Practice 1

Practice 2
Answer questions 1-5 which are based on the reading passage below.
Travel is the best form of education Reading Passage
One learns a lot while serving in the United States Army. Foreing places, stressful conditions, and
absence from home can foster an out-of-the-classroom education that crosses the boundary of the
odd and unusual. Today, tales of strange sea creatures and haunted islands seem like a bad Sci-Fi
marathon. But these were realities for one U.S. Army soldier stationed overseas at the thrun of the
20th century.
The art of journal keeping, letter writing and daily diary entries are becoming extinct as methods of
memory management are changing in today's technology driven world. What once was detailed on
paper with memory fresh at hand is now posted on YouTube Today, blogs replace diary entries. Hand-
written letters to loved ones are far slower than a quick Facebook 'poke' or a cell phone text message.
Historians enjoy a deep appreciation for the written word. They savour the ability to see the world
through the eyes of someone who never had satellite TV, the Internet or cell phone. Where
explanation was not readily at hand in the strange lands of the Philippine Islands, the environment
was ripe for adventure and the unknown. Placing one's self in such situations fosters an education
that cannot be duplicated in any classroom, book or blockbuster movie. A survivor of deadly and
savage situations, Colonel Horace P. Hoobs recorded these well-documented experiences that lend a
degree of depth to the retelling and re-imagining of Army history.
The odd education of Colonel Horace P. Hobbs is revealed in his voluminous personal papers held at
the U.S. Army Military History Institute. A letter of August 16, 1918, soothes his wife while he is
stationed in France during World War I. "You see it is the women who suffer most during a war. Now I
know you and mother are worrying about me and I am living in the most luxurious comfort and
perfect safety just now." He goes to great lengths to explain his lush surroundings and the comfort he
is experiencing, from bathing in a nearby brook to the size of his room and the servants who provide
for him, as he attempts to console a worry-sick wife. It would seem, however, that Mrs Hobbs had
been through worse as a military spouse.
Her husband was stationed in the Philippines during the insurrection from 1899 to 1901. Colonel
Hobbs wrote a book from his collected journals and memoirs entitled, "Kris and Krag: Adventures
among the Moros of the Southern Philippine Islands”. Among his many tales, the Colonel tells about a
strange native custom on one of the small islands of taking their boats across a narrow strait to
another island and returning before dark. They explained to him that the island was the home of the
'wok-wok', a powerful ghost who must be appeased with gifts of rice so they will not harm the
people. Upon further inspection, the Army discovered the 'wok-wok’ to be large apes.
Another bizarre chapter in the Colonel's education came when he was asked by some villagers to kill
a sea creature which wreaked havoc among the people whenever they Slaughtered an animal for
food. The blood would run into the water, and out would come the creature. The Colonel waited for
the apparition to appear after a slaughter, and he was not disappointed. Upon further inspection he
described the animal as being some kind of mix between an alligator and a crocodile, but one he had
never seen before.
Experience in foreign places, blended with curiosity and a desire to learn, enabled Colon to obtain a
far greater grasp of the world. These traits provided him with an education that the average person
today cannot obtain from watching television or searching the web.
Questions 1-5
Choose the correct letter, a, b, c or d.
1. What offers a non-traditional form of education?
a. Being away from home
b. Being in foreign countries
c. Situations that cause stress
d. All of the above
2. Historians enjoy the chance to see
a. Satellite TV.
b. The world through other's eyes.
c. The world.
d. Popular documented experiences.
3. While in France, the Colonel
a. Looked after his sick wife.
b. Lived with his wife.
c. Wrote letters to the U.S. Army Military History Institute,
d. Comforted his wife with his letters.
4. A sea creature would appear
 a. Whenever the Colonel was in the village.
b. And make the Colonel disappointed.
c. When blood from a dead animal ran into the water.
d. And slaughter an animal.
5. What traits helped a Colonel to get a good education?
a. A desire to travel to foreign places
b. Curiosity and a good grasp of the world
c. Watching TV and using the Internet
d. Curiosity and a desire to learn
Practice 3
Answer questions 1-5 which are based on the reading passage below.
Tropical Rainforests Reading Passage
Deforestation in the tropical areas of the world is following a course similar to the earlier clearing of
the forests in Europe and North America, only advancing more rapidly. Today, more than 3 billion
people live in the tropics alone; less than that lived in the entire world in 1950. To provide food,
wood, fuel and resources for the world's rapidly growing population and to make room for the
exploding tropical population, the world's tropical rainforests are literally disappearing.
Tropical hardwood prices continue to climb as world demand for tropical hardwoods continues to
grow. A single teak log, for example, can now bring as much as $20,000. Annual world consumption
of tropical hardwoods is now more than 250 million cubic meters, over 100 billion board feet, per
year. Southeast Asia until recently has been the largest source of tropical hardwoods, but that area
will largely be depleted within the next five years.
All of the primary forests in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are gone, and Ivory Coast's forests are
essentially non-existent. Nigeria's forests have been decimated as well. As Asia's and Africa's tropical
forests are depleted, consuming countries are turning increasing attention to Latin America and the
Amazon, whose own rapidly growing population is also a source of pressure on the rainforests.
Also, trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas, uranium, gold, iron, bauxite and other minerals, and millions
of acres of potential farmland lie under the Amazon, the largest area of rainforest remaining on Earth.
Amazon rainforests are being cleared on a vast scale for settlements, logging, gold mining, petroleum,
cattle ranching, sugar cane, large hydroelectric dams, and charcoal for smelting ore. Peasant farmers
also clear the rainforest to have land for planting, and then in the dry season, burning what they have
cut.
During one month in 1995 for example, NASA satellite surveys of Brazil recorded 39,889 individual
fires, up 370 percent from the same month of the prior year. In neighbouring Bolivia, the smoke is
sometimes so thick that schools have to close and flights have to be delayed or cancelled. Scientists
estimate that until as recently as 10,000 years ago, the world had 6 billion acres of tropical
rainforests. By 1950, we had a little less than 2.8 billion acres of rainforest. It was then being cut
down at the rate of about 10 to 15 million acres per year.
Today we have less than 1.5 billion acres left, and we are clearing this remaining rainforest at the rate
of 30 to 50 million acres per year, two to three times as rapidly as just a few decades ago. If the
present rate of tropical deforestation continues, in only three decades from now, scientists anticipate
that tropical rainforests will no longer exist.
One important way to help is to plant tropical hardwood trees for harvests to produce hardwoods so
that they are not taken from the natural rainforest. It is also vitally important to get the message out
to others about the importance, and the wisdom, of planting tropical Hardwood trees for profit, not
just because of the profit but also because of the benefit to the world.
Some countries are beginning to listen. Thailand, for example, banned logging in 1988, and Costa Rica
has now protected nearly 26% of its country in national parks or reserves. The trend is unmistakable,
and the facts are compelling. The world's rainforests will be either protected or destroyed.
Questions 1-5
Choose the correct letter a, b, c or d.
1. One reason people are cutting down the tropical rainforests is
a. To be like Europe and North America.
b. To progress rapidly.
c. To live alone in tropical areas.
d. To accommodate the growing population.

