Tag Archives: IELTS Academic reading

NOVELS IELTS READING

October 28, 2023 Jomon P John 2 Comments

Reading passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

A Recent years have seen a barrage of dystopian Young Adult novels grow in popularity almost overnigh t- from The Hunger Games to The Maze Runner, Divergent, and The Knife of Never Letting Go. These novels, set in postapocalyptic, totalitarian or otherwise ruthless and dehumanising worlds, have gained such momentum that the trend has seeped into the film and TV industry as well, with multimillion dollar movie adaptations and popular TV series gracing the big and small screen. But what is it about dystopian stories that makes them so appealing to readers and audiences alike?

B Dystopias are certainly nothing new. The word “dystopia” itself, meaning “bad place” (from the Greek dys and topos), has been around since at least the 19th century, and Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Orwell’s 1984 (1949), commonly regarded as the first dystopian novels that fit firmly into the genre, were published more than 75 years ago. Even the first YA dystopian novel is older than 20 – Lois Lawry’s The Giver, which came out in 1993. While these are individual examples from previous decades, however, one would be hard-pressed to find a YA shelf in any bookstore nowadays that isn’t stocked with dozens of dystopian titles.

C According to film critic Dana Stevens, it is the similarities that can be drawn between dystopian settings and the daily lives of teenagers that make YA dystopian stories so captivating: the high school experience involves the same social structure as the Hunger Games arena, for example, or the faction-divided world of Divergent. Teenagers might not literally have to fight each other to the death or go through horrendous trials to join a virtue-based faction for the rest of their lives, but there’s something in each story that connects to their own backgrounds. The “cutthroat race for high school popularity” might feel like an “annual televised fight”, and the pressure to choose a clique at school bears a strong resemblance to Tris’s faction dilemma in Divergent.

D Justin Scholes’s and Jon Ostenson’s 2013 study reports similar findings, identifying themes such as “inhumanity and isolation”, the struggle to establish an identity and the development of platonic and romantic relationships as alluring agents. Deconstructing a score of popular YA dystopian novels released between 2007-2011, Scholes and Ostenson argue that the topics explored by dystopian literature are appealing to teenagers because they are “an appropriate fit with the intellectual changes that occur during adolescence”; as teenagers gradually grow into adults, they develop an interest in social issues and current affairs. Dystopian novels, according to author and book critic Dave Astor, feel honest in that regard as they do not patronise their readers, nor do they attempt to sugar-coat reality.
Novels

E All of this still does not explain why this upsurge in YA dystopian literature is happening now, though. Bestselling author Naomi Klein, offers a different explanation: the dystopian trend, she says, is a “worrying sign” of times to come. What all these dystopian stories have in common is that they all assume that “environmental catastrophe” is not only imminent, but also completely inevitable. Moral principles burgeon through these works of fiction, particularly for young people, as they are the ones who will bear the brunt of climate change. Young Adult author Todd Mitchell makes a similar point, suggesting that the bleak futures portrayed in modern YA literature are a response to “social anxiety” brought forth by pollution and over- consumption.

F The threat of natural disasters is not the only reason YA dystopian novels are so popular today, however. As author Claudia Gray notes, what has also changed in recent years is humanity’s approach to personal identity and young people’s roles in society. Adolescents, she says, are increasingly dragooned into rigid moulds through “increased standardised testing, increased homework levels, etc.” YA dystopian novels come into play because they present protagonists who refuse to be defined by someone else, role models who battle against the status quo.

G So, how long is this YA dystopian trend going to last? If The Guardian is to be believed, it’s already been replaced by a new wave of “gritty” realism as seen in the likes of The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. Profits have certainly dwindled for dystopian film franchises such as Divergent. This hasn’t stopped film companies from scheduling new releases, however, and TV series such as The 100 are still on air. Perhaps the market for dystopian novels has stagnated – only time will tell. One thing is for certain, however: the changes the trend has effected on YA literature are here to stay.

Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, labelled A-G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings

I Teens are increasingly urged to conform
II The dystopian model scrutinised
III Dystopian novels now focus on climate change
IV The original dystopias
V Dystopian literature’s accomplishments will outlive it
VI A score of dystopian novels has taken over YA shelves
VII The roots of dystopia can be found in teenage experiences
VIII Dystopia is already dead
IX Dystopias promote ethical thinking

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

Questions 8-12
Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 1. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
8 According to the writer, what was the first dystopian novel?
9 According to the writer, which author initiated the YA dystopian genre?
10 How does Dave Astor describe dystopian novels?
11 According to Naomi Klein, which element is present in all dystopian novels?
12 According to Claudia Gray, things like increased standardised testing and homework levels are a threat to what?

Question 13
Choose the correct Letter, A, B, C or D.
13 Which is the best title for Reading Passage 1?
A A history of YA dystopian literature
B The wane of the dystopian phenomenon
C How dystopian fiction has shaped the world
D The draw of YA dystopian fiction

Reading Passage 2

Plant Wars
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27,

Mention the words “chemical warfare” or “deployed armies” in any conversation, and your interlocutor might immediately assume you’re talking about wars between humans. In reality, however, there are other kinds of wars out there where these techniques are employed far more frequently and in a far more intricate manner: those waged in the plant kingdom.

We might not normally think of plants this way, but much like humans and animals, they too have to fight for survival on a daily basis. Nutrients, light and water are the three things any plant needs in order to grow; unfortunately, none of these is ample in supply, which means that the competition between plants can grow fierce. Some plants and trees are at an architectural advantage: taller trees have greater access to natural light, while plants with deeper roots have the ability to absorb more water and nutrients. Others, though, manage to defend their territory through “allelopathy”, or chemical warfare.

So how does this chemical warfare work exactly? As Dr Robin Andrews explains, plants convert the nutrients they absorb from the ground to energy with the aid of a type of organic compound known as metabolites. These metabolites can be divided into two categories: primary and secondary. Primary metabolites are what allows a plant to live, playing a direct role in its growth and development, and are thus present in every plant. Secondary metabolites, on the other hand, can vary from plant to plant and often play the role of a defence mechanism against neighbouring competitors.

Out of these secondary metabolites, there are two that are incredibly interesting: DIBOA and DIMBOA. These two cyclic hydroxamic acids were at the forefront of a study conducted by Sascha Venturelli and colleagues in 2015, which found that once they are released into the soil by the plants that produce them, they degenerate into toxic substances that have the power to inhibit growth in nearby plants once they soak them up. As Dr Claude Becker notes, “the phenomenon itself has been known for years”, but we now finally understand the “molecular mechanism” behind it – and its supreme intricacy would put to shame any chemical bombs created by humans.

But plants do not just fight wars against other plants; chemical warfare also comes into play in their defence against herbivores. As Brent Mortensen of Iowa State University describes, plants “actively resist” attacks made by herbivores through qualitative and quantitative chemical defences. What’s the difference? Qualitative defences can be lethal even in small doses, and are often employed to protect “young” or “tender leaves or seeds”. They can also be recycled when no longer necessary. Quantitative defences, in contrast, are only effective “in larger doses”, but unlike qualitative defences, can protect the plant against all herbivores.

Quantitative defences are also not as immediately lethal, as they usually lead to indigestion, pain, irritation of the mouth and throat, and inflammation or swelling in the skin. And what about the “deployed armies” I mentioned before? Well, chemical attacks are not the only way plants elect to defend themselves against herbivores. Some plants, such as the African acacia, also recruit armies to assist them in their war. As Angela White of the University of Sheffield explains, the acacia tree has “hollowed-out structures” which invite ant colonies to build a home in them by providing not just shelter, but also food in the form of a special nectar. In return, ants protect them against herbivores – and this includes not just the small ones like bugs, but also the ones as big as giraffes.

At this point, of course, you might be wondering what all this has to do with you. The territorial nature of plants might be fascinating in its own right, but what is its application in real life? Well, Dr Venturelli of the 2015 study mentioned before has an answer for you: apparently, certain allelochemicals – the aforementioned chemical compounds that are responsible for stunting growth in plants – have been found to have an effect on human cancer cells, too.

According to Michael Bitzer and Ulrich Lauer of the same study, “clinical trials at the University Clinics Tubingen currently assess the efficacy of these plant toxins in cancer patients”. This means that comprehending the way plants defend themselves against the enemies in their environment might not just be of interest to plant biologists alone, but to medical researchers as well.

Questions 14-20
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 2 for each answer.

14 Plants are very similar to as they also struggle to stay alive every day.
15 The height of a tree or plant can affect how much it receives.
16 Chemical warfare in plants also goes by the name of .
17 Water and nutrients are both taken from the soil, and the latter is later turned into
.
18 Secondary metabolites are an that functions as a defence mechanism for plants.
19 DIBOA and DIMBOA are two types of secondary metabolites that can once absorbed by a plant.
20 The 2015 study by Sascha Venturelli and colleagues examined the of chemical warfare in plants.

Plant Defences Against Herbivores

Qualitative
# can kill a herbivore in 21…………………….
# can be recycled when no longer necessary

Secondary
# only works in larger doses
# effective against 22…………………….
# causes a variety of symptoms, none 23…………………….

Indirect
# uses the help of ant colonies that reside in its 24…………………….
# ants can protect it against herbivores of all sizes, even 25…………………….

Questions 26-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
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

26 Allelochemicals are secondary metabolites.
27 Plant biologists and medical researchers are currently cooperating to assess the efficacy of plant toxins in preventing the growth of cancer cells.

Deafhood Reading passage 3

A At this point you might be wondering: what does ‘deafhood’ mean? Is it a synonym for ‘deafness’? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept you’ve grown accustomed to – a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? What’s wrong with terms like ‘hard of hearing’ or ‘deafness’? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term ‘Deafhood’ anyway, and why?

B The term ‘Deafhood’ was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, ‘Understanding Deaf Culture – In Search of Deafhood’, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonisation from hearing people.

C In order to understand what Deafhood represents, it’s first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that a reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech – treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood – or, in this case, we should say ‘deafness’ – is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

D But even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that ‘deafness’ is a medical term with negative connotations that needs to be replaced, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a ‘physical, emotional, mental,
spiritual, cultural and linguistic’ journey that every deaf person is invited – but not obligated – to embark on.

E Deafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being ‘Deaf’ mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived?

Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like ‘Deaf Art’ or ‘Deaf Culture’ actually mean?
What is ‘the Deaf Way’ of doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

F Aside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the effect of what is known as ‘neo-eugenics’. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as ‘eugenics’, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in
science and society – such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering – mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the community’s history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone.

G So, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs – by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised society’s unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf community’s accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together – hearing and Deaf alike – strive to achieve it.

Questions 28-34
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

28 Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people
29 Why the word ‘deafness’ is no longer appropriate
30 The definition of the word ‘deaf’
31 Why deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves
32 How one can attain deafhood
33 Where the word ‘deafhood’ came from
34 Why deafhood is currently imperilled

Questions 35-37
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

35 According to Dr Paddy Ladd, Deafhood
A is a more appropriate term than ‘hard of hearing’.
B doesn’t colonise SLPs as much as ‘deafness’ does.
C strives to get rid of the effects of colonisation.
D contributes positively to the life and culture of deaf people.

36 Oralism suggests that
A SLPs have no use for sign language.
B SLPs don’t belong in the hearing world.
C hearing people are superior to SLPs.
D SLPs are unable to acquire speech.

37 Aborigines in Australia are similar to deaf people because
A eugenicists also tried to eradicate them.
B they were also considered inferior by their oppressors.
C their languages were also disrespected.
D their languages were also colonised.

Questions 38-40
Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 3. Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

38 What should deaf people use to communicate with each other, according to deafhood?

39 Who has used oralism and audism to attack the deaf community?

40 What does the deaf community strive to achieve for sign language worldwide?

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NETWORKING AS A CONCEPT IELTS READING

October 28, 2023 Jomon P John 1 Comment

Reading passage 1

Networking as a concept has acquired what is in all truth an unjustified air of modernity. It is considered in the corporate world as an essential tool for the modern businessperson, as they trot round the globe drumming up business for themselves or a corporation. The concept is worn like a badge of distinction, and not just in the business world.

People can be divided basically into those who keep knowledge and their personal contacts to themselves, and those who are prepared to share what they know and indeed their friends with others. A person who is insecure, for example someone who finds it difficult to share information with others and who is unable to bring people, including friends, together does not make a good networker. The classic networker is someone who is strong enough within themselves to connect different people including close friends with each other. For example, a businessman or an academic may meet someone who is likely to be a valuable contact in the future, but at the moment that person may benefit from meeting another associate or friend.

It takes quite a secure person to bring these people together and allow a relationship to develop independently of himself. From the non-networker’s point of view such a development may be intolerable, especially if it is happening outside their control. The unfortunate thing here is that the initiator of the contact, if he did but know it, would be the one to benefit most. And why?

Because all things being equal, people move within circles and that person has the potential of being sucked into ever-growing spheres of new contacts. It is said that, if you know eight people, you are in touch with everyone in the world. It does not take much common sense to realise the potential for any kind of venture as one is able to draw on the experience of more and more people.

Unfortunately, making new contacts, business or otherwise, while it brings success, does cause problems. It enlarges the individual’s world. This is in truth not altogether a bad thing, but it puts more pressure on the networker through his having to maintain an ever larger circle of people. The most convenient way out is, perhaps, to cull old contacts, but this would be anathema to our networker as it would defeat the whole purpose of networking. Another problem is the reaction of friends and associates. Spreading oneself thinly gives one less time for others who were perhaps closer to one in the past. In the workplace, this can cause tension with jealous colleagues, and even with superiors who might be tempted to rein in a more successful inferior. Jealousy and envy can prove to be very detrimental if one is faced with a very insecure manager, as this person may seek to stifle someone’s career or even block it completely.

The answer here is to let one’s superiors share in the glory; to throw them a few crumbs of comfort. It is called leadership from the bottom. In the present business climate, companies and enterprises need to co-operate with each other in order to expand. As globalization grows apace, companies need to be able to span not just countries but continents. Whilst people may rail against this development it is for the moment here to stay. Without co-operation and contacts, specialist companies will not survive for long. Computer components, for example, need to be compatible with the various machines on the market and to achieve this, firms need to work in conjunction with others. No business or institution can afford to be an island in today’s environment. In the not very distant past, it was possible for companies to go it alone, but it is now more difficult to do so.

The same applies in the academic world, where ideas have been jealously guarded. The opening-up of universities and colleges to the outside world in recent years has been of enormous benefit to industry and educational institutions. The stereotypical academic is one who moves in a rarefied atmosphere living a life of sometimes splendid isolation, a prisoner of their own genius. This sort of person does not fit easily into the mould of the modern networker. Yet even this insular world is changing. The ivory towers are being left ever more frequently as educational experts forge links with other bodies; sometimes to stunning effect as in Silicon Valley in America and around Cambridge in England, which now has one of the most concentrated clusters of high-tech companies in Europe.

It is the networkers, the wheeler-dealers, the movers and shakers, call them what you will, that carry the world along. The world of the Neanderthals was shaken between 35,000 and 40,000 BC; they were superseded by Homo Sapiens with the very ‘networking’ skills that separate us from other animals: understanding, thought abstraction and culture, which are inextricably linked to planning survival and productivity in humans. It is said the meek will inherit the earth. But will they?

Questions 1-5

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

1 Networking is not a modern idea.
2 Networking is worn like a badge exclusively in the business world.
3 People fall into two basic categories.
4 A person who shares knowledge and friends makes a better networker than one who does not.
5 The classic networker is physically strong and generally in good health.

