THE HISTORY OF BUILDING TELEGRAPH LINES
A The idea of electrical communication seems to have begun as long ago as
1746 when about 200 monks at a monastery in Paris arranged themselves in a
line over a mile long, each holding ends of 25 ft iron wires. The abbot, also a
scientist, discharged a primitive electrical battery into the wire, giving all the
monks a simultaneous electrical shock. “This all sounds very silly, but is in fact
extremely important because, firstly, they all said ‘ow’ which showed that you
were sending a signal right along the line; and, secondly, they all said ‘ow’ at
the same time, and that meant that you were sending the signal very quickly,
“explains Tom Standage, author of the Victorian Internet and technology editor
at the Economist. Given a more humane detection system, this could be a way of
signaling over long distances.
B With wars in Europe and colonies beyond, such a signaling system was
urgently needed. All sorts of electrical possibilities were proposed, some of
them quite ridiculous. Two Englishmen, William Cooke and Charles
Wheatstone came up with a system in which dials were made to point at
different letters, but that involved five wires and would have been expensive to
construct.
C Much simpler was that of an American, Samuel Morse, whose system only
required a single wire to send a code of dots and dashes. At first, it was
imagined that only a few highly skilled encoders would be able to use it but it
soon became clear that many people could become proficient in Morse code. A
system of lines strung on telegraph poles began to spread in Europe and
America.
D The next problem was to cross the sea. Britain, as an island with an empire,
led the way. Any such cable to be insulated and the first breakthrough came with
the discovery that a rubber-like latex from a tropical tree on the Malay peninsula
could do the trick. It was called gutta-percha. The first attempt at a cross channel
cable came in 1850. With thin wire and thick installation, it floated and had to
be weighed down with a lead pipe.
E It never worked well as the effect of water on its electrical properties was not
understood, and it is reputed that a French fisherman hooked out a section and
took it home as a strange new form of seaweed. The cable was too big for a
single boat so two had to start in the middle of the Atlantic, join their cables and
sail in opposite directions. Amazingly, they succeeded in 1858, and this enabled
Queen Victoria to send a telegraph message to President Buchanan. However,
the 98-word message took more than 19 hours to send and a misguided attempt
to increase the speed by increasing the voltage resulted in the failure of the line a
week later.
F By 1870, a submarine cable was heading towards Australia. It seemed likely
that it would come ashore at the northern port of Darwin from where it might
connect around the coast to Queensland and New South Wales. It was an
undertaking more ambitious than spanning an ocean. Flocks of sheep had to be
driven with the 400 workers to provide food. They needed horses and bullock
carts and, for the parched interior, camels. In the north, tropical rains left the
teams flooded. In the centre, it seemed that they would die of thirst. One critical
section in the red heart of Australia involved finding a route through the
McDonnell mountain range and the finding water on the other side.
G The water was not only essential for the construction team. There had to be
telegraph repeater stations every few hundred miles to boost the signal and the
staff obviously had to have a supply of water. Just as one mapping team was
about to give up and resort to drinking brackish water, some aboriginals took
pity on them. Altogether, 40,000 telegraph poles were used in the Australian
overland wire. Some were cut from trees. Where there were no trees, or where
termites ate the wood, steel poles were imported.
H On Thursday, August 22, 1872, the overland line was completed and the first
messages could be sent across the continent; and within a few months, Australia
was at last in direct contact with England via the submarine cable, too. The line
remained in service to bring news of the Japanese attack on Darwin in 1942. It
could cost several pounds to send a message and it might take several hours for
it to reach its destination on the other side of the globe, but the world would
never be the same again. Governments could be in touch with their colonies.
Traders could send cargoes based on demand and the latest prices. Newspapers
could publish news that had just happened and was not many months old.
Questions 27-32
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 1?
In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
27 In the research of French scientists, the metal lines were used to send a
message.
28 Abbots gave the monks an electrical shock at the same time, which
constitutes the exploration of the long-distance signaling.
29 Using Morse Code to send message need to simplify the message firstly.
30 Morse was a famous inventor before he invented the code
31 The water is significant to early telegraph repeater on the continent.
32 US Government offered fund to the 1st overland line across the continent.
Questions 33-40
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the
passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet.
33 Why is the disadvantage for Charles Wheatstone’s telegraph system to fail
in the beginning?
34 What material was used for insulating cable across the sea?
35 What was used by British pioneers to increase the weight of the cable in the
sea?
