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Test5
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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.
Cork
Cork - the thick bark of the cork oak Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and
tree (Quercus suber) - is a remarkable Morocco. They flourish in warm, sunny
material. It is tough, elastic, buoyant, climates where there is a minimum of
and fire-resistant, and suitable for a 400 millimetres of rain per year, and
wide range of purposes. It has also not more than 800 millimetres. Like
been used for millennia: the ancient grape vines, the trees thrive in poor
Egyptians sealed their sarcophagi soil, putting down deep roots in search
(stone coffins) with cork, while the of moisture and nutrients. Southern
ancient Greeks and Romans used it Portugal's Alentejo region meets all of
for anything from beehives to sandals. these requirements, which explains
why, by the early 20th century, this
And the cork oak itself is an region had become the world's largest
extraordinary tree. Its bark grows producer of cork, and why today it
up to 20 cm in thickness, insulating accounts for roughly half of all cork
the tree like a coat wrapped around production around the world.
the trunk and branches and keeping
the inside at a constant 20° C all year Most cork forests are family-owned.
round. Developed most probably as Many of these family businesses, and
a defence against forest fires, the indeed many of the trees themselves,
bark of the cork oak has a particular are around 200 years old. Cork
cellular structure - with about production is, above all, an exercise in
40 million cells per cubic centimetre - patience. From the planting of a cork
that technology has never succeeded sapling to the first harvest takes 25
in replicating. The cells are filled with years, and a gap of approximately a
air, which is why cork is so buoyant. decade must separate harvests from
It also has an elasticity that means an individual tree. And for top-quality
you can squash it and watch it spring cork, it's necessary to wait a further
back to its original size and shape 15 or 20 years. You even have to wait
when you release the pressure. for the right kind of summer's day to
harvest cork. If the bark is stripped on
Cork oaks grow in a number of a day when it's too cold - or when the
Mediterranean countries, including air is damp - the tree will be damaged.
16
Reading
Cork harvesting is a very specialised is caused by a chemical compound

profession. No mechanical means called 2, 4, 6-trichloroanisole (TCA),
of stripping cork bark has been which forms through the interaction
invented, so the job is done by teams of plant phenols, chlorine and mould.
of highly skilled workers. First, they The tiniest concentrations - as little
make vertical cuts down the bark as three or four parts to a trillion -
using small sharp axes, then lever can spoil the taste of the product
it away in pieces as large as they contained in the bottle. The result
can manage. The most skilful cork has been a gradual yet steady move
strippers prise away a semi-circular first towards plastic stoppers and,
husk that runs the length of the trunk more recently, to aluminium screw
from just above ground level to the caps. These substitutes are cheaper to
first branches. It is then dried on the manufacture and, in the case of screw
ground for about four months, before caps, more convenient for the user.
being taken to factories, where it is
boiled to kill any insects that might The classic cork stopper does
remain in the cork. Over 60% of have several advantages, however.
cork then goes on to be made into Firstly, its traditional image is more
traditional bottle stoppers, with most in keeping with that of the type of
of the remainder being used in the high quality goods with which it has
construction trade. Corkboard and long been associated. Secondly -
cork tiles are ideal for thermal and and very importantly - cork is a
acoustic insulation, while granules of sustainable product that can be
cork are used in the manufacture of recycled without difficulty. Moreover,
concrete. cork forests are a resource which
support local biodiversity, and prevent
Recent years have seen the end of desertification in the regions where
the virtual monopoly of cork as the they are planted. So, given the current
material for bottle stoppers, due to concerns about environmental issues,
concerns about the effect it may have the future of this ancient material
on the contents of the bottle. This once again looks promising.
17
Test 5
Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 The cork oak has the thickest bark of any living tree.
2 Scientists have developed a synthetic cork with the same cellular structure as
natural cork.
3 Individual cork oak trees must be left for 25 years between the first and second
harvest.
4 Cork bark should be stripped in dry atmospheric conditions.
5 The only way to remove the bark from cork oak trees is by :hand.
18
Test 8
READING
READING PASSAGE 1
Passage 1 below.
The History of Glass

From our earliest origins, man has been ability in the making of glass bottles, and
making use of glass. Historians have many of the city's craftsmen left Italy to
discovered that a type of natural glass set up glassworks throughout Europe.
- obsidian - formed in places such as
the mouth of a volcano as a result of A major milestone in the history of glass
the intense heat of an eruption melting occurred with the invention of lead crystal
sand - was first used as tips for spears. glass by the English glass manufacturer
Archaeologists have even found evidence George Ravenscroft (1632-1683). He
of man-made glass which dates back to attempted to counter the effect of
4000 BC; this took the form of glazes used clouding that sometimes occurred in
for coating stone beads. It was not until blown glass by introducing lead to the raw
1500 BC, however, that the first hollow materials used in the process. The new
glass container was made by covering a glass he created was softer and easier
sand core with a layer of molten glass. to decorate, and had a higher refractive
index, adding to its brilliance and beauty,
Glass blowing became the most common and it proved invaluable to the optical
way to make glass containers from the industry. It is thanks to Ravenscroft's
first century BC. The glass made during invention that optical lenses, astronomical
this time was highly coloured due to the telescopes, microscopes and the like
impurities of the raw material. In the became possible.
first century AD, methods of creating
colourless glass were developed, which In Britain, the modern glass industry only
was then tinted by the addition of really started to develop after the repeal
colouring materials. The secret of glass of the Excise Act in 1845. Before that
making was taken across Europe by the time, heavy taxes had been placed on the
Romans during this century. However, amount of glass melted in a glasshouse,
they guarded the skills and technology and were levied continuously from
required to make glass very closely, and 1745 to 1845. Joseph Paxton's Crystal
it was not until their empire collapsed Palace at London's Great Exhibition of
in 476 AD that glass-making knowledge 1851 marked the beginning of glass as a
became widespread throughout Europe material used in the building industry. This
and the Middle East. From the 10th revolutionary new building encouraged
century onwards, the Venetians gained a the use of glass in public, domestic
reputation for technical skill and artistic and horticultural architecture. Glass
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Reading
manufacturing techniques also improved operating in a fiercely competitive global

with the advancement of science and the market where quality, design and service
development of better technology. levels are critical to maintaining market
share. Modem glass plants are capable
From 1887 onwards, glass making of malting millions of glass containers.a
developed from traditional mouth-blowing day in many different colours, with green,
to a semi-automatic process, after factory brown and clear remaining the most
owner HM Ashley introduced a machine popular. Few of us can imagine modem
capable of producing 200 bottles per hour life without glass. It features in almost
in Castleford, Yorkshire, England - more every aspect of our lives - in our homes,
than three times quicker than any previous our cars and whenever we sit down to eat
production method. Then in 1907, the first or drink. Glass packaging is used for many
fully automated machine was developed products, many beverages are sold in
in the USA by Michael Owens - founder glass, as are numerous foodstuffs, as well ·
of the Owens Bottle Machine Company as medicines and cosmetics.
(later the major manufacturers Owens
Illinois) - and installed in its factory. Glass is an ideal material for recycling,
Owens' invention could produce an and with growing consumer concern
impressive 2,500 bottles per hour. Other for green issues, .glass bottles and
developments followed rapidly, but: it Jars are becoming ever more popular.
was not until the First World War, when Glass recycling is good news for
Britain became cut off from essential glass the environment. It saves used glass
suppliers, that glass became part of the containers being sent to landfill. As less
scientific sector. Previous to this, glass energy is needed to melt recycled glass
had been seen as a craft rather than a than to melt down raw materials, this also
precise science. saves fuel and production costs. Recycling
also reduces the need for raw materials
Today, glass making is big business. It to be quarried, thus saving precious
has become a modem, hi-tech industry resources.
81
Test 8
Questions 1-8
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
The History of Glass

• Early humans used a material called 1 ........................................... to make the sharp points
of their 2 ........................................... .
• 4000 BC: 3 ........................................... made of stone were covered in a coating of
man-made glass.
• First century BC: glass was coloured because of the 4 .......................................... in the
material.
• Until 4 76 AD: Only the 5 ........... ............................... knew how to make glass.
• From 10th century: Venetians became famous for making bottles out of glass.
• 17th century: George Ravenscroft developed a process using 6 .......................................... .
to avoid the occurrence of 7 ........................................... in blown glass.
• Mid-19th century: British glass production developed after changes to laws
concerning 8 ........................................... .
Questions 9-13
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
9 In 1887, HM Ashley had the fastest bottle-producing machine that existed at the
time.
10 Michael Owens was hired by a large US company to design a fully-automated
bottle manufacturing machine for them.
11 Nowadays, most glass is produced by large international manufacturers.
12 Concern for the environment is leading to an increased demand for glass
containers.
13 It is more expensive to produce recycled glass than to manufacture new glass.
82
Reading
READING PASSAGE 3
Passage 3 below.
Museums of fine art and their public

