Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 90

IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 90

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 90 Reading Passage Plain English Campaign below.

Plain English Campaign

{A} We launched the Plain English Campaign in 1979 with a ritual shredding of appalling
government and municipal council forms in Parliament Square, London. We had become so fed
up with people visiting our advice centre in Salford, Greater Manchester, to complain about

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incomprehensible forms that we thought we ought to take action. At the time the shredding
seemed like merely throwing sand in the eyes of the charging lion, but it briefly caught the public
imagination and left an impression on government and business. Although we're pleased with

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the new plain English awareness in government departments, many local councils and
businesses maintain a stout resistance to change. one council began a letter to its tenants

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about a rent increase with two sentences averaging 95 words, full of bizarre housing finance
jargon and waffle about Acts of Parliament. The London Borough of Ealing sent such an
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incomprehensible letter to ISO residents that 40 of them wrote or telephoned to complain and
ask for clarification. Many were upset and frightened that the council was planning to imprison
them if they didn't fill in the accompanying form. In fact the letter meant nothing of the sort, and
the council had to send another letter to explain
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{B} Plain legal English can be used as a marketing tactic. Provincial Insurance issued their plain
English Home Cover policy in 1983 and sold it heavily as such. In the first 18 months its sales
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rocketed, drawing in about an extra £1.5 million of business. Recently, the Eagle Star Group
launched a plain English policy to a chorus of congratulatory letters from policyholders. People,
it seems, prefer to buy a policy they can understand.

{C} Two kinds of instructions give us a lot of concern - medical labels and do-it-yourself
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products. With medical labels there is a serious gap between what the professionals think is
clear and what is really clear to patients. A survey by pharmacists Raynor and Sillito found that
31% of patients misunderstood the instruction on eye drops 'To be instilled', while 33%
misunderstood 'Use sparingly! The instruction "Take two tablets 4 hourly' is so prone to
misunderstanding (for example, as 8 tablets an hour) that we think it should be banned. Unclear
instructions on do-it-yourself products cause expense and frustration to customers. Writing the
necessary instructions for these products is usually entrusted to someone who knows the
product inside out, yet the best qualification for writing instructions is ignorance. The writer is
then like a first-time user, discovering how to use the product in a step-by-step way. Instructions
never seem to be tested with first-time users before being issued. So vital steps are missed out
or components are mislabeled or not labelled at all. For example, the instructions for assembling
a sliding door gear say: 'The pendant bolt centres are fixed and should be at an equal distance
from the centre of the door.' This neglects to explain who should do the fixing and how the bolt

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centres will get into the correct position. By using an imperative and an active verb the
instruction becomes much clearer: 'Make sure you fix the centres of the pendant bolts at an
equal distance from the centre of the door.'

{D} Effectively, the Plain English movement in the US began with President Jimmy Carter's
Executive Order 12044 of 23 March 1978, that required regulations to be written in plain
language. There were earlier government efforts to inform consumers about their rights and
obligations, such as the Truth in Lending Act (1969) and the Fair Credit Billing Act (1975), which
emphasized a body of information that consumers need in simple language. But President
Carter's executive order gave the prestige and force of a president to the movement. All over
the country isolated revolts or efforts against legalistic gobbledygook at the federal, state and
corporate levels seemed to grow into a small revolution. These efforts and advances between
the years 1978 and 1985 are described in the panel 'The Plain English Scorecard'.

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{E} The Bastille has not fallen yet. The forces of resistance are strong, as one can see from the
case of Pennsylvania as cited in the Scorecard. In addition, President Ronald Reagan's

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executive order of 19 February 1981, revoking President Carter's earlier executive order, has
definitely slowed the pace of plain English legislation in the United States. There are three main
objections to the idea of plain English. They are given below, with the campaign's answers to
them:

