You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
\n \nA The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. It encompasses all types of garments, from designer fashions to ordinary everyday clothing. Because data on the industry are typically reported for national economies and expressed in terms of its many separate sectors, total figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
\nB The fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid-19th century, virtually all clothing was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the factory system of production, and the growth of department stores and other retail outlets, clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe, today it is highly globalised, with garments often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in a third. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China, have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally.
\nC One of the first accomplishments of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century was the partial automation of the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, silk and other natural fibres. Today, these processes are highly automated and carried out by computer-controlled, high-speed machinery, and fabrics made from both natural fibres and synthetic fibres (such as nylon, acrylic and polyester) are produced. A growing interest in sustainable fashion (or ‘eco-fashion') has led to greater use of environmentally friendly fibres, such as hemp. In addition, high-tech synthetic fabrics confer such properties as moisture absorption, stain resistance, retention or dissipation of body heat, and protection against fire, weapons, cold, ultraviolet radiation and other hazards. Fabrics are also produced with a wide range of visual effects through dyeing, weaving, printing and other processes. Together with fashion forecasters, fabric manufacturers work well in advance of the clothing production cycle to create fabrics with colours, textures and other qualities that anticipate consumer demand.
\nD Historically, very few fashion designers have become famous—brands such as Coco Chanel or Calvin Klein—who have been responsible for prestigious high-fashion collections. These designers are influential in the fashion world, but, contrary to popular belief, they do not dictate new fashions; rather, they endeavour to design clothes that will meet consumer demand. The vast majority of designers work anonymously for manufacturers, as part of design teams, adapting designs into marketable garments for average consumers. They draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including film and television costumes, street clothing and active sportswear.
\nE An important stage in garment production is the translation of the clothing design into templates, in a range of sizes, for cutting the cloth. Because the proportions of the human body change with increases or decreases in weight, templates cannot simply be scaled up or down. Template-making was traditionally a highly skilled profession. Today, despite innovations in computer programming, designs in larger sizes are difficult to adjust for every body shape. Whatever the size, the template—whether drawn on paper or programmed as a set of computer instructions—determines how fabric is cut into the pieces that will be joined to make a garment. For all but the most expensive clothing, fabric cutting is accomplished by computer-guided knives or high-intensity lasers that can cut many layers of fabric at once.
\nF The next stage of production is the assembly process. Some companies use their own production facilities for some or all of the manufacturing process, but the majority rely on separately owned manufacturing firms or contractors to produce garments to their specifications. In the field of women's clothing, manufacturers typically produce several product lines a year, which they deliver to retailers on predetermined dates. Technological innovation, including the development of computer-guided machinery, has resulted in the automation of some stages of assembly. Nevertheless, the fundamental process of sewing remains labour-intensive. In the late 20th century, China emerged as the world's largest producer of clothing because of its low labour costs and highly disciplined workforce. Assembled items then go through various processes collectively known as 'finishing'. These include the addition of decorative elements, fasteners, brand-name labels and other labels (often legally required) specifying fibre content, laundry instructions and country of manufacture. Finished items are then pressed and packed for shipment.
\nG For much of the period following World War II, trade in textiles and garments was strictly regulated by purchasing countries, which imposed quotas and tariffs. Since the 1980s, these protectionist measures, which were intended (ultimately without success) to prevent textile and clothing production from moving from high-wage to low-wage countries, have gradually been abandoned. They have been replaced by a free-trade approach, under the regulatory control of global organisations. The advent of metal shipping containers and relatively inexpensive air freight has also made it possible for production to be closely tied to market conditions, even across globe-spanning distances.
\n \n \n \n \n " + "html": "You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
\n \nA The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. It encompasses all types of garments, from designer fashions to ordinary everyday clothing. Because data on the industry are typically reported for national economies and expressed in terms of its many separate sectors, total figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
\nB The fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid-19th century, virtually all clothing was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the factory system of production, and the growth of department stores and other retail outlets, clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe, today it is highly globalised, with garments often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in a third. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China, have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally.
\nC One of the first accomplishments of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century was the partial automation of the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, silk and other natural fibres. Today, these processes are highly automated and carried out by computer-controlled, high-speed machinery, and fabrics made from both natural fibres and synthetic fibres (such as nylon, acrylic and polyester) are produced. A growing interest in sustainable fashion (or ‘eco-fashion') has led to greater use of environmentally friendly fibres, such as hemp. In addition, high-tech synthetic fabrics confer such properties as moisture absorption, stain resistance, retention or dissipation of body heat, and protection against fire, weapons, cold, ultraviolet radiation and other hazards. Fabrics are also produced with a wide range of visual effects through dyeing, weaving, printing and other processes. Together with fashion forecasters, fabric manufacturers work well in advance of the clothing production cycle to create fabrics with colours, textures and other qualities that anticipate consumer demand.
\nD Historically, very few fashion designers have become famous—brands such as Coco Chanel or Calvin Klein—who have been responsible for prestigious high-fashion collections. These designers are influential in the fashion world, but, contrary to popular belief, they do not dictate new fashions; rather, they endeavour to design clothes that will meet consumer demand. The vast majority of designers work anonymously for manufacturers, as part of design teams, adapting designs into marketable garments for average consumers. They draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including film and television costumes, street clothing and active sportswear.
\nThe fashion industry’s traditional design methods, such as paper sketches and the draping of fabric on mannequins, have been supplemented or replaced by computer-assisted design techniques. These allow designers to rapidly make changes to a proposed design and instantaneously share the proposed changes with colleagues—whether they are in the next room or on another continent.
\nE An important stage in garment production is the translation of the clothing design into templates, in a range of sizes, for cutting the cloth. Because the proportions of the human body change with increases or decreases in weight, templates cannot simply be scaled up or down. Template-making was traditionally a highly skilled profession. Today, despite innovations in computer programming, designs in larger sizes are difficult to adjust for every body shape. Whatever the size, the template—whether drawn on paper or programmed as a set of computer instructions—determines how fabric is cut into the pieces that will be joined to make a garment. For all but the most expensive clothing, fabric cutting is accomplished by computer-guided knives or high-intensity lasers that can cut many layers of fabric at once.