Questions 6-10 Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

6 Making new acquaintances __________ but also has its disadvantages.
7 At work, problems can be caused if the manager is __________ .
8 A manager can suppress, or even totally __________ the career of an employee.
9 In business today, working together is necessary in order for __________ to grow.
10 Businesses that specialise will not last for long without __________ .

Questions 11-15 Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

11 In which sphere of life have ideas been protected jealously?
12 Which type of individual does not easily become a modern networker?
13 Where is one of the greatest concentrations of high tech companies in Europe?
14 Who replaced the Neanderthals?
15 What, as well as understanding and thought abstraction, sets us apart from other animals?

Reading passage 2

A Silent Force

A There is a legend that St Augustine in the fourth century AD was the first individual to be seen reading silently rather than aloud, or semi-aloud, as had been the practice hitherto. Reading has come a long way since Augustine’s day. There was a time when it was a menial job of scribes and priests, not the mark of civilisation it became in Europe during the Renaissance when it was seen as one of the attributes of the civilised individual.

B Modern nations are now seriously affected by their levels of literacy. While the Western world has seen a noticeable decline in these areas, other less developed countries have advanced and, in some cases, overtaken the West. India, for example, now has a large pool of educated workers. So European countries can no longer rest on their laurels as they have done for far too long; otherwise, they are in danger of falling even further behind economically.

C It is difficult in the modern world to do anything other than a basic job without being able to read. Reading as a skill is the key to an educated workforce, which in turn is the bedrock of economic advancement, particularly in the present technological age. Studies have shown that by increasing the literacy and numeracy skills of primary school children in the UK, the benefit to the economy generally is in billions of pounds. The skill of reading is now no more just an intellectual or leisure activity, but rather a fully-fledged economic force.

D Part of the problem with reading is that it is a skill which is not appreciated in most developed societies. This is an attitude that has condemned large part of the population in most Western nations to illiteracy. It might surprise people in countries outside the West to learn that in the United Kingdom, and indeed in some other European countries, the literacy rate has fallen to below that of so-called less developed countries.

E There are also forces conspiring against reading in our modern society. It is not seen as cool among a younger generation more at home with computer screens or a Walkman. The solitude of reading is not very appealing. Students at school, college or university who read a lot are called bookworms. The term indicates the contempt in which reading and learning are held in certain circles or subcultures. It is a criticism, like all such attacks, driven by the insecurity of those who are not literate or are semi-literate. Criticism is also a means, like all bullying, of keeping peers in place so that they do not step out of line. Peer pressure among young people is so powerful that it often kills any attempts to change attitudes to habits like reading.

F But the negative connotations apart, is modern Western society strongly opposing an uncontrollable spiral of decline? I think not.

G How should people be encouraged to read more? It can easily be done by increasing basic reading skills at an early age and encouraging young people to borrow books from schools. Some schools have classroom libraries as well as school libraries. It is no good waiting until pupils are in their secondary school to encourage an interest in books; it needs to be pushed at an early age. Reading comics, magazines and low brow publications like Mills and Boon is frowned upon. But surely what people, whether they be adults or children, read is of little import. What is significant is the fact that they are reading. Someone who reads a comic today may have the courage to pick up a more substantial tome later on.

H But perhaps the best idea would be to stop the negative attitudes to reading from forming in the first place. Taking children to local libraries brings them into contact with an environment where they can become relaxed among books. If primary school children were also taken in groups into bookshops, this might also entice them to want their own books. A local bookshop, like some local libraries, could perhaps arrange book readings for children which, being away from the classroom, would make the reading activity more of an adventure. On a more general note, most countries have writers of national importance. By increasing the standing of national writers in the eyes of the public, through local and national writing competitions, people would be drawn more to the printed word. Catch them young and, perhaps, they just might then all become bookworms.

Questions 16-22 Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H. Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them. One of the headings has been done for you as an example. Any heading may be used more than once.

List of Headings i Reading not taken for granted ii Taking children to libraries iii Reading: the mark of civilisation iv Reading in St Augustine’s day v A large pool of educated workers in India vi Literacy rates in developed countries have declined because of people’s attitude vii Persuading people to read viii Literacy influences the economies of countries in today’s world ix Reading benefits the economy by billions of pounds x The attitude to reading amongst the young xi Reading becomes an economic force xii The writer’s attitude to the decline in reading

Example: Paragraph H Answer vii

16 Paragraph A
17 Paragraph B
18 Paragraph C
19 Paragraph D
20 Paragraph E
21 Paragraph F
22 Paragraph G

Questions 23-27 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

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

23 European countries have been satisfied with past achievements for too long and have allowed other countries to overtake them in certain areas.
24 Reading is an economic force.
25 The literacy rate in less developed nations is considerably higher than in all European countries.
26 If you encourage children to read when they are young the negative attitude to reading that grows in some subcultures will be eliminated.
27 People should be discouraged from reading comics and magazines.

Reading passage 3

Variations on a theme: the sonnet form in English poetry

A The form of lyric poetry known as ‘the sonnet’, or ‘little song’, was introduced into the English poetic corpus by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and his contemporary Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, during the first half of the sixteenth century. It originated, however, in Italy three centuries earlier, with the earliest examples known being those of Giacomo de Lentino, ‘The Notary’ in the Sicilian court of the Emperor Frederick II, dating from the third decade of the thirteenth century. The Sicilian sonneteers are relatively obscure, but the form was taken up by the two most famous poets of the Italian Renaissance, Dante and Petrarch, and indeed the latter is regarded as the master of the form.

B The Petrarchan sonnet form, the first to be introduced into English poetry, is a complex poetic structure. It comprises fourteen lines written in a rhyming metrical pattern of iambic pentameter, that into say each line is ten syllables long, divided into five ‘feet’ or pairs of syllables (hence ‘pentameter’), with a stress pattern where the first syllable of each foot is unstressed and the second stressed (an iambic foot). This can be seen if we look at the first line of one of Wordsworth’s sonnets, ‘After-Thought’: I thought of thee my partner and my guide’.

If we break down this line into its constituent syllabic parts, we can see the five feet and the stress pattern (in this example each stressed syllable is underlined), thus: ‘I thought/ of thee/ my partner and/ my guide’.

C The rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet is equally as rigid. The poem is generally divided into two parts, the octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six lines), which is demonstrated through rhyme rather than an actual space between each section. The octave is usually rhymed abbaabba with the first, fourth, fifth and eighth lines rhyming with each other, and the second, third, sixth and seventh also rhyming. The sestet is more varied: it can follow the patterns cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. Perhaps the best interpretation of this division in the Petrarchan sonnet is by Charles Gayley, who wrote: “The octave bears the burden; a doubt, a problem,. a reflection, a query, an historical statement, a cry of indignation or desire, a vision of the ideal. The sestet eases the load, resolves the problem or doubt, answers the query or doubt, solaces the yearning, realises the vision.” Thus, we can see that the rhyme scheme demonstrates a twofold division in the poem, providing a structure for the development of themes and ideas.

D Early on, however, English poets began to vary and experiment with this structure. The first major development was made by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, altogether an indifferent poet, but was taken up and perfected by William Shakespeare, and is named after him. The Shakespearean sonnet also has fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, but rather than the division into octave and sestet, the poem is divided into four parts: three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. Each quatrain has its own internal rhyme scheme, thus a typical Shakespearean sonnet would rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. Such a structure naturally allows greater flexibility for the author and it would be hard, if not impossible, to enumerate the different ways in which it has been employed, by Shakespeare and others. For example, an idea might be introduced in the first quatrain, complicated in the second, further complicated in the third, and resolved in the final couplet — indeed, the couplet is almost always used as a resolution to the poem, though often in a surprising way.

E These, then, are the two standard forms of the sonnet in English poetry, but it should be recognized that poets rarely follow rules precisely and a number of other sonnet types have been developed, playing with the structural. elements. Edmund Spenser, for example, more famous for his verse epic ‘The Faerie Queene’, invented a variation on the Shakespearean form by interlocking the rhyme schemes between the quatrains, thus: abab bcbc cdcd ee, while in the twentieth century Rupert Brooke reversed his sonnet, beginning with the couplet. John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet, was unsatisfied with the fourteen-line format and wrote a number of ‘Caudate’ sonnets, or ‘sonnets with the regular fourteen lines (on the Petrarchan model) with a ‘coda’ or ‘tail’ of a further six lines. A similar notion informs George Meredith’s sonnet sequence ‘Modern Love’, where most sonnets in the cycle have sixteen lines.

F Perhaps the most radical of innovators, however, has been Gerard Manley Hopkins, who developed what he called the ‘Curtal’ sonnet. This form varies the length of the poem, reducing it in effect to eleven and a half lines, the rhyme scheme and the number of feet per line. Modulating the Petrarchan form, instead of two quatrains in the octave, he has two tercets rhyming abc abc, and in place of the sestet he has four and a half lines, with a rhyme scheme dcbdc. As if this is not enough, the tercets are no longer in iambic pentameter, but have six stresses instead of five, as does the final quatrain, with the exception of the last line, which has three. Many critics, however, are sceptical as to whether such a major variation can indeed be classified as a sonnet, but as verse forms and structures become freer, and poets less satisfied with convention, it is likely that even more experimental forms will out.

Questions 28-32 Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs labelled A-F. Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-xiii) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

Any heading may be used more than once. Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.

List of Headings

i Octave develops sestet
ii The Faerie Queene and Modern Love
iii The origins of the sonnet
iv The Shakespearean sonnet form
v The structure of the Petrarchan sonnet form
vi A real sonnet?
vii Rhyme scheme provides structure developing themes and ideas
viii Dissatisfaction with format
ix The Sicilian sonneteers
x Howard v. Shakespeare
xi Wordsworth’s sonnet form
xii Future breaks with convention
xiii The sonnet form: variations and additions

Example Paragraph A Heading iii

28 Paragraph B
29 Paragraph C
30 Paragraph D
31 Paragraph E
32 Paragraph F

Questions 33-37 Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

33 Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Henry Howard were __________ .
34 It was in the third decade of the thirteenth century that the __________ was introduced.
35 Among poets of the Italian Renaissance __________ was considered to be the better sonneteer.
36 The Petrarchan sonnet form consists of __________ .
37 In comparison with the octave, the rhyming scheme of the sestet is__________ .

Questions 38-40 Choose the correct letters A-D and write them in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38 According to Charles Gayley,
A the octave is longer than the sestet.
B the octave develops themes and ideas.
C the sestet provides answers and solutions.
D the sestet demonstrates a twofold division.

39 The Shakespearean sonnet is
A an indifferent development.
B more developed than the Petrarchan sonnet.
C more flexible than the Petrarchan sonnet.
D enumerated in different ways.

40 According to the passage, whose sonnet types are similar?
A Spenser and Brooke
B Brooke and Milton
C Hopkins and Spenser
D Milton and Meredith

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MAKING TIME FOR SCIENCE IELTS READING

October 26, 2023 Jomon P John 1 Comment

Reading paragraph 1

Chronobiology might sound a little futuristic – like something from a science fiction novel, perhaps – but it’s actually a field of study that concerns one of the oldest processes life on this planet has ever known: short-term rhythms of time and their effect on flora and fauna.

This can take many forms. Marine life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns. Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon. Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal – that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight. Nocturnal animals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the low- light of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours.

When it comes to humans, chronobiologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four hour day. Aside from sleeping at night and waking during the day, each cycle involves many other factors such as changes in blood pressure and body temperature. Not everyone has an identical circadian rhythm. ‘Night people’, for example, often describe how they find it very hard to operate during the morning, but become alert and focused by evening. This is a benign variation within circadian rhythms known as a chronotype.

Scientists have limited abilities to create durable modifications of chronobiological demands. Recent therapeutic developments for humans such as artificial light machines and melatonin administration can reset our circadian rhythms, for example, but our bodies can tell the difference and health suffers when we breach these natural rhythms for extended periods of time. Plants appear no more malleable in this respect; studies demonstrate that vegetables grown in season and ripened on the tree are far higher in essential nutrients than those grown in greenhouses and ripened by laser.

Knowledge of chronobiological patterns can have many pragmatic implications for our day-to-day lives. While contemporary living can sometimes appear to subjugate biology – after all, who needs circadian rhythms when we have caffeine pills, energy drinks, shift work and cities that never sleep? – keeping in synch with our body clock is important.

The average urban resident, for example, rouses at the eye-blearing time of 6.04 a.m., which researchers believe to be far too early. One study found that even rising at 7.00 a.m. has deleterious effects on health unless exercise is performed for 30 minutes afterward. The optimum moment has been whittled down to 7.22 a.m.; muscle aches, headaches and moodiness were reported to be lowest by participants in the study who awoke then.

Once you’re up and ready to go, what then? If you’re trying to shed some extra pounds, dieticians are adamant: never skip breakfast. This disorients your circadian rhythm and puts your body in starvation mode. The recommended course of action is to follow an intense workout with a carbohydrate-rich breakfast; the other way round and weight loss results are not as pronounced.

Morning is also great for breaking out the vitamins. Supplement absorption by the body is not temporal- dependent, but naturopath Pam Stone notes that the extra boost at breakfast helps us get energised for the day ahead. For improved absorption, Stone suggests pairing supplements with a food in which they are soluble and steering clear of caffeinated beverages. Finally, Stone warns to take care with storage; high potency is best for absorption, and warmth and humidity are known to deplete the potency of a supplement.

After-dinner espressos are becoming more of a tradition – we have the Italians to thank for that – but to prepare for a good night’s sleep we are better off putting the brakes on caffeine consumption as early as 3 p.m. With a seven hour half-life, a cup of coffee containing 90 mg of caffeine taken at this hour could still leave 45 mg of caffeine in your nervous system at ten o’clock that evening. It is essential that, by the time you are ready to sleep, your body is rid of all traces.

Evenings are important for winding down before sleep; however, dietician Geraldine Georgeou warns that an after-five carbohydrate-fast is more cultural myth than chronobiological demand. This will deprive your body of vital energy needs. Overloading your gut could lead to indigestion, though. Our digestive tracts do not shut down for the night entirely, but their work slows to a crawl as our bodies prepare for sleep. Consuming a modest snack should be entirely sufficient.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write

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

1. Chronobiology is the study of how living things have evolved over time.

2. The rise and fall of sea levels affects how sea creatures behave.

3. Most animals are active during the daytime.

4. Circadian rhythms identify how we do different things on different days.

5. A ‘night person’ can still have a healthy circadian rhythm.

6. New therapies can permanently change circadian rhythms without causing harm.

7. Naturally-produced vegetables have more nutritional value.

Questions 8-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8. What did researchers identify as the ideal time to wake up in the morning?
A 6.04
B 7.00
C 7.22
D 7.30

9. In order to lose weight, we should
A avoid eating breakfast
B eat a low carbohydrate breakfast
C exercise before breakfast
D exercise after breakfast

10. Which is NOT mentioned as a way to improve supplement absorption?
A avoiding drinks containing caffeine while taking supplements
B taking supplements at breakfast
C taking supplements with foods that can dissolve them
D storing supplements in a cool, dry environment

11. The best time to stop drinking coffee is
A mid-afternoon
B 10 p.m.
C only when feeling anxious
D after dinner

12. In the evening, we should
A stay away from carbohydrates
B stop exercising
C eat as much as possible
D eat a light meal

13. Which of the following phrases best describes the main aim of Reading Passage 1?
A to suggest healthier ways of eating, sleeping and exercising
B to describe how modern life has made chronobiology largely irrelevant
C to introduce chronobiology and describe some practical applications
D to plan a daily schedule that can alter our natural chronobiological rhythms

Reading passage 2

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 lobotomy ,“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 14-22
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 14-22 on your answer sheet.

