WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is in 3 sections:
Reading Passage 1Questions 1-12
Reading Passage 2Questions 13-27
Reading Passage 3Questions 28-41
Remember to answer all the questions. If you are having trouble with a question, skip it and return to it later.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-12 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Saving the Unique Wildlife of the Galapagos Islands
When Charles Darwin, whose visit to the Galapagos Islands in 1835 inspired his monumental work on evolution, "The Origin of Species", arrived at the islands, there were fewer than 300 human inhabitants, and they had only been there for six years. Today, the permanent population has swelled to 16,109. This influx of people, combined with the approximately 65,000 eco-tourists who visit the islands annually，is placing a heavy strain on the natural balance of life in the Galapagos.
The Galapagos Islands are home to many unique species of animals, birds and plants, and have become known as a "natural laboratory of evolution." Darwin himself wrote, "In that little world within itself, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth." The best known of these creatures is the giant tortoise, which has evolved into 14 distinct forms on different islands. This process is known to scientists as "adaptive radiation". Other classic examples of this phenomenon are several species of plants, especially those of the daisy family, which have spread to different islands and adapted to the distinct conditions there. In addition, the 13 species of "Darwin's finches", small brown finches which eat different foods, are important to scientists trying to understand how evolution occurs.
The islands are volcanic in origin, and lie in the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 km from South America and straddling the Equator. There are 13 large islands, six smaller ones and 107 islets and rocks. They were officially "discovered " in 1535 by Tomas de Berlanga, bishop of Panama, when his ship was blown off course. There were no aboriginal human inhabitants, and no permanent population at all until Ecuador annexed the Galapagos in 1832, and used them as a penal colony.
One of the biggest threats to the wildlife and ecosystem as a whole on the Galapagos is the exploding population of domestic animals and plants which were brought in by early settlers and allowed to become feral ［"wild"］: Goats compete for grazing with native herbivores ［"vegetarian animals"］ such as tortoises and iguanas, and on some islands, have devastated natural vegetation. Feral dogs and cats prey on iguanas and sea bird chicks. Some introduced plants are seriously threatening the survival of native species.
In 1959, Ecuador designated 97% of the land area of the Galapagos as a national park. In 1986, the Galapagos Marine Resources Reserve was established to protect the waters around the archipelago ［"group of islands"］. The islands have also been recognized internationally as a Man and Biosphere reserve and as a World Heritage Site by Unesco. Ecuador manages the islands through the Galapagos National Park Service. In addition, the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS), which is operated by the international Charles Darwin Foundation, carries out scientific research and assists the Park Service in what the latter's director Juan Sanchez calls, "a successful example of cooperation between national and international agencies."
To ensure that the human population does not spiral out of control, Ecuador enacted the Special Law for the Galapagos in 1998. Under the law, the government recognizes as permanent residents of the islands only those who were born there to at least one resident parent; those who, on the date the law took effect, had lived in the Galapagos for five continuous years; and those married to a permanent resident. Meanwhile, the government is preparing a database of all permanent residents, who will be issued identification cards.
In order to boost the awareness of the fragile nature of the ecology on these unique islands, environmental impact assessments are regularly made by a team headed by Sanchez, and both locals and tourists are educated in the importance of conservation.
At the same time, eradication programs aimed at eliminating alien species are being put into effect, as well as strict quarantine inspections—even bacteria brought to the islands on the soles of tourists' shoes carry potential harm. An imaginative program encourages tour operators to purchase food and supplies locally. According to a spokesman for the CDRS, this will have the advantages of both aiding the local economy and avoiding possible transport of invasive species from the mainland.
The spokesman commented, "Though far more pristine than other archipelagos, the Galapagos are being degraded at an accelerating rate." All the experts agree that the principal threat to the bio-diversity of the Galapagos is the presence of alien plants, diseases, insects and other organisms that people bring inadvertently to the islands.
Questions 1-7
Use the information in the text to match the people (listed A-E) with opinions or deeds (listed 1-7) below. Write the appropriate letter (A-E) in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet. Some people may match more than one discovery.
A Charles Darwin
B Juan Sanchez
C Tomas de Berlanga
D The spokesman for the CDRS
E Unesco
Example Answer
The Galapagos are less spoiled than other groups of islands. D
1 The discovery of the Galapagos
2 The Galapagos Islands are a self-contained world.
3 National and international agencies cooperate successfully in the Galapagos.
4 Local purchasing will have a dual benefit for the islands.
5 Recognition of the islands as a World Heritage Site
6 The theory of evolution
7 Environmental impact assessments
Questions 8-10
Using the information in the passage, complete the table below. Write your answers in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet.
