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CONTENT
The Impact of the Potato ...................................................................................... 4
Ancient Chinese Chariots ..................................................................................... 9
Stealth Forces in weight Loss............................................................................. 15
Andrea Palladio: Italian architect ....................................................................... 21
Corporate Social Responsibility ......................................................................... 25
The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education ....................................... 31
Voyage of Going: beyond the blue line 2 .......................................................... 37
Does IQ Test Prove Creativity?.......................................................................... 43
Monkeys and Forests .......................................................................................... 49
T-Rex: Hunter or Scavenger? ............................................................................. 54
Leaf-Cutting Ants and Fungus ........................................................................... 58
Honey Bees in Trouble ....................................................................................... 63
Ants Could Teach Ants ...................................................................................... 69
The Development of Plastics.............................................................................. 74
Global Warming in New Zealand ...................................................................... 79
Computer Games for Preschoolers: Nintendos Research and Design Process 85
The History of Pencil ......................................................................................... 91
Motivating Drives............................................................................................... 95

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TEST 1
The Impact of the Potato

28/6/2014

Ancient Chinese Chariots

15/3/2014

Stealth Forces in Weight Loss

24/5/2014

30/6/2012

TEST 2
Andrea Palladio: Italian Architect

16/5/2013

Corporate Social Responsibility

21/3/2015

The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education

15/5/2014
26/5/2012

TEST 3
Voyage of Going: Beyond the Blue Line 2

26/5/2012

Does IQ Test Prove Creativity?

5/12/2009

Monkeys and Forests

11/10/2012

TEST 4
T-rex: Hunter or Scavenger?

16/11/2013

12/4/2012

Leaf-cutting Ants and Fungus

18/5/2013

28/4/2012

Honey Bees in Trouble

30/5/2015

TEST 5
Ants Could Teach Ants

19/7/2014

The Development of Plastics

26/7/2014

Global Warming in New Zealand

12/7/2014

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TEST 6
Computer Games for Preschoolers: Nintendos Research and 19/7/2014
Design Process
The History of Pencil

2/8/2014

Motivating Drives

21/8/2014

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Test 1
READING PASSAGE 1

The Impact of the Potato

Jeff Chapman relates the story of historys most important vegetable.
The potato was first cultivated in South America between three and seven
thousand years ago, though scientists believe they may have grown wild in the region
as long as 13,000 years ago. The genetic patterns of potato distribution indicate that
the potato probably originated in the mountainous west-central region of the
continent.
Early Spanish chroniclers who misused the Indian word batata (sweet potato)
as the name for the potato noted the importance of the tuber to the Incan Empire. The
Incas had learned to preserve the potato for storage by dehydrating and mashing
potatoes into a substance called Chuu. Chuu could be stored in a room for up to 10
years, providing excellent insurance against possible crop failures. As well as using
the food as a staple crop, the Incas thought potatoes made childbirth easier and used it
to treat injuries.
The Spanish conquistadors first encountered the potato when they arrived in
Peru in 1532 in search of gold, and noted Inca miners eating Chuu. At the time the
Spaniards failed to realize that the potato represented a far more important treasure
than either silver or gold, but they did gradually begin to use potatoes as basic rations
aboard their ships. After the arrival of the potato in Spain in 1570, a few Spanish
farmers began to cultivate them on a small scale, mostly as food for livestock.
Throughout Europe, potatoes were regarded with suspicion, distaste and fear.
Generally considered to be unfit for human consumption, they were used only as
animal fodder and sustenance for the starving. In northern Europe, potatoes were
primarily grown in botanical gardens as an exotic novelty. Even peasants refused to
eat from a plant that produced ugly, misshapen tubers and that had come from a
heathen civilization. Some felt that the potato plants resemblance to plants in the
nightshade family hinted that it was the creation of witches or devils.
In meat-loving England, farmers and urban workers regarded potatoes with
extreme distaste. In 1662, the Royal Society recommended the cultivation of the
tuber to the English government and the nation, but this recommendation had little
impact. Potatoes did not become a staple until, during the food shortages associated
with the Revolutionary Wars, the English government began to officially encourage
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potato cultivation. In 1795, the Board of Agriculture issued a pamphlet entitled

"Hints Respecting the Culture and Use of Potatoes"; this was followed shortly by propotato editorials and potato recipes in The Times. Gradually, the lower classes began
to follow the lead of the upper classes.
A similar pattern emerged across the English Channel in the Netherlands,
Belgium and France. While the potato slowly gained ground in eastern France (where
it was often the only crop remaining after marauding soldiers plundered wheat fields
and vineyards), it did not achieve widespread acceptance until the late 1700s. The
peasants remained suspicious, in spite of a 1771 paper from the Facult de Paris
testifying that the potato was not harmful but beneficial. The people began to
overcome their distaste when the plant received the royal seal of approval: Louis XVI
began to sport a potato flower in his buttonhole, and Marie-Antoinette wore the
purple potato blossom in her hair.
Frederick the Great of Prussia saw the potatos potential to help feed his nation
and lower the price of bread, but faced the challenge of overcoming the peoples
prejudice against the plant. When he issued a 1774 order for his subjects to grow
potatoes as protection against famine, the town of Kolberg replied: "The things have
neither smell nor taste, not even the dogs will eat them, so what use are they to us?"
Trying a less direct approach to encourage his subjects to begin planting potatoes,
Frederick used a bit of reverse psychology: he planted a royal field of potato plants
and stationed a heavy guard to protect this field from thieves. Nearby peasants
naturally assumed that anything worth guarding was worth stealing, and so snuck into
the field and snatched the plants for their home gardens. Of course, this was entirely
in line with Fredericks wishes.
Historians debate whether the potato was primarily a cause or an effect of the
huge population boom in industrial-era England and Wales. Prior to 1800, the
English diet had consisted primarily of meat, supplemented by bread, butter and
cheese. Few vegetables were consumed, most vegetables being regarded as
nutritionally worthless and potentially harmful. This view began to change gradually
in the late 1700s. The Industrial Revolution was drawing an ever increasing
percentage of the populace into crowded cities, where only the richest could afford
homes with ovens or coal storage rooms, and people were working 12-16 hour days
which left them with little time or energy to prepare food. High yielding, easily
prepared potato crops were the obvious solution to Englands food problems.
Whereas most of their neighbors regarded the potato with suspicion and had to
be persuaded to use it by the upper classes, the Irish peasantry embraced the tuber
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more passionately than anyone since the Incas. The potato was well suited to the Irish
the soil and climate, and its high yield suited the most important concern of most
Irish farmers: to feed their families.
The most dramatic example of the potatos potential to alter population
patterns occurred in Ireland, where the potato had become a staple by 1800. The Irish
population doubled to eight million between 1780 and 1841, this without any
significant expansion of industry or reform of agricultural techniques beyond the
widespread cultivation of the potato. Though Irish landholding practices were
primitive in comparison with those of England, the potatos high yields allowed even
the poorest farmers to produce more healthy food than they needed with scarcely any
investment or hard labor. Even children could easily plant, harvest and cook potatoes,
which of course required no threshing, curing or grinding. The abundance provided
by potatoes greatly decreased infant mortality and encouraged early marriage.

Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-5 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 about the statement

The early Spanish called potato as the Incan name Chuu.

The purpose of Spanish coming to Peru was to find potatoes.

3
The Spanish believed that the potato has the same nutrients as other
vegetables.
4

Peasants at that time did not like to eat potatoes because they were ugly.

5
the war.

The popularity of potatoes in the UK was due to food shortages during

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Questions 6-13
Complete the sentences below
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer
Write your answer in boxes 6-13 on your answer sheet.
6
In France, people started to overcome their disgusting about potatoes
because the King put a potato ___________ in his button hole.
7
Frederick realized the potential of potato but he had to handle the
___________ against potatoes from ordinary people.
8
The King of Prussia adopted some ___________ psychology to make
people accept potatoes.
9
Before 1800, the English people preferred eating ___________ with
bread, butter and cheese.
10
The obvious way to deal with England food problems was to grow high
yielding potato ___________
11

The Irish ___________ and climate suited potatoes well

12
Between 1780 and 1841, based on the ___________ of the potatoes, the
Irish population doubled to eight million
13
The potatos high yields helped the poorest farmers to produce more
healthy food almost without ___________ or hard physical work.

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KEY
1. FALSE
2. FALSE
3. NOT GIVEN
4. TRUE
5. TRUE
6. flower
7. prejudice
8. reverse
9. meat
10. crops
11. soil
12. cultivation
13. investment

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READING PASSAGE 2

Ancient Chinese Chariots

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty, according to traditional historiography,
ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC. Archaeological work
at the Ruins of Yin (near modern-day Anyang), which has been identified as the last
Shang capital, uncovered eleven major Yin royal tombs and the foundations of
palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal
and human sacrifices.
The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the ancient
Shang Dynasty capital Yin, within the modern city of Anyang in Henan Province,
China. Discovered in 1976, it was identified as the final resting place of the queen
and military general Fu Hao. The artefacts unearthed within the grave included jade
objects, bone objects, bronze objects etc. These grave goods are confirmed by the
oracle texts, which constitute almost all of the first hand written record we possess of
the Shang Dynasty. Below the corpse was a small pit holding the remains of six
sacrificial dogs and along the edge lay the skeletons of human slaves, evidence of
human sacrifice.
The Terracotta Army was discovered on 29 March 1974 to the east of Xian in
Shaanxi. The terracotta soldiers were accidentally discovered when a group of local
farmers was digging a well during a drought around 1.6 km (1 mile) east of the Qin
Emperors tomb around at Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground
springs and watercourses. Experts currently place the entire number of soldiers at
8,000 - with 130 chariots (130 cm long), 530 horses and 150 cavalry horses helping
to ward off any dangers in the afterlife. In contrast, the burial of Tutankhamun
yielded six complete but dismantled chariots of unparalleled richness and
sophistication. Each was designed for two people (90 cm long) and had its axle sawn
through to enable it to be brought along the narrow corridor into the tomb.
Excavation of ancient Chinese chariots has confirmed the descriptions of them
in the earliest texts. Wheels were constructed from a variety of woods: elm provided
the hub, rose-wood the spokes and oak the felloes. The hub was drilled through to
form an empty space into which the tampering axle was fitted, the whole being
covered with leather to retain lubricating oil. Though the number of spokes varied, a
wheel by the fourth century BC usually had eighteen to thirty-two of them. Records
show how elaborate was the testing of each completed wheel: flotation and weighing
were regarded as the best measures of balance, but even the empty spaces in the
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assembly were checked with millet grains. One outstanding constructional asset of
the ancient Chinese wheel was dishing. Dishing refers to the dish-like shape of an
advanced wooden wheel, which looks rather like a flat cone. On occasion they chose
to strengthen a dished wheel with a pair of struts running from rim to rim on each of
the hub. As these extra supports were inserted separately into the felloes, they would
have added even greater strength to the wheel. Leather wrapped up the edge of the
wheel aimed to retain bronze.
Within a millennium, however, Chinese chariot-makers had developed a
vehicle with shafts, the precursor of the true carriage or cart. This design did not
make its appearance in Europe until the end of the Roman Empire. Because the shafts
curved upwards, and the harness pressed against a horses shoulders, not his neck, the
shaft chariot was incredibly efficient. The halberd was also part of a chariot standard
weaponry. This halberd usually measured well over 3 meters in length, which meant
that a chariot warrior wielding it sideways could strike down the charioteer in a
passing chariot. The speed of chariot which was tested on the sand was quite fast. At
speed these passes were very dangerous for the crews of both chariots.
The advantages offered by the new chariots were not entirely missed. They
could see how there were literally the Warring States, whose conflicts lasted down
the Qin unification of China. Qin Shi Huang was buried in the most opulent tomb
complex ever constructed in China, a sprawling, city-size collection of underground
caverns containing everything the emperor would need for the afterlife. Even a
collection of terracotta armies called Terra-Cotta Warriors was buried in it. The
ancient Chinese, along with many cultures including ancient Egyptians, believed that
items and even people buried with a person could be taken with him to the afterlife.

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Questions 14-17
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet write
TRUE

if the statement is true

FALSE

if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN

if the information is not given in the passage

14
When Tomb of Fu Hao was discovered, the written records of the grave
goods proved to be accurate.
15
Human skeletons in Anyang tomb were identified as soldiers who were
killed in the war.
16

The Terracotta Army was discovered by people lived nearby by chance.

17
The size of the King Tutankhamuns tomb is bigger than that of
in Qin Emperors tomb.

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Questions 18-23
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each
answer. Write y our answers in boxes 18-23 on y our answer sheet.

18

The hub is made wood from the tree of ___________

19
The room through the hub was to put tempered axle, which is wrapped
up by leather, aiming to retain ___________
20

The number of spokes varied from ___________

21

The shape of wheel resembles a ___________

22

Two___________ was used to strengthen the wheel.

23
The edge of the wheel was wrapped up by laether aiming to retain
___________

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Questions 24-26
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the
passage for each answer.
24
What body part of the horse was released the pressure from to the horse
shoulder after the appearance of the shafts?
25
What kind of road surface did the researchers measure the speed of the
chariot on?
26

What part of his afterlife palace was the Emperor Qin Shi Huang buried

in?

