Reading-Test 10
Reading-Test 10
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage I on pages 2 and 3.
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people to maintain records of the harvest and taxes. Eventually, formalized structures of
government were established as people settled in one area.
The arrival of agriculture meant that, for the first time, our ancestors had more food
than they could eat immediately. This, combined with the seasonality of production, led
them to discover methods of preserving food: smoking, drying, adding acid by
fermentation or adding salt. These four methods all share one feature in common: they
make the food a more hostile environment for bacteria that can cause it to spoil They
also tend to slow down any natural chemical reactions in the food that would cause
decay.
Although foods today are still preserved in the ancient ways. two more recent methods
of preserving food have become more common: canning and freezing. Canning was
invented by a Frenchman, Nicholas Appert, in the early-19th century He sealed food in
bottles fabricated from glass and then heated them in boiling water to cook the
contents. Appert's method had great advantages over older methods of food
preservation: it could be applied to a wide range of foods and the flavor of the food as
well as the texture were similar to the freshly cooked product. His idea was soon copied
be Englishman, Peter Durand. Until this point containers had weighed too much to be
widely used, but he produced the first ones which were light and resistant to damage.
Two years later, in 1812, two Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, started the
commercial canning of food, although the real take-off in popularity of canning had to
wait until the can opener was invented in 1855. Up to this time, cans were opened with
a chisel which was used to break open the top when hit with a hammer. Canning is an
extremely effective way of preserving food: one can which contained meat dating from
1824 was opened in 1939 and the contents were still in good condition.
In the 21st century, the dominance of canning as a method of food preservation has
been overtaken by another technology: freezing. Chilling food to keep it fresh is an old
idea. The earliest mentions of icehouses, thick-walled buildings, half underground, date
back to 1,700BC in northwest Iran. In early 16th-century Italy, water was mixed with
chemicals to lower its freezing point to -18 degrees Celsius, and several centuries later
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frozen fish and other goods were transported by ship from Australia to England. But the
modern frozen food industry was started in the 1920s by an American, Clarence
Birdseye. While Birdseye was on a fishing trip with the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, he
observed that very rapid freezing creates smaller ice crystals and therefore causes less
damage to food. This was something he had not expected. Nevertheless, the big growth
in demand for frozen food came about with the arrival of freezers in the homes of
ordinary people- The advantages of frozen over canned food include the fact that the
flavor and consistency are often identical to the equivalent fresh product, and that
freezing can be used to preserve a huge variety of foods.
Questions 1 - 5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage I ?
In boxes I -5 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the
information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the
information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
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Questions 6 — 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6-13 on your answer sheet.
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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reacting
Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.
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beyond itself— namely, for what it can be used to do. We know that pictures are
used as instruments in advertising, and the objective is always to persuade us to
buy something. Similarly, music can be written chiefly to accompany dancing, or
as a soundtrack to a movie. A play can be written to point out to the theatre
audience a social injustice or other problems that should be dealt with. But even
though the arts can sometimes be instrumental, that fact is not essential to their
nature. What the arts are 'good for' arises from their being an end in themselves,
or more accurately, representing many different things that are valuable for their
own sakes - such as, for instance, the creation of beauty.
D. The phrase 'the arts' includes painting, sculpture, music, literature, dance and
theatre performance, and whatever else (to quote the famous US artist Andy
Warhol) anyone can get away with in calling their creation a contribution to 'the
arts'. But the generalization that the arts, whatever else they are, are always an
end in themselves, applies to them all The alts are one major form of response to
the world. They are often an attempt to capture an aspect of the world, to draw
attention to something about it to comment on it, to
present a surprising or fresh angle on it, to represent it for the sake of exploring
something about it, or enjoying or celebrating it. They can help people to focus
on, for example, the color or shape of an object, its eccentricity or typicality, and
the interest or perhaps disgust it provokes in them.
E. For a loose comparison, think of laughing at a joke. We do not laugh so that we
can achieve a further goal — in order to be healthy or relaxed, say, even if we
thereby succeed in being healthier or more relaxed — but simply because the
joke has elicited that reaction. But although it is merely a reaction. laughing is, in
fact, good for something nevertheless; it does make people feel better. The arts
are a reaction in the same way. French artist Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-
Victoire repeatedly because he was fascinated by it, not because he thought that
painting it would say something about politics or society or human hopes. Being
fascinated by something, attracted to it, repelled by it, keen to reveal an unusual
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aspect of it, are all responses to that thing; the making ofthe arts is one
outstanding way of expressing such responses.
F. But the arts are a response not only to things in the world but also to experience
of the world, which lies inside the artist himself. And they are also often an
expression of what presses from within the artist without being elicited by
externals. Music is a prime example. A symphony, unless it is devised to represent
bird song, rain, the sea and the like, is an abstract expression of a composers
conception. We may be able to describe what the Russian composer Tchaikovsky
is doing in his ballet music, but how can we describe what he is expressing in his
piano concertos? Composers may experiment with melody and rhythm in very
abstract, sometimes mathematical, ways.
G. When artists get to work responding to and expressing ideas, whether or not they
also want to make a point. entertain, distract,' support a revolution and the rest,
they are producing something that someone else will react to in some way. They
seek to connect with their audience and express an idea or emotion which has the
capacity to enrich our experience of life itself.
Questions 14— 18
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 a claim that artists may have no clear objective when creating a
piece of art
15 a description of how artists hope to benefit other people
16 a comparison between the arts and things made to perform a particular function
17 a claim that it's possible to convince the world that anything you have made is
a work of art
18 an example of something that has an unintentional benefit for us
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Questions 19 — 22
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.
