constantly
making judgments of their personalities and accommodating our behaviour to them in accordance
with these judgments. A casual meeting of neighbours on the street, an employer giving instructions
to an employee, a mother telling her children how to behave, a journey in a train where strangers
eye one another without exchanging a word – all these involve mutual interpretations of personal
qualities.
B
Success in many vocations largely depends on skill in sizing up people. It is important not only to
such professionals as the clinical psychologist, the psychiatrist or the social worker, but also to the
doctor or lawyer in dealing with their clients, the businessman trying to outwit his rivals, the
salesman with potential customers, the teacher with his pupils, not to speak of the pupils judging
their teacher. Social life, indeed, would be impossible if we did not. to some extent, understand, and
react to the motives and qualities of those we meet; and clearly we are sufficiently accurate for most
practical purposes, although we also recognize that misinterpretations easily arise – particularly on
the pare of others who judge us!
C
Errors can often be corrected as we go along. But whenever we are pinned down to a definite
decision about a person, which cannot easily be revised through his ‘feed-back’, the Inadequacies of
our judgments become apparent. The hostess who wrongly thinks that the Smiths and the Joneses
will get on well together can do little to retrieve the success of her party. A school or a business may
be saddled for years with an undesirable member of staff, because the selection committee which
interviewed him for a quarter of an hour misjudged his personality.
D
Just because the process is so familiar and taken for granted, It has aroused little scientific curiosity
until recently. Dramatists, writers and artists throughout the centuries have excelled in the portrayal
of character, but have seldom stopped to ask how they, or we, get to know people, or how accurate
is our knowledge. However, the popularity of such unscientific systems as Lavater’s physiognomy in
the eighteenth century, Gall’s phrenology in the nineteenth, and of handwriting interpretations by
graphologists, or palm-readings by Gypsies, show that people are aware of weaknesses in their
judgments and desirous of better methods of diagnosis. It is natural that they should turn to
psychology for help, in the belief that psychologists are specialists in ‘human nature’.
E
This belief is hardly justified: for the primary aim of psychology had been to establish the general
laws and principles underlying behaviour and thinking, rather than to apply these to concrete
problems of the individual person. A great many professional psychologists still regard it as their
main function to study the nature of learning, perception and motivation in the abstracted or average
human being, or in lower organisms, and consider it premature to put so young a science to practical
uses. They would disclaim the possession of any superior skill in judging their fellow-men. Indeed,
being more aware of the difficulties than is the non-psychologist, they may be more reluctant to
commit themselves to definite predictions or decisions about other people. Nevertheless, to an
increasing extent psychologists are moving into educational, occupational, clinical and other applied
fields, where they are called upon to use their expertise for such purposes as fitting the education or
job to the child or adult,and the person to the job,Thus a considerable proportion of their activities
consists of personality assessment.
F
The success of psychologists in personality assessment has been limited, in comparison with what
they have achieved in the fields of abilities and training, with the result that most people continue to
rely on unscientific methods of assessment. In recent times there has been a tremendous amount of
work on personality tests, and on carefully controlled experimental studies of personality.
Investigations of personality by Freudian and other ‘depth’ psychologists have an even longer
history. And yet psychology seems to be no nearer to providing society with practicable techniques
which are sufficiently reliable and accurate to win general acceptance. The soundness of the
methods of psychologists in the field of personality assessment and the value of their work are under
constant fire from other psychologists, and it is far from easy to prove their worth.
G
The growth of psychology has probably helped responsible members of society to become more
aware of the difficulties of assessment. But it is not much use telling employers, educationists and
judges how inaccurately they diagnose the personalities with which they have to deal unless
psychologists are sure that they can provide something better. Even when university psychologists
themselves appoint a new member of staff, they almost always resort to the traditional techniques of
assessing the candidates through interviews, past records, and testimonials, and probably make at
least as many bad appointments as other employers do. However, a large amount of experimental
development of better methods has been carried out since 1940 by groups of psychologists in the
Armed Services and in the Civil Service, and by such organizations as the (British) National Institute
of Industrial Psychology and the American Institute of Research.
Questions 1-7
Reading passage has seven paragraphs A-Q.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-x in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i The advantage of an intuitive approach to personality assessment
ii Overall theories of personality assessment rather than valuable guidance
iii The consequences of poor personality assessment
iv Differing views on the importance of personality assessment
v Success and failure in establishing an approach to personality assessment
vi Everyone makes personality assessments
vii Acknowledgement of the need for improvement in personality assessment
viii Little progress towards a widely applicable approach to personality assessment
ix The need for personality assessments to be welhjudged
x The need for a different kind of research into personality assessment
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph F
7 Paragraph G
Question 8
Choose THREE letters A-F.
Write your answers in box 8 on your answer sheet.
Which THREE of the following are stated about psychologists involved in personality assessment?
A ‘Depth’ psychologists are better at it than some other kinds of psychologist.
B Many of them accept that their conclusions are unreliable.
C They receive criticism from psychologists not involved in the field.
D They have made people realise how hard the subject is.
E They have told people what not to do, rather than what they should do.
F They keep changing their minds about what the best approaches are.
Questions 9-13
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 21 in boxes 9-
13 on your answer sheet write
9 People often feel that they have been wrongly assessed.
10 Unscientific systems of personality assessment have been of some use.
11 People make false assumptions about the expertise of psychologists.
12 It is likely that some psychologists are no better than anyone else at assessing personality.
13 Research since 1940 has been based on acceptance of previous theories.
Solution for: Psychology and personality
ASSESSMENT
Answer Table
1. vi 8. C D E
2. ix 9. YES
3. iii 10. NOT GIVEN
4. vii 11. YES
5. ii 12. YES
6. viii 13. NO
7. v
Endless Harvest
More than two hundred years ago, Russian explorers and fur hunters landed on the Aleutian Islands,
a volcanic archipelago in the North Pacific, and learned of a land mass that lay farther to the north.
'The islands’ native inhabitants called this land mass Aleyska, the ‘Great Land’; today, we know it
as Alaska.
The forty-ninth state to join the United States of America (in 1959), Alaska is fully one-fifth the size of
the mainland 48 states combined. It shares, with Canada, the second longest river system in North
America and has over half the coastline of the United States. The rivers feed into the Bering Sea and
Gulf of Alaska - cold, nutrient-rich waters which support tens of millions of seabirds, and over 400
species of fish, shellfish, crustaceans, and molluscs. Taking advantage of this rich bounty, Alaska’s
commercial fisheries have developed into some of the largest in the world.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Alaska’s commercial fisheries
landed hundreds of thousands of tonnes of shellfish and herring, and well over a million tonnes of
groundfish (cod, sole, perch and pollock) in 2000. The true cultural heart and soul of
Alaska’s fisheries, however, is salmon. ‘Salmon,’ notes writer Susan Ewing in The Great Alaska
Nature Factbook, ‘pump through Alaska like blood through a heart, bringing rhythmic,
circulating nourishment to land, animals and people.’ The ‘predictable abundance of salmon allowed
some native cultures to flourish,’ and ‘dying spawners* feed bears, eagles, other animals, and
ultimately the soil itself.’ All five species of Pacific salmon - chinook, or king; chum, or dog; coho, or
silver; sockeye, or red; and pink, or humpback - spawn** in Alaskan waters, and 90% of all
Pacific salmon commercially caught in North America are produced there. Indeed, if Alaska was
an independent nation, it would be die largest producer of wild salmon in the world. During
2000, commercial catches of Pacific salmon in Alaska exceeded 320,000 tonnes, with an ex-vessel
value of over $US 260 million.
Catches have not always been so healthy. Between 1940 and 1959, overfishing led to crashes in
salmon populations so severe that in 1953 Alaska was declared a federal disaster area. With
the onset of statehood, however, the State of Alaska took over management of its own
fisheries, guided by a state constitution which mandates that Alaska’s natural resources be managed
on a sustainable basis. At that time, statewide harvests totalled around 25 million salmon. Over the
next few decades average catches steadily increased as a result of this policy of sustainable
management, until, during the 1990s, annual harvests were well in excess of 100 million, and on
several occasions over 200 million fish.
The primary reason for such increases is what is known as ‘In-Season Abundance-Based
Management’. There are biologists throughout the state constantly monitoring adult fish as
they show up to spawn. The biologists sit in streamside counting towers, study sonar, watch
from aeroplanes, and talk to fishermen. The salmon season in Alaska is not pre-set. The
fishermen know the approximate time of year when they will be allowed to fish, but on any given day,
one or more field biologists in a particular area can put a halt to fishing. Even sport fishing can
be brought to a halt. It is this management mechanism that has allowed Alaska salmon stocks -
and, accordingly, Alaska salmon fisheries — to prosper, even as salmon populations in the rest of
the United States are increasingly considered threatened or even endangered.
In 1999, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)*** commissioned a review of the Alaska salmon
fishery. The Council, which was founded in 1996, certifies fisheries that meet high
environmental standards, enabling them to use a label that recognises their environmental
responsibility. The MSC has established a set of criteria by which commercial fisheries can be
judged. Recognising the potential benefits of being identified as environmentally responsible,
fisheries approach the Council requesting to undergo the certification process. The MSC then
appoints a certification committee, composed of a panel of fisheries experts, which gathers
information and opinions from fishermen, biologists, government officials, industry representatives,
non-governmental organisations and others.
Some observers thought the Alaska salmon fisheries would not have any chance of certification
when, in the months leading up to MSC’s final decision, salmon runs throughout western
Alaska completely collapsed. In the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, chinook and chum runs were
probably the poorest since statehood; subsistence communities throughout the region, who normally
have priority over commercial fishing, were devastated.
The crisis was completely unexpected, but researchers believe it had nothing to do with impacts of
fisheries. Rather, they contend, it was almost certainly the result of climatic shifts, prompted in part
by cumulative effects of the el niño/la niña phenomenon on Pacific Ocean temperatures, culminating
in a harsh winter in which huge numbers of salmon eggs were frozen. It could have meant the end
as far as the certification process was concerned. However, the state reacted quickly, closing down
all fisheries, even those necessary for subsistence purposes.
In September 2000, MSC announced that the Alaska salmon fisheries qualified for certification.
Seven companies producing Alaska salmon were immediately granted permission to display
the MSC logo on their products. Certification is for an initial period of five years, with an
annual review to ensure that the fishery is continuing to meet the required standards.
* spawners: fish that have released eggs
** spawn: release eggs
*** MSC: a joint venture between WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and Unilever, a Dutch-based multi-
national
Questions 1-7
1 The inhabitants of the Aleutian islands renamed their islands ‘Aleyska’.
2 Alaska’s fisheries are owned by some of the world’s largest companies.
3 Life in Alaska is dependent on salmon.
4 Ninety per cent of all Pacific salmon caught are sockeye or pink salmon.
5 More than 320,000 tonnes of salmon were caught in Alaska in 2000.
6 Between 1940 and 1959, there was a sharp decrease in Alaska’s salmon population.
7 During the 1990s, the average number of salmon caught each year was 100 million.
Questions 8-13
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-K, below.
Write the correct letter, A-K, in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.
A to recognise fisheries that care for the environment.
B to be successful.
C to stop fish from spawning.
D to set up environmental protection laws.
E to stop people fishing for sports
F to label their products using the MSC logo.
G to ensure that fish numbers are sufficient to permit fishing.
H to assist the subsistence communities in the region.
I to freeze a huge number of salmon eggs.