The fact that people go to the Louvre museum in
Paris to see the original painting Mona Usa when
they can see a reproduction anywhere leads us
to question some assumptions about the role of
museums of fine art in today's world
One of the most famous works of art in content to assign
the world is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona the reproduction
·Lisa. Nearly everyone who goes to see the of their creations
original will already be familiar with it from to their workshop
reproductions, but they accept that fine art apprentices as
is more rewardingly viewed in its original regular 'bread and butter' work. And
form. today the task of reproducing pictures is
However, if Mona Lisa was a famous incomparably more simple and reliable,
novel, few people would bother to with reprographic techniques that allow
go to a museum to read the writer's the production of high-quality prints made
actual manuscript rather than a printed exactly to the original scale, with faithful
reproduction. This might be explained by colour values, and even with duplication of
the fact that the novel has evolved precisely the surface relief of the painting.
because of technological developments But despite an implicit recognition that
that made it possible to print out huge the spread of good reproductions can be
numbers of texts, whereas oil paintings have culturally valuable, museums continue to
always been produced as unique objects. In promote the special status of original work.
addition, it could be argued that the practice Unfortunately, this seems to place severe
of interpreting or 'reading' each medium limitations on the kind of experience offered
follows different conventions. With novels, to visitors.
the reader attends mainly to the meaning of One limitation is related to the way the
words rather than the way they are printed museum presents its exhibits. As repositories
on the page, whereas the ' reader' of a of unique historical objects, art museums
painting must attend just as closely to the are often called 'treasure houses'. We are
material form of marks and shapes in the reminded of this even before we view
picture as to any ideas they may signify. a collection by the presence of security
Yet it has always been possible to make guards, attendants, ropes and display cases
very accurate facsimiles of pretty well any to keep us away from the exhibits. In many
fine art work. The seven surviving versions cases, the architectural style of the building
of Mona Lisa bear witness to the fact that further reinforces that notion. In addition,
in the 1 6th century, artists seemed perfectly a major collection like that of London's
49
Test 2
National Gallery is housed in numerous the audience encounters an opera or a play

rooms, each with dozens of works, any over a specific time, which is the duration
one of which is likely to be worth more of the performance. Similarly, novels and
than all the average visitor possesses. In a poems are read in a prescribed temporal
society that judges the personal status of the sequence, whereas a picture has no clear
individual so much by their material worth, place at which to start viewing, or at
it is therefore difficult not to be impressed by which to finish. Thus art works themselves
one's own relative 'worthlessness' in such an encourage us to view them superficially,
environment. without appreciating the richness of detail
Furthermore, consideration of the 'value' and labour that is involved.
of the original work in its treasure house Consequently, the dominant critrcal
setting impresses upon the viewer that, approach becomes that of the art historian,
since these works were originally produced, a specialised academic approach devoted to
they have been assigned a huge monetary 'discovering the meaning' of art within the
value by some person or institution more cultural context of its time. This is in perfect
powerful than themselves. Evidently, harmony with the museum's function, since
nothing the viewer thinks about the work the approach is dedicated to seeking out and
is going to alter that value, and so today's conserving 'authentic' , 'original' readings of
viewer is deterred from trying to extend that the exhibits. Again, this seems to put paid
spontaneous, immediate, self-reliant kind of to that spontaneous, participatory criticism
reading which would originally have met the which can be found in abundance in
work. criticism of classic works of literature, but is
The visitor may then be struck by the absent from most art history.
strangeness of seeing such diverse paintings, The displays of art museums serve
drawings and sculptures brought together as a warning of what critical practices
in an environment for which they were not can emerge when spontaneous criticism
originally created. This 'displacement effect' is suppressed. The museum public, like
is further heightened by the sheer volume of any other audience, experience art more
exhibits. In the case of a major collection, rewardingly when given the confidence
there are probably more works on display to express their views. If appropriate
than we could realistically view in weeks or works of fine art could be rendered
even months. permanently accessible to the public by
This is particularly distressing because means of high-fidelity reproductions, as
time seems to be a vital factor in the literature and music already are, the public
appreciation of all art forms. A fundamental may feel somewhat less in awe of them.
difference between paintings and other art Unfortunately, that may be too much to ask
forms is that there is no prescribed time from those who seek to maintain and control
over which a painting is viewed. By contrast, the art establishment.
50
Reading
Questions 3 -
o the following statements agree with the iews of the writer in eading assage 3
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
36 Art history should focus on discovering the meaning of art using a range of media.
37 The approach of art historians conflicts with that of art museums.
38 People should be encouraged to give their opinions openly on works of art.
39 Reproductions of fine art should only be sold to the public if they are of high quality.
40 ln the future, those with power are likely to encourage more people to enjoy art.
53
Reading
READING PASSAGE 3
Passage 3 below.
When evolution runs backwards

Evolution isn't supposed to run backwards - yet an increasing number
of examples show that it does and that it can sometimes represent the
future of a species
The description of any animal as an in terms of probability, stating that there is no
'evolutionary throwback' is controversial. reason why evolution cannot run backwards
For the better part of a century, most - it is just very unlikely. And so the idea of
biologists have been reluctant to use those irreversibility in evolution stuck and came to
words, mindful of a principle of evolution be known as 'Dollo's law·.
that says 'evolution cannot run backwards'.
But as more and more examples come to If Dollo's law is right, atavisms should
light and modern genetics enters the scene, occur only very rarely, if at all. Yet almost
that principle is having to be rewritten. Not since the idea took root, exceptions have
only are evolutionary throwbacks possible, been cropping up. In 1919, for example,
they sometimes play an important role in the a humpback whale with a pair of leg-like
forward march of evolution. appendages over a metre long, complete
with a full set of limb bones, was caught
The technical term for an evolutionary off Vancouver Island in Canada. Explorer
throwback is an 'atavism', from the Latin Roy Chapman Andrews argued at the time
atavus, meaning forefather. The word has that the whale must be a throwback to a
ugly connotations thanks largely to Cesare land-living ancestor. 'I can see no other
Lombroso, a 19th-century Italian medic who explanation,' he wrote in 1921.
argued that criminals were born not made
and could be identified by certain physical Since then, so many other examples
features that were throwbacks to a primitive, have been discovered that it no longer
sub-human state. makes sense to say that evolution is as good
as irreversible. And this poses a puzzle:
While Lombroso was measuring how can characteristics that disappeared
criminals, a Belgian palaeontologist called millions of years ago suddenly reappear?
Louis Dollo was studying fossil records In 1994, Rudolf Raff and colleagues at
and coming to the opposite conclusion. Indiana University in the USA decided
In 1890 he proposed that evolution was to use genetics to put a number on the
irreversible: that 'an organism is unable to probability of evolution going into reverse.
return, even partially, to a previous stage They reasoned that while some evolutionary
already realised in the ranks of its ancestors'. changes involve the loss of genes and are
Early 20th-century biologists came to a therefore irreversible, others may be the
similar conclusion, though they qualified it result of genes being switched off. If these
97
Test4
silent genes are somehow switched back history of a group of South American lizards
on, they argued, long-lost traits could called Bachia. Many of these have minuscule
reappear. limbs; some look more like snakes than
lizards and a few have completely lost the
Raff's team went on to calculate the toes on their hind limbs. Other species,
likelihood of it happening. Silent genes however, sport up to four toes on their
accumulate random mutations, they hind legs. The simplest explanation is that
reasoned, eventually rendering them useless. the toed lineages never lost their toes,
So how long can a gene survive in a species but Wagner begs to differ. According to
if it is no longer used? The team calculated his analysis of the Bachia family tree, the
that there is a good chance of silent genes toed species re-evolved toes from toeless
surviving for up to 6 million years in at least ancestors and, what is more, digit loss
a few individuals in a population, and that and gain has occurred on more than one
some might survive as long as 10 million occasion over tens of millions of years.
years. In other words, throwbacks are
possible, but only to the relatively recent So what's going on? One possibility is
evolutionary past. that these traits are lost and then simply
reappear, in much the same way that
As a possible example, the team pointed similar structures can independently arise
to the mole salamanders of Mexico and in unrelated species, such as the dorsal
California. Uke most amphibians these fins of sharks and killer whales. Another
begin life in a juvenile 'tadpole' state, then more intriguing possibility is that the genetic
metamorphose into the adult form - except information needed to make toes somehow
for one species, the axolotl, which famously survived for tens or perhaps hundreds of
lives its entire life as a juvenile. The simplest millions of years in the lizards and was
explanation for this is that the axolotl lineage reactivated. These atavistic traits provided
alone lost the ability to metamorphose, while an advantage and spread through the
others retained it. From a detailed analysis population, effectively reversing evolution.
of the salamanders' family tree, however,
it is clear that the other lineages evolved But if silent genes degrade within 6 to
from an ancestor that itself had lost the 1 O million years, how can long-lost traits
ability to metamorphose. In other words, be reactivated over longer timescales? The
metamorphosis in mole salamanders is an answer may lie in the womb. Early embryos
atavism. The salamander example fits with of many species develop ancestral features.
Raff's 10-million-year time frame. Snake embryos, for example, sprout hind
limb buds. Later in development these
More recently, however, examples have features disappear thanks to developmental
been reported that break the time limit, programs that say 'lose the leg'. If for any
suggesting that silent genes may not be the reason this does not happen, the ancestral
whole story. In a paper published last year, feature may not disappear, leading to an
biologist Gunter Wagner of Yale University atavism.
reported some work on the evolutionary
98
Test4
Questions 32-36
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.
32 For a long time biologists rejected

33 Opposing views on evolutionary throwbacks are represented by
34 Examples of evolutionary throwbacks have led to
35 The shark and killer whale are mentioned to exemplify
36 One explanation for the findings of Wagner's research is
A the question of how certain long-lost traits could reappear.

B the occurrence of a particular feature in different species.
C parallels drawn between behaviour and appearance.
D the continued existence of certain genetic information.
E the doubts felt about evolutionary throwbacks.
F the possibility of evolution being reversible.
G Dollo's findings and the convictions held by Lombroso.
Questions 37-40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
37 Wagner was the first person to do research on South American lizards.

