READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-30, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
The science of sleep
We spend a third of our lives doing it. Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and Margaret Thatcher
got by on four hours a night. Thomas Edison claimed it was waste of time.

So why do we sleep? This is a question that has baffled scientists for centuries and the answer
is, no one is really sure. Some believe that sleep gives the body a chance to recuperate from the
day's activities but in reality, the amount of energy saved by sleeping for even eight hours is
miniscule - about 50 kcal, the same amount of energy in a piece of toast.

With continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls language, memory,
planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically shutting down. In fact, 17 hours of
sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of
0.05% (two glasses of wine). This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK.

Research also shows that sleep-deprived individuals often have difficulty in responding to rapidly
changing situations and making rational judgements. In real life situations, the consequences are
grave and lack of sleep is said to have been be a contributory factor to a number of international
disasters such as Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Challenger shuttle
explosion.

Sleep deprivation not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on emotional and
physical health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which result in excessive daytime sleepiness have
been linked to stress and high blood pressure. Research has also suggested that sleep loss may
increase the risk of obesity because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in controlling
appetite and weight gain are released during sleep.

What happens when we sleep?

What happens every time we get a bit of shut eye? Sleep occurs in a recurring cycle of 90 to 110
minutes and is divided into two categories: non-REM (which is further split into four stages) and
REM sleep.

Non-REM sleep
Stage one: Light Sleep

During the first stage of sleep, we're half awake and half asleep. Our muscle activity slows down
and slight twitching may occur. This is a period of light sleep, meaning we can be awakened
easily at this stage.

Stage two: True Sleep

Within ten minutes of light sleep, we enter stage two, which lasts around 20 minutes. The
breathing pattern and heart rate start to slow down. This period accounts for the largest part of
human sleep.

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Stages three and four: Deep Sleep
During stage three, the brain begins to produce delta waves, a type of wave that is large
(high amplitude) and slow (low frequency). Breathing and heart rate are at their lowest
levels.

Stage four is characterised by rhythmic breathing and limited muscle activity. If we are awakened
during deep sleep we do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several
minutes after waking up. Some children experience bed-wetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking
during this stage.

REM sleep

The first rapid eye movement (REM) period usually begins about 70 to 90 minutes after we fall
asleep. We have around three to five REM episodes a night.

Although we are not conscious, the brain is very active - often more so than when we are awake.
This is the period when most dreams occur. Our eyes dart around (hence the name), our breathing
rate and blood pressure rise. However, our bodies are effectively paralysed, said to be nature's
way of preventing us from acting out our dreams.

After REM sleep, the whole cycle begins again.

How much sleep is required?

There is no set amount of time that everyone needs to sleep, since it varies from person to
person. Results from the sleep profiler indicate that people like to sleep anywhere between 5
and 11 hours, with the average being 7.75 hours.

Jim Home from Loughborough University's Sleep Research Centre has a simple answer though:
"The amount of sleep we require is what we need not to be sleepy in the daytime."

Even animals require varied amounts of sleep:

Species Average total sleep time per day

Python 18 hours

Tiger 15.8 hours

Cat 12.1 hours

Chimpanzee 9.7 hours

Sheep 3.8 hours

African elephant 3.3 hours

Giraffe 1.9 hours

2
The current world record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days, set by Randy
Gardner in 1965. Four days into the research, he began hallucinating.

This was followed by a delusion where he thought he was a famous footballer. Surprisingly,
Randy was actually functioning quite well at the end of his research and he could still beat
the scientist at pinball.

Questions 15-22
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 1? In boxes 15-22 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

15. Thomas Edison slept 4 hours a night.

16. Scientists don't have a certain answer for why we have to sleep.
17. Lack of sleep might cause various problems.
18. Sleep-deprivation may be the cause of anorexia.
19. There are four stages of the REM sleep.
20. According to Jim Horne, we need to sleep as much as it takes to not be sleepy during
the day.
21. Giraffes require less sleep than dogs.
22. After four sleepless days, Randy had a delusion about him being a football celebrity.

Questions 23-27
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.

23. During the Light Sleep stage:

A. Muscle activity increases
B. Jiggling might occur
C. It is not easy to be woken up
D. After waking up, one may experience slight disorientation

24. Heart rate is at the lowest level during:

A. Light Sleep stage
B. Rem Sleep
C. True Sleep stage
D. Third Sleep stage

25. The brain activity is really high:

A. During REM sleep
B. During the stage of True Sleep
C. When we are awake
D. During the Deep sleep stage

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26. Humans require at least:
A. 7.75 hours of sleep
B. 5 hours of sleep
C. 8 hours
D. There is no set amount of time

27. Pythons need:

A. Less sleep than tigers
B. Twice as much sleep as cats
C. Almost ten times more sleep than giraffes
D. More sleep than any other animal in the world

Questions 28-30
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 28-30 on your answer sheet.

If we continually lack sleep, the specific part of our brain that controls language is

28………. True Sleep lasts approximately 29………….. Although during REM sleep

our breathing rate and blood pressure, our bodies 30…………..

4
READING PASSAGE 3
Memory Decoding
Try this memory test: Study each face and compose a vivid image for the person’s first and last
name. Rose Leo, for example, could be a rosebud and a lion. Fill in the blanks on the next page.
The Examinations School at Oxford University is an austere building of oak-paneled rooms,
large Gothic windows, and looming portraits of eminent dukes and earls. It is where generations
of Oxford students have tested their memory on final exams, and it is where, last August, 34
contestants gathered at the World Memory Championships to be examined in an entirely different
manner.

A
In timed trials, contestants were challenged to look at and then recite a two-page poem, memorize
rows of 40-digit numbers, recall the names of 110 people after looking at their photographs, and
perform seven other feats of extraordinary retention. Some tests took just a few minutes; others
lasted hours. In the 14 years since the World Memory Championships was founded, no one has
memorized the order of a shuffled deck of playing cards in less than 30 seconds. That nice round
number has become the four minute mile of competitive memory, a benchmark that the world’s
best “mental athletes,” as some of them like to be called, is closing in on. Most contestants claim
to have just average memories, and scientific testing confirms that they’re not just being modest.
Their feats are based on tricks that capitalize on how the human brain encodes information.
Anyone can learn them.

B
Psychologists Elizabeth Valentine and John Wilding, authors of the monograph Superior
Memory, recently teamed up with Eleanor Maguire, a neuroscientist at University College
London to study eight people, including Karsten, who had finished near the top of the World
Memory Championships. They wondered if the contestants’ brains were different in some way.
The researchers put the competitors and a group of control subjects into an MRI machine and
asked them to perform several different memory tests while their brains were being scanned.
When it came to memorizing sequences of three digit numbers, the difference between the
memory contestant and the control subjects was, as expected, immense. However, when they
were shown photographs of magnified snowflakes, images that the competitors had never tried
to memorize before, the champions did no better than the control group. When the researchers
analyzed the brain scans, they found that the memory champs were activating some brain regions
that were different from those the control subjects were using. These regions, which included the
right posterior hippocampus, are known to be involved in visual memory and spatial navigation.

C
It might seem odd that the memory contestants would use visual imagery and spatial navigation
to remember numbers, but the activity makes sense when their techniques are revealed. Cooke,
a 23-year old cognitive-science graduate student with a shoulder-length mop of curly hair, is a
grand master of brain storage. He can memorize the order of 10 decks of playing cards in less
than an hour or one deck of cards in less than a minute. He is closing in on the 30-second deck.
In the Lamb and Flag, Cooke pulled out a deck of cards and shuffled it. He held up three cards –
the 7 of spades, the queen of clubs, and the 10 of spades. He pointed at a fireplace and said,
“Destiny’s Child is whacking Franz Schubert with handbags.” The next three cards were the king
of hearts, the king of spades, and the jack of clubs.

5
D
How did he do it? Cooke has already memorized a specific person, verb, and object that he
associates with each card in the deck. For example, for the 7 of spades, the person (or, in this
case, persons) is
always the singing group Destiny’s Child, the action is surviving a storm, and the image is a
dinghy. The queen of clubs is always his friend Henrietta, the action is thwacking with a handbag,
and the image is of wardrobes filled with designer clothes. When Cooke commits a deck to
memory, he does it three cards at a time. Every three-card group forms a single image of a person
doing something to an object. The first card in the triplet becomes the person, the second the
verb, the third the object. He then places those images along a specific familiar route, such as the
one he took through the Lamb and Flag. In competitions, he uses an imaginary route that he has
designed to be as smooth and downhill as possible. When it comes time to recall, Cooke takes a
mental walk along his route and translates the images into cards. That’s why the MRIs of the
memory contestants showed activation in the brain areas associated with visual imagery and
spatial navigation.

E
The more resonant the images are, the more difficult they are to forget. But even meaningful
information is hard to remember when there’s a lot of it. That’s why competitive memorizers
place their images along an imaginary route. That technique, known as the loci method,
reportedly originated in 477 B.C. with the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos. Simonides was the
sole survivor of a roof collapse that killed all the other guests at a royal banquet. The bodies were
mangled beyond recognition, but Simonides was able to reconstruct the guest list by closing his
eyes and recalling each individual around the dinner table. What he had discovered was that our
brains are exceptionally good at remembering images and spatial information. Evolutionary
psychologists have offered an explanation: Presumably, our ancestors found it important to recall
where they found their last meal or the way back to the cave. After Simonides’ discovery, the
loci method became popular across ancient Greece as a trick for memorizing speeches and texts.
Aristotle wrote about it, and later a number of treatises on the art of memory were published in
Rome. Before printed books, the art of memory was considered a staple of classical education,
on a par with grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

F
The most famous of the naturals was the Russian journalist S.V. Shereshevski, who could recall
long lists of numbers memorized decades earlier, as well as poems, strings of nonsense syllables,
and just about anything else he was asked to remember. “The capacity of his memory had no
distinct limits,”
wrote Alexander Luria, the Russian psychologist who studies Shereshevski also had synesthesia,
a rare condition in which the senses become intertwined. For example, every number may be
associated with a color or every word with a taste. Synesthetic reactions evoke a response in
more areas of the brain, making memory easier.

G
K. Anders Ericsson, a Swedish-born psychologist at Florida State University, thinks anyone can
acquire Shereshevski’s skills. He cites an experiment with S. F., an undergraduate who was paid
to take a standard test of memory called the digit span for one hour a day, two or three days a
week. When he started, he could hold, like most people, only about seven digits in his head at
any given time (conveniently, the length of a phone number). Over two years, S. F. completed
250 hours of testing. By then, he had stretched his digit span from 7 to more than 80. The study
of S. F. led Ericsson to believe that innately superior memory doesn’t exist at all.

6
When he reviewed original case studies of naturals, he found that exceptional memorizers were
using techniques – sometimes without realizing it – and lots of practice. Often, exceptional
memory was only for a single type of material, like digits. “If we look at some of these memory
tasks, they’re the kind of thing most people don’t even waste one hour practicing, but if they
wasted 50 hours, they’d be exceptional at it,” Ericsson says. It would be remarkable, he adds, to
find a “person who is exceptional across a number of tasks. I don’t think that there’s any
compelling evidence that there are such people.”

