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Freedom from IELTS Reading & Writing Successful Strategies & Practice Tests Michele Elkan... Table of ContentsStrategies to Freedom Academic and General Reading Tips Academic Task 1 Writ

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Freedom from IELTS

Reading & Writing

Successful Strategies & Practice Tests

Michele Elkan

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Freedom from IELTS Reading & Writing

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2014 Michele Elkan

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews Booktango books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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Table of Contents

Strategies to Freedom

Academic and General Reading Tips

Academic Task 1 Writing Tips

General Task 1 Writing Tips

Academic and General Writing Task 2 Tips

Academic Practice Reading Tests

Academic Reading Test 1

Academic Reading Test 2

Academic Reading Test 3

Academic Reading Test 4

Academic Reading Test 5

Academic Reading Test 6

Academic Reading Test 7

General Practice Reading Tests

General Reading Test 1

SECTION 2

General Reading Test 2

General Reading Test 3

General Reading Test 4

General Reading Test 5

General Reading Test 6

General Reading Test 7

Answer Key

Academic Reading Tests Answers

General Reading Tests Answers

Resources

Sample Writing Task 2 with Answers

More Essay topics

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About the Author

Sensible Quotes for Inspiratio

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Welcome to Freedom from IELTS Reading and Writing

The IELTS test preparation book has all you need to achieve your desired score It has been writtenfor candidates who require professional registration, college/university admission, or for immigrationpurposes It is designed for independent and flexible self-study, with a focus on reading and writingskills Freedom from IELTS Reading and Writing is not officially approved by IELTS Werecommend students to read “Freedom from IELTS Reading and Writing” to guarantee success in boththe challenging modules

This study guide, with proven strategies, will empower students to PASS the test in ONE time.Further information about the IELTS exam can be obtained from the IELTS website www.ielts.org

How is the book organised?

The book starts with various Strategies to be applied for the reading and writing modules The

sample writing answers provided range from 6-8 band However, please note that this is just an

example out of many possible approaches The Resources section provides sample essays, linking

words and common lines to write in the essays Seven individual academic and general reading testswith answers and Academic and General writing tasks with answers will help students with theirpractice These tests increase in their level of difficulty as in the real test Additional study materials,individual modular based course guides, and model writing tasks can be obtained by sending an email

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Strategies to Freedom

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Academic and General Reading Tips

1 Start reading the questions first Underline MAIN WORDS Look for MAIN WORDS

2 Look for synonyms – two words with the same meaning

3 Once you find the clue/keyword in the passage, the answer will always be 2 lines above/below

4 Focus on every word of the question While finding the answer read the words to the left and right

of the keyword

5 False/Not Given:

a False: Information is given in the passage but it is wrong/contradictory

b Not Given: Information is not clearly given in the passage The question is twisted, some words

of the question are similar to the passage and the question is confusing, not clear If the MAINWORD is not in the passage it is NOT GIVEN

Q: The primary role of a teacher is to help students

P: The teacher helps students if they need it

7 Fill in the blanks:

a Concentrate on the word before/after the blank Answers are always in order

b Once you find the answer, always read the sentence again and see if it makes sense

8 Use context skills and word-building skills – break the word to understand difficult words

9 Don’t leave blank spaces in the Answer sheet, Guess if you cannot find the answer

10 No scratches, always write in capitals and in clear handwriting

11 Remember the answers are in order of the questions, except for Headings So the first part of thequestion will be in the first part of the passage and last part at the end

12 Do lots of underlining on the passage and question!

• CONCENTRATE ON MAIN WORDS & ORDER

• BESIDES HEADINGS ALL ANSWERS ARE IN ORDER/SEQUENCE

• WRITE ANSWERS IN CAPITALS FOR LISTENING AND READING

Time plan:

20 mins for each Part/Section

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Academic Task 1 Writing Tips

Task 1 – 20 mins – 150 words – ¾ page of A4 size

1 Introduction: Rephrase the question

2 Plan paragraphs: If the grid/diagram has two points separate them in 2 paragraphs

3 Only focus on relevant data or too high/low, dramatically changed or a gradual change

4 Comparison paragraph: Last sentence should be the conclusion

5 Goal is to convert all facts in the diagram to words

6 Be very specific

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General Task 1 Writing Tips

Task 1 – Letter—20 mins – 150-165 words – ¾ page of A4 size

1 Introduction: Rephrase the question – 2-3 sentences

2 Each point is one paragraph (Answer each point in sequence order)– 3-4 sentences

3 Mostly the last point is the conclusion

4 Be very SPECIFIC – give dates, names

5 Write only 6 words per line, presentation and handwriting must be easy to read

6 Always keep the letter POSITIVE & CLEAR

7 Formal letters: Yours sincerely, Yours faithfully, Informal letters: Yours truly, Best wishes,Regards,

8 Start formal letters with: I am writing this letter to… Informal: Hope you are doing well

9 Conclude: I would appreciate… , I look forward to hear from you soon

10 If the question says, begin with Dear Sir or Madam, write exactly the same thing

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Academic and General Writing Task 2 Tips

Task 2 – Essay – 40 mins – 250-265 words – 1 ½ page of A4 size

1 Introduction: Background, Rephrase the question, Your viewpoint – 3-4 sentences

2 Agree/Advantages/First part + Specific Examples – 5/6 sentences

3 Disagree/Disadvantages/Second part + Specific Examples – 5/6 sentences

4 Conclusion: Stress on your opinion Give a balance Talk about future 3-4 sentences

5 DON’T KNOW HOW TO START THE TOPIC: Problem question: Start body as:

a Problem: 2 sentences

b Solution: 2 sentences

c Example: 1 sentence

6 ONE IDEA PER PARAGRAPH

7 Always keep the essay POSITIVE & SIMPLE

8 The goal is to answer every part of the question

9 Remember – They are not judging you on your content/awesome ideas, as long as you give clearreasoning – max 2 ideas, its more than enough Most important focus is to give good Examples

10 Always proof-read the answers after completing the writing task

11 Start conclusion: In conclusion, To conclude, To summarise, To sum up, Finally, Overall,

12 Use linking words: However, Moreover, Although, In other words, On the other hand,comparatively, whereas, rather, In addition, Furthermore, Additionally,

13 Do not start sentence with “As” or “Because” – Since, During, Thus, Hence, Therefore,

14 After writing each passage, read the question and make sure you are answering the question

1 Introduction: Background, Question & OPINION

2 Positive para: 2-3 MAIN Ideas + 2 Specific Examples

3 Negative para: 2 MAIN Ideas + 2 Specific Examples

4 Conclusion: Summary, Balance, Future

NO LONG SENTENCES – USE LINKING WORDS

No spelling errors acceptable for 7 band Even if there is one error you will get 6.5 band.