38 Wagner believes that Bachia lizards with toes had toeless ancestors.
39 The temporary occurrence of long-lost traits in embryos is rare.
40 Evolutionary throwbacks might be caused by developmental problems in the womb.
100
Test 2
READING
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 m inutes on Questions 1- 13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.
Bringing cinnamon to Europe

Cinnamon is a sweet, fragrant spice produced from the inner bark of trees of the genus
Cinnamomum, which is native to the Indian sub- continent. It was known in biblical times,
and is mentioned in several books of the Bible, both as an ingredient that was mixed
with oils for anointing people's bodies, and also as a token indicating friendship among
lovers and friends. In ancient Rome, mourners attending funerals burnt cinnamon to
create a pleasant scent. Most often, however, the spice found its primary use as an
additive to food and drink. In the Middle Ages, Europeans who could afford the spice
used it to flavour food, particularly meat, and to impress those around them with their
ability to purchase an expensive condiment from the ‘exotic’ East. At a banquet, a host
would offer guests a plate with various spices piled upon it as a sign of the wealth at his
or her disposal. Cinnamon was also reported to have health benefits, and was thought
to cure various ailments, such as indigestion.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the European middle classes began to desire
the lifestyle of the elite, including their consumption of spices. This led to a growth in
demand for cinnamon and other spices. At that time, cinnamon was transported by Arab
merchants, who closely guarded the secret of the source of the spice from potential
rivals. They took it from India, where it was grown, on camels via an overland route
to the Mediterranean. Their journey ended when they reached Alexandria. European
traders sailed there to purchase their supply of cinnamon, then brought it back to Venice.
The spice then travelled from that great trading city to markets all around Europe.
Because the overland trade route allowed for only small quantities of the spice to reach
Europe, and because Venice had a virtual monopoly of the trade, the Venetians could
set the price of cinnamon exorbitantly high. These prices, coupled with the increasing
demand, spurred the search for new routes to Asia by Europeans eager to take part in
the spice trade.
Seeking the high profits promised by the cinnamon market, Portuguese traders arrived
on the island of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean toward the end of the 15th century. Before
Europeans arrived on the island, the state had organized the cultivation of cinnamon.
People belonging to the ethnic group called the Salagama would peel the bark off
young shoots of the cinnamon plant in the rainy season, when the wet bark was
more pliable. During the peeling process, they curled the bark into the ‘stick’ shape
still associated with the spice today. The Salagama then gave the finished product to
the king as a form of tribute. When the Portuguese arrived, they needed to increase
38
Reading
production significantly, and so enslaved many other members of the Ceylonese native
population, forcing them to work in cinnamon harvesting. In 1518, the Portuguese built
a fort on Ceylon, which enabled them to protect the island, so helping them to develop a
monopoly in the cinnamon trade and generate very high profits. In the late 16th century,
for example, they enjoyed a tenfold profit when shipping cinnamon over a journey of
eight days from Ceylon to India.
When the Dutch arrived off the coast of southern Asia at the very beginning of the
17th century, they set their sights on displacing the Portuguese as kings of cinnamon.
The Dutch allied them selves with Kandy, an inland kingdom on Ceylon. In return
for payments of elephants and cinnamon, they protected the native king from the
Portuguese. By 1640, the Dutch broke the 150- year Portuguese monopoly when they
overran and occupied their factories. By 1658, they had permanently expelled the
Portuguese from the island, thereby gaining control of the lucrative cinnamon trade.
In order to protect their hold on the market, the Dutch, like the Portuguese before them,
treated the native inhabitants harshly. Because of the need to boost production and
satisfy Europe's ever- increasing appetite for cinnamon, the Dutch began to alter the
harvesting practices of the Ceylonese. Over time, the supply of cinnamon trees on the
island became nearly exhausted, due to systematic stripping of the bark. Eventually, the
Dutch began cultivating their own cinnamon trees to supplement the diminishing number
of wild trees available for use.
Then, in 1796, the English arrived on Ceylon, thereby displacing the Dutch from their
control of the cinnamon monopoly. By the middle of the 19th century, production of
cinnamon reached 1,000 tons a year, after a lower grade quality of the spice became
acceptable to European tastes. By that time, cinnamon was being grown in other parts
of the Indian Ocean region and in the West Indies, Brazil, and Guyana. Not only was a
monopoly of cinnamon becoming impossible, but the spice trade overall was diminishing
in economic potential, and was eventually superseded by the rise of trade in coffee, tea,
chocolate, and sugar.
39
Test 2
Questions 1-9
Write yo ur answers in boxes 1- 9 on yo ur answer sheet.
The Early History of Cinnamon
Biblical times: added to 1 ....................
used to show 2 .................... between people
Ancient Rome: used for its sweet smell at 3 ....................
Middle Ages: added to food, especially meat
was an indication of a person's 4 ....................
known as a treatment for 5 .................... and other

health problems
grown in 6 ....................
merchants used 7 .................... to bring it to

the Mediterranean
arrived in the Mediterranean at 8 ....................
traders took it to 9 .................... and sold it to

destinations around Europe
40
Reading
Questions 10-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 10- 13 on yo ur answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statem ent agrees with the inform ation

FALSE if the statem ent contradicts the inform ation
NOT GIVEN if there is no inform ation on this
10 The Portuguese had control over the cinnamon trade in Ceylon throughout the 16th
century.
11 The Dutch took over the cinnamon trade from the Portuguese as soon as they
arrived in Ceylon.
12 The trees planted by the Dutch produced larger quantities of cinnamon than the
wild trees.
13 The spice trade maintained its economic importance during the 19th century.
41
Reading
READING PASSAGE 2
Passage 2 below.
Bring back the big cats

It's time to start returning vanished native animals to Britain, says John Vesty
There is a poem, written around 598 AD, trees return to places that have been
which describes hunting a mystery animal denuded, allowing parts of the seabed
called a 1/ewyn. But what was it? Nothing to recover from trawling and dredging,
seemed to fit, until 2006, when an animal permitting rivers to flow freely again.
bone, dating from around the same Above all, it means bringing back missing
period, was found in the Kinsey Cave in species. One of the most striking findings
northern England. Until this discovery, the of modern ecology is that ecosystems
lynx - a large spotted cat with tasselled without large predators behave in
ears - was presumed to have died out in e:ompletely different ways from those that
Britain at least 6,000 years ago, before retain them. Some of them drive dynamic
the inhabitants of these islands took up processes that resonate through the whole
farming. But the 2006 find, together with food chain, creating niches for hundreds
three others in Yorkshire and Scotland, is of species that might otherwise struggle to
compelling evidence that the lynx and the survive. The killers turn out to be bringers
mysterious llewyn were in fact one and the of life.
same animal. If this is so, it would bring
Such findings present a big challenge
forward the tassel-eared cat's estimated
to British conservation, which has often
extinction date by roughly 5,000 years.
selected arbitrary assemblages of plants
However, this is not quite the last glimpse and animals and sought, at great effort and
of the animal in British culture. A 9th expense, to prevent them from changing.
century stone cross from the Isle of Eigg It has tried to preserve the living world as
shows, alongside the deer, boar and if it were a jar of pickles, letting nothing
___ aurochs pursued by a mounted hunter, a in and nothing out, keeping nature in
speckled cat with tasselled ears. Were it not a state of arrested development. But
fQrthe animal's backside having worn away ec..osystems are not merely. collections- of
with time, we could have been certain, as species; they are also the dynamic and
the lynx's stubby tail is unmistakable. But ever-shifting relationships between them.
even without this key feature, it's hard to And this dynamism often depends on large
see what else the creature could have been. predators.
The lynx is now becoming the totemic
At sea the potential is even greater: by
animal of a movement that is transforming
protecting large areas from commercial
British environmentalism: rewilding.
fishing, we could once more see what
Rewilding means the mass restoration of 18th-century literature describes: vast
damaged ecosystems. It involves letting shoals of fish being chased by fin and
83
Test 8
sperm whales, within sight of the English On a recent trip to the Cairngorm
shore. This policy would also greatly boost Mountains, I heard several conservationists
catches in the surrounding seas; the fishing suggest that the lynx could be reintroduced
industry's insistence on scouring every inch there within 20 years. If trees return to
of seabed, leaving no breeding reserves, the bare hills elsewhere in Britain, the big
could not be more damaging to its own cats could soon follow. There is nothing
interests. extraordinary about these proposals,
seen from the perspective of anywhere
Rewilding is a rare example of an
else in Europe. The lynx has now been
environmental movement in which
reintroduced to the Jura Mountains, the
campaigners articulate what they are for
Alps, the Vosges in eastern France and
rather than only what they are against.
the Harz mountains in Germany, and has
One of the reasons why the enthusiasm for
re-established itself in many more places.
rewilding is spreading so quickly in Britain
The European population has tripled since
is that it helps to create a more inspiring
1970 to roughly 10,000. As with wolves,
vision than the green movement's usual
bears, beavers, boar, bison, moose and
promise of 'Follow us and the world will be
many other species, the lynx has been able
slightly less awful than it would otherwise
to spread as farming has left the hills and
have been.'
people discover that it is more lucrative to
The lynx presents no threat to human protect charismatic wildlife than to hunt it,
beings: there is no known instance of one as tourists will pay for the chance to see it.
preying on people. It is a specialist predator Large-scale rewilding is happening almost
of roe deer, a species that has exploded in everywhere - except Britain.
Britain in recent decades, holding back, by
Here, attitudes are just beginning to
intensive browsing, attempts to re-establish
change. Conservationists are starting to
forests. It will also winkle out sika deer:
accept that the old preservation-jar model
an exotic species that is almost impossible
is failing, even on its own terms. Already,
for human beings to control, as it hides in
projects such as Trees for Life in the
impenetrable plantations of young trees.
Highlands provide a hint of what might be
The attempt to reintroduce this predator
coming. An organisation is being set up
marries well with the aim of bringing
that will seek to catalyse the rewilding of
forests back to parts of our bare and barren
land and sea across Britain, its aim being to
uplands. The lynx requires deep cover, and
reintroduce that rarest of species to British
as such presents little risk to sheep and
ecosystems: hope.
other livestock, which are supposed, as a
condition of farm subsidies, to be kept out
of the woods.
84
Reading
Questions 14-18
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 What did the 2006 discovery of the animal bone reveal about the lynx?
A Its physical appearance was very distinctive.
B Its extinction was linked to the spread of farming.
C It vanished from Britain several thousand years ago.
D It survived in Britain longer than was previously thought.
15 What point does the writer make about large predators in the third paragraph?
A Their presence can increase biodiversity.
B They may cause damage to local ecosystems.
C Their behaviour can alter according to the environment.
D They should be reintroduced only to areas where they were native.
16 What does the writer suggest about British conservation in the fourth paragraph?
A It has failed to achieve its aims.
B It is beginning to change direction.
C It has taken a misguided approach.
D It has focused on the most widespread species.
17 Protecting large areas of the sea from commercial fishing would result in
A practical benefits for the fishing industry.
B some short-term losses to the fishing industry.
C widespread opposition from the fishing industry.
D certain changes to techniques within the fishing industry.
18 According to the author, what distinguishes rewilding from other environmental

campaigns?
A Its objective is more achievable.
B Its supporters are more articulate.
C ltspositive message is more appealing.
D It is based on sounder scientific principles.
85
Test 7
READING PASSAGE 3
Passage 3.
Music and the emotions

Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer considers the emotional power of music
Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form,
devoid of language or explicit ideas. And yet, even though music says little, it still
manages to touch us deeply. When listening to our favourite songs, our body betrays all
the symptoms of emotional arousal. The pupils in our eyes dilate, our pulse and blood
pressure rise, the electrical conductance of our skin is lowered, and the cerebellum, a
brain region associated with bodily movement, becomes strangely active. Blood is even
re-directed to the muscles in our legs. In other words, sound stirs us at our biological
roots.
A recent paper in Nature Neuroscience by a research team in Montreal, Canada, marks
an important step in revealing the precise 1.mderpinnings of 'the potent pleasurable
stimulus' that is music. Although the study involves plenty of fancy technology, including
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and ligand-based positron emission
tomography (PET) scanning, the experiment itself was rather straightforward. After
screening 217 individuals who responded to advertisements requesting people who
experience 'chills' to instrumental music, the scientists narrowed down the subject pool
to ten. They then asked the subjects to bring in their playlist of favourite songs - virtually
every genre was represented, from techno to tango - and played them the music while
their brain activity was monitored. Because the scientists were combining methodologies
(PET and fMRI), they were able to obtain an impressively exact and detailed portrait of
music in the brain. The first thing they discovered is that music triggers the production
of dopamine - a chemical with a key role in setting people's moods - by the neurons
(nerve cells) in both the dorsal and ventral regions of the brain. As these two regions
have long been linked with the experience of pleasure, this finding isn't particularly
surprising.
What is rather more significant is the finding that the dopamine neurons in the
caudate - a region of the brain involved in learning stimulus-response associations,
and in anticipating food and other 'reward' stimuli - were at their most active around
15 seconds before the participants' favourite moments in the music. The researchers
call this the 'anticipatory phase' and argue that the purpose of this activity is to help
us predict the arrival of our favourite part. The question, of course, is what all these
dopamine neurons are up to. Why are they so active in the period preceding the
acoustic climax? After all, we typically associate surges of dopamine with pleasure, with
the processing of actual rewards. And yet, this cluster of cells is most active when the
'chills' have yet to arrive, when the melodic pattern is still unresolved.
66
Reading
One way to answer the question is to look at the music and not the neurons. While
music can often seem (at least to the outsider) like a labyrinth of intricate patterns, it
turns out that the most important part of every song or symphony is when the patterns
break down, when the sound becomes unpredictable. If the music is too obvious, it is
annoyingly boring, like an alarm clock. Numerous studies, after all, have demonstrated
that dopamine neurons quickly adapt to predictable rewards. If we know what's going
to happen next, then we don't get excited. This is why composers often introduce a
key note in the beginning of a song, spend most of the rest of the piece in the studious
avoidance of the pattern, and then finally repeat it only at the end. The longer we are
denied the pattern we expect, the greater the emotional release when the pattern
returns, safe and sound.
To demonstrate this psychological principle, the musicologist Leonard Meyer, in his
classic book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), analysed the 5th movement of
Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. Meyer wanted to show how
music is defined by its flirtation with - but not submission to - our expectations of order.
Meyer dissected 50 measures (bars) of the masterpiece, showing how Beethoven
begins with the clear statement of a rhythmic and harmonic pattern and then, in an
ingenious tonal dance, carefully holds off repeating it. What Beethoven does instead is
suggest variations of th� pattern. He wants to preserve an element of uncertainty in his
music, making our brains beg for the one chord he refuses to give us. Beethoven saves
that chord for the end.
According to Meyer, it is the suspenseful tension of music, arising out of our unfulfilled
expectations, that is the source of the music's feeling. While earlier theories of music
focused on the way a sound can refer to the real world of images and experiences - its
'connotative' meaning - Meyer argued that the emotions we find in music come from the
unfolding events of the music itself. This 'embodied meaning' arises from the patterns
the symphony invokes and then ignores. It is this uncertainty that triggers the surge
of dopamine in the caudate, as we struggle to figure out what will happen next. We
can predict some of the notes, but we can't predict them all, and that is what keeps us
listening, waiting expectantly for our reward, for the pattern to be completed.
67
Reading
Questions 32-36
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.
32 What point does the writer emphasise in the first paragraph?

A how dramatically our reactions to music can vary
B how intense our physical responses to music can be
C how little we know about the way that music affects us
D how much music can tell us about how our brains operate
33 What view of the Montreal study does the writer express in the second paragraph?
A Its aims were innovative.
B The approach was too simplistic.
C It produced some remarkably precise data.
D The technology used was unnecessarily complex.
34 What does the writer find interesting about the results of the Montreal study?
A the timing of participants' neural responses to the music
B the impact of the music on participants' emotional state
C the section of participants' brains which was activated by the music
D the type of music which had the strongest effect on participants' brains
35 Why does the writer refer to Meyer's work on music and emotion?
A to propose an original theory about the subject
B to offer support for the findings of the Montreal study
C to recommend the need for further research into the subject
D to present a view which opposes that of the Montreal researchers
36 According to Leonard Meyer, what causes the listener's emotional response to

music?
A the WaY-thafthe music evokes poignant rnemories in the listener
B the association of certain musical chords with certain feelings
C the·nstener's sympathy with the composer's intentions
D the internal structure of the musical composition
69
Test 1
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
EDUCATING PSYCHE
Educating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to
learning, describing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on learning.
One theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on
the power of suggestion.
Lozanov's instructional technique is based on the evidence that the connections made in
the brain through unconscious processing (which he calls non-specific mental reactivity)
are more durable than those made through conscious processing. Besides the laboratory
evidence for this, we know from our experience that we often remember what we have
perceived peripherally, long after we have forgotten what we set out to learn. If we think
of a book we studied months or years ago, we will find it easier to recall peripheral
details - the colour, the binding, the typeface, the table at the library where we sat while
studying it - than the content on which we were concentrating. If we think of a lecture
we listened to with great concentration, we will recall the lecturer's appearance and
mannerisms, our place in the auditorium, the failure of the air-conditioning, much more
easily than the ideas we went to learn. Even if these peripheral details are a bit elusive,
they come back readily in hypnosis or when we relive the event imaginatively, as in
psychodrama. The details of the content of the lecture, on the other hand, seem to have
gone forever.
This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach to

study (making extreme efforts to memorise, tensing muscles, inducing fatigue), but it also
simply reflects the way the brain functions. Lozanov therefore made indirect instruction
(suggestion) central to his teaching system. In suggestopedia, as he called his method,
consciousness is shifted away from the curriculum to focus on something peripheral. The
currisulum then becomes peripheral and is dealt with by the reserve capacity of the brain.
The suggestopedic approach to foreign language learning provides a good illustration. In

its most recent variant (1980), it consists of the reading of vocabulary and text while the
class is listening to music. The first session is in two parts. In the first part, the music is
classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) and the teacher reads the text slowly and solemnly,
with attention to the dynamics of the music. The students follow the text in their books.
This is followed by several minutes of silence. In the second part, they listen to baroque
music (Bach, Corelli, Handel) while the teacher reads the text in a normal speaking voice.
During this time they have their books closed. During the whole of this session, their
attention is passive; they listen to the music but make no attempt to learn the material.
Beforehand, the students have been carefully prepared for the language learning
experience. Through meeting with the staff and satisfied students they develop the
expectation that learning will be easy and pleasant and that they will successfully learn
26
Reading
several hundred words of the foreign language during the class. In a preliminary talk, the
teacher introduces them to the material to be covered, but does not 'teach' it. Likewise,
the students are instructed not to try to learn it during this introduction.
Some hours after the two-part session, there is a follow-up class at which the students are
stimulated to recall the material presented. Once again the approach is indirect. The
students do not focus their attention on trying to remember the vocabulary, but focus on
using the language to communicate (e.g. through games or improvised dramatisations).
Such methods are not unusual in language teaching. What is distinctive in the
suggestopedic method is that they are devoted entirely to assisting recall. The 'learning'
of the material is assumed to be automatic and effortless, accomplished while listening to
music. The teacher's task is to assist the students to apply what they have learned
paraconsclously, and in doing so to make it easily accessible to consciousness. Another
difference from conventional teaching is the evidence that students can regularly learn
1000 new words of a foreign language during a suggestopedic session, as well as
grammar and idiom.
Lozanov experimented with teaching by direct suggestion during sleep, hypnosis and
trance states, but found such procedures unnecessary. Hypnosis, yoga, Silva mind-control,
religious ceremonies and faith healing are all associated with successful suggestion, but
none of their techniques seem to be essential to it. Such rituals may be seen as placebos.
Lozanov acknowledges that the ritual surrounding suggestion in his own system is also a
placebo, but maintains that without such a placebo people are unable or afraid to tap the
reserve capacity of their brains. Like any placebo, it must be dispensed with authori"ty to
be effective. Just as a doctor calls on the full power of autocratic suggestion by insisting
that the patient take precisely this white capsule precisely three times a day before meals,
Lozanov is categoric in insisting that the suggestopedic session be conducted exactly in
the manner designated, by trained and accredited suggestopedic teachers.
While suggestopedia has gained some notoriety through success in the teaching of
modern languages, few teachers are able to emulate the spectacular results of Lozanov
and his associates. We can, perhaps, attribute mediocre results to an inadequate placebo
effect. The students have not developed the appropriate mind set. They are often not
motivated to learn through this method. They do not have enough 'faith'. They do not
see it as 'real teaching', especially as it does not seem to involve the 'work' they have
learned to believe is essential to learning.
27
Test 1
Questions 27-30
27 The book Educating Psyche is mainly concerned with