J to deny certification to the Alaska fisheries.
K to close down all fisheries.

8 In Alaska, biologists keep a check on adult fish
9 Biologists have the authority
10 In-Season Abundance-Based Management has allowed the Alaska salmon fisheries
11 The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was established
12 As a result of the collapse of the salmon runs in 1999, the state decided
13 In September 2000, the MSC allowed seven Alaska salmon companies
Solution for: Endless Harvest
Answer Table
1. FALSE 8. G
2. NOT GIVEN 9. E
3. TRUE 10. B
4. NOT GIVEN 11. A
5. TRUE 12. K
6. TRUE 13. F
7. FALSE
The nature and aims of archaelogy
Archaeology is partly the discovery of the treasures of the past, partly the careful work of the
scientific analyst, partly the exercise of the creative imagination. It is toiling in the sun on an
excavation in the Middle East, it is working with living Inuit in the snows of Alaska, and it is
investigating the sewers of Roman Britain. But it is also the painstaking task of interpretation, so that
we come to understand what these things mean for the human story. And it is the conservation of
the world's cultural heritage against looting and careless harm.
Archaeology, then, is both a physical activity out in the field, and an intellectual pursuit in the study
or laboratory. That is part of its great attraction. The rich mixture of danger and detective work has
also made it the perfect vehicle for fiction writers and film-makers, from Agatha Christie with Murder
in Mesopotamia to Stephen Spielberg with Indiana Jones. However far from reality such portrayals
are, they capture the essential truth that archaeology is an exciting quest - the quest for knowledge
about ourselves and our past.
But how does archaeology relate to disciplines such as anthropology and history, that are also
concerned with the human story? Is archaeology itself a science? And what are the responsibilities
of the archaeologist in today's world?
Anthropology, at its broadest, is the study of humanity - our physical characteristics as animals and
our unique non-biological characteristics that we call culture. Culture in this sense includes what the
anthropologist, Edward Tylor, summarised in 1871 as 'knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. Anthropologists also use
the term 'culture’ in a more restricted sense when they refer to the ‘culture1 of a particular society,
meaning the non-biological characteristics unique to that society, which distinguish it from other
societies. Anthropology is thus a broad discipline - so broad that it is generally broken down into
three smaller disciplines: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and archaeology.
Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology as it is also called, concerns the study of human
biological or physical characteristics and how they evolved. Cultural anthropology - or social
anthropology - analyses human culture and society. Two of its branches are ethnography (the study
at first hand of individual living cultures) and ethnology (which sets out to .compare cultures using
ethnographic evidence to derive general principles about human society).
Archaeology is the ‘past tense of cultural anthropology’. Whereas cultural anthropologists will often
base their conclusions on the experience of living within contemporaly communities, archaeologists
study past societies primarily through their material remains - the buildings, tools, and other artefacts
that constitute what is known as the material culture left over from former societies.
Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks for the archaeologist today is to know how to interpret
material culture in human terms. How were those pots used? Why are some dwellings round and
others square? Here the methods of archaeology and ethnography overlap. Archaeologists in recent
decades have developed ‘ethnoarchaeology’, where, like ethnographers, they live among
contemporary communities, but with the specific purpose of learning how such societies use material
culture - how they make their tools and weapons, why they build their settlements where they do,
and so on. Moreover, archaeology has an active role to play in the field of conservation. Heritage
studies constitutes a developing field, where it is realised that the world's cultural heritage is a
diminishing resource which holds different meanings for different people.
If, then, archaeology deals with the past, in what way does it differ from history? In the broadest
sense, just as archaeology is an aspect of anthropology, so too is it a part of history - where we
mean the whole history of humankind from its beginnings over three million years ago. Indeed, for
more than ninety-nine per cent of that huge span of time, archaeology - the study of past material
culture - is the only significant source of information. Conventional historical sources begin only with
the introduction of written records around 3,000 BC in western Asia, and much later in most other
parts of the world.
A commonly drawn distinction is between pre-history, i.e. the period before written records - and
history in the narrow sense, meaning the study of the past using written evidence. To archaeology,
which studies all cultures and periods, whether with or without writing, the distinction between history
and pre-history is a convenient dividing line that recognises the importance of the written word, but in
no way lessens the importance of the useful information contained in oral histories.
Since the aim of archaeology is the understanding of humankind, it is a humanistic study, and since
it deals with the human past, it is a historical discipline. But it differs from the study of written history
in a fundamental way. The material the archaeologist finds does not tell us directly what to think.
Historical records make statements, offer opinions and pass judgements. The objects the
archaeologists discover, on the other hand, tell us nothing directly in themselves. In this respect, the
practice of the archaeologist is rather like that of the scientist, who collects data, conducts
experiments, formulates a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis against more data, and then, in
conclusion, devises a model that seems best to summarise the pattern observed in the data. The
archaeologist has to develop a picture of the past, just as the scientist has to develop a coherent
view of the natural world.
Questions 1-6
Do the following Statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
1 Archaeology involves creativity as well as careful investigative work.

2 Archaeologists must be able to translate texts from ancient languages.
3 Movies give a realistic picture of the work of archaeologists.
4 Anthropologists define culture in more than one way.
5 Archaeology is a more demanding field of study than anthropology.
6 The history of Europe has been documented since 3,000 BC.
Questions 7-8
Choose TWO letters A-E.
The list below gives some statements about anthropology.
Which TWO statements are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A It is important for government planners.

B It is a continually growing field of study.
C It often involves long periods of fieldwork.
D It is subdivided for study purposes.
E It studies human evolutionary patterns.
Questions 9-10
Choose TWO letters A-E.
The list below gives some of the tasks of an archaeologist.
Which TWO of these tasks are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A examining ancient waste sites to investigate diet

B studying cave art to determine its significance
C deducing reasons for the shape of domestic buildings
D investigating the way different cultures make and use objects
E examining evidence for past climate changes
Questions 11-14
Complete the summary of the last two paragraphs of Reading Passage.
Much of the work of archaeologists can be done using written records but they
find 11 ……………… equally valuable. The writer describes archaeology as both
a 12 ……………… and a 13……………… . However, as archaeologists do not try to influence
human behaviour, the writer compares their style of working to that of a 14……………… .
Solution for: The nature and aims of archaelogy
Answer Table
1. YES 8. D, E IN EITHER ORDER
2. NOT GIVEN 9. C, D IN EITHER ORDER
3. NO 10. C, D IN EITHER ORDER
4. YES 11. oral histories
5. NOT GIVEN 12. humanistic study, historical discipline IN EITH
6. NO 13. humanistic study, historical discipline IN EITH
7. D, E IN EITHER ORDER 14. scientist

The life and work of Marie Curie
Marie Curie is probably the most famous woman scientist who has ever lived. Born Maria
Sklodowska in Poland in 1867, she is famous for her work on radioactivity, and was twice a winner
of the Nobel Prize. With her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel, she was awarded the 1903
Nobel Prize for Physics, and was then sole winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. She was
the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
From childhood, Marie was remarkable for her prodigious memory, and at the age of 16 won a
gold medal on completion of her secondary education. Because her father lost his savings
through bad investment, she then had to take work as a teacher. From her earnings she was able
to finance her sister Bronia's medical studies in Paris, on the understanding that Bronia would,
in turn, later help her to get an education.
In 1891 this promise was fulfilled and Marie went to Paris and began to study at the Sorbonne (the
University of Paris). She often worked far into the night and lived on little more than bread and butter
and tea. She came first in the examination in the physical sciences in 1893, and in 1894 was placed
second in the examination in mathematical sciences. It was not until the spring of that year that she
was introduced to Pierre Curie.
Their marriage in 1895 marked the start of a partnership that was soon to achieve results of world
significance. Following Henri Becquerel's discovery in 1896 of a new phenomenon, which Marie later
called 'radioactivity', Marie Curie decided to find out if the radioactivity discovered in uranium was to
be found in other elements. She discovered that this was true for thorium.
Turning her attention to minerals, she found her interest drawn to pitchblende, a mineral whose
radioactivity, superior to that of pure uranium, could be explained only by the presence in the ore of
small quantities of an unknown substance of very high activity. Pierre Curie joined her in the work
that she had undertaken to resolve this problem, and that led to the discovery of the new elements,
polonium and radium. While Pierre Curie devoted himself chiefly to the physical study of the new
radiations, Marie Curie struggled to obtain pure radium in the metallic state. This was achieved with
the help of the chemist André-Louis Debierne, one of Pierre Curie's pupils. Based on the results of
this research, Marie Curie received her Doctorate of Science, and in 1903 Marie and Pierre shared
with Becquerel the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of radioactivity.
The births of Marie's two daughters, Irène and Eve, in 1897 and 1904 failed to interrupt her scientific
work. She was appointed lecturer in physics at the École Normale Supérieure for girls in Sèvres,
France (1900), and introduced a method of teaching based on experimental demonstrations. In
December 1904 she was appointed chief assistant in the laboratory directed by Pierre Curie.
The sudden death of her husband in 1906 was a bitter blow to Marie Curie, but was also a turning
point in her career: henceforth she was to devote all her energy to completing alone the scientific
work that they had undertaken. On May 13, 1906, she was appointed to the professorship that had
been left vacant on her husband's death, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. In
1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the isolation of a pure form of radium.
During World War I, Marie Curie, with the help of her daughter Irène, devoted herself to the
development of the use of X-radiography, including the mobile units which came to be known as
‘Little Curies', used for the treatment of wounded soldiers. In 1918 the Radium Institute, whose staff
Irène had joined, began to operate in earnest, and became a centre for nuclear physics and
chemistry. Marie Curie, now at the highest point of her fame and, from 1922, a member of the
Academy of Medicine, researched the chemistry of radioactive substances and their medical
applications.
In 1921, accompanied by her two daughters, Marie Curie made a triumphant journey to the United
States to raise funds for research on radium. Women there presented her with a gram of radium for
her campaign. Marie also gave lectures in Belgium, Brazil, Spain and Czechoslovakia and, in
addition, had the satisfaction of seeing the development of the Curie Foundation in Paris, and the
inauguration in 1932 in Warsaw of the Radium Institute, where her sister Bronia became director.
One of Marie Curie's outstanding achievements was to have understood the need to accumulate
intense radioactive sources, not only to treat illness but also to maintain an abundant supply for
research. The existence in Paris at the Radium Institute of a stock of 1.5 grams of radium made a
decisive contribution to the success of the experiments undertaken in the years around 1930. This
work prepared the way for the discovery of the neutron by Sir James Chadwick and, above all, for
the discovery in 1934 by Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie of artificial radioactivity. A few months after
this discovery, Marie Curie died as a result of leukaemia caused by exposure to radiation. She had
often carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket, remarking on the pretty blue-
green light they gave off.
Her contribution to physics had been immense, not only in her own work, the importance of which
had been demonstrated by her two Nobel Prizes, but because of her influence on subsequent
generations of nuclear physicists and chemists.
Questions 1-6
1 Marie Curie’s husband was a joint winner of both Marie’s Nobel Prizes.
2 Marie became interested in science when she was a child.
3 Marie was able to attend the Sorbonne because of her sister’s financial contribution.
4 Marie stopped doing research for several years when her children were born.
5 Marie took over the teaching position her husband had held.
6 Marie’s sister Bronia studied the medical uses of radioactivity.
Questions 7-13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
Marie Curie’s research on radioactivity

• When uranium was discovered to be radioactive, Marie Curie found that the element
called 7…………………….. had the same property.
• Marie and Pierre Curie’s research into the radioactivity of the mineral
known as 8 …………………….. led to the discovery of two new elements.
• In 1911, Marie Curie received recognition for her work on the element 9 ……………………..
• Marie and Irene Curie developed X-radiography which was used as a medical technique
for 10 ……………………..
• Marie Curie saw the importance of collecting radioactive material both for research and for cases
of 11 ……………………..
• The radioactive material stocked in Paris contributed to the discoveries in the 1930s of
the 12 …………………….. and of what was known as artificial radioactivity.
• During her research, Marie Curie was exposed to radiation and as a result she suffered
from 13 ……………………..
Trends and prospects for European transport
systems
A It is difficult to conceive of vigorous economic growth without an efficient transport system.