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Academic Practice Reading Tests

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Academic Reading Test 1

Reading Passage 1

NETWORKING

Networking as a concept has acquired what is in all truth an unjustified air of modernity It is

considered in the corporate world as an essential tool for the modern businessperson, as they trotround the globe drumming up business for themselves or a corporation The concept is worn like abadge of distinction, and not just in the business world

People can be divided basically into those who keep knowledge and their personal contacts tothemselves, and those who are prepared to share what they know and indeed their friends with others

A person who is insecure, for example someone who finds it difficult to share information with othersand who is unable to bring people, including friends, together does not make a good networker Theclassic networker is someone who is strong enough within themselves to connect different peopleincluding close friends with each other For example, a businessman or an academic may meetsomeone who is likely to be a valuable contact in the future, but at the moment that person may benefitfrom meeting another associate or friend

It takes quite a secure person to bring these people together and allow a relationship to developindependently of himself From the non-networker’s point of view such a development may beintolerable, especially if it is happening outside their control The unfortunate thing here is that theinitiator of the contact, if he did but know it, would be the one to benefit most And why?

Because all things being equal, people move within circles and that person has the potential of beingsucked into ever growing spheres of new contacts It is said that, if you know eight people, you are intouch with everyone in the world It does not take much common sense to realize the potential for anykind of venture as one is able to draw on the experience of more and more people

Unfortunately, making new contacts, business or otherwise, while it brings success, does causeproblems It enlarges the individual’s world This is in truth not altogether a bad thing, but it putsmore pressure on the networker through his having to maintain an ever larger circle of people Themost convenient way out is, perhaps, to cull old contacts, but this would be anathema to ournetworker as it would defeat the whole purpose of networking Another problem is the reaction offriends and associates Spreading oneself thinly gives one less time for others who were perhapscloser to one in the past In the workplace, this can cause tension with jealous colleagues, and evenwith superiors who might be tempted to rein in a more successful inferior Jealousy and envy canprove to be very detrimental if one is faced with a very insecure manager, as this person may seek tostifle someone’s career or even block it completely

The answer here is to let one’s superiors share in the glory; to throw them a few crumbs of comfort It

is called leadership from the bottom In the present business climate, companies and enterprises need

to co-operate with each other in order to expand As globalization grows apace, companies need to

be able to span not just countries but continents Whilst people may rail against this development it isfor the moment here to stay Without co-operation and contacts, specialist companies will not survivefor long Computer components, for example, need to be compatible with the various machines on themarket and to achieve this, firms need to work in conjunction with others No business or institution

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can afford to be an island in today’s environment In the not very distant past, it was possible forcompanies to go it alone, but it is now more difficult to do so.

The same applies in the academic world, where ideas have been jealously guarded The opening-up

of universities and colleges to the outside world in recent years has been of enormous benefit toindustry and educational institutions The stereotypical academic is one who moves in a rarefiedatmosphere living a life of sometimes splendid isolation, a prisoner of their own genius This sort ofperson does not fit easily into the mould of the modern networker Yet even this insular world ischanging The ivory towers are being left ever more frequently as educational experts forge links withother bodies; sometimes to stunning effect as in Silicon Valley in America and around Cambridge inEngland, which now has one of the most concentrated clusters of high tech companies in Europe

It is the networkers, the wheeler-dealers, the movers and shakers, call them what you will, that carrythe world along The world of the Neanderthals was shaken between 35,000 and 40,000 BC; theywere superseded by Homo Sapiens with the very ‘networking’ skills that separate us from otheranimals: understanding, thought abstraction and culture, which are inextricably linked to planningsurvival and productivity in humans It is said the meek will inherit the earth But will they?

Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the writer’s claims

NO if the statement contradicts the writer’s claims

NOT GIVEN if there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

Networking is a concept Yes

1 Networking is not a modern idea.

2 Networking is worn like a badge exclusively in the business world.

3 People fall into two basic categories.

4 A person who shares knowledge and friends makes a better networker than one who does not.

5 The classic networker is physically strong and generally in good health.

Questions 6-10

Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

6 Making new acquaintances… but also has its disadvantages.

7 At work, problems can be caused if the manager is…

8 A manager can suppress, or even totally… the career of an employee.

9 In business today, working together is necessary in order for… to grow.

10 Businesses that specialize will not last for long without…

Questions 11-15

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Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

11 In which sphere of life have ideas been protected jealously?

12 Which type of individual does not easily become a modern networker?

13 Where is one of the greatest concentrations of high tech companies in Europe?

14 Who replaced the Neanderthals?

15 What, as well as understanding and thought abstraction, sets us apart from other animals? Reading Passage 2

A SILENT FORCE

A There is a legend that St Augustine in the fourth century AD was the first individual to be seen

reading silently rather than aloud, or semi-aloud, as had been the practice hitherto Reading hascome a long way since Augustine’s day There was a time when it was a menial job of scribes andpriests, not the mark of civilization it became in Europe during the Renaissance when it was seen

as one of the attributes of the civilized individual

B Modern nations are now seriously affected by their levels of literacy While the Western world has

seen a noticeable decline in these areas, other less developed countries have advanced and, insome cases, overtaken the West India, for example, now has a large pool of educated workers SoEuropean countries can no longer rest on their laurels as they have done for far too long; otherwise,they are in danger of falling even further behind economically

C It is difficult in the modern world to do anything other than a basic job without being able to read.

