TEST 2

For questions 1-6 choose which of the paragraphs A-G fit into the numbered gaps in the following magazine
article. There is one extra paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps.

The fight to save New Zealand's giant parrot

For the past 28 years Don Merton has battled to save the kakapo, New Zealand's extraordinary green
parrot. In 1995, when numbers fell to 50, it looked like the end for this bird. But this year they staged a
comeback. The last survivors of this unique species have produced 26 chicks -more than in the whole of the
past two decades. Instead of having no future at all, the kakapo suddenly has prospects.
C

1. 

Males gather at an arena to compete for females. After mating, the females leave and raise their young
alone. 'The kakapo is important because it has combinations of features found in no other bird,' says
Merton, the longest serving member of the National Kakapo team. Unfortunately, its peculiarities have also
made it vulnerable. A thousand years ago, there were millions of kakapo. Their only enemies were
predatory birds and the kakapo's green plumage provided perfect camouflage against the vegetation.
G

2. 

Then after years of searching, Merton and a team from the New Zealand Wildlife Service discovered a
single bird in a valley in Fjordland in the far south. It was an old male. Search parties found seventeen more
-all old males. Three years later, when many had written the species off, Merton's team uncovered signs of
kakapo in the south of Stewart Island. It turned out to be a colony of 200 birds and some were breeding.
'We thought the kakapo was safe then,' says Merton. They were wrong. Cats were killing them at an
alarming rate.
A

3. 

Merton knew what he had to do. The birds had to breed before it was too late and nothing could jeopardise
this. From now on, the team would manage almost every aspect of kakapo life. They laid traps for kiore and
watched nests 24 hours a day. If anything other than a kakapo entered the nest, a watcher set off a tiny
explosive charge that made a small bang and a flash, enough to startle any intruder. By 1999, all the
kakapo had been successfully moved to two islands - Maud Island, and Codfish Island, both free of kiore.
D

4. 

'The challenge was to work out a diet and persuade them to eat it,' says Merton. The team eventually found
that kakapo were especially partial to nuts. The birds thrived on the extra food, but still wouldn’t breed. They
seemed to be waiting for some special cue. On Maud Island it wasn't clear what that cue was, but on
Codfish island there was no doubt that the birds bred in response to some signal from the rimu tree that
alerts them to a coming mast.
E

5. 

Armed with this new knowledge, the team was ready to swing into action as soon as they spotted signs of
masting on Codfish Island. Last year, it became obvious that the rimu were going to produce a large crop of
seeds the next autumn. Merton moved all the adult females to Codfish Island. As the breeding season drew
nearer, the kakapo rescue team arrived with electronic monitoring equipment, and spent the next months
watching nests throughout the long, cold nights.
B

6. 
The result was a large batch of chicks, a remarkable breakthrough, but there are still only 86 kakapo in the
world. Do they really have good prospects? Merton is confident they do. 'As long as we keep using the
same techniques, the population will steadily rise,' he says. 'The kakapo won't be extinct in our lifetime.'

A  What followed was an intensive rescue operation. During the following fifteen years all the kakapo were
moved to islands free from cats, stoats or possums. 'We thought we'd put them out of reach of predators,'
says Merton.
Again they were mistaken. They hadn't realised how dangerous the kiore were. Not only did they compete
with kakapo for food, they also ate eggs and chicks. It finally came to the point where only 50 kakapo
remained.

B  In September the team began to fill up the food hoppers. 'We had to provide enough so the birds could
breed but not so much that they'd get fat,' says Merton. 'We wanted to keep their weight down to encourage
them to produce female chicks.' In December the males began their booming noises, and the females
trekked to the courtship areas to choose a mate, unaware that electronic eyes were watching them.

C  The kakapo is nocturnal, looks like an owl, smells sweet and fruity and makes some very odd noises
-from growls and metallic 'chings' to deep resonant booms. Kakapo can't fly, but they are excellent climbers.
They live a very long time and are the world's biggest parrots. The kakapo also has a unique breeding
system.

D  Persuading the birds to breed was the next harder step as this only occurs when certain plants produce
large crops of fruit and seeds, an event known as masting. At other times, the birds manage on very little.
It's enough to support their metabolism, but not enough to raise a family. In the past, the kakapo from
Fjordland and Stewart Island bred in response to masting by a range of plants including rimu trees. The
team hoped with extra food the birds might breed.

E  Merton estimates this could take at least 15 years, less if they can trick the birds into breeding more
often. 'We're looking for whatever it is in rimu that triggers breeding. It's probably chemical- perhaps one of
the terpenes the tree is packed with,' says Merton. 'Or it might be nutritional.' The team is currently testing
an improved food pellet to see if that works.

F  There was nothing the team could do but patiently wait for nature to take its course. They continued with
the food programme to ensure the females were in top condition and monitored the males to keep an eye
on their numbers. The population remained stable but the team recognised the fact that it was only the rimu
tree that would turn things around.

G   Once man arrived, bringing with him not only his dogs but kiore -Polynesian rats -that could sniff out
nests, it was a different story. The rats went for eggs, chicks and even adults. The decline in numbers
accelerated once European settlers arrived. They cleared large areas of kakapo habitat and brought more
predators- cats, rats, stoats, and possums. By the late 1960s the kakapo was feared extinct.

