2022-23 PROFICIENCY EXAM READING

APPENDIX
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Date: 20.09.2022

Reading 1 The Mind of the Chimpanzee

1. In the middle of the 1960s, Beatrice and Allen Gardner started a project that, along with other similar research,
taught us a lot about the chimpanzee mind. They bought an infant chimpanzee and began to teach her the signs' of
ASL, the American Sign Language used by many of the deaf in Canada and the United States. The Gardners achieved
remarkable success with their student, Washoe. Not only did she learn signs easily, but she quickly began to put them
together in meaningful ways. It was clear that when she saw or used a sign, she formed a picture in her mind of the
object it represented. If, for example, she was asked in sign language to get an apple, she would go and find an apple
that was out of sight in another room.
2. When news of Washoe's achievements was first announced to the scientific community, there was a lot of protest.
The results of the research implied that chimpanzees had the ability to learn a human language and suggested that
chimps might possess intellectual skills similar to those of humans. Although many were fascinated and excited by the
Gardners' discoveries, many more bitterly criticized the whole project. The controversy led to many other language
projects, and the resulting research provided additional information about the chimpanzee's mind.
3. The fact that chimpanzees have excellent memories surprised no one. So, it was not particularly remarkable when
Washoe gave the name-sign of Beatrice Gardner, her surrogate mother1 after a separation of eleven years. Actually, it
was no greater an achievement than the memory of dogs who recognize their owners after separations of almost as
long.
4. Chimpanzees also possess pre-mathematical skills: They can, for example, easily tell the difference between more
and less. They can put things into specific categories according to a particular characteristic. Therefore, they have no
difficulty in separating a pile of food into fruits and vegetables at one time, and at another, dividing the same pile of
food into large and small, even though this calls for putting some vegetables with some fruits.
5. Chimpanzees who have been taught a human language can combine signs creatively in order to describe objects for
which they have no sign. Washoe, for example, puzzled the people taking care of her by asking many times for a rock
berry. Eventually they discovered that she was referring to a sweet type of nut that she had been given for the first time
a short time before. Another language-trained chimp described a cucumber as a green banana, and another referred to
an Alka-Seltzer2 as a listen drink. They can even invent signs. One chimp had to be put on a leash when she went
outside. One day, ready to go outside but having no sign for leash, she showed what she wanted by holding a bent
finger to the ring on her collar. This sign became part of her vocabulary.
6. Some chimpanzees love to draw, and especially paint. Those who have learned sign language sometimes give a
name to their artwork, "This apple"— or sweet corn, or bird, or whatever. The fact that the paintings often look, to our
eyes, remarkably different from the objects themselves either means that the chimpanzees are not very good artists or
that we have a lot to learn about chimpanzee art!
7. People sometimes ask why such complex intellectual powers have evolved in the chimpanzee when their lives in the
wild are so simple. The answer is, of course, that their lives in the wild are not so simple! They use—and need—all
their mental skills during normal everyday life in their complex society. Chimpanzees always have to make choices—
where to go, or with whom to travel. They need highly developed social skills—particularly males who want to
become leaders. And low-ranking chimpanzees must learn to hide their intentions or to do things in secret if they want
to survive. Indeed, the study of chimpanzees in the wild suggests that their intellectual abilities evolved over thousands
of years to help them deal with daily life.
8. It is easier to study intellectual skills in the lab where, through carefully designed tests and the proper use of
rewards, chimpanzees can be encouraged to stretch their minds to the limit. It is more meaningful to study the subject
in the wild, but much harder. It is more meaningful because we can better understand the environmental pressures that
led to the evolution of intellectual skills in chimpanzee societies. It is harder because, in the wild, almost all behaviors
are complicated by endless variables: years of observing, recording, and analyzing replace planned testing; the number
of research subjects can often be counted on the fingers of one hand; the only experiments are nature's own, and only
time—eventually—may lead to their being repeated.