\nF The next stage of production is the assembly process. Some companies use their own production facilities for some or all of the manufacturing process, but the majority rely on separately owned manufacturing firms or contractors to produce garments to their specifications. In the field of women's clothing, manufacturers typically produce several product lines a year, which they deliver to retailers on predetermined dates. Technological innovation, including the development of computer-guided machinery, has resulted in the automation of some stages of assembly. Nevertheless, the fundamental process of sewing remains labour-intensive. In the late 20th century, China emerged as the world's largest producer of clothing because of its low labour costs and highly disciplined workforce. Assembled items then go through various processes collectively known as 'finishing'. These include the addition of decorative elements, fasteners, brand-name labels and other labels (often legally required) specifying fibre content, laundry instructions and country of manufacture. Finished items are then pressed and packed for shipment.
\nG For much of the period following World War II, trade in textiles and garments was strictly regulated by purchasing countries, which imposed quotas and tariffs. Since the 1980s, these protectionist measures, which were intended (ultimately without success) to prevent textile and clothing production from moving from high-wage to low-wage countries, have gradually been abandoned. They have been replaced by a free-trade approach, under the regulatory control of global organisations. The advent of metal shipping containers and relatively inexpensive air freight has also made it possible for production to be closely tied to market conditions, even across globe-spanning distances.
\n \n \n \n \n " } ] }, From 75200075e25c6a8dd3bedf7254f82b2b3c94eb1e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: WIND <1652029918@qq.com> Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:04:58 +0800 Subject: [PATCH 04/18] =?UTF-8?q?=E4=BF=AE=E5=A4=8DKatherine=20Mansfield?= =?UTF-8?q?=E7=AC=AC6=E9=A2=98=E7=AD=94=E6=A1=88?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- assets/generated/reading-exams/p1-high-05.js | 8 ++++---- assets/generated/reading-explanations/p1-high-05.js | 10 +++++----- 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) diff --git a/assets/generated/reading-exams/p1-high-05.js b/assets/generated/reading-exams/p1-high-05.js index 1a90b1ff..9fb4096f 100644 --- a/assets/generated/reading-exams/p1-high-05.js +++ b/assets/generated/reading-exams/p1-high-05.js @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ { "blockId": "passage-main", "kind": "html", - "html": "You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
\n \nKatherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was born in 1888, into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand. She became one of New Zealand’s best-known writers, using the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. The daughter of a banker, and born into a middle-class family, she was also a first cousin of Countess Elizabeth von Arnim, a distinguished novelist in her time. Mansfield had two older sisters and a younger brother. Her father, Harold Beauchamp, went on to become the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. In 1893, the Mansfield family moved to Karori, a suburb of Wellington, where Mansfield would spend the happiest years of her childhood; she later used her memories of this time as an inspiration for her Prelude story.
\n \nHer first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls’ High School magazine in 1898 and 1899. In 1902, she developed strong feelings for a musician who played the cello, Arnold Trowell, although her feelings were not, for the most part, returned. Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell’s father. Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling isolated to some extent in New Zealand, and, in general terms, of her interest in the Maori people (New Zealand’s native people), who were often portrayed in a sympathetic light in her later stories, such as How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.
\n\nShe moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queen’s College, along with her two sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed, during her time at Queen’s, she would take up professionally. She also began contributing to the college newspaper, with such a dedication to it that she eventually became its editor. She was particularly interested in the works of the French writers of this period and in the 19th-century British writer, Oscar Wilde, and she was appreciated amongst fellow students at Queen’s for her lively and charismatic approach to life and work. She met fellow writer Ida Baker, a South African, at the college, and the pair became lifelong friends. Mansfield did not actively support the suffragette movement in the UK. Women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893.
\n\nMansfield first began journeying into other parts of Europe in the period 1903–1906, mainly to Belgium and Germany. After finishing her schooling in England, she returned to her New Zealand home in 1906, only then beginning to write short stories in a serious way. She had several works published in Australia in a magazine called The Native Companion, which was her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her mind set on becoming a professional writer. It was also the first occasion on which she used the pseudonym “K. Mansfield”.
\n\nMansfield rapidly grew discontented with the provincial New Zealand lifestyle, and with her family. Two years later she headed again to London. Her father sent her an annual subsidy of £100 for the rest of her life. In later years, she would express both admiration and disdain for New Zealand in her journals.
\n\nIn 1911, Mansfield met John Middleton Murry, the Oxford scholar and editor of the literary magazine Rhythm. They were later to marry in 1918. Mansfield became a co-editor of Rhythm, which was subsequently called The Blue Review, in which more of her works were published. She and Murry lived in various houses in England and briefly in Paris. The Blue Review failed to gain enough readers and was no longer published. Their attempt to set up as writers in Paris was cut short by Murry’s bankruptcy, which resulted from the failure of this and other journals. Life back in England meant frequently changed addresses and very limited funds.
\n\nBetween 1915 and 1918, Mansfield moved between England and Bandol, France. She and Murry developed close contact with other well-known writers of the time such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and Aldous Huxley. By October 1918 Mansfield had become seriously ill; she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was advised to enter a sanatorium. She could no longer spend winters in London. In the autumn of 1918 she was so ill that she decided to go to Ospedaletti in Italy. It was the publication of Bliss and Other Stories in 1920 that was to solidify Mansfield’s reputation as a writer.
\n\nMansfield also spent time in Menton, France, as the tenant of her father’s cousin at “The Villa Isola Bella”. There she wrote eight stories including Miss Brill and The Daughters of the Late Colonel, the latter of which she pronounced to be “…the only story that satisfies me to any extent”.
\n\nMansfield produced a great deal of work in the final years of her life, and much of her prose and poetry remained unpublished at her death in 1923. After her death, her husband, Murry, took on the task of editing and publishing her works. His efforts resulted in two additional volumes of short stories, The Doves’ Nest and Something Childish, published in 1923 and 1924 respectively; the publication of her Poems; as well as a collection of critical writings (Novels and Novelists) and a number of editions of Mansfield’s previously unpublished letters and journals.
\n \n \n \n \n " + "html": "You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
\n \nKatherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was born in 1888, into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand. She became one of New Zealand’s best-known writers, using the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. The daughter of a banker, and born into a middle-class family, she was also a first cousin of Countess Elizabeth von Arnim, a distinguished novelist in her time. Mansfield had two older sisters and a younger brother. Her father, Harold Beauchamp, went on to become the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. In 1893 the Mansfield family moved to Karori, a suburb of Wellington, where Mansfield would spend the happiest years of her childhood; she later used her memories of this time as an inspiration for her Prelude story.
\n \nHer first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls’ High School magazine in 1898 and 1899. In 1902 she developed strong feelings for a musician who played the cello, Arnold Trowell, although her feelings were not, for the most part, returned. Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell’s father. Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling isolated to some extent in New Zealand, and, in general terms, of her interest in the Maori people (New Zealand’s native people), who were often portrayed in a sympathetic light in her later stories, such as How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.
