However, scientists at the University of Michigan have discovered that Fisher's theorem fails to take into account “plausibility” - and thus can see “significance” in results which are over 50 percent nonsense. As a result, there has been a move by medical journals to drop “P-values”, but they are still adhered to. This is in spite of the fact that the evidence of the unsoundness of “P-values” is everywhere to be seen — “wonder drugs” that lose their amazing abilities outside clinical trials, bizarre “links” between genetics and personality, etc. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the real reason for all this foot-dragging is not scientific at all. It is simply that if scientists abandon significance tests like “P-values” many of their claims will be seen for what they really are: meaningless flukes on which taxpayers' money should never have been spent.
Questions 17-21
The paragraph below is a summary of the first half of the reading passage. Complete the summary by selecting THREE WORDS EACH from the passage to fill the spaces numbered 17-21. Write your answers in spaces 17-21 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
In the mid-1990s, “miracle cures” forheart attack victims
proved to be failures.
Claims of miraculous new cures for serious diseases such as heart ailments and cancer are coming under suspicion, as these treatments are not proving as effective as the original tests indicate. Many of the new drugs have proved to be failures...17...In addition, the findings of ...18...often can not be replicated. The problem seems to be the reliance on “significance tests” research results. These tests have been used by nce the 1920s. They are popular and convenient to use, but they are roneous.
Questions 22-27
22 How many examples of “miracle cures” are given?
A 58,000
B 3
C 2
D a dozen
23 According to the passage, which of the following can “significance t
ests” NOT do?
A Analyze clinical trials
B Indicate the existence of the paranormal
C Provide conclusive evidence
D Provide convincing evidence
24 According to the passage, significance tests have made some positive
contributions to health research.
Write:
A if you agree with the statement above, or
D if you disagree
In box 24 on your answer sheet.
25 According to the reading passage, scientific journals still trust Fis
her's method.
Write:
Aif you agree with the statement above, or
Dif you disagree
In box 25 on your answer sheet.
26 Fisher's theory lacks...
A plausibility
B P-values
C significance
D simplicity
27 Broadly speaking, do you feel that the author would like the P-value method made more accurate or abolished altogether?
Write either MORE ACCURATE or ABOLISHED in box 27 on your answer sheet.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3.
The Causes of Poverty
Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world's countries) is less than the wealth of the world's three richest people combined. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Less than one per cent of what the world spends every year on weapons could put every child in school.
All over the world, disparities between rich and poor, even in the wealthiest of nations is rising sharply. Fewer people are becoming increasingly successful and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population is also becoming even poorer.
There are many issues involved when looking at global poverty and inequality. It is not simply enough (or correct) to say that the poor are poor due to their own (or their government's) bad governance and management. In fact, you could quite easily conclude that the poor countries are poor because the rich countries are rich and have the power to enforce unequal trade agreements that favor their interests more than the poorer nations.
The IMF- and World Bank-prescribed structural adjustment policies mean that nations that are lent money get it on condition that they cut social expenditure (which is vital for economic growth and development) in order to repay the loans. Many are tied to opening up their economies and being primarily commodity exporters, which, for poorer nations leads to a spiraling race to the bottom as each nation must compete against others to provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources to corporations and richer nations. This further increases poverty and dependency for most people.
People are hungry not because of lack of availability of food, or overpopulation, but because they are too poor to afford the food. Politics and economic conditions that have led to poverty and dependency around the world would not be alleviated if food production is further increased and provided to more people. Even non-emergency food aid, which seems a noble cause, is destructive, as it under-sells local farmers and can ultimately affect the entire economy of a poor nation. If the poorer nations are not given the means to produce their own food, if they are not allowed to use the tools of production for themselves, then poverty and dependency will continue.
The United Nations is one of the largest bodies involved in development issues around the world. However, it has many political issues and problem to contend with. But, despite this, it is also performing some much needed tasks around the world, through its many satellite organizations and entities, providing a means to realize the Declaration of Human Rights. Unfortunately though, it is not perfect and is negatively affected by the politics of powerful nations that wish to further their own interests. What does an ever-increasing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) mean? NGOs are non-profit organizations which fill the gap where governments will not, or cannot function. In the past however, some NGOs from the wealthy nations have received a bad reputation in some developing nations because of things like arrogance, imposition of their views, being a foreign policy arm or tool of the original country and so on. Even in recent years some of these critcisms still hold. However, recently some new and old NGOs alike, have started to become more participatory and grassroots-oriented to help empower the people they are trying to help, to help themselves. This is in general a positive turn. Yet, the fact that there are so many NGOs popping up everywhere perhaps points to failures of international systems of politics, economics, market rights.
