Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Reading Day 1
Reading Day 1
The 16th and 17th centuries saw two great pioneers of modern science: Galileo
and Gilbert. The impact of their findings is eminent. Gilbert was the first
modern scientist, also the accredited father of the science of electricity and
magnetism, an Englishman of learning and a physician at the court of
Elizabeth. Prior to him, all that was known of electricity and magnetism was
what the ancients knew, nothing more than that the lodestone possessed
magnetic properties and that amber and jet, when rubbed, would attract bits of
paper or other substances of small specific gravity. However, he is less well
known than he deserves.
B
He was a very successful and eminent doctor. All this culminated in his election
to the president of the Royal Science Society. He was also appointed personal
physician to the Queen (Elizabeth I), and later knighted by the Queen. He
faithfully served her until her death. However, he didn’t outlive the Queen for
long and died on November 30, 1603, only a few months after his appointment
as personal physician to King James.
D
Gilbert was first interested in chemistry but later changed his focus due to the
large portion of mysticism of alchemy involved (such as the transmutation of
metal). He gradually developed his interest in physics after the great minds of
the ancient, particularly about the knowledge the ancient Greeks had about
lodestones, strange minerals with the power to attract iron. In the meantime,
Britain became a major seafaring nation in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was
defeated, opening the way to British settlement of America. British ships
depended on the magnetic compass, yet no one understood why it worked. Did
the Pole Star attract it, as Columbus once speculated; or was there a magnetic
mountain at the pole, as described in Odyssey, which ships would never
approach, because the sailors thought its pull would yank out all their iron nails
and fittings? For nearly 20 years, William Gilbert conducted ingenious
experiments to understand magnetism. His works include On the Magnet,
Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet of the Earth.
E
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings
below.
Write the correct number i-x in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
2. Read the text and mark the correct answer (a–c) to each question (14–15).
Estelle Dupont was 100 years old in 2000. She was born near Bordeaux in France, where
her father was a rich businessman. Today she lives in an old people’s home in Paris.
“My father was a rich businessman and we lived in a chateau about ten kilometres from
Bordeaux. Our home was very comfortable. The house was very big – there were twenty
bedrooms, beautiful gardens and lots of servants. But my childhood wasn’t happy. I was
an only child, and my mother was always ill. She died when I was eight, and my father
died two years later when I was ten. It was a very bad time. I was a very unhappy child,
but life is better now.”
14 Where did she live when she was a child?
a) She lived in the city of Bordeaux, France.
b) She lived in an old people’s home in Paris.
c) She lived in a chateau near Bordeaux.
15 What happened to her parents?
a) Estelle’s mother died two years after her father.
b) Her father died two years after her mother.
c) She was an only child.
3 Read the text and choose the best answer (a–d) for each question (16–17).
Tim Berners-Lee looks ordinary – he is about 45 years old and has brown hair. His life is
quite normal – he was born in England, but his home is now in Massachusetts, USA. But,
in 1989, Tim had a very important idea. He invented the World Wide Web.
Tim went to school in London. His parents both worked with computers, so it isn’t
surprising that he loved computers from an early age. When he was eighteen, he left
school and went to Oxford University, where he studied Physics. At Oxford he became
more and more interested in computers, and he made his first computer from an old
television. He graduated in 1976 and got a job with a computer company in Dorset,
England. In 989, he went to work in Switzerland, where he first had the idea of an
international information network linked by computer …and he decided to call it the
World Wide Web. In 1994, he went to live in the United States, where he now works. In
1995, he wrote an article in the New York Times where he said ‘The Web is a Universe of
information: it is for everyone.’ His idea of a web where people from all over the world
can exchange information, is now real.
4. Read the four texts quickly and choose the correct answer (a–d) for each
question (18-19).
During the last ten years, Ameet had had ten different jobs: he has worked in an import-
export business, he has been an estate agent and now he has just started his own company
which sells mobile phones – but he hasn’t made a million pounds yet!
Edward has moved to the United States, where he now works, designing computer
games. His most popular game, Death Rider, has already sold over ten million copies,
and has made him very rich! He isn’t married, in fact, he’s never had a girlfriend, and he
still spend most of his time playing computer games in his bedroom.
Lucy is an actress and a part-time waitress. In the last few years, she’s appeared in
several plays and a couple of TV commercials – but there has been no call from
Hollywood yet!
Since leaving university with a brilliant degree, Kate has worked for Greenpeace and
other similar organisations, first as a volunteer and now as a manager. She’s just had her
first baby.
In the last ten years, Hannah has been married three times, and has lived in Italy, Egypt,
France and Australia. At present, she’s running a bar on the Greek island of Kos with her
third husband, Nikos.
20 people who have no permanent home, but move from place to place according to the
time of year.
a) nomads b) Inuit c) Alaskans