14 giving up short-term happiness for future gains
15 maintaining the bodily functions necessary for life
16 experiencing the pain of losing another
17 forming communities and social groups
18 making a decision and carrying it out
19 guarding areas of land
20 developing explanations for things
21 looking after one’s young
22 responding quickly to sudden movement and noise

Questions 23-26
Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

23 A person with only a functioning reptilian cortex is known as…………………
24 …………………in humans is associated with limbic disruption.
25 An industrial accident caused Phineas Gage to lose part of his……………………….
26 After his accident, co-workers noticed an imbalance between Gage’s………………and higher-order thinking.

HELIUM’S FUTURE UP IN THE AIR

A In recent years we have all been exposed to dire media reports concerning the impending demise of global coal and oil reserves, but the depletion of another key non-renewable resource continues without receiving much press at all. Helium – an inert, odourless, monatomic element known to lay people as the substance that makes balloons float and voices squeak when inhaled – could be gone from this planet within a generation.

B Helium itself is not rare; there is actually a plentiful supply of it in the cosmos. In fact, 24 per cent of our galaxy’s elemental mass consists of helium, which makes it the second most abundant element in our universe. Because of its lightness, however, most helium vanished from our own planet many years ago. Consequently, only a miniscule proportion – 0.00052%, to be exact – remains in earth’s atmosphere. Helium is the by¬product of millennia of radioactive decay from the elements thorium and uranium. The helium is mostly trapped in subterranean natural gas bunkers and commercially extracted through a method known as fractional distillation.

C The loss of helium on Earth would affect society greatly. Defying the perception of it as a novelty substance for parties and gimmicks, the element actually has many vital applications in society. Probably the most well known commercial usage is in airships and blimps (non-flammable helium replaced hydrogen as the lifting gas du jour after the Hindenburg catastrophe in 1932, during which an airship burst into flames and crashed to the ground killing some passengers and crew). But helium is also instrumental in deep-sea diving, where it is blended with nitrogen to mitigate the dangers of inhaling ordinary air under high pressure; as a cleaning agent for rocket engines; and, in its most prevalent use, as a coolant for superconducting magnets in hospital MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners.

D The possibility of losing helium forever poses the threat of a real crisis because its unique qualities are extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible to duplicate (certainly, no biosynthetic ersatz product is close to approaching the point of feasibility for helium, even as similar developments continue apace for oil and coal). Helium is even cheerfully derided as a “loner” element since it does not adhere to other molecules like its cousin, hydrogen. According to Dr. Lee Sobotka, helium is the most noble of gases, meaning it’s very stable and non-reactive for the most part … it has a closed electronic configuration, a very tightly bound atom. It is this coveting of its own electrons that prevents combination with other elements’. Another important attribute is helium’s unique boiling point, which is lower than that for any other element. The worsening global shortage could render millions of dollars of high-value, life-saving equipment totally useless. The dwindling supplies have already resulted in the postponement of research and development projects in physics laboratories and manufacturing plants around the world. There is an enormous supply and demand imbalance partly brought about by the expansion of high-tech manufacturing in Asia.

E The source of the problem is the Helium Privatisation Act (HPA), an American law passed in 1996 that requires the U.S. National Helium Reserve to liquidate its helium assets by 2015 regardless of the market price. Although intended to settle the original cost of the reserve by a U.S. Congress ignorant of its ramifications, the result of this fire sale is that global helium prices are so artificially deflated that few can be bothered recycling the substance or using it judiciously. Deflated values also mean that natural gas extractors see no reason to capture helium. Much is lost in the process of extraction. As Sobotka notes: “*t+he government had the good vision to store helium, and the question now is: Will the corporations have the vision to capture it when extracting natural gas, and consumers the wisdom to recycle? This takes long-term vision because present market forces are not sufficient to compel prudent practice”. For Nobel-prize laureate Robert Richardson, the U.S. government must be prevailed upon to repeal its privatisation policy as the country supplies over 80 per cent of global helium, mostly from the National Helium Reserve. For Richardson, a twenty- to fifty-fold increase in prices would provide incentives to recycle.

F A number of steps need to be taken in order to avert a costly predicament in the coming decades. Firstly, all existing supplies of helium ought to be conserved and released only by permit, with medical uses receiving precedence over other commercial or recreational demands. Secondly, conservation should be obligatory and enforced by a regulatory agency. At the moment some users, such as hospitals, tend to recycle diligently while others, such as NASA, squander massive amounts of helium. Lastly, research into alternatives to helium must begin in earnest.

Questions 27-31
Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs, A-F.

27 a use for helium which makes an activity safer
28 the possibility of creating an alternative to helium
29 a term which describes the process of how helium is taken out of the ground
30 a reason why users of helium do not make efforts to conserve it
31 a contrast between helium’s chemical properties and how non-scientists think about it

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

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

32 Helium chooses to be on its own.
33 Helium is a very cold substance.
34 High-tech industries in Asia use more helium than laboratories and manufacturers in other parts of the world.
35 The US Congress understood the possible consequences of the HPA.

Questions 36-40
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Sobotka argues that big business and users of helium need to help look after helium stocks because (36)………………… will not be encouraged through buying and selling alone. Richardson believes that the (37) …………………needs to be withdrawn, as the U.S. provides most of the world’s helium. He argues that higher costs would mean people have (38)………………… to use the resource many times over. People should need a (39)………………… to access helium that we still have. Furthermore, a (40)………………… should ensure that helium is used carefully.

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Green Wave Washes Over Mainstream Shopping IELTS READING

October 26, 2023 Jomon P John 1 Comment

Reading passage 1

Research in Britain has shown that ‘green consumers’ continue to flourish as a significant group amongst shoppers. This suggests that politicians who claim environmentalism is yesterday’s issue may be seriously misjudging the public mood.

A report from Mintel, the market research organisation, says that despite recession and financial pressures, more people than ever want to buy environmentally friendly products and a ‘green wave’ has swept through consumerism, taking in people previously untouched by environmental concerns. The recently published report also predicts that the process will repeat itself with ‘ethical’ concerns, involving issues such as fair trade with the Third World and the social record of businesses. Companies will have to be more honest and open in response to this mood.

Mintel’s survey, based on nearly 1,000 consumers, found that the proportion who look for green products and are prepared to pay more for them has climbed from 53 per cent in 1990 to around 60 per cent in 1994. On average, they will pay 13 per cent more for such products, although this percentage is higher among women, managerial and professional groups and those aged 35 to 44.

Between 1990 and 1994 the proportion of consumers claiming to be unaware of or unconcerned about green issues fell from 18 to 10 per cent but the number of green spenders among older people and manual workers has risen substantially. Regions such as Scotland have also caught up with the south of England in their environmental concerns. According to Mintel, the image of green consumerism as associated in the past with the more eccentric members of society has virtually disappeared. The consumer research manager for Mintel, Angela Hughes, said it had become firmly established as a mainstream market. She explained that as far as the average person is concerned environmentalism has not ‘gone off the boil’. In fact, it has spread across a much wider range of consumer groups, ages and occupations.

Mintel’s 1994 survey found that 13 per cent of consumers are ‘very dark green’, nearly always buying environmentally friendly products, 28 per cent are ‘dark green’, trying ‘as far as possible’ to buy such products, and 21 per cent are ‘pale green’ – tending to buy green products if they see them. Another 26 per cent are ‘armchair greens’; they said they care about environmental issues but their concern does not affect their spending habits. Only 10 per cent say they do not care about green issues. Four in ten people are ‘ethical spenders’, buying goods which do not, for example, involve dealings with oppressive regimes. This figure is the same its in 1990, although the number of ‘armchair ethicals’ has risen from 28 to 35 per cent and only 22 per cent say they are unconcerned
now, against 30 per cent in 1990. Hughes claims that in the twenty-first century, consumers will be encouraged to think more about the entire history of the products and services they buy, including the policies of the companies that provide them and that this will require a greater degree of honesty with consumers.

Among green consumers, animal testing is the top issue – 48 per cent said they would be deterred from buying a product it if had been tested on animals – followed by concerns regarding irresponsible selling, the ozone layer, river and sea pollution, forest destruction, recycling and factory farming. However, concern for specific issues is lower than in 1990, suggesting that many consumers feel that Government and business have taken on the environmental agenda.

Questions 1-6
Do the fallowing statements agree with the claims of the writer of Reading Passage I? In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1 The research findings report commercial rather than political trends.
2 Being financially better off has made shoppers more sensitive to buying ‘green’.
3 The majority of shoppers are prepared to pay more for the benefit of the environment according to the research findings.

4 Consumers’ green shopping habits are influenced by Mintel’s findings. 5 Mintel have limited their investigation to professional and managerial groups.
6 Mintel undertakes market surveys on an annual basis.

Questions 7-9 Choose the appropriate letters A-D

7 Politicians may have ‘misjudged the public mood’ because

A they are pre-occupied with the recession and financial probl ms

B there is more widespread interest in the environment agenda than they anticipated

C consumer spending has increased significantly as a result of ‘green’ pressure

D shoppers are displeased with government policies on a range of issues.

8. What is Mintel?

A an environmentalist group

B a business survey organisation

C an academic research team

D political organisation

9. A consumer expressing concern for environmental issues without actively supporting such principles is

A an ethical spender

B a very dark green spender

C an armchair green

D a pale green spender

Questions10-13

Complete the summary using words from the box below. Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet. NB There are more answers than spaces, so you will not use them all.

The Mintel report suggests that in future companies will be forced to practise greater (10)… ……………………..in their dealings because of the increased awareness amongst (11)…………………………… of ethical issues. This prediction is supported by the growth in the number of (12)………………………….identified in the most recent survey published. As a consequence, it is felt that companies will have to think more carefully about their (13)………………………..

environmental research	social awareness	consumers
honesty and openness	social record	political belief
ethical spenders	armchair ethical	financial constrains
politicians	environmentalist

Reading Passage 2

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 socio-economic 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 illustrate stimuli at all.

Questions 14-17
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 14-17.

14 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

15 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 modern books too expensive

16. University academics are concerned because

A young people are showing less interest in higher education

B students cannot understand modern academic text

C academic books are too childish for their under graduation

D there has been a significant change in student literature

17. The youngest readers will quickly develop good reading skills if they

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 18-21
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet write
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

18 It is traditionally accepted that children’s books should contain few pictures.
19 Teachers aim to teach both word recognition and word meaning.
20 Older readers are having difficulty in adjusting to texts without pictures.
21 Literacy has improved as a result of recent academic conferences.

Questions 22-25
Reading Passage 2 has ten paragraphs, A-J. Which paragraphs state the following information?
22 The decline of literacy is seen in groups of differing ages and abilities.
23 Reading methods currently in use go against research findings.
24 Readers able to ignore pictures are claimed to make greater progress.
25 Illustrations in books can give misleading information about word meaning.

Question 26
From the list below choose the most suitable title for the whole of Reading Passage 2.
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 literatu e
E An examination of modern reading styles

Reading passage 3

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, auto-immune 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 DNA. 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 eugenics.

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 hemoglobin, 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: thalassemia. 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 27-32

Complete the sentences below (Questions 27—32) with words taken from Reading Passage 3. Use NO MORE THAN

THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer Write your answers in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

27 The passage compares the Project in scale to the…………………
28 The possible completion date of the Project is……………..
29 To write out the human genome on paper would require books.
30 A genetic problem cannot be treated with drugs because strictly speaking it is not a…………………….
31 Research into genetic defects had its first success in the discovery of the cause of one form of……………….
32 The second success of research into genetic defects was to find the cause of……………..

Questions 33-40
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 33—40 on your answer sheet.

33 The Project will provide a new understanding of major diseases.

34 All the components which make up DNA are to be recorded and studied.

35 Genetic monsters may be created.

36 The correct order and inter-relation of all genetic data in all DNA will be mapped.

37 Parents will no longer worry about giving birth to defective offspring.

38 Being ‘human’ may be defined solely in terms of describable physical data.

39 People may be discriminated against in new ways.

40 From past experience humans may not use this new knowledge wisely.

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LOST FOR WORDS IELTS READING

October 26, 2023 Jomon P John 1 Comment

Reading passage 1

In the Native American Navajo nation, which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-aged or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street signs’, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English, Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations – that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. ‘At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world,’ says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’

Isolation breeds linguistic diversity: as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairbanks.

Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old traditions.’

The change is not always voluntary quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation schools in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he says. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English.’ But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

Language is also intimately bound up with culture, so it may be difficult to preserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world,’ says Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in the brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism,’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language.

A similar approach in Hawaii has produced about 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer ‘apprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to the next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using it every day. ‘Preserving a language is more like preserving fruits in a jar’ he says.

However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by later generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.

Questions 1-4

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes1-4 on your answer sheet.

There are currently approximately 6,800 languages in the world. This great variety of languages came about largely as a result of geographical (1) ………………….. But in today’s world, factors such as government initiatives and (2) ……………….. are contributing to a huge decrease in the number of languages. One factor which may help to ensure that some endangered languages do not die out completely is people’s increasing appreciation of their (3) ……………………… This has been encouraged through programmes of language classes for children and through ‘apprentice’ schemes, in which the endangered language is used as the medium of instruction to teach people a (4) ……………………… Some speakers of endangered languages have even produced writing systems in order to help secure the survival of their mother tongue.

Questions 5-9
Look at the fol owing statements (Questions 5-9) and the list of people in the box below. Match each statement with the correct person A—E. Write the appropriate letter A-E in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

5 Endangered languages cannot be saved unless people learn to speak more than one language.
6 Saving languages from extinction is not in itself a satisfactory goal.
7 The way we think may be determined by our language.
8 Young people often reject the established way of life in their community.
9 A change of language may mean a loss of traditional culture
A Michael Krauss
B Salikoke Mufwene
C Nicholas Ostler
E Doug Whalen
D Mark Pagel

Questions 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 17 In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the view of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

10 The Navajo language will die out because it currently has too few speakers,
11 A large number of native speakers fails to guarantee the survival of a language.
12 National governments could do more to protect endangered languages.
13 The loss of linguistic diversity is inevitable.

Alternative Medicine in Australia

The first students to study alternative medicine at university level in Australia began their four-year, full-time course at the University of Technology, Sydney, in early 1994. Their course covered, among other therapies, acupuncture. The theory they learnt is based on the traditional Chinese explanation of this ancient healing art: that it can regulate the flow of ‘Qi’ or energy through pathways in the body. This course reflects how far some alternative therapies have come in their struggle for acceptance by the medical establishment.

Australia has been unusual in the Western world in having a very conservative attitude to natural or alternative therapies, according to Dr Paul Laver, a lecturer in Public Health at the University of Sydney. ‘We’ve had a tradition of doctors being fairly powerful and I guess they are pretty loath to allow any pretenders to their position to come into it.’ In many other industrialized countries, orthodox and alternative medicines have worked ‘hand in glove’ for years. In Europe, only orthodox doctors can prescribe herbal medicine. In Germany, plant remedies account for 10% of the national turnover of pharmaceutical. Americans made more visits to alternative therapist than to orthodox doctors in 1990, and each year they spend about $US 12 billion on the therapies that have not been scientifically tested.