Questions 27-31
IELTS ADVANCED – Dự Đoán IELTS INBOX/ZALO:0982.188.938
The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Buy bestselling books online
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

27 The reason why the competence of super memory is significant in academic settings
28 Mention of a contest for extraordinary memory held in consecutive years
29 A demonstrative example of extraordinary person did an unusual recalling game
30 A belief that extraordinary memory can be gained through enough practice
31 A depiction of the rare ability which assists the extraordinary memory reactions

Questions 32-36
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage.
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.

Buy bestselling books online

Using visual imagery and spatial navigation to remember numbers are investigated and
explained. A man called Ed Cooke in a pub, spoke a string of odd words when he held 7 of the
spades (the first one of any cards group) was remembered as he encoded it to a
32______________and the card deck to memory are set to be one time of an order of
33________________; When it comes time to recall, Cooke took a 34 ______________ along
his way and interpreted the imaginary scene into cards. This superior memory skill can be traced
back to Ancient Greece, the strategy was called 35_____________ which had been a major
subject was in ancient 36___________________

Questions 37-38
Choose TWO correct letters, A-E.
Write your answers in boxes 37-38 on your answer sheet.
According to World Memory Championships, what activities need good memory?

A order for a large group of each digit

B recall people’s face
C resemble a long Greek poem
D match name with pictures and features
E recall what people ate and did yesterday

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Questions 39-40
Choose TWO correct letters, A-E.
Write your answers in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.
What is the result of Psychologists Elizabeth Valentine and John Wilding’s MRI Scan
experiment find out?

A the champions’ brains are different in some way from common people
B difference in the brain of champions’ scan image to control subjects are shown when
memorizing sequences of three-digit numbers
C champions did much worse when they are asked to remember photographs
D the memory-champs activated more brain regions than control subjects
E there is some part in the brain coping with visual and spatial memory

8
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on
pages 2 and 3.
The world's first cities
The creation of Mesopotamian cities
The inhabitants of Mesopotamia - which now forms part of eastern Syria, southeastern.

Turkey and Iraq-lived for thousands of years on individual farms and in small, isolated
communities, working relentlessly just to meet their basic needs. But then, about 6,000 years ago
something remarkable happened. The people left the security of their family homes and villages
and came together with others to create something far more complex and difficult: the world's
first city, called Uruk.

There is not much left now of Uruk, which is about 250 kilometres south of Iraq's capital
Baghdad, but enough does remain to show that this initial experiment in urban living was
extraordinarily successful. At its height, around 5,000 years ago, Uruk was home to more than
40,000 people. The outlines of the city walls indicate an enclosed area of about 600 hectares.

The archaeological record of Uruk reveals the intensive building and rebuilding which went on
for four or five centuries after the city's initial establishment. In that period the people of Uruk
built a dozen or so large public-buildings. They would carefully level what had stood before, and
then build another structure on top, often trying out a different building material or an innovative
technique. They seemed to be searching for ways in which architecture could express the
revolutionary new social structures that had come into being there.

Soon Uruk was not the only Mesopotamian city. People all across the flat plains of southern
Mesopotamia were enjoying many of the benefits of city life. By about 4,500 years ago, 80 per
cent of the Mesopotamian population lived in cities over 40 hectares in size, with populations of
between 15,000 and 30,000 people. The emergence of these thriving communities, made up
mostly of individuals and groups with no blood lies, was unprecedented in human history. Why
did these extraordinary advances happen?

Reasons for the creation of cities in Mesopotamia

Smaller communities in Mesopotamia sometimes decided to come together to make it easier to

defend themselves from their enemies. But the underlying reason for the creation of cities can
be found in the harshness of this particular environment. The area was a place of extremes, where
narrow strips of fertile river valleys were bounded by thousands of kilometres of desert and
unproductive wetlands. As the small amount of rainfall in the region was incapable of sustaining
anything but very limited agriculture, it was only through sophisticated irrigation that isolated
pieces of land were kept fertile. The Tigris and the Euphrates rivers provided water for irrigation,
and were also the basis of a communication system that led to the spread of the latest concepts
in farming.

In such a region, the only way for humans to prosper was by forming groups that could work
together. The threat of famine, which could be caused by a prolonged drought or the sudden
change in the course of a river, forced people to look outside their families, and work with their
neighbours to create an elaborate system of dams, channels and canals to manage water. These
projects needed specific skills and labour from outside the farmer's family, and this established
more firmly the patterns of dependence that are at the heart of civilisation.

9
Changes in the organisation of farming

The intensive farming that came about in Mesopotamia was more efficient and productive and
therefore generated a surplus of food, allowing crops in years of good harvests to be stored as
protection against future less successful years. It also allowed more land for the production of a
wider range of crops. It created a world where there was a need for traders and for skilled
craftsmen: in short, it was the beginning of industry and consumerism. The concept of
specialisation emerged within the population - with increasing numbers of soldiers, builders,
musicians, doctors, fortune tellers - all supported directly or indirectly by agriculture. At the
same time, this increased the control that powerful institutions, gradually emerging in the early
cities, had over the urban population. Although large numbers of people were freed from the
struggle of subsistence farming, they were now totally dependent on the institutions that
employed them for their daily sustenance

The role of the temples

The earliest and most powerful of these institutions was centred on the religious temple. Ever
more temple structures were erected in the form of massive pyramids which had enormous
storerooms for the output from the farming estates. Over time, the temples acquired these farms
for themselves and appointed a large number of staff to administer them and to deal with the
storage of produce. The temple's greatest advantage was that each citizen was expected to give
up some time to work for the temples. This meant that temples could easily store huge amounts
of agricultural produce which could be used to buy yet more land. In addition, the revenues
generated allowed the temples to serve as primitive kinds of banks making loans to people in
difficult economic times.

The emergence of writing

We know a surprising amount about these times thanks to the development of an important new
technology: writing. In Mesopotamia basic records were inscribed in wet clay, unlike the fragile
papyrus used in ancient Egypt and Greece. These first writings were largely lists of people and
things, simple bookkeeping. But within several hundred years, writing systems had become more
advanced capable of recording concepts as well as lists. The clay tablets used for writing were
tough, and the fires that often burnt down the archives where they were stored usually merely
baked them for future generations.

Questions 1 - 6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 1? In boxes 1-6 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 Some physical evidence of Uruk still exists.

2 The people of Uruk lived in a large apartment building.
3 Builders in Uruk frequently experimented with new construction.
4 Urban settlements were unusual in Mesopotamia for 4.500 years.
5 The Tigris and the Euphrates rivers were important for the interchange of ideas.
6 When there were food shortages, farmers relied mainly on the help of their relatives.

10
Questions 7-13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.

Early changes in Mesopotamia

Changes in organisation of farming

Improved agricultural methods led to:

∙ a food 7............. being used as insurance

∙ a wider range of crops being grown
∙ the development of industry and consumerism
∙ increased specialisation amongst workers
∙ greater control by institutions

∙ Temples
∙ were built in the shape of large 8…………
∙ had large 9………… where produce was kept
∙ many needed 10……….. to manage the farms
∙ acted as 11………in hard economic periods
∙
The development of writing
∙ people wrote on surfaces made of 12……..
∙ written records remained undamaged after 13……....archives were kept in

11
 READING PASSAGE 1
Eco-Resort Management
A. Ecotourism is often regarded as a form of nature-based tourism and has become an important
alternative source of tourists. In addition to providing the traditional resort-leisure product, it
has been argued that ecotourism resort management should have a particular focus on best-
practice environmental management, an educational and interpretive component, and direct and
indirect contributions to the conservation of the natural and cultural environment (Ayala, 1996).

B. Couran Cove Island Resort is a large integrated ecotourism-based resort located south of
Brisbane on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. As the world’s population becomes
increasingly urbanised, the demand for tourist attractions which are environmentally friendly,
serene and offer amenities of a unique nature, has grown rapidly. Couran Cove Resort, which
is one such tourist attractions, is located on South Stradbroke Island, occupying approximately
150 hectares of the island. South Stradbroke Island is separated from the mainland by the
Broadwater, a stretch of sea 3 kilometers wide. More than a century ago, there was only one
Stradbroke Island, and there were at least four aboriginal tribes living and hunting on the island.
Regrettably, most of the original island dwellers were eventually killed by diseases such as
tuberculosis, smallpox and influenza by the end of the 19th. The second ship wreck on the
island in 1894, and the subsequent destruction of the ship (the Cambus Wallace) because it
contained dynamite, caused a large crater in the sandhills on Stradbroke Island. Eventually, the
ocean broke through the weakened land form and Stradbroke became two islands. Couran Cove
Island Resort is built on one of the world’s few naturally-occurring sand lands, which is home
to a wide range of plant communities and one of the largest remaining remnants of the rare
Livistona rainforest left on the Gold Coast. Many mangrove and rainforest areas, and Melaleuca
Wetlands on South Stradbroke Island (and in Queensland) have been cleared, drained or filled
for residential, industrial, agricultural or urban development in the first half of the 20th century.
Farmer and graziers finally abandoned South Stradbroke Island in 1939 because the vegetation
and the soil conditions there were not suitable for agricultural activities.

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES OF COURAN COVE RESORT

Being located on an offshore island, the resort is only accessible by means of water
transportation. The resort provides hourly ferry service from the marina on the mainland to and
from the island. Within the resort, transport modes include walking trails, bicycle tracks and
the beach train. The reception area is the counter of the shop which has not changed in 8 years
at least. The accommodation is an octagonal “Bure”. These are large rooms that are clean but!
The equipment is tired and in some cases just working. Our ceiling fan only worked on high
speed for example. Beds are hard but clean, there is television, radio, an old air conditioner and
a small fridge. These “Bures” are right on top of each other and night noises do carry so be
careful what you say and do. The only thing is the mosquitos but if you forget to bring mosquito
repellant they sell some on the island.
As an ecotourism-based resort, most of the planning and development of the attraction has been
concentrated on the need to co-exist with the fragile natural environment of South Stradbroke
Island to achieve sustainable development.