While the world is globalizing and the mainstream media in the developed nations point out that the world economy is booming (or, in periods of downturns, that the current forms of development and economic policies are the only ways for people to prosper), there are an increasing number of poor people who are missing out onthis apparent boom, while increasingly fewer people are becoming far more wealthy.
Question 28
28 what do you think is the purpose of the reading passage?
A to warn about the dangers of globalization
B to urge a change in international anti-poverty efforts
C to highlight the role of the IMF and World Bank
D to suggest that rich countries offer more aid to poor ones
Questions 29-34
Choose which of the answers (A-D) best completes the sentence according to the information in the reading passage. Write the appropriate letter (A-D) in boxes 29-30 on your answer sheet.
29 The world's three richest people...
A have become rich since entering the 21st century
B live on less than two dollars a day
C are better off than nearly one billion people
D together have more wealth than the GDP of 48 nations
30 The poor countries are poor because...
A the rich countries can enforce unequal trade agreements
B their governments are corrupt
C their governments are incompetent
D of unfavorable geographical factors
31 Competition between poor nations...
A brings them more IMF and World Bank loans
B is vital for economic growth and development
C makes them primarily commodity exporters
D leads to increases in poverty and dependency
32 The United Nations...
A channels its aid to poor countries through their governments
B is hampered by the politics of the rich countries
C furthers the interests of the rich countries
D is composed of satellite organizations and entities
33 NGOs...
A are becoming more responsive to poor people's needs
B are foreign policy tools of powerful countries
C are esential to the anti-poverty effort
D strive to realize the Declaration of Human Rights
34 The mainstream media in the developed nations...
A are paying attention to the increase in poverty
B are warning against economic downturns
C are complacent about the global economy
D ignore the role of non-governmental assistance
Questions 35-40
Complete the following summary by writing NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS taken from the passage for each number, to complete spaces 35-40. Write the words in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
A tiny fraction of what the world spends on weapons could pay for the education of the world's children.
Summary: The Causes of Poverty
Among the many causes of the increase in poverty worldwide are the IMF and World Bank, which will only lend money to poor countries on condition that the latter...36...Providing food is not the answer to the problem of hunger; allowing poor people to use the answer. The United Nations is a major player rldwide, but the policies nder its efforts. Where governments cannot or will not help, NGOs...40..., which indicates shortcomings in international political and economic systems.
Academic Reading Test 10
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TESTING SYSTEM
ACADEMIC READING
TEST 10
TIME ALLOWED:
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS:
1 hour40
Instructions
ALL ANSWERS MUST BE SRITTEN ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is divided as follows
Reading Passage 1 Questions 1-15
Reading Passage 2 Questions 16-30
Reading Passage 3 Questions 31-40
Start at the beginning of the test and work through it. You should answer all the questions. If you cannot do a particular question leave it and go on to the next. You can return to it later.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-15 which are based on Reading Passage 1.
A Way with Words
Can the language you use indicate the way you think, or help shape those thoughts? In the 1930s, American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that language did indeed affect thought. For instance, Eskimos, who talk about “snow” in at least seven different terms, must find our simplistic way of talking about it unthinkable, he suggested. While Whorf's views fell out of favor—especially his claim that language creates what amounts to a straitjacket for thought — they weren't forgotten. Now a group of cognitive psychologists has revived the search for the effects of language on the mind, with some provocative results.
Researchers first sought out Whorfian effects in the 1950s, looking at color vocabularies. Some languages chop the spectrum into just two categories of light and dark; others make finer, but not necessarily the same, distinctions. Do these linguistic patterns mean that speakers of separate languages perceive color in different ways? Apparently not. By the 1970s, psychologists concluded that linguistic and perceptual distinctions were independent of one another. Linguists remain convinced by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discovered that however disparate human languages seem, all share a common, basic structure, seemingly a distinct brain function. They reasoned that this controlled the grammar of speech, but was separate from other parts of the brain, such as those that governed perception or cognition in general—making it hard for language to have an effect on the latter.
