Reading and Writing III

First Term Partial

Reading part

Name:______________________________

The Lumiere brothers

You should spend approximately 25 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based
on the Reading Passage below.

Read the passage given below and answer a total of 13 questions containing 3
different question types.

Passage
A. The Lumière Brothers opened their Cinématographe, at 14 Boulevard des
Capucines in Paris, to 100 paying customers over 100 years ago, on December 8,
1895. Before the eyes of the stunned, thrilled audience, photographs came to life
and moved across a flat screen.

B. So ordinary and routine has this become to us that it takes a determined leap
of the imagination to grasp the impact of those first moving images. But it is worth
trying, for to understand the initial shock of those images is to understand the
extraordinary power and magic of cinema, the unique, hypnotic quality that has
made film the most dynamic, effective art form of the 20th century.

C. One of the Lumière Brothers' earliest films was a 30-second piece which
showed a section of a railway platform flooded with sunshine. A train appears and
heads straight for the camera. And that is all that happens. Yet the Russian
director Andrei Tarkovsky, one of the greatest of all film artists, described the film
as a 'work of genius'. 'As the train approached,' wrote Tarkovsky, 'panic started in
the theater: people jumped and ran away. That was the moment when cinema
was born. The frightened audience could not accept that they were watching a
mere picture. Pictures were still, only reality moved; this must, therefore, be
reality. In their confusion, they feared that a real train was about to crush them.'

D. Early cinema audiences often experienced the same confusion. In time, the idea
of film became familiar, the magic was accepted -but it never stopped being
magic. Film has never lost its unique power to embrace its audiences and
transport them to a different world. For Tarkovsky, the key to that magic was the
way in which cinema created a dynamic image of the real flow of events. A still
picture could only imply the existence of time, while time in a novel passed at the
whim of the reader. But in cinema, the real, objective flow of time was captured.

E. One effect of this realism was to educate the world about itself. Cinema makes
the world smaller. Long before people traveled to America or anywhere else, they
knew what other places looked like; they knew how other people worked and
lived. Overwhelmingly, the lives recorded - at least in film fiction — have been
American. From the earliest days of the industry, Hollywood has dominated the
world film market. American imagery - the cars, the cities, the cowboys - became
the primary imagery of film. Film carried American life and values around the
globe.

F. And, thanks to film, future generations will know the 20th century more
intimately than any other period. We can only imagine what life was like in the
14lh century or in classical Greece. But the life of the modern world has been
recorded on film in massive, encyclopedic detail. We shall be known better than
any preceding generations.

G. The 'star' was another natural consequence of cinema. The cinema star was
effectively born in 1910. Film personalities have such an immediate presence that,
inevitably, they become super-real. Because we watch them so closely and
because everybody in the world seems to know who they are, they appear more
real to us than we do ourselves. The star as a magnified human self is one of
cinema's most strange and enduring legacies.

H. Cinema has also given a new lease of life to the idea of the story. When the
Lumière Brothers and other pioneers began showing off this new invention, it was
by no means obvious how it would be used. All that mattered at first was the
wonder of movement. Indeed, some said that, once this novelty had worn off,
cinema would fade away. It was no more than a passing gimmick, a fairground
attraction.

I. Cinema might, for example, have become primarily a documentary form. Or it

might have developed like television - as a strange, noisy transfer of music,
information and narrative. But what happened was that it became,
overwhelmingly, a medium for telling stories. Originally these were conceived as
short stories - early producers doubted the ability of audiences to concentrate for
more than the length of a reel. Then, in 1912, an Italian 2-hour film was hugely
successful, and Hollywood settled upon the novel-length narrative that remains
the dominant cinematic convention of today.

J. And it has all happened so quickly. Almost unbelievably, it is a mere 100 years
since that train arrived and the audience screamed and fled, convinced by the
dangerous reality of what they saw, and, perhaps, suddenly aware that the world
could never be the same again - that, maybe, it could be better, brighter, more
astonishing, more real than reality.