Reading as a skill is the key to an educated workforce, which in turn is the bedrock of economicadvancement, particularly in the present technological age Studies have shown that by increasingthe literacy and numeracy skills of primary school children in the UK, the benefit to the economygenerally is in billions of pounds The skill of reading is now no more just an intellectual or leisureactivity, but rather a fully-fledged economic force

D Part of the problem with reading is that it is a skill which is not appreciated in most developed

societies This is an attitude that has condemned large swathes of the population in most Westernnations to illiteracy It might surprise people in countries outside the West to learn that in the UnitedKingdom, and indeed in some other European countries, the literacy rate has fallen to below that ofso-called less developed countries

E There are also forces conspiring against reading in our modern society It is not seen as cool among

a younger generation more at home with computer screens or a Walkman The solitude of reading isnot very appealing Students at school, college or university who read a lot are called bookworms.The term indicates the contempt in which reading and learning are held in certain circles orsubcultures It is a criticism, like all such attacks, driven by the insecurity of those who are notliterate or are semi-literate Criticism is also a means, like all bullying, of keeping peers in place

so that they do not step out of line Peer pressure among young people is so powerful that it oftenkills any attempts to change attitudes to habits like reading

F But the negative connotations apart, is modern Western society standing Canute-like against an

uncontrollable spiral of decline? I think not

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G How should people be encouraged to read more? It can easily be done by increasing basic reading

skills at an early age and encouraging young people to borrow books from schools Some schoolshave classroom libraries as well as school libraries It is no good waiting until pupils are in theirsecondary school to encourage an interest in books; it needs to be pushed at an early age Readingcomics, magazines and low brow publications like Mills and Boon is frowned upon But surelywhat people, whether they be adults or children, read is of little import What is significant is thefact that they are reading Someone who reads a comic today may have the courage to pick up amore substantial tome later on

H But perhaps the best idea would be to stop the negative attitudes to reading from forming in the first

place Taking children to local libraries brings them into contact with an environment where theycan become relaxed among books If primary school children were also taken in groups intobookshops, this might also entice them to want their own books A local bookshop, like some locallibraries, could perhaps arrange book readings for children which, being away from the classroom,would make the reading activity more of an adventure On a more general note, most countries havewriters of national importance By increasing the standing of national writers in the eyes of thepublic, through local and national writing competitions, people would be drawn more to the printedword Catch them young and, perhaps, they just might then all become bookworms

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 16-22, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on

the following pages

Questions 16-22

Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H.

Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below

Write the appropriate numbers (i-xii) in boxes 16-22 on your answer sheet.

One of the headings has been done for you as an example Any heading may be used more than once

Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.

List of Headings

i Reading not taken for granted

ii Taking children to libraries

iii Reading: the mark of civilization

iv Reading in St Augustine’s day

v A large pool of educated workers in India

vi Literacy rates in developed countries have declined because of people’s attitude

vii Persuading people to read

viii iteracy influences the economies of countries in today’s world

xi Reading benefits the economy by billions of pounds

x The attitude to reading amongst the young

xi Reading becomes an economic force

xii The writer’s attitude to the decline in reading

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Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the writer’s claims

NO if the statement contradicts the writer’s claims

NOT GIVEN if there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

According to legend, St Augustine was the first person to be seen reading silently Yes

2 3 European countries have been satisfied with past achievements for too long and have allowed

other countries to overtake them in certain areas

24 Reading is an economic force.

25 The literacy rate in less developed nations is considerably higher than in all European countries.

26 If you encourage children to read when they are young the negative attitude to reading that grows in

some subcultures will be eliminated

27 People should be discouraged from reading comics and magazines.

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Reading Passage 3

Variations on a theme:

the sonnet form in English poetry

A The form of lyric poetry known as ‘the sonnet’, or ‘little song’, was introduced into the English

poetic corpus by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and his contemporary Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,during the first half of the sixteenth century It originated, however, in Italy three centuries earlier,with the earliest examples known being those of Giacomo de Lentino, ‘The Notary’ in the Siciliancourt of the Emperor Frederick II, dating from the third decade of the thirteenth century TheSicilian sonneteers are relatively obscure, but the form was taken up by the two most famous poets

of the Italian Renaissance, Dante and Petrarch, and indeed the latter is regarded as the master of theform

B The Petrarchan sonnet form, the first to be introduced into English poetry, is a complex poetic

structure It comprises fourteen lines written in a rhyming metrical pattern of iambic pentameter,that into say each line is ten syllables long, divided into five ‘feet’ or pairs of syllables (hence

‘pentameter’), with a stress pattern where the first syllable of each foot is unstressed and thesecond stressed (an iambic foot) This can be seen if we look at the first line of one ofWordsworth’s sonnets, ‘After-Thought’:

‘I thought of thee my partner and my guide’

If we hreak down this line into its constituent syllabic parts, we can see the five feet and the stresspattern (in this example each stressed syllable is underlined), thus: ‘I thought/ of thee/ my partnerand/ my guide’

C The rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet is equally as rigid The poem is generally divided into

two parts, the octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six lines), which is demonstrated through rhyme

rather than an actual space between each section The octave is usually rhymed abbaabba with the

first, fourth, fifth and eighth lines rhyming with each other, and the second, third, sixth and seventh

also rhyming The sestet is more varied: it can follow the patterns cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce.

Perhaps the best interpretation of this division in the Petrarchan sonnet is by Charles Gayley, whowrote: “The octave bears the burden; a doubt, a problem,.a reflection, a query, an historicalstatement, a cry of indignation or desire, a vision of the ideal The sestet eases the load, resolvesthe problem or doubt, answers the query or doubt, solaces the yearning, realizes the vision.” Thus,

we can see that the rhyme scheme demonstrates a twofold division in the poem, providing astructure for the development of themes and ideas

D Early on, however, English poets began to vary and experiment with this structure The first major

development was made by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, altogether an indifferent poet, but wastaken up and perfected by William Shakespeare, and is named after him The Shakespearean sonnetalso has fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, but rather than the division into octave and sestet, thepoem is divided into four parts: three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet Each quatrain has its

own internal rhyme scheme, thus a typical Shakespearean sonnet would rhyme ababcdcdefefgg.

Such a structure naturally allows greater flexibility for the author and it would be hard, if not

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impossible, to enumerate the different ways in which it has been employed, by Shakespeare andothers For example, an idea might be introduced in the first quatrain, complicated in the second,further complicated in the third, and resolved in the final couplet—indeed, the couplet is almostalways used as a resolution to the poem, though often in a surprising way.