\n\nShe moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queen’s College, along with her two sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed, during her time at Queen’s, she would take up professionally. She also began contributing to the college newspaper, with such a dedication to it that she eventually became its editor. She was particularly interested in the works of the French writers of this period and in the 19th-century British writer, Oscar Wilde, and she was appreciated amongst fellow students at Queen’s for her lively and charismatic approach to life and work. She met fellow writer Ida Baker, a South African, at the college, and the pair became lifelong friends. Mansfield did not become involved in much political activity when she lived in London. For example, although at that time in London many women were demonstrating for votes for women, Mansfield did not actively support the suffragette movement in the UK. Women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893.
\n\nMansfield first began journeying into other parts of Europe in the period 1903–1906, mainly to Belgium and Germany. After finishing her schooling in England, she returned to her New Zealand home in 1906, only then beginning to write short stories in a serious way. She had several works published in Australia in a magazine called Native Companion, which was her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her mind set on becoming a professional writer. It was also the first occasion on which she used the pseudonym ‘K. Mansfield’.
\n\nMansfield rapidly grew discontented with the provincial New Zealand lifestyle, and with her family. Two years later she headed again for London. Her father sent her an annual subsidy of £100 for the rest of her life. In later years, she would express both admiration and disdain for New Zealand in her journals.
\n\nIn 1911, Mansfield met John Middleton Murry, the Oxford scholar and editor of the literary magazine Rhythm. They were later to marry, in 1918. Mansfield became a co-editor of Rhythm, which was subsequently called The Blue Review, in which more of her works were published. She and Murry lived in various houses in England and briefly in Paris. The Blue Review failed to gain enough readers and was no longer published. Their attempt to set up as writers in Paris was cut short by Murry’s bankruptcy, which resulted from the failure of this and other journals. Life back in England meant frequently changed addresses and very limited funds.
\n\nBetween 1915 and 1918, Mansfield moved between England and Bandol, France. She and Murry developed close contact with other well-known writers of the time such as D.H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and Aldous Huxley. By October 1918 Mansfield had become seriously ill; she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, and was advised to enter a sanatorium. She could no longer spend winters in London. In the autumn of 1918 she was so ill that she decided to go to Ospedaletti in Italy. It was the publication of Bliss and Other Stories in 1920 that was to solidify Mansfield’s reputation as a writer.
\n\nMansfield also spent time in Menton, France, as the tenant of her father’s cousin at ‘The Villa Isola Bella’. There she wrote eight stories including Miss Brill and The Daughters of the Late Colonel, the latter of which she pronounced to be ‘…the only story that satisfies me to any extent’.
\n\nMansfield produced a great deal of work in the final years of her life, and much of her prose and poetry remained unpublished at her death in 1923. After her death her husband, Murry, took on the task of editing and publishing her works. His efforts resulted in two additional volumes of short stories, The Dove’s Nest and Something Childish, published in 1923 and 1924 respectively, the publication of her Poems, as well as a collection of critical writings (Novels and Novelists) and a number of editions of Mansfield’s previously unpublished letters and journals.
\n \n \n \n \n " } ] }, @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ "q5", "q6" ], - "bodyHtml": "Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
\nIn boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet, write:
\n1. The name Katherine Mansfield, which appears on the writer’s books, was exactly the same as her original name.
\n \n2. Mansfield won a prize for a story she wrote for the High School Reporter.
\n \n3. How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped portrayed Maori people in a favourable way.
\n \n4. When Mansfield was at Queen’s College, she planned to be a professional writer.
\n \n5. Mansfield was unpopular with the other students at Queen’s College.
\n \n6. In London, Mansfield showed little interest in politics.
\n \nDo the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
\nIn boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet, write:
\n1. The name Katherine Mansfield, that appears on the writer’s books, was exactly the same as her original name.
\n \n2. Mansfield won a prize for a story she wrote for the High School Reporter.
\n \n3. How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped portrayed Maori people in a favourable way.
\n \n4. When Mansfield was at Queen’s College, she planned to be a professional writer.
\n \n5. Mansfield was unpopular with the other students at Queen’s College.
\n \n6. In London, Mansfield showed little interest in politics.
\n \nComplete the notes below
\nChoose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer
\nWrite your answers in boxes 7–13 on your answer sheet
\n \n•
– moved from England back to New Zealand
– first paid writing work was in a publication based in 8
\n– her 9 and the New Zealand way of life made her feel dissatisfied
\n \n• 1908
– returned to London
• 1911–1919
– Met John Middleton Murry in 1911
– 10 prevented Mansfield and Murry from staying together in Paris
\n– spent time with distinguished 11
\n– from 1916, tuberculosis restricted the time she spent in London
\n\n• 1920
– her 12 was consolidated when Bliss and Other Stories was published
– wrote several stories at “Villa Isola Bella”
\n\n• 1923–1924
– Mansfield’s 13 published more of her works after her death
Complete the notes below
\nChoose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer
\nWrite your answers in boxes 7–13 on your answer sheet
\n \n•
– moved from England back to New Zealand
– first paid writing work was in a publication based in 8
\n– her 9 and the New Zealand way of life made her feel dissatisfied
\n \n• 1908
– returned to London
• 1911–1919
– met John Middleton Murry in 1911
– 10 prevented Mansfield and Murry from staying longer in Paris
\n– spent time with distinguished 11
\n– from 1918, tuberculosis restricted the time she spent in London
\n\n• 1920
– her 12 was consolidated when Bliss and Other Stories was published
– wrote several stories at ‘The Villa Isola Bella’
\n\n• 1923–1924
– Mansfield’s 13 published more of her works after her death
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
\n \nThe first tunnel ever to be built under a major river was the tunnel under London's River Thames.
\nAt the beginning of the 19th century, the port of London was the busiest in the world. Cargoes that had travelled thousands of miles and survived all the hazards of the sea were unloaded on the banks of the Thames, only for their owners to discover that the most frustrating portion of their journey lay ahead. Consignments intended for the southern parts of Britain had to be lifted onto horse carts, pulled through the docks and across London Bridge, built in the 12th century and as impractical as its early date implies. By 1820, London Bridge had become the centre of the world's largest traffic jam.