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{F} The statute would cause unending litigation and clog the courts. Simply not true in all the ten
states with plain English laws for consumer contracts and the 34 states with laws or regulations
for insurance policies. Since 1978 when plain English law went into effect in New York there
have been only four litigations and only two decisions. Massachusetts had zero cases. The cost
of compliance would be enormous. Translation of legal contracts into non-legal everyday
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language would be a waste of time and money. The experience of several corporations has
proved that the cost of compliance is often outweighed by solid benefits and litigation savings.
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Citibank of New York made history in 1975 by introducing a simplified promissory note and
afterwards simplified all their forms. Citibank counsel Carl Falsenfield says: 'We have lost no
money and there has been no litigation as a result of simplification. The cost effectiveness of
clarity is demonstrable. A satisfied customer more readily signs on the bottom line and thus
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contributes to the corporation's bottom line. Some documents simply can't be simplified. Only
legal language that has been tested for centuries in the courts is precise enough to deal with a
mortgage, a deed, a lease, or an insurance policy. Here, too, the experience of several
corporations and insurance companies has proved that contracts and policies can be made
more understandable without sacrificing legal effectiveness.

{G} What does the future hold for the Plain English movement? Today, American consumers are
buffeted by an assortment of pressures. Never before have consumers had as many choices in
areas like financial services, travel, telephone services, and supermarket products. There are
about 300 long-distance phone companies in the US. Not long ago, the average supermarket
carried 9,000 items; today, it carries 22,000. More important, this expansion of options -
according to a recent report- is faced by a staggering 30 million Americans lacking the reading

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skills to handle the minimal demands of daily living. The consumer's need, therefore, for
information expressed in plain English is more critical than ever.

{H} What is needed today is not a brake on the movement's momentum but another push
toward plain English contracts from consumers. I still hear plain English on the TV and in the
streets, and read plain English in popular magazines and best-sellers, but not yet in many
functional documents. Despite some victories, the war against gobbledygook is not over yet. We
do well to remember the warning of Chrissie Maher, organizer of the Plain English Campaign in
the UK: 'People are not just injured when medical labels are written in gobbledygook- they die.
Drivers are not just hurt when their medicines don't tell them they could fall asleep at the wheel -
they are killed.'

Questions 1-6

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

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TRUE
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if the statement is True
FE
FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in the passage

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(1) In the marketing area, the spread of Plain English can generate economic benefits.

(2) Because doctors tend to use jargon when they talk with patients, thereafter many patients
usually get confused with medicine dose.
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(3) After successive elections over U.S president Jimmy Carter, the effect of the Plain English
Campaign is less distinctive than that of the previous one.

(4) The Plain English campaigner has a problem of talking with the officials.

(5) Word check is made regularly by the judge in the court scenario.

(6) Compared with the situation of the past, consumers are now facing less intensity of label
reading pressure in supermarkets in America.

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Questions 7-14
Summary

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than
three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7-14 on
your answer sheet.

Campaigners experienced a council renting document full of

strange.............7..........of housing in terms of an Act. They are

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anxious in some other field, for instance, when reading a label
of medicine, there was an obvious..........8...........for patients.

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Another notable field was on ..........9..........products, it not only
additionally cost buyers, but caused..........10............., thus

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writer should regard himself as a.........11.......... However,
oppositions against the Plain English Campaign under certain
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circumstances, e.g.........12.........language had been
embellished as an accurate language used in the
...........13........... Author suggested that nowadays a new
compelling force is needed from ..........14...........
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Reading Passage 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 90 Reading Passage Numeracy:Can Animal Tell Numbers
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below.

Numeracy :

Can Animals Tell Numbers ?

{A} Prime among basic numerical faculties is the ability to distinguish between a larger and a
smaller number, says psychologist Elizabeth Brannon. Humans can do this with ease - providing
the ratio is big enough - but do other animals share this ability? In one experiment, rhesus
monkeys and university students examined two sets of geometrical objects that appeared briefly
on a computer monitor. They had to decide which set contained more objects. Both groups
performed successfully but, importantly, Brannon's team found that monkeys, like humans,

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make more errors when two sets of objects are close in number. The students' performance
ends up looking just like a monkey's. It's practically identical, 'she says.