The arts and human experience
Some people may claim that the arts serve no useful purpose, that they achieve nothing
measurable and help nobody. But there are many clear examples of their usefulness,
such as the inter-dependent relationship between music and 19 or
between the visual arts and the 20 business. A dramatist may use a 21
to draw our attention to various issues in society, for example some kind of
injustice which needs correcting. Apart from these obvious practical benefits, there are
other benefits that we gain from things, such as the 22 we find in an artist's
work.
Questions 23 and 24
Choose TWO letters, A-E
Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.
In paragraph D, which TWO of the following effects does the writer say the arts can
have?
A They can interest people from all over the world.
B They can make us see things from a different perspective.
C They can inspire us to take up an artistic activity ourselves.
D They can encourage us to think about our reactions to things around us.
E They can draw our attention to serious global issues.
Questions 25 and 26
Choose TWO letters, A-E
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements about composers and music does the writer
make?
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A Music tends to spring from the composer's individual experiences.
B Composers need to structure music very carefully.
C Music can be quite unrelated to the natural world.
D Music finds its best expression in a symphony.
E Composers are good at depicting the world around us.
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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 on pages 10 and 1 1
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conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the famous
eighteenth-century German philosopher, once said: that the person who knows only
one language does not truly know that language. Research suggests that bilingual
children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing
information through two different languages.
Children who come to school with a solid foundation in their mother tongue develop
stronger literacy abilities in the school language. When parents and other caregivers
(e.g. grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss
issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue, children come to school
well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally. Children's
knowledge and skills transfer across languages from the mother tongue to the school
language. Transfer across languages can be two-way: both languages nurture each other
when the educational environment permits children access to both languages.
Some educators and parents are suspicious of mother tongue-based teaching programs
because they worry that they take time away from the majority language. For example,
in a bilingual program where 50% of the time is spent teaching through children's home
language and 50% through the majority language, surely children won't progress as far in
the latter? One of the most strongly established findings of educational research,
however, is that well-implemented bilingual programs can promote literacy and
subject-matter knowledge in a minority language without any negative effects on
children's development in the majority language. Within Europe, the Foyer program in
Belgium, which develops children's speaking and literacy abilities in three languages
(their mother tongue, Dutch and French), most clearly illustrates the benefits of bilingual
and trilingual education (see Cummins, 2000).
It is easy to understand how this happens. When children are learning through a
minority language, they are learning concepts and intellectual skills too. Pupils who
know how to tell the time in their mother tongue understand the concept of telling
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time. In order to tell time in the majority language they do not need to re-learn the
concept. Similarly, at more advanced stages, there is transfer across languages in other
skills, such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting details of a
written passage or story, and distinguishing fact from opinion. Studies of secondary
school pupils are providing interesting findings in this area, and it would be worth
extending this research.
Many people marvel at how quickly bilingual children seem to 'pick up' conversational
skills in the majority language at school (although it takes much longer for them to catch
up with native speakers in academic language skills). However, educators are often
much less aware of how quickly children can lose their ability to use their mother
tongue, even in the home context. The extent and rapidity of language loss will vary
according to the concentration of families from a particular linguistic group in the
neighborhood: Where the mother tongue is used extensively in the community, then
language loss among young children will be less. However, where language communities
are not concentrated in particular neighborhoods, children can lose their ability to
communicate in their mother tongue within two to three years of starting school. They
may retain receptive skills in the language but they will use the majority language in
speaking with their peers and siblings and in responding to their parents. By the time
children become adolescents, the linguistic division between parents and children has
become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently become alienated from the cultures of
both home and school, with predictable results.
Questions 27 — 30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet,
27 What point is the writer making in the second paragraph?
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A Some present studies on children's mother tongues are
misleading.
B A culturally rich education programme benefits some children
more than others.
C Bilingual children can make a valuable contribution to the wealth
of a country.
D The law on mother tongue use at school should be strengthened.
28 Why does the writer refer to something that Goethe said?
A to lend weight to his argument
B to contradict some research
C to introduce a new concept
D to update current thinking
29 The writer believes that when young children have a firm grasp of their mother
tongue
A they can teach older family members what they learn at school.
B they go on to do much better throughout their time at school.
C they can read stories about their cultural background.
D they develop stronger relationships with their family than with
their peers.
30 Why are some people suspicious about mother tongue-based teaching
programmes?
A They worry that children will be slow to learn to read in either
language.
They think that children will confuse words in the two
languages. They believe that the programmes will make
children less interested in their lessons.
They fear that the programmes will use up valuable time in the school day.
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Questions 31 — 35
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet.
Bilingual children
It has often been noted that bilingual children acquire the 31 to converse in
the majority language remarkably quickly. The fact that the mother tongue can
disappear at a similar 32 is less well understood. This phenomenon
depends to a certain extent on the proportion of people with the same linguistic
background that have settled in a particular 33 If this is limited, children
are likely to lose the active use of their mother tongue, and thus no longer employ it
even with 34 although they may still understand it. It follows that teenage
children in these circumstances experience a sense of 35…………….. in relation to all
aspects of their lives.
A teachers B school C dislocation
D rate E time F family
G communication H type I ability
J area
Question 36 - 40
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
36 Less than half the children who attend kindergarten in Toronto have English as
their mother tongue.
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37 Research proves that learning the host country language at school can have an
adverse effect on a child's mother tongue.
38 The Foyer programme is to be adopted by the French education system.
39 Bilingual children are taught to tell the time earlier than monolingual children.
40 Bilingual children can eventually apply reading comprehension strategies
acquired in one language when reading in the other.
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