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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 14-26, which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below.
Egypt's Pyramid Sculptures
The people of ancient Egypt emerged as one of the first Western civilisations.
Sustained by the River Nile and protected by vast deserts, the Egyptians lived
in comparative security, prosperity and peace for thousands of years. When
such conditions exist, civilization and its arts usually flourish. To this day,
many of the Egyptian artistic creations display the wealth, splendor and talent
of this great civilisation.

Ancient Egypt has been called a land of temples and tombs, and for centuries
people have been filled with wonder at the ingenuity of the Egyptians, whose
impressive works have withstood the ravages of time so well. Had it not been
for the long-lasting nature of their monuments and carved inscriptions in the
form of hieroglyphics, many historical facts and activities would have
vanished from all historical records. In about 3000 BC, Upper and Lower
Egypt were united under the first pharaoh, and generally, it was unified until
the invasion by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Egypt prospered as a nation
of skilful craftsmen and artists.

The Egyptians were industrious, highly civilized and deeply religious people,
who obediently accepted the supreme authority of their pharaohs. The people
were content to be well looked after by the state in return for a secure
livelihood. They considered this earthly life to be a segment in a greater
scheme of life of which everything would be repeated in the afterlife in a
mirror image of the earthly existence of the person, the more careful and
exacting he was in his or her burial, and the more effort and spare the tomb
into which they would be buried.

The burial of the dead in the ground was not considered sufficiently safe for
kings, queens and court officials, so sunken, sealed tombs were ingeniously
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constructed to protect their treasures. Statues were used as replacements for
the absent soul of the late departed. Ancient Egyptian art can also be seen in
the stepped pyramids and upright stone pillars.
One of the most well-known pyramids in Egypt. The Great Pyramid at Gizeh,
which King Cheops built as his tomb 5000 years ago, holds the most interest.
It stands with two other large pyramids on a slight rise overlooking the River
Nile. At the end of the pyramids is the King's Chamber and leading down from
there is a long narrow area known as the Grand Gallery. The pyramid covers
13 acres and contains 2,300,000 blocks of limestone, each weighing an
average of 2.5 tons. Its pyramid form has a perfectly square base with a side
of 756 feet and a height of 481 feet. Situated directly below the King’s
Chamber is the Queen's Chamber and there are two air channels facing
upwards from the center of the pyramid to the outside.

Originally the exterior was covered in highly polished limestone slabs, all of
which have been stolen over the years. It is estimated that a total of 100,000
men labored for 20 years to build this gigantic structure, and although
architecturally unimportant design, it has aroused the curiosity of millions of
people because of the uncanny accuracy of its measurements and
proportions. It reveals the remarkable ingenuity and the great organizing
ability of the ancient Egyptians.

Near these pyramids stands the Great Sphinx, the origin and purpose of
which constitute one of the world's most famous puzzles. Shaped from an
outcrop of stone in the form of a human-headed lion, the face is possibly a
portrait of King Khafre, the son of Cheops, who was buried in the second
largest pyramid. The Sphinx is one of the biggest statues ever made.

The Egyptian people showed reverence towards natural objects such as the
lotus flower, the scarab beetle, the falcon, the lion, the sun and the River Nile.
All these subjects and many more were used symbolically and ornamentally
in most laws of relief carving and painting. It was the custom of the Egyptians
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to depict the various parts in profile except for the eye, which was
represented from the front; the head was shown in profile except for the eye,
which was represented from the front; the shoulders and the torso were
shown from the front; the hips and legs were side view. Wall decorations
showed little or no attempt to indicate depth or perspective, except by placing
distant objects above near things. It was essentially two-dimensional, and
relative size indicated the status of the person, as the pharaoh was by far the
largest figure in the composition.

Egyptian art is characterized by a passion for permanence, a desire to

impress by size, and a determination to make each heavy set its function
without regard for the whole. It is obvious that art among these people
reached a very high level and the strong influence of Egyptian art can be
seen in the work of nearby civilisations.

The fortunate discovery and subsequent deciphering in 1822 of the Rosetta

Stone, which showed the same laws inscribed both in Egyptian hieroglyphics
and the Egyptian demotic, or popular version of their language, as well as the
Greek language, eventually gave the key to the meaning of Egyptian
inscriptions, and therefore the significance of ancient Egyptian art.

Questions 14-16
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet.

1. Security and peace are two ________ that are necessary for a
civilization to be successful.
2. Ancient Egyptians worked as both ________.
3. Ordinary Egyptians expected to receive ________ for their hard work.

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Questions 17-20
Label the diagram below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR NUMBERS from the
passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 17-20 on your answer sheet.

Questions 21-25
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the
Reading Passage 2. In boxes 21-25 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

21 The surface of the Great Pyramid is covered in polished limestone

slabs.
22 King Khafra died before King Cheops.
23 Egyptian carvings were often based on things found in nature.
24 Important characters in Egyptian carvings were bigger than less
important characters.