12
WATER AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT
C. South Stradbroke Island has groundwater at the centre of the island, which has a maximum
height of 3 metres above sea level. The water supply is recharged by rainfall and is commonly
known as an unconfined freshwater aquifer. Couran Cove Island Resort obtains its water supply
by tapping into this aquifer and extracting it via a bore system. Some of the problems which
have threatened the island’s freshwater supply include pollution, contamination and over-
consumption. In order to minimise some of these problems, all laundry activities are carried
out on the mainland. The resort considers washing machines as onerous to the island’s
freshwater supply, and that the detergents contain a high level of phosphates which are a major
source of water pollution. The resort uses LPG-power generation rather than a diesel-powered
plant for its energy supply, supplemented by wind turbine, which has reduced greenhouse
emissions by 70% of diesel-equivalent generation methods. Excess heat recovered from the
generator is used to heat the swimming pool. Hot water in the eco-cabins and for some of the
resort’s vehicles are solar-powered. Water efficient fittings are also installed in showers and
toilets. However, not all the appliances used by the resort are energy efficient, such as
refrigerators. Visitors who stay at the resort are encouraged to monitor their water and energy
usage via the in-house television system, and are rewarded with prizes (such as a free return trip
to the resort) accordingly if their usage level is low.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
D. We examined a case study of good management practice and a pro-active sustainable tourism
stance of an eco-resort. In three years of operation, Couran Cove Island Resort has won 23
international and national awards, including the 2001 Australian Tourism Award in the 4-Star
Accommodation category. The resort has embraced and has effectively implemented
contemporary environmental management practices. It has been argued that the successful
implementation of the principles of sustainability should promote long-term social, economic
and environmental benefits, while ensuring and enhancing the prospects of continued viability
for the tourism enterprise. Couran Cove Island Resort does not conform to the characteristics
of the ResortDevelopmentSpectrum, as proposed by Prideaux (2000). According to Prideaux,
the resort should be at least at Phase 3 of the model (the National tourism phase), which
describes an integrated resort providing 3-4 star hotel-type accommodation. The primary tourist
market in Phase 3 of the model consists mainly of interstate visitors. However, the number of
interstate and international tourists visiting the resort is small, with the principal visitor markets
comprising locals and residents from nearby towns and the Gold Coast region. The carrying
capacity of Couran Cove does not seem to be of any concern to the Resort management. Given
that it is a private commercial ecotourist enterprise, regulating the number of visitors to the
resort to minimize damage done to the natural environment on South Stradbroke Island is not
a binding constraint. However, the Resort’s growth will eventually be constrained by its
carrying capacity, and quantity control should be incorporated in the management strategy of
the resort.

Questions 1-5
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

1. The Stradbroke became two islands

A. by an intended destruction of the ship of the Cambus Wallace
B. by an explosion of dynamite on a ship and following nature erosion
C. by the movement sandhills on Stradbroke Island
D. by the volcanic eruption on island

13
2. Why are laundry activities for the resort carried out on the mainland
A. In order to obtain its water supply via a bore system
B. In order to preserve the water and anti-pollution
C. In order to save the cost of installing onerous washing machines
D. In order to reduce the level of phosphates in water around

3. What is the major water supplier in South Stradbroke Island is by

A. desalinizing the sea water
B. collecting the rainfall
C. transporting from the mainland
D. boring ground water

4. What is applied for heating water on Couran Cove Island Resort

A. the LPG-power
B. a diesel-powered plant
C. the wind power
D. the solar-power

5. What does, as the managers of resorts believe, the prospective future focus on
A. more awards of for resort’s accommodation
B. sustainable administration and development in a long run
C. Economic and environmental benefits for the tourism enterprise
D. successful implementation the Resort Development Spectrum

Questions 6-10
Complete the following summary using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the
Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

Being located away from the mainland, tourists can attain the resort only by 6 ........................ in a
regular service. Within the resort, transports include trails for walking or tracks for both 7
........................ and the beach train. The on-island equipment is old-fashioned which is barely
working such as the 8........................ overhead. There is television, radio, an old 9 ........................
and a small fridge. And you can buy the repellant for 10 ........................ if you forget to bring some.

Questions 11-13
Choose THREE correct letters among, A-E.
Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
What is true as to the contemporary situation of Couran Cove Island Resort in the last paragraph

A. Couran Cove Island Resort goes for more eco-friendly practices.

B. The accommodation standard only conforms to the Resort Development Spectrum of Phase 3.
C. Couran Cove Island Resort should raise the accommodation standard and build more facilities.
D. The principal group visiting the resort is international tourists.
E. Its carrying capacity will restrict future business expansion.

14
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2
on pages 6 and 7.

Playing soccer
There are many differences between playing soccer in the street and joining a youth team
in an organized league in the USA

A. Street soccer, as its name implies, is an informal variation of the sport, often played on the
street, particularly in urban areas. There are many reasons for the widespread popularity of
street soccer. Unlike youth soccer, its more formally organized counterpart, no large space is
needed, and goal posts, corner markers, and marked lines, associated with the formal game,
are typically absent, as are game officials or referees. Another attraction of street soccer is that
it is played frequently and competitively, but does not necessarily require standard 11-a-side
teams or fixed playing positions. Unlike in youth soccer, inexperienced street soccer players
rarely learn from repetitive technical and tactical drills. Instead, they learn from their poor
performance in competition, unconscious of the skills they are nonetheless developing, and
without older adults or coaches present. Players learn without effort through playing the game,
and soon attain an almost natural feeling for the sport.

B. However, there are lots of cities in the world today where conditions are such that street
soccer is no longer possible. Congested traffic now dominates where games were once played.
Parks and open fields are used as hangouts for older teenagers with other interests. Add to this
the requirement in many localities for official permits to use public spaces and the managed
schedules that many young people have today, and spontaneous play of any kind is hard to
imagine.

C. In spite of all these obstacles, which are probably solvable in most instances, there is another
sociological explanation of why in many places street soccer doesn't enjoy the same popularity
it once did. In his book How Soccer Explains the World, US writer Franklin Foer observes: But
for all the talk of freedom, the 1960s parenting style had a far less relaxed side too. Like the
1960s consumer movement which brought seat belts and airbags to cars, the (youth) soccer
movement felt like it could create a set of ... regulations that would protect both the child's
body and mind from damage. Soccer leagues like the one I played in as a child handed out
'participation' prizes to every player, no matter how few games his (or her) team won Where
most of the world accepts the practice of using your
head to hit the ball as an essential element of the game, some (youth) soccer parents have
worried over the potential for injury to the brain. An entire industry grew up to manufacture
protective headgear...........................Even though very little medical evidence supports this
fear, some youth leagues prohibited heading the ball altogether.

D. A growing body of people don't believe street soccer involves a legitimate educational
method. They argue that children need to be taught by experts. Youth soccer instruction now
begins with four-year-olds, so that they will have an advantage as six- year-olds. This need to
get ahead brings with it a fear of falling behind that only expert instruction can prevent. This
type of instruction leaves no room for the trial and error approach of street soccer.

15
E. One of the basic ideas of street soccer is that young players are assigned a particular role by
a better player and are expected to play for the good of the team. Such an assignment runs
counter to the idea of youth soccer that every child needs to learn every position and will
benefit from doing so. In street soccer, you fill the role that you are best wiled to at a particular
time. While this role assignment can change from game to game, the purpose is always the
same: to get the best out of each individual at any given moment.

F. In tartlet soccer, children have to learn patience, to wait their turn, to realize that they are
not entitled to make decisions, or even be listened to simply because they allow up. Positions
of responsibility are earned through competition within the team. Younger players in street
soccer must wait to attain those positions. In youth soccer, however, with its overly democratic
values, youngsters are guaranteed their time in the spotlight. Whether it's their turn to be
captain, to play a central position or to take a crucial shot, youth soccer players come to believe
that hard work and patience aren't really necessary.

G. Not only does every youth soccer player get a chance, it is assumed that each individual has
played well. 'Everyone's a winner; no one's a loser' is a guiding principle of youth soccer. This
ensures each individual goes away positive about themselves. No one can leave a game or a
practice feeling bad. But, if there really are no losers, then why try at all? Since giving less than
your best receives the same reward as giving your best why go to any extra effort? In street
soccer, every game results in a winner and a loser and everyone knows who is who. Losing a
game is a common experience and players learn early on how to handle this. As a result, unlike
most youth soccer players, they acquire resilience.

A further difference between these two strands of soccer is that in street soccer a formal record
is not kept. You can lose one day and win the next. The results are only temporary and are
forgotten within minutes of the end of the match. But in organized youth soccer, the position
each person plays and the results are formally noted and maintained throughout a season.

Questions 14 - 19
Reading Passage 2 has seven sections, A-G.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, to boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

14 a contrast between the ways young players gain experience of playing different positions
15 examples outside sport of greater emphasis on individual safety
16 a description of methods of selection for leadership on soccer teams
17 details of urban changes that discourage street soccer
18 a mention of the lesson that failure teaches street soccer players
19 an explanation of why youth soccer emphasises the need for coaches

Questions 20 and 21
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet.
The list below gives some possible reasons for the popularity of street soccer.
Which TWO of these reasons are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A Many famous soccer players got their start in street soccer.
B Young people can begin playing street soccer at a very early age.
C You do not need elaborate facilities to play street soccer.
D Inexperienced street soccer players are not criticised for mistakes.
E Street soccer teams can have varying numbers of players.

16
Questions 22 and 23

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 22 and 23 on your answer sheet.
The list below goes some possible results of the 1960s parenting style.
Which TWO of these results are mentioned by Franklin Foer in the excerpt from How Soccer
Explains the World?

A Participation in youth soccer became much more expensive.

B Some youth soccer leagues adopted more restrictive rules of play.
C Fewer young people joined youth soccer teams.
D Youth soccer players were sometimes rewarded for simply playing in games.
E Soccer equipment manufacturers directed advertising towards parents.

Questions 24-26
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your
answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Winners and losers

For youth soccer players, a key 24.......................................is that they should always
come away from the game with a positive attitude. In this respect, regardless of the
effort the players make, they get some kind of 25.................................................at the
end of a game. In street soccer, however, players gain resilience because they have to
learn to cope with failure. But the outcome of a match isn't remembered for long. In
fact, no-one ever keeps a 26…………………….of the results of games.

17
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.

The conquest of malaria in Italy

A review of Frank M Snowden's masterly history of a country's fight to eradicate a deadly
disease
A. The word 'malaria' means 'bad air' in Italian, and this terrible disease marked the life of the
people of that country for thousands of years. Yet by 1962, Italy was officially declared
malaria-free, and it has remained so ever since. Frank Snowden's study of this successful
endeavour is a remarkable piece of historical work. Original, crystal clear, analytical and
passionate, Snowden takes us to areas historians have rarely visited before.

B. Everybody now knows that malaria is carried by mosquitoes. But in the 19th century most
experts subscribed to the theory of 'miasma' or 'poisoning of the air'. Others made a link
between swamps, water and malaria, but did not make the further leap towards insects. The
consequence of these theories was that little was done to combat the disease before the end of
that century. The situation was so serious that from a total population of 25m Italians, 11m
were ‘permanently at risk'. In warm, damp, malarial zones, the life expectancy of land workers
was a terrifying 22.5 years. The economic impact of the disease was immense. Epidemics were
blamed on people who originated from the hotter parts of Italy, given the widespread belief
that malaria was hereditary.

C. One of the first breakthroughs in the war against malaria came in 1898 when the zoologist
Giovanni Battista Grassi demonstrated that the micro-organisms causing the disease were
carried in the digestive tract of the mosquito. By releasing mosquitoes into rooms to drink the
blood of healthy human volunteers, Grassi was able to make the direct link between the
insects and the disease. Definitive proof of this theory was obtained after an extraordinary
series of experiments in Italy, where healthy people were introduced into malarial zones but
kept free of mosquito bites - and remained well. The recently formed Italian state at last had
the necessary information to begin tackling the disease.