Area of the islands taken up by the national park 8
Number of types of giant Galapagos tortoise 9
Distance between the Galapagos and the mainland 10
Questions 11-12
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 11 and 12 on your answer sheet.
11 The biggest enemy of the unique Galapagos ecology is:
A 65,000 eco-tourists a year.
B alien organisms.
C eradication programs.
D feral dogs and cats.
12 To curb population growth on the Galapagos, the Ecuadorian government:
A has ordered people to live there for only five years.
B plans to issue identification cards.
C says that an outsider must be married to a permanent resident.
D enacted the Special Law for the Galapagos in 1998.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 13-27 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Doctors Divided Over Heart Pills
A group of drugs now being marketed in the United States under a variety of brand names have been proved to reduce deaths among heart-attack survivors by more than 40% over five years. The drugs are collectively known as statins, and are currently being taken by over 10 million Americans. Doctors are currently wondering if statins will be just as effective in preventing heart attacks in people who do not necessarily fit the profile of a "high-risk" patient.
The people the doctors are targeting for possible prescription of statins are those whose LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, is somewhat high, or their HDL, or "good" cholesterol is a little low. Again, maybe they have diabetes, which commonly leads to cardiovascular disease, but do not yet show symptoms of the latter.
A study report in the British Medical Journal concluded that statins could reduce by 30% the risk of dying from a heart attack, even among people with normal cholesterol levels and no signs of cardiovascular disease.
Leading pharmaceutical companies have gone so far as to petition the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow consumers to buy some low-dose statins without having to first obtain a physician's prescription, or "over the counter".
Statins work by partly blocking an enzyme, known as HMG, found in the liver that turns some of the food that you eat into cholesterol. The body, in fact, needs some cholesterol to produce hormones and Vitamin D. Excess cholesterol builds up in the arteries, reducing the blood flow and increasing the danger of heart disease. By slowing down the function of the HMG enzyme, statins reduce the amount of cholesterol entering the blood stream, and force the body to draw on the cholesterol already in the arteries to make up the shortfall in its needs. Thus, there is a regular clearing out of cholesterol from the arteries. Doctors emphasize that statins work best when a person adopts a low-fat diet.
There are, however, certain drawbacks to statins. Apart from the fact that they are expensive—about $3 per pill, and you would presumably have to take them for the rest of your life—they can cause liver damage or a breakdown of muscle tissue. Anyone taking statins needs to undergo periodic blood tests to check for signs of liver trouble. Most people on the pills report no complaints; those who do commonly list fatigue as the major side-effect.
Companies manufacturing dietary supplements became interested in statins when it was discovered that Chinese red yeast fermented on rice contains small amount of the same active ingredient found in statins. They then made a dietary supplement containing this ingredient and publicized it as a wonder drug for preventing heart attacks. The FDA banned its sale over the counter, and the two sides are still locked in a lengthy court case.
In the meantime, another intriguing possibility has convinced doctors that making statins more freely available may be a good thing. Research has shown that taking an aspirin a day can reduce a heart patient's risk of suffering a heart attack. Would combining aspirin with a statin have a powerful effect in preventing heart disease? Similarly, many cardiologists are impressed by the ability of a group of drugs called ACE inhibitors to normalize high blood pressure and reduce the strain on the heart. Do they work better alone, or would a combination of ACE inhibitors and statins enhance their efficacy?
Questions 13-19
The flow chart below outlines how statins work, as described in Reading Passage 2. Complete the flow chart. Choose your answers from the box at the bottom of the page and write your answers in boxes 13-19 on your answer sheet.
How Statins Work
Example Answer
An enzyme in the liver turns some of the food you eat into cholesterol
The body uses cholesterol to produce 13 and 14.
Excess cholesterol builds up in the 15, posing a risk of 16 disease.
Statins slow the action of 17.
The body 18 cholesterol from the blood to make up for the 19.
List of Words
FDA hormones "high-risk" cardiovascular LDL diet dying Vitamin D arteries fatigue heart HMG pills draw on doctors physicians shortfall HDL
Questions 20-23
Choose one phrase (A-H) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A-H) in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet. The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of points made by the writer.
NB there are more phrases A-H than sentences, so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.