Then in the 1980s, some researchers started to point out problems with the earlier work. For one, some noted that color perception is probably too biologically ngrained to show influence from language. Further, the results were linguistically biased, says John Lucy of the University of Chicago. Researchers assumed that speakers of other languages describe color the same way as English speakers just because their words matched up with color samples, ignoring subtle linguistic differences. In doing so,“basically you're sifting all the data according to your own preconceptions,” Lucy says. So their tests could never have found the language effects they sought. Looking for a better way to compare thoughts among language groups, Lucy studied the small group of Yucatec Mayans living in Mexico. English speakers tend to consider the shape or unit of a noun when talking. Living things or objects with a well-defined shape have their unit built into the word. We may talk about multiple “chairs,” because they all come in chair-shaped units. But sugar is “sugar,” whether it's one lump or two. Mayan speakers, on the other hand, do not refer to objects in plural form, so shape and unit are less ingrained into their speech. Accordingly, their language revolves more around what objects are made of than English; a “candle” to English speakers is a “long, thin wax” to Mayans.
Studying individuals who speak only one language can still leave research open to criticism, says Lera Boroditsky of MIT. She has focused on bilinguals. One study involved native German and Spanish speakers who also spoke English. Boroditsky and a colleague asked the study subjects to describe, in English, objects that were grammatically masculine or feminine in their native tongues. “Key,” for instance, is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish. The native German speakers called keys “hard,” “heavy,” “jagged,” etc., whereas the Spanish used words such as “lovely,” “shiny” and “tiny.” Native English speakers showed similar patterns after they learned the grammar system of a made-up language. In other words, just a brief change in the way people talk can create a measurable effect, Boroditsky says.
She next examined how English speakers compared with Mandarin-English bilinguals in thinking about time. English speakers tend to talk about time in terms of horizontal dimensions: for example, the meeting was moved “forward” or “back.” In Mandarin, however, next month is “down” the calendar and last month is “up.” The bilinguals figured out if one event preceded another faster after concentrating on a vertical stimulus, and the English-only group benefited from horizontal cues. Moreover, those in the Mandarin group who learned English later in life tended to have a vertical bias, indicating that it wasn't necessarily the Mandarin convention of writing vertically that caused the effect. English speakers trained briefly to talk about time using vertical metaphors showed more Mandarin-like results on the same tests. “That's a really powerful effect of language on thought,” Boroditsky concludes, and one that shows how flexible our minds are.
Maybe language itself gives us some of this flexibility, says Derdre Gentner of Northwestern University, particularly when it comes to grasping relationships. She and a colleague tested three- to four-year-old kids with a hide-and-seek game that used two matching three-tiered shelves. On each tier was an identical plastic pig, and one of the pigs had a toy hidden inside. The child got to see where the winning pig was on one shelf. Then, to find the toy, he or she had to choose the pig in the same relative position on the other shelf-a challenging analogy for a child that age, Gentner notes. The kids often lost track of the winning position and searched randomly. When the test administrator started the game by naming the three locations—top, middle and bottom—the kids chose the correct location far more often, so the spatial terms helped them remember. So, concluded Gentner, language can help people think in more productive ways
Lila Gleitman, of the University of Pennsylvania, has argued strongly against the Whorfian revival. She and coworkers have found that speakers of languages with different ways of expressing orientation in space, as well as how people and objects move, seem to think alike if given the chance or the right cue. Gleitman adds that curious relationships between speaking and thinking exist, she says, because we devise language to express the thoughts we have about our culture, geography and so on. “People develop language that's useful given those circumstances. That's why you always find a tight relationship between language and thought.”
Ultimately, there are so many ways of thinking about things, says Gentner, that language surely won't be found to influence all aspects of cognition. That doesn't bother her at all. “I'm just glad it's become an important topic again because I think it people gave up on it way too early.”
Questions 1-5
Match the following statements or ideas with the appropriate names from the list
(A-H) below. There are more names than questions, so you will not use them all. You may use any name more than once.
Example Answer
Language shapes thought.C
1. All languages share a common structure.
2. Color perception tests were basically flawed.
3. Language may make our minds more flexible.
4. Speakers of different languages tend to think alike.
5. Language and perception are independent functions.
ASusan Goldin-Meadow
BLera Bonditsky
CBenjamin Lee Whorf
DJohn Lucy
ENoam Chomsky
FDedre Gentner
GLila Gleitman
HCognitive psychologists
Questions 6-15
The paragraph below is a summary of the reading passage. Complete the summary by choosing NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the reading passage to fill the spaces numbered 6-15. Write the words in boxes 6-15 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
Whorf's views on language were out of favorfor a long time, but are now being studied again.