A the power of suggestion in learning.
B a particular technique for learning based on emotions.
C the effects of emotion on the imagination and the unconscious.
D ways of learning which are not traditional.
28 Lozanov's theory claims that, when we try to remember things,
A unimportant details are the easiest to recall.
B concentrating hard produces the best results.
C the most significant facts are most easily recalled.
D peripheral vision is not important.
29 In this passage, the author uses the examples of a book and a lecture to illustrate that
A both of these are important for developing concentration.
B his theory about methods of learning is valid.
C reading is a better technique for learning than listening.
D we can remember things more easily under hypnosis.
30 Lozanov claims that teachers should train students to
A memorise details of the curriculum.
B develop their own sets of indirect instructions.
C think about something other than the curriculum content.
D avoid overloading the capacity of the brain.
28
READING PASSAGE 3
Passage 3 below.
Neuroaesthetics
An emerging discipline called neuroaesthetics is seeking to bring scient1而c objectivity to
the study of art, and has already given us a better understanding of many masterpieces.
’
The blurred imagery of Impressionist paintings seems to stimulate the brain s amygdala, for
instance. Since the amygdala plays a crucial role in our feelings, that白nding might explain why
many people find these pieces so moving.
Could the same approach also shed light on abstract twentieth-century pieces, from
’ ’
Mondrian s geometrical blocks of colOL汀，to Pollock s seemingly haphazard arrangements
of splashed paint on canvas? Sceptics believe that people claim to like such works simply
because they are famous. We certainly do have an inclination to follow the crowd. When
asked to make simple perceptual decisions such as matching a shape to its rotated image, for
excimple, people often choose a definitively wrong answer if they see others doing the same.
It is easy to imagine that this mentality would have even more impact on a fuzzy concept like
art appreciation, where there is no right or wrong answer.
Angelina Hawley-Dolan, of Boston College, Massachusetts, responded to this debate by

asking volunteers to view pairs of paintings - either the creations of famous abstract artists or
the doodles of infants, chimps and elephants. They then had to judge which they preferred.
A third of the paintings were given no captions, while many were labelled incorrectly -
’
volunteers might think they were viewing a chimp s messy brushstrokes when they were
actually seeing an acclaimed masterpiece. In each set of trials, volunteers generally preferred
the work of renowned artists, even when they believed it was by an animal or a child. It seems
’ ’
that the viewer can sense the artist s vision in paintings, even if they can t explain why.
Robert Peppere川，an artist based at Cardiff University, creates ambiguous wo「ks that
are neither entirely abstract nor clearly representational. In one study, Pepperell and his
’
collaborators asked volunteers to decide how ’powerful they considered an artwork to be,
and whether they saw anything familiar in the piece. The longer they took to answer these
questions, the more highly they rated the piece under scrutiny, and the greater their neural
activity. It would seem that the brain sees these images as puzzles, and the harder it is to
decipher the meaning, the more rewarding is the moment of recognition.
49
And what about artists such as Mondrian, whose paintings consist e×elusively of horizontal
’
and vertical lines encasing blocks of colour? Mondrian s works are deceptively simple, but
eye-tracking studies con币rm that they are meticulously composed, and that simply rotating a
’
piece radically changes the way we view it. With the originals, volunteers eyes tended to stay
longer on certain places in the image, but with the altered versions they would flit across a
piece more rapidly. As a result, the volunteers considered the altered versions less pleasurable
when they later rated the work.
In a similar study, Oshin Vartanian of丁oronto University asked volunteers to compare original
paintings with ones which he had altered by moving objects around within the frame. He
found that almost everyone preferred the original, whether it was a Van Gogh still life or
an abstract by Mir6. Vartanian also found that changing the composition of the paintings
reduced activation in those brain areas linked with meaning and interpretation.
In another experiment, Alex Forsythe of the University of Liverpool analysed the visual
intricacy of different pieces of art, and her results suggest that many artists use a key level of
detail to please the brain. Too little and the work is boring, but too much results in a kind of
’ ’
perceptual overload: according to Forsythe. What s more, appealing pieces both abstract and
’ ’－
representational, show signs of fractals repeated motifs recurring in different scales. Fractals
are common throughout nature, for example in the shapes of mountain peaks or the branches
of trees. It is possible that our visual system, which evolved in the great outdoors，白nds it
easier to process such patterns.
It is also intriguing that the brain appears to process movement when we see a handwritten
’
letter, as if we are replaying the writer s moment of creation. This has led some to wonder
’
whether Pollock s works feel so dynamic because the brain reconstructs the energetic actions
’ ’
the artist used as he painted. This may be down to our brain 5 mirror neurons: which are
known to mimic others' actions. The hypothesis will need to be thoroughly tested, however. It
might even be the case that we could use neuroaesthetic studies to understand the longevity
of some pieces of artwork. While the fashions of the time might shape what is currently
popul町，works that are best adapted to our visual system may be the most likely to linger
once the trends of previous generations have been forgotten.
’
It s still early days for the field of neuroaesthetics - and these studies are probably only a taste
of what is to come. It would, however, be foolish to reduce art appreciation to a set of scient的c
’
laws. We shouldn t underestimate the importance of the style of a particular artist, their place
in history and the artistic environment of their time. Abstract art offers both a challenge and
’
the freedom to play with different interpretations. In some ways, it s not so different to science,
where we are constantly looking for systems and decoding meaning so that we can view and
appreciate the world in a new way.
50
Questions 27-30
27 In the second pa「agraph, the write 「 refers to a shape-matching test in order to
illust 「ate
A the subjective nature of a时appreciation.
B the reliance of modern art on abstract forms.
C OU 「 tendency to be influenced by the opinions of others.
D a common problem encountered when processing visual data.
28 Angelina Hawley-Dolan ’s findings indicate that people
A mostly favour works of art which they know well.
B hold fixed ideas about what makes a good wo「k of art.
C are often misled by their initial expectations of a work of art.
D have the ability to perceive the intention behind works of art.
29 Results of studies involving Robert Pepperell’ s pieces suggest that people
A can appreciate a painting without fully understanding it.
B find it satisfying to work out what a painting rep 「esents.
C va 「y widely in the time they spend looking at paintings.
D generally prefer 「epresentational art to abstract art.
30 What do the experiments described in the fifth paragraph suggest about the
paintings of Mondrian?
A They are more carefully put together than they appear.
B They can be interpreted in a number of different ways.
C They challenge our assumptions about shape and colour.
D They are easier to appreciate than many other abstract works.
51
Reading
READING
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on
Reading Passage 1 on the following pages.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

!Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct num ber, i-ix, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
The search for the reasons for an increase in population
ii Industrialisation and the fear of unemployment
iii The development of cities in Japan
iv The time and place of the Industrial Revolution
v The cases of Holland, France and China
vi Changes in drinking habits in Britain
vii Two keys to Britain's industrial revolution
viii Conditions required for industrialisation
ix Comparisons with Japan lead to the answer
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph F
7 Paragraph G
41
Test 2
Tea and the Industrial Revolution

A Cambridge professor says that a change in drinking habits was the reasonfor
the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Anjana Ahuja reports
A Alan Macfarlane, professor of anthropological science at King's College, Cambridge, has, like
other historians, spent decades wrestling with the enigma of the Industrial Revolution. Why
did this particular Big Bang - the world-changing birth of industry - happen in Britain? And
why did it strike at the end of the 18th century?
B Macfarlane compares the puzzle to a combination lock. 'There are about 20 different
factors and all of them need to be present before the revolution can happen,' he says. For
industry to take off, there needs to be the technology and power to drive factories, large
urban populations to provide cheap labour, easy transport to move goods around, an
affluent middle-class willing to buy mass-produced objects, a market-driven economy and
a political system that allows this to happen. While this was the.case for England, other
nations, such as Japan, the Netherlands and France also met some of these criteria but were
not industrialising. '.All these factors must have been necessary but not sufficient to cause the
revolution,' says Macfarlane. 'After all, Holland had everything except coal, while China also
had many of these factors. Most historians are convinced there are one or two missing factors
that you need to open the lock.'
C The missing factors, he proposes, are to be found in almost every kitchen cupboard. Tea and
beer, two of the nation's favourite drinks, fuelled the revolution. The antiseptic properties
of tannin, the active ingredient in tea, and of hops in beer- plus the fact that both are
made with boiled water- allowed urban communities to flourish at close quarters without
succumbing to water-borne diseases such as dysentery. The theory sounds eccentric but once
he starts to explain the detective work that went into his deduction, the scepticism gives
way to wary admiration. Macfarlane's case has been strengthened by support from notable
quarters - Roy Porter, the distinguished medical historian, recently wrote a favourable
appraisal of his research.
D Macfarlane had wondered for a long time how the Industrial Revolution came about.
Historians had alighted on one interesting factor around the mid-18th century that required
explanation. Between about 1650 and 1740, the population in Britain was static. But then
there was a burst in population growth. Macfarlane says: 'The infant mortality rate halved
in the space of 20 years, and this happened in both rural areas and cities, and across all
classes. People suggested four possible causes. Was there a sudden change in the viruses and
bacteria around? Unlikely. Was there a revolution in medical science? But this was a century
before Lister's revolution*. Was there a change in environmental conditions? There were
improvements in agriculture that wiped out malaria, but these were small gains. Sanitation
did not become widespread until the 19th century. The only option left is food. But the
height and weight statistics show a decline. So the food must have got worse. Efforts to
explain this sudden reduction in child deaths appeared to draw a blank.'
• Joseph Lister was the nm doctor to use antiseptic techniques during surgical operations to prevent infections.
42
Reading
E This population burst seemed to happen at just the right time to provide labour for the
Industrial Revolution. 'When you start moving towards an industrial revolution, it is
economically efficient to have people living close together,' says Macfarlane. 'But then you
get disease, particularly from human waste.' Some digging around in historical records
revealed that there was a change in the incidence of water-borne disease at that time,
especially dysentery. Macfarlane deduced that whatever the British were drinking must have
been important in regulating disease. He says, 'We drank beer. For a long time, the English
were protected by the strong antibacterial agent in hops, which were added to help preserve
the beer. But in the late 17th century a tax was introduced on malt, the basic ingredient of
beer. The poor turned to water and gin and in the 1720s the mortality rate began to rise
again. Then it suddenly dropped again. What caused this?'
F Macfarlane looked to Japan, which was also developing large cities about the same time,
and also had no sanitation. Water-borne diseases had a much looser grip on the Japanese
population than those in Britain. Could it be the prevalence of tea in their culture?
Macfarlane then noted that the history of tea in Britain provided an extraordinary
coincidence of dates. Tea was relatively expensive until Britain started a direct clipper trade
with China in the early 18th century. By the 1740s, about the time that infant mortality
was dipping, the drink was common. Macfarlane guessed that the fact that water had to
be boiled, together with the stomach-purifying properties of tea meant that the breast
milk provided by mothers was healthier than it had ever been. No other European nation
sipped tea like the British, which, by Macfarlane's logic, pushed these other countries out of
contention for the revolution.
6 But, if tea is a factor in the combination lock, why didn't Japan forge ahead in a tea-soaked
industrial revolution of its own? Macfarlane notes that even though l 7th-century Japan had
large cities, high literacy rates, even a futures market, it had turned its back on the essence
of any work-based revolution by giving up labour-saving devices such as animals, afraid that
they would put people out of work. So, the nation that we now think of as one of the most
technologically advanced entered the 19th century having 'abandoned the wheel'.
43
Test3
READING PASSAGE 2
Passage 2 below.
Autontn leaves
Canadian writer Jay Ingram investigates the
mystery of why leaves turn red in the fall
A One of the most captivating natural events of the year in many areas throughout
North America is the turning of the leaves in the fall. The colours are magnificent,
but the question of exactly why some trees turn yellow or orange, and others red or
purple, is something which has long puzzled scientists.
B Summer leaves are green because they are full of chlorophyll, the molecule that
captures sunlight and converts that energy into new building materials for the tree.
As fall approaches in the northern hemisphere, the amount of solar energy available
declines considerably. For many trees - evergreen conifers being an exception -
the best strategy is to abandon photosynthesis* until the spring. So rather than
maintaining the now redundant leaves throughout the winter, the tree saves its
precious resources and discards them. But before letting its leaves go, the tree
dismantles their chlorophyll molecules and ships their valuable nitrogen back into
the twigs. As chlorophyll is depleted, other colours that have been dominated by it
throughout the summer begin to be revealed. This unmasking explains the autumn
colours of yellow and orange, but not the brilliant reds and purples of trees such as
the maple or sumac.
C The source of the red is widely known: it is created by anthocyanins, water-soluble