You are going to read four different opinions from leading scientists about the future of fuel. For
questions 1-10, choose from the writers A-D. The writers may be chosen more than once.
A
Howard Bloom, Author:

Even though most people are convinced that peak oil has already passed, to me, peak oil is just a
hypothesis. There is a theory that carbon molecules can be found in interstellar gas clouds, comets
and in space ice, and if this is the case, our planet could ooze oil for ever. And even if we stay
earthbound, those who say we have raped the planet of all its resources are wrong. There's a huge
stock of raw materials we haven't yet learned to use. There are bacteria two miles beneath our feet
which can turn solid granite into food. If bacteria can do it, surely we creatures with brains can do it
better. As far as the near future of energy is concerned, I believe the most promising alternative fuels
are biofuels, such as ethanol. It's an alcohol made from waste products such as the bark of trees,
woodchips, and other 'waste materials'. And that's not the only waste that can create energy. My friend
in the biomass industry is perfecting an energy-generation plant which can run on human waste. We
produce that in vast quantities, and it's already gathered in centralised locations.

B
Michael Lardelli, Lecturer in Genetics at The University of Adelaide

Nothing exists on this planet without energy. It enables flowers and people to grow and we need it to
mine minerals, extract oil or cut wood and then to process these into finished goods. So the most
fundamental definition of money is as a mechanism to allow the exchange and allocation of different
forms of energy. Recently, people have been using more energy than ever before. Until 2005 it was
possible to expand our energy use to meet this demand. However, since 2005 oil supply has been in
decline, and at the same time, and as a direct result of this, the world's economy has been unable to
expand, leading to global recession. With the world's energy and the profitability of energy production
in decline at the same time, the net energy available to support activities other than energy
procurement will decrease. We could increase energy production by diverting a large proportion of our
remaining oil energy into building nuclear power stations and investing in renewable forms of energy.
However, this is very unlikely to happen in democratic nations, because it would require huge,
voluntary reductions in living standards. Consequently, the world economy will continue to contract as
oil production declines. With energy in decline, it will be impossible for everyone in the world to
become wealthier. One person's increased wealth can only come at the expense of another person's
worsened poverty.

C
Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell

People are understandably worried about a future of growing energy shortages, rising prices and
international conflict for supplies. These fears are not without foundation. With continued economic
growth, the world's energy needs could increase by 50% in the next 25 years. However, I do not
believe that the world is running out of energy. Fossil fuels will be able to meet growing demand for a
long time in the future. Taking unconventional resources into account, we are not even close to peak
oil. The priority for oil companies is to improve efficiency, by increasing the amount of oil recovered
from reservoirs. At present, just over a third is recovered. We can also improve the technology to
control reservoir processes and improve oil flow. However, these projects are costly, complex and
technically demanding, and they depend on experienced people, so it is essential to encourage young
people to take up a technical career in the energy industry. Meanwhile, alternative forms of energy
need to be made economically viable. International energy companies have the capability, the
experience and the commercial drive to work towards solving the energy problem so they will play a
key role. But it is not as simple as merely making scientific advances and developing new tools; the
challenge is to deliver the technology to people worldwide. Companies will need to share knowledge
and use their ideas effectively.

D
Craig Severance, blogger

What will it take to end our oil addiction? It's time we moved on to something else. Not only are world
oil supplies running out, but what oil is still left is proving very dirty to obtain. The Deepwater Horizon
oil spill occurred precisely because the easy-to-obtain oil is already tapped. If we don't kick oil now, we
will see more disasters as oil companies move to the Arctic offshore and clear more forests. The
cheap petroleum is gone; from now on, we will pay steadily more and more for our oil — not just in
dollars, but in the biological systems that sustain life on this planet. The only solution is to get on with
what we will have to do anyway - end our dependence on it! There are many instances in which oil
need not be used at all. Heat and electricity can be produced in a multitude of other ways, such as
solar power or natural gas. The biggest challenge is the oil that is used in transportation. That doesn't
mean the transportation of goods worldwide, it's the day-to-day moving around of people. It means we
have to change what we drive. The good news is that it's possible. There are a wide range of fuel
efficient cars on offer, and the number of all-electric plug-in cars is set to increase. For long distance
travel and freight, the solution to this is to look to rail. An electrified railway would not be reliant upon
oil, but could be powered by solar, geothermal, hydro, and wind sources. There is a long way to go,
but actions we take now to kick our oil addiction can help us adapt to a world of shrinking oil supplies.
Which writer:
C: Jeroen van der Veer
1. believes oil will be available for many more years 
B: Michael Lardelli
2. believes that from now on, less oil is available
3. believes there are ways to obtain energy that we have not yet discovered
A: Howard Bloom

A: Howard Bloom
4. sees a great potential in natural fuels
B: Michael Lardelli
5. believes the fuel crisis will cause the poor to become poorer
B: Michael Lardelli
6. sees energy and the economy as intrinsically linked
D: Craig Severance
7. believes we should reduce our dependance on oil immediately
8. believes that people need to be attracted to working in the energy industry
C: Jeroen van der Veer

9. believes that it is unlikely that governments will invest a lot of money into alternative energy
B: Michael Lardelli

10. believes that future oil recovery will lead to more environmental disasters
D: Craig Severance