READING PRACTICE 06 (A)

READING PRACTICE – 06 (A)

Part 1: Read the texts below and choose the answer A, B, C or D which you think fits best according
to the texts. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
Passage A:
The Byzantine style had a deep influence on Russian architecture from the time that settled political
societies emerged at the end of the 10th century until the 15th. The chief urban centres such as Kiev and
Novgorod had numerous churches designed by architects either trained in or imported from Byzantium.
Russian contributions to the style were a much wilder sense of fantasy in layout and elevation, and the
proliferation of domes of the onion type. Even by the end of the 15th century and beyond, when Italian
architects were imported in increasing numbers, the old style was blended with that of the new
Renaissance.
A much stronger injection of Western influence came with the creation of St. Petersburg in 1703. The
principal buildings and palaces of the city were put up at various times throughout the 18th century. At first
foreign architects held the field and produced a modified form of the Baroque style with an emphasis on
long, plain facades which were often coloured. Some Russian architects emerged towards the end of the
18th century, but the classical influence remained strong well into the 19th century and was reinforced for
a time by the Greek revival style. Then followed a dull, uninspired age where anything went in matters of
style and the larger public buildings offered little more than large quantities of grandiose decoration. In a
way this changed abruptly with the communist takeover. All building of any note was state-sponsored and
showed a general tendency to copy Western form, with the occasional indulgence in ostentatious
decoration.
1. The author states that early Russian architectural style was _______.
A. rather fantastic, with many domes B. more controlled and higher
C. completely without domes D. restrained by Western influences
2. How did communism affect style?
A. It caused a sudden change in style.
B. There was very little change.
C. Everything was built exactly as it had been before.
D. Russia stopped copying Western styles.
3. According to the passage, what was one effect of the creation of St. Petersburg?
A. A distinctly Russian style was developed. B. There was greater use of foreign architects.
C. The classical Greek style was reintroduced. D. The Byzantine dominance continued.
4. After the influence of the Greek revival had passed, the style became _______.
A. grand and classical B. large and plain
C. carefully planned D. large and uninteresting
5. What did foreign architects produce in the 18th century?
A. a return to classical influences B. a complete change from the Baroque style
C. a variation on the Baroque style D. dull, uninspired buildings
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Passage B:
A hundred years or so ago cinema was making its hesitant entry into the world. In 1889 the British
photographer William Friese-Greene invented a moving picture camera, and, two years later, Thomas
Edison patented his kinetograph showing men at work, performing animals and dancing girls. In February

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 READING PRACTICE 06 (A)

of that year Louis Lumière and his brother Auguste came up with a cheaper competitor. Among the
thousands who flocked to see the Lumières' invention in action in Paris was 32-year-old Charles Pathé. He
was so impressed with it that he talked his brothers into sinking the family inheritance into a film company.
The result was the creation of France's most illustrious film studios. By 1907 the Pathé company had grown
enormously and had studios throughout Europe and the US. What seems amazing now, when Hollywood
dominates the world, is that a French company established such a foothold in the US, creating a virtual
monopoly in the film industry by distributing its own films there as well as hiring out its studios. But if Pathé
was big in the US, it was a giant in Europe. The year before the First World War broke out, Pathé made no
fewer than 300 films. War, however, dealt the firm a heavy blow. Shortages of staff and film stock cut output
by almost half in 1914, and by 1918 Pathé output had fallen to 63 films. From then on Pathé never went
back to the mass-production methods of its earlier years, concentrating instead on fewer films of greater
length and higher quality.
1. In the US, the Pathé studios were _______.
A. unsuccessful and couldn't compete B. dominant in the film industry
C. unable to make many films D. bigger than the ones in Europe.
2. After the war, Pathé _______.
A. never made another film
B. changed its methods of mass production film-making
C. shifted its emphasis to a higher caliber of film-making
D. didn't concentrate only on film-making.
3. What does the author tell us about the Lumière's kinetograph?
A. It was invented in 1891.
B. It won first prize in a competition.
C. It was more expensive than Edison's.
D. It showed men at work, performing animals and dancing girls.
4. According to the passage, what effect did the First World War have on the Pathé studios?
A. Bombs heavily damaged the studios. B. Film production was made impossible.
C. Money for paying staff became unavailable. D. Production was drastically reduced.
5. What did Charles Pathé persuade his brothers to do?
A. invent their own movie-making camera B. go to see Lumières’ invention in Paris
C. invest the family's wealth in a film company D. travel to the US to see the studios there
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Passage C:
Chinese cinema is still the big unwritten chapter in world film history. The gap is surprising, if only so
many other facets of twentieth-century Chinese history, culture and politics have been extensively analysed.
The past four years, however, have seen a significant growth of interest in Chinese film – both in China and
farther afield. The China Film Archive, forced to close by Red Guards in 1966, resumed its activities in
1978; it has now recatalogued its collection and begun facing up to the massive task of copying its large
holdings of old nitrate prints on to safety-film stock. Two years ago, it organised a retrospective season of
pre-1949 films for internal circulation to film professionals in the country’s leading production centres. This
gave many of the younger film-makers their first glimpses of work done in the 1930s and 1940s. Later films,
banned since the “anti-rightist purge” of 1957, have also begun to reappear on China’s screens.
The belated western discovery of China’s film heritage began at London’s National Film Theatre in
1980, with a 25-film season called “Electric Shadows”. (The exotic title was a literal translation of dianying,