20. Doctors are unsure whether statins can benefit...
21. Big pharmaceuticals companies want the US government to...
22. Chinese red yeast fermented on rice contains...
23. It is important for people using statins to...
List of Phrases
A. a variety of brand names
B. people with low levels of cholesterol
C. breakdown of muscle tissue
D. reduce the amount of cholesterol entering the blood stream
E. a statin ingredient
F. allow statins to be sold over the counter
G. normalize high blood pressure
H. receive regular blood tests to check for signs of liver trouble.
Questions 24-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 24-27 write
YES if the statement agrees with the information given
NO if the statement contradicts the information given
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this
24 Statins have no side effects.
25 A low-fat diet optimizes the function of statins.
26 Statins work better in combination with other drugs.
27 Statins are available in the US without a doctor's prescription.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-41 which are based on the Reading Passage 3 below.
Volunteer Vacationers
A) A growing number of Americans are using their holiday time not to laze on the beach or to frequent casinos but to restore old railways, snorkel for science and band rare birds. They are a group of individuals known as "volunteer vacationers," and many of them are professional people. "We've seen a huge increase in interest from professionals as well as others who want short-term meaningful vacations," said Christine Victorino of the International Volunteer Programs Association. Her group was formed to organize the non-profit bodies which arrange working vacations.
B) And these organizations want money as well as time: volunteers' contributions typically top US$1,500 for one week, and the air fare is extra. Altruism doesn't come cheap, but these vacations are partially tax-deductible, provided the volunteers put in five eight-hour days.
C) "If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd pay to pick weeds on a tropical island, I would have told them they were crazy," said Leonard Stone, a retired dentist from Chicago. Yet Stone and his wife each paid to go on a week-long Oceanic Society expedition to Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean. They worked on a tiny island helping ornithologists look after albatross nesting areas and counting chicks. Like most sites where volunteers work, the conditions were spartan; the volunteers lived in an army barracks dating from World War II. But Stone, who is an enthusiastic bird watcher, found it a worthwhile experience. He thoroughly enjoyed his daily access to the rare birds, and the lectures and films about wildlife arranged by the Society.
D) Some volunteers are motivated by a desire to lend a helping hand to the developing world. In the 16 years it's been in business, Global Volunteers has sent thousands of people all over the world on projects ranging from constructing a children's home in India to looking after orphans in Romania. Like other such organizations, Global Volunteers has trimmed the longer trips to accommodate professionals' busy schedules, and added less-strenuous options for retirees, who now make up one-third of its clients. Steve Rosenthal of Cross-cultural Solutions places vacationers on 21-day projects. Volunteers help women in India start small businesses or teach English to children in Ghana.
E) Rosenthal said that the number of students, professionals and retirees signing up for his trips has consistently doubled over the past five years. Many people agree that this seems to indicate a rising tide of disillusionment among Americans with their materialistic way of life. Once he explains that most of program fee funds community-based organizations in the host countries, the volunteers are quite happy to pay for a working holiday. "I'd rather be paying my vacation money to a non-profit company which is helping poor people than to a hotel corporation," said Ron Cooke, who is a veteran volunteer vacationer. He and his wife have counted birds in Costa Rica and trapped ocelots in Mexico. Cooke's last trip was an eight-day vacation helping the environmental group Earthwatch in the Caribbean. "We spent part of each day snorkeling and counting shellfish ". They also interviewed fishermen and made a survey of seashells, while camping on a Dominican Republic beach.
F) Not all the vacationers consider the vacations work; some of the programs are designed for hobbyists, or for people who want to learn a new skill. For example, each summer railway enthusiasts join in the ongoing restoration of a historic narrow-gauge railway in the southwest US. A special group of volunteer vacationers work on organic farms. In return, they learn about organic farming and get to eat a lot of healthy food.
Questions 28-32
Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs (A-F). Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. Paragraph D has been done for you as an example.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them. You may use any heading more than once.
List of Headings
i The psychology of volunteer vacationers
ii Paying to work
iii Benefits for volunteers
iv Helping poor countries
v Environmental tourism
vi Vacations to learn
vii The cost of volunteering
viii The attraction of non-profit bodies
ix Holidays with a difference
28 Paragraph A
29 Paragraph B
30 Paragraph C
Example Answer
Paragraph D iv
31 Paragraph E
32 Paragraph F
Questions 33-37
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 33-37 write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
Example Answer
Many professional people are attracted to volunteer vacations. YES
33 All volunteers enjoy their vacations.
34 There is a trend to keep volunteer vacations short.
35 People do not save money by volunteering.
36 The only attraction of volunteering is the chance to help others.
37 Non-profit associations are undermining regular tourism companies.
Questions 38-41
Choose one phrase (A-H) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A-H) in boxes 38-41 on your answer sheet. The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of points made by the writer.