E These, then, are the two standard forms of the sonnet in English poetry, but it should be recognized

that poets rarely follow rules precisely and a number of other sonnet types have been developed,playing with the structural elements Edmund Spenser, for example, more famous for his verse epic

‘The Faerie Queene’, invented a variation on the Shakespearean form by interlocking the rhyme

schemes between the quatrains, thus: ababbcbccdcdee, while in the twentieth century Rupert

Brooke reversed his sonnet, beginning with the couplet John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet,was unsatisfied with the fourteen-line format and wrote a number of ‘Caudate’ sonnets, or ‘sonnetswith the regular fourteen lines (on the Petrarchan model) with a ‘coda’ or ‘tail’ of a further sixlines A similar notion informs George Meredith’s sonnet sequence ‘Modern Love’, where mostsonnets in the cycle have sixteen lines

F Perhaps the most radical of innovators, however, has been Gerard Manley Hopkins, who

developed what he called the ‘Curtal’ sonnet This form varies the length of the poem, reducing it

in effect to eleven and a half lines, the rhyme scheme and the number of feet per line Modulating

the Petrarchan form, instead of two quatrains in the octave, he has two tercets rhyming abcabc, and

in place of the sestet he has four and a half lines, with a rhyme scheme dcbdc As if this is not

enough, the tercets are no longer in iambic pentameter, but have six stresses instead of five, as doesthe final quatrain, with the exception of the last line, which has three Many critics, however, aresceptical as to whether such a major variation can indeed be classified as a sonnet, but as verseforms and structures become freer, and poets less satisfied with convention, it is likely that evenmore experimental forms will out

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on

the following pages

Questions 28-32

Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H.

Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below Write the

appropriate numbers (i-xiii) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet One of the headings has been done for you as an example Any heading may be used more than once.

Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.

List of Headings

i Octave develops sestet

ii The Faerie Queene and Modern Love

iii The origins of the sonnet

iv The Shakespearean sonnet form

v The structure of the Petrarchan sonnet form

vi A real sonnet?

vii Rhyme scheme provides structure developing themes and ideas

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viii Dissatisfaction with format

xi The Sicilian sonneteers

x Howard v Shakespeare

xi Wordsworth’s sonnet form

xii Future breaks with convention

xiii The sonnet form: variations and additions

Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.

33 Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Henry Howard were…

34 It was in the third decade of the thirteenth century that the… was introduced.

35 Among poets of the Italian Renaissance… was considered to be the better sonneteer.

36 The Petrarchan sonnet form consists of…

37 In comparison with the octave, the rhyming scheme of the sestet is… varied.

Questions 38-40

Choose the correct letters A-D and write them in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38 According to Charles Gayley,

A the octave is longer than the sestet.

B the octave develops themes and ideas.

C the sestet provides answers and solutions.

D the sestet demonstrates a twofold division.

39 The Shakespearean sonnet is

A an indifferent development.

B more developed than the Petrarchan sonnet.

C more flexible than the Petrarchan sonnet.

D enumerated in different ways.

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40 According to the passage, whose sonnet types are similar?

A Spenser and Brooke

B Brooke and Milton

C Hopkins and Spenser

D Milton and Meredith

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Academic Reading Test 2

Reading Passage 1

Adults and children are frequently confronted with statements about the alarming rate of loss oftropical rainforests For example, one graphic illustration to which children might readily relate is theestimate that rainforests are being destroyed at a rate equivalent to one thousand football fields everyforty minutes – about the duration of a normal classroom period In the face of the frequent and oftenvivid media coverage, it is likely that children will have formed ideas about rainforests – what andwhere they are, why they are important, what endangers them – independent of any formal tuition It isalso possible that some of these ideas will be mistaken

Many studies have shown that children harbour misconceptions about ‘pure’, curriculum science.These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted, butorganised, conceptual framework, making it and the component ideas, some of which are erroneous,more robust but also accessible to modification These ideas may be developed by childrenabsorbing ideas through the popular media Sometimes this information may be erroneous It seemsschools may not be providing an opportunity for children to re-express their ideas and so have themtested and refined by teachers and their peers

Despite the extensive coverage in the popular media of the destruction of rainforests, little formalinformation is available about children’s ideas in this area The aim of the present study is to start toprovide such information, to help teachers design their educational strategies to build upon correctideas and to displace misconceptions and to plan programmes in environmental studies in theirschools

The study surveys children’s scientific knowledge and attitudes to rainforests Secondary schoolchildren were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open-form questions The mostfrequent responses to the first question were descriptions which are self-evident from the term

‘rainforest’ Some children described them as damp, wet or hot The second question concerned thegeographical location of rainforests The commonest responses were continents or countries: Africa(given by 43% of children), South America (30%), Brazil (25%) Some children also gave moregeneral locations, such as being near the Equator

Responses to question three concerned the importance of rainforests The dominant idea, raised by64% of the pupils, was that rainforests provide animals with habitats Fewer students responded thatrainforests provide plant habitats, and even fewer mentioned the indigenous populations ofrainforests More girls (70%) than boys (60%) raised the idea of rainforest as animal habitats

Similarly, but at a lower level, more girls (13%) than boys (5%) said that rainforests provided humanhabitats These observations are generally consistent with our previous studies of pupils’ views aboutthe use and conservation of rainforests, in which girls were shown to be more sympathetic to animalsand expressed views which seem to place an intrinsic value on non-human animal life

The fourth question concerned the causes of the destruction of rainforests Perhaps encouragingly,more than half of the pupils (59%) identified that it is human activities which are destroyingrainforests, some personalising the responsibility by the use of terms such as ‘we are’ About 18% ofthe pupils referred specifically to logging activity

One misconception, expressed by some 10% of the pupils, was that acid rain is responsible for

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rainforest destruction; a similar proportion said that pollution is destroying rainforests Here, childrenare confusing rainforest destruction with damage to the forests of Western Europe by these factors.While two fifths of the students provided the information that the rainforests provide oxygen, in somecases this response also embraced the misconception that rainforest destruction would reduceatmospheric oxygen, making the atmosphere incompatible with human life on Earth.

In answer to the final question about the importance of rainforest conservation, the majority ofchildren simply said that we need rainforests to survive Only a few of the pupils (6%) mentioned thatrainforest destruction may contribute to global warming This is surprising considering the high level

of media coverage on this issue Some children expressed the idea that the conservation of rainforests

is not important

The results of this study suggest that certain ideas predominate in the thinking of children aboutrainforests Pupils’ responses indicate some misconceptions in basic scientific knowledge ofrainforests’ ecosystems such as their ideas about rainforests as habitats for animals, plants andhumans and the relationship between climatic change and destruction of rainforests

Pupils did not volunteer ideas that suggested that they appreciated the complexity of causes ofrainforest destruction In other words, they gave no indication of an appreciation of either the range ofways in which rainforests are important or the complex social, economic and political factors whichdrive the activities which are destroying the rainforests One encouragement is that the results ofsimilar studies about other environmental issues suggest that older children seem to acquire theability to appreciate, value and evaluate conflicting views Environmental education offers an arena

in which these skills can be developed, which is essential for these children as future decision—makers

Questions 1-8

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

1 The plight of the rainforests has largely been ignored by the media.

2 Children only accept opinions on rainforests that they encounter in their classrooms.

3 It has been suggested that children hold mistaken views about the ‘pure’ science that they study at

school

4 The fact that children’s ideas about science form part of a larger framework of ideas means that it is

easier to change them

5 The study involved asking children a number of yes/no questions such as ‘Are there any rainforests

in Africa?’