{B} Humans and monkeys are mammals, in the animal family known as primates. These are not
the only animals whose numerical capacities rely on ratio, however. The same seems to apply
to some amphibians. Psychologist Claudia Uller's team tempted salamanders with two sets of
fruit flies held in clear tubes. In a series of trials, the researchers noted which tube the
salamanders scampered towards, reasoning that if they had a capacity to recognise number,
they would head for the larger number. The salamanders successfully discriminated between
tubes containing 8 and 16 flies respectively, but not between 3 and 4, 4 and 6, or 8 and 12. So it
seems that for the salamanders to discriminate between two numbers, the larger must be at
least twice as big as the smaller. However, they could differentiate between 2 and 3 flies just as
well as between 1 and 2 flies, suggesting they recognise small numbers in a different way from
larger numbers.

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{C} Further support for this theory comes from studies of mosquitofish, which instinctively join

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the biggest shoal they can. A team at the University of Padova found that while mosquitofish
can tell the difference between a group containing 3 shoal-mates and a group containing 4, they
did not show a preference between groups of 4 and 5. The team also found that mosquitofish

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can discriminate between numbers up to 16, but only if the ratio between the fish in each shoal
was greater than 2:1. This indicates that the fish, like salamanders, possess both the
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approximate and precise number systems found in more intelligent animals such as infant
humans and other primates.

{D} While these findings are highly suggestive, some critics argue that the animals might be
relying on other factors to complete the tasks, without considering the number itself. 'Any study
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that's claiming an animal is capable of representing number should also be controlling for other
factors, 'says Brannon. Experiments have confirmed that primates can indeed perform
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numerical feats without extra clues, but what about the more primitive animals?

{E} To consider this possibility, the mosquitofish tests were repeated, this time using varying
geometrical shapes in place of fish. The team arranged these shapes so that they had the same
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overall surface area and luminance even though they contained a different number of objects.
Across hundreds of trials on 14 different fish, the team found they consistently discriminated 2
objects from 3. The team is now testing whether mosquitofish can also distinguish 3 geometric
objects from 4.

{F} Even more primitive organisms may share this ability. Entomologist Jurgen Tautz sent a
group of bees down a corridor, at the end of which lay two chambers - one which contained
sugar water, which they like, while the other was empty. To test the bees' numeracy, the team
marked each chamber with a different number of geometrical shapes - between 2 and 6. The
bees quickly learned to match the number of shapes with the correct chamber. Like the
salamanders and fish, there was a limit to the bees' mathematical prowess - they could
differentiate up to 4 shapes, but failed with 5 or 6 shapes.

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{G} These studies still do not show whether animals learn to count through training, or whether
they are born with the skills already intact. If the latter is true, it would suggest there was a
strong evolutionary advantage to a mathematical mind. Proof that this may be the case has
emerged from

an experiment testing the mathematical ability of three- and four-day-old chicks. Like
mosquitofish, chicks prefer to be around as many of their siblings as possible, so they will
always head towards a larger number of their kin. If chicks spend their first few days surrounded
by certain objects, they become attached to these objects as if they were family. Researchers
placed each chick in the middle of a platform and showed it two groups of balls of paper. Next,
they hid the two piles behind screens, changed the quantities and revealed them to the chick.
This forced the chick to perform simple computations to decide which side now contained the
biggest number of its "brothers". Without any prior coaching, the chicks scuttled to the larger
quantity at a rate well above chance. They were doing some very simple arithmetic, claim the

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researchers.

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{H} Why these skills evolved is not hard to imagine, since it would help almost any animal
forage for food. Animals on the prowl for sustenance must constantly decide which tree has the
most fruit, or which patch of flowers will contain the most nectar. There are also other, less

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obvious, advantages of numeracy. In one compelling example, researchers in America found
that female coots appear to calculate how many eggs they have laid - and add any in the nest
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laid by an intruder - before making any decisions about adding to them. Exactly how ancient
these skills are is difficult to determine, however. Only by studying the numerical abilities of
more and more creatures using standardised procedures can we hope to understand the basic
preconditions for the evolution of number
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LT
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Questions 15-21
Answer the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from
the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet

Animal numeracy

Subjects Experiments Results

Mammals and birds

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rhesus monkeys and looked at two sets of geometrical Performance of the two groups is
humans objects on a computer screen almost 15………………..