\nIt was an intolerable situation, and it was clear that if private enterprise could build another crossing closer to the docks, there would be good money to be made in tolls paid by users. Another bridge was out of the question, as this would deny sailing ships access to the city centre, and ambitious men turned their thoughts to tunnelling beneath the Thames instead. This was not such an obvious idea as it might appear. Although increasing demand for coal had meant a great many tunnels had been dug in mines in Britain, working methods remained primitive; tunnels were dug by men with simple tools, by candlelight.
\nHowever, in 1807 a group of businessmen set themselves up as the Thames Archway Company. Their ambition was to tunnel below the Thames, but there was little to guide them as there had been no previous attempt to do this. Their chief engineer was Richard Trevithick, designer of the world's first high-pressure steam engine. His men made progress at the beginning, but then things began to go disastrously wrong, with muddy soil pouring into the tunnel. Eventually, the Thames Archway Company had had enough. Its funds were exhausted, Trevithick was sick from exposure to the river water, and its efforts had proved only that a passage under the river exceeded the limits of contemporary mining technology.
\nAt that time, the only machines used in mines were pumps. It took a man of genius to recognise that a different sort of machine was needed—a machine that could prevent the roof and walls of a tunnel from collapsing. This man was Marc Brunel, a Frenchman who had become one of the most prominent engineers in Britain. Not long after the failure of the Thames Archway Company, Brunel saw a rotten piece of wood lying on the river bank. Examining the wood through a magnifying glass, he observed it was infested with creatures that looked like worms. Brunel realised that, as they tunnelled through the wood, they pushed chewed fibres into their mouths, digested them, then excreted a hard substance that lined the new tunnel. He saw that the worm's digging technique could be adapted to a new way of tunnelling.
\nHis insight led him to invent a device that has been used, in one form or another, in most major tunnels built since—the tunnelling shield. It consisted of a heavy iron frame that could be pushed forward a few inches at a time. The front of the frame was made up of a series of iron plates that could be folded back to allow miners to dig the ground ahead. Behind these plates was a wall of further iron plates pressed against the tunnel face and supported on horizontal wooden planks to prevent collapse. It was a complex and rather cumbersome machine and not easy to use, but it promised to protect the miners from the worst of the river's water. Brunel's team carefully examined earth samples taken from beneath the riverbed and decided to dig the tunnel close to the muddy river bottom, where they expected to find clay—a more solid and safer substance to dig through than the sand found deeper down.
\nBrunel began work on his tunnel in 1825, but the problems of such an operation soon became apparent. Although the shield itself worked well, water began to drip into the tunnel. This was more of an annoyance than a danger while the pump was working, but the machine proved unreliable and sometimes failed altogether. When the pump broke down, work had to stop as the tunnel quickly flooded. There were occasions when the miners had to abandon their tools and flee for their lives. Even when Brunel's men were able to work, they faced the constant risk of the pumps failing. They also complained of frequent headaches, caused by poor air quality. The air underground was dirty and stale, contaminated because of the lack of an adequate ventilation system. There were lighting problems too. Illuminating the tunnels by candlelight was a constant challenge: lamps gave off only a very weak glow, and there were a number of accidents because the miners could not see what they were doing. Lastly, several of Brunel's miners walked off the job because they could not tolerate the excessive temperatures that developed in the cramped underground conditions.
\nDespite all these setbacks, the tunnel finally emerged on the opposite river bank on 12 August 1841. Brunel's triumph, however, was only partial. The small payment per person made by the thousands of visitors who flocked to see the marvel hardly covered even a penny per foot of the tunnel's construction costs. Brunel had gone bankrupt long before the project was completed, and the government loan he had required to finish the work had to be paid back with interest. As a result, there was not enough funding to make the tunnel accessible to horse-drawn vehicles, as intended. Instead, the passageways were filled with souvenir sellers and entertainers. In the end, the tunnel was closed two years later and was used only at night before it was finally closed entirely and fell into dereliction for decades.
\nIt was only when the underground railway came to London in the 1880s that the Thames Tunnel achieved real usefulness. It was bought in 1869 by the East London Railway, which found it to be in such excellent condition that it was immediately pressed into service as a route for passenger trains heading east. The tunnel became, and remains, part of the London Underground network.
\n\n \n \n \n " + "html": "You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
\nThe first tunnel ever to be built under a major river was the tunnel under London’s River Thames
\nAt the beginning of the 19th century, the port of London was the busiest in the world. Cargoes that had travelled thousands of miles and survived all the hazards of the sea were unloaded on the banks of the Thames, only for their owners to discover that the most frustrating portion of their journey lay ahead. Consignments intended for the southern parts of Britain had to be lifted onto horse carts, pulled through the docks and across London Bridge, built in the 12th century and as impractical as its early date implies. By 1820, London Bridge had become the centre of the world’s largest traffic jam.
\nIt was an intolerable situation, and it was clear that if private enterprise could build another crossing closer to the docks, there would be good money to be made in tolls paid by users. Another bridge was out of the question, as this would deny sailing ships access to the city centre, and ambitious men turned their thoughts to tunnelling beneath the Thames instead. This was not such an obvious idea as it might appear. Although increasing demand for coal had meant a great many tunnels had been dug in mines in Britain, working methods remained primitive. Tunnels were dug by men with simple tools, by candlelight. However, in 1807, a group of businessmen got themselves up as the Thames Archway Company. Their ambition was to tunnel below the Thames, but there was little to guide them as there had been no previous attempt to do this. Their chief engineer was Richard Trevithick, designer of the world’s first high-pressure steam engine. His men made progress at the beginning, but then things began to go disastrously wrong, with muddy soil pouring into the tunnel. Eventually the Thames Archway Company had had enough. Its funds were exhausted, Trevithick was sick from exposure to the river water, and its efforts had proved only that a passage under the river exceeded the limits of contemporary mining technology.
\nAt that time, the only machines used in mines were pumps. It took a man of genius to recognise that a different sort of machine was needed, a machine that could prevent the roof and walls of a tunnel from collapsing. This man was Marc Brunel, a Frenchman who had become one of the most prominent engineers in Britain. Not long after the failure of the Thames Archway Company, Brunel saw a rotten piece of wood lying on the river bank. Examining the wood through a magnifying glass, he observed it was infested with something that looked like a worm. Brunel realised that as it tunnelled through the wood, it would push chewed wood into its mouth and digest it, then excrete a hard substance that lined the new tunnel. Brunel realised that the worm’s digging technique could be adapted to produce a new way of tunnelling. His realisation led him to invent a device that has been used in one form or another in most major tunnels built since: the tunnelling shield. It consisted of a series of iron frames that could be pressed against the tunnel face and supported on a set of horizontal wooden planks that would prevent the face from collapsing. It was a complex machine and not easy to use, but it seemed that it would protect the miners. Brunel’s team examined earth samples taken from beneath the riverbed, and subsequently decided to dig the tunnel close to the muddy river bottom, where he could expect to find clay. This would be a more solid and safe substance to dig through than the sand that was found deeper down.