Disenchantment with orthodox medicine has seen the popularity of alternative therapies in Australia climb steadily during the past 20 years. In a 1983 national health survey, 1.9% of people said they had contacted a chiropractor, naturopath, osteopath, acupuncturist or herbalist in the two weeks prior to the survey. By 1990, this figure had risen to 2.6% of the population. The 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists reported in the 1990 survey represented about an eighth of the total number of consultations with medically qualified personnel covered by the survey, according to Dr Laver and colleagues writing in the Australian Journal of Public Health in 1993. ‘A better educated and less accepting public has become disillusioned with the experts in general and increasingly skeptical about science and empirically based knowledge,’ they said. ‘The high standing of professionals, including doctors, has been eroded as a consequence.’

Rather than resisting or criticizing this trend, increasing numbers of Australian doctors, particularly younger ones, are forming group practices with alternative therapists or taking courses themselves, particularly in acupuncture and herbalism. Part of the incentive was financial, Dr Laver said. ‘The bottom line is that most general practitioners are business people. If they see potential clientele going elsewhere, they might want to be able to offer a similar service.’
In 1993, Dr Laver and his colleagues published a survey of 289 Sydney people who attended eight alternative therapists’ practices in Sydney. These practices offered a wide range of alternative therapies from 25 therapists. Those surveyed had experience chronic illnesses, for which orthodox medicine had been able to provide little relief. They commented that they liked the holistic approach of their alternative therapists and the friendly, concerned and detailed attention they had received. The cold, impersonal manner of orthodox doctors featured in the survey. An increasing exodus from their clinics, coupled with this and a number of other relevant surveys carried out in Australia, all pointing to orthodox doctors’ inadequacies, have led mainstream doctors themselves to begin to admit they could learn from the personal style of alternative therapists. Dr Patrick Store, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, concurs that orthodox doctors could learn a lot about beside manner and advising patients on preventative health from alternative therapists.

According to the Australian Journal of Public Health, 18% of patients visiting alternative therapists do so because they suffer from muscular-skeletal complaints; 12% suffer from digestive problems, which is only 1% more than those suffering from emotional problems. Those suffering from respiratory complaints represent 7% of their patients, and candida sufferers represent an equal percentage. Headache sufferers and those complaining of general ill health represent 6% and 5% of patients respectively, and a further 4% see therapists for general health maintenance.

The survey suggested that complementary medicine is probably a better term than alternative medicine. Alternative medicine appears to be an adjunct, sought in times of disenchantment when conventional medicine seems not to offer the answer.

Questions 14 and 15
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

14 Traditionally, how have Australian doctors differed from doctors in many Western countries?
A They have worked closely with pharmaceutical companies.
B They have often worked alongside other therapists.
C They have been reluctant to accept alternative therapists.
D They have regularly prescribed alternative remedies.

15 In 1990, Americans
A were prescribed more herbal medicines than in previous years.
B consulted alternative therapists more often than doctors.
C spent more on natural therapies than orthodox medicines.
D made more complaints about doctors than in previous years.

Questions 16-23
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
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

16 Australians have been turning to alternative therapies in increasing numbers over the past 20 years.
17 Between 1983 and 1990 the numbers of patients visiting alternative therapists rose to include a further 8% of the population.
18 The 1990 survey related to 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists.
19 In the past, Australians had a higher opinion, of doctors than they do today.
20 Some Australian doctors -are retraining in alternative therapies.
21 Alternative therapists earn higher salaries than doctors.
22 The 1993 Sydney survey involved 289 patients who visited alternative therapists for acupuncture treatment.
had long-term medical complaints.

Questions 24-26 Complete the vertical axis in the chart below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS.”

PLAY IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS

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 wo 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 behavior 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 die 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?

Questions27-32

Reading Passage 3 has nine paragraphs labelled A-I. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

27 the way play causes unusual connections in the brain which are beneficial
28 insights from recording how much time young animals spend playing
29 a description of the physical hazards that can accompany play
30 a description of the mental activities which are exercised and developed during play
31 the possible effects that a reduction in play opportunities will have on humans
32 the classes of animals for which play is important

Questions 33-35
Choose THREE letters A-F. Write your answers in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet. 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 adulthoood
D a means of communicating feelings
E a defensive strategy
F an activity assisting organ growth

Questions 36-40
Look at the following researchers (Questions 36-40) and the list of findings below. Match each researcher with the correct finding. Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

36 Robert Barton
37 Marc Bekofif
38 John Byers
39 Sergio Pellis
40 Stephen Siviy

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

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THE LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON IELTS READING

October 23, 2023 Jomon P John 2 Comments

Reading passage 1

A. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643, in Lincolnshire, England. The son of a farmer, who died three months before he was born, Newton spent most of his early years with his maternal grandmother after his mother remarried. Following an education interrupted by a failed attempt to turn him into a farmer, he attended the King’s School in Grantham before enrolling at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College in 1661, where he soon became fascinated by the works of modern philosophers such as René Descartes. When the Great Plague shut Cambridge off from the rest of England in 1665, Newton returned home and began formulating his theories on calculus, light and color, his farm the setting for the supposed falling apple that inspired his work on gravity.

B. Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667. He constructed the first reflecting telescope in 1668, and the following year he received his Master of Arts degree and took over as Cambridge’s Professor of Mathematics. In 1671 he was asked to give a demonstration of his telescope to the Royal Society of London in 1671, the same year he was elected to the prestigious Society. The following year, fascinated with the study of light, he published his notes on optics for his peers. Through his experiments, Newton determined that white light was a composite of all the colors on the spectrum, and he asserted that light was composed of particles instead of waves. His methods were heavily criticized by established Society member Robert Hooke, who was also unwilling to compromise again with Newton’s follow-up paper in 1675. Known for his temperamental defense of his work, Newton engaged in heated correspondence with Hooke before suffering a nervous breakdown and withdrawing from the public eye in 1678. In the following years, he returned to his earlier studies on the forces governing gravity.

C. In 1684, English astronomer Edmund Halley paid a visit to the reclusive Newton. Upon learning that Newton had mathematically worked out the elliptical paths of celestial bodies, such as the movement of the planets around the sun, Halley urged him to organize his notes. The result was the 1687 publication of “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which established the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity. Principia made Newton a star in intellectual circles, eventually earning him widespread acclaim as one of the most important figures in modern science.

D. As a now influential figure, Newton opposed King James II’s attempts to reinstate Catholic teachings at English Universities, and was elected to represent Cambridge in Parliament in 1689. He moved to London permanently after being named warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, earning a promotion to master of the Mint three years later. Determined to prove his position wasn’t merely symbolic, Newton moved the pound sterling from the silver to the gold standard and sought to punish forgers.

E. The death of Hooke in 1703 allowed Newton to take over as president of the Royal Society, and the following year he published his second major work, “Opticks.” Composed largely from his earlier notes on the subject, the book detailed Newton’s experiments with refraction and the color spectrum, and also contained his conclusions on such matters as energy and electricity. In 1705, he was knighted by Queen Anne of England.

F. Around this time, the debate over Newton’s claims to originating the field of calculus, the mathematical study of change, exploded into a nasty dispute. Newton had developed his mathematical concept of ‘fluxions’ (differentials) in the mid-1660s to account for celestial orbits, though there was no public record of his work. In the meantime, German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz formulated his own theories and published them in 1684. As president of the Royal Society, Newton oversaw an investigation that ruled his work to be the founding basis of the field, but the debate continued even after Leibniz’s death in 1716. Researchers later concluded that both men likely arrived at their conclusions independent of one another.

G. Newton was also obsessed with history and religious doctrines, and his writings on those subjects were collected into multiple books that were published after his death. Having never married, Newton spent his later years living with his niece at Cranbury Park, near Winchester, England. He died on March 31, 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. A giant even among the brilliant minds that drove the Scientific Revolution, Newton is remembered as an extraordinary scholar, inventor and writer. His theories about the movement of bodies in the solar system transformed our understanding of the universe and his precise methodology helped to give birth to what is known as the scientific method. Although his theories of space-time and gravity were eventually superseded by those of Einstein his work remains the foundation stone of modern physics was built.

Questions 1-6. The text has seven paragraphs labelled A–G. Reading passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct headings for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i- viii, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i Continued breakthroughs in research
ii Competing claims of originality
iii The early years of Sir Isaac Newton
iv The legacy of an exceptional mind
v Routine life at a 17th century university
vi Heated academic disputes
vii A new venture
viii His crowning achievement
ix A controversial theory about planets

Answer: Example: Paragraph A iii

1 Paragraph B
2 Paragraph C
3 Paragraph D
4 Paragraph E
5 Paragraph F
6 Paragraph G

Questions 7-8. Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7-8 on your answer sheet.

7. With which scientific organization was Newton associated for much of his career?
8. With whom did Newton live as he got older?

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

Sir Isaac Newton’s achievements

Created first reflecting 9……………………., , subsequently made a professor at Cambridge at the age of 25.
Helped develop the scientific method with his experiments in 10……………………., , the study of light; showed that
it is 11……………………., , not waves, that constitute light.
Worked out the laws of the movement of bodies in space (planets etc.), published Principia Mathematica with laws of gravity and 12…………………….. Joint founder (with Leibniz) of 13……………………., a new branch of mathematics.

Reading passage 2.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANTARCTICA

The continent of Antarctica makes up most of the Antarctic region. The Antarctic is a cold, remote area in the Southern Hemisphere encompassed by the Antarctic Convergence, an uneven line of latitude where cold, northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the world’s oceans. The whole Antarctic region covers approximately 20 percent of the Southern Hemisphere. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent in terms of total area, larger than both Oceania and Europe. It is unique in that it does not have a native population. There are no countries in Antarctica, although seven nations claim different parts of it: New Zealand, Australia, France, Norway, the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet dominates the region. It is the single piece of ice on Earth covering the greatest area. This ice sheet even extends beyond the continent when snow and ice are at their most extreme. The ice surface dramatically expands from about 3 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) at the end of summer to about 19 million square kilometers (7.3 million square miles) by winter. Ice sheet growth mainly occurs at the coastal ice shelves, primarily the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ronne Ice Shelf. Ice shelves are floating sheets of ice that are connected to the continent. Glacial ice moves from the continent’s interior to these lower- elevation ice shelves at rates of 10 to 1,000 meters (33-32,808 feet) per year.

Antarctica has numerous mountain summits, including the Transantarctic Mountains, which divide the continent into eastern and western regions. A few of these summits reach altitudes of more than 4,500 meters (14,764 feet). The elevation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet itself is about 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) and reaches 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) above sea level near the center of the continent.

Without any ice, the continent would emerge as two distinct areas: a giant peninsula and archipelago of mountainous islands, known as Lesser Antarctica, and a single large landmass about the size of Australia, known as Greater Antarctica. These regions have different geologies; Greater Antarctica, or East Antarctica, is composed of older, igneous rocks whereas Lesser Antarctica, or West Antarctica, is made up of younger, volcanic rock. Lesser Antarctica, in fact, is part of the “Ring of Fire,” a tectonically active area around the Pacific Ocean. Tectonic activity is the interaction of plates on Earth’s crust, often resulting in earthquakes and volcanoes. Mount Erebus, located on Antarctica’s Ross Island, is the southernmost active volcano on Earth.

Antarctica has an extremely cold, dry climate. Winter temperatures along Antarctica’s coast generally range from -10° Celsius to -30° Celsius (14° Fahrenheit to -22° Fahrenheit). During the summer, coastal areas hover around 0°C (32°F) but can reach temperatures as high as 9°C (48°F). In the mountainous, interior regions, temperatures are much colder, dropping below -60°C (-76°F) in winter and -20°C (-4°F) in summer. In 1983, Russia’s Vostok Research Station measured the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth: -89.2°C (-128.6°F). An even lower temperature was measured using satellite data taken in 2010: -93.2°C (-135.8°F)

Precipitation in the Antarctic is hard to measure. It always falls as snow. Antarctica’s interior is believed to receive only 50 to 100 millimeters (2-4 inches) of water (in the form of snow) every year. The Antarctic desert is one of the driest deserts in the world. The oceans surrounding Antarctica provide an important physical component of the Antarctic region. The waters surrounding Antarctica are relatively deep, reaching 4,000 to 5,000 meters (13,123 to 16,404 feet) in depth.

The Antarctic region has an important role in global climate processes. It is an integral part of the Earth’s heat balance. This balance, also called the energy balance, is the relationship between the amount of solar heat absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere and the amount deflected back into space. Antarctica has a larger role than most continents in maintaining Earth’s heat balance and ice is more reflective than land or water surfaces. As a result, the massive Antarctic Ice Sheet reflects a large amount of solar radiation away from Earth’s surface. As global ice cover (ice sheets and glaciers) decreases, the reflectivity of Earth’s surface also diminishes. This allows more incoming solar radiation to be absorbed by the Earth’s surface, causing an unequal heat balance linked to global warming, the current period of climate change.

Interestingly, NASA scientists have found that climate change has caused more ice to form in some parts of Antarctica. They say this is happening because of new climate patterns caused by this change, which in turn create a strong wind pattern called the ‘polar vortex.’ These kinds of polar winds lower temperatures in the Antarctic and have been building in strength in recent decades—as much as 15 percent since 1980. This effect is not seen throughout the Antarctic, however, and some parts are experiencing ice melt.

Questions 14-17. Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

Antarctica’s location far from other continents means that it is very 14……………………., Antarctica is alone among the
continents in having no 15…………………The Antarctic ice sheet holds the record as the largest 16……………………., ice sheet on Earth. 17……………………., are blocks of ice connected to the Antarctic ice sheet.

Questions 18-21. Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage on the previous page? In boxes 18–21 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

18 Some of Antarctica’s mountains are popular with climbers.
19 The temperature in Antarctica never rises above 0°C.
20 Antarctica constitutes around one-fifth of the southern half of the world.
21 Rain in Antarctica is rare but falls occasionally.

Questions 22-26. Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below. Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.

ANTARCTICA AND THE CHANGING CLIMATE

Antarctica plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s climate through the process of 22…………………… 23 is diverted away from the Earth by the huge Antarctic ice sheet. As the size and 24……………………… of the ice sheet have decreased, 25……………………., has caused melting in some parts of the continent. However, other areas of Antarctica have experienced falling temperatures in recent years, due to 26…………………….,, climate patterns leading to reduced temperatures.

A reflectivity
B ice melt
C solar radiation
D polar vortex winds
E heat balance
F water surfaces
G global warming

READING PASSAGE 3.

THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

The idea that we are ignorant of our true selves surged in the 20th century and became common. It’s still a commonplace, but it’s changing shape. These days, the bulk of the explanation is done by something else: the ‘dual-process’ model of the brain. We now know that we apprehend the world in two radically opposed ways, employing two fundamentally different modes of thought: ‘System 1’ and ‘System 2’. System 1 is fast; it’s intuitive, associative and automatic and it can’t be switched off. Its operations involve no sense of intentional control, but it’s the “secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make” and it’s the hero of Daniel Kahneman’s alarming, intellectually stimulating book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

System 2 is slow, deliberate and effortful. Its operations require attention. (To set it going now, ask yourself the question “What is 13 x 27?”). System 2 takes over, rather unwillingly, when things get tricky. It’s “the conscious being you call ‘I’”, and one of Kahneman’s main points is that this is a mistake. You’re wrong to identify with System 2, for you are also and equally and profoundly System 1. Kahneman compares System 2 to a supporting character who believes herself to be the lead actor and often has little idea of what’s going on.