plant pigments reflecting the red to blue range of the visible spectrum. They belong to
a class of sugar-based chemical compormds also known as flavonoids. What's puzzling
is that anthocyanins are actually newly minted, made in the leaves at the same time as
the tree is preparing to drop them. But it is hard to make sense of the manufacture of
anthocyanins - why should a tree bother making new chemicals in its leaves when it's
already scrambling to withdraw and preserve the ones already there?
D Some theories about anthocyanins have argued that they might act as a chemical
defence against attacks by insects or fungi, or that they might attract fruit-eating
birds or increase a leaf's tolerance to freezing. However there are problems with
each of these theories, including the fact that leaves are red for such a relatively
short period that the expense of energy needed to manufacture the anthocyanins
would outweigh any anti-fungal or anti-herbivore activity achieved.
* photosynthesis: the production of new material from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide
68
Reading
E It has also been proposed that trees may produce vivid red colours to convince
herbivorous insects that they are healthy and robust and would be easily able
to mount chemical defences against infestation. If insects paid attention to
such advertisements, they might be prompted to lay their eggs on a duller, and
presumably less resistant host. The flaw in this theory lies in the lack of proof
to support it. No one has as yet ascertained whether more robust trees sport the
brightest leaves, or whether insects make choices according to colour intensity.
F Perhaps the most plausible suggestion as to why leaves would go to the trouble
of making anthocyanins when they're busy packing up for the winter is the
theory known as the 'light screen' hypothesis. It sounds paradoxical, because the
idea behind this hypothesis is that the red pigment is made in autumn leaves to
protect chlorophyll, the light-absorbing chemical, from too much light. Why does
chlorophyll need protection when it is the natural world's supreme light absorber?
Why protect chlorophyll at a time when the tree is breaking it down to salvage as
much of it as possible?
G Chlorophyll, although exquisitely evolved to capture the energy of sunlight,

can sometimes be overwhelmed by it, especially in situations of drought, low
temperatures, or nutrient deficiency. Moreover, the problem of oversensitivity
to light is even more acute in the fall, when the leaf is busy preparing for winter
by dismantling its internal machinery. The energy absorbed by the chlorophyll
molecules of the unstable autumn leaf is not immediately channelled into useful
products and processes, as it would be in an intact swnmer leaf. The weakened fall
leaf then becomes vulnerable to the highly destructive effects of the oxygen created
by the excited chlorophyll molecules.
H Even if you had never suspected that this is what was going on when leaves turn
red, there are clues out there. One is straightforward: on many trees, the leaves that
are the reddest are those on the side of the tree which gets most sun. Not only that,
but the red is brighter on the upper side of the leaf. It has also been recognised for
decades that the best conditions for intense red colours are dry, sunny days and cool
nights, conditions that nicely match those that make leaves susceptible to excess
light. And finally, trees such as maples usually get much redder the more north you
travel in the northern hemisphere. It's colder there, they're more stressed, their
chlorophyll is more sensitive and it needs more sunblock.
What is still not fully understood, however, is why some trees resort to producing
red pigments while others don't bother, and simply reveal their orange or yellow
hues. Do these trees have other means at their disposal to prevent overexposure to
light in autumn? Their story, though not as spectacular to the eye, will surely turn
out to be as subtle and as complex.
69
Test3
Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
14 a description of the substance responsible for the red colouration of leaves

15 the reason why trees drop their leaves in autumn
16 some evidence to confirm a theory about the purpose of the red leaves
17 an explanation of the function of chlorophyll
18 a suggestion that the red colouration in leaves could serve as a warning signal
Questions 19-22
Why believe the 'light screen' hypothesis?

• The most vividly coloured red leaves are found on the side of the tree facing the
19 ...................... .
• The 20 ...................... surfaces of leaves contain the most red pigment.
• Red leaves are most abundant when daytime weather conditions are 21 ......................
and sunny.
• The intensity of the red colour of leaves increases as you go further 22 ...................... .
70
Reading
READING
READING PASSAGE 1
Passage 1 below.
A Hearing impairment or other auditory function deficit in young children can have a major impact
on their development of speech and communication, resulting in a detrimental effect on their
ability to learn at school. This is likely to have major consequences for the individual and the
population as a whole. The New Zealand Ministry of Health has found from research carried out
over two decades that 6-10% of children in that country are affected by hearing loss.
B A preliminary study in New Zealand has shown that classroom noise presents a major
concern for teachers and pupils. Modern teaching practices, the organisation of desks
in the classroom, poor classroom acoustics, and mechanical means of ventilation such as
air-conditioning units all contribute to the number of children unable to comprehend the
teacher's voice. Education researchers Nelson and Soli have also suggested that recent
trends in learning often involve collaborative interaction of multiple minds and tools as much
as individual possession of information. This all amounts to heightened activity and noise
levels, which have the potential to be particularly serious for children experiencing auditory
function deficit. Noise in classrooms can only exacerbate their difficulty in comprehending
and processing verbal communication with other children and instructions from the teacher.
C Children with auditory function deficit are potentially failing to learn to their maximum
potential because of noise levels generated in classrooms. The effects of noise on the ability
of children to learn effectively in typical classroom environments are now the subject of
increasing concern. The International Institute of Noise Control Engineering
(1-INCE), on the advice of the World Health Organization, has established an international
working party, which includes New Zealand, to evaluate noise and reverberation control for
school rooms.
D While the detrimental effects of noise in classroom situations are not limited to children
experiencing disability, those with a disability that affects their processing of speech and
verbal communication could be extremely vulnerable. The auditory function deficits in
question include hearing impairment, autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit
disorders (ADD/ADHD).
E Autism is considered a neurological and genetic life-long disorder that causes discrepancies
in the way information is processed. This disorder is characterised by interlinking problems
with social imagination, social communication and social interaction. According to Janzen,
this affects the ability to understand and relate in typical ways to people, understand events
and objects in the environment, and understand or respond to sensory stimuli. Autism does
not allow learning or thinking in the same ways as in children who are developing normally.
41
Test 2
Autistic spectrum disorders often result in major difficulties in comprehending verbal

information and speech processing. Those experiencing these disorders often find sounds
such as crowd noise and the noise generated by machinery painful and distressing. This is
difficult to scientifically quantify as such extra-sensory stimuli vary greatly from one autistic
individual to another. But a child who finds any type of noise in their classroom or learning
space intrusive is likely to be adversely affected in their ability to process information.
F The attention deficit disorders are indicative of neurological and genetic disorders and are
characterised by difficulties with sustaining attention, effort and persistence, organisation
skills and disinhibition. Children experiencing these disorders find it difficult to screen out
unimportant information, and focus on everything in the environment rather than attending
to a single activity. Background noise in the classroom becomes a major distraction, which
can affect their ability to concentrate.
G Children experiencing an auditory function deficit can often find speech and communication
very difficult to isolate and process when set against high levels of background noise.
These levels come from outside activities that penetrate the classroom structure, from
teaching activities, and other noise generated inside, which can be exacerbated by room
reverberation. Strategies are needed to obtain the optimum classroom construction and
perhaps a change in classroom culture and methods of teaching. In particular, the effects
of noisy classrooms and activities on those experiencing disabilities in the form of auditory
function deficit need thorough investigation. It is probable that many undiagnosed children
exist in the education system with 'invisible' disabilities. Their needs are less likely to be met
than those of children with known disabilities.
H The New Zealand Government has developed a New Zealand Disability Strategy and has
embarked on a wide-ranging consultation process. The strategy recognises that people
experiencing disability face significant barriers in achieving a full quality of life in areas such
as attitude, education, employment and access to services. Objective 3 of the New Zealand
Disability Strategy is to 'Provide the Best Education for Disabled People' by improving
education so that all children, youth learners and adult learners will have equal opportunities
to learn and develop within their already existing local school. For a successful education,
the learning environment is vitally significant, so any effort to improve this is likely to be of
great benefit to all children, but especially to those with auditory function disabilities.
A number of countries are already in the process of formulating their own standards for
the control and reduction of classroom noise. New Zealand will probably follow their
example. The literature to date on noise in school rooms appears to focus on the effects on
schoolchildren in general, their teachers and the hearing impaired. Only limited attention
appears to have been given to those students experiencing the other disabilities involving
auditory function deficit. It is imperative that the needs of these children are taken into
account in the setting of appropriate international standards to be promulgated in future.
42
Reading
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage 1 has nine sections, A-1.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct Jetter, A-I, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1 an account of a national policy initiative