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KEY
14. TRUE
15. FALSE
16. TRUE
17. NOT GIVEN
18. elm
19. lubricating oil
20. 18-32
21. dish/flat cone
22. struts
23. bronze
24. neck
25. sand
26. tomb complex

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READING PASSAGE 3

Stealth Forces in weight Loss

The field of weight loss is like the ancient fable about the blind men and the
elephant. Each man investigates a different part of the animal and reports back, only
to discover their findings are bafflingly incompatible.
A.
The various findings by public-health experts, physicians, psychologists,
geneticists, molecular biologists, and nutritionists are about as similar as an
elephants tusk is to its tail. Some say obesity is largely predetermined by our genes
and biology; others attribute it to an overabundance of fries, soda, and screensucking; still others think were fat because of viral infection, insulin, or the
metabolic conditions we encountered in the womb. Everyone subscribes to their
own little theory, says Robert Berkowitz, medical director of the Center for Weight
and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Were
programmed to hang onto the fat we have, and some people are predisposed to create
and carry more fat than others. Diet and exercise help, but in the end the solution will
inevitably be more complicated than pushing away the plate and going for a walk.
Its not as simple as Youre fat because youre lazy, says Nikhil Dhurandhar, an
associate professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.
Willpower is not a prerogative of thin people. Its distributed equally.
B.
Science may still be years away from giving us a miracle formula for
fat-loss. Hormone leptin is a crucial player in the brains weight-management
circuitry. Some people produce too little leptin; others become desensitized to it. And
when obese people lose weight, their leptin levels plummet along with their
metabolism. The body becomes more efficient at using fuel and conserving fat, which
makes it tough to keep the weight off. Obese dieters bodies go into a state of chronic
hunger, a feeling Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University,
compares to thirst. Some people might be able to tolerate chronic thirst, but the
majority couldnt stand it, says Leibel. Is that a behavioral problem - a lack of
willpower? I dont think so.
C.
The government has long espoused moderate daily exercise - of the
evening-walk or take-the-stairs variety - but that may not do much to budge the
needle on the scale. A 150-pound person burns only 150 calories on a half-hour walk,
the equivalent of two apples. Its good for the heart, less so for the gut. Radical
changes are necessary, says Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical
School and author of Waistland. People dont lose weight by choosing the small
fries or taking a little walk every other day. Barrett suggests taking a cue from the
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members of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), a self-selected group of

more than 5,000 successful weight-losers who have shed an average of 66 pounds
and kept it off 5.5 years. Some registry members lost weight using low-carb diets;
some went low-fat; others eliminated refined foods. Some did it on their own; others
relied on counseling. That said, not everyone can lose 66 pounds and not everyone
needs to. The goal shouldnt be getting thin, but getting healthy. Its enough to whittle
your weight down to the low end of your set range, says Jeffrey Friedman, a
geneticist at New Yorks Rockefeller University. Losing even 10 pounds vastly
decreases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. The point is to
not give up just because you dont look like a swimsuit model.
D.
The negotiation between your genes and the environment begins on day
one. Your optimal weight, writ by genes, appears to get edited early on by conditions
even before birth, inside the womb. If a woman has high blood-sugar levels while
shes pregnant, her children are more likely to be overweight or obese, according to a
study of almost 10,000 mother-child pairs. Maternal diabetes may influence a childs
obesity risk through a process called metabolic imprinting, says Teresa Hillier, an
endocrinologist with Kaiser Permanentes Center for Health Research and the studys
lead author. The implication is clear: Weight may be established very early on, and
obesity largely passed from mother to child. Numerous studies in both animals and
humans have shown that a mothers obesity directly increases her childs risk for
weight gain. The best advice for moms-to-be: Get fit before you get pregnant. Youll
reduce your risk of complications during pregnancy and increase your chances of
having a normal-weight child.
E.
Its the $64,000 question: Which diets work? It got people wondering:
Isnt there a better way to diet? A study seemed to offer an answer. The paper
compared two groups of adults: those who, after eating, secreted high levels of
insulin, a hormone that sweeps blood sugar out of the bloodstream and promotes its
storage as fat, and those who secreted less. Within each group, half were put on a
low-fat diet and half on a low-glycemic-load diet. On average, the low-insulinsecreting group fared the same on both diets, losing nearly 10 pounds in the first six
months - but they gained about half of it back by the end of the 18-month study. The
high-insulin group didnt do as well on the low-fat plan, losing about 4.5 pounds, and
gaining back more than half by the end. But the most successful were the highinsulin-secretors on the low-glycemic-load diet. They lost nearly 13 pounds and kept
it off.
F.
What if your fat is caused not by diet or genes, but by germs - say, a
virus? It sounds like a sci-fi horror movie, but new research suggests some dimension
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of the obesity epidemic may be attributable to infection by common viruses, says

Dhurandhar. The idea of infectobesity came to him 20 years ago when he was a
young doctor treating obesity in Bombay. He discovered that a local avian virus,
SMAM-1, caused chickens to die, sickened with organ damage but also, strangely,
with lots of abdominal fat. In experiments, Dhurandhar found that SMAM-1-infected
chickens became obese on the same diet as uninfected ones, which stayed svelte.
G.
He later moved to the U.S. and onto a bona fide human virus, adenovirus
36 (AD-36). In the lab, every species of animal Dhurandhar infected with the virus
became obese - chickens got fat, mice got fat, even rhesus monkeys at the zoo that
picked up the virus from the environment suddenly gained 15 percent of their body
weight upon exposure. In his latest studies, Dhurandhar has isolated a gene that,
when blocked from expressing itself, seems to turn off the viruss fattening power.
Stem cells extracted from fat cells and then exposed to AD-36 reliably blossom into
fat cells - but when stem cells are exposed to an AD-36 virus with the key gene
inhibited, the stems cells dont differentiate. The gene appears to be necessary and
sufficient to trigger AD-36-related obesity, and the goal is to use the research to
create a sort of obesity vaccine.

Questions 27 - 31
Reading Passage has seven sections, A-G. Which section contains the
following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 17 - 31 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
27

evaluation on the effect of weight loss on different kind of diets

28

an example of research which includes the relatives of the participants

29
an example of a group of people who did not regain weight immediately
after weight loss
30
long term hunger may appear to be acceptable to most of the participants
during the period of losing weight program
31
a continuous experiment may lead to a practical application besides diet
or hereditary resort

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Questions 32 - 36
Look at the following researchers and the list of findings below.
Match each researcher with the correct finding.
Write the correct letter in boxes 32 - 36 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once
32
A persons weight is predetermined by the interaction of his/her DNA
and the environment
33
weight.

Pregnant mothers who are overweight may risk their fetus in gaining

34
attractive.

The aim of losing weight should be keeping healthy rather than being

35

Small changes in lifestyle will not help in reducing much weight.

36
Researchers should be divided into different groups with their own point
of view about weight loss.
Lists of Researchers
A

Robert Berkowitz

Rudolph Leibel

Nikhil Dhurandhar

Deirdre Barrett

Jeffrey Friedman

Teresa Hillier

18
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Questions 37 - 40
Complete the summery below.
Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 37 - 40 on your answer sheet.
In Bombay Clinic, a young doctor who came up with the concept
infectobesity believed that the obesity is caused by a kind of virus. For years, he
conducted experiments on 37 ___________. Finally, later as he moved to America,
he identified a new virus named 38 ___________ which proved to be a significant
breakthrough inducing more weight. Although there seems no way to eliminate the
virus still now, a kind of 39 ___________ can be separated as to block the
effectiveness of the virus. In the future, the doctor future is aiming at developing a
new 40 ___________ which might effectively combat against the virus.

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KEY
27 E
28 D
29 C
30 B
31 G
32 F
33 F
34 E
35 D
36 A
37 Chickens
38 adenovirus 36/AD-36
39 Gene
40 Vaccine

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Test 2
READING PASSAGE 1

Andrea Palladio: Italian architect

A new exhibition celebrates Palladios architecture 500 years on.
Vicenza is a pleasant, prosperous city in the Veneto, 60 km west of Venice. Its
grand families settled and farmed the area from the 16th century. But its principal
claim to fame is Andrea Palladio, who is such an influential architect that a
neoclassical style is known as Palladian. The city is a permanent exhibition of some
of his finest buildings, and as he was born- in Padua, to be precise-500 years ago, the
International Centre for the Study of Palladios Architecture has an excellent excuse
for mounting la grande mostra, the big show.
The exhibition has the special advantage of being held in one of Palladios
buildings, Palazzo Barbaran da Porto. Its bold facade is a mixture of rustication and
decoration set between two rows of elegant columns. On the second floor the
pediments are alternately curved or pointed, a Palladion trademark. The harmonious
proportions of the atrium at the entrance lead through to a dramatic interior of fine
fireplaces and painted ceilings. Palladios design is simple, clear and not overcrowded. The show has been organized on the same principles, according to Howard
Burns, the architectural historian who co-curated it.
Palladios father was a miller who settled in Vicenza, where the young Andrea
was apprenticed to a skilled stonemason. How did a humble millers son become a
world renowned architect? The answer in the exhibition is that, as a young man,
Palladio excelled at carving decorative stonework on columns, doorways and
fireplaces. He was plainly intelligent, and lucky enough to come across a rich patron,
Gian Giorgio Trissino, a landowner and scholar, who organized his education, taking
him to Rome in the 1540s, where he studied the masterpieces of classical Roman and
Greek architecture and the work of other influential architects of the time, such as
Donato Bramante and Raphael.
Burns argues that social mobility was also important. Entrepreneurs,
prosperous from agriculture in the Veneto, commissioned the promising local
architect to design their country villas and their urban mansions. In Venice the
aristocracy were anxious to co-opt talented artists, and Palladio was given the chance
to design the buildings that have made him famous- the churches of San Giorgio

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Maggiore and the Redentore, both easy to admire because they can be seen from the
citys historical center across a stretch of water.
He tried his hand at bridges- his unbuilt version of the Rialto Bridge was
decorated with the large pediment and columns of a temple-and, after a fire at the
Ducal Palace, he offered an alternative design which bears an uncanny resemblance
to the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. Since it was designed by Inigo
Jones, Palladios first foreign disciple, this is not as surprising as it sounds.
Jones, who visited Italy in 1614, bought a trunk full of the masters
architectural drawings; they passed through the hands of the Dukes of Burlington and
Devonshire before settling at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1894. Many
are now on display at Palazzo Barbaran. What they show is how Palladio drew on the
buildings of ancient Rome as models. The major theme of both his rural and urban
building was temple architecture, with a strong pointed pediment supported by
columns and approached by wide steps.
Palladios work for rich landowners alienates unreconstructed critics on the
Italian left, but among the papers in the show are designs for cheap housing in
Venice. In the wider world, Palladios reputation has been nurtured by a text he wrote
and illustrated, Quattro Libri dell Architettura. His influence spread to St
Petersburg and to Charlottesville in Virginia, where Thomas Jefferson commissioned
a Palladian villa he called Monticello.
Vicenzas show contains detailed models of the major buildings and is
leavened by portraits of Palladios teachers and clients by Titian, Veronese and
Tintoretto; the paintings of his Venetian buildings are all by Canaletto, no less. This
is an uncompromising exhibition; many of the drawings are small and faint, and there
are no sideshows for children, but the impact of harmonious lines and satisfying
proportions is to impart in a viewer a feeling of benevolent calm. Palladio is historys
most therapeutic architect.
Palladio, 500 Anni: La Grande Mostra is at Palazzo Barbaran da Porto,
Vicenza, until January 6th 2009. The exhibition continues at the Royal Academy of
Arts, London, from January 31st to April 13th, and travels afterwards to Barcelona and
Madrid.

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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 agree with the information

FALSE

if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN

if there is no information on this

The building where the exhibition is staged has been newly renovated

Palazzo Barbaran da Porto typically represent the Palladios design

Palladios father worked as an architect.

Palladios family refused to pay for his architectural studies

5
Palladios alternative design for the Ducal Palace in Venice was based
on an English building.
6

Palladio designed both wealthy and poor people

The exhibition includes paintings of people by famous artists

Questions 8-13
Answer the questions below
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet
8

What job was Palladio training for before he became an architect?

Who arranged Palladios architectural studies?

10

Who was the first non-Italian architect influenced by Palladio?

11
What type of Ancient Roman buildings most heavily influenced
Palladios work?
12

What did Palladio write that strengthened his reputation?

13
In the writers opinion, what feeling will visitors to the exhibition
experience?

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KEY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

NOT GIVEN
TRUE
FALSE
NOT GIVEN
FALSE
TRUE
TRUE
Stonemason
Gian Giorgio Trissino
Inigo Jones
Temple (architecture)
Quattro Libri dell Architettura
Benevolent calm

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READING PASSAGE 2

Corporate Social Responsibility

Broadly speaking, proponents of CSR have used four arguments to make their
case: moral obligation, sustainability, license to operate, and reputation. The moral
appeal arguing that companies have a duty to be good citizens and to do the right
thing is prominent in the goal of Business for Social Responsibility, the leading
nonprofit CSR business association in the United States. It asks that its members
achieve commercial success in ways that honor ethical values and respect people,
communities, and the natural environment. Sustainability emphasizes environmental
and community stewardship.
A.
An excellent definition was developed in the 1980s by Norwegian Prime
Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and used by the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Nowadays, governments
and companies need to account for the social consequences of their actions. As a
result, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a priority for business
leaders around the world. When a well-run business applies its vast resources and
expertise to social problems that it understands and in which it has a stake, it can have
a greater impact than any other organization. The notion of license to operate derives
from the fact that every company needs tacit or explicit permission from
governments, communities, and numerous other stakeholders to justify CSR
initiatives to improve a companys image, strengthen its brand, enliven morale, and
even raise the value of its stock.
B.
To advance CSR, we must root it in a broad understanding of the
interrelationship between a corporation and society. Successful corporations need a
healthy society. Education, health care, and equal opportunity are essential to a
productive workforce. Safe products and working conditions not only attract
customers but lower the internal costs of accidents. Efficient utilization of land,
water, energy, and other natural resources makes business more productive. Good
government, the rule of law, and property rights are essential for efficiency and
innovation. Strong regulatory standards protect both consumers and competitive
companies from exploitation. Ultimately, a healthy society creates expanding demand
for business, as more human needs are met and aspirations grow. Any business that
pursues its ends at the expense of the society in which it operates will find its success
to be illusory and ultimately temporary. At the same time, a health society needs
successful companies. No social program can rival the business sector when it comes
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to creating the jobs, wealth, and innovation that improve standards of living and
social conditions over time.
C.
A companys impact on society also changes over time, as social
standards evolve and science progresses. Asbestos, now understood as a serious
health risk, was thought to be safe in the early 1900s, given the scientific knowledge
then available. Evidence of its risks gradually mounted for more than 50 years before
any company was held liable for the harms it can cause. Many firms that failed to
anticipate the consequences of this evolving body of research have been bankrupted
by the results. No longer can companies be content to monitor only the obvious social
impacts of today. Without a careful process for identifying evolving social effects of
tomorrow, firms may risk their very survival.
D.
No business can solve all of societys problems or bear the cost of doing
so. Instead, each company must select issues that intersect with its particular
business. Other social agendas are best left to those companies in other industries,
NGOs, or government institutions that are better positioned to address them. The
essential test that should guide CSR is not whether a cause is worthy but whether it
presents an opportunity to create shared value- that is, a meaningful benefit for
society that is also valuable to the business. Each company can identify the particular
set of societal problems that it is best equipped to help resolve and from which it can
gain the greatest competitive benefit
E.
The best corporate citizenship initiatives involve far more than writing a
check: They specify clear, measurable goals and track results over time. A good
example is General Electronicss program to adopt underperforming public high
schools near several of its major U.S. facilities. The company contributes between
$250,000 and $1 million over a five-year period to each school and makes in-kind
donations as well. GE managers and employees take an active role by working with
school administrators to assess needs and mentor or tutor students. In an independent
study of ten schools in the program between 1989 and 1999, nearly all showed
significant improvement, while the graduation rate in four of the five worst
performing schools doubled from an average of 30% to 60%. Effective corporate
citizenship initiatives such as this one create goodwill and improve relations with
local governments and other important constituencies. Whats more, GEs employees
feel great pride in their participation. Their effect is inherently limited, however. No
matter how beneficial the program is, it remains incidental to the companys business,
and the direct effect on GEs recruiting and retention is modest.
F.
Microsofts Working Connections partnership with the American
Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is a good example of a shared-value
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opportunity arising from investments in context. The shortage of information