Questions

Questions 1-5

• Reading Passage 1 has ten paragraphs, A-J.

• Which paragraph contains the following information?
• Write the correct fetter, A-J. in the boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

1. the location of The first cinema

2. how cinema came to focus on stories
 3. the speed with which cinema has changed
4. how cinema teaches us about other cultures
5. the attraction of actors in films

Questions 6-9

• Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in

Reading Passage 1 ?
• In boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet, write
• YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

6. It is important to understand how the first audiences reacted to the cinema.

7. The Lumiere Brothers’ film about the train was one of the greatest films ever
made.
8. Cinema presents a biased view of other countries.
9. Storylines were important in very early cinema.

Questions 10-13

• Choose the correct letter. A, B. Cor D,

• Write the correct letter in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

10.The writer refers to the films of the train in order lo demonstrate

1. A The simplicity of early films.

2. B the impact of early films.
3. C how short early films were.
4. D how imaginative early films were.

11. In Tarkovsky’s opinion, the attraction of the cinema is that it

1. A aims to impress its audience.

2. B tells stories better than books.
3. C illustrates the passing of lime.
 4. D describes familiar events.

12. When cinema first began, people thought that

1. A it would always tell stories.

2. B it should be used in fairgrounds.
3. C Us audiences were unappreciative.
4. D its future was uncertain.

13. What is the best title for this passage?

1. A The rise of the cinema star

2. B Cinema and novels compared
3. C The domination of Hollywood
4. D The power of the big screen

Papyrus

You should spend approximately 25 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based
on the Reading Passage below.

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

Passage
A. Libraries and archives are cultural crossroads of knowledge exchange, where
the past transmits information to the present, and where the present has the
opportunity to inform the future. Bureaucracies have become the backbone of
civilizations, as governments try to keep track of populations, business
transactions and taxes. At a personal level, our lives are governed by the
documents we possess; we are certified on paper literally from birth to death. And
written documentation carries enormous cultural importance: consider the
consequences of signing the Foundation Document of the United Nations or the
Convention on Biological Diversity.

Documentation requires a writing tool and a surface upon which to record the
information permanently. About 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians started to use
reeds or sticks to make marks on mud blocks which were then baked, but despite
being fireproof, these were difficult to store. Other cultures used more flexible but
less permanent surfaces, including animal skins and wood strips. In western
culture, the adoption of papyrus was to have a great impact. Sheets of papyrus
not only provide an invaluable record of people’s daily lives, they can also be
dated using carbon-dating techniques, giving precise information about the age of
the text written on them.

B. Papyrus is strongly associated with Egyptian culture, although all the ancient
civilizations around the Mediterranean used it. The papyrus sedge is a tall grass-
like plant. It was harvested from shallow water and swamplands on the banks of
the River Nile. Manufacturing sheets of papyrus from papyrus sedge was a
complex, messy process. Pith from inside the plant’s stem was cut into long strips
that were laid side by side. These were then covered with a second layer of strips
which were laid at right angles to the first, then soaked in water and hammered
together. The sheet was then crushed to extract the water, dried and then
polished to produce a high-quality writing surface, individual sheets could be
glued together and rolled up to make scrolls or folded and bound to form books.

C. In moist climates, the cellulose-rich sheets of papyrus would readily decay,

becoming covered by mould or full of holes from attacks by insects. But in dry
climates, such as the Middle East, papyrus is a stable, rot-resistant writing surface.
The earliest known roll of papyrus scroll was found in the tomb of an official called
Hemeka near Memphis, which was then the capital city of Egypt, and is around
five thousand years old. In 79 CE, nearly 2,000 papyrus scrolls in the library of
Julius Caesar’s father-in-law were protected at Herculaneum by ash from the
catastrophic eruption of administrative capital and for a thousand years
generated vast amounts of administrative documentation, including accounts, tax
returns and correspondence, which was periodically discarded to make room for
more. Over time, a thick layer of sand covered these dumps, and they were
forgotten. But the documents were protected by the sand, creating a time capsule
that allowed astonishing glimpses into the lives of the town’s inhabitants over
hundreds of years.