Although modern information technologies can reduce the demand for physical transport by
facilitating teleworking and teleservices, the requirement for transport continues to increase. There
are two key factors behind this trend. For passenger transport, the determining factor is the
spectacular growth in car use. The number of cars on European Union (EU) roads saw an increase
of three million cars each year from 1990 to 2010, and in the next decade the EU will see a further
substantial increase in its fleet.
B As far as goods transport is concerned, growth is due to a large extent to changes in the
European economy and its system of production. In the last 20 years, as internal frontiers have been
abolished, the EU has moved from a ”stock” economy to a ”flow” economy. This phenomenon has
been emphasised by the relocation of some industries, particularly those which are labour intensive,
to reduce production costs, even though the production site is hundreds or even thousands of
kilometres away from the final assembly plant or away from users.
C The strong economic growth expected in countries which are candidates for entry to the EU will
also increase transport flows, in particular road haulage traffic. In 1998, some of these countries
already exported more than twice their 1990 volumes and imported more than five times their 1990
volumes. And although many candidate countries inherited a transport system which encourages
rail, the distribution between modes has tipped sharply in favour of road transport since the 1990s.
Between 1990 and 1998，road haulage increased by 19.4%, while during the same period rail
haulage decreased by 43.5%, although – and this could benefit the enlarged EU – it is still on
average at a much higher level than in existing member states.
D However, a new imperative-sustainable development – offers an opportunity for adapting the EU
，s common transport policy. This objective, agreed by the Gothenburg European Council, has to be
achieved by integrating environmental considerations into Community policies, and shifting the
balance between modes of transport lies at the heart of its strategy. The ambitious objective can
only be fully achieved by 2020, but proposed measures are nonetheless a first essential step
towards a sustainable transport system which will ideally be in place in 30 years‟ time, that is by
2040.
E In 1998, energy consumption in the transport sector was to blame for 28% of emissions of CO2，
the leading greenhouse gas. According to the latest estimates, if nothing is done to reverse the
traffic growth trend, CO2 emissions from transport can be expected to increase by around 50% to
1,113 billion tonnes by 2020，compared with the 739 billion tonnes recorded in 1990. Once again,
road transport is the main culprit since it alone accounts for 84% of the CO2 emissions attributable
to transport. Using alternative fuels and improving energy efficiency is thus both an ecological
necessity and a technological challenge.
F At the same time greater efforts must be made to achieve a modal shift. Such a change cannot be
achieved overnight, all the less so after over half a century of constant deterioration in favour of
road. This has reached such a pitch that today rail freight services are facing marginalisation, with
just 8% of market share, and with international goods trains struggling along at an average speed of
18km/h. Three possible options have emerged.
G The first approach would consist of focusing on road transport solely through pricing. This option
would not be accompanied by complementary measures in the other modes of transport. In the short
term it might curb the growth in road transport through the better loading ratio of goods vehicles and
occupancy rates of passenger vehicles expected as a result of the increase in the price of transport.
However, the lack of measures available to revitalise other modes of transport would make it
impossible for more sustainable modes of transport to take up the baton.
H The second approach also concentrates on road transport pricing but is accompanied by
measures to increase the efficiency of the other modes (better quality of services, logistics,
technology). However, this approach does not include investment in new infrastructure, nor does it
guarantee better regional cohesion. It could help to achieve greater uncoupling than the first
approach, but road transport would keep the lion‟s share of the market and continue to concentrate
on saturated arteries, despite being the most polluting of the modes. It is therefore not enough to
guarantee the necessary shift of the balance.
I The third approach, which is not new, comprises a series of measures ranging from pricing to
revitalising alternative modes of transport and targeting investment in the trans-European network.
This integrated approach would allow the market shares of the other modes to return to their 1998
levels and thus make a shift of balance. It is far more ambitious than it looks, bearing in mind the
historical imbalance in favour of roads for the last fifty years, but would achieve a marked break in
the link between road transport growth and economic growth, without placing restrictions on the
mobility of people and goods.
Questions 1-8
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs, A-I.
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-E and G-I from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-xi, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i A fresh and important long-term goal
ii Charging for roads and improving other transport methods
iii Changes affecting the distances goods may be transported
iv Taking all the steps necessary to change transport patterns
v The environmental costs of road transport
vi The escalating cost of rail transport
vii The need to achieve transport rebalance
viii The rapid growth of private transport
ix Plans to develop major road networks
x Restricting road use through charging policies alone
xi Transport trends in countries awaiting EU admission
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph G
7 Paragraph H
8 Paragraph I
Questions 9-13
9 The need for transport is growing, despite technological developments.
10 To reduce production costs, some industries have been moved closer to their relevant
consumers.
11 Cars are prohibitively expensive in some EU candidate countries.
12 The Gothenburg European Council was set up 30 years ago.
13 By the end of this decade, CO2 emissions from transport are predicted to reach 739 billion
tonnes.
Solution for: Trends and prospects for European transport
systems
Answer Table
1. viii 8. iv
2. iii 9. TRUE
3. xi 10. FALSE
4. i 11. NOT GIVEN
5. v 12. NOT GIVEN
6. x 13. FALSE
7. ii
THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOGRAPHY
The Department of Ethnography was created as a separate deportment within the British Museum in
1946, offer 140 years of gradual development from the original Department of Antiquities. If is
concerned with the people of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Pacific and parts of Europe. While this
includes complex kingdoms, as in Africa, and ancient empires, such as those of the Americas, the
primary focus of attention in the twentieth century has been on small-scale societies. Through its
collections, the Department's specific interest is to document how objects are created and used, and
to understand their importance and significance to those who produce them. Such objects can
include both the extraordinary and the mundane, the beautiful and the banal.
The collections of the Department of Ethnography include approximately 300,000 artefacts, of which
about half are the product of the present century. The Department has o vital role to play in providing
information on non-Western cultures to visitors and scholars. To this end, the collecting emphasis
has often been less on individual objects than on groups of material which allow the display of a
broad range of o society's cultural expressions.
Much of the more recent collecting was carried out in the field, sometimes by Museum staff working
on general anthropological projects in collaboration with a wide variety of national governments and
other institutions. The material collected includes great technical series - for instance, of textiles from
Bolivia, Guatemala, Indonesia and at
areas of West Africa - or of artefact types such as boats. The latter include working examples of
coracles from India, reed boars from Lake Titicaca in the Andes, kayaks from the Arctic, and dug-out
canoes from several countries. The field assemblages, such as those from the Sudan,
Madagascar and Yemen, include a whole range of material culture representative of one people.
This might cover the necessities of life of an African herdsman or on Arabian farmer, ritual objects,
or even on occasion airport art. Again, a series of acquisitions might represent a decade's fieldwork
documenting social experience as expressed in the varieties of clothing and jewellery styles, tents
and camel trappings from various Middle Eastern countries, or in the developing preferences in
personal adornment and dress from Papua New Guinea. Particularly interesting are a series of
collections which continue to document the evolution of ceremony and of material forms for which
the Department already possesses early (if nor the earliest) collections formed after the first contact
with Europeans.
The importance of these acquisitions extends beyond the objects themselves. They come fo the
Museum with documentation of the social context, ideally including photographic records. Such
acquisitions have multiple purposes. Most significantly they document for future change. Most
people think of the cultures represented in the collection in terms of the absence of advanced
technology. In fact, traditional practices draw on a continuing wealth of technological ingenuity.
Limited resources and ecological constraints are often overcome by personal skills that would be
regarded as exceptional in the West. Of growing interest is the way in which much of what we might
see as disposable is, elsewhere, recycled and reused.
With the Independence of much of Asia and Africa after 1945, if was assumed that economic
progress would rapidly lead to the disappearance or assimilation of many small-scale societies.
Therefore, it was felt that the Museum should acquire materials representing people whose art or
material culture, ritual or political structures were on the point of irrevocable change. This attitude
altered with the realisation that marginal communities can survive and adapt In spire of partial
integration into a notoriously fickle world economy. Since the seventeenth century, with the advent of
trading companies exporting manufactured textiles to North America and Asia, the importation of
cheap goods has often contributed to the destruction of local skills and indigenous markets. On the
one hand modern imported goods may be used in an everyday setting, while on the other hand other
traditional objects may still be required for ritually significant events. Within this context trade and
exchange attitudes are inverted. What are utilitarian objects to a Westerner may be prized objects in
other cultures - when transformed by local ingenuity - principally for aesthetic value. In the some
way, the West imports goods from other peoples and in certain circumstances categorises them as
‘art'.
Collections act as an ever-expanding database, nor merely for scholars and anthropologists, bur for
people involved in a whole range of educational and artistic purposes. These include schools and
universities as well as colleges of art and design. The provision of information about non-Western
aesthetics and techniques, not just for designers and artists but for all visitors, is a growing
responsibility for a Department whose own context is an increasingly multicultural European society.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage
FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
Example Answer
The Department of Ethnography

replaced the Department of Antiquities FALSE
at the British Museum.
1 The twentieth-century collections come mainly from mainstream societies such as the US and
Europe.
2 The Department of Ethnography focuses mainly on modern societies.
3 The Department concentrates on collecting single unrelated objects of great value.
4 The textile collection of the Department of Ethnography is the largest in the world.
5 Traditional societies are highly inventive in terms of technology.
6 Many small-scale societies have survived and adapted in spite of predictions to the contrary.
Questions 7-12
Some of the exhibits at the Department of Ethnography are listed below (Questions 7-12). The writer
gives these exhibits as examples of different collection types.
Match each exhibit with the collection type with which it is associated in Reading Passage 1. Write
the appropriate letters in boxes 7-12 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any collection type more than once.
Example Answer
Boats AT
Collection Types
7 Bolivian textiles AT Artefact Types

8 Indian coracles
EC Evolution of Ceremony
9 airport art
10 Arctic kayaks FA Field Assemblages
11 necessities of life of an Arabian farmer SE Social Experience

12 tents from the Middle East
TS Technical Series
Solution for: THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOGRAPHY
Answer Table
1. FALSE 7. TS
2. FALSE 8. AT
3. FALSE 9. FA
4. NOT GIVEN 10. AT
5. TRUE 11. FA
6. TRUE 12. SE
Mind readers
It may one day be possible to eavesdrop on another person’s inner voice.