D. A complicated approach was adopted, which made use of quinine - a drug obtained from tree
bark which had long been used to combat fever, but was now seen as a crucial part of the war
on malaria. Italy introduced a quinine law and a quinine tax in 1904, and the drug was
administered to large numbers of rural workers. Despite its often terrible side effects, the drug
was successful in limiting the spread of the disease, and in breaking cycles of infection. In
addition, Italy setup rural health centres and invested heavily in education programmes.
Malaria, as Snowden shows, was not just a medical problem, but a social and regional issue,
and could only be defeated through multi-layered strategies.

E. It was originally decided to give quinine to all those in vulnerable regions - even healthy
people. However, peasants were often suspicious of medicine being forced upon them, and
doctors were frequently met with hostility and stubborn refusal to accept the treatment
offered. But despite the refusals, the strategy as a whole was hugely successful. Deaths
from malaria fell by some 80% in the first decade of the 20th century and some areas
escaped altogether from the scourge of the disease.

F. The 1915 -18 war delayed the campaign, as funds were diverted to the battlefields. In the 1920s
and 1930s the draining of the damp, unhealthy marshlands around Rome had a certain impact
on the spread of malaria. However, as war swept through the drained lands in the 1940s, the
disease returned with a vengeance. Yet the country's leading malariologist Alberto Missiroli
refused to order the distribution of quinine, so allowing the epidemic to spread unchecked.
According to Snowden, he did this in order to create the ideal conditions for a new strategy,
supported by the US Rockefeller Foundation - a massive experiment involving the
extermination of mosquitoes with the chemical DDT. It is estimated that more than a third of
the inhabitants in the affected area contracted malaria and countless thousands died.

18
 G. With the end of the war in 1945, the US government and the Rockefeller Foundation were free
to experiment. DDT was sprayed from the air, and 3m Italians had their bodies covered with the
chemical. The effects were immense, and by 1962 malaria was more or less gone from the whole
country. One of the final victims to die of the disease in Italy was the popular cyclist, Fausto
Coppi. He had contracted malaria in Africa in 1960, and the failure of doctors in Italy to spot
the disease was a sign of the times. A few decades earlier, they would have immediately noticed
the telltale signs; it was later claimed that a small dose of quinine would have saved his life.

H. As there are still more than 1m deaths every year from malaria worldwide, Snowden's book also
has contemporary relevance. This is a disease that affects every level of the societies where it is
rampant. The economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s which made Italy into a modern
industrial nation would not have been possible without the eradication of malaria. Moreover,
this book convincingly argues that the disease was 'an integral part of the big picture of modern
Italian history'. This magnificent study, beautifully written and impeccably documented,
deserves an audience beyond specialists in history, or in Italy.

QUESTION 14-17
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
Malaria in 19th-century Italy
Up until the late nineteenth century, experts failed to make the connection between malaria
and 14..................... The most popular belief at the time was the 15...........................theory,
which upheld the idea that diseases were carried by unclean air. Another common idea was
that malaria was a 16......................... disease, and as a result people from certain parts of the
country were often held responsible for the spread of epidemics. Malaria was particularly
widespread in rural regions, where 17.........................could be extremely short.

Questions 18 — 20
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 18-20 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

18 The volunteers in Giovanni Battista Grassi's research came from all parts of Italy.
19 Experiments in Italy proved that it was possible to remain healthy despite being in
malarial zones.
20 In the early twentieth century, quinine was successfully administered to all inhabitants of
vulnerable regions.

Questions 21 — 26
Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs, A-H.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet.

21 a figure showing the dramatic results of an anti-malarial drug programme

22 an important discovery about how malaria is spread
23 mention of an expert's decision not to halt the spread of the disease
24 the significance of the malaria story for today's readers
25 examples of false assumptions which held back scientific understanding of malaria
26 reference to legislation to support the fight against malaria

19
READING PASSAGE 1
Polar bears
Polar bears, known scientifically as Ursus maritimus, are facing increasing threats due to the rapidly
changing climate, and their survival is essential not only for maintaining ecological balance but also
for unlocking potential breakthroughs in human medicine. Living in the Arctic, where temperatures
can drop to an unimaginable -40°C, these majestic creatures have evolved unique adaptations,
making them one of the most resilient mammals. Under their thick skin, polar bears store an
impressive 11 centimetres of blubber, which serves as insulation. In humans, a similar amount of
adipose tissue would undoubtedly result in health complications, such as diabetes and heart disease.
However, polar bears defy this norm.

The key to this paradox lies in their genetic composition, as revealed by a 2014 study led by scientist
Shi Ping Liu and his team. By comparing the genetic structure of polar bears with that of their
closest relatives, the brown bears, the researchers identified significant genetic markers that enable
polar bears to thrive in extreme environments. One such marker is a gene known as APOB,
responsible for managing levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) - the so-called "bad"
cholesterol. In humans, mutations in this gene are often linked to an increased risk of heart disease.
This discovery suggests that studying polar bears could provide new insights into cardiovascular
diseases in humans. Additionally, the genome of polar bears holds the key to understanding
osteoporosis a disease characterized by reduced bone density, particularly affecting the elderly.
Unlike humans, polar bears undergo prolonged periods of fasting during their winter hibernation,
where their calcium and calorie intake plummets, yet they show no signs of bone degradation.
Female polar bears, in particular, endure intense physical strain during pregnancy and lactation,
often fasting for up to six months while maintaining healthy bone structure. Physiologists Alanda
Lennox and Allen Goodship, in a landmark 2008 study, uncovered the secret: pregnant polar bears
increase their bone density before entering hibernation and continue to preserve it during the fasting
period. This phenomenon is absent in brown bears, who must remodel their bones after winter.
Understanding this process could pave the way for medical advances benefiting astronauts,
bedridden patients, and the elderly

The potential medical benefits derived from polar bears are compelling, but we must not forget their
intrinsic value as intelligent, problem-solving creatures. Despite their fearsome reputation, bears
are often misjudged as unintelligent and violent. Anecdotal evidence from researchers, however,
paints a different picture. GoGo, a polar bear residing at the Tennoji Zoo in Osaka, Japan, has
repeatedly demonstrated his problem-solving ability by using tools specifically, a tree branch to
retrieve food that was beyond his reach. While such behavior is rare among wild polar bears, some
have been observed showing similar levels of ingenuity. For instance, a male bear once figured out
how to leap onto stacked barrels to approach a photographer standing on a platform four metres
above the ground.

In another study conducted by Alison Ames in 2008, polar bears were seen engaging in deliberate,
focused manipulation of objects. Ames observed wild polar bears creating small piles of objects
only to knock them over, seemingly playing a self-invented game. Such behaviour points to the
bears' cognitive complexity, hinting that their problem- solving abilities may rival those of some
primates.

Emotions, too, are part of the polar bear's repertoire. Though difficult to study, there is anecdotal
evidence suggesting that polar bears express frustration, for example, when missing a kill, hitting
out at ice or snow. Even more striking is their ability to form bonds with other species. In the Arctic,
there are accounts of polar bears engaging in playful behavior with sled dogs. In one remarkable
case, a hand-raised polar bear named Agee has formed such a close relationship with her trainer,
Mark Dumas, that they have been observed swimming together. These examples of emotional
intelligence and interspecies relationships are particularly surprising, given that polar bears are
known to hunt humans in the wild.

20
While the health benefits of studying polar bears are undoubtedly significant, the loss of such a
magnificent species due to climate change would mean losing an intelligent animal that plays a
crucial role in its ecosystem. Therefore, protecting polar bears is not just an environmental
imperative; it is a moral obligation that could also yield unimagined benefits for human society.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? In boxes 1-7
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. Polar bears experience serious health issues due to their high fat levels.
2. Liu's team discovered new genetic variations in polar bears that allow them to live in extreme
cold conditions.
3. Brown bears and polar bears are genetically very similar.
4. The gene APOB is linked to cardiovascular disease risk in humans.
5. Female polar bears increase bone density before hibernation to prevent osteoporosis.
6. Wild polar bears often use tools to help them hunt.
7. Polar bears are known to develop friendships with other pecies.

Questions 8 - 13
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Polar bears play a critical role in understanding human solutions for conditions such as heart disease
and 8…………..Their genetic makeup, particularly the gene known as 9……………. helps reduce
cholesterol levels. In addition, their ability to maintain strong 10…………during fasting offers
valuable insights into treating osteoporosis. On the behavioral side, polar bears have shown
impressive problem-solving skills, such as using a 11………… to obtain food. Anecdotal evidence
also suggests that they express emotions like 12……………….. when frustrated. Additionally,
polar bears have formed unusual relationships with 13………..,demonstrating their emotional
depth.

21
READING PASSAGE 2
BIRD MIGRATION 2
A. Birds have many unique design features that enable them to perform such amazing feats of
endurance. They are equipped with lightweight, hollow bones, intricately designed feathers
providing both lift and thrust for rapid flight, navigation systems superior to any that man has
developed, and an ingenious heat conserving design that, among other things, concentrates all blood
circulation beneath layers of warm, waterproof plumage, leaving them fit to face life in the harshest
of climates. Theft respiratory systems have to perform efficiently during sustained flights at
altitude, so they have a system of extracting oxygen from their lungs that for exceeds that of any
other animal. During the later stages of the summer breeding season, when food is plentiful, their
bodies are able to accumulate considerable layers of fat, in order to provide sufficient energy for
theft long migratory flights.

B. The fundamental reason that birds migrate is to find adequate food during the winter months
when it is in short supply. This particularly applies to birds that breed in the temperate and Arctic
regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where food is abundant during the short growing season.
Many species can tolerate cold temperatures if food is plentiful, but when food is not available they
must migrate. However, intriguing questions remain.

C. One puzzling fact is that many birds journey much further than would be necessary just to find
food and good weather. Nobody knows, for instance, why British swallows, which could
presumably survive equally well if they spent the winter in equatorial Africa, instead fly several
thousands of miles further to theft preferred winter home in South Africa Cape Province. Another
mystery involves the huge migrations performed by arctic terns and mudflat- feeding shorebirds
that breed close to Polar Regions. In general, the further north a migrant species breeds, the further
south it spends the winter. For arctic terns this necessitates an annual round trip of 25,000 miles.
Yet, en route to then final destination in far-flung southern latitudes, all these individuals overfly
other areas of seemingly suitable habitat spanning two hemispheres. While we may not fully
understand bird's reasons for going to particular places, we can marvel at then feats

D. One of the greatest mysteries is how young birds know how to find the traditional wintering
areas without parental guidance. Very few adults migrate with juveniles in tow, and youngsters may
even have little or no inkling of then parents' appearance. A familiar example is that of the cuckoo,
which lays its eggs in another species' nest and never encounters its young again. It is mind boggling
to consider that, once raised by its host species, the young cuckoo makes it own way to ancestral
wintering grounds in the tropics before returning single-handedly to northern Europe the next
season to seek out a mate among its own kind. The obvious implication is that it inherits from its
parents an inbuilt route map and direction-finding capability, as well as a mental image of what
another cuckoo looks like. Yet nobody has the slightest idea as to how this is possible

E. Mounting evidence has confirmed that birds use the positions of the sun and stars to obtain
compass directions. They seem also to be able to detect the earth's magnetic field, probably due to
having minute crystals of magnetite in the region of then brains. However, true navigation also
requires an awareness of position and time, especially when lost. Experiments have shown that after
being taken thousands of miles over an unfamiliar land-mass, birds are still capable of returning
rapidly to nest sites. Such phenomenal powers are the product of computing a number of
sophisticated cues, including an inborn map of the night sky and the pull of the earth's magnetic
field.