6 Girls are more likely than boys to hold mistaken views about the rainforests’ destruction.

7 The study reported here follows on from a series of studies that have looked at children’s

understanding of rainforests

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8 A second study has been planned to investigate primary school children’s ideas about rainforests Questions 9-13

The box below gives a list of responses A–P to the questionnaire discussed in Reading Passage 1.

Answer the following questions by choosing the correct responses A–P.

Write your answers in boxes 9–13 on your answer sheet.

9 What was the children’s most frequent response when asked where the rainforests were?

10 What was the most common response to the question about the importance of the rainforests?

11 What did most children give as the reason for the loss of the rainforests?

12 Why did most children think it important for the rainforests to be protected?

13 Which of the responses is cited as unexpectedly uncommon, given the amount of time spent on the

issue by the newspapers and television?

A There is a complicated combination of reasons for the loss of the rainforests.

B The rainforests are being destroyed by the same things that are destroying the forests of Western Europe.

C Rainforests are located near the Equator.

D Brazil is home to the rainforests.

E Without rainforests some animals would have nowhere to live.

F Rainforests are important habitats for a lot of plants.

G People are responsible for the loss of the rainforests.

H The rainforests are a source of oxygen.

I Rainforests are of consequence for a number of different reasons.

J As the rainforests are destroyed, the world gets warmer.

K Without rainforests there would not be enough oxygen in the air.

L There are people for whom the rainforests are home.

M Rainforests are found in Africa.

N Rainforests are not really important to human life.

O The destruction of the rainforests is the direct result of logging activity.

P Humans depend on the rainforests for their continuing existence.

Question 14

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

Write your answer in box 14 on your answer sheet.

Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 1?

A The development of a programme in environmental studies within a science curriculum

B Children’s ideas about the rainforests and the implications for course design

C The extent to which children have been misled by the media concerning the rainforests

D How to collect, collate and describe the ideas of secondary school children

E The importance of the rainforests and the reasons for their destruction

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Reading Passage 2

What Do Whales Feel?

An examination of the functioning of the senses in cetaceans, the group of mammals comprising whales, dolphins and porpoises

Some of the senses that we and other terrestrial mammals take for granted are either reduced orabsent in cetaceans or fail to function well in water For example, it appears from their brain structurethat toothed species are unable to smell Baleen species, on the other hand, appear to have somerelated brain structures but it is not known whether these are functional It has been speculated that, asthe blowholes evolved and migrated to the top of the head, the neural pathways serving sense of smellmay have been nearly all sacrificed Similarly, although at least some cetaceans have taste buds, thenerves serving these have degenerated or are rudimentary

The sense of touch has sometimes been described as weak too, but this view is probably mistaken.Trainers of captive dolphins and small whales often remark on their animals’ responsiveness to beingtouched or rubbed, and both captive and freeranging cetacean individuals of all species (particularlyadults and calves, or members of the same subgroup) appear to make frequent contact This contactmay help to maintain order within a group, and stroking or touching are part of the courtship ritual inmost species The area around the blowhole is also particularly sensitive and captive animals oftenobject strongly to being touched there

The sense of vision is developed to different degrees in different species Baleen species studied atclose quarters underwater – specifically a grey whale calf in captivity for a year, and free-rangingright whales and humpback whales studied and filmed off Argentina and Hawaii – have obviouslytracked objects with vision underwater, and they can apparently see moderately well both in waterand in air However, the position of the eyes so restricts the field of vision in baleen whales that theyprobably do not have stereoscopic vision

On the other hand, the position of the eyes in most dolphins and porpoises suggests that they havestereoscopic vision forward and downward Eye position in freshwater dolphins, which often swim

on their side or upside down while feeding, suggests that what vision they have is stereoscopicforward and upward By comparison, the bottlenose dolphin has extremely keen vision in water.Judging from the way it watches and tracks airborne flying fish, it can apparently see fairly wellthrough the air–water interface as well And although preliminary experimental evidence suggests thattheir in-air vision is poor, the accuracy with which dolphins leap high to take small fish out of atrainer’s hand provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary

Such variation can no doubt be explained with reference to the habitats in which individual specieshave developed For example, vision is obviously more useful to species inhabiting clear openwaters than to those living in turbid rivers and flooded plains The South American boutu and Chinesebeiji, for instance, appear to have very limited vision, and the Indian susus are blind, their eyesreduced to slits that probably allow them to sense only the direction and intensity of light

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Although the senses of taste and smell appear to have deteriorated, and vision in water appears to beuncertain, such weaknesses are more than compensated for by cetaceans’ well-developed acousticsense Most species are highly vocal, although they vary in the range of sounds they produce, andmany forage for food using echolocation Large baleen whales primarily use the lower frequenciesand are often limited in their repertoire Notable exceptions are the nearly song-like choruses ofbowhead whales in summer and the complex, haunting utterances of the humpback whales Toothedspecies in general employ more of the frequency spectrum, and produce a wider variety of sounds,than baleen species (though the sperm whale apparently produces a monotonous series of high-energyclicks and little else) Some of the more complicated sounds are clearly communicative, althoughwhat role they may play in the social life and ‘culture’ of cetaceans has been more the subject of wildspeculation than of solid science.

Questions 15-21

Complete the table below

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 2 for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 15–21 on your answer sheet.

SENSE SPECIES ABILITY COMMENTS

Smell toothed no evidence from brain structure

baleen not certain related brain structures are present

Taste some types poor nerves linked to their 15

are underdeveloped

Touch all yes region around the blowhole very sensitive

Vision 16 yes probably do not have stereoscopic vision

dolphins, porpoises yes probably have stereoscopic vision 17 and…

18 yes probably have stereoscopic vision forward and upward

bottlenose dolphin yes exceptional in 19

and good in air-water interface boutu and beiji poor have limited vision

Indian susu no probably only sense direction and intensity of light

Hearing most large baleen yes usually use 20 repertoire limited

21 whales and… whales yes song-like

toothed yes use more of frequency spectrum; have wider repertoire

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22 Which of the senses is described here as being involved in mating?