NB There are more phrases A-H than sentences so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.
38 Spending one's vacation helping others...
39 Volunteers do not expect...
40 Volunteers are looking for...
41 Volunteer vacations are a sign of...
List of Phrases
A. doesn't come cheap
B. to eat a lot of healthy food
C. luxury conditions
D. growing awareness of the importance of the environment
E. to learn new skills
F. growing disillusion with America's material culture
G. to restore old railways
H. short but meaningful vacations
Academic Reading Test 2
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TESTING SYSTEM
ACADEMIC READING
TEST 2
TIME ALLOWED:1 hour
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 42
Instructions
WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is in 3 sections:
Reading Passage 1 Questions 1-14
Reading Passage 2 Questions 15-28
Reading Passage 3 Questions 29-42
Remember to answer all the questions. If you are having trouble with a question, skip it and return to it later.
READING PASSAGE 1
Read the passage below and answer Questions 1-14 that follow.
Wetland Archaeology
Excavating the Sweet Track, a Neolithic wooden road in Somerset, southwest England, archaeologists have to be suspended on planks above the remains, which have rotted so badly that they have the consistency of butter. The Sweet Track was discovered in an area of soggy peat. Wetland archaeology has one big advantage over dry-land archaeology: preservation. A whole range of materials—including most notably wood—is preserved that is not found in dry-land sites.
Over the past 20 years, the English Heritage foundation has conducted a massive Wetland Project, now coming to an end. What has come out of all this work? The work was divided into four areas: the Somerset Levels, Anglian Fenland, the North West, and Humberside.
A The Wetlands Project began in the Somerset levels, near Glastonbury. Here the valley of the River Brue (and others) is only just above sea level, and is still liable to flooding. In later prehistory, peat began to form, burying the sedges and reeds which formed the peat, and preserving the trackways that early man constructed across them. And since the water was anaerobic (did not permit air to pass through) any wooden artifacts were preserved. This was the site of the discovery in the late 19th century of the famous Iron Age "Lake Villages", first Glastonbury, then the two adjacent villages at Meare, which still remain the best preserved Iron Age villages yet discovered in this country. However, the peat that formed in the valleys was being cut away for use as garden fertiliser, so in the 1970s, John Coles, Professor of Prehistory at Cambridge University, began investigating these peat cuttings. He found that buried in the peat were numerous trackways, mostly of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages,where hurdles had been laid down leading across the rising peat from the high land on either side of the valley to the low islands in the middle of the valley.
The earliest of the trackways discovered so far is the Sweet Track. This was built in the winter or early spring of 3807 or 3806 BC—tree-ring dating enables us to give this very precise date. This makes it the earliest of all the timber trackways discovered in northern Europe—indeed it has been claimed to be the oldest road in the world. The track was discovered by the peat diggers and part of it was inevitably destroyed. However, the peat digging has now been stopped, so the rest of the trackway still remains, preserved in the peat. Nevertheless, the peat is drying out, and the trackway will crumble away unless it is kept wet. So a sprinkler system has been installed along its remaining length to keep it wet. If the drainage of our wetlands continues, it will only be by methods such as this that sites can be preserved.
B The biggest area of wetlands in England is known as the Fenland, the region around the Wash in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. Drainage began in the Roman period, and has been going on apace from the 17th century onwards, and today it is almost entirely dry land. English Heritage launched a massive field walking survey, and for six years David Hall and his team walked over 200,000 hectares of land, discovering over 2,000 sites, of which 41 were test-excavated. A big surprise was the number of Iron Age sites; the Romans were not the first to settle in the area. Among the more spectacular sites were the salterns, where salt was extracted from the sea and traded inland. These began in the Iron Age, and by the late Roman period some were on an almost industrial scale.