technology workers is a significant constraint on Microsofts growth; currently, there
are more than 450,000 unfilled IT positions in the United States alone. Community
colleges, with an enrollment of 11.6 million students, representing 45% of all U.S.
undergraduates, could be a major solution. Microsoft recognizes, however, that
community colleges face special challenges: IT curricula are not standardized,
technology used in classrooms is often outdated, and there are no systematic
professional development programs to keep faculty up to date. Microsofts $50
million five-year initiative was aimed at all three problems. In addition to
contributing money and products, Microsoft sent employee volunteers to colleges to
assess needs, contribute to curriculum development, and create faculty development
institutes. Microsoft has achieved results that have benefited many communities
while having a direct-and potentially significant-impact on the company.
G.
At the heart of any strategy is a unique value proposition: a set of needs
a company can meet for its chosen customers that others cannot. The most strategic
CSR occurs when a company adds a social dimension to its value proposition,
making social impact integral to the overall strategy. Consider Whole Foods Market,
whose value proposition is to sell organic, natural and healthy food products to
customers who are passionate about food and the environment. The companys
sourcing emphasizes purchases from local farmers through each stores procurement
process. Buyers screen out foods containing any of nearly 100 common ingredients
that the company considers unhealthy or environmentally damaging. The same
standards apply to products made internally. Whole Foods commitment to natural
and environmentally friendly operating practices extends well beyond sourcing.
Stores are constructed using a minimum of virgin raw materials. Recently, the
company purchased renewable wind energy credits equal to 100% of its electricity
use in all of its stores and facilities, the only Fortune 500 company to offset its
electricity consumption entirely. Spoiled produce and biodegradable waste are
trucked to regional centers for composting. Whole Foods vehicles are being
converted to run on biofuels. Even the cleaning products used in its stores are
environmentally friendly. And through its philanthropy, the company has created the
Animal Compassion Foundation to develop more natural and humane ways of raising
farm animals. In short, nearly every aspect of the companys value chain reinforces
the social dimensions of its value proposition, distinguishing Whole Foods from its
competitors.

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Questions 14-20
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list below. Write the
correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i

How CSR may help one business to expand

ii

CSR in many aspects of a companys business

iii

A CSR initiative without a financial gain

iv

Lack of action by the state of social issues

Drives or pressures motivate companies to address CSR

vi

The past illustrates business are responsible for future outcomes

vii

Companies applying CSR should be selective

viii

Reasons that business and society benefit each other

14

Paragraph A

15

Paragraph B

16

Paragraph C

17

Paragraph D

18

Paragraph E

19

Paragraph F

20

Paragraph G

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Questions 21-22
Summary
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write
your answers in boxes 21-22 on your answer sheet.
The implement of CSR, HOW?
Promotion of CSR requires the understanding of interdependence between
business and society. Corporations workers productivity generally needs health care,
education, and given 21 ___________. Restrictions imposed by government and
companies both protect consumers from being treated unfairly. Improvement of the
safety standard can reduce the 22 ___________ of accidents in the workplace.
Similarly society becomes a pool of more human needs and aspirations.

Questions 23-26
Use the information in the passage to match the companies (listed A-C) with
opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A, B or C in boxes 23-26 on
your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once
List of companies
A

General Electronics

Microsoft

Whole foods market

23

The disposable waste

24

The way company purchases as goods

25

Helping the undeveloped

26

Ensuring the people have the latest information

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KEY
14.

15.

viii

16.

vi

17.

vii

18.

iii

19.

20.

ii

21.

equal opportunity

22.

internal cost

23.

24.

25.

26.

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READING PASSAGE 3

The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education

One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within
schools. To illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils
come from homes where English is not the usual language of communication.
Schools in Europe and North America have experienced this diversity for years, and
educational policies and practices vary widely between countries and even within
countries. Some political parties and groups search for ways to solve the problem of
diverse communities and their integration in schools and society. However, they see
few positive consequences for the host society and worry that this diversity threatens
the identity of the host society. Consequently, they promote unfortunate education
policies that will make the problem disappear. If students retain their culture and
language, they are viewed as less capable of identifying with the mainstream culture
and learning the mainstream language of the society.
The challenge for educators and policy-makers is to shape the evolution of
national identity in such a way that the rights of all citizens (including school
children) are respected, and the cultural, linguistic, and economic resources of the
nation are maximized. To waste the resources of the nation by discouraging children
from developing their mother tongues is quite simply unintelligent from the point of
view of national self-interest. A first step in providing an appropriate education for
culturally and linguistically diverse children is to examine what the existing research
says about the role of childrens mother tongues in their educational development.
In fact, the research is very clear. When children continue to develop their
abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school, they gain a deeper
understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in
processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both. More than 150
research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the
famous eighteenth-century German philosopher, once said: the person who knows
only one language does not truly know that language. Research suggests that
bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of
processing information through two different languages.
The level of development of childrens mother tongue is a strong predictor of
their second language development. Children who come to school with a solid
foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school
language. When parents and other caregivers (e.g. grandparents) are able to spend
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time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that
develops their mother tongue, children come to school well-prepared to learn the
school language and succeed educationally. Childrens knowledge and skills transfer
across languages from the mother tongue to the school language. Transfer across
languages can be two-way: both languages nurture each other when the educational
environment permits children access to both languages.
Some educators and parents are suspicious of mother tongue-based teaching
programs because they worry that they take time away from the majority language.
For example, in a bilingual program where 50% of the time is spent teaching through
childrens home language and 50% through the majority language, surely children
wont progress as far in the later? One of the most strongly established findings of
educational research, however, is that well-implemented bilinguals programs can
promote literacy and subject-matter knowledge in a minority language without any
negative effects on childrens development in the majority language. Within Europe,
the Foyer program in Belgium, which develops childrens speaking and literacy
abilities in three languages (their mother tongue, Dutch and French), most clearly
illustrates the benefits of bilingual and trilingual education (see Cummins, 2000).
It is easy to understand how this happens. When children are learning through
a minority language, they are learning concepts and intellectual skills too. Pupils who
know how to tell the time in their mother tongue understand the concept of telling
time. In order to tell time in the majority language, they do not need to re-learn the
concept. Similarly, at more advanced stages, there is transfer across languages in
other skills such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting
details of a written passage or story, and distinguishing fact from opinion. Studies of
secondary school pupils are providing interesting findings in this area, and it would
be worth extending this research.
Many people marvel at how quickly bilingual children seem to pick up
conversational skills in the majority language at school (although it takes much
longer for them to catch up with native speakers in academic language skills).
However, educators are often much less aware of how quickly children can lose their
ability to use their mother tongue, even in the home context. The extent and rapidity
of language loss will vary according to the concentration of families from a particular
linguistic group in the neighborhood. Where the mother tongue is used extensively in
the community, then language loss among young children will be less. However,
where language communities are not concentrated in particular neighborhoods,
children can lose their ability to communicate in their mother tongue within 2-3 years
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of starting school. They may retain receptive skills in the language but they will use
the majority language in speaking with their peers and siblings and in responding to
their parents. By the time children become adolescents, the linguistic division
between parents and children has become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently
become alienated from the cultures of both home and school with predictable results.

Questions 27-30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
27

what point did the writer make in the second paragraph?

A

some present studies on childrens mother tongues are misleading

B
a culturally rich education programme benefits some children
more than others
C

bilingual children can make a valuable contribution to the weath

the law on mother tongue use at school should be strengthened

of a country

28

Why does the writer refer to something that Goethe said?

A

to lend weight to his argument

to contradict some research

to introduce a new concept

to update current thinking

29
The writer believes that when young children have a firm grasp of their
mother tongue
A

they can teach older family members what they learnt at school.

they go on to do much better throughout their time at school.

they can read stories about their cultural background.

D
they develop stronger relationships with their family than with
their peers.

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30
Why are some people suspicious about mother tongue-based teaching
programmes?
A
language.
B

They worry that children will be slow to learn to read in either

They think that children will confuse words in the two languages.

C
They believe that the programmes will make children less
interested in their lessons.
D
They fear that the programmes will use up valuable time in the
school day.

Questions 31-35
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J below
Write the correct letter, A-J, inboxes 31-35 on your answer sheet.
Bilingual Children
It was often recorded that bilingual children acquire the 31 ___________ to
converse in the majority language remarkable quickly. The fact that the mother
tongue can disappear at a similar 32 ___________ is less well understood. This
phenomenon depends, to a certain extent, on the proposition of people with the same
linguistic background that have settled in a particular 33 ___________. If this is
limited, children are likely to lose the active use of their mother tongue. And thus no
longer employ it even with 34 ___________, although they may still understand it. It
follows that teenager children in these circumstances experience a sense of 35
___________ in relation to all aspects of their lives.
A

teacher

school

dislocation

rate

time

family

communication

type

ability

area

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Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet write
YES

if the statement is true

NO

if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN

if the information is not given in the passage

36
Less than half of the children who attend kindergarten in Toronto have
English as their mother tongue.
37
Research proves that learning the host country language at school can
have an adverse effect on a childs mother tongue.
38
39
children.

The Foyer program is accepted by the French education system.

Bilingual children are taught to tell the time earlier than monolingual

40
Bilingual children can apply reading comprehension strategies acquired
in one language when reading in the other.

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KEY
27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

YES

37.

NOT GIVEN

38.

NO

39.

NOT GIVEN

40.

YES

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Test 3
READING PASSAGE 1

Voyage of Going: beyond the blue line 2

A.
One feels a certain sympathy for Captain James Cook on the day in 1778
that he discovered Hawaii. Then on his third expedition to the Pacific, the British
navigator had explored scores of islands across the breadth of the sea, from lush New
Zealand to the lonely wastes of Easter Island. This latest voyage had taken him
thousands of miles north from the Society Islands to an archipelago so remote that
even the old Polynesians back on Tahiti knew nothing about it. Imagine Cooks
surprise, then, when the natives of Hawaii came paddling out in their canoes and
greeted him in a familiar tongue, one he had heard on virtually every mote of
inhabited land he had visited. Marveling at the ubiquity of this Pacific language and
culture, he later wondered in his journal: How shall we account for this Nation
spreading itself so far over this Vast ocean?
B.
Answers have been slow in coming. But now a startling archaeological
find on the island of Efate, in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, has revealed an ancient
seafaring people, the distant ancestors of todays Polynesians, taking their first steps
into the unknown. The discoveries there have also opened a window into the shadowy
world of those early voyagers. At the same time, other pieces of this human puzzle
are turning up in unlikely places. Climate data gleaned from slow-growing corals
around the Pacific and from sediments in alpine lakes in South America may help
explain how, more than a thousand years later, a second wave of seafarers beat their
way across the entire Pacific.
C.
What we have is a first-or second-generation site containing the graves
of some of the Pacifics first explorers, says Spriggs, professor of archaeology at the
Australian National University and co-leader of an international team excavating the
site. It came to light only by luck. A backhoe operator, digging up topsoil in the
grounds of a derelict coconut plantation, scraped open a grave-the first of dozens in a
burial ground some 3,000 years old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the
Pacific islands, and it harbors the bones of an ancient people archaeologists call the
Lapita, a label that derives from a beach in New Caledonia where a landmark cache
of their pottery was found in the 1950s. They were daring blue-water adventurers
who roved the sea not just as explorers but also as pioneers, bringing along
everything they would need to build new lives-their families and livestock, taro
seedlings and stone tools.
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D.
Within the span of a few centuries the Lapita stretched the boundaries of
their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest
coral outliers of Tonga, at least 2,000 miles eastward in the Pacific. Along the way
they explored millions of square miles of unknown sea, discovering and colonizing
scores of tropical islands never before seen by human eyes: Vanuatu, New Caledonia,
Fiji, Samoa.
E.
What little is known or surmised about them has been pieced together
from fragments of pottery, animal bones, obsidian flakes, and such oblique sources as
comparative linguistics and geochemistry. Although their voyages can be traced back
to the northern islands of Papua New Guinea, their language-variants of which are
still spoken across the Pacific-came from Taiwan. And their peculiar style of pottery
decoration, created by pressing a carved stamp into the clay, probably had its roots in
the northern Philippines. With the discovery of the Lapita cemetery on Efate, the
volume of data available to researchers has expanded dramatically. The bones of at
least 62 individuals have been uncovered so far-including old men, young women,
even babies-and more skeletons are known to be in the ground Archaeologists were
also thrilled to discover six complete Lapita pots. Its an important find, Spriggs says,
for it conclusively identifies the remains as Lapita. It would be hard for anyone to
argue that these arent Lapita when you have human bones enshrined inside what is
unmistakably a Lapita urn.
F.
Several lines of evidence also undergird Spriggss conclusion that this
was a community of pioneers making their first voyages into the remote reaches of
Oceania. For one thing, the radiocarbon dating of bones and charcoal places them
early in the Lapita expansion. For another, the chemical makeup of the obsidian
flakes littering the site indicates that the rock wasnt local; instead it was imported
from a large island in Papua New Guineas Bismarck Archipelago, the springboard
for the Lapitas thrust into the Pacific. A particularly intriguing clue comes from
chemical tests on the teeth of several skeletons. DNA teased from these ancient bones
may also help answer one of the most puzzling questions in Pacific anthropology:
Did all Pacific islanders spring from one source or many? Was there only one
outward migration from a single point in Asia, or several from different points? This
represents the best opportunity weve had yet, says Spriggs, to find out who the
Lapita actually were, where they came from, and who their closest descendants are
today.
G.
There is one stubborn question for which archaeology has yet to
provide any answers: How did the Lapita accomplish the ancient equivalent of a
moon landing, many times over? No one has found one of their canoes or any
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rigging, which could reveal how the canoes were sailed. Nor do the oral histories and
traditions of later Polynesians offer any insights, for they segue into myth long before
they reach as far back in time as the Lapita. All we can say for certain is that the
Lapita had canoes that were capable of ocean voyages, and they had the ability to sail
them, says Geoff Irwin, a professor of archaeology at the University of Auckland
and an avid yachtsman. Those sailing skills, he says, were developed and passed
down over thousands of years by earlier mariners who worked their way through the
archipelagoes of the western Pacific making short crossings to islands within sight of
each other. Reaching Fiji, as they did a century or so later, meant crossing more than
500 miles of ocean, pressing on day after day into the great blue void of the Pacific.
What gave them the courage to launch out on such a risky voyage?
H.
The Lapitas thrust into the Pacific was eastward, against the prevailing
trade winds, Irwin notes. Those nagging headwinds, he argues, may have been the
key to their success. They could sail out for days into the unknown and reconnoiter,
secure in the knowledge that if they didnt find anything, they could turn about and
catch a swift ride home on the trade winds. Its what made the whole thing work.
Once out there, skilled seafarers would detect abundant leads to follow to land:
seabirds and turtles, coconuts and twigs carried out to sea by the tides, and the
afternoon pileup of clouds on the horizon that often betokens an island in the
distance. Some islands may have broadcast their presence with far less subtlety than a
cloud bank. Some of the most violent eruptions anywhere on the planet during the
past 10,000 years occurred in Melanesia, which sits nervously in one of the most
explosive volcanic regions on Earth. Even less spectacular eruptions would have sent
plumes of smoke billowing into the stratosphere and rained ash for hundreds of miles.
Its possible that the Lapita saw these signs of distant islands and later sailed off in
their direction, knowing they would find land. For returning explorers, successful or
not, the geography of their own archipelagoes provided a safety net to keep them
from overshooting their home ports and sailing off into eternity.
I.
However they did it, the Lapita spread themselves a third of the way
across the Pacific, then called it quits for reasons known only to them. Ahead lay the
vast emptiness of the central Pacific, and perhaps they were too thinly stretched to
venture farther. They probably never numbered more than a few thousand in total,
and in their rapid migration eastward they encountered hundreds of islands-more than
300 in Fiji alone. Still, more than a millennium would pass before the Lapitas
descendants, a people we now call the Polynesians, struck out in search of new
territory.