Glossary: 1
surrogate mother (n) someone who takes the place of a person or animal’s biological mother
2
an Alka-Seltzer (n) a type of medicine that is put in water and then drunk, and that makes a sound when
it is put in water

2022-2023 PROFICIENCY EXAM-READING APPENDIX 1

1. In a small town in England, in the middle of the eighteenth century, an eight-year-old boy named Edward Jenner
was intentionally infected with a deadly disease. He was then locked in a barn1 with other children who had been
similarly infected. There they remained until they either died or recovered. Fortunately for humanity, Jenner survived.
2. Child abuse? No—variolation. A common practice in the eighteenth century, variolation involved deliberately
infecting a healthy person with the variola virus that causes a terrible illness, Smallpox. To infect the healthy person,
doctors would take the pus2 from a person sick with Smallpox and intentionally inject it into the healthy person.
3. Why would a doctor do this? Variolation was the only effective means of fighting Smallpox, a deadly disease that
was regularly killing between 10-20% of the population of Europe at that time. Among children, the death rate was
even higher; one in three infants and children who caught Smallpox died. Although almost everyone who was
variolated caught the disease, the death rate among variolated children was only about 10%, as compared to more than
30% in children who caught the highly contagious disease directly from another person. And most importantly, almost
everyone who survived variolation never caught the disease again.
4. It is possible that variolation saved Jenner's life, but he would never forget his terrible days in the barn. Perhaps that
is what led him to choose a career in medicine. In 1761, at just thirteen, Jenner began his medical studies. By 1770, he
was studying anatomy3 and surgery under John Hunter at St. George's Hospital in London. With Hunter, Jenner was
trained in the scientific method, which his instructor described simply as "Why think; Why not try the experiment?"
5. After two years in London, Jenner returned to his hometown. He was a popular doctor, due to his gentle personality
and surgical skill. One common request from his patients was for variolation. Jenner performed the procedure many
times, although he used a more humane method than the one that he had suffered through as a child.
6. In his medical practice, Jenner observed something unexpected: a small number of his variolated patients never
developed Smallpox. Because of his training in the scientific method, he wanted to understand why these particular
individuals were able to resist the disease while all others, as expected, contracted a mild to severe case of the deadly
disease. He discovered that the variolated patients who did not develop Smallpox worked closely with cows and had
all previously had Cowpox. Cowpox is an illness passed from cows to humans. Jenner observed that some of the
symptoms of cowpox and Smallpox were similar. However, while cowpox was a mild illness that did not lead to
death, Smallpox was a severe, life-threatening disease. He was also aware of a common belief that people who had had
cowpox never got Smallpox. Based on his observations, Jenner came up with a theory. He believed that cowpox not
only protected against Smallpox, but could be passed from one human being to another as a deliberate means of
protection from the disease.
7. In May 1796, Jenner got the chance to test his theory. He learned that a young woman from a local farm, Sarah
Nelmes, had cowpox. Jenner asked the parents of an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps for permission to
conduct an experiment on their son. Jenner chose James because he had never had cowpox or Smallpox. Jenner
removed pus from Sarah's hand and spread it on scratches he had made on the boy's arms. As expected, the boy
developed cowpox, but recovered rapidly. Jenner was now ready for the second, riskier stage of his experiment. On
July 1, 1796, Jenner variolated Phipps with pus from a Smallpox patient. Jenner and other scientists and physicians
waited anxiously for the results.
8. In fact, James Phipps never caught Smallpox. This was clear evidence to support Jenner's theory, but more data
were needed. Jenner experimented successfully on thirteen more patients, and at the end of 1796 wrote a report
describing his work for the Royal Society. However, it was turned down for publication. According to those who
reviewed it, Jenner's theory was too much of a challenge to the accepted medical beliefs of the time.
9. Jenner ignored the criticism and continued experimenting. In 1798 he published his own book based on twenty-
three cases in which vaccination (named for the vaccinia virus of cowpox) resulted in lasting protection against, or
immunity to, Smallpox. Although many people continued to criticize Jenner, some well-known London physicians
were starting to vaccinate their patients. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the practice of vaccination had
spread throughout the world.
10. Eventually Jenner's contributions to science were formally recognized. However, he never made an attempt to get
rich through his discovery. Instead, he spent much of his time working, without pay, to spread the good news about
vaccination. In 1977, the last known victim of Smallpox recovered. No new cases appeared, and in 1980, the World
Health Assembly announced that "the world and its peoples" were free of Smallpox.

Glossary: 1
barn (n) a large farm building in which animals are kept
2
pus (n) a thick yellowish liquid produced in an infected part of the body
3
anatomy (n) the scientific study of the structure of human or animal bodies

2022-2023 PROFICIENCY EXAM-READING APPENDIX 2