System 2 is slothful, and tires easily (a process called ‘ego depletion’) – so it usually accepts what System 1 tells it. It’s often right to do so, because System 1 is for the most part pretty good at what it does; it’s highly sensitive to subtle environmental cues, signs of danger, and so on. It does, however, pay a high price for speed. It loves to simplify, to assume WYSIATI (‘what you see is all there is’). It’s hopelessly bad at the kind of statistical thinking often required for good decisions, it jumps wildly to conclusions and it’s subject to a fantastic range of irrational cognitive biases and interference effects, such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias, to name but two.

The general point about our self-ignorance extends beyond the details of Systems 1 and 2. We’re astonishingly susceptible to being influenced by features of our surroundings. One famous (pre-mobile phone) experiment centred on a New York City phone booth. Each time a person came out of the booth after having made a call, an accident was staged – someone dropped all her papers on the pavement. Sometimes a dime had been placed in the phone booth, sometimes not (a dime was then enough to make a call). If there was no dime in the phone booth, only 4% of the exiting callers helped to pick up the papers. If there was a dime, no fewer than 88% helped.”

Since then, thousands of other experiments have been conducted, all to the same general effect. We don’t know who we are or what we’re like, we don’t know what we’re really doing and we don’t know why we’re doing it. For example, Judges think they make considered decisions about parole based strictly on the facts of the case. It turns out (to simplify only slightly) that it is their blood-sugar levels really sitting in judgment. If you hold a pencil between your teeth, forcing your mouth into the shape of a smile, you’ll find a cartoon funnier than if you hold the pencil pointing forward, by pursing your lips round it in a frown-inducing way.

In an experiment designed to test the ‘anchoring effect’, highly experienced judges were given a description of a shoplifting offence. They were then ‘anchored’ to different numbers by being asked to roll a pair of dice that had been secretly loaded to produce only two totals – three or nine. Finally, they were asked whether the prison sentence for the shoplifting offence should be greater or fewer, in months, than the total showing on the dice. Normally the judges would have made extremely similar judgments, but those who had just rolled nine proposed an average of eight months while those who had rolled three proposed an average of only five months. All were unaware of the anchoring effect.

The same goes for all of us, almost all the time. We think we’re smart; we’re confident we won’t be unconsciously swayed by the high list price of a house. We’re wrong. (Kahneman admits his own inability to counter some of these effects.) For example, another systematic error involves ‘duration neglect’ and the ‘peak- end rule’. Looking back on our experience of pain, we prefer a larger, longer amount to a shorter, smaller amount, just so long as the closing stages of the greater pain were easier to bear than the closing stages of the lesser one.

Questions 27-31. Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

27 The dual process model of the brain is
A The common practice of thinking about two things at the same time.
B The conflicting impulses pushing the brain to make both more and less effort,
C The feeling of liking and not liking something simultaneously.
D The natural tendency to make sense of the world in two different ways.

28 System 2 takes charge of decision-making when
A When the brain needs a rest.
B When more mental effort is required.
C When a person feels excessively confident.
D When a dangerous situation is developing.

29 ‘Confirmation bias’ is an example of
A System 1 rushing to judgment.
B System 1 making a careful judgment.
C System 1 making a brave judgment
D System 1 judging a situation based on facts.

30 The main conclusion of the phone booth experiment was that
A People are more likely to help someone that they are attracted to.
B People are more responsive to their environment than they realize.
C People are more likely to be helpful if they think they will be rewarded.
D People are generally selfish and will always do what is best for themselves.

31 The ‘anchoring effect’ is the process by which
A Decisions are made using a numerical system.
B A subconscious factor may strongly influence our decision-making
C Decisions about prison sentences are made by rolling a dice.
D We may emphasize certain factor too much in our decision-making.

Questions 32-36. Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

32 In general, humans have become less rational over the last 100 years.

33 Most people lack a clear sense of their own personal identity.

34 A person can train themselves to use System 2 most of the time.

35 People who make important decisions should be made aware of the dual-process model.

36 In most everyday situations, people are capable of making calm and rational decisions.

Questions 37-39. Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below. Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 37-39 on your answer sheet.

37 In the course of evolutionary history System 1 has served humans well because

38 Low blood sugar or tiredness may be factors in decision making because

39 The ‘peak-end rule’ shows us that
A feeling a certain way at the conclusion of an experience decides how we remember it.
B decision-making and judgments are made too quickly.
C having less energy means we are more likely to succumb to an irrational bias.
D being sensitive to ones’ surroundings is a useful survival skill.
E wanting more food or drink may distract us from the decision we are making.

Question 40. Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

What is the writer’s primary purpose in writing this article?
A to introduce their own research to the general reader
B to summarize and review a recently published book
C to argue against a commonly-held theory
D to encourage readers to question their own decision-making processes.”

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How much higher? How much faster? IELTS Reading

October 23, 2023 Jomon P John Leave a comment

Reading passage 1

Since the early years of the twentieth century, when the International Athletic Federation began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how high they jump and how far they are able to hurl massive objects, themselves included, through space. For the so-called power events –that require a relatively brief, explosive release of energy, like the 100-metre sprint and the long jump-times and distances have improved ten to twenty percent. In the endurance events the results have been more dramatic. At the 1908 Olympics, John Hayes of the U.S. team ran to marathon in a time of 2:55:18. In 1999, Morocco’s Khalid Khannouchi set a new world record of 2:05:42, almost thirty percent faster.

No one theory can explain improvements in performance, but the most important factor has been genetics. ‘The athlete must choose his parents carefully,’ says Jesus Dapena, a sports scientist at Indiana University, invoking an oft-cited adage. Over the past century, the composition of the human gene pool has not changed appreciably, but with increasing global participation in athletics-and greater rewards to tempt athletes-it is more likely that individuals possessing the unique complement of genes for athletic performance can be identified early. ‘Was there someone like *sprinter+ Michael Johnson in the 1920s?’ Dapena asks. ‘I’m sure there was, but his talent was probably never realized.’

Identifying genetically talented individuals is only the first step. Michael Yessis, an emeritus professor of Sports Science at California State University at Fullerton, maintains that ‘genetics only determines about one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right training we can go much further with that one third than we’ve been going.’ Yesis believes that U.S. runners, despite their impressive achievements, are ‘running on their genetics’. By applying more scientific methods, ‘they’re going to go much faster’. These methods include strength training that duplicates what they are doing in their running events as well as plyometrics, a technique pioneered in the former Soviet Union.

Whereas most exercises are designed to build up strength or endurance, plyometrics focuses on increasing power- the rate at which an athlete can expend energy. When a sprinter runs, Yesis explains, her foot stays in contact with the ground for just under a tenth of a second, half of which is devoted to landing and the other half to pushing off. Plyometric exercises help athletes make the best use of this brief interval.

Nutrition is another area that sports trainers have failed to address adequately. ‘Many athletes are not getting the best nutrition, even though supplements,’ Yessis insists. Each activity has its own nutritional needs. Few coaches, for instance, understand how deficiencies in trace minerals can lead to injuries.

Focused training will also play a role in enabling records to be broken. ‘If we applied the Russian training model to some of the outstanding runners we have in this country,’ Yessis asserts, ‘they would be breaking records left and right.’ He will not predict by how much, however: ‘Exactly what the limits are it’s hard to say, but there will be increases even if only by hundredths of a second, as long as our training continues to improve.’

One of the most important new methodologies is biomechanics, the study of the body in motion. A biomechanic films an athlete in action and then digitizes her performance, recording the motion of every joint and limb in three dimensions. By applying Newton’s law to these motions, ‘we can say that this athlete’s run is not fast enough; that this one is not using his arms strongly enough during take-off,’ says Dapena, who uses these methods to help high jumpers. To date, however, biomechanics has made only a small difference to athletic performance.

Revolutionary ideas still come from the athletes themselves. For example, during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, a relatively unknown high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the gold by going over the bar backwards, in complete contradiction of all the received high-jumping wisdom, a move instantly dubbed the Fosbury flop. Fosbury himself did not know what he was doing. That understanding took the later analysis of biomechanics specialists. Who put their minds to comprehending something that was too complex and unorthodox ever to have been invented through their own mathematical simulations. Fosbury also required another element that lies behind many improvements in athletic performance: an innovation in athletic equipment. In Fosbury’s case, it was the cushions that jumpers land on. Traditionally, high jumpers would land in pits filled with sawdust. But by Fosbury’s time, sawdust pits had been replaced by soft foam cushions, ideal for flopping.

In the end, most people who examine human performance are humbled by the resourcefulness of athletes and the powers of the human body. ‘Once you study athletics, you learn that it’s a vexingly complex issue,’ says John S.Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University. ‘Core performance is not a simple or mundane thing of higher,faster, longer. So many variables enter into the equation, and our understanding in many cases is fundamental.We’re got a long way to go.’ For the foreseeable future, records will be made to be broken.

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet write

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

1 Modern official athletic records date from about 1900.
2 There was little improvement in athletic performance before the twentieth century,
3 Performance has improved most greatly in events requiring an intensive burst of energy.
4 Improvements in athletic performance can be fully explained by genetics.
5 The parents of top athletes have often been successful athletes themselves.
6 The growing international importance of athletics means that gifted athletes can be recognised at a younger age.

Questions 7-10

Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 1. Use ONE WORD for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.

7 According to Professor Yessis, American runners are relying for their current success on………………..

8 Yessis describes a training approach from the former Soviet Union that aims to develop an athlete’s…………

9 Yessis links an inadequate diet to…………………

10 Yessis claims that the key to setting new records is better……………..

Questions 11-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

11 Biomechanics films are proving particularly useful because they enable trainers to

A highlight areas for improvement in athletes
B assess the fitness levels of athletes
C select top athletes
D predict the success of athletes

12 Biomechanics specialists used theoretical models to

A soften the Fosbury flop
B create the Fosbury flop
C correct the Fosbury flo
D explain the Fosbury flop.

13 John S. Raglin believes our current knowledge of athletics is

A mistaken
B basic
C diverse
D theoretical

The Nature and Aims of Archaeology

Archaeology is partly the discovery of treasures of the past, partly the 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 other 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, beliefs, 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 ‘culture’ 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 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 contemporary 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 a role to play in the field of conservation. Heritage studies constitute 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 percent 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 in 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 is 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 14-19. Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet write:

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

14 Archaeology involves creativity as well as investigative work.
15 Archaeologist must be able to translate texts from ancient languages.
16 Movies give a realistic picture of the work of archaeologists.
17 Anthropologist define culture in more than one way.
18 Archaeology is a more demanding field of study than anthropology.
19 The history of Europe has been documented since 3,000 BC.

Questions 20 and 21. Choose TWO letters A – E. Write your answer in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet. 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 22 and 23 . Choose TWO letters A – E. Write your answer in boxes 22 and 23 on your answer sheet.

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 24-27. Complete the summary of the last two paragraphs of Reading Passage 2. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Much of the work of archaeologists can be done using written records, but they find (24)………………………. equally
valuable. The writer describes archaeology as both a (25)…………………………. and a (26) However, as
archaeologists do not try to influence human behaviour, the writer compares their style of working to that of a (27)……………………….

The Problem of Scarce Resources

Section A
The problem of how health-care resources should be allocated or apportioned, so that they are distributed in both the most just and most efficient way, is not a new one. Every health system in an economically developed society is faced with the need to decide (either formally or informally) what proportion of the community’s total resources should be spent on health-care; how resources are to be apportioned; what diseases and disabilities and which forms of treatment are to be given priority; which members of the community are to be given special consideration in respect of their health needs; and which forms of treatment are the most cost-effective.

Section B
What is new is that, from the 1950s onwards, there have been certain general changes in outlook about the finitude of resources as a whole and of health-care resources in particular, as well as more specific changes regarding the clientele of health-care resources and the cost to the community of those resources. Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s, there emerged an awareness in Western societies that resources for the provision of fossil fuel energy were finite and exhaustible and that the capacity of nature or the environment to sustain economic development and population was also finite. In other words, we became aware of the obvious fact that there were ‘limits to growth’. The new consciousness that there were also severe limits to health-care resources was part of this general revelation of the obvious. Looking back, it now seems quite incredible that in the national health systems that emerged in many countries in the years immediately after the 1939-45 World War, it was assumed without question that all the basic health needs of any community could be satisfied, at least in principle; the ‘in visible hand’ of economic progress would provide.

Section C
However, at exactly the same time as this new realization of the finite character of health-care resources was sinking in, an awareness of a contrary kind was developing in Western societies: that people have a basic right to health-care as a necessary condition of a proper human life. Like education, political and legal processes and institutions, public order, communication, transport and money supply, health-care came to be seen as one of the fundamental social facilities necessary for people to exercise their other rights as autonomous human beings.
People are not in a position to exercise personal liberty and to be self-determining if they are poverty-stricken, or deprived of basic education, or do not live within a context of law and order. In the same way, basic health-care is a condition of the exercise of autonomy.

Section D
Although the language of ‘rights’ sometimes leads to confusion, by the late 1970s it was recognized in most societies that people have a right to health-care (though there has been considerable resistance in the United Sates to the idea that there is a formal right to health-care). It is also accepted that this right generates an obligation or duty for the state to ensure that adequate health-care resources are provided out of the public purse. The state has no obligation to provide a health-care system itself, but to ensure that such a system is provided. Put another way, basic health-care is now recognized as a ‘public good’, rather than a ‘private good’ that one is expected to buy for oneself. As the 1976 declaration of the World Health Organisation put it: ‘The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition’. As has just been remarked, in a liberal society basic health is seen as one of the indispensable conditions for the exercise of personal autonomy.

Section E
Just at the time when it became obvious that health-care resources could not possibly meet the demands being made upon them, people were demanding that their fundamental right to health-care be satisfied by the state. The second set of more specific changes that have led to the present concern about the distribution of health-care resources stems from the dramatic rise in health costs in most OECD countries, accompanied by large-scale demographic and social changes which have meant, to take one example, that elderly people are now major (and relatively very expensive) consumers of health-care resources. Thus in OECD countries as a whole, health costs increased from 3.8% of GDP in 1960 to 7% of GDP in 1980, and it has been predicted that the proportion of health costs to GDP will continue to increase. (In the US the current figure is about 12% of GDP, and in Australia about 7.8% of GDP.)
As a consequence, during the 1980s a kind of doomsday scenario (analogous to similar doomsday extrapolations about energy needs and fossil fuels or about population increases) was projected by health administrators, economists and politicians. In this scenario, ever-rising health costs were matched against static or declining resources.

Questions 28-31 . Reading Passage 3 has five sections A-E. Choose the correct heading for section A and C-E from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i The connection between health-care and other human rights
ii The development of market-based health systems.
iii The role of the state in health-care
iv A problem shared by every economically developed country
v The impact of recent change
vi The views of the medical establishment
vii The end of an illusion
viii Sustainable economic development

28 Section A
Example: Section B viii
29 Section C
30 Section D
31 Section E

Questions 32-35. Classify the following as first occurring
A between 1945 and 1950
B between 1950 and 1980
C after 1980

32 the realisation that the resources of the national health system were limited
33 a sharp rise in the cost of health-care.
34 a belief that all the health-care resources the community needed would be produced by economic growth
35 an acceptance of the role of the state in guaranteeing the provision of health-care.