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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

1
2
journal.

YES

if the statement is true

NO

if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN

if the information is not given in the passage

Captain Cook once expected the Hawaii to speak another language

Captain Cook depicted number of cultural aspects of Polynesians in his

3
Professor Spriggs and his research team went to the Efate to try to find
the site of ancient cemetery.
4
The Lapita completed a journey of around 2,000 miles in a period less
than a centenary.
5

The Lapita were the first inhabitants in many Pacific islands.

The urn buried in Efate site was plain as it was without any decoration.

The unknown pots discovered in Efate had once been used for cooking.

Questions 8-10
Summary
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage. Using
ONE WORDS ONLY from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your
answers in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet

Scientific Evident found in Efate site

Tests show the human remains and the charcoal found in the buried urn are
from the start of the Lapita period. Yet the 8 ___________ covering many of the
Efate site did not come from that area. Then examinations carried out on the 9
___________ discovered at Efate site reveal that not everyone buried there was a
native living in the area. In fact, DNA could assist in the identifying the Lapitas
nearest present-days 10 ___________.

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Questions 11-13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
11

What did the Lapita travel in when they crossed the oceans?

12
In Irwinss view, what would the Latipa have relied on to bring them fast
back to the base?
13
Which sea creatures would have been an indication to the Lapita of
where to find land?

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KEY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

YES
NOT GIVEN
NO
NOT GIVEN
YES
NO
NOT GIVEN
rock
teeth
descendants
canoes
(prevailing) trade winds
seabirds and turtles

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READING PASSAGE 2

Does IQ Test Prove Creativity?

Everyone has creativity, some a lot more than others. The development of
humans, and possibly the universe, depends on it. Yet creativity is an elusive
creature. What do we mean by it? What is going on in our brains when ideas form?
Does it feel the same for artists and scientists? We asked writers and neuroscientists,
pop stars and AI gurus to try to deconstruct the creative process-and learn how we
can all ignite the spark within.
In the early 1970s, creativity was still seen as a type of intelligence. But when
more subtle tests of IQ and creative skills were developed in the 1970s, particularly
by the father of creativity testing, Paul Torrance, it became clear that the link was not
so simple. Creative people are intelligent, in terms of IQ tests at least, but only
averagely or just above. While it depends on the discipline, in general beyond a
certain level IQ does not help boost creativity; it is necessary, but not sufficient to
make someone creative.
Because of the difficulty of studying the actual process, most early attempts to
study creativity concentrated on personality. According to creativity specialist Mark
Runco of California State University, Fullerton, the creative personality tends to
place a high value on aesthetic qualities and to have broad interests, providing lots of
resources to draw on and knowledge to recombine into novel solutions. Creatives
have an attraction to complexity and an ability to handle conflict. They are also
usually highly self-motivated, perhaps even a little obsessive.
But there may be a price to pay for having a creative personality. For centuries,
a link has been made between creativity and mental illness. Psychiatrist Jamison of
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found that established artists are
significantly more likely to have mood disorders. But she also suggests that a change
of mood state might be the key to triggering a creative event, rather than the negative
mood itself. Intelligence can help channel this thought style into great creativity, but
when combined with emotional problems, lateral, divergent or open thinking can lead
to mental illness instead.
Jordan Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, Canada, believes
he has identified a mechanism that could help explain this. He says that the brains of
creative people seem more open to incoming stimuli than less creative types. Our
senses are continuously feeding a mass of information into our brains, which have to
block or ignore most of it to save us from being snowed under. Peterson calls this
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process latent inhibition, and argues that people who have less of it, and who have a
reasonably high IQ with a good working memory can juggle more of the data, and so
may be open to more possibilities and ideas. The downside of extremely low latent
inhibition may be a confused thought style that predisposes people to mental illness.
So for Peterson, mental illness is not a prerequisite for creativity, but it shares some
cognitive traits.
But what of the creative act itself? One of the first studies of the creative brain
at work was by Colin Martindale, a psychologist from the University of Maine in
Orono. Back in 1978, he used a network of scalp electrodes to record an
electroencephalogram, a record of the pattern of brain waves, as people made up
stories. Creativity has two stages: inspiration and elaboration, each characterized by
very different states of mind. While people were dreaming up their stories, he found
their brains were surprisingly quiet. The dominant activity was alpha waves,
indicating a very low level of cortical arousal: a relaxed state, as though the conscious
mind was quiet while the brain was making connections behind the scenes. Its the
same sort of brain activity as in some stages of sleep, dreaming or rest, which could
explain why sleep and relaxation can help people be creative. However, when these
quiet-minded people were asked to work on their stories, the alpha wave activity
dropped off and the brain became busier, revealing increased cortical arousal, more
corralling of activity and more organized thinking. Strikingly, it was the people who
showed the biggest difference in brain activity between the inspiration and
development stages who produced the most creative storylines. Nothing in their
background brain activity marked them as creative or uncreative. Its as if the less
creative person cant shift gear, says Guy Claxton, a psychologist at the University
of Bristol, UK. Creativity requires different kinds of thinking. Very creative people
move between these states intuitively. Creativity, it seems, is about mental
flexibility: perhaps not a two-step process, but a toggling between two states.
Paul Howard-Jones, who works with Claxton at Bristol, believes he has found
another aspect of creativity. He asked people to make up a story based on three words
and scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In one trial,
people were asked not to try too hard and just report the most obvious story suggested
by the words. In another, they were asked to be inventive. He also varied the words
so it was easier or harder to link them. As people tried harder and came up with more
creative tales, there was a lot more activity in a particular prefrontal brain region on
the right-hand side. So part of creativity is a conscious process of evaluating and
analyzing ideas. The test also shows that the more we try and are stretched, the more
creative our minds can be.
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And creativity need not always be a solitary, tortured affair, according to

Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School. Though there is a slight association
between solitary writing or painting and negative moods or emotional disturbances,
scientific creativity and workplace creativity seem much more likely to occur when
people are positive and buoyant. In a decade-long study of real businesses, to be
published soon, Amabile found that positive moods relate positively to creativity in
organizations, and that the relationship is a simple linear one. Creative thought also
improves peoples moods, her team found, so the process is circular
Another often forgotten aspect of creativity is social. Vera John-Steiner of the
University of New Mexico says that to be really creative you need strong social
networks and trusting relationships, not just active neural networks. One vital
characteristic of a highly creative person, she says, is that they have at least one other
person in their life who doesnt think they are completely nuts

Questions 14-17
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage?
In boxes 14-17 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

14
High IQ guarantees better creative ability in one person than that who
achieves an average score in an IQ test
15
In a competitive society, individuals language proficiency is more
important than other abilities.
16
A wider range of resources and knowledge can be integrated by more
creative people into bringing about creative approaches.
17

A creative person not necessarily suffers more mental illness.

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Questions 18-22
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-F) with
opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-F in boxes 18-22 on your
answer sheet.
A

Jamison

Jordan Peterson

Guy Claxton

Howard-Jone

Teresa Amabile

Vera John-Steiner

18
Instead of producing the negative mood, a shift of mood state might be
the one important factor of inducing a creative thinking.
19
Where the more positive moods individuals achieve, there is higher
creativity in organizations.
20
Good interpersonal relationship and trust contribute to a person with
more creativity
21
Creativity demands an ability that can easily change among different
kinds of thinking
22
Certain creative mind can be upgraded if we are put into more practice
in assessing and processing ideas.

Questions 23-26
Summary
Complete the Summary paragraph described below. In boxes 23-26 on your
answer sheet, write the correct answer with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS
But what of the creative act itself? In 1978, Colin Martindale made records of
pattern of brain waves as people made up stories by applying a system constituted of
many 23___________. The two phrases of creativity, such as 24 ___________ were
found. While people were still planning their stories, their brains shows little active
sign and the mental activity was showed a very relaxed state as the same sort of brain
activity as in sleep, dreaming or rest. However, experiment proved the signal of 25
___________ went down and the brain became busier, revealing increased cortical
arousal, when these people who were in a laidback state were required to produce
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their stories. Strikingly, it was found the person who was perceived to have the
greatest 26 ___________ in brain activity between two stages, produced storylines
with highest level of creativity.

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KEY
14.

FALSE

15.

NOT GIVEN

16.

TRUE

17.

TRUE

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

scalpel electrodes

24.

Inspiration and elaboration

25.

alpha wave activity

26.

difference

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READING PASSAGE 3

Monkeys and Forests

AS AN EAST WIND blasts through a gap in the Cordillera de Tilaran, a
rugged mountain range that splits northern Costa Rica in half, a female mantled
howler monkey moves through the swaying trees of the forest canopy.
A.
Ken Glander, a primatologist from Duke University, gazes into the
canopy, tracking the females movements. Holding a dart gun, he waits with infinite
patience for the right moment to shoot. With great care, Glander aims and fires. Hit
in the rump, the monkey wobbles. This howler belongs to a population that has lived
for decades at Hacienda La Pacifica, a working cattle ranch in Guanacaste province.
Other native primates -white-faced capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys - once
were common in this area, too, but vanished after the Pan-American Highway was
built nearby in the 1950s. Most of the surrounding land was clear-cut for pasture.
B.
Howlers persist at La Pacifica, Glander explains, because they are leafeaters. They eat fruit, when its available but, unlike capuchin and spider monkeys, do
not depend on large areas of fruiting trees. Howlers can survive anyplace you have
half a dozen trees, because their eating habits are so flexible, he says. In forests, life
is an arms race between trees and the myriad creatures that feed on leaves. Plants
have evolved a variety of chemical defenses, ranging from bad-tasting tannins, which
bind with plant-produced nutrients, rendering them indigestible, to deadly poisons,
such as alkaloids and cyanide.
C.
All primates, including humans, have some ability to handle plant
toxins. We can detoxify a dangerous poison known as caffeine, which is deadly to a
lot of animals: Glander says. For leaf-eaters, long-term exposure to a specific plant
toxin can increase their ability to defuse the poison and absorb the leaf nutrients. The
leaves that grow in regenerating forests, like those at La Pacifica, are actually more
howler friendly than those produced by the undisturbed, centuries-old trees that
survive farther south, in the Amazon Basin. In younger forests, trees put most of their
limited energy into growing wood, leaves and fruit, so they produce much lower
levels of toxin than do well-established, old-growth trees.
D.
The value of maturing forests to primates is a subject of study at Santa
Rosa National Park, about 35 miles northwest of Hacienda La Pacifica. The park
hosts populations not only of mantled howlers but also of white-faced capuchins and
spider monkeys. Yet the forests there are young, most of them less than 50 years old.
Capuchins were the first to begin using the reborn forests, when the trees were as
young as 14 years. Howlers, larger and heavier than capuchins, need somewhat older
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trees, with limbs that can support their greater body weight. A working ranch at
Hacienda La Pacifica also explain their population boom in Santa Rosa. Howlers are
more resilient than capuchins and spider monkeys for several reasons, Fedigan
explains. They can live within a small home range, as long as the trees have the right
food for them. Spider monkeys, on the other hand, occupy a huge home range, so
they cant make it in fragmented habitat.
E.
Howlers also reproduce faster than do other monkey species in the
area. Capuchins dont bear their first young until about 7 years old, and spider
monkeys do so even later, but howlers give birth for the first time at about 3.5 years
of age. Also, while a female spider monkey will have a baby about once every four
years, well-fed howlers can produce an infant every two years.
F.
The leaves howlers eat hold plenty of water, so the monkeys can survive
away from open streams and water holes. This ability gives them a real advantage
over capuchin and spider monkeys, which have suffered during the long,
ongoing drought in Guanacaste.
G.
Growing human population pressures in Central and South America
have led to persistent destruction of forests. During the 1990s, about 1.1 million acres
of Central American forest were felled yearly. Alejandro Estrada, an ecologist at
Estacion de Biologia Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, Mexico, has been exploring how
monkeys survive in a landscape increasingly shaped by humans. He and his
colleagues recently studied the ecology of a group of mantled howler monkeys that
thrive in a habitat completely altered by humans: a cacao plantation in Tabasco,
Mexico. Like many varieties of coffee, cacao plants need shade to grow, so 40 years
ago the landowners planted fig, monkey pod and other tall trees to form a protective
canopy over their crop. The howlers moved in about 25 years ago after nearby forests
were cut. This strange habitat, a hodgepodge of cultivated native and exotic plants,
seems to support about as many monkeys as would a same-sized patch of wild forest.
The howlers eat the leaves and fruit of the shade trees, leaving the valuable cacao
pods alone, so the farmers tolerate them.
H.
Estrada believes the monkeys bring underappreciated benefits to such
farms, dispersing the seeds of fig and other shade trees and fertilizing the soil with
feces. He points out that howler monkeys live in shade coffee and cacao plantations
in Nicaragua and Costa Rica as well as in Mexico. Spider monkeys also forage in
such plantations, though they need nearby areas of forest to survive in the long term.
He hopes that farmers will begin to see the advantages of associating with wild
monkeys, which includes potential ecotourism projects.