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the Chinese word for “cinema”.) Several classics had their first screenings outside China at this event,
which established two important points. First, that the Shanghai film industry of the 1930s and 1940s
produced work of international standing. Second, that the films of the People’s Republic, while hardly as
remarkable as their predecessors, did offer much more than celebrations of tractor maintenance and
bayonet-wielding ballerinas.
The London initiative was quickly copied in a dozen or more cities, from Sydney to Turin, with the result
that Chinese cinema has found a place on the map that it did not have in 1980. The decades of neglect
and ignorance, however, have forced all such events to take the form of broad, general surveys, which has
not helped the discovery of individual talents. It has also conveniently obscured underlying factors, like the
Chinese willingness to supply certain titles and reluctance even to mention certain others.
London has now picked up the baton again with a second, larger season, to be held at the National
Film Theatre throughout January and February. It is called, inevitably, “More Electric Shadows”. Unlike the
first season, this has been organised with the co-operation of the China Film Archive; the result is a
programme more or less evenly balanced between pre-1949 and post-1949 titles. It offers more 1930s films
than have previously been seen outside China at one time and includes a number of Western premieres.
The selection is doubtless no more coherent than previous ones, but it does add some missing pieces to
the jigsaw.
1. In relation to our knowledge of 20th-century Chinese cultural generally, _______.
A. little is known about their films
B. their cinemas are still an unknown quality
C. the actual history of the country is still somewhat hazy
D. our growing interest is out of all proportion
2. The retrospective season of pre-1949 films which was mentioned _______.
A. was shown in cities all over the world
B. consisted mainly of films banned since 1957
C. was organised by the China Film Archive
D. gave young film-makers a second chance to see films of the 30s and 40s
3. The London season of 1980 proved that Chinese films of the People’s Republic era _______.
A. dealt solely with agricultural and marital themes
B. were better than many Western films of the same era
C. were inferior to the Shanghai 30s and 40s productions
D. could rank among international film classics
4. The writer seems to lament the fact that _______.
A. too little has been done too late by the West
B. some films have still not found their way out of China
C. Western cinema-goers are still rather ignorant
D. there are no individual talents in Chinese cinema
5. The new season in January and February will be special because it will _______.
A. show more films from the fifties B. include premieres of some Westerns
C. be the second held in London D. be supported by the Chinese
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Passage D:
As with every artistic movement, it is necessary to examine the style against which it rebelled in order
fully to understand it. Stanislaysky and Chekhov cannot be entirely appreciated without being at least