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the view of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 136-40 on your answer sheet write:
YES , NO , NOT GIVEN
36 Personal liberty and independence have never been regarded as directly linked to health-care.
37 Health-care came to be seen as a right at about the same time that the limits of health-care resources became evident.
38 IN OECD countries population changes have had an impact on health-care costs in recent years.
39 OECD governments have consistently underestimated the level of health-care provision needed.
40 In most economically developed countries the elderly will to make special provision for their health-care in the future.

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Henry Moore (1898-1986)

October 23, 2023 Jomon P John Leave a comment

Reading passage 1

Henry Moore was born in Castleford, a small town near Leeds in the north of England. He was the seventh child of Raymond Moore and his wife Mary Baker. He studied at Castleford Grammar School from 1909 to 1915, where his early interest in art was encouraged by his teacher Alice Gostick. After leaving school, Moore hoped to become a sculptor, but instead he complied with his father’s wish that he train as a schoolteacher. He had to abandon his training in 1917 when he was sent to France to fight in the First World War.

After the war, Moore enrolled at the Leeds School of Art, where he studied for two years. In his first year, he spent most of his time drawing. Although he wanted to study sculpture, no teacher was appointed until his second year. At the end of that year, he passed the sculpture examination and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London. In September 1921, he moved to London and began three years of advanced study in sculpture.

Alongside the instruction he received at the Royal College, Moore visited many of the London museums, particularly the British Museum, which had a wide-ranging collection of ancient sculpture. During these visits, he discovered the power and beauty of ancient Egyptian and African sculpture. As he became increasingly interested in these ‘primitive’ forms of art, he turned away from European sculptural traditions.

After graduating, Moore spent the first six months of 1925 travelling in France. When he visited the Trocadero Museum in Paris, he was impressed by a cast of a Mayan”‘ sculpture of the rain spirit. It was a male reclining figure with its knees drawn up together, and its head at a right angle to its body. Moore became fascinated with this stone sculpture, which he thought had a power and originality that no other stone sculpture possessed. He himself started carving a variety of subjects in stone, including depictions of reclining women, mother-and-child groups, and masks.

Moore’s exceptional talent soon gained recognition, and in 1926 he started work as a sculpture instructor at the Royal College. In 1933, he became a member of a group of young artists called Unit One. The aim of the group was to convince the English public of the merits of the emerging international movement in modem art and architecture.

Around this time, Moore moved away from the human figure to experiment with abstract shapes. In 1931, he held an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London. His work was enthusiastically welcomed by fellow sculptors, but the reviews in the press were extremely negative and turned Moore into a notorious figure. There were calls for his resignation from the Royal College, and the following year, when his contract expired, he left to start a sculpture department at the Chelsea School of Art in London.

Throughout the 1930s, Moore did not show any inclination to please the British public. He became interested in the paintings of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, whose work inspired him to distort the human body in a radical way. At times, he seemed to abandon the human figure altogether. The pages of his sketchbooks from this period show his ideas for abstract sculptures that bore little resemblance to the human form.

In 1940, during the Second World War, Moore stopped teaching at the Chelsea School and moved to a farmhouse about 20 miles north of London. A shortage of materials forced him to focus on drawing. He did numerous small sketches of Londoners, later turning these ideas into large coloured drawings in his studio. Tn 1942, he returned to Castleford to make a series of sketches of the miners who worked there.

In 1944, Harlow, a town near London, offered Moore a commission for a sculpture depicting a family. The resulting work signifies a dramatic change in Moore’s style, away from the experimentation of the 1930s towards a more natural and humanistic subject matter. He did dozens of studies in clay for the sculpture, and these were cast in bronze and issued in editions of seven to nine copies each. In this way, Moore’s work became available to collectors all over the world. The boost to his income enabled him to take on ambitious projects and start working on the scale he felt his sculpture demanded.

Critics who had begun to think that Moore had become less revolutionary were proven wrong by the appearance, in 1950, of the first of Moore’s series of standing figures in bronze, with their harsh and angular pierced forms and distinct impression of menace. Moore also varied his subject matter in the 1950s with such works as Warrior with Shield and Falling Warrior. These were rare examples of Moore’s use of the male figure and owe something to his visit to Greece in 1951, when he had the opportunity to study ancient works of art.

In his final years, Moore created the Henry Moore Foundation to promote art appreciation and to display his work. Moore was the first modern English sculptor to achieve international critical acclaim and he is still regarded as one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century.

Questions 1-7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-7, write

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

On leaving school, Moore did what his father wanted him to do.
Moore began studying sculpture in his first term at the Leeds School of Art.
When Moore started at the Royal College of Art, its reputation for teaching sculpture was excellent.
Moore became aware of ancient sculpture as a result of visiting London museums.
The Trocadero Museum’s Mayan sculpture attracted a lot of public interest.
Moore thought the Mayan sculpture was similar in certain respects to other stone sculptures.
The artists who belonged to Unit One wanted to make modern art and architecture more popular.”

Questions 8-13
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Moore’s career as an artist

1930s

Moore’s exhibition at the Leicester Galleries is criticised by the press
Moore is urged to offer his (8)……………………… and leave the Royal College

1940s

Moore turns to drawing because (9)…………………….. for sculpting are not readily available
While visiting his hometown, Moore does some drawings of (10)………………
Moore is employed to produce a sculpture of a (11) ………………
(12)…………………….. start to buy Moore’s work
Moore’s increased (13)…………………….. makes it possible for him to do more ambitious sculptures

1950s

• Moore’s series of bronze figures marks a further change in his style.

Reading passage 2.

The Desolenator: producing clean water

A Travelling around Thailand in the 1990s, William Janssen was impressed with the basic rooftop solar heating systems that were on many homes, where energy from the sun was absorbed by a plate and then used to heat water for domestic use. Two decades later Janssen developed that basic idea he saw in Southeast Asia into a portable device that uses the power from the sun to purify water.

B The Desolenator operates as a mobile desalination unit that can take water from different places, such as the sea, rivers, boreholes and rain, and purify it for human consumption. It is particularly valuable in regions where natural groundwater reserves have been polluted, or where seawater is the only water source available. Janssen saw that there was a need for a sustainable way to clean water in both the developing and the developed countries when he moved to the United Arab Emirates and saw large-scale water processing. ‘1 was confronted with the enormous carbon footprint that the Gulf nations have because of all of the desalination that they do,’ he says.

C The Desolenator can produce 15 litres of drinking water per day, enough to sustain a family for cooking and drinking. Its main selling point is that unlike standard desalination techniques, it doesn’t require a generated power supply: just sunlight. It measures 120 cm by 90 cm, and is easy to transport, thanks to its two wheels. Water enters through a pipe, and flows as a thin film between a sheet of double glazing and the surface of a solar panel, where it is heated by the sun.

The warm water flows into a small boiler (heated by a solar-powered battery) where it is converted to steam. When the steam cools, it becomes distilled water. The device has a very simple filter to trap particles, and this can easily be shaken to remove them. There are two tubes for liquid coming out: one for the waste – salt from seawater, fluoride, etc. – and another for the distilled water. The performance of the unit is shown on an LCD screen and transmitted to the company which provides servicing when necessary.

D A recent analysis found that at least two-thirds of the world’s population lives with severe water scarcity for at least a month every year. Janssen says that by 2030 half of the world’s population will be living with water stress – where the demand exceeds the supply over a certain period of time. ‘It is really important that a sustainable solution is brought to the market that is able to help these people,’ he says. Many countries ‘don’t have the money for desalination plants, which are very expensive to build. They don’t have the money to operate them, they are very maintenance intensive, and they don’t have the money to buy the diesel to run the desalination plants, so it is a really bad situation.’

E The device is aimed at a wide variety of users – from homeowners in the developing world who do not have a constant supply of water to people living off the grid in rural parts of the US. The first commercial versions of the Desolenator are expected to be in operation in India early next year, after field tests are carried out. The market for the self-sufficient devices in developing countries is twofold – those who cannot afford the money for the device outright and pay through microfinance, and middle- income homes that can lease their own equipment. ‘People in India don’t pay for a fridge outright; they pay for it over six months. They would put the Desolenator on their roof and hook it up to their municipal supply and they would get very reliable drinking water on a daily basis,’ Janssen says. In the developed world, it is aimed at niche markets where tap water is unavailable – for camping, on boats, or for the military, for instance.

F Prices will vary according to where it is bought. In the developing world, the price will depend on what deal aid organisations can negotiate. In developed countries, it is likely to come in at $1,000 (£685) a unit, said Janssen. ‘We are a venture with a social mission. We are aware that the product we have envisioned is mainly finding application in the developing world and humanitarian sector and that this is the way we will proceed. We do realise, though, that to be a viable company there is a bottom line to keep in mind,’ he says.

G The company itself is based at Imperial College London, although Janssen, its chief executive, still lives in the UAE. It has raised £340,000 in funding so far. Within two years, he says, the company aims to be selling 1,000 units a month, mainly in the humanitarian field. They are expected to be sold in areas such as Australia, northern Chile, Peru, Texas and California.

Questions 14-20

Reading Passage 2 has seven sections, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 14-20.

List of Headings

i Getting the finance for production
ii An unexpected benefit
iii From initial inspiration to new product
iv The range of potential customers for the device
v What makes the device different from alternatives
vi Cleaning water from a range of sources
vii Overcoming production difficulties
viii Profit not the primary goal
ix A warm welcome for the device
x The number of people affected by water shortages

14. Section A

15. Section B

16. Section C

17. Section D

18. Section E

19. Section F

20. Section G

Questions 21-26

Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

How the Desolenator works

The energy required to operate the Desolenator comes from sunlight. The device can be used in different locations, as it has (21) …………………. Water is fed into a pipe, and a (22) …………………. of water flows over a solar panel. The water then enters a boiler, where it turns into steam. Any particles in the water are caught in a (23) …………………. The purified water comes out through one tube, and all types of (24) ………………… come out through another. A screen displays the (25) …………………. of the device, and transmits the information to the company so that they know when the Desolenator requires (26) …………………

Reading passage 3

Why fairy tales are really scary tales

People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. In the story of Little Red Riding Hood that European children are familiar with, a young girl on the way to see her grandmother meets a wolf and tells him where she is going. The wolf runs on ahead and disposes of the grandmother, then gets into bed dressed in the grandmother’s clothes to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. You may think you know the story – but which version? In some versions, the wolf swallows up the grandmother, while in others it locks her in a cupboard. In some stories Red Riding Hood gets the better of the wolf on her own, while in others a hunter or a woodcutter hears her cries and comes to her rescue.

The universal appeal of these tales is frequently attributed to the idea that they contain cautionary messages: in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother, and avoid talking to strangers. ‘It might be what we find interesting about this story is that it’s got this survival-relevant information in it,’ says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise. ‘We have this huge gap in our knowledge about the history and prehistory of storytelling, despite the fact that we know this genre is an incredibly ancient one,’ he says. That hasn’t stopped anthropologists, folklorists* and other academics devising theories to explain the importance of fairy tales in human society. Now Tehrani has found a way to test these ideas, borrowing a technique from evolutionary biologists. To work out the evolutionary history, development and relationships among groups of organisms, biologists compare the characteristics of living species in a process called ‘phylogenetic analysis’. Tehrani has used the same approach to compare related versions of fairy tales to discover how they have evolved and which elements have survived longest.

Tehrani’s analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many forms, which include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Checking for variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia and other regions, he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions. Once his phylogenetic analysis had established that they were indeed related, he used the same methods to explore how they have developed and altered over time.

First he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story alter least as it evolves, indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that what happens in a story is more central to the story than the characters in it – that visiting a relative, only to be met by a scary animal in disguise, is ‘Folklorists: those who study traditional stories more fundamental than whether the visitor is a little girl or three siblings, or the animal is a tiger instead of a wolf.

However, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of incidents compared with that of characters. ‘Certain episodes are very stable because they are crucial to the story, but there are lots of other details that can evolve quite freely,’ he says. Neither did his analysis support the theory that the central section of a story is the most conserved part. He found no significant difference in the flexibility of events there compared with the beginning or the end.

But the really big surprise came when he looked at the cautionary elements of the story. ‘Studies on hunter-gatherer folk tales suggest that these narratives include really important information about the environment and the possible dangers that may be faced there – stuff that’s relevant to survival,’ he says. Yet in his analysis such elements were just as flexible as seemingly trivial details. What, then, is important enough to be reproduced from generation to generation?

The answer, it would appear, is fear – blood-thirsty and gruesome aspects of the story, such as the eating of the grandmother by the wolf, turned out to be the best preserved of all. Why are these details retained by generations of storytellers, when other features are not? Tehrani has an idea: ‘In an oral context, a story won’t survive because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when it’s told by someone who’s not necessarily a great storyteller.’ Maybe being swallowed whole by a wolf, then cut out of its stomach alive is so gripping that it helps the story remain popular, no matter how badly it’s told.

Jack Zipes at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, is unconvinced by Tehrani’s views on fairy tales. ‘Even if they’re gruesome, they won’t stick unless they matter,’ he says. He believes the perennial theme of women as victims in stories like Little Red Riding Hood explains why they continue to feel relevant. But Tehrani points out that although this is often the case in Western versions, it is not always true elsewhere. In Chinese and Japanese versions, often known as The Tiger Grandmother, the villain is a woman, and in both Iran and Nigeria, the victim is a boy.

Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University in Denmark isn’t surprised by Tehrani’s findings. ‘Habits and morals change, but the things that scare us, and the fact that we seek out entertainment that’s designed to scare us – those are constant,’ he says. Clasen believes that scary stories teach us what it feels like to be afraid without having to experience real danger, and so build up resistance to negative emotions.

Questions 27-31

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below. Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 27-31.

27. In fairy tales, details of the plot
28. Tehrani rejects the idea that the useful lessons for life in fairy tales
29. Various theories about the social significance of fairy tales
30. Insights into the development of fairy tales
31. All the fairy tales analysed by Tehrani

A may be provided through methods used in biological research.

B are the reason for their survival.

C show considerable global variation.

D contain animals which transform to become humans.

E were originally spoken rather than written.

F have been developed without factual basis.

Questions 32-36

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-l, below. Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 32- 36.

Phylogenetic analysis of Little Red Riding Hood

Tehrani used techniques from evolutionary biology to find out if (32) ……………….existed among 58 stories from around the world. He also wanted to know which aspects of the stories had fewest (33)………………., as he believed these aspects would be the most important ones. Contrary to other beliefs, he found that some (34)………………. that were included in a story tended to change over time, and that the middle of a story seemed no more important than the other parts. He was also surprised that parts of a story which seemed to provide some sort of (35)………………. were unimportant. The aspect that he found most important in a story’s survival was (36) ……………….

A ending

B events

C warning

D links

E records

F variations

G horror

H people I plot

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

37. What method did Jamie Tehrani use to test his ideas about fairy tales?
A He compared oral and written forms of the same stories.

B He looked at many different forms of the same basic story.

C He looked at unrelated stories from many different countries.

D He contrasted the development of fairy tales with that of living creatures.

38. When discussing Tehrani’s views, Jack Zipes suggests that

A Tehrani ignores key changes in the role of women.

B stories which are too horrific are not always taken seriously.

C Tehrani overemphasises the importance of violence in stories.

D features of stories only survive if they have a deeper significance.