22
How the buds use then 'instruments' remains unknown, but one thing is clear: they see the world
with a superior sensory perception to ours. Most small birds migrate at night and take then direction
from the position of the setting sun. However, as well as seeing the sun go down, they also seem
to see the plane of polarized light caused by it, which calibrates then compass. Traveling at night
provides other benefits. Daytime predators are avoided and the danger of dehydration due to flying
for long periods in warm, sunlit skies is reduced. Furthermore, at night the air is generally cool and
less turbulent and so conducive to sustained, stable flight.

F. Nevertheless, all journeys involve considerable risk, and part of the skill in arriving safely is
setting off at the right time. This means accurate weather forecasting, and utilizing favorable winds.
Birds are adept at both, and, in laboratory tests, some have been shown to detect the minute
difference in barometric pressure between the floor and ceiling of a room. Often birds react to
weather changes before there is any visible sign of them. Lapwings, which feed on grassland, flee
west from the Netherlands to the British Isles, France and Spain at the onset of a cold snap. When
the ground surface freezes the birds could starve. Yet they return to Holland ahead of a thaw, their
arrival linked to a pressure change presaging an improvement in the weather.

G. In one instance a Welsh Manx shearwater carried to America and released was back in its burrow
on Skokholm Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast, one day before a letter announcing its release!
Conversely, each autumn a small number of North American birds are blown across the Atlantic
by fast-moving westerly tail winds. Not only do they arrive safely in Europe, but, based on ringing
evidence, some make it back to North America the following spring, after probably spending the
winter with European migrants in sunny African climes.

Questions 14-20
Reading passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

List of headings

i. The best moment to migrate

ii. The unexplained rejection of closer feeding ground
iii. The influence of weather on the migration route
iv. Physical characteristics that allow birds to migrate
v. The main reason why birds migrate
vi. The best wintering grounds for birds
vii. Research findings on how birds migrate
viii. Successful migration despite trouble of wind
ix. Contrast between long-distance migration and short-distance migration
x. Mysterious migration despite lack of teaching

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19 Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G

23
Questions 21-22
Choose TWO letters, A-E. Write the correct letters in boxes 21 and 22 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements are true of bird migration?

A. Birds often fly further than they need to.

B. Birds traveling in family groups are safe.
C. Birds flying at night need less water.
D. Birds have much sharper eye-sight than humans.
E. Only share birds are resistant to strong winds.

Question 23-26
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.
Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

It is a great mystery that young birds like cuckoos can find their wintering grounds without

23………… Evidence shows birds can tell directions nice a 24............ by observing the sun and

theaters. One advantage for birds flying at night is that they can avoid contact with 25...............

Laboratory tests show that birds can detect weather without 26................signs.

24
READING PASSAGE 3
Human-Machine Interaction and Collective Cognition
Since the early days of technological advancement, humans have developed tools and machines
that ease the burden of tasks which are either dangerous or monotonous. These inventions have
steadily evolved into complex robotic systems capable of performing actions that range from simple
mechanical movements to intricate operations that require precision. The field of robotics has
gradually expanded, becoming an integral part of various industries and aspects of daily life.

A. In the current era, robots have become an essential part of human life, often unnoticed in their
operations. Automated systems are used in industries where assembly lines depend on robotic arms
for precision and efficiency. In banking, automated teller machines (ATMs) perform transactions
with standard polite responses. Robots also control subway systems, ensuring the timely operation
of trains, while automated digging machines excavate mine shafts with precision. These
developments align with the vision set forth by Karel Čapek, the Czech playwright who coined the
term 'robot' in the 1920s. As robotics progresses, the experimental phase quickly transforms into
practical applications.

B. Advances in the miniaturization of electronics and mechanical systems have allowed robots to
perform tasks that surpass human capabilities. For example, robotic systems are now used in
complex surgeries, including brain and bone operations, where precision is vital. These systems
operate with submillimeter accuracy, beyond what human hands can achieve. Additionally, robots
enable humans to perform tasks remotely, minimizing exposure to hazardous environments. In
1994, NASA deployed the robotic explorer Dante to traverse an Alaskan volcano. Controlled
remotely from thousands of miles away, Dante's mission was a significant step toward making
dangerous explorations safer for humans.

C. However, the development of fully autonomous robots, capable of functioning with little to no
human oversight, remains a challenge. While robots can be programmed to handle specific
scenarios, they lack the common sense required to navigate a dynamic, unpredictable environment.
Early predictions in the 1960s and 1970s anticipated that artificial intelligence (AI) would reach
human-like cognition by the 21st century. Yet, these forecasts have since been pushed back by
several decades. The complexity of human perception and the functioning of the human brain far
exceed what current robotic systems can replicate.

D. The human brain, consisting of approximately 100 billion neurons, continues to baffle scientists.
Unlike robots, the brain can process a rapidly changing environment, identifying and disregarding
irrelevant details in a fraction of a second. For instance, when driving through a forest, the human
brain instantly recognizes a woodchuck on the side of the road, filtering out unimportant visual
information. Replicating such cognitive capabilities in robots has proven to be a far greater
challenge than anticipated. Even with advanced robotics and Al, scientists have not yet come close
to achieving the human brain's level of perception and judgment.

E. Despite the difficulties, researchers are making progress by exploring alternative methods to
enhance robotic intelligence. Neural networks, a type of Al modeled after the human brain, have
shown promise. Unlike traditional electronic circuits, which follow a linear, logical progression,
neural networks function in a more ad hoc manner, similar to how neurons in the brain operate.
These systems can learn and adapt by reinforcing successful pathways and eliminating erroneous
ones. Over time, neural networks can evolve to recognize patterns and make decisions without the
need for constant programming.

25
F. In addition to improving robotic intelligence, scientists are working to make robots more
relatable to humans. This is especially significant in Japan, where an aging population requires
innovative solutions to assist the elderly. Researchers at the Science University of Tokyo have
developed a "face robot" prototype designed to interact with humans in a more natural way. This
robot, equipped with a video camera embedded in its head, reads human emotions by analyzing
facial expressions. By comparing a person's expressions with a database of common emotions, the
robot can adjust its own facial features to mirror the appropriate emotional response. This approach
aims to create robots that are not only functional but also emotionally intuitive, fostering a more
comfortable relationship between humans and machines.

G. While some researchers focus on mimicking human intelligence, others are taking a different
approach. Rather than attempting to replicate the cognitive abilities of a single brain, they are
exploring the potential of collective intelligence. By using swarms of semi-autonomous robots,
similar to how ant colonies and beehives function, engineers hope to create a system where the
collective effort of many robots exceeds the capabilities of any single unit. These robot swarms
could be deployed in a variety of settings, such as space exploration or industrial inspections, where
a group effort is more effective than individual autonomy.

Questions 27-32
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs (A-G).
From the list of headings below, choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.
Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings:
i. The interrelation between human perception and robot cognition
ii. Balancing technological advancement with ethical considerations
iii. Robotics in hazardous exploration: Removing human presence
iv. Historical achievements versus current achievements in robotics
v. The challenge of creating autonomous robots with common sense
vi. Robotics as an essential aspect of human life
vii. Cooperative intelligence in robotic swarms: Beyond human capabilities
viii. Bridging the emotional gap between humans and robots
ix. Robotics in industries: Progressing from experimental to practical use

27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
[Link] E
32. Paragraph F

Questions 33-37
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
Write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

33. The term 'robot' was initially intended to describe machines capable of autonomous decision
making.

34. Some neural networks have shown the ability to learn from their mistakes without human
intervention.

35. Robots will likely surpass human cognitive abilities in the near future.

26
36. Remote-controlled robotic systems are currently being utilized in hazardous zones to protect
human lives.

37. Collective intelligence among swarms of robots is currently more efficient than
individual autonomous robots.

Questions 38-40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D, for the following questions based on the Reading Passage.

38. According to the passage, what has been one of the most challenging aspects of Al
development?
A. Mimicking human intelligence in decision-making
B. Achieving common sense in robots
C. Developing emotional recognition systems
D. Integrating autonomous systems into daily life

39. What do researchers believe is a potential solution for future hazardous explorations?
A. Larger, more intelligent robotic systems
B. A combination of Al and remote human control
C. Swarms of smaller, self-managing robots working collectively
D. Self-learning robots with enhanced perception

40. Why is Japan particularly interested in developing robots with human-like capabilities?
A. To improve industrial efficiency
B. To assist its aging population
C. To demonstrate overwhelming technological superiority
D. To develop robots for space exploration

27
READING PASSAGE 1
Plastics: the early years
Plastics affect of our lives - from packaging to cutting-edge technologies in cars and computers,
from new textiles to replacements for worn-out parts of our bodies. But none of the applications
and innovations we take for granted would have been possible if it weren't for the early scientists
who developed and refined the material.

The first man-made plastic, Parkesine, was unveiled in London in 1862. This was an organic
material derived from cellulose that once heated could be moulded, and on cooling retained its
shape until it was reheated. But because of the high cost of raw materials, production soon came
to an end.

During the 19th century, the game of billiards became so popular that thousands of elephants
were killed for their ivory-used to make billiard balls. A replacement, celluloid, was found by
an American, Hyatt, in 1866. On spilling a bottle of collodion, he discovered that the material
congealed into a tough, flexible film. He then used it to produce billiard balls, but they shattered
once they hit each other, a problem subsequently solved by the addition of camphor. Celluloid
was the first thermoplastic: a substance that can be moulded under heat and pressure. Celluloid
was later used in the first flexible photographic film for still and motion pictures. Rayon, another
modified cellulose, was first developed in 1891 by Frenchman Bernigaut, while searching for a
way to produce man-made silk.

Bernigaut noticed that silkworms secrete a liquid that hardens upon exposure to air and turns into
silk. He produced a liquid with similar characteristics, which could the be processed to form
fibres that could be spun and would feel like silk. The only problem with his new invention was
that it was highly flammable.
This problem was later solved by another scientist.
The first completely synthetic man-made substance was discovered in 1907, when Baekeland, a
New York chemist, developed a liquid resin that he named Bakelite. All previous plastics could

be melted down innumerable times and reformed. Bakelite, however, had the advantage that once
shaped, it would never melt or bum. It could also be added to almost any material - such as
softwood - and would instantly make it more durable and effective. This new material began to
be used for a wide range of products.

Cellophane was discovered by Brandenberger, a Swiss textile engineer. He wanted to apply a

clear flexible film to fabrics, such as tablecloths, so that they could be cleaned easily. In 1913
he succeeded by using Viscose (now known as Rayon), but this made the material too stiff to be
of any use.

Brandenberger saw another potential use, though. He produced sheets of it, which he marketed
as Cellophane. This could be used as a clear layer of packaging for any product - the first fully
flexible, waterproof wrap.