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conscious of the melodramatic style of acting against which they reacted. The husband, finding love-letters
from another man to his wife, would stagger back a couple of paces unsteadily and raise his hand to his
forehead as though warding off one of destiny's blows. 'Life', affirmed Chekhov, 'is not like that', a sentiment
faithfully echoed by Stanislaysky. A man finding such letters usually does not react at all, at least visibly.
His immediate concern is to try to capture a kind of diabolical initiative by leaving the letters exactly as he
found them so that he has all the time in the world to study his quarry and to decide on his reaction. After
all, he doesn't wish an accusation of snooping to lessen his moral ascendancy.
Naturally each man would have his own reaction to such a situation as would each theatrical character,
but what both Chekhov and Stanislaysky were sure of was that only a ham actor, obeying the instructions
of a conventional dramatist and a workaday director, could totter back the statutory two steps and bring his
left hand up to his eyebrow. Chekhov thereupon set about showing up the false by a poetic mobilisation of
all that is inconsequential and wayward in human intercourse, with the result that his plays are not so much
dialogues as many intertwined monologues, plays in which people talk far more than they listen.
Since Chekhov, the journeys into the depths of realism and beyond have been accomplished more
thoroughly if not more profoundly by the cinema, but the theatre is the one dramatic art-form left which
exploits a living audience, as does a sport. I submit today, as I have always submitted, that the theatre is
basically a sport, based on integrated team-play, with, as in all sports, room for improvisation and the
opportunities of the moment, and very much dependent on physical and vocal condition. The driver of a
racing car maintains a loose grip on the steering wheel, and uses it merely to correct the car when an
emergency looms. The rest of the time, he 'feels' his car round the course. So it is with acting. The mental
processes are too fast to intellectualise at every curve in the road, and grip the steering wheel as though
your life depended on it.
1. According to the passage, Stanislavsky and Chekhov _______.
A. were similar B. knew one another
C. saw acting in a similar way D. are difficult to appreciate immediately
2. The passage tells us that usually in real life men finding love letters addressed to their wives _______.
A. plot revenge B. behave diabolically
C. risk being considered immoral D. play for time and don’t react visibly
3. Chekhov and Stanislavsky believed that _______.
A. ham actors obey instructions well B. ham actors control their movements well
C. actors and real people react similarly D. melodramatic styles of acting are unrealistic
4. Chekhov’s plays are characterised by _______.
A. monologues B. hypocritical conversations
C. a lack of dialogues D. little genuine dialogue
5. According to the author, actors _______.
A. must be flexible B. can easily lose their grip
C. face many risks D. must play their parts with determination
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Part 2: Read the following passages and do the tasks that follow.
Passage A:
THE RING CYCLE
A. In the jungle of scientific debate, you cannot always see the wood for the trees. But in climate change,
the wood itself sometimes holds the key. Imagine an annual register of a year’s sunshine and rainfall
and frost, kept up to date with perfect accuracy almost everywhere south of the tundra and north of the