39. Why does Tehrani refer to Chinese and Japanese fairy tales?

A to indicate that Jack Zipes’ theory is incorrect

B to suggest that crime is a global problem

C to imply that all fairy tales have a similar meaning

D to add more evidence for Jack Zipes’ ideas

40. What does Mathias Clasen believe about fairy tales?

A They are a safe way of learning to deal with fear.

B They are a type of entertainment that some people avoid.

C They reflect the changing values of our society.

D They reduce our ability to deal with real-world problems.

How did it go? Please share your feedback in the comment section below:
Do you need a copy of this test? Download PDF

Show answer
Henry Moore

1. TRUE

2. FALSE

3. NOT GIVEN

4. TRUE

5. NOT GIVEN

6. FALSE

7. TRUE

8. resignation

9. materials

10. miners

11. family

12. collectors

13. income

14. Section A – iii

15. Section B – vi

16. Section C – v

17. Section D – x

18. Section E – iv

19. Section F – viii

20. Section G – i

21. wheels

22. film

23. filter

24. waste

25. performance

26. servicing

27. C

28. B

29. F

30. A

31. E

32. links

33. variations

34. events

35. warning

36. horror

37. B

38. D

39. A

40. A

GLACIERS IELTS READING

October 23, 2023 Jomon P John 1 Comment

Reading passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-15, which are based on Passage 1 below.

Questions 1-5. Reading Passage 1 has five paragraphs, A-E. Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (I-VIII) on your Answer Sheet. There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all.

Paragraph	List of headings:
1.Paragraph A 2.Paragraph B 3.Paragraph C 4.Paragraph D 5.Paragraph E	I Glacial Continents II Formation and Growth of Glaciers III Glacial Movement IV Glaciers in the Last Ice Age V Glaciers Through the Years VI Types of Glaciers VII Glacial Effects on Landscapes VIII Glaciers in National Parks”

Glaciers

A. Besides the earth’s oceans, glacier ice is the largest source of water on earth. A glacier is a massive stream or sheet of ice that moves underneath itself under the influence of gravity. Some glaciers travel down mountains or valleys, while others spread across a large expanse of land. Heavily glaciated regions such as Greenland and Antarctica are called continental glaciers. These two ice sheets encompass more than 95 percent of the Earth’s glacial ice. The Greenland ice sheet is almost 10,000 feet thick in some areas, and the weight of this glacier is so heavy that much of the region has been depressed below sea level. Smaller glaciers that occur at higher elevations are called alpine or valley glaciers. Another way of classifying glaciers is in terms of their internal temperature. In temperate glaciers, the ice within the glacier is near its melting point. Polar glaciers, in contrast, always maintain temperatures far below melting.”

В The majority of the earth’s glaciers are located near the poles, though glaciers exist on all continents, including Africa and Oceania. The reason glaciers are generally formed in high alpine regions is that they require cold temperatures throughout the year. In these areas where there is little opportunity for summer ablation (loss of mass), snow changes to compacted form and then crystallised ice. During periods in which melting and evaporation exceed the amount of snowfall, glaciers will retreat rather than progress. While glaciers rely heavily on snowfall, other climactic conditions including freezing rain, avalanches, and wind, contribute to their growth. One year of below average precipitation can stunt the growth of a glacier tremendously. With the rare exception of surging glaciers, a common glacier flows about 10 inches per day in the summer and 5 inches per day in the winter. The fastest glacial surge on record occurred in 1953, when the Kutiah Glacier in Pakistan grew more than 12 kilometres in three months.

C The weight and pressure of ice accumulation causes glacier movement. Glaciers move out from under themselves, via plastic deformation and basal slippage. First, the internal flow of ice crystals begins to spread outward and downward from the thickened snow pack also known as the zone of accumulation. Next, the ice along the ground surface begins to slip in the same direction. Seasonal thawing at the base of the glacier helps to facilitate this slippage. The middle of a glacier moves faster than the sides and bottom because there is no rock to cause friction. The upper part of a glacier rides on the ice below. As a glacier moves it carves out a U- shaped valley similar to a riverbed, but with much steeper walls and a flatter bottom.

D Besides the extraordinary rivers of ice, glacial erosion creates other unique physical features in the landscape such as horns, fjords, hanging valleys, and cirques. Most of these land-forms do not become visible until after a glacier has receded. Many are created by moraines, which occur at the sides and front of a glacier. Moraines are formed when material is picked up along the way and deposited in a new location. When many alpine glaciers occur on the same mountain, these moraines can create a horn. The Matterhorn, in the Swiss Alps is one of the most famous horns. Fjords, which are very common in Norway, are coastal valleys that fill with ocean water during a glacial retreat. Hanging valleys occur when two or more glacial valleys intersect at varying elevations. It is common for waterfalls to connect the higher and lower hanging valleys, such as in Yosemite National Park. A cirque is a large bowl-shaped valley that forms at the front of a glacier. Cirques often have a lip on their down slope that is deep enough to hold small lakes when the ice melts away.

E Glacier movement and shape shifting typically occur over hundreds of years. While presently about 10 percent of the earth’s land is covered with glaciers, it is believed that during the last Ice Age glaciers covered approximately 32 percent of the earth’s surface. In the past century, most glaciers have been retreating rather than flowing forward. It is unknown whether this glacial activity is due to human impact or natural causes, but by studying glacier movement, and comparing climate and agricultural profiles over hundreds of years, glaciologists can begin to understand environmental issues such as global warming.”

Questions 6-10. Do the following statements agree with the information in Passage 1? In boxes 6-10 on your Answer Sheet write
TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage.
FALSE if the statement contradicts the passage.
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage.

6.Glaciers exist only near the north and south poles.

7.Glaciers are formed by a combination of snow and other weather conditions.

8.Glaciers normally move at a rate of about 5 to 10 inches a day.

9.All parts of the glacier move at the same speed

10.During the last Ice Age, average temperatures were much lower than they are now

Questions 11-15. Match each definition below with the term it defines.
Write the letter of the term, A-H, on your Answer Sheet. There are more terms than definitions, so you will not use them all.”

Definition	Term
11. a glacier formed on a mountain 12. a glacier with temperatures well below freezing 13. a glacier that moves very quickly 14. a glacial valley formed near the ocean 15. a glacial valley that looks like a bowl	A fjord B alpine glacier C horn D polar glacier E temperate glacier F hanging valley G cirque H surging glacier

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 16-28, which are based on Passage 2 below.

Irish Potato Famine

A. In the ten years following the Irish potato famine of 1845, over 750,000 Irish people died, including many of those who attempted to immigrate to countries such as the United States and Canada. Prior to the potato blight, one of the main concerns in Ireland was overpopulation. In the early 1500s, the country’s population was estimated at less than three million, but by 1840 this number had nearly tripled. The bountiful potato crop, which contains almost all of the nutrients that a person needs for survival, was largely to blame for the population growth. However, within five years of the failed crop of 1845, the population of Ireland was reduced by a quarter. A number of factors contributed to the plummet of the Irish population, namely the Irish dependency on the potato crop, the British tenure system, and the inadequate relief efforts of the English.

В. It is not known exactly how or when the potato was first introduced to Europe, however, the general assumption is that it arrived on a Spanish ship sometime in the 1600s. For more than one hundred years, Europeans believed that potatoes belonged to a botanical family of a poisonous breed. It was not until Marie Antoinette wore potato blossoms in her hair in the mid- eighteenth century that potatoes became a novelty. By the late 1700s, the dietary value of the potato had been discovered, and the monarchs of Europe ordered the vegetable to be widely planted.

C. By 1800, the vast majority of the Irish population had become dependent on the potato as its primary staple. It wasn’t uncommon for an Irish potato farmer to consume more than six pounds of potatoes a day. Families stored potatoes for the winter and even fed potatoes to their livestock. Because of this dependency, the unexpected potato blight of 1845 devastated the Irish. Investigators at first suggested that the blight was caused by static energy, smoke from railroad trains, or vapours from underground volcanoes; however, the root cause was later discovered as an airborne fungus that travelled from Mexico. Not only did the disease destroy the potato crops, it also infected all of the potatoes in storage at the time. Their families were dying from famine, but weakened farmers had retained little of their agricultural skills to harvest other crops. Those who did manage to grow things such as oats, wheat, and barley relied on earnings from these exported crops to keep their rented homes.

D. While the potato blight generated mass starvation among the Irish, the people were held captive to their poverty by the British tenure system. Following the Napoleonic Wars of 1815, the English had turned their focus to their colonial land holdings. British landowners realised that the best way to profit from these holdings was to extract the resources and exports and charge expensive rents and taxes for people to live on the land. Under the tenure system, Protestant landlords owned 95 percent of the Irish land, which was divided up into five-acre plots for the people to live and farm on. As the population of Ireland grew, however, the plots were continuously subdivided into smaller parcels. Living conditions declined dramatically, and families were forced to move to less fertile land where almost nothing but the potato would grow.

E. During this same period of colonisation. The Penal Laws were also instituted as a means of weakening the Irish spirit. Under the Penal Laws, Irish peasants were denied basic human rights, such as the right to speak their own native language, seek certain kinds of employment, practice their faith, receive education, and own land. Despite the famine that was devastating Ireland, the landlords had little compassion or sympathy for tenants unable to pay their rent. Approximately 500,000 Irish tenants were evicted by their landlords between 1845 and 1847. Many of these people also had their homes burned down and were put in jail for overdue rent.

F. The majority of the British officials in the 1840s adopted the laissez-faire philosophy, which supported a policy of non-intervention in the Irish plight. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel was an exception. He showed compassion toward the Irish by making a move to repeal the Corn Laws, which had been put in place to protect British grain producers from the competition of foreign markets. For this hasty decision, Peel quickly lost the support of the British people and was forced to resign. The new Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, allowed assistant Charles Trevelyan to take complete control over all of the relief efforts in Ireland. Trevelyan believed that the Irish situation should be left to Providence. Claiming that it would be dangerous to let the Irish become dependent on other countries, he even took steps to close food depots that were selling corn and to redirect shipments of corn that were already on their way to Ireland. A few relief programs were eventually implemented, such as soup kitchens and workhouses; however, these were poorly run institutions that facilitated the spread of disease, tore apart
families, and offered inadequate food supplies considering the extent of Ireland’s shortages.

G. Many of the effects of the Irish potato famine are still evident today. Descendants of those who fled Ireland during the 1840s are dispersed all over the world. Some of the homes that were evacuated by absentee landlords still sit abandoned in the Irish hills. A number of Irish descendants still carry animosity toward the British for not putting people before politics. The potato blight itself still plagues the Irish people during certain growing seasons when weather conditions are favourable for the fungus to thrive.

The passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter in boxes 16-20 on your Answer Sheet

the position of the British government towards the potato famine
a description of the system of land ownership in Ireland
early European attitudes toward the potato
explanation of the lack of legal protection for Irish peasants
the importance of the potato in Irish society

Questions 21-28. Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-L from the box at the top of the next page. Write the correct letter in boxes 21-28 on your Answer Sheet. There are more endings than sentences, so you won’t use them all.

Sentence Beginnings
At first Europeans didn’t eat potatoes
European monarchs encouraged potato growing
The potato blight was devastating to the Irish
Farmers who grew oats, wheat, and barley didn’t eat these crops
Many Irish farmers lived on infertile plots
Many Irish farmers were arrested
Sir Robert Peel lost his position as prime minister
Soup kitchens and workhouses didn’t relieve the suffering

Sentence Endings

A because they couldn’t pay the rent on their farms. В because railroad trains caused air pollution.
C because potatoes were their main source of food.
D because Charles Trevelyan took over relief efforts.
E because they needed the profits to pay the rent.
F because they weren’t well-managed.
G because there wasn’t enough land for the increasing population.
H because his efforts to help the Irish were unpopular among the British. I because they believed that potatoes were poisonous.
J because the British instituted penal laws.
К because it was discovered that potatoes are full of nutrients.
L because Marie Antoinette used potato blossoms as decoration

Reading Passage 3

Anaesthesiology

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40, based on Reading Passage 3.

Since the beginning of time, man has sought natural remedies for pain. Between 40 and 60 A.D., Greek physician, Dioscorides travelled 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 anaesthesiology , 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 mandrake plant) was one of the first plants to be used as an anaesthetic. 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 mandrake from the earth would either die or go insane. This superstition may have resulted because the split root of the mandrake 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 mandrake 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 drink 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 anaesthetics 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 anaesthetic 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 vapours whenever the pain became unbearable. In 1846, during a trial experiment in Boston, a tumor was successfully removed from a man’s jaw area while he was anaesthetised with Morton’s machine.

The first use of anaesthesia in the obstetrics 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 labouring 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 anaesthetic, knowledge of its toxicity surfaced, and it was soon obsolete.

After World War II, numerous developments were made in the field of anaesthetics. 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, anaesthesiologists became specialists in suppressing consciousness and alleviating pain. Anaesthesiologists 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 anaesthesiologist is prepared to practice in the United States. These experts are trained to administer three different types of anaesthetics: general, local, and regional. General anaesthetic is used to put a patient into a temporary state of unconsciousness. Local anaesthetic is used only at the affected site and causes a loss of sensation. Regional anaesthetic is used to block the sensation and possibly the movement of a larger portion of the body. As well as controlling the levels of pain for the patient before and throughout an operation, anaesthesiologists 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 anaesthesiologists in the United States has more than doubled since the 1970s, as has the improvement and success of operative care. In addition, complications from anaesthesiology have declined dramatically. Over 40 million anaesthetics are administered in the United States each year, with only 1 in 250,000 causing death.

Questions 29-34. Do the following statements agree with the information in Passage 3? In boxes 29-34 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.

29.Dioscorides’ book, De materia medica, fell out of use after 60 A.D.

30.Mandragora was used as an anaesthetic during the Middle Ages.

31.Nitrous oxide can cause the user to both laugh and cry.

32.During the second half of the 19th century, most dentists used anaesthesia .

33.Anaesthesiologists in the United States are required to have 12 years of education andtraining.

34.There are fewer anaesthesiologists in the United States now than in the past.

Questions 35-40. Match each fact about anaesthesia with the type of anaesthetic that it refers to. There are more types of anaesthetics listed than facts, so you won’t use them all. Write the correct letter, A-H in boxes 35-40 on your Answer Sheet.”

Fact about anaesthesia	Type of anaesthetic
35. used by sprinkling on a handkerchief 36. used on only one specific part of the body 37. used by boiling with wine 38. used first during a dental procedure 39. used to stop feeling over a larger area of the body 40. used in the first anaesthetic machine”	A general anaesthetic B local anaesthetic C regional anaesthetic D chloroform E ether F nitrous oxide G opium H mandrake

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ELECTRORECEPTION IELTS READING

October 23, 2023 Jomon P John Leave a comment

Reading passage 1

A Open your eyes in sea water and it is difficult to see much more than a murky, bleary green colour. Sounds, too, are garbled and difficult to comprehend. Without specialised equipment humans would be lost in these deep sea habitats, so how do fish make it seem so easy? Much of this is due to a biological phenomenon known as electroreception – the ability to perceive and act upon electrical stimuli as part of the overall senses. This ability is only found in aquatic or amphibious species because water is an efficient conductor of electricity.

B Electroreception comes in two variants. While all animals (including humans) generate electric signals, because they are emitted by the nervous system, some animals have the ability – known as passive electroreception – to receive and decode electric signals generated by other animals in order to sense their location.