As you begin to read this article and your eyes follow the words across the page, you may be aware
of a voice in your head silently muttering along. The very same thing happens when we write: a
private, internal narrative shapes the words before we commit them to text.
What if it were possible to tap into this inner voice? Thinking of words does, after all. create
characteristic electrical signals in our brains, and decoding them could make it possible to piece
together someone’s thoughts. Such an ability would have phenomenal prospects, not least for
people unable to communicate as a result of brain damage. But it would also carry profoundly
worrisome implications for the future of privacy.
The first scribbled records of electrical activity in the human brain were made in 1924 by a German
doctor called Hans Berger using his new invention - the electroencephalogram (EEG). This uses
electrodes placed on the skull to read the output of the brain's billions of nerve cells or neurons. By
the mid-1990s, the ability to translate the brain's activity into readable signals had advanced so far
that people could move computer cursors using only the electrical fields created by their thoughts.
The electrical impulses such innovations tap into are produced in a part of the brain called the motor
cortex, which is responsible for muscle movement. To move a cursor on a screen, you do not think
'move left’ in natural language. Instead, you imagine a specific motion like hitting a ball with a tennis
racket. Training the machine to realise which electrical signals correspond to your imagined
movements, however, is time consuming and difficult. And while this method works well for directing
objects on a screen, its drawbacks become apparent when you try using it to communicate. At best,
you can use the cursor to select letters displayed on an on-screen keyboard. Even a practised mind
would be lucky to write 15 words per minute with that approach. Speaking, we can manage 150.
Matching the speed at which we can think and talk would lead to devices that could instantly
translate the electrical signals of someone’s inner voice into sound produced by a speech
synthesiser. To do this, it is necessary to focus only on the signals coming from the brain areas that
govern speech. However, real mind reading requires some way to intercept those signals before
they hit the motor cortex.
The translation of thoughts to language in the brain is an incredibly complex and largely mysterious
process, but this much is known: before they end up in the motor cortex, thoughts destined to
become spoken words pass through two ‘staging areas’ associated with the perception and
expression of speech.
The first is called Wernicke’s area, which deals with semantics - in this case, ideas based in
meaning, which can include images, smells or emotional memories. Damage to Wernicke’s area can
result in the loss of semantic associations: words can’t make sense when they are decoupled from
their meaning. Suffer a stroke in that region, for example, and you will have trouble understanding
not just what others are telling you, but what you yourself are thinking.
The second is called Broca’s area, agreed to be the brain’s speech-processing centre. Here,
semantics are translated into phonetics and. ultimately, word components. From here, the
assembled sentences take a quick trip to the motor cortex, which activates the muscles that will turn
the desired words into speech.
Injure Broca’s area, and though you might know what you want to say. you just can’t send those
impulses.
When you listen to your inner voice, two things arc happening. You ‘hear’ yourself producing
language in Wernicke’s area as you construct it in Broca’s area. The key to mind reading seems to
lie in these two areas.
44 The work of Bradley Greger in 2010 broke new ground by marking the first-ever excursion
beyond the motor cortex into the brain’s language centres. His team used electrodes placed inside
the skull to detect the electrical signatures of whole words, such as 'yes’, ’no’, ’hot’, ‘cold’, 'thirsty',
‘hungry’, etc. Promising as it is. this approach requires a new signal to be learned for each new
word. English contains a quarter of a million distinct words. And though this was the first instance of
monitoring Wernicke’s area, it still relied largely on the facial motor cortex.
Greger decided there might be another way. The building blocks of language are called phonemes,
and the English language has about 40 of them - the ‘kuh’ sound in ‘school’, for example the ’$h' in
‘shy’. Every English word contains some subset of these components. Decode the brain signals that
correspond to the phonemes, and you would have a system to unlock any word at the moment
someone thinks it.
In 2011, Eric Leuthardt and his colleague Gerwin Schalk positioned electrodes over the language
regions of four fully conscious people and were able to detect the phonemes ’oo’, ‘ah’, ‘eh’ and ‘ee’.
What they also discovered was that spoken phonemes activated both the language areas and the
motor cortex, while imagined speech - that inner voice - boosted the activity of neurons in Wernike’s
area. Leuthardt had effectively read his subjects' minds. ‘I would call it brain reading,’ he says. To
arrive at whole words. Leuthardt’s next step is to expand his library of sounds and to find out how the
production of phonemes translates across different languages.
For now. the research is primarily aimed at improving the lives of people with locked-in syndrome,
but the ability to explore the brain’s language centres could revolutionise other fields. The
consequences of these findings could ripple out to more general audiences who might like to use
extreme hands-free mobile communication technologies that can be manipulated by inner voice
alone. For linguists, it could provide previously unobtainable insight into the neural origins and
structures of language. Knowing what someone is thinking without needing words at all would be
functionally indistinguishable from telepathy.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage?
Write
1 YESNONOT GIVEN Our inner voice can sometimes distract us when we are reading or
writing.
2 YESNONOT GIVEN The possibility of reading minds has both positive and negative
implications.
3 YESNONOT GIVEN Little progress was made in understanding electrical activity in the brain
between 1924 and the mid-1990s.
4 YESNONOT GIVEN Machines can be readily trained to interpret electrical signals from the
brain that correspond to movements on a keyboard.
5 YESNONOT GIVEN Much has been written about the potential use of speech synthesisers
with paralysed patients.
6 YESNONOT GIVEN It has been proven that the perception and expression of speech occur in
different parts of the brain.
Show workspace
Questions 7-10
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G.
7 ABCDEFG In Wernicke’s area, our thoughts
8 ABCDEFG It is only in Broca’s area that ideas we wish to express
9 ABCDEFG The muscles that articulate our sentences
10 ABCDEFG The words and sentences that we speak
A receive impulses from the motor cortex.
B pass directly to the motor cortex.
C are processed into language.
D require a listener.
E consist of decoded phonemes.
F are largely non-verbal.
G match the sounds that they make.
Show workspace
Questions 11-14
11. What does the underlined phrase 'broke new ground’ in line 44 mean?
A built on the work of others
B produced unusual or unexpected results
C proved earlier theories on the subject to be false
D achieved something that had not been done before
12. What was most significant about Leuthardt and Schalk's work?
A They succeeded in grouping certain phonemes into words.
B They linked the production of certain phonemes to recognisable brain activity.
C Their methods worked for speakers of languages other than English.
D Their subjects were awake during the course of their experiments.
13. What does the writer conclude about mind reading?

A It could become a form of entertainment.
B It may contribute to studies on language acquisition.
C Most people are keenly awaiting the possibility of doing it.
D Mobile technologies may become unreliable because of it.
14. What is the main purpose of the writer of this passage?