23 Which species swims upside down while eating?

24 What can bottlenose dolphins follow from under the water?

25 Which type of habitat is related to good visual ability?

26 Which of the senses is best developed in cetaceans?

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a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it wasspinning To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle (Fig 1) I was taken aback Lines

of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration Indeed,

as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, usedvirtually no motion lines in his popular figures until about 1877

When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly cleverrendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel’s spokes as curved lines Whenasked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion.Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well But was it a betterindicator than, say, broken or wavy lines – or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer wasnot clear So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were apt ways of showing movement

or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there weredifferences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion

To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokeswith lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel I thenasked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to eachwheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking My control group consisted ofeighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto

All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel Most guessed that thecurved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought,suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel wasjerking Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel’s perimeter signified that the wheelhad its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly

In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind inevery instance What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among theblind Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved someproblem solving Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion,but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sightedsubjects

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Part 2

We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well One blind womandrew a picture of a child inside a heart – choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surroundedthe child With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from China, I have begun exploring how wellblind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly representtheir meaning

We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair theterm that best related to a circle and the term that best related to a square For example, we asked:What goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?

All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle,instead of sad But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak tostrong, respectively And only 51% linked deep to circle and shallow to square (See Fig 2.) When

we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closelyresembled those made by the sighted subjects One man, who had been blind since birth, scoredextremely well He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ‘far’ to square and

‘near’ to circle In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects – 53% – had paired far and near tothe opposite partners Thus, we concluded that the blind interpret abstract shapes as sighted peopledo

Questions 27-29

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

Write your answers in boxes 27–29 on your answer sheet

27 In the first paragraph the writer makes the point that blind people

A may be interested in studying art.

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B can draw outlines of different objects and surfaces.

C can recognise conventions such as perspective.

D can draw accurately.

28 The writer was surprised because the blind woman

A drew a circle on her own initiative.

B did not understand what a wheel looked like.

C included a symbol representing movement.

D was the first person to use lines of motion.

29 From the experiment described in Part 1, the writer found that the blind subjects

A had good understanding of symbols representing movement.

B could control the movement of wheels very accurately.

C worked together well as a group in solving problems.

D got better results than the sighted undergraduates.

Questions 30-32

Look at the following diagrams (Questions 30–32), and the list of types of movement below Match

each diagram to the type of movement A–E generally assigned to it in the experiment.

Choose the correct letter A–E and write them in boxes 30–32 on your answer sheet.

Complete the summary below using words from the box

Write your answers in boxes 33–39 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any word more than once.

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In the experiment described in Part 2, a set of word 33 was used to investigate whether blind and sighted people perceived the symbolism in abstract 34 in the same way.

Subjects were asked which word fitted best with a circle and which with a square From the

35 volunteers, everyone thought a circle fitted ‘soft’ while a square fitted ‘hard’.

However, only 51% of the 36 volunteers assigned a circle to 37 When the test was later repeated with 38 volunteers, it was found that they made 39 choices.

associations blind deep hard

hundred identical pairs shapes

sighted similar shallow soft

words

Question 40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D Write your answer in box 40 on your answer sheet.

Which of the following statements best summarises the writer’s general conclusion?

A The blind represent some aspects of reality differently from sighted people.

B The blind comprehend visual metaphors in similar ways to sighted people.

C The blind may create unusual and effective symbols to represent reality.

D The blind may be successful artists if given the right training.

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Academic Reading Test 3

Reading Passage 1

The Impact of Wilderness Tourism

A The market for tourism in remote areas is booming as never before Countries all across the world

are actively promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions—such as mountains, Arctic lands, deserts, smallislands and wetlands—to high-spending tourists The attraction of these areas is obvious: bydefinition, wilderness tourism requires little or no initial investment But that does not mean thatthere is no cost As the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Developmentrecognized, these regions are fragile (i.e highly vulnerable to abnormal pressures) not just in terms

of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants The three most significant types

of fragile environment in these respects, and also in terms of the proportion of the Earth’s surfacethey cover, are deserts, mountains and Arctic areas An important characteristic is their markedseasonality, with harsh conditions prevailing for many months each year Consequently, most humanactivities, including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year

Tourists are drawn to these regions by their natural landscape beauty and the unique cultures of theirindigenous people And poor governments in these isolated areas have welcomed the new breed of

‘adventure tourist’, grateful for the hard currency they bring For several years now, tourism hasbeen the prime source of foreign exchange in Nepal and Bhutan Tourism is also a key element inthe economies of Arctic zones such as Lapland and Alaska and in desert areas such as Ayers Rock

in Australia and Arizona’s Monument Valley

B Once a location is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local community are

profound When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few weeks working asporters for foreign trekkers than they can in a year working in their fields, it is not surprising thatmany of them give up their farm-work, which is thus left to other members of the family In somehill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm output and a change in the local diet, becausethere is insufficient labour to maintain terraces and irrigation systems and tend to crops The resulthas been that many people in these regions have turned to outside supplies of rice and other foods

In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting animals andfish and collecting fruit over a relatively short season However, as some inhabitants becomeinvolved in tourism, they no longer have time to collect wild food; this has led to increasingdependence on bought food and stores Tourism is not always the culprit behind such changes Allkinds of wage labour, or government handouts, tend to undermine traditional survival systems.Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the same: what happens if these new, external sources

of income dry up?

The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth in adventuretourism Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps more important arethe deforestation and impacts on water supplies arising from the need to provide tourists withcooked food and hot showers In both mountains and deserts, slow-growing trees are often the mainsources of fuel and water supplies may be limited or vulnerable to degradation through heavy use

C Stories about the problems of tourism have become legion in the last few years Yet it does not

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have to be a problem Although tourism inevitably affects the region in which it takes place, thecosts to these fragile environments and their local cultures can be minimized Indeed, it can even be

a vehicle for reinvigorating local cultures, as has happened with the Sherpas of Nepal’s KhumbuValley and in some Alpine villages And a growing number of adventure tourism operators aretrying to ensure that their activities benefit the local population and environment over the long term

In the Swiss Alps, communities have decided that their future depends on integrating tourism moreeffectively with the local economy Local concern about the rising number of second homedevelopments in the Swiss Pays d’Enhaut resulted in limits being imposed on their growth Therehas also been a renaissance in communal cheese production in the area, providing the locals with areliable source of income that does not depend on outside visitors