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tropics, and available for inspection not just at any time in life but, quite often, for centuries after death.
The register is, of course, the annual growth rings of trees. Match the rings from young trees with those
from old forest giants and you have a centuries-long measure of the march of the seasons. Match the
rings from old trees with old cathedral rafters and you have a still longer chronology — and a science
called dendrochronology.
B. Dendrochronologists, scientists who study the growth of rings in trees, have successfully constructed
long tree-ring records by overlapping the patterns of wide and narrow rings in successively older timber
specimens. There are now a dozen or so chronologies in the world that date back more than 5,000
years. These records, normally constructed in a restricted area, using a single species of tree, are year-
by-year records of how the trees reacted to their growth conditions — an environmental history from
the trees’ point of view.
C. Because tree-ring chronologies are constructed on a regional basis, there has, in the past, been a
tendency for dendrochronologists to think local. However, the success of dendrochronology as an
international research topic means that there are now quite a lot of chronologies available for study. As
the chronologies are dated absolutely, it is possible to compare the records from different areas year
by year. Recently, an analysis of 383 modern chronologies, drawn from a vast area across Europe,
northern Eurasia and North America was published. The authors, Keith Briffa and colleagues, observed
that the maximum late-wood density of the growth rings in each year was related to the temperature in
the growing season. Their analysis spanned 600 years, back to AD 1400, and presented a summer
temperature record reconstructed from the huge grid of precisely dated ring densities. What they
noticed was that the years of really low density - the cool summers - were directly associated with large
explosive eruptions, as known from historical sources and from dated layers of acid in the Greenland
ice record. Greenland ice is kilometres thick and is made up of the compressed snowfall of tens of
thousands of years, so the ice record can be read in almost the same way as tree-rings. I shall use this
study as an example of what else tree-rings can tell us.
D. The study provides a year-by-year estimate of temperatures, together with the dates of some major
volcanoes. It is a nice clean story — volcanoes load the atmosphere with dust and aerosol and reflect
back sunlight, cooling the earth’s surface. This cooling leads to variations in the density of growth rings
in northern conifers. Because there are a lot of other records, it is possible to test the findings from the
conifer density record.
E. We can, for example, look at what European oak was doing across the same 600-year period. Was
oak responding in the same way as the conifers? The ‘oak chronology’ is the mean of eight regional
oak chronologies across a strip of land from Ireland to Poland. It represents how, on average, hundreds
of millions of oaks grew. What we see from this comparison is that the oaks clearly do respond to the
volcanoes in some cases (in 1602, 1740 and 1816, for instance), but nothing like so clearly in others.
Immediately it becomes apparent that the conifers tell only part of the story. There are many downturns
in oak growth, and only a few are related to the conifer record. The oaks were quite capable of being
more stressed in years where the conifers were not affected. The point of this, however, is not to argue
about the quality of global cooling; the point is to show what dendrochronology can do.
F. Take the case of 1816, called the ‘year without a summer’ because of the terrible unseasonable cold
and the crop failures that ensued. It has long been known that the primary cause of the cooling was the
massive eruption of Tambora, east of Java, in 1815. However, there was a lot more going on in the
run-up to 1816. Bald cypress trees in Tennessee show a major growth anomaly, with rings up to 400
percent wider than normal, in the years following a huge earthquake in 1811-12 in Eastern America.
But there is a volcanic acid layer in several Greenland and Antarctic ice cores in 1809-10, as well as in
1815-16. So here we have a combination of a highly unusual quake in an area of the USA not normally
affected by earthquakes, and at least two volcanic eruptions, including Tambora, which is widely

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regarded as the largest in the last 10,000 years. According to Briffa, the period 1810-20 was the coldest
in the last millennium, so we begin to see a combination of three unusual elements in less than ten
years — exceptional earthquake, exceptional volcanic eruption, and exceptional cold. Given that the
defeat of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was famously attributed to ‘General Winter’, one
wonders whether a natural series of events actually helped to change the course of modern history.
G. Obviously, the case of 1816 and the years just before and after it is relatively recent and well
documented. However, dendrochronology allows us to investigate the effects of such events
geographically, indeed globally. We can interrogate the trees in areas where there is no historical or
instrumental record. Further back in time, dendrochronology is almost the only way to reconstruct
abrupt environmental events and perhaps throw new light on far darker moments in human history.
Were there just political forces at work in the Dark Ages, or did violent natural events also take a hand,
tipping the balance by darkening the skies and lowering the temperature? The trees were there too and
kept a record. The wood hewn from them and preserved through the centuries is slowly beginning to
yield at least circumstantial evidence that could support some of the stories — think of the Arthurian
wasteland or the plagues of Egypt — so far told only in enigmatic artifacts, or in legends, epics, and
religious chronicles.
Questions 1-6. The Reading passage has seven paragraphs A—G. Choose the most suitable
headings for paragraphs B—G from the list of headings below. Write your answers in the
corresponding numbered boxes provided.
List of headings
i Looking at a particular decade
ii Studying trees frozen in ice
iii Bringing different studies together
iv Records of different species compared
v What dendrochronology is
vi A war that affected the climate
vii Showing how trees record volcanic activity
viii A unique record of other times and places
ix Local records covering thousands of years
x How tree rings are formed

Example: Paragraph A v
1. Paragraph B _______
2. Paragraph C _______
3. Paragraph D _______
4. Paragraph E _______
5. Paragraph F _______
6. Paragraph G _______
Questions 7-10. Choose the answer A, B, C or D which you think fits best according to the passage.
Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
7. What was the result of extending the research to the European oak?
A. It added information to that obtained from studying conifers.
B. It contradicted all the findings from the study of conifers.
C. It showed exactly the same results as those for conifers.
D. It proved that the world has cooled considerably since 1400 AD.