The revival of interest in Benjamin L. Whorf's theories began in the 1950s, with studies of ...6.... But since the 1970s, Noam Chomsky's theory of language as being a ...7...has been generally accepted by linguists.The 1980s saw the...8..., led by John Lucy and others. Lucy found that concepts...9... are less part of the speech of Mayan speakers than of English speakers. Another approach to testing Whorf's theories involved the testing of ...10..., who described in English objects considered masculine or feminine in their native languages. In a similar experiment, it was found that English speakers' concept of time is in...11..., whereas Mandarin speakers tend to have a...12...Dedre Gentner tested very young children, and found that language can help people think in...13.... Lila Gleitman found that n get speakers of different languages to think alike, but is skeptical about Whorf's theory that language affects all...15...
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 16-30 which are based on Reading
passage 2.
Gene Profiling for Better Treatment
Finding treatments that match individual gene profiles is the next frontier in drug research and the objective of pharmacogenomics, a new science that combines pharmacological research with the latest advances of genomic studies. Pharmacogenomics promises to have a formidable impact on health care. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that adverse reactions to drugs caused at least 100,000 deaths and two million hospitalizations in 1994 in the U.S. alone. Many such tragedies, experts say, could be avoided if doctors knew an individual's genetic makeup.
Saving lives aside, pharmaceutical companies also count on pharmacogenomics to ensure fewer adverse reactions, which often oblige them to withdraw their products from the market. They further hope that pharmacogenomics will bring about speedier clinical trials because researchers will be able to test only those patients whose genetic backgrounds makes them good “responders” to the drug. Once approved, the treatment could then be given only to people with the same characteristics. Genetic variety is the key to understanding why a drug works in some people and not in others or, worse yet, makes them sick. It's no wonder then that virtually every major pharmaceutical company is now investing millions to comb through human DNA in search of the individual variations that might affect drug response.
In February 2001, scientists announced that they had finally mapped out the human genome. That map, however, is far from being a faithful representation of our species and its diversity. Instead, the published sequence of the human genome serves only as a standard reference because it was created using the DNA from only a few anonymous donors. A few years ago, though, a handful of laboratories started to address the next challenge in genomic research: making a systematic catalogue of the most relevant individual variations in the human genome.
On average, the DNA of two individuals will differ by about one nucleotide in every thousand (nucleotides are the “letters” that make up the genome). Because human DNA contains about three billion nucleotides, researchers estimate that our genome contains at least three million “variable spots.” Scientists call these spots single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The study of SNPs is now serious business for dozens of companies, ranging from start-ups to giant pharmaceutical corporations. An SNP consortium, established in 1999, has already published a map of 1.4 million SNPs along the genome. The consortium includes 11 major pharmaceutical companies. Another project, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is mapping SNPs at the speed of about 90 every month.
Making SNP lists, however, is only the beginning. The next step is to find which of these variations account for clinically significant differences. Researchers now analyze thousands of SNPs in minutes “to find which are more frequent in people with a particular disease or that respond differently to a drug,” says Dale R. Pfost, CEO at Orchid BioSciences, a Princeton-based company that specializes in SNP analysis. To analyze DNA samples, Orchid technicians use a huge automatic system that spots all the known SNPs at the vertiginous rate of a million a day.
Such systems currently fill an entire room, but the advent of micro-arrays, or DNA chips, has led to miniaturization. DNA chips are made using photolithography, the same technology used for creating tiny computer processors. But instead of producing an array of semiconductors, DNA chipmakers use the process to fix thousands of different stretches of DNA onto a tiny silicon support. Using these chips and a computerized laser reader, it takes mere minutes to analyze thousands of SNPs in a given sample. Companies such as Affymetrix already produce thumbnail-size DNA chips that contain more than a million different DNA sequences in the space of a few millimeters.
Scientists have already listed hundreds of genetic variations that affect individual responses to drugs. Some of these variants work by changing the rate at which the drugs are eliminated from the body. A liver enzyme called CYP2C6, for example, is responsible for clearing the system of at least 30 different classes of drugs, including beta-blockers, tricyclic antidepressants, morphine derivates and antiarrhythmics, as well as many other chemicals and neurotransmitters. Variations in the gene coding for this enzyme can therefore strongly influence a person's reaction to many commonly used compounds: people with a “fast” form of the enzyme need higher doses of drugs because they tend to rid themselves of the drugs more quickly.