A to give an account of the developments in mind-reading research
B to show how scientists’ attitudes towards mind reading have changed
C to explain why mind-reading research should be given more funding
D to fully explore the arguments for and against mind reading
Solution for: Mind readers
Answer Table
1. NOT GIVEN 8. C
2. YES 9. A
3. NO 10. E
4. NO 11. D
5. NOT GIVEN 12. B
6. YES 13. B
7. F 14. A
The History of Bicycles
The bicycle was not invented by one individual or in one country. It took nearly 100 years and many
individuals for the modern bicycle to be born. By the end of those 100 years, bicycles
had revolutionized the way people travel from place to place.
Bicycles first appeared in Scotland in the early 1800s, and were called velocipedes. These early
bicycles had two wheels, but they had no pedals. The rider sat on a pillow and walked his feet along
the ground to move his velocipede forward.
Soon a French inventor added pedals to the front wheel. Instead of walking their vehicles, riders
used their feet to run the pedals. However, pedaling was hard because velocipedes were very
heavy. The framework was made of solid steel tubes and the wooden wheels were covered with
steel. Even so, velocipedes were popular among rich young men, who raced them in Paris parks.
Because of the velocipedes were so hard to ride, no one thought about using them for
transportation. People didn’t ride velocipedes to the market or to their jobs. Instead, people thought
velocipedes were just toys.
Around 1870, American manufacturers saw that velocipedes were very popular overseas. They
began building velocipedes, too, but with one difference. They made the frameworks from hollow
steel tubes. This alteration made velocipedes much lighter, but riders still had to work hard to pedal
just a short distance. In addition, roads were bumpy so steering was difficult. In fact, most riders
preferred indoor tracks where they could rent a velocipede for a small fee and take riding lessons.
Subsequent changes by British engineers altered the wheels to make pedaling more efficient. They
saw that when a rider turned the pedals once, the front wheel turned once. If the front wheel was
small, the bicycle traveled just a small distance with each turn. They reasoned that if the front wheel
were larger, the bicycle would travel a greater distance. So they designed a bicycle with a giant front
wheel. They made the rear wheel small. Its primary purpose was to help the rider balance. Balancing
was hard because the rider had to sit high above the giant front wheel in order to reach the pedals.
This meant he was in danger of falling off the bicycle and injuring himself if he lost his balance.
Despite this inherent danger, “high wheelers” became very popular in England.
American manufacturers once again tried to design a better bicycle. Their goal was to make a safer
bicycle. They substituted a small wheel for the giant front wheel and put the driving mechanism in
a r larger rear to wheel. It would be impossible for a rider to pedal the rear wheel, so engineers
designed a system of foot levers. By pressing first the right one and then the left, the rider moved a
long metal bar up and down. This bar turned the rear axle1. This axle turned the rear wheel and the
bicycle minimized the dangers inherent in bicycle riding, more and more people began using
bicycles in their daily activities.
The British altered the design one last time. They made the two wheels equal in size and created a
mechanism that uses a chain to turn the rear wheel. With this final change, the modern bicycle
was born.
Subsequent improvements, such as brakes, rubber tires, and lights were added to make bicycles
more comfortable to ride. By 1900, bicycle riding had become very popular with men and women of
all ages. Bicycles revolutionized the way people worldwide ride bicycles for transportation,
enjoyment, sport, and exercise.
'axle the center bar of a wheel
Questions 1-6
Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
In the invention of the bicycle took part not only one individual or the country, but the world in
general during the 1 ……………………. years. This invention was firstly found in Scotland in the
first decades of 1800, and was known as velocipedes. They were not resembled to today’s bicycles
and had two wheels, but they had no 2 ……………………. . The rider sat on a pillow and walked his
feet along the ground in order to move his velocipede forward. Soon, a French inventor added
pedals to the front wheel. However, because of their difficulty in riding, nobody used them in a daily
life, and they were accepted as 3……………………. . Around 1870, manufacturers in America found
that this invention is popular 4 ……………………. , but within the difference: frameworks were made
from 5 ……………………. , what makes them much lighter. Soon, the British inventors found the
method which can make pedaling more efficient- to turn pedals one by one. They designed a bicycle
with a giant front wheel. However, as the rider had to sit high above the giant front wheel it was too
difficult to keep the balance. The safer bicycle was invented by Americans. They designed the
rear 6 ……………………. , which minimized the danger of falling and injuring. At last, the British
changed the design one last time and added two wheels equal in size and the mechanism that
induce a chain to turn the rear wheel. By this there was invented the example of the modern bicycle.
Questions 7-10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? Write
7 The bicycle was invited by Americans only
8 It was too hard to lead the velocipedes due to their heaviness
9 The alteration of velocipedes made the life of people much more easy
10 The changes by British inventors altered the wheels to make pedaling more efficient
Questions 11-13
Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN TREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
11 The British inventors concluded that if the front wheel were large in , the bicycle would travel
comparatively long distance.
12 American engineers designed a system of which was driven by pressing first the right and then
the left pedals.
13 The last, but not least alteration in creating of the modern bicycle was a making the two wheels
equal in size and using the to spin the rear wheel.
Solution for: The History of Bicycles
Answer Table
1. hundred 8. TRUE
2. pedals 9. NOT GIVEN
3. toys 10. TRUE
4. overseas 11. size
5. hollow steel tubes 12. foot, levers
6. axle 13. chain
7. FALSE
Pulling strings to build pyramids
No one knows exactly how the pyramids were built. Marcus Chown reckons the answer could be
'hanging in the air'.
The pyramids of Egypt were built more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows how.
The conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on sledges. But there is
no evidence to back this up. Now a Californian software consultant called Maureen Clemmons has
suggested that kites might have been involved. While perusing a book on the monuments of Egypt,
she noticed a hieroglyph that showed a row of men standing in odd postures. They were holding
what looked like ropes that led, via some kina of mechanical system, to a giant bird in the sky. She
wondered if perhaps the bird was actually a giant kite, and the men were using it to lift a heavy
object.
Intrigued, Clemmons contacted Morteza Gharib, aeronautics professor at the California Institute of
Technology. He was fascinated by the idea. 'Coming from Iran, I have a keen interest in Middle
Eastern science/ he says. He too was puzzled by the picture that had sparked Clemmons's interest.
The object in the sky apparently had wings far too short and wide for a bird. The possibility certainly
existed that it was a kite/ he says. And since he needed a summer project for his student Emilio
Graff, investigating the possibility of using kites as heavy lifters seemed like a good idea.
Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5-metre stone column from horizontal to
vertical, using no source of energy except the wind. Their initial calculations and scale-model wind-
tunnel experiments convinced them they wouldn't need a strong wind to lift the 33.5-tonne column.
Even a modest force, if sustained over a long time, would do. The key was to use a pulley system
that would magnify the applied force. So they rigged up a tent-shaped scaffold directly above the tip
of the horizontal column, with pulleys suspended from the scaffold's apex. The idea was that as one
end of the column rose, the base would roll across the ground on a trolley.
Earlier this year, the team put Clemmons's unlikely theory to the test, using a 40-square-metre
rectangular nylon sail. The kite lifted the column clean off the ground. 'We were absolutely stunned,'
Gharib says. The instant the sail opened into the wind, a huge force was generated and the column
was raised to the vertical in a mere 40 seconds.'
The wind was blowing at a gentle 16 to 20 kilometres an hour, little more than half what they thought
would be needed. What they had failed to reckon with was what happened when the kite was
opened. There was a huge initial force - five times larger than the steady state force,' Gharib says.
This jerk meant that kites could lift huge weights, Gharib realised. Even a 300-tonne column could
have been lifted to the vertical with 40 or so men and four or five sails. So Clemmons was right: the
pyramid, builders could have used kites to lift massive stones into place. 'Whether they actually did
is another matter,' Gharib says. There are no pictures showing the construction of the pyramids, so
there is no way to tell what really happened. The evidence for using kites to move large stones is no
better or worse than the evidence for the brute force method,' Gharib says.
Indeed, the experiments have left many specialists unconvinced. The evidence for kitelifting is non-
existent,' says Willeke Wendrich, an associate professor of Egyptology at the University of California,
Los Angeles.
Others feel there is more of a case for the theory. Harnessing the wind would not have been a
problem for accomplished sailors like the Egyptians. And they are known to have used wooden
pulleys, which could have been made strong enough to bear the weight of massive blocks of stone.
In addition, there is some physical evidence that the ancient Egyptians were interested in flight. A
wooden artefact found on the step pyramid at Saqqara looks uncannily like a modern glider.
Although it dates from several hundred years after the building of the pyramids, its sophistication
suggests that the Egyptians might nave been developing ideas of flight for a long time. And other
ancient civilisations certainly knew about kites; as early as 1250 BC, the Chinese were using them to
deliver messages and dump flaming debris on their foes.
The experiments might even have practical uses nowadays. There are plenty of places around the
globe where people have no access to heavy machinery, but do know how to deal with wind, sailing
and basic mechanical principles. Gharib has already been contacted by a civil engineer in
Nicaragua, who wants to put up buildings with adobe roofs supported by concrete arches on a site
that heavy equipment can't reach. His idea is to build the arcnes horizontally, then lift them into place
using kites. 'We've given him some design hints,' says Gharib. We're just waiting for him to report
back.' So whether they were actually used to build the pyramids or not, it seems that kites may make
sensible construction tools in the 21 st century AD.
Questions 1-7
1 It is generally believed that large numbers of people were needed to build the pyramids.
2 Clemmons found a strange hieroglyph on the wall of an Egyptian monument.
3 Gharib had previously done experiments on bird flight.
4 Gharib and Graff tested their theory before applying it.
5 The success of the actual experiment was due to the high speed of the wind.
6 They found that, as the kite flew higher, the wind force got stronger.
7 The team decided that it was possible to use kites to raise very heavy stones.
Questions 8-13
Additional evidence for theory of kite-lifting

The Egyptians had 8 ………………. which could lift large pieces of 9 ………………. and they knew
how to use the energy of the wind from their skill as 10 ………………. .
The discovery on one pyramid of an object which resembled a 11 ………………. suggests they may
have experimented with 12 ………………. .
In addition, over two thousand years ago kites were used in China as weapons, as well as for
sending 13 ………………. .
Solution for: Pulling strings to build pyramids
Answer Table
1. TRUE 8. (wooden) pulleys
2. FALSE 9. stone
3. NOT GIVEN 10. (accomplished) sailors
4. TRUE 11. (modern) glider
5. FALSE 12. flight
6. NOT GIVEN 13. messages
7. TRUE
What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?
A
Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues
- the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the Polynesians, it remained isolated for
centuries. All the energy and resources that went into the moai - some of which are ten metres tall
and weigh over 7,000 kilos - came from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed in 1722,
they met a Stone Age culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, then transported for many
kilometres, without the use of animals or wheels, to massive stone platforms. The identity of the
moai builders was in doubt until well into the twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian
ethnographer and adventurer, thought the statues had been created by pre-Inca peoples from Peru.
Bestselling Swiss author Erich von Daniken believed they were built by stranded extraterrestrials.
Modern science - linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence - has definitively proved the moai
builders were Polynesians, but not how they moved their creations. Local folklore maintains that the
statues walked, while researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues
somehow, using ropes and logs.
B
When the Europeans arrived, Rapa Nui was grassland, with only a few scrawny trees. In the 1970s
and 1980s, though, researchers found pollen preserved in lake sediments, which proved the island
had been covered in lush palm forests for thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived did
those forests disappear. US scientist Jared Diamond believes that the Rapanui people -
descendants of Polynesian settlers - wrecked their own environment. They had unfortunately settled
on an extremely fragile island - dry, cool, and too remote to be properly fertilised by windblown
volcanic ash. When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow
back. As trees became scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they
ate birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop yields. Before Europeans arrived, the Rapanui
had descended into civil war and cannibalism, he maintains. The collapse of their isolated
civilisation, Diamond writes, is a ’worst-case scenario for what may lie ahead of us in our own future’.
C
The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets them as power displays by
rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island, lacked other ways of asserting their
dominance. They competed by building ever bigger figures. Diamond thinks they laid the moai on
wooden sledges, hauled over log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To
feed the people, even more land had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war
began, the islanders began toppling the moai. By the nineteenth century none were standing.
D
Archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State University
agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it was an ‘ecological catastrophe' - but they
believe the islanders themselves weren’t to blame. And the moai certainly weren’t. Archaeological
excavations indicate that the Rapanui went to heroic efforts to protect the resources of their wind-
lashed, infertile fields. They built thousands of circular stone windbreaks and gardened inside
them, and used broken volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist. In short, Hunt and Lipo argue, the
prehistoric Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable farming.
E
Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep the peace between
islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few people and no wood, because they
were walked upright. On that issue, Hunt and Lipo say, archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui
folklore. Recent experiments indicate that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a
bit of practice, easily manoeuvre a 1,000 kg moai replica a few hundred metres. The figures’ fat
bellies tilted them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to roll and rock them side to side.
F
Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly responsible for the loss of
the island’s trees. Archaeological finds of nuts from the extinct Easter Island palm show tiny grooves,
made by the teeth of Polynesian rats. The rats arrived along with the settlers, and in just a few years,
Hunt and Lipo calculate, they would have overrun the island. They would have prevented
the reseeding of the slow-growing palm trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui’s forest, even without
the settlers’ campaign of deforestation. No doubt the rats ate birds’ eggs too. Hunt and Lipo also see
no evidence that Rapanui civilisation collapsed when the palm forest did. They think its population
grew rapidly and then remained more or less stable until the arrival of the Europeans, who
introduced deadly diseases to which islanders had no immunity. Then in the nineteenth century
slave traders decimated the population, which shrivelled to 111 people by 1877.
G
Hunt and Lipo’s vision, therefore, is one of an island populated by peaceful and ingenious moai
builders and careful stewards of the land, rather than by reckless destroyers ruining their own
environment and society. ‘Rather than a case of abject failure, Rapu Nui is an unlikely story of
success’, they claim. Whichever is the case, there are surely some valuable lessons which the world
at large can learn from the story of Rapa Nui.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Evidence of innovative environment management practices
ii An undisputed answer to a question about the moai
iii The future of the moai statues
iv A theory which supports a local belief
v The future of Easter Island
vi Two opposing views about the Rapanui people
vii Destruction outside the inhabitants’ control
viii How the statues made a situation worse
ix Diminishing food resources
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph F
7 Paragraph G
Questions 8-11
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Jared Diamond’s View

Diamond believes that the Polynesian settlers on Rapa Nui destroyed its forests, cutting down its
trees for fuel and clearing land for 8 ……………………….
Twentieth-century discoveries of pollen prove that Rapu Nui had once been covered in palm forests,
which had turned into grassland by the time the Europeans arrived on the island.
When the islanders were no longer able to build the 9 ………………………. they needed to go
fishing, they began using the island’s 10 ………………………. as a food source, according to
Diamond.
Diamond also claims that the moai were built to show the power of the island’s chieftains, and that
the methods of transporting the statues needed not only a great number of people, but also a great
deal of 11 ……………………….
Questions 12-13
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.
On what points do Hunt and Lipo disagree with