\nBrunel began work on his tunnel in 1825, but the problems of such an operation soon became apparent. Although the shield itself worked well, water began to drip into the tunnel. This was more of an annoyance than a danger while the pump was working, but this machine proved unreliable and sometimes failed altogether, meaning that floods began to occur with increasing regularity. The miners often had to run for their lives. Even when Brunel’s men were able to work, they complained of frequent headaches, because the air underground was dirty and contaminated due to the lack of an adequate ventilation system. There were other problems too. Illuminating the tunnels was a constant challenge. Lamps gave off only a weak glow, and there were a number of accidents because the miners could not see what they were doing. Lastly, a number of Brunel’s miners walked off the job because they could not tolerate the excessive temperatures that developed in the cramped conditions underground.
\nDespite all the setbacks, the tunnel finally emerged on the opposite river bank on August 12, 1841. Brunel’s triumph, however, was only partial. The small payment of a penny per person made by the thousands of visitors hardly paid the interest on the government loan he had required to complete the project. As a result, there was never enough funding to make it accessible to horse-drawn vehicles, as intended. Instead, the passageways were filled with souvenir-sellers by day and the homeless at night, before it was finally closed.
\nIt was only when the underground railway came to London in the 1860s that the Thames Tunnel achieved a measure of real usefulness. It was bought in 1869 by the East London Railway, who found it to be in such excellent condition that it was immediately pressed into service as a route for passenger trains heading east. The tunnel became, and remains, part of the London Underground network.
" } ] }, @@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ "q7", "q8" ], - "bodyHtml": "In boxes 1–8 on your answer sheet, write:
\n1 In the early 19th century, the port of London was considered a safer destination than other ports.
\n \n2 London Bridge provided quick access for cargo being sent to southern Britain.
\n \n3 It was generally believed that a new river crossing would be profitable.
\n \n4 Building a second bridge crossing was initially considered to be the best solution.
\n \n5 It was believed that coal could be found under the River Thames.
\n \n6 The Thames Archway Company was the first group to try tunnelling below the Thames.
\n \n7 Some of Trevithick's men were injured during a mudslide at his tunnel.
\n \n8 The Thames Archway Company ran out of money to finance the tunnel project.
\n \nIn boxes 1–7 on your answer sheet, write
\n1 In the early 19th century, the port of London was considered a safer destination than other ports.
\n \n2 London Bridge provided quick access for cargo being sent to southern Britain.
\n \n3 It was generally believed that a new river crossing would be profitable.
\n \n4 Building a second bridge crossing was initially considered to be the best solution.
\n \n5 It was believed that coal could be found under the River Thames.
\n \n6 The Thames Archway Company were the first group to try tunnelling below the Thames.
\n \n7 Some of Trevithick’s men were injured during a mudslide at his tunnel.
\n \n8 The Thames Archway Company ran out of money to finance the tunnel project.
\n \nChoose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
\n \nPreparing to build the tunnel
\nProblems faced by miners
\nAfter the tunnel was finished
\nChoose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
\nWrite your answers in boxes 9–13 on your answer sheet.
\n \nPreparing to build the tunnel
\nProblems faced by miners
\nAfter the tunnel was finished
\nYou should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
\nEach of our cells has an internal 'clock' which dictates our daily rhythms. But why?
\nFrom buffalo to bacteria, oaks to algae, all life follows the same relentless 24-hour cycle, which is driven by the rising and setting of the Sun. Or is it? Over 250 years ago, a French scientist performed a simple experiment that blew apart the idea that all life on Earth does the bidding of the Sun. Intrigued by the way some flowers open and close their leaves each day, Jean-Jacques de Mairan put a heliotrope in a darkened room and observed the effect. He was expecting the plant, robbed of sunlight, to cease its daily routine. To his astonishment, its leaves continued to open and close as if in response to some invisible timekeeper.
\nBut what – and where – is this internal timekeeper? And how does it achieve such astonishing regularity? These are the mysteries at the forefront of chronobiology, the study of the effect of time in living organisms. The search for answers is about more than just tying up some scientific loose ends. Internal ‘clocks’ clearly cause a lot of hardship. When an individual’s ‘clock’ is knocked out of synchronization through having to work at night or go on long-haul flights, that person can be left utterly unable to think or act. Yet even when these ‘clocks’ work correctly, the natural rhythms of alertness they generate prove dangerous: traffic accident statistics show two deadly peaks, at 4 a.m. and again twelve hours later when people are at their least alert.
\nDuring the 1970s, best-selling books began to emerge claiming such phenomena were manifestations of so-called biorhythms, a set of three cycles governing physical, emotional and intellectual traits. Said to start from the moment of birth and repeat every 23, 28 and 33 days respectively, they were supposed to result in ‘critical days’ when one or more cycles led to sub-optimal performance, with unfortunate consequences.
\nScientists have since dismissed biorhythms as pseudoscience, insisting the existence of the three cycles has no basis in fact. In 1998, Dr Terence Hines of Pace University, New York State published the most comprehensive study of the claims made for biorhythms, reviewing the results of over 130 investigations. He found that three-quarters of them failed to provide any support for biorhythms. Most of the remainder contained blunders ranging from faulty mathematics to basic errors in statistics, while the handful of positive studies were explicable as flukes.
\nBut there is no doubting the existence of 24-hour biological cycles – or, rather, ones roughly 24 hours long. Following de Mairan’s pioneering work, other researchers found that when deprived of the cues provided by sunlight, organisms settle down to ‘free-running’ cycles that are close to, but rarely exactly, 24 hours long. In the case of humans, the cycle is typically around 24.5 hours long. This is the so-called ‘circadian’ cycle (from the Latin meaning ‘about a day’), the length of which is generated by the mysterious internal ‘clock’.