The 1920s witnessed a 'plastics craze', as the use of cellophane spread throughout the world.
Nylon, initially discovered in Germany, was developed in the USA. Its toughness made it a
suitable replacement for animal hair in toothbrushes, and when nylon stockings were launched
in 1939, they gained great public acceptance.

28
In 1933 Fawcett and Gibson, two British organic chemists working for the company ICI,
discovered polyethylene while testing various chemicals. An attempt to trigger a reaction
between ethylene and benzaldehyde under high pressure went wrong when the testing seemed
to spring a leak. Upon opening the tube the scientists found a waxy, plastic-like substance,
polyethylene. After further experimentation and analysis, they discovered that while the process
did have a small leak, the main cause of pressure loss was a polymerization process that
combined elements. In 1936, ICI developed a compressor that made possible the production of
vast quantities of polyethylene.

Polyethylene played a key role during World War II in the 1940s - first as an underwater cable
coating and then as insulation for radar. As polyethylene was very much lighter that the materials
traditionally used for the latter purpose, it was now possible for the first time to place radar on
planes. This helped in the detection of enemy bombers at night.

After the war the material became very popular with consumers, and it is currently the largest
volume plastic in the world, used to make a wide range of common items, such as plastic food
storage containers.

Questions 1-6
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-H from the box below.

1. Parkesine
2. Celluloid
3. Rayon
4. Bakelite
5. Cellophane
6. Nylon

A was developed as a substitute for a natural fibre.

B became very popular when a product made of it was launched.
C was too expensive to manufacture.
D combined animal and synthetic products.
E was initially intended to protect cloth.
F was regarded with suspicion by the general public.
G broke when first used for its intended purpose.
H was the first plastic that permanently retained its shape after bein moulded.

Questions 7-13 Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD for each answer.

Polyethylene

In 1933, two organic chemists applied extreme 7 ___ to ethylene and benzaldehyde, to
discover what 8 __________would occur. The experiment was spoiled by a minor 9
_________during the test process, but the scientists found that polyethylene had been
created.
A 10___________ was built to manufacture polyethylene on a large scale. The material was later
used as a 11 ___________for submarine cables and to provide 12 ____________in radar systems,
allowing them to be carried on 13_____________

29
READING PASSAGE 1
Answer Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.

The Trans-Australian Railway (TAR)

Up until the first part of the 20th century, communications across the Australian continent
were relatively undeveloped. Perth, the capital of Western Australia, remained isolated
from Australia's eastern states until the Trans-Australian Railway (TAR) was built across
the arid area known as the Nullarbor (No Trees) Plain. During the 19th century, the only
form of transport between the west coast and the eastern cities was a long and often
rough sea voyage across the Great Australian Bight, while the first east-west crossing of
the Nullarbor Plain on foot was achieved by the English explorer Edward Eyre and his
indigenous Australian guide Wylie in 1841. In 1877 a telegraph line was built across the
plain, and it was this man-made structure that a mining engineer called Arthur Richardson
followed, when he set out in 1896 to be the first to ride a bicycle around the Australian
continent.

The first railway in Western Australia had opened in 1871, and by 1896 there was a 313-
mile line going eastwards through the inhospitable landscape as far as Kalgoorlie. This
line was built alongside a pipeline carrying drinking water to the arid goldfields around
Kalgoorlie. Meanwhile, in the south-east of the continent, a railway line from Port Augusta
to Oodnadetta had opened in 1891. These early railways in both the east and the west
were built to the narrow gauge of 3ft 6in.

In 1901, the self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria,

Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia got together to form a federation. One
of the incentives held out to Western Australia to become a member had been the promise
of a trans-continental railway linking Perth with the eastern cities. A survey of the route
across the featureless Nullarbor Plain was completed in 1909, and construction started to
join the two existing railways at each end in 1912. Despite the onset of the First World
War, work progressed until the two lines finally converged, at a site in an area of desert,
in 1917. The railway's claim to fame is that its route includes the longest stretch - 297
miles- of straight track in the world. Although the existing railways at each end had been
built to the narrow gauge, the new 1,052 mile stretch was built to the standard gauge of
4ft 8in. These two breaks of gauge would mean a true trans-continental service did not
exist until 1970.

Water supplies for steam engines on the TAR route were non-existent, as the railway did
not cross a permanent watercourse along its entire length. To overcome this, the TAR
line's original chief engineer had requested diesel engines, but his request was not
granted, so steam haulage had to be supported by extra water tankers carried on each
train. Australian built, diesel electric engines eventually replaced steam haulage in 1951.

As well as being an important freight route, the new line saw the introduction of the Trans
Australian Express, a service which commenced running in 1917 to serve isolated
communities and settlements along its route. For much of its long-running life, this twice
weekly train consisted solely of sleeping cars; seated accommodation was only included
from 1981 until the service terminated ten years later. The route of the train was extended
following the conversion to standard gauge of its narrow-gauge sections in 1970, but facing
increased competition from air travel it last ran in June 1991.

30
One long-lived curiosity of the trans-Australian network was the Tea and Sugar Train,
which also started running in 1917. The train brought to communities along the route not
only the necessities for everyday life, but also a butcher's shop, medical facilities and a
cinema. It last ran in 1996.

Despite the withdrawal of the Trans-Australian Express between Adelaide and Perth in
1991, the Indian Pacific service has operated between Sydney on the east coast and Perth
since 1970, the year that the TAR route was completely converted to standard gauge. This
service is operated by Great Southern Rail. It runs twice a week between Adelaide and
Perth, and once a week between Sydney and Perth. The journey time for the complete
2,704-mile journey is 66% hours westbound and 71%4 hours eastbound.

The Indian Pacific service calls by at the isolated outback railway settlements of Pimba,
which has a population of around fifty, Kingoonya, which only has a hotel, and Tarcoola,
which has a population of around forty and is a junction for the south-north line to Darwin.
It then travels to Cook, which, despite having a population of fewer than ten, is a scheduled
stop, before crossing the Nullarbor Plain in a dead straight line for 297 miles to Loongana,
which is uninhabited and is a request stop, and Rawlinna, also a request stop serving
Australia's largest sheep station. Civilisation is eventually reached at Kalgoorlie before the
last leg of the journey westwards to East Perth Station. The train has carriages with
seating, sleeping cars, a restaurant car, and wagons conveying passengers' motor cars.
Questions 1-8
Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

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

Early long-distance communications in Australia

Date Details

19th century • lack of public transport across the continent resulted in people
travelling by 1.............

1841 • an explorer walked across the Nullarbor Plain with the

help of a 2.............

1877 • equipment for the 3 ..............was installed in the Nullarbor Plain

1896 • a new railway line in Western Australia followed the

route of a 4.............

1901 • the prospect of an interstate railway persuaded Western Australia

to join a 5.............

31
 1917 • TAR was completed in a 6 .............location
• the 7 ..............section of TAR was longer than that in any other
country • The new 4ft 8½ inch TAR track was a 8 .............width

Questions 9-16
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage

1? In boxes 9-16 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

9 The first chief engineer's recommendation for TAR trains was fully implemented.

10 The Trans-Australian Express was popular with both local residents and tourists.

11 Demand for Trans-Australian Express services eventually fell due to the availability of
alternative transport.

12 The Tea and Sugar Train provided health services as well as food supplies.
13 The Indian Pacific service was introduced before the entire TAR route became a
standard gauge.

14 The entire journey of the Indian Pacific train takes longer in one direction than in
another.

15 Some of the stops on the Indian Pacific route have to be specially arranged.

16 Kalgoorlie is the busiest station on the Indian Pacific route during the summer
months.

32
READING PASSAGE 2
Answer Questions 14-27, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7

How plants fight back

A Recent research has shown that plants are more aware of their environment and more
active in their responses than was ever previously imagined. Simon Gilroy, a professor of
botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA, has spent much of his career
trying to understand how plants work. Now, Gilroy and one of his postdoctoral researchers,
Masatsugu Toyota, have produced a series of videos that shows how plants responded
when they subjected them to wounds, including scissor cuts and caterpillar bites.

B Gilroy and Toyota discovered that when one part of a plant is attacked or damaged, a
wave of calcium spreads throughout the rest of the plant. The calcium alerts the plant to
danger and the need to deploy defence tactics. The team were able to see this by utilising
a naturally occurring fluorescent-green protein which binds to the calcium, making its path
visible.

While scientists already knew that plants reacted to danger via an electrical charge that
moves across the plant, they didn't know exactly how it happened. Gilroy and Toyota
suspected it had something to do with calcium and were able to confirm their suspicions.
They were also able to reveal how glutamate - an abundant neurotransmitter in animals -
triggers this wave of calcium.

C The find was fortuitous given that Gilroy hadn't intended to study wounding at all. His real
passion is understanding how plants sense gravity and seem to know which way is up
something that's proving extremely hard to work out. It was during the early stages of an
experiment into gravity that Toyota came across the wounding response.

'We work very intensely on the calcium signal, because it's a ubiquitous signal. Biology uses
it absolutely everywhere,' explains Gilroy. 'It makes your heart beat, it makes your muscles
contract. Plants use it for a lot of their signalling machinery. We had some hints that the
gravity-sensing system is based around the calcium signal, and so we were developing the
technology to image calcium cells in real-time.' It was during this process that Gilroy and
Toyota realised they'd captured something never usually visible to humans.

D The team found that the calcium travels at one millimetre per second, fast enough to
spread to other leaves in just a couple of minutes. From the data collected up to now, it
appears that how far the calcium travels depends on the extent of the wound, or, as Gilroy
puts it, 'The more you hurt it, the louder it screams."

That 'scream' can result in a range of responses. 'Plants are masters of chemistry,' says
Gilroy. We deal with the world by running away from it, plants deal with the world by growing
in response to it, or by making a tonne of stuff. That ‘tonne of stuff’ could be chemicals that
poison a hungry insect, or that make the plant unattractive, tough or unpalatable. Some
plants even make proteins that block the ability of a caterpillar's gut to digest the plant
material. This is dinner that fights back.

E The next step for Gilroy and his team is to delve deeper into the signalling response on
a cellular level, dissecting the genes and proteins responsible. In contrast to our
understanding of human nerve cells, Gilroy admits that the equivalent responses in plants

33
are still barely understood. He is also going to widen the scope of the study and look at
other signals that plants send out - signals regarding temperature and changes in light and
touch.

Gilroy explains that there may be a wider use for the research, albeit a long way in the
future. Once scientists have managed to identify the specific genes that make the signalling
process work and can understand what happens when you switch those genes on and off,
it's not hard to think about the potential. You can imagine that we should be able to take a
crop plant and switch on its defences on-call,' says Gilroy. 'We're nowhere near that point
yet, but once we get there - say you're in a field and you predict there's going to be an
outbreak of some pest, you could go in and pre-defend all
of the plants in the field, but you do it on-call so the plants aren't wasting their resources
defending themselves the whole time."

F For now, though, Gilroy is happy to simply increase understanding of plants. He is

energetic in his insistence that they are not the inactive and unreceptive organisms that
people generally believe them to be. For that reason, he's as enthusiastic about the way
the videos bring the response process to life as he is about the future potential of the
research. 'When you look at a plant, just because it doesn't do what we do, and it doesn't
move, that doesn't mean it isn't doing anything. They're hugely dynamic organisms,' he
says.