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8. Which of these happened as a result of the eruption at Tambora?

A. Agricultural production fell significantly. B. There was an earthquake in North America.
C. Part of the polar ice caps melted. D. The outcome of a war changed.
9. By studying tree rings, we may discover _______
A. whole new areas of human history. B. proof of events said to have happened.
C. how earlier civilisations treated the environment. D. the truth about the nature of religious belief.
10. A suitable title for this passage would be _______
A. How volcanoes and earthquakes changed history B. The influence of trees on the world’s climate
C. The role of trees in human history D. How trees can tell us more about the past
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Passage B:
A BETTER LIFE?
For over two million years, humans foraged for wild plants and hunted wild animals: since no food was
grown and little stored, these hunter-gatherers had to endure a daily struggle if they were to avoid starvation.
Then 'progress' came, in the form of the Agricultural Revolution.
At the end of the Ice Age, 10,000-12,000 years ago, the Agricultural Revolution took place, something
which was to transform people’s lives forever. Whether this was a consequence or the cause of the dramatic
population growth which we know occurred around this time is still unclear. What is beyond doubt, however,
is that during this period, evidence of the domestication of select plants and animals began to emerge in
the archaeological record. This happened more or less simultaneously in a number of regions throughout
the world, the practice spreading until by the first century AD the vast majority of the global population were
agriculturalists.
Perhaps the most significant consequence of this change was the ability to produce a surplus of food
beyond the immediate needs of daily subsistence. The care and controlled breeding of selected species
led to genetic changes that allowed greater production and increased the geographical ranges across which
the domesticated species could be grown, thus greatly expanding the potential food resources available to
humans.
These developments produced a revolution in human lives. Most notably, small communities that had
previously been forced to make seasonal moves across the landscape to follow the shifting availability of
naturally occurring resources could now settle in one place for long periods and expand in size. The
negative aspect to this was that because agriculture encouraged people to settle together in crowded
societies, it accelerated the spread of parasites and infectious diseases, whereas when populations were
scattered in small bands that continually moved camp, epidemics could not take hold.
The health of agriculturalists of this time can in part be assessed by the newly emerging techniques of
paleopathology, which study the remains of ancient peoples. One example of this work concerns historical
changes in size: skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that around 10,000 years ago male hunter-
gatherers were 5'9" tall, while women were 5'5". Following the adoption of agriculture, this dropped and by
3000 BC had reached an average height of only 5'3" tall for men and 5' for women before very slowly
beginning to rise again.
Studies also show that hunter-gatherers Iiving about 7,000 years ago had bone density proportionally
similar to that seen in modern primates. By contrast, agriculturalists living 6,000 years later had significantly
lighter and weaker bones. However, these findings do not imply that the latter worked fewer hours: data
suggests that the differences can principally be attributed to changes in the pattern of physical activity, from
being highly mobile foragers to relatively sedentary agriculturalists.