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Conservation is usually viewed as a conflict between agricultural practices

and the need to preserve nature, Estrada says. Were moving away from that
vision and beginning to consider ways in which agricultural activities may become a
tool for the conservation of primates in human-modified landscapes.

Questions 27-32
The reading Passage has eight paragraphs A-H.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
27

A reference of rate of reduction in forest habitats

28
An area where only one species of monkey survived while other two
species vanished
29

A reason for howler monkey of choose new leaves as food over old ones

30

Mention to howler monkeys diet and eating habits

31

A reference of asking farmers changing attitude toward wildlife

32
habitat

The advantage for howler monkeys flexibility living in a segmented

Questions 33-35
Look at the following places and the list of descriptions below.
Match each description with the correct place, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
List of places
A

Hacienda La Pacifica

Santa Rosa National Park

A cacao plantation in Tabasco, Mexico

Estacion de Biologia Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, Mexico

Amazon Basin

33

A place where howler monkeys benefit to the local regions agriculture

34

A place where it is the original home for all three native monkeys

35

A place where capuchins monkey comes for a better habitat

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Questions 36-40
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

The reasons why howler monkeys survive better

in local region than other two species
- Howlers live between in La Pacifica since they can feed themselves with
leaves when 36 ___________ is not easily found
- Howlers have better ability to alleviate the 37 ___________, which old and
young trees used to protect themselves
- When compared to that of spider monkeys and capuchin monkeys, the 38
___________ rate of howlers is relatively faster (round for just every 2 years).
- The monkeys can survive away from open streams and water holes as the
leaves howlers eat hold high content of 39 ___________, which helps them to resist
the continuous 40 ___________ in Guanacaste

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KEY
27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

fruit

37

plant toxins

38

birth

39

water

40

drought

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Test 4
READING PASSAGE 1

T-Rex: Hunter or Scavenger?

Jack Horner is an unlikely academic: his dyslexia is so bad that he has trouble
reading a book. But he can read the imprint of life in sandstone or muddy shale across
a distance of l00 years, and it is this gift that has made him curator of palaeontology
at Montana State Universitys Museum of the Rockies, the leader of a multi-million
dollar scientific project to expose a complete slice of life 68 million years ago, and a
consultant to Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood figures.
His father had a sand and gravel quarry in Montana, and the young Horner was
a collector of stones and bones, complete with notes about when and where he found
them. My father had owned a ranch when he was younger, in Montana, he says.
He was enough of a geologist, being a sand and gravel man, to have a pretty good
notion that they were dinosaur bones. So when I was eight years old he took me back
to the area that had been his ranch, to where he had seen these big old bones. I picked
up one. I am pretty sure it was the upper arm bone of a duckbilled dinosaur: it
probably wasnt a duckbilled dinosaur but closely related to that. I catalogued it, and
took good care of it, and then later when I was in high school; excavated my first
dinosaur skeleton. It obviously started earlier than eight and I literally have been
driven ever since. I feel like I was born this way.
Horner spent seven years at university, but never graduated. I have a learning
disability, I would call it a learning difference - dyslexia, they call it - and I just had a
terrible time with English and foreign languages and things like that. For a degree in
geology or biology they required two years of a foreign language. There was no way
in the world I could do that. In fact, I didnt really pass English. So I couldnt get a
degree, I just wasnt capable of it. But I took all of the courses required and I wrote a
thesis and I did all sorts of things. So I have the education, I just dont have the piece
of paper, he says.
We definitely know we are working on a very broad coastal plain with the
streams and rivers bordered by conifers and hardwood plants, and the areas in
between these rivers were probably fern-covered. There were no grasses at all: just
ferns and bushes an unusual landscape, kind of taking the south-eastern United
States - Georgia, Florida - and mixing it with the moors of England and
flattening it out, he says. Triceratops is very common: they are the cows of the
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Cretaceous, they are everywhere. Duckbilled dinosaurs are relatively common but not
as common as triceratops and T-rex, for a meat-eating dinosaur, is very common.
What we would consider the predator-prey ratio seems really off the scale. What is
interesting is the little dromaeosaurs, the ones we know for sure were good predators,
are havent been found.
That is why he sees T-rex not as the lion of the Cretaceous savannah but its
vulture. Look at the wildebeest that migrate in the Serengeti of Africa, a million
individuals lose about 200,000 individuals in that annual migration. There is a
tremendous carrion base there. And so you have hyenas, you have tremendous
numbers of vultures that are scavenging, you dont have all that many animals that
are good predators. If T-rex was a top predator, especially considering how big it is,
youd expect it to be extremely rare, much rarer than the little dromaeosaurs, and yet
they are everywhere, they are a dime a dozen, he says. A 12-tonne T-rex is a lot of
vulture, but he doesnt see the monster as clumsy. He insisted his theory and finding,
dedicated to further research upon it, of course, he would like to reevaluate if there is
any case that additional evidence found or explanation raised by others in the future.
He examined the leg bones of the T-rex, and compared the length of the thigh
bone (upper leg), to the shin bone (lower leg). He found that the thigh bone was equal
in length or slightly longer than the shin bone, and much thicker and heavier, which
proves that the animal was built to be a slow walker rather than fast running. On the
other hand, the fossils of fast hunting dinosaurs always showed that the shin bone was
longer than the thigh bone. This same truth can be observed in many animals of today
which are designed to run fast: the ostrich, cheetah, etc.
He also studied the fossil teeth of the T-rex, and compared them with the teeth
of the Velociraptor, and put the nail in the coffin of the hunter T-rex theory. The
Velociraptors teeth which like stake knifes: sharp, razor-edged, and capable of
tearing through flesh with ease. The T-rexs teeth were huge, sharp at their tip, but
blunt, propelled by enormous jaw muscles, which enabled them to only crush bones.
With the evidence presented in his documentary, Horner was able to prove that
the idea of the T-rex as being a hunting and ruthless killing machine is probably just a
myth. In light of the scientific clues he was able to unearth, the T-rex was a slow,
sluggish animal which had poor vision, an extraordinary sense of smell, that often
reached its prey after the real hunters were done feeding, and sometimes it had to
scare the hunters away from a corpse. In order to do that, the T-rex had to have been
ugly, nasty-looking, and stinky. This is actually true of nearly all scavenger animals.
They are usually vile and nasty looking.
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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 is true

FALSE

if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN

if the information is not given in the passage

1
Jack Horner knew exactly the bone picked up in his fathers ranch
belonged to a certain dinosaur when he was at the age of 8.
2
Jack Horner achieved a distinctive degree in university when he
graduated.
3
predators.
4

Jack Horner believes that the number of prey should be more than that of
T-rexs number is equivalent to the number of vulture in the Serengeti.

5
The hypothesis that T-rex is top predator conflicts with the fact of
predator-prey ratio which Jack found.
6

Jack Horner refused to accept any other viewpoints about T rexs theory.

Jack Horner is the first man that discovered T-rexs bones in the world

Questions 8-13
Summary
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write
your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.
Jack Horner found that T-rexs 8 ___________ is shorter than the thigh bone,
which demonstrated that it was actually a 9 ___________, unlike other swift animals
such as ostrich or 10 ___________ that was built to 11 ___________. Another
explanation support his idea is that T-rexs teeth were rather 12 ___________, which
only allowed T-rex to 13 ___________ hard bones instead of tearing flesh like
Velociraptor.

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KEY
1.

TRUE

2.

FALSE

3.

TRUE

4.

NOT GIVEN

5.

TRUE

6.

FALSE

7.

NOT GIVEN

8.

shin bone

9.

slow walker

10.

cheetah

11.

run fast

12.

blunt

13.

crush

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READING PASSAGE 2

Leaf-Cutting Ants and Fungus

A.
The ants and their agriculture have been extensively studied over the
years, but the recent research has uncovered intriguing new findings about the fungus
they cultivate, how they domesticated it and how they cultivate it and preserve it from
pathogens. For example, the fungus farms, which the ants were thought to keep free
of pathogens, turn out to be vulnerable to a devastating mold, found nowhere else but
in ants nests. To keep the mold in check, the ants long ago made a discovery that
would do credit to any pharmaceutical laboratory.
B.
Leaf-cutting ants and their fungus farms are a marvel of nature and
perhaps the best known example of symbiosis, the mutual dependence of two species.
The ants achievement is remarkable -he biologist Edward O. Wilson has called it
one of the major breakthroughs in animal evolution -because it allows them to eat,
courtesy of their mushrooms digestive powers, the otherwise poisoned harvest of
tropical forests whose leaves are laden with terpenoids, alkaloids and other chemicals
designed to sicken browsers
C.
Fungus growing seems to have originated only once in evolution,
because all gardening ants belong to a single tribe, the descendants of the first fungus
farmer. There are more than 200 known species of the attine ant tribe, divided into 12
groups, or genera. The leaf-cutters use fresh vegetation; the other groups, known as
the lower attines because their nests are smaller and their techniques more primitive,
feed their gardens with detritus like dead leaves, insects and feces. In 1994 a team of
four biologists, Ulrich G. Mueller and Ted R. Schultz from Cornell University and
Ignacio H. Chapela and Stephen A. Rehner from the United States Department of
Agriculture, nanlyzed the DNA of ant funguses. The common assumption that the
funguses are all derived from a single strain, they found, was only half true.
D.
The leaf-cutters fungus was indeed descended from a single strain,
propagated clonally, or just by budding, for at least 23 million years. But the lower
attine ants used different varieties of the fungus, and in one case a quite separate
species, the four biologists discovered. Cameron R. Currie, a Ph.D. student in the
University of Toronto, it seemed to Mr. Currie, resembled the monocultures of
various human crops, that are very productive for a while and then succumb to some
disastrous pathogen, such as the Irish potato blight. Monocultures, which lack the
genetic diversity to respond to changing environmental threats, are sitting ducks for
parasites. Mr. Currie felt there had to be a parasite in the ant- fungus system. But a
century of ant research offered no support for the idea. Textbooks describe how leaf58
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cutter ants scrupulously weed their gardens of all foreign organisms. People kept
telling me, You know the ants keep their gardens free of parasites, dont you? Mr.
Currie said of his efforts to find a hidden interloper
E.
But after three years of sifting through attine ant gardens, Mr. Currie
discovered they are far from free of infections. In last months issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he and two colleagues, Dr.
Mueller and David Mairoch, isolated several alien organisms, particularly a family of
parasitic molds called Escovopsis. Escovopsis turns out to be a highly virulent
pathogen that can devastate a fungus garden in a couple of days. It blooms like a
white cloud, with the garden dimly visible underneath. In a day or two the whole
garden is enveloped. Other ants wont go near it and the ants associated with the
garden just starve to death, Dr. Rehner said. They just seem to give up, except for
those that have rescued their larvae.
F.
Evidently the ants usually manage to keep Escovopsis and other
parasites under control. But with any lapse in control, or if the ants are removed,
Escovopsis will quickly burst forth. Although new leaf-cutter gardens start off free of
Escovopsis, within two years some 60 percent become infected. The discovery of
Escovopsiss role brings a new level of understanding to the evolution of the attine
ants. In the last decade, evolutionary biologists have been increasingly aware of the
role of parasites as driving forces in evolution, Dr. Schultz said. There is now a
possible reason to explain why the lower attine species keep changing the variety of
fungus in their mushroom gardens, and occasionally domesticating new ones to
stay one step ahead of the relentless Escovopsis.
G.
Interestingly, Mr. Currie found that the leaf-cutters had in general fewer
alien molds in their gardens than the lower attines, yet they had more Escovopsis
infections. It seems that the price they pay for cultivating a pure variety of fungus is a
higher risk from Escovopsis. But the leaf-cutters may have little alternative: they
cultivate a special variety of fungus which, unlike those grown by the lower attines,
produces nutritious swollen tips for the ants to eat.
H.
Discovery of a third partner in the ant-fungus symbiosis raises the
question of how the attine ants, especially the leaf-cutters, keep this dangerous
interloper under control. Amazingly enough, Mr. Currie has again provided the
answer. People have known for a hundred years that ants have a whitish growth on
the cuticle, said Dr. Mueller, referring to the insects body surface. People would
say this is like a cuticular wax. But Cameron was the first one in a hundred years to
put these things under a microscope. He saw it was not inert wax. It is alive. Mr.
Currie discovered a specialized patch on the ants cuticle that harbors a particular
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kind of bacterium, one well known to the pharmaceutical industry, because it is the
source of half the antibiotics used in medicine. From each of 22 species of attine ant
studied, Mr. Cameron and colleagues isolated a species of Streptomyces bacterium,
they reported in Nature in April. The Streptomyces does not have much effect on
ordinary laboratory funguses. But it is a potent poisoner of Escovopsis, inhibiting its
growth and suppressing spore formation. Because both the leaf-cutters and the lower
attines use Streptomyces, the bacterium may have been part of their symbiosis for
almost as long as theEscovopsis mold. If so, some Alexander Fleming of an ant
discovered antibiotics millions of years before people did. Even now, the ants are
accomplishing two feats beyond the powers of human technology. The leaf-cutters
are growing a monocultural crop year after year without disaster, and they are using
an antibiotic apparently so wisely and prudently that, unlike people, they are not
provoking antibiotic resistance in the target pathogen.