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has six sections, A-F

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-F in boxes 17-23 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14 an explanation of how scientists were able to observe plants sending warning signals
15 examples of the means used by scientists to provoke plants' signalling response

16 reference to the idea that we could one day manipulate plants' signalling abilities

17 the purpose of the research which led to Gilroy and Toyota's discovery

18 a comparison regarding levels of scientific knowledge about responses in plants and

humans

Questions 19-23
Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.

34
 Gilroy and Toyota's research
As part of their research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Simon Gilroy and
Masatsugu Toyota made several 19.............revealing plants' reactions to cuts, bites
and other 20............ .

These indicated how the spread of calcium warns plants about the presence of
21................ The use of a brightly coloured 22.............. enabled the researchers to see the
movement of calcium through the plant. The research also showed how 23 .............
activates the release of calcium in the plant.

Questions 24 and 25
Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 29 and 30 on your answer sheet. Which

TWO aspects of the calcium signal in plants does the writer mention?

A the volume of calcium released following an attack

B the rate at which calcium flows through plants
C the different parts of the plant where calcium is produced
D the species of plants which produce calcium as a warning signal
E the link between the severity of an attack and the distance calcium moves

Questions 26 and 27
Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 31 and 32 on your answer

sheet. Gilroy's team have made certain plans for the future.

Which TWO plans are mentioned by the writer?

A research plants' reactions to heat and cold

B use their findings to help grow a greater variety of crops
C investigate warning signals in organisms other than plants
D analyse further the chemical processes involved in signalling responses
E conduct studies to compare human cell and plant cell behavior

35
READING PASSAGE 3
Answer Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 10 and 11.

Conscious and Unconscious Thought

Great scientists and artists have long known about the unconscious mind. The founder of
psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, argued that most of our real motivation lies below
conscious awareness and that we require the services of a psychoanalyst to explain
ourselves to ourselves. Even those celebrated scientists who believe that Freud
exaggerated the importance of the unconscious argue that it is a part of the in our minds
which we should learn to control and take advantage of.

The great mathematician Alfred North Whitehead seemed to be a supporter of

unconscious mental processing when he said: 'It is a profoundly erroneous truism,
repeated by all copybooks and by eminent people making speeches, that we should
cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case.'
What Whitehead meant by this is that some of the greatest breakthroughs in creativity
occur when a problem is consciously shelved for a while - 'don't think about it, just sleep
on it' - after which the unconscious mind offers a solution. This is a process which
psychoanalysts call 'incubation'.

Now the latest psychological research confirms that we can all incubate a problem to our
own advantage. Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, has
recently published a series of experiments in which students were presented with complex
everyday problems to solve. In one experiment they were given the opportunity to think
carefully about a decision; in another experiment they were distracted by an irrelevant
task whilst making a decision. The surprising result, published in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, was that 'unconscious' thinkers made the better decisions.

Timothy Wilson and colleagues from the University of Virginia's psychology department
conducted another experiment. Participants were presented with five posters and asked
to choose one to take home. A little later, they were telephoned and asked how satisfied
they were with their choice - a measure of whether they had made the right decision from
a subjective point of view. Some participants had picked their poster straight away,
whereas others were asked to analyse carefully the pros and cons of each poster. It turned
out that people who had analysed were less satisfied with their choice than people who
had not applied logic. Paradoxically, it seems that those who had consciously weighed up
the various attributes had made relatively poor decisions.

The conclusion that has to be drawn from current research suggests the somewhat counter
intuitive idea that the more complex a problem is, the less likely it becomes that conscious
thought can contribute much. If a dilemma is particularly difficult, a lot of information has
to be taken into account and it appears that conscious thought is not good at this. The
message is that when it comes to intricate problems with many variables, you should let
the unconscious deal with it.

36
Using dreaming is one way of doing this Dreams are the part of sleep most strongly
correlated with rapid eye movement (REM) and have been associated with enhanced
creativity and novel solutions. The latest research suggests that, if you want to enhance
unconscious problem-solving, you should try to think about your problems immediately
after dreaming. In a recent experiment, psychiatrist Matthew Walker and colleagues from
the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at Harvard Medical School woke up half of their
experimental subjects immediately after REM sleep, and the other half just after sleep
with no dreams, and then asked them to solve crossword puzzles. REM awakenings
provided a 32 per cent advantage in the number of puzzles solved, compared with non-
REM awakenings.

But you don't have to be asleep to use the unconscious mind when you are not thinking of
anything in particular, which is why daydreams are so useful in the quest for creativity.
Daniel Goleman, the famous psychologist who proposed the theory of emotional
intelligence', urges us to be more aware of, and discount, a key obstacle that the
conscious mind imposes on the unconscious: that of self-censorship. This is the voice that
whispers to you, 'they'll think I'm foolish' or 'that will never work, keeping you imprisoned
within the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable. Howard Gardner, a professor of
cognition and education at Harvard University, suggests that we free ourselves from the
straitjacket of always doing things the same way. In seeking to go beyond the routine and
conventional, you will gain confidence in trusting your unconscious, he says.

Questions 28-31
Look at the following statements (Questions 33-37) and the list of people

below. Match each statement with the correct person, A-F.

Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.

List of people:
A. Alfred North Whitehead
B. Ap Dijksterhuis
C. Timothy Wilson
D. Matthew Walker
E. Daniel Goleman
F. Howard Gardner

28 People find it easier to solve problems at a particular point in the sleep cycle.

29 People should change their general behaviour patterns in order benefit more from the
unconscious.

30 When solving problems, people should try to ignore negative thoughts.

31 People can come up with ideas which are more innovative if they temporarily put a
problem aside.

37
Questions 32-34
Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each

answer. Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

Many scientists argue that people should make better use of their unconscious mind.
Alfred North Whitehead, for example, gave support for the idea of 32 ...............a term for
people deliberately ignoring a problem over a period of time.

Experiments in Amsterdam that required students to consider a tricky situation found them
making good decisions while carrying out an unconnected 33............... Similarly, an
experiment in Virginia which required subjects to make a selection from a number of
different 34.............. found people feeling happier with their decisions if they had made them
quickly.

Questions 35-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 35-40 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

35 Our unconscious mind helps us more than our conscious mind with complex problems.

36 Resting before going to sleep can result in improved solutions to problems.

37 Problems are more likely to be solved after dreamless sleep.

38 Matthew Walker's team assessed their subjects using a memory test.

39 Daydreams are more helpful to the unconscious than dreams which occur during sleep.

40 People often create their own barriers to problem-solving.

38
READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage
2.

How to be happy
Some recent developments in the science of happiness

A Psychiatrist Tony Fernando was walking down the street when he saw a group of young
homeless men sitting on the footpath. As Fernando handed out gifts of food, he tried to
video the men’s reactions in his mind, recording how their gratitude lifted him in return.
‘I felt warm, content, meaningful,’ he says. Fernando believes the brain can be trained
to make us happy and that his ‘video method is one way to achieve this. In fact, a
growing body of scientific research internationally is showing how we can learn
happiness in the same way we can learn to play the piano. In the soft tissue that forms
the brain, there are approximately ten trillion synapses connecting roughly a hundred
billion neurons. Active synapses become more sensitive, less active synapses die but
new ones grow quickly. This is relatively new thinking - just 30 years ago,
neuroscientists believed that adult brain cells couldn't regenerate. One of the pioneers
in this field is University of Wisconsin professor Richard Davidson. He studied
Buddhist monks using brain scans in his research facility, and found that those trained
in meditation had higher levels of activity in the left prefrontal cortex - the area
associated with happiness. Davidson believes that the trained brain is physically
different from the untrained one.

B The idea that we can train our brains to find more happiness has been called ‘mindfulness’
by neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness. It was in college
that Hanson, quite unintentionally, first recognised the importance of something that
would become his life's work. As an unconfident teenager, he discovered he could turn
a small event, ‘a young woman smiling at me’, into a good feeling he could hold on to.
To do this, Hanson employs exactly the same imaginary ‘video method’ as psychiatrist
Tony Fernando. ‘The brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon,’ says
Hanson. If you keep resting your mind on self- criticism and worries, he argues, your
brain will be shaped by that. Hanson explains that resting it on pleasant feelings and the
things you have accomplished means that over time your brain will take on a different
shape, with strength and optimism hard- wired into it.

C In New Zealand, the Mental Health Foundation runs mindfulness programmes in 14 schools
Foundation CEO Judi Elements says ‘it's a valuable approach because children are told
to pay attention, but aren't told how to pay attention.’ Preliminary results on the
outcomes found that children had sustained increases in well-being. The Foundation
recognises five pathways to happiness - being active, connecting with others, taking
notice, learning and giving. And, says Clements, ‘We’re detecting a hunger for it from
different organisations and professions as well, so the Foundation is soon going to pilot
an online ‘well-being game’ in sever al workplaces. The project leader is psychologist
Carsten Grimm, who is interested in whether some pathways to happiness are more
effective than others. In a study, Grimm recorded the activities and corresponding
happiness scores of 173 people. What he found was that people who used several
pathways to happiness achieved the best results, suggesting it's better to have a balance
than concentrate on the single pathway you most identify with.

D However, Associate Professor of Psychological Medicine Nathan Consedine greets our

39
 relentless search for the secrets to happiness with a tired sigh. ‘The more you chase it,
the less you get it,’ he says, quoting studies showing those who value contentment and
well-being are, in fact, less happy. The big questions, he says, is whether there’s any
benefit in actively seeking happiness. He cites a study, for example, which showed that
people who were happier were less inclined to show sympathy. Consedine says that’s
probably because happy people are strongly motivated to stay happy, but engaging
sympathetically with others typically involves engaging with their distress, and that’s
going to reduce their own happiness. Consedine ’s not disagreeing with the theory of
mindfulness, but believes there's more work to be done.

E Some of that work is being conducted at Auckland University’s Centre for Brain Research.
Associate Professor Johanna Montgomery has been studying Hanson's theory - that
altering our brain activity at a synaptic level affects our behaviour. She accepts that it's
a logical explanation based on studies from animals, but we haven't yet got the
technology to prove it scientifically in humans. It's true that MRI scans certainly do
indicate an increased flow of blood to different areas of the brain which are
experiencing positive stimuli. However, she warns that this is a long way from
confirming that the brain itself is developing or strengthening.

F Nonetheless, Montgomery believes she is making progress. In the laboratory, when scientists
want to experiment with synaptic connections, they stimulate the brain with electricity,
as this copies the high-frequency firings that happen normally in the brain every second.
Using this technique, Montgomery has made a number of findings. For example, the
hormones that are released routinely in response to good or bad situations - such as
adrenaline - act to regulate the brain, in the same way that weather has a regulating
effect on human activity more generally. But scientists understand some of these stimuli
better than others. More is known about the impact on brain activity of prolonged
periods of fear than the effects of ‘happiness’ hormones that are released by positive
events in life. This is one potentially important area that she hopes to investigate further
in future.