C Other creatures can go further still, however. Animals with active electroreception possess bodily organs that generate special electric signals on cue. These can be used for mating signals and territorial displays as well as locating objects in the water. Active electroreceptors can differentiate between the various resistances that their electrical currents encounter. This can help them identify whether another creature is prey, predator or something that is best left alone. Active electroreception has a range of about one body length – usually just enough to give its host time to get out of the way or go in for the kill.

D One fascinating use of active electroreception – known as the Jamming Avoidance Response mechanism – has been observed between members of some species known as the weakly electric fish. When two such electric fish meet in the ocean using the same frequency, each fish will then shift the frequency of its discharge so that they are transmitting on different frequencies. Doing so prevents their electroreception faculties from becoming jammed. Long before citizens’ band radio users first had to yell “Get off my frequency!” at hapless novices cluttering the air waves, at least one species had found a way to peacefully and quickly resolve this type of dispute.

E Electroreception can also play an important role in animal defences. Rays are one such example. Young ray embryos develop inside egg cases that are attached to the sea bed. The embryos keep their tails in constant motion so as to pump water and allow them to breathe through the egg’s casing. If the embryo’s electroreceptors detect the presence of a predatory fish in the vicinity, however, the embryo stops moving (and in so doing ceases transmitting electric currents) until the fish has moved on. Because marine life of various types is often travelling past, the embryo has evolved only to react to signals that are characteristic of the respiratory movements of potential predators such as sharks.

F Many people fear swimming in the ocean because of sharks. In some respects, this concern is well grounded – humans are poorly equipped when it comes to electroreceptive defence mechanisms. Sharks, meanwhile, hunt with extraordinary precision. They initially lock onto their prey through a keen sense of smell (two thirds of a shark’s brain is devoted entirely to its olfactory organs). As the shark reaches proximity to its prey, it tunes into electric signals that ensure a precise strike on its target; this sense is so strong that the shark even attacks blind by letting its eyes recede for protection.

G Normally, when humans are attacked it is purely by accident. Since sharks cannot detect from electroreception whether or not something will satisfy their tastes, they tend to “try before they buy”, taking one or two bites and then assessing the results (our sinewy muscle does not compare well with plumper, softer prey such as seals). Repeat attacks are highly likely once a human is bleeding, however; the force of the electric field is heightened by salt in the blood which creates the perfect setting for a feeding frenzy. In areas where shark attacks on humans are likely to occur, scientists are exploring ways to create artificial electroreceptors that would disorient the sharks and repel them from swimming beaches.

H There is much that we do not yet know concerning how electroreception functions. Although researchers have documented how electroreception alters hunting, defence and communication systems through observation, the exact neurological processes that encode and decode this information are unclear. Scientists are also exploring the role electroreception plays in navigation. Some have proposed that salt water and magnetic fields from the Earth’s core may interact to form electrical currents that sharks use for migratory purposes.

Questions 1–6. Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A–H. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet.

how electroreception can be used to help fish reproduce
a possible use for electroreception that will benefit humans
the term for the capacity which enables an animal to pick up but not send out electrical signals
why only creatures that live in or near water have electroreceptive abilities
how electroreception might help creatures find their way over long distances
a description of how some fish can avoid disrupting each other’s electric signals

Questions 7–9. Label the diagram. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7–9 on your answer sheet. Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Shark’s 7…………………… alert the young ray to its presence

Embryo moves its 8…………………… in order to breath

Embryo stops sending 9…………………… when predator close by

Questions 10–13. Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE words from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 10–13 on your answer sheet.

Shark Attack

A shark is a very effective hunter. Firstly, it uses its 10…………………… to smell its target. When the shark gets close, it uses 11…………………… to guide it toward an accurate attack. Within the final few feet the shark rolls its eyes back into its head. Humans are not popular food sources for most sharks due to their 12 ………………… Nevertheless, once a shark has bitten a human, a repeat attack is highly possible as salt from the blood increases the intensity of the 13 …………………

Reading passage 2

FAIR GAMES?

For seventeen days every four years the world is briefly arrested by the captivating, dizzying spectacle of athleticism, ambition, pride and celebration on display at the Summer Olympic Games. After the last weary spectators and competitors have returned home, however, host cities are often left awash in high debts and costly infrastructure maintenance. The staggering expenses involved in a successful Olympic bid are often assumed to be easily mitigated by tourist revenues and an increase in local employment, but more often than not host cities are short changed and their taxpayers for generations to come are left settling the debt.”

“Olympic extravagances begin with the application process. Bidding alone will set most cities back about $20 million, and while officially bidding only takes two years (for cities that make the shortlist), most cities can expect to exhaust a decade working on their bid from the moment it is initiated to the announcement of voting results from International Olympic Committee members. Aside from the financial costs of the bid alone, the process ties up real estate in prized urban locations until the outcome is known. This can cost local economies millions of dollars of lost revenue from private developers who could have made use of the land, and can also mean that particular urban quarters lose their vitality due to the vacant lots. All of this can be for nothing if a bidding city does not appease the whims of IOC members – private connections and opinions on government conduct often hold sway (Chicago’s 2012 bid is thought to have been undercut by tensions over U.S. foreign policy).

Bidding costs do not compare, however, to the exorbitant bills that come with hosting the Olympic Games themselves. As is typical with large-scale, one-off projects, budgeting for the Olympics is a notoriously formidable task. Los Angelinos have only recently finished paying off their budget-breaking 1984 Olympics; Montreal is still in debt for its 1976 Games (to add insult to injury, Canada is the only host country to have failed to win a single gold medal during its own Olympics). The tradition of runaway expenses has persisted in recentyears. London Olympics managers have admitted that their 2012 costs may increase ten times over their initial projections, leaving tax payers 20 billion pounds in the red.

Hosting the Olympics is often understood to be an excellent way to update a city’s sporting infrastructure. The extensive demands of Olympic sports include aquatic complexes, equestrian circuits, shooting ranges, beach volleyball courts, and, of course, an 80,000 seat athletic stadium. Yet these demands are typically only necessary to accommodate a brief influx of athletes from around the world. Despite the enthusiasm many populations initially have for the development of world-class sporting complexes in their home towns, these complexes typically fall into disuse after the Olympic fervour has waned. Even Australia, home to one of the world’s most sportive populations, has left its taxpayers footing a $32 million-a-year bill for the maintenance of vacant facilities.

Another major concern is that when civic infrastructure developments are undertaken in preparation for hosting the Olympics, these benefits accrue to a single metropolitan centre (with the exception of some outlying areas that may get some revamped sports facilities). In countries with an expansive land mass, this means vast swathes of the population miss out entirely. Furthermore, since the International Olympic Committee favours prosperous “global” centres (the United Kingdom was told, after three failed bids from its provincial cities, that only London stood any real chance at winning), the improvement of public transport, roads and communication links tends to concentrate in places already well- equipped with world-class infrastructures. Perpetually by-passing minor cities creates a cycle of disenfranchisement: these cities never get an injection of capital, they fail to become first-rate candidates, and they are constantly passed over in favour of more secure choices.

Finally, there is no guarantee that an Olympics will be a popular success. The “feel good” factor that most proponents of Olympic bids extol (and that was no doubt driving the 90 to 100 per cent approval rates of Parisians and Londoners for their cities’ respective 2012 bids) can be an elusive phenomenon, and one that is tied to that nation’s standing on the medal tables. This ephemeral thrill cannot compare to the years of disruptive construction projects and security fears that go into preparing for an Olympic Games, nor the decades of debt repayment that follow (Greece’s preparation for Athens 2004 famously deterred tourists from visiting the country due to widespread unease about congestion and disruption).

There are feasible alternatives to the bloat, extravagance and wasteful spending that comes with a modern Olympic Games. One option is to designate a permanent host city that would be re-designed or built from scratch especially for the task. Another is to extend the duration of the Olympics so that it becomes a festival of several months. Local businesses would enjoy the extra spending and congestion would ease substantially as competitors and spectators come and go according to their specific interests. Neither the “Olympic City” nor the extended length options really get to the heart of the issue, however. Stripping away ritual and decorum in favour of concentrating on athletic rivalry would be preferable.

Failing that, the Olympics could simply be scrapped altogether. International competition could still be maintained through world championships in each discipline. Most of these events are already held on non- Olympic years anyway – the International Association of Athletics Federations, for example, has run a biennial World Athletics Championship since 1983 after members decided that using the Olympics for their championship was no longer sufficient. Events of this nature keep world-class competition alive without requiring Olympic-sized expenses.

Questions 14–18. Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–K, below. Write the correct letter, A–K, in boxes 14–18 on your answer sheet.

Bids to become a host city
Personal relationships and politicaltensions
Cost estimates for the Olympic Games
Purpose-built sporting venues
Urban developments associated with the Olympics
A. often help smaller cities to develop basic infrastructure.
B. tend to occur in areas where they are least needed.
C. require profitable companies to be put out of business.
D. are often never used again once the Games are over.
E. can take up to ten years to complete.
F. also satisfy needs of local citizens for first-rate sports facilities.
G. is usually only successful when it is from a capital city.
H. are closely related to how people feel emotionally about the Olympics.
I. are known for being very inaccurate.
J. often underlie the decisions of International Olympic Committee members.
K. are holding back efforts to reform the Olympics.

Questions 19–25. Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 19–25 on your answer sheet, write
True – if the statement agrees with the information
False – if the statement contradicts the information
Not Given – if there is no information on this
Residents of host cities have little use for the full range of Olympic facilities.
Australians have still not paid for the construction of Olympic sports facilities.
People far beyond the host city can expect to benefit from improved infrastructure.
It is difficult for small cities to win an Olympic bid.
When a city makes an Olympic bid, a majority of its citizens usually want it to win.
Whether or not people enjoy hosting the Olympics in their city depends on how athletes from their country perform in Olympic events.
Fewer people than normal visited Greece during the run up to the Athens Olympics.

Questions 26 and 27. Choose TWO letters, A–E. Write the correct letters in boxes 26 and 27 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following does the author propose as alternatives to the current Olympics?

A. The Olympics should be cancelled in favour of individual competitions for eachsport.
B. The Olympics should focus on ceremony rather thancompetition.
C. The Olympics should be held in the same city every time.
D. The Olympics should be held over a month rather than seventeendays.
E. The Olympics should be made smaller by getting rid of unnecessary and unpopular sports.

Reading passage 3

TIME TRAVEL

Time travel took a small step away from science fiction and toward science recently when physicists discovered that sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos – progeny of the sun’s radioactive debris – can exceed the speed of light. The unassuming particle – it is electrically neutral, small but with a “non-zero mass” and able to penetrate the human form undetected – is on its way to becoming a rock star of the scientific world.

Researchers from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva sent the neutrinos hurtling through an underground corridor toward their colleagues at the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracing Apparatus (OPERA) team 730 kilometres away in Gran Sasso, Italy. The neutrinos arrived promptly – so promptly, in fact, that they triggered what scientists are calling the unthinkable – that everything they have learnt, known or taught stemming from the last one hundred years of the physics discipline may need to be reconsidered.

The issue at stake is a tiny segment of time – precisely sixty nanoseconds (which is sixty billionths of a second). This is how much faster than the speed of light the neutrinos managed to go in their underground travels and at a consistent rate (15,000 neutrinos were sent over three years). Even allowing for a margin of error of ten billionths of a second, this stands as proof that it is possible to race against light and win. The duration of the experiment also accounted for and ruled out any possible lunar effects or tidal bulges in the earth’s crust.

Nevertheless, there’s plenty of reason to remain sceptical. According to Harvard University science historian Peter Galison, Einstein’s relativity theory has been “pushed harder than any theory in the history of the physical sciences”. Yet each prior challenge has come to no avail, and relativity has so far refused to buckle.”

“So is time travel just around the corner? The prospect has certainly been wrenched much closer to the realm of possibility now that a major physical hurdle – the speed of light – has been cleared. If particles can travel faster than light, in theory travelling back in time is possible. How anyone harnesses that to some kind of helpful end is far beyond the scope of any modern technologies, however, and will be left to future generations to explore.

Certainly, any prospective time travellers may have to overcome more physical and logical hurdles than merely overtaking the speed of light. One such problem, posited by René Barjavel in his 1943 text Le Voyageur Imprudent is the so-called grandfather paradox. Barjavel theorised that, if it were possible to go back in time, a time traveller could potentially kill his own grandfather. If this were to happen, however, the time traveller himself would not be born, which is already known to be true. In other words, there is a paradox in circumventing an already known future; time travel is able to facilitate past actions that mean time travel itself cannot occur.

Other possible routes have been offered, though. For Igor Novikov, astrophysicist behind the 1980s’ theorem known as the self-consistency principle, time travel is possible within certain boundaries. Novikov argued that any event causing a paradox would have zero probability. It would be possible, however, to “affect” rather than “change” historical outcomes if travellers avoided all inconsistencies. Averting the sinking of the Titanic, for example, would revoke any future imperative to stop it from sinking – it would be impossible. Saving selected passengers from the water and replacing them with realistic corpses would not be
impossible, however, as the historical record would not be altered in any way.

A further possibility is that of parallel universes. Popularised by Bryce Seligman DeWitt in the 1960s (from the seminal formulation of Hugh Everett), the many-worlds interpretation holds that an alternative pathway for every conceivable occurrence actually exists. If we were to send someone back in time, we might therefore expect never to see him again – any alterations would divert that person down a new historical trajectory.

A final hypothesis, one of unidentified provenance, reroutes itself quite efficiently around the grandfather paradox. Non-existence theory suggests exactly that – a person would quite simply never exist if they altered their ancestry in ways that obstructed their own birth. They would still exist in person upon returning to the present, but any chain reactions associated with their actions would not be registered. Their “historical identity” would be gone.

So, will humans one day step across the same boundary that the neutrinos have? World- renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes that once spaceships can exceed the speed of light, humans could feasibly travel millions of years into the future in order to repopulate earth in the event of a forthcoming apocalypse. This is because, as the spaceships accelerate into the future, time would slow down around them (Hawking concedes that bygone eras are off limits – this would violate the fundamental rule that cause comes before effect).

Hawking is therefore reserved yet optimistic. “Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. These days I’m not so cautious.”

“Questions 28–33. Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 28–33 on your answer sheet, write

True – if the statement agrees with the information
False – if the statement contradicts the information
Not Given – if there is no information on this

It is unclear where neutrinos come from.
Neutrinos can pass through a person’s body without causingharm.
It took scientists between 50-70 nanoseconds to send the neutrinos from Geneva to Italy.
Researchers accounted for effects the moon might have had on the experiment.
The theory of relativity has often been called into question unsuccessfully.
This experiment could soon lead to some practical uses for time travel”
“Questions 34–39. Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 34–39 on your answer sheet.

Original	Theory	Principle
René Barjavel	Grandfather paradox	Time travel would allow for 34………… that would actually make time travel impossible.
Igor Novikov	Self- consistency principle	It is only possible to alter history in ways that result in no 35………………… .
36………………	Many-worlds interpretation	Each possible event has an 37………………, so a time traveller changing the past would simply end up
Unknown	38………………	If a time traveller changed the past to prevent his future life, he would not have a 39 ………………… as the person

Question 40. Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet. Stephen Hawking has stated that

A.Human time travel is theoretically possible, but is unlikely to ever actually occur.

B.Human time travel might be possible, but only moving backward in time.

C.Human time travel might be possible, but only moving forward in time.

D.All time travel is impossible.

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