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Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Native American skeletons from burial
mounds in the Illinois and Ohio River valley, when they assessed health changes that occurred when a
hunter-gatherer culture changed to intensive maize farming around AD 1150. Studies by George Armelagos
and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their
new-found livelihood.
When compared with their hunter-gatherer ancestors, the farmers were found to have significant health
deficiencies which indicated malnutrition. For example, a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis
increased by four times indicating iron-deficiency anaemia, bone lesions were three times more evident
which points to an increase in infectious diseases and a rise in degenerative spinal conditions was the
result of the gruelling physical work. One expert observed that life expectancy dropped by about seven
years from the pre-agricultural average of twenty-six years to just nineteen years in post-agricultural society
indicating the negative impact of nutritional deficiencies and infectious disease on the population.
The evidence suggests that while hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet including wild plants and
protein, early farmers obtained most of their food from a limited amount of starchy crops such as wheat,
gaining cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. Using new food sources such as dairy products proved
difficult as humans had not adapted to digest it. In addition, dependence on a restricted number of crops
meant the risk of starvation were one crop to fail.
The lasting impact of the Agricultural Revolution was to enable Homo sapiens to succeed as a species
in direct proportion to the increase in the amount of food they produced. However, the short-term effect was
that small groups of relatively healthy people disappeared, to be replaced by large villages of people
suffering from disease and malnourishment.
For questions 1-5, decide whether the following statements are True (T), False (F) or Not Given (NG).
Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
1. Studies prove that the Agricultural Revolution was prompted by a rise in the birth rate at the time.
2. The expansion of feeding grounds was contributory to human’s increased sustenance.
3. Increasingly concentrated populations are likely to have facilitated the prevalence of illnesses.
4. Not until modern times have people in Greece and Turkey reached the same average height as their
hunter-gatherer ancestors.
5. The superior strength of hunter-gatherers’ bones is explained by the fact that they underwent heavier
workload than agriculturalists.
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
For questions 6-10, answer the questions below, using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A
NUMBER from the passgae for each answer. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered
boxes provided.
6. To what extent did people’s teeth worsen as a result of an agricultural diet?
7. What agricultural method was responsible for physical deterioration among early farmers?
8. What physical evidence is there that catching illnesses from others at that time was common?
9. What type of food was largely consumed in the diet of early agriculturalists?
10. What downsides did early communities temporarily face as a result of the Agricultural Revolution?
Your answers:
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

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Passage C:
THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY
A. For the next ten years, various aspects of society could be going through enormous change as Virtual
Reality (VR) technology moves towards fully operational and interactive implementation of its potential.
To what extent VR establishes itself as an integral part of our lives, and how quickly it is likely to move
from niche technology to common usage throughout society, is currently under discussion. However,
many experts are of the opinion that VR may well have become sufficiently developed for it to form an
essential part of life by 2030 (if not sooner). Over 40 million people currently own VR headsets, and
this figure is expected to double over the next three years. By 2025, we may well have reached the
point at which almost 200 million users own a VR viewing device, the Head Mounted Display (HMD),
more commonly known as a VR headset.
B. The ultimate aim of these headsets is to generate a 360-degree, 3D virtual world, enabling the viewer
to enjoy what they are watching without the physical limits of a TV, computer or cinema screen. There
are two LCD displays, one for each eye, which display images being sent by the computer or some
such device (via an HDMI cable) or on the screen of a smartphone inserted into the front of the headset.
Lenses, set inside the HMD between the user's eyes and the LCD displays, are necessary to counteract
the natural differences between what one human eye and the other simultaneously see.
C. These lenses enable two 2D images of the display to be viewed, thus creating a tailored picture for
each eye. These combine to create the illusion of 'real life' in 3D. The HMD also uses 'head tracking',
a system that follows the principle of aircraft flight, tracking three measurements known as pitch, yaw
and roll (or movement along the x, y and z axes). It means that when the user tilts their head up, down,
or to the side, VR follows these motions and allows them to `see' all around them.
D. With such technology in place, one of the most notable sectors in which VR is likely to have far-reaching
effects will be the games industry. In this field, traditional games are in development even now with far
greater scope for creativity than ever before. Role Playing Games (RPGs), in which a gamer plays the
part of a character from a first-person viewpoint, moving through an entirely imagined, graphically
rendered world, are nothing new. However, VR games designers will be able to add to this existing
appeal by enabling the user to look all around themselves at a fully immersive world, one in which the
flow of the narrative can more easily be controlled by the gamer, rather than the creator.
E. Despite this, games designers currently appear to be more attracted to the untapped potential of new
approaches to their end product. For example, games may become less about employing motor skills,
such as swift reflexes or hand-eye coordination. Instead, the aim may be to enjoy the experience of a
VR world in a more unhurried way, with traditional game mechanics (e.g. accumulating points, moving
through a series of levels) running alongside as a secondary concern.
F. Other fields are similarly going to find their landscapes greatly altered. Educators, for one, will be
presented with a vast array of new opportunities through which to pass on knowledge. Within the next
five to ten years, teachers may become able to move completely away from the course book or flat
screen - even the classroom itself - and into an immersive world of instruction and learning. By way of
example, history students could be taken into the epicentre of the world's greatest battles and conflicts,
experiencing and understanding the machinations of victory first-hand. Medical students may be
provided with the opportunity to travel through the human body as if they were themselves the size of
a blood cell, building their comprehension of how veins and arteries, or nerve systems, are
interconnected. Music students will be able to watch a VR orchestra perform their new composition in
a venue of their choice, whether that be the local concert hall or even the Sydney Opera House.
G. Current HMOs do not allow for any dialogue to take place between the user and the simulated people
they encounter in the VR world. However, this is unlikely to be the case forever; a student of Mandarin