Many of the Arctic tourist destinations have been exploited by outside companies, who employtransient workers and repatriate most of the profits to their home base But some Arcticcommunities are now operating tour businesses themselves, thereby ensuring that the benefitsaccrue locally For instance, a native corporation in Alaska, employing local people, is running anair tour from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where tourists eat Arctic food, walk on the tundra and watchlocal musicians and dancers

Native people in the desert regions of the American Southwest have followed similar strategies,encouraging tourists to visit their pueblos and reservations to purchase high-quality handicrafts andartwork The Acoma and San Ildefonso pueblos have established highly profitable potterybusinesses, while the Navajo and Hopi groups have been similarly successful with jewellery

Too many people living in fragile environments have lost control over their economies, their cultureand their environment when tourism has penetrated their homelands Merely restricting tourismcannot be the solution to the imbalance, because people’s desire to see new places will not justdisappear Instead, communities in fragile environments must achieve greater control over tourismventures in their regions; in order to balance their needs and aspirations with the demands oftourism A growing number of communities are demonstrating that, with firm communal decision-making, this is possible The critical question now is whether this can become the norm, rather thanthe exception

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on

the following pages

i The expansion of international tourism in recent years

ii How local communities can balance their own needs with the demands of wilderness tourism iii Fragile regions and the reasons for the expansion of tourism there

iv Traditional methods of food-supply in fragile regions

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v Some of the disruptive effects of wilderness tourism

vi The economic benefits of mass tourism

1 Section A

2 Section B

3 Section C

Questions 4-9

Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 18-23 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement reflects the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVENif it is impossible to say what the writer thinks

about this

4 The low financial cost of setting up wilderness tourism makes it attractive to many countries.

5 Deserts, mountains and Arctic regions are examples of environments that are both ecologically and

culturally fragile

6 Wilderness tourism operates throughout the year in fragile areas.

7 The spread of tourism in certain hill-regions has resulted in a fall in the amount of food produced

locally

8 Traditional food-gathering in desert societies was distributed evenly over the year.

9 Government handouts do more damage than tourism does to traditional patterns of food-gathering Questions 10-13

Choose ONE WORD from Reading Passage 1 for each answer

Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

The positive ways in which some local communities

have responded to tourism People/Location Activity

Swiss Pays d’Enhaut Revived production of 10

Arctic communities Operate 11 businesses

Acoma and San Ildefonso Produce and sell 12

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Navajo and Hopi Activity Produce and sell 13

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Reading Passage 2

Flawed Beauty: the problem with toughened glass

On 2nd August 199.9, a particularly hot day in the town of Cirencester in the UK, a large pane oftoughened glass in the roof of a shopping centre at Bishops Walk shattered without warning and fellfrom its frame When fragments were analysed by experts at the giant glass manufacturer Pilkington,which had made the pane, they found that minute crystals of nickel sulphide trapped inside the glasshad almost certainly caused the failure

‘The glass industry is aware of the issue,’ says Brian Waldron, chairman of the standards committee

at the Glass and Glazing Federation, a British trade association, and standards development officer atPilkington But he insists that cases are few and far between ‘It’s a very rare phenomenon,’ he says.Others disagree ‘On average I see about one or two buildings a month suffering from nickel sulphiderelated failures,’ says Barrie Josie, a consultant engineer involved in the Bishops Walk investigation.Other experts tell of similar experiences Tony Wilmott of London-based consulting engineersSandberg, and Simon Armstrong at CIadTech Associates in Hampshire both say they know ofhundreds of cases ‘What you hear is only the tip of the iceberg,’ says Trevor Ford, a glass expert atResolve Engineering in Brisbane, Queensland He believes the reason is simple: ‘No-one wants badpress.’

Toughened glass is found everywhere, from cars and bus shelters to the windows, walls and roofs ofthousands of buildings around the world It’s easy to see why This glass has five times the strength ofstandard glass, and when it does break it shatters into tiny cubes rather than large, razor-sharp shards.Architects love it because large panels can be bolted together to make transparent walls, and turning

it into ceilings and floors is almost as easy

It is made by heating a sheet of ordinary glass to about 620°C to soften it slightly, allowing itsstructure to expand, and then cooling it rapidly with jets of cold air This causes the outer layer of thepane to contract and solidify before the interior When the interior finally solidifies and shrinks, itexerts a pull on the outer layer that leaves it in permanent compression and produces a tensile forceinside the glass As cracks propagate best in materials under tension, the compressive force on thesurface must be overcome before the pane will break, making it more resistant to cracking

The problem starts when glass contains nickel sulphide impurities Trace amounts of nickel andsulphur are usually present in the raw materials used to make glass, and nickel can also be introduced

by fragments of nickel alloys falling into the molten glass As the glass is heated, these atoms react toform tiny crystals of nickel sulphide Just a tenth of a gram of nickel in the furnace can create up to50,000 crystals

These crystals can exist in two forms: a dense form called the alpha phase, which is stable at hightemperatures, and a less dense form called the beta phase, which is stable at room temperatures Thehigh temperatures used in the toughening process convert all the crystals to the dense, compact alphaform But the subsequent cooling is so rapid that the crystals don’t have time to change back to thebeta phase This leaves unstable alpha crystals in the glass, primed like a coiled spring, ready torevert to the beta phase without warning

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When this happens, the crystals expand by up to 4% And if they are within the central, tensile region

of the pane, the stresses this unleashes can shatter the whole sheet The time that elapses beforefailure occurs is unpredictable It could happen just months after manufacture, or decades later,although if the glass is heated—by sunlight, for example—the process is speeded up Ironically, saysGraham Dodd, of consulting engineers Arup in London, the oldest pane of toughened glass known tohave failed due to nickel sulphide inclusions was in Pilkington’s glass research building in Lathom,Lancashire The pane was 27 years old

Data showing the scale of the nickel sulphide problem is almost impossible to find The picture ismade more complicated by the fact that these crystals occur in batches So even if, on average, there

is only one inclusion in 7 tonnes of glass, if i you experience one nickel sulphide failure in yourbuilding, that probably means you’ve got a problem in more than one pane Josie says that in the lastdecade he has worked on over 15 buildings with the number of failures into double figures