Questions 14-19
Use the information in the passage to match the options (listed A-C) with
activities or features of ants below. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 14-19
on your answer sheet
NB you may use any letter more than once
A Leaf-cutting ants
B Lower attines
C Both leaft-cutting ants and lower attine ants
14

can use toxic leaves to feed fungus

15

build small nests and live with different foreign fungus

16

use dead vegetation to feed fungus

17

raise a single fungus which do not live with other variety of foreigners

18

normally keep a highly dangerous parasite under control

19

use special strategies to fight against Escovopsis

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Questions 20-24
The reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-J, in boxes 20-24 on your answer sheet.
20 Dangerous outcome of Escovopsis.
21 Risk of growing single fungus.
22 Comparison of features of two different nests for feeding gardens.
23 Discovery of significant achievements made by ants earlier than human.
24 Advantage of growing new breed of fungus in the ant farm.

Questions 25-26
Choose the correct letter, ABC or D.
Write your answers in boxes 25-26 on your answer sheet.
25
How does author think of Curries opinion on the saying ants keep their
gardens free of parasites?

26

his viewpoint was verified later.

his earlier study has sufficient evidence immediately.

there is no details mentioned in the article.

his opinion was proved to be wrong later on.

What did scientists find on the skin of ants under microscope?

A

some white cloud mold embed in their skin

that wax is all over their skin

a substance which is useful to humans

a substance which suppresses growth of fungus

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KEY
14. A
15. B
16. B
17. A
18. A
19. C
20. E
21. D
22. C
23. H
24. F
25. A
26. C

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READING PASSAGE 3

Honey Bees in Trouble

Can native pollinators fill the gap?
Recently, ominous headlines have described a mysterious ailment, colony
collapse disorder (CCD), which is wiping out the honeybees that pollinate many
crops. Without honeybees, the story goes, fields will be sterile, economies will
collapse, and food will be scarce.
But what few accounts acknowledge is that what's at risk is not itself a natural
state of affairs. For one thing, in the United States, where CCD was first reported and
has had its greatest impacts, honeybees are not a native species. Pollination in modern
agriculture isn't alchemy, it's industry. The total number of hives involved in the U.S.
pollination industry has been somewhere between 2.5 million and 3 million in recent
years. Meanwhile, American farmers began using large quantities of
organophosphate insecticides, planted large-scale crop monocultures, and adopted
"clean farming" practices that scrubbed native vegetation from field margins and
roadsides. These practices killed many native bees outright -they're as vulnerable to
insecticides as any agricultural pest -and made the agricultural landscape inhospitable
to those that remained. Concern about these practices and their effects on pollinators,
isn't new, in her 1962 ecological alarm cry Silent Spring, Rachel Carson warned of a
'Fruitless Fall' that could result from the disappearance of insect pollinators.
If that 'Fruitless Fall' has not-yet-occurred, it may be largely thanks to the
honeybee, which farmers turned to as the ability of wild pollinators to service crops
declined. The honeybee has been semi-domesticated since the time of the ancient
Egyptians, but it wasn't just familiarity that determined this choice: the bees' biology
is in many ways suited to the kind of agricultural system that was emerging. For
example, honeybee hives can be closed up and moved out of the way when pesticides
are applied to a field. The bees are generalist pollinators, so they can be used to
pollinate many different crops. And although they are not the most efficient pollinator
of every crop, honeybees have strength in numbers, with 20,000 to 100,000 bees
living in a single hive. "Without a doubt, if there was one bee you wanted for
agriculture, it would be the honeybee," says Jim Cane, of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. The honeybee, in other words, has become a crucial cog in the modern
system of industrial agriculture. That system delivers more food, and more kinds of
it, to more places, more cheaply than ever before. But that system is also vulnerable,
because making a farm field into the photosynthetic equivalent of a factory floor, and
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pollination into a series of continent-long assembly lines, also leaches out some of the
resilience characteristic of natural ecosystems.
Breno Freitas, an agronomist in Brazil, pointed out that in nature such a high
degree of specialization usually is a very dangerous game: it works well while all the
rest is in equilibrium, but runs quickly to extinction at the least disbalance. In effect,
by developing an agricultural system that is heavily reliant on a single pollinator
species, we humans have become riskily overspecialized. And when the humanhoneybee relationship is disrupted, as it has been by colony collapse disorder, the
vulnerability of that agricultural system begins to become clear.
In fact, a few wild bees are already being successfully managed for crop
pollination. "The problem is trying to provide native bees in adequate numbers on a
reliable basis in a fairly short number of years in order to service the crop," Jim Cane
says. "You're talking millions of flowers per acre in a two-to three-week time frame,
or less, for a lot of crops." On the other hand, native bees can be much more efficient
pollinators of certain crops than honeybees, so you don't need as many to do the job.
For example, about 750 blue orchard bees (Osmia lignaria) can pollinate a hectare of
apples or almonds, a task that would require roughly 50,000 to 150,000 honeybees.
There are bee tinkerers engaged in similar work in many corners of the world. In
Brazil, Breno Freitas has found that Centris tarsata, the native pollinator of wild
cashew, can survive in commercial cashew orchards if growers provide a source of
floral oils, such as by interplanting their cashew trees with Caribbean cherry.
In certain places, native bees may already be doing more than theyre getting
credit for. Ecologist Rachael Winfree recently led a team that looked at pollination of
four summer crops (tomato, watermelon, peppers, and muskmelon) at 29 farms in the
region of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Winfrees team identified 54 species of wild
bees that visited these crops, and found that wild bees were the most important
pollinators in the system: even though managed honeybees were present on many of
the farms, wild bees were responsible for 62 percent of flower visits in the study. In
another study focusing specifically on watermelon, Winfree and her colleagues
calculated that native bees alone could provide sufficient pollination at 90 percent of
the 23 farms studied. By contrast, honeybees alone could provide sufficient
pollination at only 78 percent of farms.
The region I work in is not typical of the way most food is produced,
Winfree admits. In the Delaware Valley, most farms and farm fields are relatively
small, each farmer typically grows a variety of crops, and farms are interspersed with
suburbs and other types of land use which means there are opportunities for
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homeowners to get involved in bee conservation, too. The landscape is a bee-friendly

patchwork that provides a variety of nesting habitat and floral resources distributed
among different kinds of crops, weedy field margins, fallow fields, suburban
neighborhoods, and semi natural habitat like old woodlots, all at a relatively small
scale. In other words, pollinator-friendly farming practices would not only aid
pollination of agricultural crops, but also serve as a key element in the over all
conservation strategy for wild pollinators, and often aid other wild species as well.
Of course, not all farmers will be able to implement all of these practices. And
researchers are suggesting a shift to a kind of polyglot agricultural system. For some
small-scale farms, native bees may indeed be all thats needed. For larger operations,
a suite of managed bees with honeybees filling the generalist role and other, native
bees pollinating specific crops could be augmented by free pollination services
from resurgent wild pollinators. In other words, theyre saying, we still have an
opportunity to replace a risky monoculture with something diverse, resilient, and
robust.

Questions 27-30
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage?
In boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet write

27
few years.

YES

if the statement is true

NO

if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN

if the information is not given in the passage

In the United States, farmers use honeybees in a large scale over the past

28

Clean farming practices would be harmful to farmers' health.

29

The blue orchard bee is the most efficient pollinator for every crop.

30

It is beneficial to other local creatures to protect native bees.

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Questions 31-35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet.
31

32

33

34

The example of the Fruitless Fall underlines the writers point about
A

needs for using pesticides.

impacts of losing insect pollinators.

vulnerabilities of native bees.

benefits in building more pollination industries.

Why can honeybees adapt to the modern agricultural system?

A

The honeybees can pollinated more crops efficiently.

The bees are semi-domesticated since ancient times.

Honeybee hives can be protected from pesticides.

The ability of wild pollinators using to serve crops declines.

The writer mentions factories and assembly lines to illustrate

A

one drawback of the industrialized agricultural system.

a low cost in modern agriculture.

the role of honeybees in pollination.

what a high yield of industrial agriculture.

In the 6th paragraph, Winfrees experiment proves that

A

honeybees can pollinate various crops.

there are many types of wild bees as the pollinators.

wild bees can increase the yield to a higher percentage.

D
wild bees work more efficiently as a pollinator than honeybees in
certain cases.

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35

What does the writer want to suggest in the last paragraph?

A

the importance of honeybees in pollination

B
system

the adoption of different bees in various sizes of agricultural

C
system

the comparison between the intensive and the rarefied agricultural

the reason why farmers can rely on native pollinators

Questions 36-40
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.
36

Headlines of colony collapse disorder state that

37

Viewpoints of Freitas manifest that

38

Examples of blue orchard bees have shown that

39

Centris tarsata is mentioned to exemplify that

40

One finding of the research in Delaware Valley is that

A

native pollinators can survive when a specific plant is supplied.

B
it would cause severe consequences to both commerce and
agriculture.
C

honeybees cannot be bred.

some agricultural landscapes are favorable in supporting wild

a large scale of honeybees are needed to pollinate.

bees.

F
an agricultural system is fragile when relying on a single
pollinator.

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KEY
27.

YES

28.

NOT GIVEN

29.

NO

30.

YES

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

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Test 5
READING PASSAGE 1

Ants Could Teach Ants

The ants are tiny and usually nest between rocks in the south coast of England.
Transformed into research subjects at the University of Bristol, they raced along a
tabletop foraging for food -and then, remarkably, returned to guide others. Time and
again, followers trailed behind leaders, darting this way and that along the route,
presumably to memorize land marks. Once a follower got its bearings, it tapped the
leader with its antennae, prompting the lesson to literally proceed to the next step.
The ants were only looking for food but the researchers said the careful way the
leaders led followers -thereby turning them into leaders in their own right -marked
the Temnothorax albipennis ant as the very first example of a non-human animal
exhibiting teaching behavior.
"Tandem running is an example of teaching, to our knowledge the first in a
non-human animal, that involves bidirectional feedback between teacher and pupil,"
remarks Nigel Franks, professor of animal behavior and ecology, whose paper on the
ant educators was published last week in the journal Nature.
No sooner was the paper published, of course, than another educator
questioned it. Marc Hauser, a psychologist and biologist and one of the scientists who
came up with the definition of teaching, said it was unclear whether the ants had
learned a new skill or merely acquired new information.
Later, Franks took a further study and found that there were even races
between leaders. With the guidance of leaders, ants could find food faster. But the
help comes at a cost for the leader, who normally would have reached the food about
four times faster if not hampered by a follower. This means the hypothesis that the
leaders deliberately slowed down in order to pass the skills on to the followers seems
potentially valid. His ideas were advocated by the students who carried out the video
project with him.
Opposing views still arose, however. Hauser noted that mere communication
of information is commonplace in the animal world. Consider a species, for example,
that uses alarm calls to warn fellow members about the presence of a predator.
Sounding the alarm can be costly, because the animal may draw the attention of the
predator to itself. But it allows others to flee to safety. Would you call this
teaching? wrote Hauser. The caller incurs a cost. The nave animals gain a benefit
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and new knowledge that better enables them to learn about the predators location
than if the caller had not called. This happens throughout the animal kingdom, but we
dont call it teaching, even though it is clearly transfer of information.
Tim Caro, a zoologist, presented two cases of animal communication. He
found that cheetah mothers that take their cubs along on hunts gradually allow their
cubs to do more of the hunting going, for example, from killing a gazelle and
allowing young cubs to eat to merely tripping the gazelle and letting the cubs finish it
off. At one level, such behavior might be called teaching except the mother was not
really teaching the cubs to hunt but merely facilitating various stages of learning. In
another instance, birds watching other birds using a stick to locate food such as
insects and so on, are observed to do the same thing themselves while finding food
later.
Psychologists study animal behavior in part to understand the evolutionary
roots of human behavior, Hauser said. The challenge in understanding whether other
animals truly teach one another, he added, is that human teaching involves a theory
of mind teachers are aware that students dont know something. He questioned
whether Frankss leader ants really knew that the follower ants were ignorant. Could
they simply have been following an instinctive rule to proceed when the followers
tapped them on the legs or abdomen? And did leaders that led the way to food only
to find that it had been removed by the experimenter incur the wrath of followers?
That, Hauser said, would suggest that the follower ant actually knew the leader was
more knowledgeable and not merely following an instinctive routine itself.
The controversy went on, and for a good reason. The occurrence of teaching in
ants, if proven to be true, indicates that teaching can evolve in animals with tiny
brains. It is probably the value of information in social animals that determines when
teaching will evolve rather than the constraints of brain size.
Bennett Galef Jr., a psychologist who studies animal behavior and social
learning at McMaster University in Canada, maintained that ants were unlikely to
have a theory of mind meaning that leader and followers may well have been
following instinctive routines that were not based on an understanding of what was
happening in another ants brain. He warned that scientists may be barking up the
wrong tree when they look not only for examples of humanlike behavior among other
animals but humanlike thinking that underlies such behavior. Animals may behave in
ways similar to humans without a similar cognitive system, he said, so the behavior is
not necessarily a good guide into how humans came to think the way they do.

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Questions 1-5
Look at the following statements (Questions 1-5) and the list of people in the
box below. Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1

Animals could use objects to locate food.

Ants show two-way, interactive teaching behaviors.

It is risky to say ants can teach other ants like human beings do.

Ant leadership makes finding food faster.

Communication between ants is not entirely teaching.

List of People
A

Nigel Franks

Marc Hauser

Tim Caro

Bennett Galef Jr.

Questions 6-9
Choose FOUR letters, A-H
Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.
Which FOUR of the following behaviors of animals are mentioned in the
passage?
A

touch each other with antenna

alert others when there is danger

escape from predators

protect the young

hunt food for the young

fight with each other

use tools like twigs

feed on a variety of foods

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Questions 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading
Passage 1?
In boxes 10-13 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
10

Ants' tandem running involves only one-way communication.

11

Franks's theory got many supporters immediately after publicity.