\nDuring the late 1960s, chronobiologists believed they had found the ‘clock’, in the form of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a collection of nerves in a region of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Linked to photosensitive cells in the eye, the SCN senses daylight and triggers the release of hormones like melatonin, which keep body functions in synchronization with the time of day. For a few years the SCN was regarded as the ultimate pacemaker – at least in higher organisms such as ourselves. But in 1971, scientists at the California Institute of Technology working with fruit flies found evidence for something truly amazing. Fruit flies appeared to have genes affecting the daily rhythm of their behavior – suggesting that there are ‘clocks’ inside each of their cells. Further evidence for this emerged in 1995, when researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital isolated nerve cells from the SCN, and found they kept up a circadian cycle without help from daylight. Finally in 1997, scientists at Northwestern University, Illinois, found a gene that regulates the daily rhythms of cellular activity in mammals.
\nThe details of how this gene, known as CLOCK, actually works are still being investigated, but they could culminate in better ways of coping with shift-work and jet-lag. Professor Takahashi, who led the research, says that now that we know that circadian clocks exist throughout our bodies, we will need new strategies and therapeutics to reset all of our cells. But how do all the biochemical ‘clocks’ inside their cells stay in synchronization and why did organisms bother to acquire a link with sunlight? So far, no-one knows, though there are several theories. For example, sunlight might be useful in keeping the myriad cellular ‘clocks’ in lockstep.
\nIn the search for answers, researchers are studying the behavior of a microbe called cyanobacterium. In 2005, a team at Nagoya University, Japan, showed that chemical reactions between three proteins produced by this bacterium ebbed and flowed on a 24-hour cycle. Cyanobacterium is the oldest form of life on Earth, so this suggests that cellular ‘clocks’ have existed for over three billion years. All subsequent organisms have followed suit, says Professor Johnson of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. ‘Bacteria, fungi, plants and animals all appear to have evolved clock systems independently from each other.’ Quite why is still unknown. But one thing is clear: the daily routine of life is certainly not a modern invention.
" + } + ] + }, + "questionGroups": [ + { + "groupId": "group-1", + "kind": "matching", + "questionIds": [ + "q1", + "q2", + "q3", + "q4", + "q5" + ], + "bodyHtml": "Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs, A–H.
\nWhich paragraph contains the following information?
\nWrite the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 14–18 on your answer sheet.
\n| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | \n|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 support for an earlier finding from experiments on insects | \n | |||||||
| 15 criticism of the way some research data was analysed | \n | |||||||
| 16 reference to a basic test on a plant | \n | |||||||
| 17a statement that the length of natural cycles varies slightly between living things | \n | |||||||
| 18 reference to a theory that became popular with the public | \n |
Complete the summary below.
\nChoose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
\nWrite your answers in boxes 19–22 on your answer sheet.
\nTowards the end of the 1960s, research into the SCN, which is located in the hypothalamus, led chronobiologists to believe they had found the internal ‘clock’ at last. Their theory was based on the fact that certain hormones that regulate the timing of physical functions are controlled by the SCN. The SCN is able to perceive 19 as a result of connections to the eye.
\nSeveral years later, research involving 20 showed that the timing of their normal actions was regulated by certain 21 , or ‘clocks’, in their cells. Thus the internal ‘clock’ is not an individual mechanism, as previously thought, but exists within each cell. Other scientists went on to conduct experiments in the dark that proved that a 22 was maintained by individual SCN cells.
\nChoose TWO letters, A–E.
\nWrite the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.
\nWhich TWO of the following problems are stated as being linked with the internal ‘clock’?
\n\nChoose TWO letters, A–E.
\nWrite the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
\nWhich TWO of the following issues relating to internal ‘clocks’ remain to be solved, according to information in the passage?
\n\nYou should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
\n \nIt is more than 100 years since the death of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson on the South Pacific island of Samoa. And it seems that time has not been kind to Stevenson's memory. Immediately after his death, his family and friends set to work to fashion the legend of Robert Louis Stevenson, or R.L.S. as he became known—one of the few writers familiar from his initials alone. Subsequent works of biography then turned him into a writer of almost religious importance. One example was critic Balfour, who in 1901 portrayed Stevenson's family as ministering angels to the dying genius during his final illness. Similarly, the biographer Crouch absurdly overstated Stevenson's significance by placing him in the same company as those most revered names in English literature, Shakespeare and Keats. The reaction to this nonsense was a number of highly critical assessments of Stevenson's legacy in the 1920s.
\nNormally, the critical pendulum can be relied on to swing back again, but there are several aspects of Stevenson's work that have until recently acted against a more balanced appraisal. First is the allegation that Stevenson was a mere master of linguistic fireworks who lacked moral depth. Some critics accused him of being a literary charlatan, juggling words very prettily to strike effects that overawed an ignorant public and served to distract from the inadequacy of his ideas.
\nThen there has been a prejudice against the adventure story as the proper medium for deep moral seriousness, a prejudice which is still extremely influential today. It seems that we can accept that an adventure film can successfully express profound moral truths, but we reject the same idea for a book. The absurdity of this becomes apparent when we think of writers like Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene, but it is no use pretending that this bias against adventure stories is not part of our high culture. A further problem is that Stevenson has often not found favour in the land of his birth because his conservatism so often collides with the strong radical tradition in Scotland. His many escapist stories and preference for living abroad have led to accusations that he camouflaged Scotland's real problems. Lastly, the high adventure of Stevenson's own lifestyle has sometimes obscured his output. His globe-trotting, and above all the final phase of his life in Samoa, tended to make his own life a greater story than any he could devise. This was precisely what his friends feared would happen towards the end of his short life: his art might be overwhelmed by the drama of life in Samoa.
\nOne consequence of this has been that Stevenson's influence on other writers has too often been neglected. The writer and poet Oscar Wilde was deeply influenced by Stevenson, even though he declared that Stevenson would have produced better work if he had lived in London rather than Samoa. Stevenson tends to stick in the throat even of those writers who would like to spit him out, such as Shaw, who claimed to have learned from him that the romantic hero is always mocked by reality. Likewise, the writer Galsworthy, who was a determined critic, later changed his mind and said that the superiority of Stevenson over the novelist Hardy was that Stevenson was all life and Hardy, all death. The influence on the novelist Chesterton would also repay detailed study, for it was through him that Stevenson has managed to cross the ages, emerging as an influence on the modernist movement and our own contemporary Latin American school of magical realism.