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chicks choose between two sets of

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16……………….. which are altered
chicks can do calculations in order to
choose a larger group
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coots behaviour of female birds was A bird seems to have the ability to
observed 17………………..
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Amphibians, fish and insects

salamanders offered clear tubes containing salamanders distinguish between

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different quantities of numbers over four if the bigger

18………………. number is at least two times larger

19……………….. shown real shoals and later artificial subjects know the difference
ones of geometrical shapes; these between two and three and possibly
are used to check the influence of three and four, but not between four
total 20……………… and brightness and five

bees Had to learn where 21……………. could soon choose the correct place
was stored

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Questions 22-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes
22-27 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is True

R
FALSE if the statement is false

E
NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in the passage

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(22) Primates are better at identifying the larger of two numbers if one is much bigger than the
other.
FE
(23) Jurgen Tautz trained the insects in his experiment to recognise the shapes of individual
numbers.

(24) The research involving young chicks took place over two separate days.
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(25) The experiment with chicks suggests that some numerical ability exists in newborn animals.
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(26) Researchers have experimented by altering quantities of nectar or fruit available to certain
wild animals.

(27) When assessing the number of eggs in their nest, coots take into account those of other
birds.
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Reading Passage 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 90 Reading Passage Tools for Ancient Writing below.

Tools for Ancient Writing

{A} With time, the record-keepers developed systematized symbols from their drawings. These
symbols represented words and sentences, but were easier and faster to draw and universally
recognized for meaning. The discovery of clay made portable records possible (you can't carry a

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cave wall around with you). Early merchants used clay tokens with pictographs to record the
quantities of materials traded or shipped. These tokens date back to about 8,500 B.C. With the
high volume and the repetition inherent in record keeping, pictographs evolved and slowly lost
their picture detail. They became abstract-figures representing sounds in spoken
communication. The alphabet replaced pictographs between 1700 and 1500 B.C. in the Sinaitic
world. The current Hebrew alphabet and writing became popular around 600 B.C. About 400
B.C. the Greek alphabet was developed. Greek was the first script written from left to right. From
Greek followed the Byzantine and the Roman (later Latin) writings. In the beginning, all writing
systems had only uppercase letters, when the writing instruments were refined enough for
detailed faces, lowercase was used as well (around 600 A.D.)

{B} The earliest means of writing that approached pen and paper as we know them today was
developed by the Greeks. They employed a writing stylus, made of metal, bone or ivory, to place
marks upon wax-coated tablets. The tablets are made in hinged pairs, closed to protect the

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scribe's notes. The first examples of handwriting (purely text messages made by hand)
originated in Greece. The Grecian scholar, Cadmus invented the written letter - text messages

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on paper sent from one individual to another.

{C} Writing was advancing beyond chiseling pictures into stone or wedging pictographs into wet

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clay. The Chinese invented and perfected 'Indian Ink'. Originally designed for blacking the
surfaces of raised stone-carved hieroglyphics, the ink was a mixture of soot from pine smoke
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and lamp oil mixed with the gelatin of donkey skin and musk. The ink invented by the Chinese
philosopher, Tien-Lcheu (2697 B.C.), became common by the year 1200 B.C. Other cultures
developed inks using the natural dyes and colors derived from berries, plants and minerals. In
early writings, different colored inks had ritual meaning attached to each color.
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{D} The invention of inks paralleled the introduction of paper. The early Egyptians, Romans,
Greeks and Hebrews, used papyrus and parchment papers. One of the oldest pieces of writing
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on papyrus known to us today is the Egyptian "Prisse Papyrus" which dates back to 2000 B.C.
The Romans created a reed-pen perfect for parchment and ink, from the hollow tubular-stems of
marsh grasses, especially from the jointed bamboo plant. They converted bamboo stems into a
primitive form of fountain pen. They cut one end into the form of a pen nib or point. A writing
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fluid or ink filled the stem, squeezing the reed forced fluid to the nib