Questions 14 — 17
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information? mindless_writer
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14 a reference to a fact that two scientists use the same technique to promote their own
happiness
15 the suggestion that scientific opinion about an aspect of brain function has changed
over a given time period
16 an estimate of how numerous some brain components are
17 the reason why some educational courses were set up

Questions 18 — 21
Look at the following statements (Questions 18-21) and the list of people below. Match
each statement with the correct person, A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.

40
18 It's better to look for a variety of ways to increase happiness than focus on just one.
19 Focusing on personal achievements rather than negative experiences will make
people happier.
20 Happy people might have a reason not to display one favourable characteristic.
21 A range of groups are becoming more interested in learning techniques to improve
happiness.
List of People
A Tony Fernando
B Richard Davidson
C Rick Hanson
D Judi Clements
E Carsten Grimm
F Nathan Consedine

Questions 22 — 26
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.

Auckland University’s Centre for Brain Research

Associate Professor Johanna Montgomery says that current research into brain activity and
behaviour only relates to 22 .............so Hanson's theories have not been proved correct.
While scans do show that positive stimuli result in more 23......................reaching parts of
the brain, this isn't proof that the brain is getting stronger.
But Montgomery is making progress. In laboratory experiments, scientists use
24.......................to initiate brain activity, because it's similar to natural processes. One
finding is that hormones can be compared to the 25 .................... because both can change
human behaviour. But scientists understand some stimuli, such as 26 ........................... ,
better than they understand more positive stimuli.

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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3.

Questions 27-32
Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-E.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the
correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

List of headings
i Asian need for new space technology
ii Independence through the greater adaptability of satellites
iii Ancient inventions linked to the future
iv An early start but slow initial progress
v Non-technical factors affecting Asia’s entry to the space age
vi Application of rocket technology to warfare
vii New and wide-ranging uses of space technology
viii The difficulty of identifying types of satellites

27 Section A
28 Section B
29 Section C
30 Section D
31 Section E
32 Section F

Asian space: return of an Asian invention

A. Planet Earth is today circled by scores of satellites, orbiting like tiny moons after being sent
aloft by rockets to perform a variety of useful tasks. Their story began long ago but rocket
technology has progressed considerably since the days when bamboo poles filled with
gunpowder were first used in China as fireworks around 500 BC, and since the Sung
dynasty when rockets were first used to repel invaders at the battle of Kaifeng (Kai-fung-
fu) in AD 1232. In Asia in recent years there has been a dramatic growth in space
activities both in the utilisation of space-based services and the production of satellites
and launchers. This rapid expansion has led many analysts to predict that Asia will
become an important provider of services in space.

B. Worldwide there have been dramatic developments in space technology, and these have been
eagerly embraced by Asian nations, which have found them to be especially adaptable
for their particular problems. Asia, and Southeast Asia in particular, experiences
recurrent large-scale environmental problems including storms and flooding, forest fires,
and crop failures. The space application that has attracted the most attention in this
region, therefore, is remote sensing. Remote sensing satellites, equipped with
instruments to take photographs of the ground using different wavelengths, provide
essential information about natural ground cover and planted crops, and this information
facilitates work in environmental management, disaster prevention, and sustainable
planning.

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C. Imaginative and innovative applications of satellites are constantly being explored, with
potentially revolutionary effects. To take a specific example, small antennas no more
than 40 cm across and 15 cm high are embedded in slabs of stone, which are themselves
embedded in the earth. Every 15 seconds a global positioning system measures the
distance between each antenna and a satellite. The data is transferred to one of 200
monitoring stations around the world and provide a constant flow of information
invaluable for the prediction of earthquakes. Asian nations have also eagerly embraced
satellite technology in the field of health and telemedicine: patients in remote rural
communities can be diagnosed and carers can be advised on medical treatment. Such
things as pictures of the patient, pulse rate temperature, blood pressure and blood oxygen
can be monitored and transmitted to doctors thousands of kilometres away for reliable
diagnosis and advice. There have also been beneficial advances in distance education
programs, and agricultural planning and production have improved.

D. Access to the benefits of satellites was not always as straightforward as it might seem today.
For decades, Japan has been the dominant space power in Asia. To achieve its pre-
eminence, however, Japan had to face serious time-consuming technological challenges
and high risks through many trials. This experimentation was problematic at first because
Japan based its satellite manufacturing on traditional and very expensive Western military
technological practices.

E. In more recent times, fundamental changes in satellites have dramatically reduced costs.
‘Small satellites’ have given Asian countries a way to develop low-cost satellite
technology and rapidly establish a space capability of their own. The new entrants in the
industry are able to shorten the time for trials by as much as a decade or more. Small
satellites, which have opened the space age to developing countries, are classified in
three groups: nano satellites have a mass less than 10 kg, micro satellites range from 10
to 100 kg and mini satellites are between 100 and 500 kg. Such is the appeal of small
satellites that low-cost launcher rockets are being developed exclusively for mini
satellites. The saving is even greater for nano and micro satellites, which can be launched
as secondary passengers, hitching a ride on large launchers with pay-load to spare. Small
satellites allow individual countries to select more convenient orbits for their own
particular purposes. A low polar orbit is good for mapping. As the earth rotates from
west to east, the satellite orbits north and south allowing It repeatedly to photograph any
chosen parts of the Earth’s surface.

F. Space technology in Asia has been facilitated by the competitive commercial sector and its
production of low-cost mini satellites. The globalisation of industrial and financial markets has
improved avenues for transferring technological innovation, and the availability of ready-made
commercial technology may well result in a highly competitive Asian satellite industry. The
laws of physics are the same all over the world, and the principles of electronics and mechanics
know no political or cultural boundaries. However, engineering practice and management
practice are not so readily transferable but are influenced by education, culture and history.
These practices have an effect on costs, lead times, product designs and, eventually,
international sales. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the acquisition of technical expertise,
combined with the world- renowned Japanese manufacturing and management techniques, will
soon produce world-class satellites at reduced costs.

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Questions 33 — 36

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below. Write the correct letter, A-G, in
boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.

33 Southeast Asian countries wish to photograph vegetation from above because

34 Asian countries are interested in advances in medical treatment using satellite technology
because

35 Satellites in polar orbits are useful for mapping because

36 Management practices are not universally adaptable because

A they are seeking plants with medicinal value

B they can take pictures of any area required
C They depend on what has happened in the past
D they do not take up a lot of space abroad rockets
E they have locations that are difficult to reach
F they help students with their studies
G they suffer from such things as forest fires

Questions 37 — 40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3. In boxes 37-
40 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

37 ln 500 BC rockets were used in battle in China.

38 The distance between satellites and antennas on Earth can be used to detect movement in the
Earth’s crust.

39 Distance education has increased literacy levels in Asia.

40 Commercial competition prevents technological innovation spreading.

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READING PASSAGE 3
Does class size matter?
A Of all the ideas for improving education, few are as simple or attractive as reducing the number
of pupils per teacher. With its uncomplicated appeal, class-size reduction has lately gone from
being a subject of primarily academic interest to become a public issue. In the U.S., more than 2o
states have adopted policies aimed at decreasing class size.

B One way investigators have attempted to analyze the effects of class size is by reviewing
existing data, such as records kept by the U.S. Department of Education. These show that between
1969 and 1997, the average number of pupils per teacher in American public and private
elementary schools fell from 25 to 18, a decline of greater than 27 percent. In secondary schools,
the number also fell, from 19 to 14. Does these findings mean that class size makes no difference?
Not necessarily. For a variety of reasons, most researchers, including us, pay little attention to
those figures. For instance, schools strive for more than just high test scores; they also usually try
to keep their dropout rates low. And indeed, the dropout rate for students aged 16 to 24 fell from
15 to 11 percent over that period. Because dropouts generally come from the low end of the
achievement distribution, a reduction in the dropout rate could, be expected to pull down
average test scores in the upper grades. Ideally, U.S. students would all come from families
that are financially well off, with two highly educated, English-speaking parents who are
involved in their children's schooling. Teachers would all be creative and have complete
mastery of their subject matter. Schools would be nicely outfitted with libraries, computers
and other resources.

C Over the past 35 years, hundreds of studies and analyses of existing data (such as the
Department of Education records) have focused on class size. Unfortunately, most of these
studies were poorly designed. The notable exception was the STAR project. Students entering
kindergarten were randomly assigned to one of three kinds of classes: a small class of 13 to
17 students, a regular-size class of 22 to 26. The students remained in whatever category they
had been assigned to through the third grade, after which they joined a regular classroom in
the fourth. To ensure that teaching quality did not differ, teachers were randomly assigned to
small and regular-size classrooms. Few teachers received any special training for working
with small classes, and there were no new curricular materials.

D Charles M. Achilles of Eastern Michigan University found "an array of benefits of small
classes" in their review. They also found that the effect was stronger for minority students. Black
and Hispanic children improved their scores slightly more than did other students - a significant
finding from a policy standpoint. He argues, the STAR data cannot be used to prove that the gains
persist for years after a student has returned to regular-size classes. He and others have also shown
that during the study, too many children migrated from the regular to the small classes, probably
because school personnel caved in to parent demands. Criticism does not undermine the findings
of a statistically significant benefit of being in a small class.

E California’s multi-billion-dollar effort, begun in 1996, stands more as a model of what not to do
than as an initiative worthy of emulation. That state is trying to reduce classes in kindergarten
through grade three from a maximum of 33 to a maximum of 2o in rich and poor districts alike -
despite a shortage of qualified teachers, especially in low-income areas.

45
This across-the-board approach may be politically expedient, but it seems to have actually
exacerbated the disparity in resources available to rich and poor schools in California. The
better-paying, more affluent districts got the best teachers - including a fair number that good
teachers. The evaluators found a small but statistically significant achievement advantage in
reading, writing and mathematics for students in classes that had been reduced to 20 or fewer
pupils, as compared with the classes of more than 20. The second program, Wisconsin's
Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE), also begun in 1996, was a five-year
study. It was small - class size was reduced in just 14 schools - but noteworthy because it
targeted schools in which at least 30 percent of the students were below the poverty level.

F Studies such as STAR and SAGE have made it hard to argue that reducing class sizes makes
no difference. On the other hand, the California initiative has shown that the strategy, applied
with too little fore thought and insight, can consume billions of dollars and, at least in the short
run, produce only minuscule gains and even some losses. Legislators and administrators need
more solid information on the relative costs of the other options before they can make sensible
policy decisions.

Questions 27-31 Which paragraph include the following information?

27. Criticism about STAR program due to some factors that are not reliable.
28. Two research programs have reached the same result.
29. Class-size reduction has gone from being a subject of primarily academic interest to
become a public issue.
30. Actions were taken to ensure the reliability of the data.
31. The existing data had been affected by many factors.

Questions 34-42 Classification

A. STAR
B. California
C. SAGE

32. Class's composition was left by chance.

33. Small class size results in better performance even they went to the fourth grade.
34. The special groups got advantages from the program.
35. The program did some preliminary work.
36. The students remained in whatever category they had been assigned to through
the third grade.
37. It targeted schools in which at least 30 percent of the students were below the poverty
level.
38. Some school need extra teacher's assistant to do this project.
39. The program aggravate the situation of the poorer districts, which were already
having trouble recruiting and retaining good teachers.
40. Students' background also affect their performance.

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