2. The Amazon rainforests are being decimated to

a. Improve tourism.
b. Raise cattle, dig mines and build dams.
c. Clear the settlements.
d. Build millions of farms.

3. Scientists claim that within 10,000 years, the rainforests have

a. Reduced to 6 billion acres.
b. Diminished by 2.8 billion acres.
c. Diminished to a quarter.
d. Been cut at a yearly rate of 30 to 40 million acres.

4. Some positive changes can be made by

a. Admitting the mistakes we have made.
b. Growing trees for commercial purposes.
c. Making more profit.
d. Each country decides what to do.

5. What is the purpose of the passage?

a. To suggest different places for holiday destinations.
b. To explain why people are so greedy.
c. To offer possible solutions to an environmental problem.
d. To detail the destruction of the rainforests.
Practice 4
Answer questions 1-5 which are based on the reading passage below.
A Complex Relationship Reading Passage
Ants and aphids are known to have a complex relationship. Aphids provide ants with a food source
the - sugar-rich honeydew they excrete when eating plants - and, in return, the ants protect the
aphids from ladybirds and other insects that prey on them.
To ensure a constant supply of honeydew, some ant species cultivate large numbers of aphids and
prevent them from straying too far from the colony by biting and damaging, or even completely
removing, their wings. The ants also secrete a chemical from their mandibles which inhibits wing
development in juvenile aphids.
Ants communicate with each other using a large repertoire of chemical signals, which are actively
secreted onto surfaces from exocrine glands on the legs. These signals can recruit nestmates to food
sources and are also used to mark a colony's territory. Ants secrete chemicals passively too. As an ant
moves, hydrocarbons are shed from the cuticle (the waterproof outer lining of the exoskeleton),
leaving a chemical trail.
Ants use behavioural signals called semiochemicals to manipulate aphids' nervous systems. Ant's own
behaviour can be manipulated too, by parasitic fungi. Earlier work has shown that the presence of
ants can somehow tranquilize aphids and limit their motor functions, but
whether or not this required direct contact between the ants and aphids is unclear.
Using digital video cameras to measure the walking speeds of aphids, Tom Oliver of Imperial College
London and colleagues from Royal Holloway and the University of Reading have shown that aphids
move much more slowly on paper that has previously been walked on by
ants. They believe that the chemicals laid down in the ants' footprints are used to maintain an aphid
farm near the ant colony.
Maintaining a populous aphid farm in a small area is obviously beneficial to the ants, as it would
provide them with large quantities of honeydew. However, the relationship between the two species
is complex, and it seems that the ants' manipulation of the aphids behaviour is exploitative.
Normally, aphids wander off to new locations when conditions become crowded, to establish new
populations nearby. And although ant-attended aphid populations are bigger and live longer than
those not attended by ants, the ants prevent the aphid dispersal that is necessary to maintain a stable
meta-population and makes the aphids more vulnerable to parasites.
Questions 1-5
Choose the correct letter, a, b, c or d.
1. Honeydew is naturally produced by
a. Ants.
b. Plants.
c. Aphids.
d. Ladybirds.

2. How do ants ensure they have regular supplies of honeydew?

a. They provide food to aphids.
b. They maintain a large population of aphids.
c. They force aphids to secrete a chemical.
d. They find more juvenile aphids.
3. Studies have shown that the nervous system of aphids is affected by
a. The behaviour of ants.
b. Using parasitic fungi.
c. Direct contact with ants.
d. Chemicals secreted by ants.

4. According to the writer, the relationship between ant and aphids

a. Beneficial for both.
b. Easy to explain.
c. Natural.
d. Not beneficial to aphids.

5. What do aphids do if the area becomes overpopulated?

a. Start a new colony
b. Start a stable meta-population
c. They grow bigger
d. They live longer than ants