Another enzyme, called TPMT (Thiopurine Methyl transferase) heavily influences the outcome of chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most frequent cancer in children. The TPMT enzyme breaks down a class of chemotherapic compounds called thiopurines. Before a specific genetic test was available, children with a “lazy” form of the enzyme were at risk of dying: the thiopurines reached toxic levels because the kids eliminated the drug too slowly. Today doctors adjust the dose according to an individual's TPMT speed, which has dramatically improved the survival rate of affected children.
Hundreds of other genes affect drug response in different ways—among them, by producing enzymes such as NTP14 that facilitate the transport of drugs into the cells. Each variant of these genes may have tremendous relevance in pharmacogenomics, and that's exactly what the SNP hunters are hoping to discover.
Adapted from an article in Scientific American by Sergio Pistoi
Questions 16-19
Write A MAXIMUM OF THREE WORDS for each answer in boxes 16-19 on your answer sheet.
Questions 16 & 17
Pharmacogenomics is a combination of which two fields of expertise?
Questions 18 & 19
Name two major benefits of pharmacogenomics to pharmaceuticals companies.
Questions 20-21
Read the following statements, and say how they reflect the information in the reading passage by writing:
Tif it accurately reflects the information given;
Fif it does not reflect the information given;
NGif the information is not clearly given in the passage.
Write your answers in boxes 20-21 on your answer sheet.
20 The human genome map covers the whole diversity of the human race.
21 Nucleotides are what determine personality differences.
Questions 22-26
Choose which of the endings (A-J) in the list below best completes the sentence
according to the information in the reading passage.
Write the appropriate letters in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.
List of endings
Athree million “variable spots”
Bas tiny computer processors
Cneed higher doses of drugs
Dadvent of micro-arrays
Eat the rate of a million a day
Frespond differently to a drug
Ghas 11 members
Haffected by genetic variations
I the next challenge
J30 different classes of drugs
22 A systematic catalogue of genome variations is...
23 The ISNP consortium set up in 1999...
24 Orchid technicians are identifying SNPS...
25 DNA chips are made in the same way...
26 Individual responses to drugs are...
Questions 27-30
The passage describes the functions of three types of enzymes. Match the enzymes
(A-C) with the functions (27-30). Write A,B or c on your answer sheet.
ATPMT
BNTP14
CCYP2C6
27 smooths access of drugs into cells
28 clears drugs from the system
29 has a strong effect on chemotherapy
30 disintegrates thiopurines
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 31-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3.
Protecting the Nation's Water Supply
In the six weeks that have passed since September 11, Americans have stopped taking many things for granted. Among other worries, we no longer assume that our airports are safe from hijackers or our mail from bioterrorists. Federal agencies are moving quickly to put new, stricter security measures in place. But when it comes to protecting water reservoirs, researchers at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory are already one step ahead. For the past few years they have worked on sophisticated means to identify vulnerabilities in the nation's water infrastructure, as well as technologies to detect in real time contamination of the water supply.
“We started exploring the possibility of working together ［with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF)］ to enhance the security of America's water infrastructure-supply, treatment and distribution-well before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” Sandia scientist Jeffrey Danneels says. His efforts, which have taken on a new urgency since the recent terrorist attacks, have focused on establishing a program to target problem areas on-site at utilities and train the personnel to minimize any risks.
Danneels modeled his program after one Sandia initially created to support the U.S. nuclear security mission and that has since been adapted to assess the threat of terrorist attacks on government buildings, air force bases, nuclear power plants, nuclear processing facilities, prisons and federal dams. The EPA is most interested in analyzing the water distribution systems that serve the country's 340 largest cities. Because many of these systems are more than 60 years old, they have different structures and therefore different security concerns. However, Danneels says all such utilities must follow three basic steps to evaluate their own individual vulnerabilities: They must assess how well their system detects a problem, how well it can delay the spread of the problem and how well it can ultimately respond to the problem.
Where at least the first step is concerned-detection-some of Danneel's colleagues at Sandia may soon provide real help. Cliff Ho and Bob Hughes have created a novel real-time gas- and water-quality monitoring system, made up of a tiny sensor array and weatherproof casing. Whereas traditional monitoring involves collecting samples of water, gas or soil and sending them for laboratory analysis, which can cost from $100 to $1,000, the new device performs its testing on the site and sends its results-via a computer at a collection station-to an interactive Web site.