{E} By 400 A.D. a stable form of ink developed, a composite of iron-salts, nutgalls and gum, the
basic formula, which was to remain in use for centuries. Its color when first applied to paper was
a bluish-black, rapidly turning into a darker black and then over the years fading to the familiar
dull brown color commonly seen in old documents. Wood-fiber paper was invented in China in
105 A.D. but it only became known about (due to Chinese secrecy) in Japan around 700 A.D.
and brought to Spain by the Arabs in 711 A.D. Paper was not widely used throughout Europe
until paper mills were built in the late 14th century

{F} The writing instrument that dominated for the longest period in history (over one-thousand
years) was the quill pen. Introduced around 700 A.D., the quill is a pen made from a bird
feather. The strongest quills were those taken from living birds in the spring from the five outer
left wing feathers. The left wing was favored because the feathers curved outward and away

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when used by a right-handed writer. Goose feathers were most common; swan feathers were of
a premium grade being scarcer and more expensive. For making fine lines, crow feathers were
the best, and then came the feathers of the eagle, owl, hawk and turkey.

{G} There were also disadvantages associated with the use of quill pens, including a lengthy
preparation time. The early European writing parchments made from animal skins, required
much scraping and cleaning. A lead and a ruler made margins. To sharpen the quill, the writer
needed a special knife (origins of the term "pen-knife".) Beneath the writer's high-top desk was a
coal stove, used to dry the ink as fast as possible.

H Plant-fiber paper became the primary medium for writing after another dramatic invention took
place: Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable wooden or metal letters
in 1436. Simpler kinds of printing e.g. stamps with names, used much earlier in China, did not
find their way to Europe. During the centuries, many newer printing technologies were

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developed based on Gutenberg's printing machine e.g. offset printing.

{I} Articles written by hand had resembled printed letters until scholars began to change the

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form of writing, using capitals and small letters, writing with more of a slant and connecting
letters. Gradually writing became more suitable to the speed the new writing instruments

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permitted. The credit of inventing Italian 'running hand' or cursive handwriting with its Roman
capitals and small letters, goes to Aldus Manutius of Venice, who departed from the old set
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forms in 1495 A.D. By the end of the 16th century, the old Roman capitals and Greek letterforms
transformed into the twenty-six alphabet letters we know today, both for upper and lower-case
letters. When writers had both better inks and paper, and handwriting had developed into both
an art form and an everyday occurrence, man's inventive nature once again turned to improving
the writing instrument, leading to the development of the modern fountain pens
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Questions 28-30
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Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, D, E ? Write your answers in boxes 28-30 on your answer
sheet.
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Question 28-29 What two features do record retention possess in nature?

(A) Easier and faster

(B) Capaciousness

(C) portable

(D) convenient

(E) Iterance

Question 30 What hurt the technique of producing wooden paper from popularity for a long
time?

(A) Scarcity

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(B) Complexity

(C) Confidentiality by the inventors

(D) High cost

Questions 31-37
The reading Passage has eleven paragraphs A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-1, in boxes 31-37 on your answer sheet.

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NB You may use any letter more than once.

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(31) the working principle of the primitive pens made of plant stems

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(32) a writing tool commonly implemented for the longest time

(33) liquid for writing firstly devised by Chinese

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(34) majuscule scripts as the unique written form originally

(35) the original invention of today's correspondences

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(36) the mention of two basic writing instruments being invented coordinately

(37) a design to safeguard the written content

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Questions 38-40
Answer the questions below.
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Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.

(38) What makes it not so convenient to use the quill pens?

(39) When did one more breakthrough occur following the popularity of paper of plant fibers?

(40) What inventions were the results from human's creative instinct of developing writing tools?

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R
E
V
FE
S
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