\nWhen making an assessment of his life and work, one question must inevitably be asked: was Robert Louis Stevenson Scotland's greatest writer of English prose? For most commentators this honour falls to Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe among many other classic novels, and it is true that in terms of craftsmanship, precision and the ability to minutely regulate language to create the desired effect, Scott takes the prize. However, this is not the same thing at all as inherent talent: by way of comparison one may take the example of the two great Russian composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev, of whom the former had learned more precise skills of execution but the latter's intrinsic genius was greater, and so it seems to be with Scott and Stevenson. Admittedly, Scott's detailed style does permit his stories to explore levels of tragedy that are beyond Stevenson's reach, but in this regard they have the musty smell of the museum, somehow artificial and removed from modern-day reality. On the other hand, Stevenson's skill with plotting and narrative give his books a timeless quality, so that they still live today. And Stevenson was also the shrewder judge of behaviour and psychology. For example, his compelling description of a man with a split personality in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has proved so accessible and accurate that the expression “Jekyll and Hyde” has entered common English usage. Even if we do not see a revival of critical interest in this great Scottish writer, it is to be hoped that readers go back to Robert Louis Stevenson's magnificent stories and reassess this neglected genius.
\n\n \n \n \n " + "html": "You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
\nThe writer of some of the best-known stories in the English language, including Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
\nIt is more than 100 years since the death of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson on the South Pacific island of Samoa, and it seems that time has not been kind to Stevenson’s memory. Immediately after his death, his family and friends set to work to fashion the legend of Robert Louis Stevenson, or R. L. S., as he became known, one of the few writers familiar from his initials alone. Subsequent works of biography then turned him into a writer of almost religious importance. One example was literary critic Balfour, who in 1901 portrayed Stevenson’s family as ministering angels to the dying genius during his final illness. Similarly, the biographer Crouch absurdly overstated Stevenson’s significance by placing him in the same company as those most revered names in English literature: Shakespeare and Keats. The reaction to this nonsense was a number of highly critical assessments of Stevenson’s legacy in the 1920s.
\nNormally, the critical pendulum can be relied on to swing back again, but there are several aspects of Stevenson’s work that have, until recently, acted against a more balanced appraisal. First is the allegation that Stevenson was a mere master of linguistic fireworks, who lacked moral depth. Some critics accused him of being a literary charlatan, of juggling words very prettily to strike effects which overawed an ignorant public, and served to distract from the inadequacy of his ideas.
\nThen there has long been a prejudice against the adventure story as the proper medium for deep moral seriousness, a prejudice which is still extremely influential today. It seems that we can accept that an adventure film can successfully express profound moral truths, but we reject the same idea for a book. The absurdity of this becomes apparent when we think of writers like Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene, but it is no use pretending that this bias against adventure stories is not part of our high culture. A further problem is that Stevenson has often not found favour in the land of his birth because his conservatism so often collides with the strong radical tradition in Scotland. His many escapist stories and preference for living abroad have led to accusations that he camouflaged Scotland’s problems. Lastly, the high adventure of Stevenson’s own lifestyle has sometimes obscured his output, his life a greater story than any he could devise. This was precisely what his friends feared would happen towards the end of his short life: his art might be overwhelmed by the drama of life in Samoa.
\nOne consequence of this has been that Stevenson’s influence on other writers has too often been neglected. The writer and poet Oscar Wilde was deeply influenced by Stevenson, even though he declared that Stevenson would have produced better work if he had lived in London rather than Samoa. Stevenson tends to stick in the throat even of those writers who would like to spit him out, such as Shaw, who claimed to have learned from him that the romantic hero is always mocked by reality. Likewise, the writer Galsworthy, who began as a determined critic, later changed his mind and said that the superiority of Stevenson over the novelist Hardy was that Stevenson was all life and Hardy all death. The influence on the novelist Chesterton would also repay detailed study, for it was through him that Stevenson has managed to cross the ages, emerging as an influence on the modernist movement and our own contemporary Latin American school of “magical realism”.
\nWhen making an assessment of his life and work one question must inevitably be asked: was Robert Louis Stevenson Scotland’s greatest writer of English prose? For most commentators this honour falls to Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe among many other classic novels, and it is true that in terms of craftsmanship, precision and the ability to minutely regulate language to create the desired effect, Scott takes the prize. However, this is not the same thing at all as inherent talent; by way of comparison one may take the example of the two great Russian composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev, of whom the former had learned more precise skills of execution but the latter’s intrinsic genius was greater, and so it seems to be with Scott and Stevenson. Admittedly, Scott’s detailed style does permit his stories to explore levels of tragedy that are beyond Stevenson’s reach, but in this regard they have the musty smell of the museum, somehow artificial and removed from modern day reality. On the other hand, Stevenson’s skill with plotting and narrative gives his books a timeless quality, so that they still live today, and Stevenson was also the shrewder judge of behaviour and psychology. For example, his compelling descriptions of a man with a split personality in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have proved so accessible and accurate that the expression “Jekyll and Hyde” has entered common English usage. Even if we do not see a revival of critical interest in this great Scottish writer, it is to be hoped that readers go back to Robert Louis Stevenson’s magnificent stories and reassess this neglected genius.
" } ] }, @@ -35,8 +35,8 @@ "q4", "q5" ], - "bodyHtml": "Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
\n27 In the opinion of the writer, the biographers Balfour and Crouch
\n \n28 What is the writer's main point about Stevenson in the second paragraph?
\n \n29 According to the writer, the adventure story
\n \n30 What point does the writer make about Stevenson and Scotland?
\n \n31 According to the writer, Stevenson's own lifestyle
\n \nChoose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
\nWrite the correct letter in boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet.
\n27\tIn the opinion of the writer, the biographers Balfour and Crouch
\n\n28\tWhat is the writer’s main point about Stevenson in the second paragraph?
\n\n29\tAccording to the writer, the adventure story
\n\n30\tWhat point does the writer make about Stevenson and Scotland?
\n\n31\tAccording to the writer, Stevenson’s own lifestyle
\n\nDo the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
\nIn boxes 32–35 on your answer sheet, write:
\n32 Although Oscar Wilde admired Robert Louis Stevenson very much, he believed Stevenson could have written greater works.
\n \n33 Robert Louis Stevenson encouraged Oscar Wilde to start writing in the first place.
\n \n34 Galsworthy respected Hardy's works more than Stevenson's.
\n \n35 There is a need to study in detail Stevenson's influence on Chesterton.
\n \nDo the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
\nIn boxes 32–35 on your answer sheet write
\nYES\tif the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO\tif the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN\tif it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
32\tAlthough Oscar Wilde admired Stevenson’s work, he believed Stevenson could have written something better.
33\tStevenson encouraged Oscar Wilde to start writing.
34\tGalsworthy had greater respect for Hardy than Stevenson.
35\tMore research is needed regarding Stevenson’s influence on Chesterton.
Complete the summary using the list of words, A–I, below.