36 What dis Fisherman mistakenly take the cable as?
37 Who was the message firstly sent to across the Atlantic by the Queen?
38 What giant animals were used to carry the cable through the desert?
39 What weather condition did it delay the construction in north Australia?
40 How long did it take to send a telegraph message from Australia to England
Australia
Domestic travel
Have you ever travelled to another part of your country and stayed for a few
days? Travel within one's own country is popular throughout the world. And,
according to a survey carried out in Australia in 2002, travellers are tending to
spend more and more money on their holidays.
The Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey showed that domestic travellers –
those travelling within the country – injected $23 billion into the Australian
economy in 2002. As a result, domestic tourism became the mainstay of the
industry, accounting for 75 per cent of total tourism expenditure in Australia.
International tourism, on the other hand, added $7 billion to the economy.
Overall, in present dollar terms, Australians spent $7 billion more on domestic
tourism in 2002 than they did when the first survey of tourist spending was
completed in 1991.
Thus, tourism has become one of Australia's largest industries. The combined
tourist industry now accounts for about 5 per cent of the nation's gross domestic
product, compared with agriculture at 4.3 per cent and manufacturing at 8 per
cent. Tourism is, therefore, an important earner for both companies and
individuals in a wide range of industries. For example, the transport industry
benefits from the extra money poured into it. Hotels spring up in resort areas to
provide accommodation, and the catering industry gains as tourists spend money
in restaurants. The retail sector benefits as well, as many tourists use their
holidays to shop for clothes, accessories and souvenirs.
In most countries, the land is divided into different political areas. Australia is
divided into six states and two territories. Since people travel for different
reasons, there are significant differences in the length of time people stay in
different locations and in the amount they spend while there.
In 2002, Australian residents spent $8.4 billion on day trips and almost twice
that amount on trips involving at least one night away from home. In that year, a
total of 45 million overnight trips were made in Australia. Of these, 14.9 million
were spent in New South Wales, 10.3 million were spent in Queensland, and 9.2
million were spent in Victoria. Fewer nights were spent in the other states, with
3.7 million in South Australia, 1.5 million in Tasmania and 5 million in Western
Australia. Despite the popularity of destinations such as Ayers Rock and Kakadu
National Park, only 0.4 million overnight stays were recorded in the Northern
Territory.
New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria attracted the greatest tourism
revenue, with $5.2 billion, $5.1 billion and $3.3 billion spent there respectively.
The average expenditure for trips was $395 per person, with accommodation the
biggest expenditure, followed by meals and fuel. The survey also showed that
costs were higher for inter-state travellers, who each spent an average of $812
per trip compared with $255 for those who travelled within one state. Trips to
the Northern Territory were the most expensive, followed by Queensland, with
South Australia and Victoria the least.
Comparing the costs of trips for different purposes, the survey found that
business trips were the most expensive because they were more likely to involve
stays in commercial accommodation. Trips taken for educational reasons – to
visit universities, museums etc. – were also expensive, especially as they usually
required inter-state plane tickets. Family holidays lay in the medium range, with
transport and fares contributing to the cost, but adventure parks the major
expense. But while visits to friends and relatives were the least expensive – due
to lower accommodation, food and transport costs – these travellers spent most
on shopping.
The survey also estimates that Australians made 253 million day trips in 2002,
visiting parks, beaches and city attractions. The largest expenses were petrol
costs (averaging $10 per day trip), followed by meals, souvenirs and entry fees.
Day trips tended to cost the most in the Northern Territory, while South
Australia was the cheapest. Overall, the survey found that men travelling alone
spent more than any tourist group. In particular, men spent more on transport
and meals. Women travelling alone spent the most on clothes, while souvenirs
were bought more often by families than by other tourists.
The challenge for the tourism industry now is to encourage Australians to
continue spending money on travel and, if possible, to increase the amount they
spend.
Questions 29-31
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 29-31 on your answer sheet.
Industries that benefit from tourism
transport
29 ..................
30 ..................
31 ..................
Questions 32-35
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet..
32. The state or territory in which the highest number of overnight trips was
made was .................................
33. The state or territory in which the lowest number of overnight trips was
made was ...............................
34. People travelling from state to state spent more than those
travelling .............................
35. The TWO cheapest states or territories to travel to
were ............................ and ................................
Questions 36-39
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 36-39 on your answer sheet.
Major Expenses for different trips
Purpose of trip Major expense
business accommodation
education 36....................
family holiday 37....................
visiting relatives 38....................
day trips 39....................
Questions 40 and 41
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.
40. The category of people who spent the most on travel in Australia in 2002
were ................................