C The project was then extended to the northwest of England. Here the problems were very different. Instead of huge flat expanses, there were numerous smaller bog or mires. These were of two types. There were the valley mires, many of them essentially extensions of the Lake District, where peat had built up in valleys that might otherwise have held lakes; then there were the larger raised mires where the peat had grown up mainly through the nourishment of rainfall. There are a number of these both in Cumberland and in Cheshire. The most famous is Lindow Moss, in Cheshire, from which two human bodies were extracted in the 1980s (now in the British Museum). The men had been killed violently, perhaps as a part of a ritual sacrifice to the gods. More recently, the head of a cow was found in the course of commercial peat extraction in the Solway Moss in Cumbria. The head was radiocarbon dated to around 800 AD. Only the head was recovered; was this also some form of ritual sacrifice?
D The final area to be investigated was the basin of the River Humber. At the end of the last ice age, around 9000 BC, the melting ice formed a large but short-lived lake named Lake Humber, stretching from Hull across nearly to Doncaster, and up to York. In the following millennia the sea level rose, the Humber estuary became tidal, and the former Lake Humber became a very extensive peat marsh. The major site for preservation has been at Sutton Common. This was the site of an early Iron Age marsh fort, that was excavated by Sheffield University from 1987 to 1993.
E How are we to preserve the dramatic archaeological remains hidden in our wetlands? By themselves, archaeologists are unlikely to have sufficient political clout to do much preservation. We are far more likely to be successful if we join other interests, notably wildlife and bird lovers.In particular we need to look at the "Ramsar" Convention on Wetlands. This was established at a conference held at Ramsar in Iran in 1971, and now there are numerous "Ramsar sites" all over the world where wetlands are preserved—the equivalent of World Heritage Sites. Unfortunately the Ramsar Convention focuses on safeguarding the natural environment of wetlands and their biodiversity. Archaeology is not directly included in the convention, but archaeologists are working hard to ensure that when information sheets are drawn up for for Ramsar sites, archaeological interests are included.
Questions 1-5
The reading passage "Wetland Archaeology" has five sections A-E. In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet write the appropriate letter to show in which section you can find a discussion of the following points. You may use any letter more than once.
1 International conservation efforts
2 Techniques for preserving wetland sites
3 Evidence of industrial activity
4 Clues to ancient religion
5 Ancient road-building techniques
Questions 6-11
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in the reading passage? In boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet write:
T if the statement agrees with the writer
F if the statement does not agree with the writer
NG if there is no information about this in the passage
6 Humans settled in Britain at the end of the Ice Age.
7 The Fenland sites date from Roman times.
8 The oldest road in the world is in Britain.
9 Archeological relics deteriorate more rapidly in water.
10 Archaeologists are the driving force in preservation work.
11 The formation of peat has played a major role in preserving archaeological relics.
Questions 12-14
Use information from the reading passage to complete the following sentences. USE NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER. Write your answers in boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet.
12 Many wetland sites have been discovered accidentally by people .
13 The Fenland is unusual for its numerous .
14 The age of the Solway Cow was found by the method of .
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-28 which are based on Reading Passage 2.
Is There Water on Mars?
1. A large number of photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft suggest that even today water may be flowing up from the interior of Mars, and streaming onto the surface—dramatically increasing the likelihood that at least part of the planet is biologically alive. "If this proves to be the case," said Ed Weiler, of NASA's Office of Space science, "it has profound implications for the possibility of life ［on Mars］."
2. Finding liquid water on Mars' surface has never been easy—mostly because it simply can't exist there. The modern Martian atmosphere has barely 1% the density of the Earth's, and the planet's average temperature hovers around —55 degrees C. In an environment as harsh as this, any water that did appear would either vaporize into space or freeze solid. What scientists who studying Mars have always been looking for instead are clues that there was water in the planet's distant past: In fact, they admit that there may have been oceans at one time on Mars.
3. The 65,000 images, which the Surveyor has beamed home since it was launched in 1998, show plenty of channels and terraces on the surface of Mars. But a handful of the pictures took the scientists by surprise. Besides looking fairly new, the channels are mainly located near the poles of Mars, where the temperature is coldest. Scientists have long assumed that if underground water was going to bubble up on Mars, it would have to do so somewhere in the comparatively balmy equatorial zones, where temperatures at high noon in midsummer may approach 20 degrees C. Moreover, the channels are all carved into the cold, shaded sides of slopes.
4. Paradoxically, this finding may increase the chances that the gullies are water-related. Any water that appeared on the sunny sides of hills would be likely to evaporate almost instantly. Moisture that seeped out in the shade would form a temporary crust of ice that would last only until the pressure of upwelling water behind it caused it to burst. When it did, there would be a sudden downward gush that would leave precisely the kind of clear-cut channel Surveyor spotted. If such features were discovered on Earth, said Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Surveyor's camera system, "there would be no question that water would be associated with them."