12

Ants' teaching behavior is the same as that of human.

13

Cheetah share hunting gains to younger ones.

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KEY
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

NO

11.

NOT GIVEN

12.

NOT GIVEN

13.

YES

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READING PASSAGE 2

The Development of Plastics

When rubber was first commercially produced in Europe during the nineteenth
century, it rapidly became a very important commodity, particularly in the fields of
transportation and electricity. However, during the twentieth century a number of
new synthetic materials, called plastics, superseded natural rubber in all but a few
applications.
Rubber is a polymera compound containing large molecules that are formed
by the bonding of many smaller, simpler units, repeated over and over again. The
same bonding principlepolymerizationunderlies the creation of a huge range of
plastics by the chemical industry.
The first plastic was developed as a result of a competition in the USA. In the
1860s, $10,000 was offered to anybody who could replace ivorysupplies of which
were decliningwith something equally good as a material for making billiard balls.
The prize was won by John Wesley Hyatt with a material called celluloid. Celluloid
was made by dissolving cellulose, a carbohydrate derived from plants, in a solution of
camphor dissolved in ethanol. This new material rapidly found uses in the
manufacture of products such as knife handles, detachable collars and cuffs, spectacle
frames and photographic film. Without celluloid, the film industry could never have
got off the ground at the end of the 19th century.
Celluloid can be repeatedly softened and reshaped by heat, and is known as a
thermoplastic. In 1907, Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist working in the USA,
invented a different kind of plastic, by causing phenol and formaldehyde to react
together. Baekeland called the material Bakelite, and it was the first of the
thermosetsplastics that can be cast and moulded while hot, but cannot be softened
by heat and reshaped once they have set. Bakelite was a good insulator, and was
resistant to water, acids and moderate heat. With these properties it was soon being
used in the manufacture of switches, household items such as knife handles, and
electrical components for cars.
Soon chemists began looking for other small molecules that could be strung
together to make polymers. In the 1930s British chemists discovered that the gas
ethylene would polymerize under heat and pressure to form a thermoplastic they
called polythene. Polypropylene followed in the 1950s. Both were used to make
bottles, pipes and plastic bags. A small change in the starting materialreplacing a
hydrogen atom in ethylene with a chlorine atomproduced PVC (polyvinyl
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chloride), a hard, fireproof plastic suitable for drains and gutters. And by adding
certain chemicals, a soft form of PVC could be produced, suitable as a substitute for
rubber in items such as waterproof clothing. A closely related plastic was Teflon, or
PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). This had a very low coefficient of friction, making it
ideal for bearings, rollers, and non-stick frying pans. Polystyrene, developed during
the 1930s in Germany, was a clear, glass-like material, used in food containers,
domestic appliances and toys. Expanded polystyrenea white, rigid foamwas
widely used in packaging and insulation. Polyurethanes, also developed in Germany,
found uses as adhesives, coatings, andin the form of rigid foamsas insulation
materials. They are all produced from chemicals derived from crude oil, which
contains exactly the same elementscarbon and hydrogenas many plastics.
The first of the man-made fibres, nylon, was also created in the 1930s. Its
inventor was a chemist called Wallace Carothers, who worked for the Du Pont
company in the USA. He found that under the right conditions, two chemicals
hexamethylenediamine and adipic acidwould form a polymer that could be
pumped out through holes and then stretched to form long glossy threads that could
be woven like silk. Its first use was to make parachutes for the US armed forces in
World War . In the post-war years nylon completely replaced silk in the
manufacture of stockings. Subsequently many other synthetic fibres joined nylon,
including Orion, Acrilan and Terylene. Today most garments are made of a blend of
natural fibres, such as cotton and wool, and man-made fibres that make fabrics easier
to look after.
The great strength of plastic is its indestructibility. However, this quality is also
something of a drawback: beaches all over the world, even on the remotest islands,
are littered with plastic bottles that nothing can destroy. Nor is it very easy to recycle
plastics, as different types of plastic are often used in the same items and call for
different treatments. Plastics can be made biodegradable by incorporating into their
structure a material such as starch, which is attacked by bacteria and causes the
plastic to fall apart. Other materials can be incorporated that gradually decay in
sunlightalthough bottles made of such materials have to be stored in the dark, to
ensure that they do not disintegrate before they have been used.

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Questions 14-20
Complete the table below
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passages for each
answer
Write your answer in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
Name of plastic
Celluloid

Date of
invention
1860s

Original region

Property

Common use

US

14___________

15___________ 1907

US

Can be cast and 16___________,

household items
moulded but
cannot be
and car parts
softened by
heat

Polythene

17___________

1930

Rigid PVC
Polystyrene

Bottles
18___________

1930s

Polyurethanes

Germany

19___________ Food container

Germany

20___________
foams

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Adhesives,
coatings and
insulation

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Questions 21-26
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage?
In boxes 21-26 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 about the statement

21

The chemical structure of plastic is very different from that of rubber.

22

John Wesley was a famous chemist.

23

Celluloid and Bakelite react to heat in the same way.

24
difficult.

The mix of different varieties of plastic can make the recycling more

25

Adding starch into plastic can make plastic more durable.

26

Some plastic containers have to be preserved in special conditions.

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KEY
14.

photographic film

15.

Bakelite

16.

switches

17.

Britain/UK

18.

fireproof

19.

clear and glass-like

20.

rigid

21.

FALSE

22.

NOT GIVEN

23.

FALSE

24.

TRUE

25.

FALSE

26.

TRUE

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READING PASSAGE 3

Global Warming in New Zealand

For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting warmer. As the
nearest country of South Polar Region, New Zealand has maintained an upward trend
in its average temperature in the past few years. However, the temperature in New
Zealand will go up 4oC in the next century while the polar region will go up more
than 6oC. The different pictures of temperature stem from its surrounding ocean
which acts like the air conditioner. Thus New Zealand is comparatively fortunate.
Scientifically speaking, this temperature phenomenon in New Zealand
originated from what researchers call SAM (Southern Annular Mode), which refers
to the wind belt that circles the Southern Oceans including New Zealand and
Antarctica. Yet recent work has revealed that changes in SAM in New Zealand have
resulted in a weakening of moisture during the summer, and more rainfall in other
seasons. A bigger problem may turn out to be heavier droughts for agricultural
activities because of more water loss from soil, resulting in poorer harvest before
winter when the rainfall arrive too late to rescue.
Among all the calamities posed be drought, moisture deficit ranks the first.
Moisture deficit is the gap between the water plants need during the growing season
and the water the earth can offer. Measures of moisture deficit were at their highest
since the 1970s in New Zealand. Meanwhile, ecological analyses clearly show
moisture deficit is imposed at different growth stage of crops. If moisture deficit
occurs around a crucial growth stage, it will cause about 22% reduction in grain yield
as opposed to moisture deficit at vegetative phase.
Global warming is not only affecting agriculture production. When scientists
say the countrys snow pack and glaciers are melting at an alarming rate due to global
warming, the climate is putting another strain on the local places. For example, when
the development of global warming is accompanied by the falling snow line, the local
skiing industry comes into a crisis. The snow line may move up as the temperature
goes up, and then the snow at the bottom will melt earlier. Fortunately, it is going to
be favorable for the local skiing industry to tide over tough periods since the
quantities of snowfall in some areas are more likely to increase.
What is the reaction of glacier region? The climate change can be reflected in
the glacier region in southern New Zealand or land covered by ice and snow. The
reaction of a glacier to a climatic change involves a complex chain of processes. Over
time periods of years to several decades, cumulative changes in mass balance cause
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volume and thickness changes, which will affect the flow of ice via altered internal
deformation and basal sliding. This dynamic reaction finally leads to glacier length
changes, the advance or retreat of glacier tongues. Undoubtedly, glacier mass balance
is a more direct signal of annual atmospheric conditions.
The latest research result of National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
(NIWA) Research shows that glaciers line keeps moving up because of the impacts of
global warming. Further losses of ice can be reflected in Mt. Cook Region. By 1996,
a 14 km long sector of the glacier had melted down forming a melt lake (Hooker
Lake) with a volume. Melting of the glacier front at a rate of 40 m/yr will cause the
glacier to retreat at a rather uniform rate. Therefore, the lake will continue to grow
until it reaches the glacier bed.
A direct result of the melting glaciers is the change of high tides the serves the
main factor for sea level rise. The trend of sea level rise will bring a threat to the
groundwater system for its hyper-saline groundwater and then pose a possibility to
decrease the agricultural production. Many experts believe that the best way to
counter this trend is to give a longer-term view of sea level change in New Zealand.
Indeed, the coastal boundaries need to be upgraded and redefined.
There is no doubt that global warming has affected New Zealand in many
aspects. The emphasis on the global warming should be based on the joints efforts of
local people and experts who conquer the tough period. For instance, farmers are
taking a long term, multi-generational approach to adjust the breeds and species
according to the temperature. Agriculturists also find ways to tackle the problems that
may bring to the soil. In broad terms, going forward, the systemic resilience thats
been going on a long time in the ecosystem will continue.
How about animals reaction? Experts have surprisingly realized that animals
have unconventional adaptation to global warming. A study has looked at sea turtles
on a few northern beaches in New Zealand and it is very interesting to find that sea
turtles can become male or female according to the temperature. Further researches
will try to find out how rising temperatures would affect the ratio of sex reversal in
their growth. Clearly, the temperature of the nest plays a vital role in the sexes of the
baby turtles.
Tackling the problems of global warming is never easy in New Zealand,
because records show the slow process of global warming may have a different
impact on various regions. For New Zealand, the emission of carbon dioxide only
accounts for 0.5% of the worlds total, which has met the governmental standard.

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However, New Zealands effort counts only a tip of the iceberg. So far, global
warming has been a world issue that still hangs in an ambiguous future.

Questions 27-32
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
27

What is the main idea of the first paragraph?

A
The temperature in the polar region will increase less than that in
New Zealand in the next century.
B
The weather and climate of New Zealand is very important to its
people because of its close location to the polar region.
C
The air condition in New Zealand will maintain a high quality
because of the ocean.
D
The temperature of New Zealand will increase less than that of
other region in the next 100 years because it is surrounded by sea.
28

What is one effect of the wind belt that circles the Southern Oceans?
A

B
in a year.
C

New Zealand will have more moisture in winds in summer.

New Zealand needs to face droughts more often in hotter months
Soil water will increase as a result of weakening moisture in the

winds
D
Agricultural production will be reduced as a result of more rainfall
in other seasons.
29

What does moisture deficit mean to the grain and crops?

A

The growing condition will be very tough for crops.

The growing season of some plants can hardly be determined.

C
There will be a huge gap between the water plants needed and the
water the earth can offer.
D
The soil of the grain and crops in New Zealand reached its lowest
production since 1970s.

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30
What changes will happen to skiing industry due to the global warming
phenomenon?
A

The skiing station may lower the altitude of skiing

Part of the skiing station needs to move to the north.

The snowfall may increase in part of skiing station.

D
The local skiing station may likely to make a profit because of the
snowfall increase.
31

Cumulative changes over a long period of time in mass balance will lead

to
A

Alterations is the volume and thickness of glaciers.

Faster changes in internal deformation and basal sliding.

Larger length of glaciers.

D
Retreat of glacier tongues as a result of change in annual
atmospheric conditions.
32

Why does the writer mention NIWA in the sixth paragraph?

A
To use a particular example to explain the effects brought by
glacier melting.
B
Region.
C

To emphasize the severance of the further loss of ice in Mt. Cook

To alarm the reader of melting speed of glaciers at a uniform rate.

D
To note the lake in the region will be disappear when it reach the
glacier bed.

Questions 33-35
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answer in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
Research date shows that sea level has a closely relation with the change of
climate. The major reason for the increase in sea level is connected with 33
___________. The increase in sea level is also said to have a threat to the
underground water system, the destruction of which caused by rise of sea level will
lead to a high probability of reduction in 34 ___________. In the long run, New
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Zealand may have to improve the 35 ___________ if they want to diminish the effect
change in sea levels.

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading
Passage 3?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet write
YES

if the statement agree 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

36
37
change.
38

Farmers are less responsive to climate change than agriculturists.

Agricultural sector is too conservative and resistant to deal with climate
Turtle is vulnerable to climate change.

39
The global warming is going slowly, and it may have different effects on
different areas in New Zealand.
40
New Zealand must cut carbon dioxide emission if they want to solve the
problem of global warming.