Diamond?
A the period when the moai were created
B how the moai were transported
C the impact of the moai on Rapanui society
D how the moai were carved
E the origins of the people who made the moai
Solution for: What destroyed the civilisation of Easter
Island?
Answer Table
1. ii 8. farming
2. ix 9. canoes
3. viii 10. birds
4. i 11. wood
5. iv 12. B,C IN EITHER ORDER
6. vii 13. B,C IN EITHER ORDER
7. vi
When evolution runs backwards
Evolution isn’t supposed to run backwards - yet an increasing number of examples show that it does
and that it can sometimes represent the future of a species.
The description of any animal as an ‘evolutionary throwback’ is controversial. For the better part of a
century, most biologists have been reluctant to use those words, mindful of a principle of evolution
that says ‘evolution cannot run backwards. But as more and more examples come to light and
modern genetics enters the scene, that principle is having to be rewritten. Not only are evolutionary
throwbacks possible, they sometimes play an important role in the forward march of
evolution.
The technical term for an evolutionary throwback is an ‘atavism’, from the Latin atavus, meaning
forefather. The word has ugly connotations thanks largely to Cesare Lombroso, a 19th-century
Italian medic who argued that criminals were born not made and could be identified by certain
physical features that were throwbacks to a primitive, sub-human state.
While Lombroso was measuring criminals, a Belgian palaeontologist called Louis Dollo was studying
fossil records and coming to the opposite conclusion. In 1890 he proposed that evolution was
irreversible: that ‘an organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realised
in the ranks of its ancestors. Early 20th-century biologists came to a similar conclusion, though they
qualified it in terms of probability, stating that there is no reason why evolution cannot run backwards
-it is just very unlikely. And so the idea of irreversibility in evolution stuck and came to be known as
‘Dollo’s law.
If Dollo’s law is right, atavisms should occur only very rarely, if at all. Yet almost since the idea took
root, exceptions have been cropping up. In 1919, for example, a humpback whale with a pair of
leglike appendages over a metre long, complete with a full set of limb bones, was caught off
Vancouver Island in Canada. Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews argued at the time that the whale
must be a throwback to a land-living ancestor. ‘I can see no other explanation, he wrote in 1921.
Since then, so many other examples have been discovered that it no longer makes sense to say that
evolution is as good as irreversible. And this poses a puzzle: how can characteristics that
disappeared millions of years ago suddenly reappear?
In 1994, Rudolf Raff and colleagues at Indiana University in the USA decided to use genetics to put
a number on the probability of evolution going into reverse. They reasoned that while some
evolutionary changes involve the loss of genes and are therefore irreversible, others may be the
result of genes being switched off. If these silent genes are somehow switched back on, they
argued, longlost traits could reappear.
Raff’s team went on to calculate the likelihood of it happening. Silent genes accumulate random
mutations, they reasoned, eventually rendering them useless. So how long can a gene survive in a
species if it is no longer used? The team calculated that there is a good chance of silent genes
surviving for up to 6 million years in at least a few individuals in a population, and that some might
survive as long as 10 million years. In other words, throwbacks are possible, but only to the relatively
recent evolutionary past.
As a possible example, the team pointed to the mole salamanders of Mexico and California. Like
most amphibians these begin life in a juvenile ‘tadpole’ state, then metamorphose into the adult form
– except for one species, the axolotl, which famously lives its entire life as a juvenile. The simplest
explanation for this is that the axolotl lineage alone lost the ability to metamorphose, while others
retained it. From a detailed analysis of the salamanders’ family tree, however, it is clear that the
other lineages evolved from an ancestor that itself had lost the ability to metamorphose. In other
words, metamorphosis in mole salamanders is an atavism. The salamander example fits with Raff’s
10million-year time frame.
More recently, however, examples have been reported that break the time limit, suggesting that
silent genes may not be the whole story. In a paper published last year, biologist Gunter Wagner of
Yale University reported some work on the evolutionary history of a group of South American lizards
called Bachia. Many of these have minuscule limbs; some look more like snakes than lizards and a
few have completely lost the toes on their hind limbs. Other species, however, sport up to four toes
on their hind legs. The simplest explanation is that the toed lineages never lost their toes, but
Wagner begs to differ. According to his analysis of the Bachia family tree, the toed species re-
evolved toes from toeless ancestors and, what is more, digit loss and gain has occurred on more
than one occasion over tens of millions of years.
So what’s going on? One possibility is that these traits are lost and then simply reappear, in much
the same way that similar structures can independently arise in unrelated species, such as the
dorsal fins of sharks and killer whales. Another more intriguing possibility is that the genetic
information needed to make toes somehow survived for tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of
years in the lizards and was reactivated. These atavistic traits provided an advantage and spread
through the population, effectively reversing evolution.
But if silent genes degrade within 6 to million years, how can long-lost traits be reactivated over
longer timescales? The answer may lie in the womb. Early embryos of many species develop
ancestral features. Snake embryos, for example, sprout hind limb buds. Later in development these
features disappear thanks to developmental programs that say ‘lose the leg’. If for any reason this
does not happen, the ancestral feature may not disappear, leading to an atavism.
Questions 1-5
1. When discussing the theory developed by Louis Dollo, the writer says that
A it was immediately referred to as Dollo’s law.
B it supported the possibility of evolutionary throwbacks.
C it was modified by biologists in the early twentieth century.
D it was based on many years of research.
2. The humpback whale caught off Vancouver Island is mentioned because of
A the exceptional size of its body.
B the way it exemplifies Dollo’s law.
C the amount of local controversy it caused.
D the reason given for its unusual features.
3. What is said about ‘silent genes’?
A Their numbers vary according to species.
B Raff disagreed with the use of the term.
C They could lead to the re-emergence of certain characteristics.
D They can have an unlimited life span.
4. The writer mentions the mole salamander because
A it exemplifies what happens in the development of most amphibians.
B it suggests that Raffs theory is correct.
C it has lost and regained more than one ability.
D its ancestors have become the subject of extensive research.
5. Which of the following does Wagner claim?
A Members of the Bachia lizard family have lost and regained certain features several times.
B Evidence shows that the evolution of the Bachia lizard is due to the environment.
C His research into South American lizards supports Raffs assertions.
D His findings will apply to other species of South American lizards.
Questions 6-10
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.
6 For a long time biologists rejected
7 Opposing views on evolutionary throwbacks are represented by
8 Examples of evolutionary throwbacks have led to
9 The shark and killer whale are mentioned to exemplify
10 One explanation for the findings of Wagner’s research is
A the question of how certain long-lost traits could reappear.
B the occurrence of a particular feature in different species.
C parallels drawn between behaviour and appearance.
D the continued existence of certain genetic information.
E the doubts felt about evolutionary throwbacks.
F the possibility of evolution being reversible.
G Dollo's findings and the convictions held by Lombroso.
Questions 11-14
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
11 Wagner was the first person to do research on South American lizards.
12 Wagner believes that Bachia lizards with toes had toeless ancestors.
13 The temporary occurence of longlost traits in embryos is rare.
14 Evolutionary throwbacks might be caused by developmental problems in the womb.
Solution for: When evolution runs backwards
Answer Table
1. C 8. A
2. D 9. B
3. C 10. D
4. B 11. NOT GIVEN
5. A 12. YES
6. F 13. NO
7. G 14. YES
Research using twins
To biomedical researchers all over the world, twins offer a precious opportunity to untangle the
influence of genes and the environment - of nature and nurture. Because identical twins come from
a single fertilized egg that splits into two, they share virtually the same genetic code. Any differences
between them -one twin having younger looking skin, for example - must be due to
environmental factors such as less time spent in the sun.
Alternatively, by comparing the experiences of identical twins with those of fraternal twins, who come
from separate eggs and share on average half their DNA, researchers can quantify the extent to
which our genes affect our lives. If identical twins are more similar to each other with respect to an
ailment than fraternal twins are, then vulnerability to the disease must be rooted at least in part in
heredity.
These two lines of research - studying the differences between identical twins to pinpoint the
influence of environment, and comparing identical twins with fraternal ones to measure the role of
inheritance - have been crucial to understanding the interplay of nature and nurture in determining
our personalities, behavior, and vulnerability to disease.
The idea of using twins to measure the influence of heredity dates back to 1875, when the English
scientist Francis Galton first suggested the approach (and coined the phrase 'nature and nurture').
But twin studies took a surprising twist in the 1980s, with the arrival of studies into identical twins
who had been separated at birth and reunited as adults. Over two decades 137 sets of twins
eventually visited Thomas Bouchard's lab in what became known as the Minnesota Study of Twins
Reared Apart. Numerous tests were carried out on the twins, and they were each asked more than
15,000 questions.
Bouchard and his colleagues used this mountain of data to identify how far twins were affected by
their genetic makeup. The key to their approach was a statistical concept called heritability. in broad
terms, the heritability of a trait measures the extent to which differences among members of a
population can be explained by differences in their genetics. And wherever Bouchard and
other scientists looked, it seemed, they found the invisible hand of genetic influence helping to shape
our lives.
Lately, however, twin studies have helped lead scientists to a radical new conclusion: that nature
and nurture are not the only elemental forces at work. According to a recent field called epigenetics,
there is a third factor also in play, one that in some cases serves as a bridge between
the environment and our genes, and in others operates on its own to shape who we are.
Epigenetic processes are chemical reactions tied to neither nature nor nurture but representing what
researchers have called a 'third component'. These reactions influence how our genetic code is
expressed: how each gene is strengthened or weakened, even turned on or off, to build our bones,
brains and all the other parts of our bodies.
If you think of our DNA as an immense piano keyboard and our genes as the keys - each key
symbolizing a segment of DNA responsible for a particular note, or trait, and all the keys combining
to make us who we are - then epigenetic processes determine when and how each key can
be struck, changing the tune being played.
One way the study of epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of biology is by revealing a
mechanism by which the environment directly impacts on genes. Studies of animals, for
example, have shown that when a rat experiences stress during pregnancy, it can cause epigenetic
changes in a fetus that lead to behavioral problems as the rodent grows up. Other epigenetic
processes appear to occur randomly, while others are normal, such as those that guide embryonic
cells as they become heart, brain, or liver cells, for example.
Geneticist Danielle Reed has worked with many twins over the years and thought deeply about what
twin studies have taught us. 'It's very clear when you look at twins that much of what they share is
hardwired,' she says. 'Many things about them are absolutely the same and unalterable. But it's also
clear, when you get to know them, that other things about them are different. Epigenetics is
the origin of a lot of those differences, in my view.'
Reed credits Thomas Bouchard's work for today's surge in twin studies. 'He was the trailblazer,' she
says. 'We forget that 50 years ago things like heart disease were thought to be caused entirely by
lifestyle. Schizophrenia was thought to be due to poor mothering. Twin studies have allowed us to be
more reflective about what people are actually born with and what's caused by experience.'
Having said that, Reed adds, the latest work in epigenetics promises to take our understanding even
further. 'What I like to say is that nature writes some things in pencil and some things in pen,' she
says. 'Things written in pen you can't change. That's DNA. But things written in pencil you can.
That's epigenetics. Now that we're actually able to look at the DNA and see where the pencil writings
are, it's sort of a whole new world.'
Questions 1-4
1 There may be genetic causes for the differences in how young the skin of identical twins looks.
2 Twins are at greater risk of developing certain illnesses than non-twins.
3 Bouchard advertised in newspapers for twins who had been separated at birth.
4 Epigenetic processes are different from both genetic and environmental processes.
Questions 5-9
Look at the following statements (Questions 5-9) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A, B or C.
Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet.
List of Researchers
A Francis Galton
B Thomas Bouchard
C Danielie Reed
5 invented a term used to distinguish two factors affecting human characteristics