2 a description of a global team effort
3 a hypothesis as to one reason behind the growth in classroom noise
4 a demand for suitable worldwide regulations
5 a list of medical conditions which place some children more at risk from noise than
others
6 the estimated proportion of children in New Zealand with auditory problems
Questions 7-10
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for
each answer.
7 For what period of time has hearing loss in schoolchildren been studied in New
Zealand?
8 In addition to machinery noise, what other type of noise can upset children with
autism?
9 What term is used to describe the hearing problems of schoolchildren which have
not been diagnosed?
10 What part of the New Zealand Disability Strategy aims to give schoolchildren equal
opportunity?
43
Test4
READING PASSAGE 2
Passage 2 below.
Second nature
Your personality isn't necessarily set in stone. With a little experimentation,
people can reshape their temperaments and inject passion, optimism, joy and
courage into their lives
A Psychologists have long held that a person's character cannot undergo a
transformation in any meaningful way and that the key traits of personality are
determined at a very young age. However, researchers have begun looking more
closely at ways we can change. Positive psychologists have identified 24 qualities
we admire, such as loyalty and kindness, and are studying them to find out why
they come so naturally to some people. What they're discovering is that many of
these qualities amount to habitual behaviour that determines the way we respond
to the world. The good news is that all this can be learned.
Some qualities are less challenging to develop than others, optimism being one of
them. However, developing qualities requires mastering a range of skills which are
diverse and sometimes surprising. For example, to bring more joy and passion into
your life, you must be open to experiencing negative emotions. Cultivating such
qualities will help you realise your full potential.
B 'The evidence is good that most personality traits can be altered,' says Christopher
Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, who cites himself
as an example. Inherently introverted, he realised early on that as an academic,
his reticence would prove disastrous in the lecture hall. So he learned to be
more outgoing and to entertain his classes. 'Now my extroverted behaviour is
spontaneous,' he says.
C David Fajgenbaum had to make a similar transition. He was preparing for
university, when he had an accident that put an end to his sports career. On
campus, he quickly found that beyond ordinary counselling, the university had no
services for students who were undergoing physical rehabilitation and suffering
from depression like him. He therefore launched a support group to help others in
similar situations. He took action despite his own pain - a typical response of an
optimist.
D Suzanne Segerstrom, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky,
believes that the key to increasing optimism is through cultivating optimistic
behaviour, rather than positive thinking. She recommends you train yourself to pay
attention to good fortune by writing down three positive things that come about
each day. This will help you convince yourself that favourable outcomes actually
happen all the time, making it easier to begin taking action.
92
Reading
E You can recognise a person who is passionate about a pursuit by the way they
are so strongly involved in it. Tanya Streeter's passion is freediving- the sport
of plunging deep into the water without tanks or other breathing equipment.
Beginning in 1998, she set nine world records and can hold her breath for
six minutes. The physical stamina required for this sport is intense but the
psychological demands are even more overwhelming. Streeter learned to untangle
her fears from her judgment of what her body and mind could do. 'In my career
as a competitive freediver, there was a limit to what I could do- but it wasn't
anywhere near what I thought it was,' she says.
F Finding a pursuit that excites you can improve anyone's life. The secret about
consuming passions, though, according to psychologist Paul Silvia of the
University of North Carolina, is that 'they require discipline, hard work and ability,
which is why they are so rewarding.' Psychologist Todd Kashdan has this advice
for those people taking up a new passion: 'As a newcomer, you also have to tolerate
and laugh at your own ignorance. You must be willing to accept the negative
feelings that come your way,' he says.
G In 2004, physician-scientist Mauro Zappaterra began his PhD research at Harvard
Medical School. Unfortunately, he was miserable as his research wasn't compatible
with his curiosity about healing. He finally took a break and during eight months
in Santa Fe, Zappaterra learned about alternative healing techniques not taught
at Harvard. When he got back, he switched labs to study how cerebrospinal fluid
nourishes the developing nervous system. He also vowed to look for the joy in
everything, including failure, as this could help him learn about his research and
himself.
One thing that can hold joy back is a person's concentration on avoiding failure
rather than their looking forward to doing something well. 'Focusing on being safe
might get in the way of your reaching your goals,' explains Kashdan. For example,
are you hoping to get through a business lunch without embarrassing yourself, or
are you thinking about how fascinating the conversation might be?
H Usually, we think of courage in physical terms but ordinary life demands
something else. For marketing executive Kenneth Pedeleose, it meant speaking
out against something he thought was ethically wrong. The new manager was
intimidating staff so Pedeleose carefully recorded each instance of bullying and
eventually took the evidence to a senior director, knowing his own job security
would be threatened. Eventually the manager was the one to go. According to
Cynthia Pury, a psychologist at Clemson University, Pedeleose's story proves the
point that courage is not motivated by fearlessness, but by moral obligation. Pury
also believes that people can acquire courage. Many of her students said that faced
with a risky situation, they first tried to calm themselves down, then looked for a
way to mitigate the danger, just as Pedeleose did by documenting his allegations.
Over the long term, picking up a new character trait may help you move toward
being the person you want to be. And in the short term, the effort itself could be
surprisingly rewarding, a kind of internal adventure.
93
Reading
Questions 19-22
Look at the following statements (Questions 19-22) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.
19 People must accept that they do not know much when first trying something new.
20 It is important for people to actively notice when good things happen.
21 Courage can be learned once its origins in a sense of responsibility are understood.
22 It is possible to overcome shyness when faced with the need to speak in public.
List of People
A Christopher Peterson
B David Fajgenbaum
C Suzanne Segerstrom
D Tanya Streeter
E Todd Kashdan
F Kenneth Pedeleose
G Cynthia Pury
95
Reading
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14^26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
SAVING THE SOIL

More than a third of the Earth's top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s
most precious resource?
A More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report.
If we don’t slow the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil
grows 95% of our food, and sustains human life in other more surprising ways, that
is a huge problem.
B Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points
out that soil scientists have been warning about the degradation of the world's soil
for decades. At the same time, our understanding of its importance to humans has
grown. A single gram of healthy soil might contain 100 million bacteria, as well as
other microorganisms such as viruses and fungi, living amid decomposing plants
and various minerals.
That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our
existing antibiotics, and could be our best hope in the fight against antibiotic-
resistant bacteria. Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms
within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding
three times the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere. Soils also store
water, preventing flood damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads and bridges
from floods caused by soil degradation costs £233 million every year.
C If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in
big trouble. The danger is not that the soil will disappear completely, but that the
microorganisms that give it its special properties will be lost. And once this has
happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to recover.
Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow they remove
nutrients from the soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are
returned directly to the soil. Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested
crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes
less fertile. In the past we developed strategies to get around the problem, such
as regularly varying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields uncultivated for a
season.
D But these practices became inconvenient as populations grew and agriculture had
to be run on more commercial lines. A solution came in the early 20th century with
the Haber-Bosch process for manufacturing ammonium nitrate. Farmers have been
putting this synthetic fertiliser on their fields ever since.
85
Test 4
But over the past few decades, it has become clear this wasn't such a bright idea.
Chemical fertilisers can release polluting nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and
excess is often washed away with the rain, releasing nitrogen into rivers. More
recently, we have found that indiscriminate use of fertilisers hurts the soil itself,
turning it acidic and salty, and degrading the soil they are supposed to nourish.
E One of the people looking for a solution to this problem is Pius Floris, who started
out running a tree-care business in the Netherlands, and now advises some of the
world’s top soil scientists. He came to realise that the best way to ensure his trees
flourished was to take care of the soil, and has developed a cocktail of beneficial
bacteria, fungi and humus* to do this. Researchers at the University of Valladolid in
Spain recently used this cocktail on soils destroyed by years of fertiliser overuse.
When they applied Floris’s mix to the desert-like test plots, a good crop of plants
emerged that were not just healthy at the surface, but had roots strong enough to
pierce dirt as hard as rock. The few plants that grew in the control plots, fed with
traditional fertilisers, were small and weak.
F However, measures like this are not enough to solve the global soil degradation
problem. To assess our options on a global scale we first need an accurate picture
of what types of soil are out there, and the problems they face. That’s not easy. For
one thing, there is no agreed international system for classifying soil. In an attempt
to unify the different approaches, the UN has created the Global Soil Map project.
Researchers from nine countries are working together to create a map linked to a
database that can be fed measurements from field surveys, drone surveys, satellite
imagery, lab analyses and so on to provide real-time data on the state of the soil.
Within the next four years, they aim to have mapped soils worldwide to a depth of
100 metres, with the results freely accessible to all.
G But this is only a first step. We need ways of presenting the problem that bring
it home to governments and the wider public, says Pamela Chasek at the
International Institute for Sustainable Development, in Winnipeg, Canada. 'Most
scientists don't speak language that policy-makers can understand, and vice versa . ，
Chasek and her colleagues have proposed a goal of ‘zero net land degradation， .
Like the idea of carbon neutrality, it is an easily understood target that can help
shape expectations and encourage action.
For soils on the brink, that may be too late. Several researchers are agitating for
the immediate creation of protected zones for endangered soils. One difficulty
here is defining what these areas should conserve: areas where the greatest soil
diversity is present? Or areas of unspoilt soils that could act as a future benchmark
of quality?
Whatever we do, if we want our soils to survive, we need to take action now.
* Humus: the part of the soil formed from dead plant material
86
Reading
Questions 14-17
Complete the summary below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Why soil degradation could be a disaster for humans
Healthy soil contains a large variety of bacteria and other microorganisms, as well
as plant remains and 14.................... . It provides us with food and also with
antibiotics, and its function in storing 15.................... has a significant effect on the
climate. In addition, it prevents damage to property and infrastructure because it
holds 16....................
If these microorganisms are lost, soil may lose its special properties. The main factor
contributing to soil degradation is the 17.................... carried out by humans.
Questions 18-21
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.
18 Nutrients contained in the unused parts of harvested crops

19 Synthetic fertilisers produced with the Haber-Bosch process
20 Addition of a mixture developed by Pius Floris to the soil
21 The idea of zero net soil degradation
A may improve the number and quality of plants growing there.