\nA lot of people believe that Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson are the most influential writers in the history of Scotland, but Sir Walter Scott is more proficient in, while Stevenson has better. Scott's books illustrate, especially in terms of tragedy, but many readers prefer Stevenson's. What's more, Stevenson's understanding of gave his works a unique expression of the Scottish people.
\nComplete the summary using the list of words and phrases, A–I below.
\nWrite the correct letter, A–I, in boxes 36–40 on your answer sheet.
\nOpinions differ as to whether Robert Louis Stevenson or Sir Walter Scott should be considered Scotland’s best writer. Scott had greater , but Stevenson had more , and the same distinction can be made between the two composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev. It is true that Scott’s books showed more when it came to tragedy, though in an old-fashioned way, while Stevenson’s books are still popular because of his . And Stevenson’s understanding of has resulted in the widespread use of an expression from one of his books.
\nYou should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
\nStephen Oppenheimer explores the origins of human speech
\nWhen did we start talking to each other and how long did it take us to become so good at it? One view of language development, held by linguists such as Noam Chomsky and anthropologists such as Richard Klein, is that language, specifically the spoken word, appeared suddenly among modern humans a mere 35,000 to 50,000 years ago and that the ability to speak words and use syntax was recently genetically hard-wired into our brains in a kind of language organ. This view of language is associated with the old idea that logical thought is dependent on words, a concept originating with Plato and much in vogue in the 19th century – that is, animals do not speak because they do not think. However, the abstract thought demonstrated in 20th-century experiments with chimpanzees and bonobos put this theory in doubt.
\nAn alternative to the Chomskian theory is that language developed as a series of inventions. This was first suggested by the 18th-century philosopher Etienne Bonnot de Condillac. He argued that spoken language had developed out of gesture language (langage d’action) and that both were inventions arising initially from the simple association between action and object. The theory sees gesture language as arising originally among apes as sounds accompanying gestures, with these sounds gradually becoming coded into ‘words’ as the new skill drove its own evolution. Subsequently, coded words developed into deliberate, complex communication. Evolutionary pressures promoted the development of an anatomy geared to speech – the larynx, vocal muscles and a specific part of the brain immediately next to the part responsible for gestures.
\nThe view that spoken language was ultimately a cultural invention like tool-making, which then drove the biological evolution of the brain and vocal apparatus, seems obvious when you think of the development of different languages. The unique features of a language such as French clearly do not result from any physiological aspect of being French but are the cultural possessions of the French-speaking community. Each language evolves from one generation to the next, constantly adapting itself to cope with the learning biases of each new set of young, immature minds.
\nThose anthropologists and fossil experts who accept that speech started early still tend to think of language evolution as a gradual 2-million-year process, with our own modern human species (Homo sapiens) way out at the top. A major reason for this is the perception that brain growth among humans was gradual over a similar period. Several recent changes in the fossil evidence, though, bring this into doubt.
\nThe first of these is a re-dating of soil layers from the famous Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, where many key fossil remains have been found. A number of big-brained human species appear to be much older than previously thought, with several specimens dating from over a million years ago. When brain sizes for all available skulls are plotted against time using the revised dates, the result is startling: the bulk of increases in brain size was over by around 1.2 million years ago, with some African human species having brain volumes easily within the modern human range by that time.
\nSo, we have the paradox that over the period when our brain was growing most rapidly, our material cultural development, as measured by stone tools, advanced only marginally; then, over a million years later, when the development of anatomically modern humans finally started to accelerate, artistically and technologically, our brains were actually getting smaller.
\nThe additional piece of evidence that makes this paradox all the more significant is that brain size did not just leap between human species in a direct line of ascent towards ourselves. Over the period from 2.5 to 1.5 million years ago, brains were growing more rapidly than at any time since, within all the different human species. The logical conclusion is that there must have been a unique new behaviour driving brain growth, shared between all species of humans.
\nSo, what was driving rapid brain growth right at the beginning, 2.5 million years ago? The answer may have been staring us in the face. Namely, that not only early humans but their ancestors had started the trend in the very useful skill of verbal communication. Around 2.5 million years ago, the weather took a decided turn for the worse, becoming more variable and colder and drier. The search for food became more taxing, and there would have been a real need to communicate more effectively and cope with the worsening environment in a co-operative way. The near maximum in brain size achieved by 1.2 million years ago indicates that those early ancestors could already have been talking perfectly well. Our brain, which had developed to manipulate and organise complex symbolic aspects of speech internally, could now be turned to a variety of other tasks.
\nSo what happened in the million-year gap after that? Why did we take so long to get to the moon? Cultural evolution aided by communication and teaching is a cumulative interactive process. If each new generation invented just one new skill or idea and passed it on with the rest to their children and cousins, you could predict exactly the same curve of cultural advance as we see from the archaeological and historical record – first very slow, then faster and faster.
" + } + ] + }, + "questionGroups": [ + { + "groupId": "group-1", + "kind": "matching", + "questionIds": [ + "q1", + "q2", + "q3", + "q4", + "q5", + "q6" + ], + "bodyHtml": "Look at the following statements (Questions 27–32) and the list of people below.
\nMatch each statement with the correct person, A, B, or C.
\nWrite the correct letter, A, B, or C, in boxes 27–32 on your answer sheet.
\nNB You may use any letter more than once.
\nList of People
\n| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 The development of human speech can be traced back to apes. | \n | ||
| 28 Animal research is essential for understanding the development of human speech. | \n | ||
| 29 Language emerged relatively late in human evolution. | \n | ||
| 30 Non-verbal language was essential in the development of verbal language. | \n | ||
| 31 The development of different languages is related more to environmental than biological factors. | \n | ||
| 32 The ability to think rationally is linked to the ability to speak. | \n |
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
\nIn boxes 33–37 on your answer sheet, write
\nYES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
33 Anthropologists now agree on the point in time when speech began.
34 The rate of human technological development in ancient times was directly related to brain size.
35 The period when the brain was growing most quickly has now been identified.
36 The development of agriculture influenced language development.
37 Cultural development has been seen to follow a particular pattern throughout human history.
Look at the following statements (Questions 38–40) and the list of dates below.
\nMatch each statement with the correct date, A, B, C or D.
\nWrite the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 38–40 on your answer sheet.
\nNB You may use any letter more than once.
\nList of Dates
\n| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 Revised fossil evidence indicates most brain growth was complete. | \n | |||
| 39 The writer suggests that language development was complete. | \n | |||
| 40 An external change may have influenced language development. | \n |
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