6 expressed the view that the study of epigenetics will increase our knowledge
7 developed a mathematical method of measuring genetic influences
8 pioneered research into genetics using twins
9 carried out research into twins who had lived apart
Questions 10-13
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
Epigenetic processes
In epigenetic processes, 10 …………………….influence the activity of our genes, for example in
creating our internal 11 …………………….
The study of epigenetic processes is uncovering a way in which our genes can be affected by
our 12 …………………….
One example is that if a pregnant rat suffers stress, the new-born rat may later show problems in
its 13 …………………….
A nurture
B organs
C code
D chemicals
E environment
F behaviour
Venus in transit
June 2004 saw the first passage, known as a ‘transit’, of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun
in 122 years. Transits have helped shape our view of the whole Universe, as Heather Cooper and
Nigel Henbest explain
A
On 8 June 2004, more than half the population of the world were treated to a rare astronomical
event. For over six hours, the planet Venus steadily inched its way over the surface of the Sun. This
‘transit’ of Venus was the first since 6 December 1882. On that occasion, the American astronomer
Professor Simon Newcomb led a party to South Africa to observe the event. They were based at a
girls’ school, where - it is alleged - the combined forces of three schoolmistresses outperformed the
professionals with the accuracy of their observations.
B
For centuries, transits of Venus have drawn explorers and astronomers alike to the four corners of
the globe. And you can put it all down to the extraordinary polymath Edmond Halley. In November
1677, Halley observed a transit of the innermost planet, Mercury, from the desolate island of St
Helena in the South Pacific. He realised that, from different latitudes, the passage of the planet
across the Sun’s disc would appear to differ. By timing the transit from two widely-separated
locations, teams of astronomers could calculate the parallax angle - the apparent difference in
position of an astronomical body due to a difference in the observer’s position. Calculating this
angle would allow astronomers to measure what was then the ultimate goal: the distance of the
Earth from the Sun. This distance is known as the astronomical unit’ or AU.
C
Halley was aware that the AU was one of the most fundamental of all astronomical measurements.
Johannes Kepler, in the early 17th century, had shown that the distances of the planets from the Sun
governed their orbital speeds, which were easily measurable. But no-one had found a way to
calculate accurate distances to the planets from the Earth. The goal was to measure the AU; then,
knowing the orbital speeds of all the other planets round the Sun, the scale of the Solar System
would fall into place. However, Halley realised that Mercury was so far away that its parallax angle
would be very difficult to determine. As Venus was closer to the Earth, its parallax angle would
be larger, and Halley worked out that by using Venus it would be possible to measure the Suns
distance to 1 part in 500. But there was a problem: transits of Venus, unlike those of Mercury, are
rare, occurring in pairs roughly eight years apart every hundred or so years. Nevertheless, he
accurately predicted that Venus would cross the face of the Sun in both 1761 and 1769 - though he
didn’t survive to see either.
D
Inspired by Halley’s suggestion of a way to pin down the scale of the Solar System, teams of British
and French astronomers set out on expeditions to places as diverse as India and Siberia. But things
weren’t helped by Britain and France being at war. The person who deserves most sympathy is the
French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil.
He was thwarted by the fact that the British were besieging his observation site at Pondicherry in
India. Fleeing on a French warship crossing the Indian Ocean, Le Gentil saw a wonderful transit -
but the ship’s pitching and rolling ruled out any attempt at making accurate observations.
Undaunted, he remained south of the equator, keeping himself busy by studying the islands of
Mauritius and Madagascar before setting off to observe the next transit in the Philippines. Ironically
after travelling nearly 50,000 kilometres, his view was clouded out at the last moment, a very
dispiriting experience.
E
While the early transit timings were as precise as instruments would allow, the measurements were
dogged by the ‘black drop’ effect. When Venus begins to cross the Sun’s disc, it looks smeared not
circular - which makes it difficult to establish timings. This is due to diffraction of light. The second
problem is that Venus exhibits a halo of light when it is seen just outside the Sun’s disc. While this
showed astronomers that Venus was surrounded by a thick layer of gases refracting sunlight around
it, both effects made it impossible to obtain accurate timings.
F
But astronomers laboured hard to analyse the results of these expeditions to observe Venus transits.
Johann Franz Encke, Director of the Berlin Observatory, finally determined a value for the AU based
on all these parallax measurements:
153,340,000 km. Reasonably accurate for the time, that is quite close to today’s value of
149,597,870 km, determined by radar, which has now superseded transits and all other methods in
accuracy. The AU is a cosmic measuring rod, and the basis of how we scale the Universe today.
The parallax principle can be extended to measure the distances to the stars. If we look at a star in
January - when Earth is at one point in its orbit - it will seem to be in a different position from where it
appears six months later. Knowing the width of Earth’s orbit, the parallax shift lets astronomers
calculate the distance.
G
June 2004’s transit of Venus was thus more of an astronomical spectacle than a scientifically
important event. But such transits have paved the way for what might prove to be one of the most
vital breakthroughs in the cosmos - detecting Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars.
Questions 1-4
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.
1 examples of different ways in which the parallax principle has been applied
2 a description of an event which prevented a transit observation
3 a statement about potential future discoveries leading on from transit observations
4 a description of physical states connected with Venus which early astronomical instruments failed
to overcome
Questions 5-8
Look at the following statements (Questions 5-8) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
List of People
A Edmond Halley
B Johannes Kepler
C Guillaume Le Gentil
D Johann Franz Encke
5 He calculated the distance of the Sun from the Earth based on observations of Venus with a fair
degree of accuracy.
6 He understood that the distance of the Sun from the Earth could be worked out by comparing
observations of a transit.
7 He realised that the time taken by a planet to go round the Sun depends on its distance from the
Sun.
8 He witnessed a Venus transit but was unable to make any calculations.
Questions 9-13
9 Halley observed one transit of the planet Venus.
10 Le Gentil managed to observe a second Venus transit.
11 The shape of Venus appears distorted when it starts to pass in front of the Sun.
12 Early astronomers suspected that the atmosphere on Venus was toxic.
13 The parallax principle allows astronomers to work out how far away distant stars are from the
Earth.
Solution for: Venus in transit
Answer Table
1. F 8. C
2. D 9. FALSE
3. G 10. FALSE
4. E 11. TRUE
5. D 12. NOT GIVEN
6. A 13. TRUE
7. B
The psychology of innovation
Why are so few companies truly innovative?