One of the worst examples of this is Waterfront Place, which was completed in 1990 Over thefollowing decade the 40 storey Brisbane block suffered a rash of failures Eighty panes of itstoughened glass shattered due to inclusions before experts were finally called in John Barry, anexpert in nickel sulphide contamination at the University of Queensland, analysed every glass pane inthe building Using a studio camera, a photographer went up in a cradle to take photos of every pane.These were scanned under a modified microfiche reader for signs of niclrel sulphide crystals ‘Wediscovered at least another 120 panes with potentially dangerous inclusions which were thenreplaced,’ says Barry ‘It was a very expensive and time-consuming process that took around sixmonths to complete.’ Though the project cost A$1.6 million (nearly £700,000), the alternative—re-cladding the entire building—would have cost ten times as much

A suggests that publicity about nickel sulphide failure has been suppressed

B regularly sees cases of nickel sulphide failure

C closely examined all the glass in one building

D was involved with the construction of Bishops Walk

E recommended the rebuilding of Waterfront Place

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F thinks the benefits of toughened glass are exaggerated

G claims that nickel sulphide failure is very unusual

H refers to the most extreme case of delayed failure

Questions 18-23

Complete the summary with the list of words A-P below Write your answers in boxes 18-23 on your

answer sheet

Toughened Glass

Toughened glass is favoured by architects because it is much stronger than ordinary glass,

and the fragments are not as 18 when it breaks However, it has one disadvantage: it can shatter 19 This fault is a result of the manufacturing process Ordinary glass is first heated, then cooled very 20

The outer layer21 before the inner layer, and the tension between the two layers which

is created because of this makes the glass stronger However, if the glass contains nickelsulphide impurities, crystals of nickel sulphide are formed These are unstable, and can

expand suddenly, particularly if the weather is22 If this happens, the pane of glass may break The frequency with which such problems occur is23 by glass experts.

Furthermore, the crystals cannot be detected without sophisticated equipment

A numerous B detected C quickly D agreed

E warm F sharp G expands H slowly

I unexpectedlyJ removed K contracts L disputed

M cold N moved O small P calculated

Questions 24-26

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

24 Little doubt was expressed about the reason for the Bishops Walk accident.

25 Toughened glass has the same appearance as ordinary glass.

26 There is plenty of documented evidence available about the incidence of nickel sulphide failure.

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Reading Passage 3

The effects of light on plant and animal species

Light is important to organisms for two different reasons Firstly it is used as a cue for the timing ofdaily and seasonal rhythms in both plane and animals, and secondly it is used to assist growth inplants

Breeding in most organisms occurs during a part of the year only, and so a reliable cue is needed totrigger breeding behaviour Day length is an excellent cue, because it provides a perfectly predictablepattern of change within the year In the temperate zone in spring, temperatures fluctuate greatly fromday to day, but day length increases steadily by a predictable amount The seasonal impact of daylength on physiological responses is called photoperiodism, and the amount of experimental evidencefor this phenomenon is considerable For example, some species of birds’ breeding can be inducedeven in midwinter simply by increasing day length artificially (Wolfson 1964) Other examples ofphotoperiodism occur in plants A short-day plant flowers when the day is less than a certain criticallength A long-day plant flowers after a certain critical day length is exceeded In both cases thecritical day length differs from species to species Plane which flower after a period of vegetativegrowth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-neutral plants

Breeding seasons in animals such as birds have evolved to occupy the part of the year in whichoffspring have the greatest chances of survival Before the breeding season begins, food reservesmust be built up to support the energy cost of reproduction, and to provide for young birds both whenthey are in the nest and after fledging Thus many temperate-zone birds use the increasing day lengths

in spring as a cue to begin the nesting cycle, because this is a point when adequate food resourceswill be assured

The adaptive significance of photoperiodism in plane is also clear Short-day plane that flower inspring in the temperate zone are adapted to maximising seedling growth during the growing season.Long-day plants are adapted for situations that require fertilization by insects, or a long period ofseed ripening Short-day plane that flower in the autumn in the temperate zone are able to build upfood reserves over the growing season and over winter as seeds Day-neutral plane have anevolutionary advantage when the connection between the favourable period for reproduction and daylength is much less certain For example, desert annuals germinate, flower and seed wheneversuitable rainfall occurs, regardless of the day length

The breeding season of some plants can be delayed to extraordinary lengths Bamboos are perennialgrasses that remain in a vegetative state for many years and then suddenly flower, fruit and die (Evans1976) Every bamboo of the species Chusqueaabietifolio on the island of Jamaica flowered, set seedand died during 1884 The next generation of bamboo flowered and died between 1916 and 1918,which suggests a vegetative cycle of about 31 years The climatic trigger for this flowering cycle isnot-yet known, but the adaptive significance is clear The simultaneous production of masses ofbamboo seeds (in some cases lying I2 to I5 centimetres deep on the ground) is more than all the seed-eating animals can cope with at the time, so that some seeds escape being eaten and grow up to formthe next generation (Evans 1976)

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The second reason light is important to organisms is that it is essential for photosynthesis This is theprocess by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or water into organicmaterial for growth The rate of photosynthesis in a plant can be measured by calculating the rate ofits uptake of carbon There is a wide range of photosynthetic responses of plants to variations in lightintensity Some plants reach maximal photosynthesis at one-quarter full sunlight, and others, likesugarcane, never reach a maximum, but continue to increase photosynthesis rate as light intensityrises.

Plants in general can be divided into two groups: shade-tolerant species and shade-intolerant species.This classification is commonly used in forestry and horticulture Shade-tolerant plane have lowerphotosynthetic rates and hence have lower growth rates than those of shade-intolerant species Plantspecies become adapted to living in a certain kind of habitat, and in the process evolve a series ofcharacteristics that prevent them from occupying other habitats Grime ( 1966) suggests that light may

be one of the major components directing these adaptations For example, eastern hemlock seedlingsare shade-tolerant They can survive in the forest understorey under very low light levels becausethey have a low photosynthetic rate

Questions 27-33

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

27 There is plenty of scientific evidence to support photoperiodism.

28 Some types of bird can be encouraged to breed out of season.

29 Photoperiodism is restricted to certain geographic areas.

30 Desert annuals are examples of long-day plants.

31 Bamboos flower several times during their life cycle.

32 Scientists have yet to determine the cue for Chusqueaabietifolia’s seasonal rhythm.

33 Eastern hemlock is a fast-growing plant.

Questions 34-40

Complete the sentences

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet.

34 Day length is a useful cue for breeding in areas where… are unpredictable.

35 Plants which do not respond to light levels are referred to as…

36 Birds in temperate climates associate longer days with nesting and the availability of…

37 Plants that Bower when days are long often depend on… to help them reproduce.

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