B may contain data from up to nine countries.
C may not be put back into the soil.
D may help governments to be more aware of soil-related issues.
E may cause damage to different aspects of the environment.
F may be better for use at a global level.
87
Test 2
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
on the following pages.
Questions 27-30
Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for sections B, C, E and Ffrom the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
MIRTP as a future model

ii Identifying the main transport problems
iii Preference for motorised vehicles
iv Government�uthorities' instructions
v Initial improvements in mobility and transport modes
vi Request for improved transport in Makete
vii Transport improvements in the northern part of the district
viii · Improvements in the rail network
ix Effects of initial MIRTP measures
x Co-operation of district officials
xi Role of wheelbarrows and donkeys
Example Answer
Section A vi
27 Section B
28 Section C
Example Answer
Section D ix
29 Section E
30 Section F
48
Reading
Makete Integrated Rural Transport Project
Section A
The disappointing results of many conventional road transport projects in Africa led some experts to
rethink the strategy by which rural transport problems were to be tackled at the beginning of the 1980s.
A request for help in improving the availability of transport within the remote Makete District of south
western Tanzania presented the opportunity to try a new approach.
The concept of'integrated rural transport' was adopted in the task of examining the transport needs of
the rural households in the district. The objective was to reduce the time and effort needed to obtain
access to essential goods and services through an improved rural transport system. The underlying
assumption was that the time saved would be used instead for activities that would improve the_ social and
economic development of the communities. The Makete Integrated Rural Transport Project (MIRTP)
started in 1985 with financial support from the Swiss Development Corporation and was co-ordinated
with the help of the Tanzanian government.
Section B
When the project began, Makete District was virtually totally isolated during the rainy season.The regional
road was in such bad shape that access to the main towns was impossible for about three months of the
year. Road traffic was extremely rare within the district, and alternative means of transport were restricted
to donkeys in the north of the district. People relied primarily on the paths, which were slippery and
dangerous during the rains.
Before solutions could be proposed, the problems had to be understood. Little was known about the
transport demands of the rural households, so Phase I, between December 1985 and December 1987,
focused on research.The socio-economic survey of more than 400 households in the district indicated that
a household in Makete spent, on average, seven hours a day on transporting themselves and their goods,
a figure which seemed extreme but which has also been obtained in surveys in other rural areas in Africa.
Interesting facts regarding transport were found: 95% was on foot; 80% was within the locality; and 70%
was related to the collection of water and firewood and travelling to grinding mills.
Section C
Having determined the main transport needs, possible solutions were identified which might reduce the
time and burden. During Phase II, from January to February 1991, a number of approaches were
implemented in an effort to improve mobility and access to transport.
An improvement of the road network was considered necessary to ensure the import and export of
goods to the district. These improvements were carried out using methods that were heavily dependent
on labour. In addition to the improvement of roads, these methods p�ovided training in the operation of
a mechanical workshop and bus and truck services. However, the difference from the conventional
approach was that this time consideration was given to local transport needs outside the road network.
Most goods were transported along the paths that provide short-cuts up and down the hillsides, but the
paths were a real safety risk and made the journey on foot even more arduous. It made sense to improve
the paths by building steps, handrails and footbridges.
It was uncommon to find means of transport that were more efficient than walking but less technologically
advanced than motor vehicles. The use of bicycles was constrained by their high cost and the lack of
available spare parts. Oxen were not used at all but donkeys were used by a few households in the
northern part of the district. MIRTP focused on what would be most appropriate for the inhabitants of
Makete in terms of what was available, how much they could afford and what they were willing to accept.
49
Test 2
After careful consideration, the project chose the promotion of donkeys - a donkey costs less than a bicycle
- and the introduction of a locally manufacturable wheelbarrow.
Section D
At the end of Phase 11, it was clear that the selected approaches to Makete's transport problems had had
different degrees of success. Phase Ill, from March 199 1 to March 1993, focused on the refinement and
institutionalisation of these activities.
The road improvements and accompanying maintenance system had helped make the district centre
accessible throughout the year. Essential goods from outside the district had become more readily available
at the market, and prices did not fluctuate as much as they had done before.
Paths and secondary roads were improved only at the request of communities who were willing to
participate in construction and maintenance. However, the improved paths impressed the inhabitants, and
requests for assistance greatly increased soon after only a few improvements had been completed.
The efforts to improve the efficiency of the existing transport services were not very successful because
most of the motorised vehicles in the district broke down and there were no resources to repair them.
Even the introduction of low-cost means of transport was difficult because of the general poverty of the
district.The locally manufactured wheelbarrows were still too expensive for all but a few of the households.
Modifications to the original design by local carpenters cut production time and costs. Other local
carpenters have been trained in the new design so that they can respond to requests. Nevertheless, a
locally produced wooden wheelbarrow which costs around 5000 Tanzanian shillings (less than US$20) in
Makete, and is about one quarter the cost of a metal wheelbarrow, is still too expensive for most people.
Donkeys, which were imported to the district, have become more common and contribute, in particular,
to the transportation of crops and goods to market. Those who have bought donkeys are mainly from
richer households but, with an increased supply through local breeding, donkeys should become more
affordable. Meanwhile, local initiatives are promoting the renting out of the existing donkeys.
It should be noted, however, that a donkey, which at 20,000 Tanzanian shillings costs less than a bicycle, is
still an investment equal to an average household's income over half a year.This clearly illustrates the need
for supplementary measures if one wants to assist the rural poor.
Section E
It would have been easy to criticise the MIRTP for using in the early phases a 'top-down' approach, in which
decisions were made by experts and officials before being handed down to communities, but it was
necessary to start the process from the level of the governmental authorities of the district. It would have
been difficult to respond to the requests of villagers and other rural inhabitants without the support and
understanding of district authorities.
Section F
Today, nobody in the district argues about the importance of improved paths and inexpensive means of
transport. But this is the result of dedicated work over a long period, particularly from the officers in charge
of community development.They played an essential role in raising awareness and interest among the rural
communities.
The concept of integrated rural transport is now well established in Tanzania, where a major program of
rural transport is just about to start.The experiences from Makete will help in this initiative, and Makete
District will act as a reference for future work.
50
Test 2
Questions 36-39
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 36-39 on your answer sheet.
36 Construction of footbridges, steps and handrails

37 Frequent breakdown of buses and trucks in Makete
38 The improvement of secondary roads and paths
39 The isolation of Makete for part of the year
A provided the people of Makete with experience in running bus and

truck services.
B was especially successful in the northern part of the district.
C differed from earlier phases in that the community became less
actively involved.
D improved paths used for transport up and down hillsides.
E was no longer a problem once the roads had been improved.
F cost less than locally made wheelbarrows.
G was done only at the request of local people who were willing to
lend a hand.
H was at first considered by MIRTP to be affordable for the people
of the district.
I hindered attempts to make the existing transport services more
efficient.
J was thought to be the most important objective of Phase III.
Question 40
Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.
Which of the following phrases best describes the main aim of Reading Passage 3?
A to suggest that projects such as MIRTP are needed in other
countries
B to describe how MIRTP was implemented and how successful it
was
C to examine how MIRTP promoted the use of donkeys
D to warn that projects such as MIRTP are likely to have serious
problems
52

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Test5

Cork harvesting is a very specialised is caused by a chemical compound

In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

The History of Glass

manufacturing techniques also improved operating in a fiercely competitive global

Complete the notes below.

Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

The History of Glass

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

Museums of fine art and their public

National Gallery is housed in numerous the audience encounters an opera or a play

In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

When evolution runs backwards

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.

32 For a long time biologists rejected

A the question of how certain long-lost traits could reappear.

In boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

37 Wagner was the first person to do research on South American lizards.

Bringing cinnamon to Europe

Complete the notes below.

Write yo ur answers in boxes 1- 9 on yo ur answer sheet.

The Early History of Cinnamon

Biblical times: added to 1 ....................

used to show 2 .................... between people

Ancient Rome: used for its sweet smell at 3 ....................

Middle Ages: added to food, especially meat

was an indication of a person's 4 ....................

known as a treatment for 5 .................... and other

merchants used 7 .................... to bring it to

arrived in the Mediterranean at 8 ....................

traders took it to 9 .................... and sold it to

In boxes 10- 13 on yo ur answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statem ent agrees with the inform ation

Bring back the big cats

Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

18 According to the author, what distinguishes rewilding from other environmental

Music and the emotions

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.

32 What point does the writer emphasise in the first paragraph?

36 According to Leonard Meyer, what causes the listener's emotional response to

This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach to

The suggestopedic approach to foreign language learning provides a good illustration. In

Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

27 The book Educating Psyche is mainly concerned with

Angelina Hawley-Dolan, of Boston College, Massachusetts, responded to this debate by

Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Tea and the Industrial Revolution

C The source of the red is widely known: it is created by anthocyanins, water-soluble

G Chlorophyll, although exquisitely evolved to capture the energy of sunlight,

Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14 a description of the substance responsible for the red colouration of leaves

Complete the notes below.

Write your answers in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.