Innovation is key to business survival，and companies put substantial resources into inspiring
employees to develop new ideas. There are, nevertheless, people working in luxurious, state-of-the-
art centres designed to stimulate innovation who find that their environment doesn’t make them feel
at all creative. And there are those who don’t have a budget, or much space, but who innovate
successfully.
For Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, one reason that
companies don’t succeed as often as they should is that innovation starts with recruitment. Research
shows that the fit between an employee’s values and a company’s values makes a difference to
what contribution they make and whether, two years after they join, they’re still at the company.
Studies at Harvard Business School show that, although some individuals may be more creative
than others, almost every individual can be creative in the right circumstances.
One of the most famous photographs in the story of rock’n’roll emphasises Ciaidini’s views. The
1956 picture of singers Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis jamming at a
piano in Sun Studios in Memphis tells a hidden story. Sun’s ‘million-dollar quartet’ could have been a
quintet. Missing from the picture is Roy Orbison’ a greater natural singer than Lewis, Perkins or
Cash. Sam Phillips, who owned Sun, wanted to revolutionise popular music with songs that fused
black and white music, and country and blues. Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis instinctively
understood Phillips’s ambition and believed in it. Orbison wasn’t inspired by the goal, and only ever
achieved one hit with the Sun label.
The value fit matters, says Cialdini, because innovation is, in part, a process of change, and under
that pressure we, as a species, behave differently, ‘When things change, we are hard-wired to play it
safe.’ Managers should therefore adopt an approach that appears counterintuitive -they should
explain what stands to be lost if the company fails to seize a particular opportunity. Studies show
that we invariably take more gambles when threatened with a loss than when offered a reward.
Managing innovation is a delicate art. It’s easy for a company to be pulled in conflicting directions as
the marketing, product development, and finance departments each get different feedback from
different sets of people. And without a system which ensures collaborative exchanges within the
company, it’s also easy for small ‘pockets of innovation‟ to disappear. Innovation is a contact sport.
You can‟t brief people just by saying, ‘We’re going in this direction and I’m going to take you with
me.’
Cialdini believes that this ‘follow-the-leader syndrome, is dangerous, not least because it encourages
bosses to go it alone. ‘It’s been scientifically proven that three people will be better than one at
solving problems, even if that one person is the smartest person in the field.’ To prove his point,
Cialdini cites an interview with molecular biologist James Watson. Watson, together with Francis
Crick, discovered the structure of DNA, the genetic information carrier of all living organisms. ‘When
asked how they had cracked the code ahead of an array of highly accomplished rival investigators,
he said something that stunned me. He said ”he and Crick had succeeded because they were aware
that they weren’t the most intelligent of the scientists pursuing the answer. The smartest scientist
was called Rosalind Franklin who, Watson said, “was so intelligent she rarely sought advice”.’
Teamwork taps into one of the basic drivers of human behaviour. ‘The principle of social proof is so
pervasive that we don’t even recognise it,’ says Cialdini. ‘If your project is being resisted, for
example, by a group of veteran employees, ask another old-timer to speak up for it.’ Cialdini is not
alone in advocating this strategy. Research shows that peer power, used horizontally not vertically,
is much more powerful than any boss’s speech.
Writing, visualising and prototyping can stimulate the flow of new ideas. Cialdini cites scores of
research papers and historical events that prove that even something as simple as writing deepens
every individual’s engagement in the project. It is, he says, the reason why all those competitions on
breakfast cereal packets encouraged us to write in saying, in no more than 10 words: ‘I like Kellogg’s
Com Flakes because… .’ The very act of writing makes us more likely to believe it.
Authority doesn’t have to inhibit innovation but it often does. The wrong kind of leadership will lead to
what Cialdini calls ”captainitis, the regrettable tendency of team members to opt out of team
responsibilities that are properly their’. He calls it captainitis because, he says, ”crew members of
multipilot aircraft exhibit a sometimes deadly passivity when the flight captain makes a clearly wrong-
headed decision”. This behaviour is not, he says, unique to air travel, but can happen in any
workplace where the leader is overbearing.
At the other end of the scale is the 1980s Memphis design collective, a group of young designers for
whom ”the only rule was that there were no rule”. This environment encouraged a free interchange
of ideas, which led to more creativity with form, function, colour and materials that revolutionised
attitudes to furniture design.
Many theorists believe the ideal boss should lead from behind, taking pride in collective
accomplishment and giving credit where it is due. Cialdini says:”Leaders should encourage everyone
to contribute and simultaneously assure all concerned that every recommendation is important to
making the right decision and will be given full attention” The frustrating thing about innovation is that
there are many approaches, but no magic formula. However, a manager who wants to create a truly
innovative culture can make their job a lot easier by recognising these psychological realities.
Questions 1-4
1. The example of the ‘million-dollar quartet’ underlines the writer’s point about
A recognising talent.
B working as a team.
C having a shared objective.
D being an effective leader.
2. James Watson suggests that he and Francis Crick won the race to discover the DNA code
because they
A were conscious of their own limitations.
B brought complementary skills to their partnership.
C were determined to outperform their brighter rivals.
D encouraged each other to realise their joint ambition.
3. The writer mentions competitions on breakfast cereal packets as an example of how to
A inspire creative thinking.
B generate concise writing.
C promote loyalty to a group.
D strengthen commitment to an idea.
4. In the last paragraph, the writer suggests that it is important for employees to
A be aware of their company's goals.
B feel that their contributions are valued.
C have respect for their co-workers‟ achievements.
D understand why certain management decisions are made.
Questions 5-9
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet
5. Employees whose values match those of their employers are more likely to ……………….
6. At times of change, people tend to ……………….
7. If people are aware of what they might lose, they will often ……………….
8. People working under a dominant boss are liable to ………………..
9. Employees working in organisations with few rules are more likely to ……………….
A take chances.
B share their ideas.
C become competitive.
D get promotion.
E avoid risk.
F ignore their duties.
G remain in their jobs.
Questions 10-14
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
10 The physical surroundings in which a person works play a key role in determining their
creativity.
11 Most people have the potential to be creative.
12 Teams work best when their members are of equally matched intelligence.
13 It is easier for smaller companies to be innovative.
14 A manager’s approval of an idea is more persuasive than that of a colleague.
Solution for: The psychology of innovation
Answer Table
1. C 8. F
2. A 9. B
3. D 10. NO
4. B 11. YES
5. G 12. NOT GIVEN
6. E 13. NOT GIVEN
7. A 14. NO
The Rise and Fall of the British Textile Industry
Textile production in Britain can be said to have its roots as an industry at the beginning of the
18th century, when Thomas Crotchet and George Sorocold established what is thought to be the first
factory built in Britain. It was a textile mill with a waterwheel as its source of power, the latest
machinery, and even accommodation for the workers. As well as possibly being the first sweatshop
in the modern sense, it was the beginning of the end for traditional textile production.
For hundreds of years the spinning and weaving of cloth had been done manually by men, women
and children in their own homes.The yarn would be combed and spun using a spindle, then woven
on a hand loom, and what they produced would be mainly for local consumption.Technology far
more sophisticated than the spindle and hand-loom would change all that.
The demand for cotton textiles had been growing since the Middle Ages, fostered by the importation
of high quality cotton fabrics from the Middle East and India. So how were local producers to fight off
the com petition? The imported fabrics were of course expensive, so textile makers (not just in
Britain but throughout Europe) produced mixed fabrics and cotton substitutes.They also had foreign
textiles banned. But the key to the increased productivity needed to meet the demand, was machine
production. It would be faster, cheaper and the finished products would be consistent in quality. Not
least of the advantages was that it would allow manufacturers to market their goods on a large, if not
yet global, scale.
The story of the growth of the British textile industry from about 1733 and for the next two hundred
years is one of constant technological innovation and expansion. In 1733 John Kay invented the fly-
shuttle, which made the hand-loom more efficient, and in 1764 James Hargreaves came up with the
spinning jenny, which among other things had the effect of raising productivity eightfold. The next
great innovator was Richard Arkwright, who in 1768 employed John Kay (of the fly-shuttle) to help
him build more efficient machinery. He was a man with a vision – to mechanise textile production –
and by 1782 he had a network of mills across Britain. As the water-powered machinery, though not
yet fully mechanised, became more complex, Kay began to use steam engines for power. The first
power-loom, however, which was invented in 1785 by Dr Edmund Cartwright, really did mechanise
the weaving stage of textile manufacture.
The pace of growth quickened with the expansion of Britain’s influence in the world and the
acquisition of colonies from which cheap raw materials could be imported. For example, in a single
decade, from 1781 to 1791, imports of cotton into Britain quadrupled, going on to reach 100 million
pounds in weight in 1815 and 263 million in 1830.The increase in exports is equally impressive; in
1751 £46,000 worth of cloth was exported and by the end of the century this had risen to £5.4
million. By the end of the 19th century the figure had soared to close on £50 million. Britain was now
supplying cheaper and better quality clothing to a global market. Yet during the course of the
20th century Britain lost its position as a major textile manufacturer.
So what happened? There are a number of views on this question, not all of them conflicting, and
where there is disagreement it is usually about when the decline began. Whether it began before the
First World War (1914-18), or during the inter-war years (1919—1939), or after 1945, most
economists would give roughly the same reasons. To start with, there was competition from abroad,
especially from developing countries in the Far East, notably Japan. It was thought by manufacturers
that the best way to combat this increased competition was to modernise. However, management
and the labour unions were unable to agree on how to handle this situation.
Modernisation would mean people losing their jobs and possibly a change in labour practices. Such
changes as were made served only to slow down the industry’s decline rather than help regain its
predominant position. Economically less developed countries, on the other hand, had the advantage
of being able to provide low wage competition, without the problem of powerful labour unions.
There are, of course, many other reasons for the textile industry’s decline, two of which became
particularly noticeable in the late twentieth century and are related. The first is outsourcing, when
manufacturers establish factories in countries where there is cheap labour. This obviously leads to
less demand for locally-produced goods. Related to this, the textile and clothing industries have
acquired a bad reputation for exploiting workers, often illegal immigrants, in sweatshops where they
are forced to work long hours and are paid far less than the minimum wage.
We seem to be back with Crotchet and Sorocold and their first live-in factory. The globalising trend
of out-sourcing, however, was a rational response to the growing competition from overseas, which,
it goes without saying, does not excuse the exploitation of workers. The British industry itself, while
no longer holding a key place in the global textile market has adapted itself and now concentrates
more on the world of fashion and design, where it seems to be doing quite well.
Questions 1-6
Complete the notes below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Textile Manufacture
Early history
Begins as a cottage industry
Products hand-woven and made for 1 …………………
Local producers face 2 ………………… from overseas
Ways found to deal with situation
Imported fabrics 3 ………………… , mixed cottons produced
Early technology
Machine production needed to 4 ………………… for cotton fabrics
Improved technology (such as the fly-shuttle) more 5 ………………… and productive
Machinery begins to be powered by 6 …………………
Questions 7-9
7. Which of the following innovations increased productivity by 800%?
A the power-loom
B the steam engine
C the spinning jenny
D the fly-shuttle
8. During which period was the British textile industry at its peak?
A 1733-1785
B 1781-1791
C 1791-1830
D 1830-1900
9. Which of the following was a major cause of the British textile industry’s decline?
A the expansion of foreign textile industries
B the loss of overseas markets
C there being no demand for products
D labour becoming too expensive 9##qa
Questions 10-13
10 Foreign textiles were banned because of their inferior quality.
11 Richard Arkwright built the first fully-mechanised textile mill.
12 In less developed countries, the industry could rely on cheap labour.
13 Out-sourcing was one method used to compete with foreign manufacturers.
Solution for: The Rise and Fall of the British Textile
Industry
Answer Table
1. local consumption 8. D
2. competition 9. A
3. banned 10. FLASE
4. meet (the) demand 11. NOT GIVEN
5. efficient 12. TRUE
6. steam (engines) 13. TRUE
7. C
This Marvellous Invention
A
Of all mankinds manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions -the wheel,
agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language
is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since
everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language,
we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even
over nature itself.
B
But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary
sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this marvellous invention of composing
out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in
themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to
make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our
soul’ This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near
Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the
magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the
homage to languages unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language
is mankind s greatest invention - except, of course, that it was never invented. This
apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.
C
Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the
perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument make so much out of
barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these configurations of mouth
p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,sh,a,e and so on - amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters,
random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the
cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there
is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom
of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.
D
the most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be a genius to set
its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody from pre-modern foragers
in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl - to tie these
meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the
slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own
success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language
run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise
that must have gone into making it tick. Language conceals art.
E
Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features,
that brings home the wonder of languages design. One of the showiest stunts that some languages
can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word
what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish word çehirliliçtiremediklerimizdensiniz, to
take one example, means nothing less than ‘you are one of those whom we can’t turn into a town-
dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different
words squashed together - most ol its components cannot even stand up on their own.)
F
And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the
banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled
the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma'a (‘when he had made it suitable for
her’) might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about
it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse - the thrifty compactness of its construction.
The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This
sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a
sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian
word corresponds to the pronoun ‘it’ in the English translation ‘when he had made it suitable for her’,
then the answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the
nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even
a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a
specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Differences between languages highlight their impressiveness
ii The way in which a few sounds are organised to convey a huge range of meaning
iii Why the sounds used in different languages are not identical
iv Apparently incompatible characteristics of language
v Even silence can be meaningful
vi Why language is the most important invention of all
vii The universal ability to use language
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph F
Questions 9-10
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.
The importance of language

The wheel is one invention that has had a major impact on 7 ……………….. aspects of life, but no
impact has been as 8 ……………….. as that of language.
Language is very 9 ……………….. , yet composed of just a small number of sounds.
Language appears to be 10 ……………….. to use. However, its sophistication is often overlooked.
A difficult
B complex
C original
D admired
E material
F easy
G fundamental
Questions 11-14
11 Human beings might have achieved their present position without language.
12 The Port-Royal grammarians did justice to the nature of language.
13 A complex idea can be explained more clearly in a sentence than in a single word.
14 The Sumerians were responsible for starting the recording of events.

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The Earth and Space Foundation

A comparable D ideal G scientific

B extreme E unexpected H extended

C connected F beneficial I individual

3. NOT GIVEN 10. B

5. NOT GIVEN 12. A

Example Answer i Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets

Paragraph ii Appropriate responses to signals from other civilisations

3. i 10. NOT GIVEN

5. several billion years 12. NOT GIVEN

6. radio (waves/signals) 13. NO

1 What point does the writer make in the first paragraph?

B We recognise the importance of talking about emotions.

C We like to believe that language is a strictly human skill.

D We have used tools for longer than some other species.

2 According to the writer, what has changed our view of communication?

B understanding that language involves a range of skills

B the abilities of apes to use gesture in different environments.

C how food can be used to encourage ape gestures.

D how hard humans find it to interpret ape gestures.

4 In paragraph 7, the writer says that one type of dolphin sound is

B heard only at a particular time of day.

C heard at a range of pitch levels.

D used as a form of personal identification.

B use pitch changes to express meaning.

C recognise human voices on a recording.

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

6 It could be said that language begins with gesture.

7 Ape gestures always consist of head or limb movements.

8 Apes ensure that other apes are aware of their gesturing.

9 Primate and human gestures share some key features.

10 Cartoons present an amusing picture of animal communication.

A 13 ……………….. pattern has been found among dolphins.

3. A 10. NOT GIVEN

4. NOT GIVEN 10. F

1 The main topic discussed in the text is

2 According to the text, every year lightning

3 Researchers at the University of Florida and at the University of New Mexico

In this method, a laser is used to create a line of ionisation by removing

A cloud-zappers B atoms C storm clouds

D mirrors E technique F ions

G rockets H conductors I thunder

4. power companies 11. NO

5. safely 12. YES

6. size 13. NOT GIVEN

Revolution in gloss recycling could help keep water clean

4. B 11. natural resource

5. D 12. recycling industry

6. F 13. drinkable liquids/ beverages

7. A 14. (real) sand

8 What does ‘This’ refer to in the seventh paragraph?

5. D 12. NOT GIVEN

7. A 14. NOT GIVEN

Fenn’s Memory Experiments

Which THREE of the following statements are true of Johnson’s Dictionary?

2. D, E, G IN ANY ORDER 9. FALSE

3. D, E, G IN ANY ORDER 10. NOT GIVEN

4. clerks / copying clerks 11. FALSE

5. library 12. FALSE

6. stability 13. TRUE

8. The teacher-subjects were instructed to

9. Before the experiment took place the psychiatrists

3. B 10. NOT GIVEN