Collections of documents that record information and ideas have frequently been
viewed as potentially dangerous. For thousands of years, governments, despots
and conquerors have resorted to burning libraries and books to rid themselves of
inconvenient evidence or obliterate cultures and ideas that they found politically,
morally or religiously unacceptable. One such calamity, the burning of the Great
Library of Alexandria, and the papyrus scrolls and books it contained, has been
mythologized and has come to symbolize the global loss of cultural knowledge.

D. Besides their use in record-keeping, papyrus stems were used in many other
aspects of Mediterranean life, such as for boat construction and making ropes,
sails and baskets, as well as being a source of food. In 1969 the adventurer Thor
Heyerdahl attempted to cross the Atlantic from Morocco in the boat Ra, to show
that it was possible for mariners in ancient times to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Ra
was made from bundles of papyrus stems and modelled on ancient Egyptian craft.
As a marshland plant, papyrus sedge stabilizes soils and reduces erosion, while
some investigations show that it has potential for water purification and sewage
treatment.

E. True paper was probably invented in China in the first century CE. Like papyrus,
it was constructed from a meshwork of plant fibres, but the Chinese used fibers
from the white mulberry tree, which yielded a tough, flexible material that could
be folded, stretched, and compressed. The adoption of this paper by western
cultures soon rendered papyrus obsolete.

Despite dreams of paper-free societies, western cultures still use enormous

quantities of paper, often in ways that it would be inconceivable to use papyrus
for. As a paper substitute, the role of the papyrus sedge in western cultures has
been superseded; papyrus is little more than a niche product for the tourist
market. What makes papyrus noteworthy for western societies nowadays is its use
as the surface upon which our ancient ancestors recorded their lives, their art and
their science. In the words of the ancient Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, it is
‘the material on which the immortality of human beings depends’.

Questions

Question 1-5

The text below has five sections, A-E.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i Solving the puzzle of a papyrus document

ii The importance of written records and different ways of recording them
iii The use of papyrus for a range of purposes
iv Suggestions for future possibilities for papyrus
v How papyrus was cultivated and different manufacturing methods
vi The decline of papyrus use
vii The preservation and destruction of papyrus documents
viii The process of papyrus production

1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C
4. Section D
5. Section E
Questions 6-10

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

6. What was the problem with using animal skins and wood strips for writing on?
A They did not last for a long time.
B They were not easy to store.
C They were insufficiently flexible.
D They could be destroyed by fire.

7. Why did papyrus manufacturers hammer the papyrus?

A to remove water from the pith strips
B to join the layers of pith strips together
C to allow the pith strips to be easily cut
D to position the layers of pith strips at the correct angle

8. When referring to burning libraries and books, the writer is suggesting that
A information can be used for harm as well as for good.
B new ways must be found to ensure information is not lost.
C cultural knowledge depends on more than written texts.
D those in power may Wish to keep others in ignorance.

9. The writer refers to Thor Heyerdahl to illustrate the point that

A papyrus could be used as a food on long sea voyages.
B the ancient Egyptians already had advanced navigation skills.
C papyrus could be used to build boats for long sea journeys.
D the ancient Egyptians knew of the environmental benefits of papyrus

10. What does the writer conclude about papyrus today?

A It is better for the environment than using paper.
B Its significance is restricted to its role in the past.
C It is still the best writing surface for some purposes.
D More efforts need to be made to ensure it stays in use.
Questions 11-13

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

How papyrus documents have survived

Papyrus is rich in cellulose and in some conditions will be destroyed by fungal

growths or be consumed by 11. ………………. However, it can survive for long
periods in an environment that is dry. It has been found in a 5,000-year-old 12.
………………….. in Egypt, and in Herculaneum, many papyrus documents were
preserved following a huge 13. ……………………. in 79 CE. in the town of
Oxyrhynchus, unwanted administrative documents were left on rubbish dumps
which were covered with sand, preserving them for many years.