41. The category who spent the most on souvenirs were ................................
Facial expression 1
A
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the
skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to
observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are
a primary means of conveying social information among aliens, but also occur
in most other mammals and some other animal species. Facial expressions and
their significance in the perceiver can, to some extent, vary between cultures
with evidence from descriptions in the works of Charles Darwin.
B
Humans can adopt a facial expression to read as a voluntary action. However,
because expressions are closely tied to emotion, they are more
often involuntary. It can be nearly impossible to avoid expressions for certain
emotions, even when it would be strongly desirable to do so; a person who is
trying to avoid insulting an individual he or she finds highly unattractive might,
nevertheless, show a brief expression of disgust before being able to reassume a
neutral expression. Microexpressions are one example of this phenomenon. The
close link between emotion and expression can also work in the order direction;
it has been observed that voluntarily assuming an expression can actually cause
the associated emotion.
C
Some expressions can be accurately interpreted even between members of
different species – anger and extreme contentment being the primary examples.
Others, however, are difficult to interpret even in familiar individuals. For
instance, disgust and fear can be tough to tell apart. Because faces have only a
limited range of movement, expressions rely upon fairly minuscule differences
in the proportion and relative position of facial features, and reading them
requires considerable sensitivity to the same. Some faces are often falsely read
as expressing some emotion, even when they are neutral because their
proportions naturally resemble those another face would temporarily assume
when emoting.
D
Also, a person’s eyes reveal much about how they are feeling, or what they are
thinking. Blink rate can reveal how nervous or at ease a person maybe. Research
by Boston College professor Joe Tecce suggests that stress levels are revealed
by blink rates. He supports his data with statistics on the relation between the
blink rates of presidential candidates and their success in their races. Tecce
claims that the faster blinker in the presidential debates has lost every election
since 1980. Though Tecce’s data is interesting, it is important to recognize that
non-verbal communication is multi-channelled, and focusing on only one aspect
is reckless. Nervousness can also be measured by examining each candidates’
perspiration, eye contact and stiffness.
E
As Charles Darwin noted in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man
and Animals: the young and the old of widely different races, both with man and
animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements. Still, up to the
mid-20th century, most anthropologists believed that facial expressions were
entirely learned and could, therefore, differ among cultures. Studies conducted
in the 1960s by Paul Ekman eventually supported Darwin’s belief to a large
degree.
F
Ekman’s work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of
psychologist Silvan Tomkins. Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some
anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not
culturally determined, but universal across human cultures. The South Fore
people of New Guinea were chosen as subjects for one such survey. The study
consisted of 189 adults and 130 children from among a very isolated population,
as well as twenty-three members of the culture who lived a less isolated lifestyle
as a control group. Participants were told a story that described one particular
emotion; they were then shown three pictures (two for children) of facial
expressions and asked to match the picture which expressed the story’s
emotion.
G
While the isolated South Fore people could identify emotions with the same
accuracy as the non-isolated control group, problems associated with the study
include the fact that both fear and surprise were constantly misidentified. The
study concluded that certain facial expressions correspond to particular emotions
and can not be covered, regardless of cultural background, and regardless of
whether or not the culture has been isolated or exposed to the mainstream.
H
Expressions Ekman found to be universally included those indicating anger,
disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (not that none of these emotions has a
definitive social component, such as shame, pride, or schadenfreude). Findings
on contempt (which is social) are less clear, though there is at least some
preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally
recognized. This may suggest that facial expressions are largely related to the
mind and each part of the face can express specific emotions.
Questions 28-32
Summary
Complete the Summary paragraph below. In boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet,
write the correct answer with NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
The result of Ekman’s study demonstrates that fear and surprise are
persistently 28…………………… and made a conclusion that some facial
expressions have something to do with certain 29…………………. Which is
impossible covered, despite of 30………………….. and whether the culture has
been 31…………………… or 32………………………. to the mainstream.
Questions 33-38
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-H
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 33-38 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
33 the difficulty identifying the actual meaning of facial expressions
34 the importance of culture on facial expressions is initially described
35 collected data for the research on the relation between blink and the success
in elections
36 the features on the sociality of several facial expressions
37 an indicator to reflect one’s extent of nervousness
38 the relation between emotion and facial expressions
Questions 39-40
Choose two letters from the A-E
Write your answers in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet
Which Two of the following statements are true according to Ekman’s
theory?
A No evidence shows animals have their own facial expressions.
B The potential relationship between facial expression and state of mind exists
C Facial expressions are concerning different cultures.
D Different areas on face convey a certain state of mind.
E Mind controls men’s facial expressions more obvious than women’s