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KEY
27

28

29

30

31

32

33

high tides

34

agricultural production

35

coastal boundaries

36

NOT GIVEN

37

NOT GIVEN

38

NO

39

YES

40

NO

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Test 6
READING PASSAGE 1

Computer Games for Preschoolers: Nintendos

Research and Design Process
Designing computer games for young children is a daunting task for game
producers, who, for a long time, have concentrated on more hard core game fans.
This article chronicles the design process and research involved in creating Nintendo
DS for preschool gamers.
After speaking with our producers who have a keen interest in designing for
the DS, we finally agreed on three key goals for our project. First, to understand the
range of physical and cognitive abilities of preschoolers in the context of handheld
system game play; second, to understand how preschool gamers interact with the DS,
specifically how they control the different forms of play and game mechanics offered
by the games presently on the market for this platform; third, to understand the
expectation of preschoolers parents concerning the handheld systems as well as the
purchase and play contexts within which game play occurs. The team of research
decided that in-home ethnographies with preschoolers and their families would yield
comprehensive database with which to give our producers more information and
insights, so we start by conducting 26 in-home ethnographies in three markets across
the United States: an East coast urban/suburban area, a West coast urban/suburban
area, and a Midwest suburban/rural area.
The subject is this study included 15 girls and 11 boys ranging from 3 years
and 3 months old to 5 years and 11 months old. Also, because previous research had
shown the effects of older siblings on game play (demonstrated, for example, by
more advanced motor coordination when using a computer mouse), households were
employed to have a combination of preschoolers with and without elder peers. In
order to understand both experienced and new preschool users of the platform,
we divided the sample so that 13 families owned at least one Nintendo DS and the
others did not. For those households that did not own a DS, one was brought to the
interview for the kid to play. This allowed us to see both the instinctive and intuitive
movements of the new players (and of the more experienced players when playing
new games), as well as the learned movements of the more experienced players. Each
of those interviews took about 60 to 120 minutes and included the preschooler, at
least one parent, and often siblings and another caregiver.
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Three kinds of information were collected after each interview. From any older
siblings and the parents that were available, we gathered data about: the buying
decisions surrounding game systems in the household, the familys typical game play
patterns, levels of parental moderation with regard to computer gaming, and the most
favorite games play by family members. We could also understand the ideology of
gaming in these homes because of these in-home interviews: what types of spaces
were used for game play, how the system were installed, where the handheld play
occurred in the house (as well as on-the-go play), and the number and type of games
and game systems owned. The most important is, we gathered the game-playing
information for every single kid.
Before carrying out the interviews, the research team had closely discussed
with the in-house game producers to create a list of game mechanics and problems
tied to preschoolers motor and cognitive capabilities that were critical for them to
understand prior to writing the games. These ranged from general dexterity issues
related to game controllers to the effectiveness of in-game instructions to specific
mechanics in current games that the producers were interested in implementing for
future preschool titles. During the interviews, the moderator gave specific guidance to
the preschooler through a series of games, so that he or she could observe the
interaction and probe both the preschooler and his or her parents on feelings,
attitudes, and frustrations that arose in the different circumstances.
If the subject in the experiment had previous exposure to the DS system, he or
she was first asked to play his or her favorite game on the machine. This gave the
researchers information about current level of gaming skill related to the complexity
of the chosen one, allowing them to see the child playing a game with mechanics he
or she was already familiar with. Across the 26 preschoolers, the Nintendo DS
selections scope were very broad, including New Super Mario Bros, Sonic Rush,
Nintendogs, and Tony Hawks Proving Ground. The interview observed the child
play, noting preferences for game mechanic and motor interactions with device as
well as the complexity level each game mechanic was for the tested subject. The
researchers asked all of the preschoolers to play with a specific game in consultation
with our producers, The Little Mermaid: Ariels Undersea Adventure. The game was
chosen for two major reasons. First, it was one of the few games on the market with
characters that appeal to this young age group. Second, it incorporated a large variety
of mechanics that highlighted the uniqueness of the DS platform, including using the
microphone for blowing or singing.

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The findings from this initial experiment were extensive. After reviewing the
outcomes and discussing the implications for the game design with our internal game
production team, we then outlined the designing needs and presented the findings to a
firm specializing in game design. We worked closely with those experts to set the
game design for the two preschool-targeted DS games under development on what
we had gathered.
As the two DS games went into the development process, a formative research
course of action was set up. Whenever we developed new game mechanics, we
brought preschoolers into our in-house utility lab to test the mechanics and to
evaluate both their simplicity, and whether they were engaging. We tested either
alpha or beta versions of different elements of the game, in addition to looking at
overarching game structure. Once a full version of the DS game was ready, we went
back into the field test with a dozen preschoolers and their parents to make sure that
each of the game elements worked for the children, and that the overall objective of
the game was understandable and the process was enjoyable for players. We also
collected parents feedback on whether they thought the game is appropriate,
engaging, and worth the purchase.

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Questions 1-5
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
Exploratory Research Project
Main Objectives:
Determine the relevant 1 ___________ in the context
Observe how preschoolers manage playing
Investigate attitudes of 2 ___________ towards games
Subjects:
26 children from different US 3 ___________
Age range: 3 years and 3 months to 5 years and 11 months
Some children have older 4 ___________
Equal number of new and 5 ___________ players
Some households have Nintendo DS and some dont
Length of Interview:
1-2 hours

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Questions 6-9
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 1?
In boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE

if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE

if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN

if these is no information on this

6
One area of research is how far mothers and fathers controlled childrens
playing after school.
7

The researchers are allowed a free access to the subjects houses.

8
The researchers regarded The Little Mermaid: Ariels Undersea
Adventure as likely appeal to preschoolers.
9
The Little Mermaid: Ariels Undersea Adventure is operated entirely by
hand controls.

Questions 10-13
Complete the flow-chart below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answer in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
Using the results of the study
Presentation of design requirements to a specialist 10 ___________

Testing the mechanics of two new games in the Nintendo lab

(assess 11 ___________ and interest)

A 12 ___________ of the games trailed be twelve children

Collection of 13 ___________ from parents

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KEY
1.

abilities

2.

parents

3.

markets

4.

siblings

5.

experienced

6.

NOT GIVEN

7.

TRUE

8.

TRUE

9.

FALSE

10.

firm

11.

simplicity

12.

full version

13.

feedback

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READING PASSAGE 2

The History of Pencil

The beginning of the story of pencils started with a lightning. Graphite, the
main material for producing pencil, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in
England when a lightning struck a local tree during a thunder. Local people found out
that the black substance spotted at the root of the unlucky tree was different from
burning ash of wood. It was soft, thus left marks everywhere. Chemistry was barely
out of its infancy at the time, so people mistook it for lead, equally black but much
heavier. It was soon put to use by locals in marking their sheep for ownership and
calculation.
Britain turns out to be major country where mines of graphite can be detected
and developed. Even so, the first pencil was invented elsewhere. As graphite is soft, it
requires some form of encasement. In Italy, graphite sticks were initially wrapped in
string or sheepskin for stability, becoming perhaps the very first pencil in the world.
Then around 1560, an Italian couple made what are likely the first blueprints for the
modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact
type of pencil. Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood.
Shortly thereafter in 1662, a superior technique was discovered by German people:
two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued
together - essentially the same method in use to this day. The news of the usefulness
of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attention of artists all over
the known world.
Although graphite core in pencils is still referred to as lead, modern pencils do
not contain lead as the lead of the pencil is actually a mix of finely ground graphite
and clay powders. This mixture is important because the amount of clay content
added to the graphite depends on the intended pencil hardness, and the amount of
time spent on grinding the mixture determines the quality of the lead. The more clay
you put in, the higher hardness the core has. Many pencils across the world, and
almost all in Europe, are graded on the European system. This system of naming used
B for black and H for hard; a pencils grade was described by a sequence or
successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and
HHH for successively harder ones. Then the standard writing pencil is graded HB.
In England, pencils continue to be made from whole sawn graphite. But with
the mass production of pencils, they are getting drastically more popular in many
countries with each passing decade. As demands rise, appetite for graphite soars.
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According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), world production of

natural graphite in 2012 was 1,100,000 tonnes, of which the following major
exporters are: China, India, Brazil, North Korea and Canada. However, much in
contrast with its intellectual application in producing pencils, graphite was also
widely used in the military. During the reign of Elizabeth I, Borrowdale graphite was
used as a refractory material to line moulds for cannonballs, resulting in rounder,
smoother balls that could be fired farther, contributing to the strength of the English
navy. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and soft, and could
easily be broken into sticks. Because of its military importance, this unique mine and
its production were strictly controlled by the Crown.
That the United States did not use pencils in the outer space till they spent
$1000 to make a pencil to use in zero gravity conditions is in fact a fiction. It is
widely known that astronauts in Russia used grease pencils, which dont have
breakage problem. But it is also a fact that their counterparts in the United States used
pencils in the outer space before real zero gravity pencil was invented. They preferred
mechanical pencils, which produced fine line, much clearer than the smudgy lines left
by the grease pencils that Russians favored. But the lead tips of these mechanical
pencils broke often. That bit of graphite floating around the space capsule could get
into someones eye, or even find its way into machinery or electronics, causing an
electrical short or other problems. But despite the fact that the Americans did invent
zero gravity pencils later, they stuck to mechanical pencils for many years.
Against the backcloth of a digitalized world, the prospect of pencils seems
bleak. In reality, it does not. The application of pencils has by now become so
widespread that they can be seen everywhere, such as classrooms, meeting rooms and
art rooms, etc. A spectrum of users are likely to continue to use it into the future:
students to do math works, artists to draw on sketch pads, waiters or waitresses to
mark on order boards, make-up professionals to apply to faces, and architects to
produce blue prints. The possibilities seem limitless.

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Question 14-20
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
Graphite was found under a 14 ___________ in Borrowdale, it was dirty to use
because it was 15 ___________.
Ancient people used graphite to sign 16 ___________.
People found graphite 17 ___________ in Britain.
The first pencil was graphite wrapped in 18 ___________ or animal skin.
Since graphite was too smooth, 19 ___________ was added to make it harder.
Russian astronauts preferred 20 ___________ pencils to write in the outer
space.

Question 21-26
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 2?
In boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE

if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE

if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN

if these is no information on this

21

Italy is probably the first country of the whole world to make pencils.

22

Germany used various kinds of wood to make pencils.

23

Graphite makes a pencil harder and sharper.

24

In Britain, pencils are not produced any more.

25

American astronauts did not use pencil in outer space.

26

Pencils are unlikely to be used in the future.

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KEY
14.

tree

15.

soft

16.

sheep

17.

mines

18.

string

19.

clay

20.

grease

21.

TRUE

22.

NOT GIVEN

23.

FALSE

24.

FALSE

25.

FALSE

26.

FALSE

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READING PASSAGE 3

Motivating Drives
Scientists have been researching the way to get employees motivated for many
years. This research in a relational study which builds the fundamental and
comprehensive model for study. This is especially true when the business goal is to
turn unmotivated teams into productive ones. But their researchers have limitations. It
is like studying the movements of car without taking out the engine.
Motivation is what drives people to succeed and plays a vital role in enhancing
an organizational development. It is important to study the motivation of employees
because it is related to the emotion and behavior of employees. Recent studies show
there are four drives for motivation. They are the drive to acquire, the drive to bond,
the drive to comprehend and the drive to defend.
The Drive to Acquire
The drive to acquire must be met to optimize the acquire aspect as well as the
achievement element. Thus the way that outstanding performance is recognized, the
type of perks that is provided to polish the career path. But sometimes a written letter
of appreciation generates more motivation than a thousand dollar check, which can
serve as the invisible power to boost business engagement. Successful organizations
and leaders not only need to focus on the optimization of physical reward but also on
moving other levers within the organization that can drive motivation.
The Drive to Bond
The drive to bond is also key to driving motivation. There are many kinds of
bonds between people, like friendship, family. In company, employees also want to
be an essential part of company. They want to belong to the company. Employees
will be motivated if they find personal belonging to the company. In the meantime,
the most commitment will be achieved by the employee on condition that the force of
motivation within the employee affects the direction, intensity and persistence of
decision and behavior in company.
The Drive to Comprehend
The drive to comprehend motivates many employees to higher performance.
For years, it has been known that setting stretch goals can greatly impact
performance. Organizations need to ensure that the various job roles provide
employees with simulation that challenges them or allow them to grow. Employees

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dont want to do meaningless things or monotonous job. If the job didnt provide
them with personal meaning and fulfillment, they will leave the company.
The Drive to Defend
The drive to defend is often the hardest lever to pull. This drive manifests itself
as a quest to create and promote justice, fairness, and the ability to express ourselves
freely. The organizational lever for this basic human motivator is resource allocation.
This drive is also met through an employee feeling connection to a company. If their
companies are merged with another, they will show worries.
Two studies have been done to find the relations between the four drives and
motivation. The article based on two studies was finally published in Harvard
Business Review. Most authors arguments have laid emphasis on four-drive theory
and actual investigations. Using the results of the surveys which executed with
employees from Fortune 500 companies and other two global businesses (P company
and H company), the article mentions about how independent drives influence
employees behavior and how organizational levers boost employee motivation.
The studies show that the drive to bond is most related to fulfilling
commitment, while the drive to comprehend is most related to how much effort
employees spend on works. The drive to acquire can be satisfied by a rewarding
system which ties rewards to performances, and gives the best people opportunities
for advancement. For drive to defend, a study on the merging of P company and H
company shows that employees in former company show an unusual cooperating
attitude.
The key to successfully motivate employees is to meet all drives. Each of these
drives is important if we are to understand employee motivation. These four drives,
while not necessarily the only human drives, are the ones that are central to unified
understanding of modern human life.

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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
According to the passage, what are we told about the study of
motivation?
A
The theory of motivating employees is starting to catch attention
in organizations in recent years.
B
It is very important for managers to know how to motivate their
subordinates because it is related to the salary of employees.
C

Researchers have tended to be too theoretical to their study.

D
The goal of employee motivation is to increase the profit of
organizations.
28
drives?

What can be inferred from the passage about the study of peoples

A
behavior.
B

Satisfying employees drives can positively lead to the change of

Satisfying employees drives will negatively affect their emotions.

C
Satisfying
productions.

employees

drives

can

increase

companies

D
Satisfying employees drives will result in employees outstanding
performance.
29
According to paragraph three, in order to optimize employees
performance, ___________ are needed.
A

Drive to acquire and achievement element

Outstanding performance and recognition

Career fulfillment and a thousand dollar check

Financial incentive and recognition

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30
According to paragraph five, how does the drive to comprehend help
employees perform better?
A
It can help employees better understand the development of their
organizations.
B
It can help employees feel their task in meaningful to their
companies.

31
defend?

It can help employees set higher goals.

It can provide employees with repetitive tasks.

According to paragraph six, which of following is true about drive to

A

Organizational resource is the most difficult to allocate.

It is more difficult to implement than the drive to comprehend.

Employees think it is very important to voice their own opinions.

D
Employees think it is very important to connect with a merged
corporation.

Questions 32-34
Choose THREE letters, A-F
Write the correct letters in boxes 32-34 on your answer sheet.
Which THREE of the following statements are true of study of drives?
A

Employees will be motivated if they feel belonged to the company.

B
If employees get an opportunity of training and development program,
their motivation will be enhanced.
C
If employees working goals are complied with organizational
objectives, their motivation will be reinforced.
D
If employees motivation in very low, companies should find a way to
increase their salary as their first priority.
E
company.
F

If employees find their work lacking challenging, they will leave the
Employees will worry if their company is sold.

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Questions 35-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading
Passage 3?
In boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES

if the statement agree 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
35

Increasing pay can lead to the high work motivation.

36

Local companies benefit more from global companies through the study.

37

Employees achieve the most commitment if their drive to comprehend is

met.
38
The employees in former company presented unusual attitude toward the
merging of two companies.
39
The two studies are done to analyze the relationship between the natural
drives and the attitude of employees.
40

Rewarding system cause the company to lose profit.

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KEY
27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

NO

36.

NOT GIVEN

37.

NO

38.

YES

39.

NO

40.

NOT GIVEN

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Exert yourself
and
GOD will do the rest

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