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should one day be able to `walk' the streets of Beijing, conversing with the local native-speakers, and
practising the regional pronunciation. Similarly, by the year 2021, the concept of travel may have
undergone a profound transformation. Parts of the world currently inaccessible to most people, whether
because the expense of flying is too great or because those places are too remote to be easily reached,
will become open to visitors in the form of exact VR replicas of the original cities, rainforests, beaches
and so on. Not only is this bound to please avid travellers, it could also appease the concerned
environmentalist; the number of commercial flights operating each day might well decrease as people
opt for VR vacations.
H. Despite its potential to change life as we know it today it is also possible that VR will ultimately fail to
catch on and HMDs will be consigned to history in the same way as were CDs, MiniDisc players and
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). After all, even the technology that today seems improbable will at
some point become outdated. If this does indeed occur, the most likely cause of its failure will be that
the vast majority of computers and consoles available for the home market lack the required processing
power. One potentially disastrous side effect of underpowered hardware is that latency issues - when
what the viewer sees on the display fails to catch up with the movement of their head - can cause
motion sickness in the HMD wearer. Even the most devoted VR enthusiast may be unwilling to accept
this as the consequence of their interest in new technologies.
Questions 1-6. The passage consists of eight paragraphs, marked A-H. Write the correct letter A-H
in the corresponding numbered space provided. You may use any letter more than once.
In which paragraph is each of the following mentioned? Your answers
1. the possibility of VR devices being outmoded 1. __________
2. an outside field that underlies the functioning of a procedure 2. __________
3. the interactive potential of VR technology being no longer far-fetched 3. __________
4. technical incapability that can bring on a negative physical condition 4. __________
5. experience brought by VR transcending that by other devices 5. __________
6. the pace of change in VR technology still being open to debate 6. __________
7. items that can reduce inconsistencies in human vision 7. __________
8. a change brought by VR that can offset human-induced impacts on nature 8. __________
9. the integration of VR and conventional systems altering a concept’s development 9. __________
Questions 10-13. Complete the summary below by choosing NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from
the passage for each answer. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
The influence and effects of VR technology will be (10) _______. This will be most noticeable in one
particular field - Video Games. Since games designers and developers are increasingly able to use their
creativity in new ways, the conventional mechanics and concerns of game playing may become (11)
_______. Further changes are likely to happen away from this field as well: teachers will be able to enter
an (12) _______ that enables learning to take place away from the typical classroom setting; Music students
could theoretically listen to their latest composition being played in the Sydney Opera House, while students
of Medicine will be able to understand how so many parts of the human body are (13) _______.
Furthermore, differing approaches to travel may mean that fewer flights are taken, as people ‘virtually’ visit
the destinations of their choice. This development is likely to please environmentalists as well as avid
travellers.
Your answers:
10. 11. 12. 13.

Compiled by The English Hub for the Specialised 10