5. However, there are alternative explanations for these channels and ridges.
One school of thought maintains that they could have been caused by "rivers" of silicon dust. The theory goes that millions of years ago, when the molten mass of Mars cooled down, the fast cooling of the surface lava produced extremely small silicon particles. It has been proved that Martian soils contain a large amount of silicon. These particles would then have bonded with the methane gas which was also produced by the cooling process due to the action of ultraviolet light. The silicon combined with methane would then have flowed in much the same way as rivers—from high to low areas. Over a long period of time, the flow would disintegrate rock and form channels or gullies, like those photographed by the Surveyor.
6. Another theory is that the features which seem to be evidence of the action of water —whether oceans or rivers—are more likely linked to the planet's volcanoes. Paul Withers of the University of Arizona and Gregory Neumann of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, think that there is a closer correlation between the sizes of the terraces and seismic activity than the formation of ocean shore lines. They explained that the surface crust of Mars is not formed of a network of plates, like the Earth's, which move over time. So Martian volcanoes grew much higher than those on Earth, putting tremendous stress on the crust, and generating the ridges and channels seen in the Surveyor photographs. "In our future work," said Withers and Neumann, "we intend to study the terraces further in order to ascertain what the Martian crust and lithosphere were like at the time the seismic activity led to the formation of the volcanoes."
7. For NASA, the new findings couldn't have come at a better time. After the recent spectacular failures of two unmanned Mars probes, the agency's entire planetary exploration program came under fire. The possibility of a wet Mars, however, suggests that not only might the planet be home to indigenous life, it could also more easily support human life. Visiting astronauts would need water for a variety of purposes, including manufacturing air and perhaps even rocket fuel. Pumping up water available on Mars rather than hauling supplies from earth could dramatically slash the cost of a mission. All this, NASA hopes, will encourage the reluctant Congress to give the green light to future Mars missions, both manned and unmanned.
Questions 15-17
Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in boxes 15-17 on your answer sheet.
15. Scientists studying Mars have always looked for
A evidence of the presence of water on the planet's surface.
B signs that water was once present on the planet's surface.
C indications of intelligent life.
D gullies carved out by rivers of silicon.
16. The formations discovered by the Mars Global Survey were surprising because
A they were carved out by flows of silicon.
B they have profound implications for the possibility of life.
C they are located near the equator of Mars.
D they appear in the coldest parts of the planet.
17. The new findings may benefit NASA by
A providing water for astronauts landing on Mars.
B disproving the "rivers of silicon" theory.
C persuading Congress to allow more Mars missions.
D making people forget about the previous failed Mars missions.
Questions 18-20
Answer the questions below USING NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS. Write your answers in boxes 18-20 on your answer sheet.
18 How long has the Mars Global Surveyor been gathering data?
19 According to the "silicon rivers" theory, what destabilized the silicon?
20 What distinguishes the Earth's crust from that of Mars?
Questions 21-28
Using the information in the passage, identify the following. In boxes 21-28 on your answer sheet, write
LW if the statement refers to liquid water
VW if the statement refers to vaporised water
O if the statement refers to oceans
S if the statement refers to silicon
V if the statement refers to volcanoes
T if the statement refers to terraces
Note: Each letter may be used more than once.
Example Answer
Martian soils contain a lot of this. S
21. These could have existed a long time ago on Mars.
22. This would be found on the sunny side of Martian hills.
23. This cannot exist on the surface of Mars.
24. Paul Withers and Gregory Neumann intend to study these further.
25. These are much bigger on Mars than on Earth.
26. If channels like the Martian ones were discovered on Earth, they would indicate the presence of this.
27. This probably resulted from fast cooling of surface lava.
28. The forms of these indicate a seismic origin.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-42 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Saving the Sight of the Third World
There are four leading causes of avoidable blindness—cataracts, trachoma, "river blindness" and "childhood blindness". They account for an astonishing 80% of the blindness cases worldwide, and all of them are common in Third World countries, mainly because of poor hygiene and diet standards. Western governments have been reluctant to extend aid in this regard, and there is a general impression that little is being done. However, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are working in this field in Third World countries, and making encouraging progress. The leader in this field is the International Eye Foundation (IEF).