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25 Egyptian art was greatly influenced by the art of neighboring cultures

Question 26
Choose the correct letter. A, B,C or D.
Write the correct letter in box 13 on your answer sheet.
The writer's aim in this passage is to
A describe the construction methods of the pyramids.
B explain the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians.
C offer an interpretation of Egyptian art and sculpture.
D provide an overview of early Egyptian society.

ANSWER
14. conditions
15. craftsmen and artists
16. a secure livelihood
17. (the) Grand Gallery
18. 48.1 feet
19. (the) Queens chamber
20. (the) air channel(s)
21. F
22. NG
23. T
24. T
25. F
26. D

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READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1-13, which are based on
Reading Passage 1 below.
Elephant Communication
O’ Connell-Rodwell, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, has traveled
to Namibia’s first-ever wildlife reserve to explore the mystical and complicated
realm of elephant communication. She, along with her colleagues, is part of a
scientific revolution that started almost 20 years ago. This revolution has
made a stunning revelation: elephants are capable of communicating with
each other over long distances with low-frequency sounds, also known as
infrasounds, which are too deep for humans to hear.

As might be expected, African elephants able to detect seismic sound may

have something to do with their ears. The hammer bone in an elephant’s
inner ear is proportionally huge for a mammal, but it is rather normal for
animals that use vibrational signals. Thus, it may be a sign that suggests
elephants can use seismic sounds to communicate.

Other aspects of elephant anatomy also support that ability. First, their
massive bodies, which enable them to give out low-frequency sounds almost
as powerful makes during takeoff, serve as ideal frames for receiving ground
vibrations them to the inner ear. Second, the elephant’s toe bones are set on
a fatty pad, which might be of help when focusing vibrations from the ground
into the bone. Finally, the elephant has an enormous brain that sits in the
cranial cavity behind the eyes in line with the auditory canal. The front of the
skull is riddled with sinus cavities, which might function as resonating
chambers for mound vibrations.

It remains unclear how the elephants detect such vibrations, but O’ Connell-
Rodwell raises a point that the pachyderms are ‘listening’ with their trunks
and feet instead of their ears. The elephant trunk may just be the most
versatile appendage in nature. Its utilization encompasses drinking, bathing,
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smelling, feeding and scratching. Both trunk and feet contain two types of
nerve endings that are sensitive to pressure – one detects infrasonic
vibration, and another responds to vibrations higher in frequencies. As O’
Connell-Rodwell sees, this research has a boundless and unpredictable
future. ‘Our work is really interfaced of geophysics, neurophysiology and
ecology,’ she says. ‘We’re raising questions that have never even been
considered before.’

It has been well-known to scientists that seismic communication is widely

observed among small animals, such as spiders, scorpions, insects and quite
a lot of vertebrate species like white-lipped frogs, blind mole rats, kangaroo
rats and golden moles. Nevertheless, O’Connell-Rodwell first argued that a
giant land animal is also sending and receiving seismic signals. ‘I used to lay
a male planthopper on a stem and replay the calling sound of a female, and
then the male one would exhibit the same kind of behavior that happens in
elephants—he would freeze, then press down on his legs, move forward a
little, then stay still again. I find it so fascinating, and it got me thinking that
perhaps auditory communication is not the only thing that is going on.’

Scientists have confirmed that an elephant’s capacity to communicate over

long distance is essential for survival, especially in places like Etosha, where
more than 2,400 savanna elephants range over a land bigger than New
Jersey. It is already difficult for an elephant to find a mate in such a vast wild
land, and the elephant reproductive biology only complicates it. Breeding
herds also adopt low-frequency sounds to send alerts regarding predators.
Even though grown-up elephants have no enemies else than human beings,
baby elephants are vulnerable and are susceptible to lions and hyenas
attack. At the sight of a predator, older ones in the herd will clump together to
form protection before running away.

We now know that elephants can respond to warning calls in the air, but can
they detect signals transmitted solely through the ground? To look into that
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matter, the research team designed an experiment in 2002, which used
electronic devices that enabled them to give out signals through the ground at
Mushara. ‘The outcomes of our 2002 study revealed that elephants could
indeed sense warning signals through the ground,’ O’Connell-Rodwell
observes.

Last year, an experiment was set up in the hope of solving that problem. It
used three different recordings—the 1994 warning call from Mushara, an anti-
predator call recorded by scientist Joyce Poole in Kenya and a made-up
warble tone. ‘The data I’ve observed to this point implies that the elephants
were responding the way I always expected. However, the fascinating finding
is that the anti-predator call from Kenya, which is unfamiliar to them, caused
them to gather around, tense up and rumble aggressively as well—but they
didn’t always flee. I didn’t expect the results to be that clear-cut.’

Question 1 - 4
Label the diagram below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

1 ………………..bones in inner ear

an extremely large 2…………………
toe and fatty 3……………………..

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big-sized brain skull with many 4………….

Question 5 - 11
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.

Question 12 - 13
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

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1 hammer

2 body

3 pad(s)

4 sinus cavities

5 trunks and feet

6 infrasonic

7 ecology

8 seismic signals

9 auditory communication

10 mate

11 ground

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12 A

13 C

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