“The electronic sniffer is a unique monitor that can be put directly underground-in groundwater or soils where the humidity reaches nearly 100 percent-and detect toxic chemicals at the site without taking samples to the lab,” Ho explains. “It has the capability of detecting in real time undesirable chemicals being pumped into the water supply accidentally or intentionally. It will be able to monitor sites containing toxic chemical spills, leaking underground storage tanks and chemical waste dumps, potentially saving millions of dollars a year in the process.”
The sensor array contains a collection of different chemical resistors to detect a range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). To make the resistors, Hughes first mixed commercial polymers that had been dissolved in a solvent with conductive carbon particles. He then painted this ink-like mixture onto electrodes in specially designed microfabricated circuits. If VOCs are present, the polymers absorb the compounds and swell, which in turn changes the electrical resistance in the circuit. The swelling and resistance change correspond to the concentration of the VOC. Once the chemical is removed, the polymers shrink back to normal. “By using four different kinds of polymers-one for each sensor-we think we can detect all solvents of interest,” Hughes says.
Ho and other team members devised the weatherproof packaging for the chemiresistor chip-without which the device could not be placed in water or underground. “The package is modular, like a watertight flashlight, and is fitted with O-rings,” Ho explains. “It can be unscrewed, allowing for easy exchange of components.” All told, the casing, constructed of stainless steel, measures a mere three centimeters in diameter. Chemical vapors pass through the casing to the chemiresistor array through a small window covered with a waterproof Gore-Tex membrane. When the device is placed in water, VOCs will partition across the membrane into the gas phase. The scientists recently placed the sensor at Sandia's Chemical Waste Landfill to see how well the device works outside the lab. There it is suspended about 60 feet down a screened well and logs data every hour. This field test will last for several weeks or months, and others are planned at Edwards Air Force Base and the Nevada Test Site. From the experiments, Ho, Hughes and their colleagues hope to determine the sensor's life span, as well as its performance when temperature, pressure and humidity vary.
“Over the next few years I expect we will see this invention being applied to DOE sites that require monitoring, remediation and/or long-term stewardship of contaminated sites, which currently spend millions of dollars for off-site analysis of manual samples,” Ho adds. “This device can also be applied to numerous commercial sites and applications, such as gas stations, which include more than two million underground storage tanks that require monitoring to satisfy the EPA requirements.”
And the electronic sniffer may offer at least part of the solution toward safeguarding the national water infrastructure by lowering the cost of such security tremendously. “A low security level might mean hiring a security guard and installing some detection features around critical assets, and that won't cost a lot,” Danneels says. “But to stop a fairly organized group from committing a terrorist act could be extremely expensive.”
Questions 31-35
Read the following statements and indicate how they reflect the information in the reading passage, by writing:
T if the statement is true
F if it is false, or
NC if it is not clear from the passage.
Write your answers in boxes 31_35 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
Americans are confident about airport security F
31. September 11 made the Department of Energy worry about water supply security.
32 Sandia's water security system is environmentally friendly.
33. The U.S.'s major water distribution systems are basically identical.
34. Danneel's three basic steps apply to all U.S. water distribution systems.
Questions 36_40
36. Sandia's new monitoring system differs from traditional methods because it tests...
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS as your answer in box 36 on your answer sheet.
37_38
What two reactions in the chemical resistors show the presence of VOCs?
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer in boxes 37_38 on your answer sheet.
39. Besides the sensor's sensitivity to changes in surrounding factors, what else is the field test designed to find out?
Write TWO WORDS as your answer in box 39 on your answer sheet.
40. According to the passage, how will the electronic sniffer contribute to stopping terrorists contaminating the water supply?
Write NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS as your answer in box 40 on your answer sheet.
Answer Key
Tips and Hints to Help You Raise Your Score
PASSAGE ONE
1. C
2. A
3. C
4. B
5. B
6. Benchmarking
7. (a range of ) service delivery
8. (performance) measures
9. productivity
10. Take Charge/ "Take Charge"
11. Feedback
12. Employee(s)/ staff
13. 30 days
PASSAGE TWO
1. C
2. D
3. B
PASSAGE THREE
1. iv
2. vii
3. viii
4. iii
5. ii
6. i
7. x
8. B
9. B
10. E
11. A
12. B
13. D
14. E
PASSAGE FOUR
