4. elastic steel
5. aircraft prototypes
6. ultrasonic sensors
第十二课时
List of headings
注意事项：1）任何选项只能使用一次；2）要首先阅读主标题
考试分为三种类型：
1）给出10个选项，5 - 6个段落，然后把选项的标号写在段落的后面
2）题目给出5 - 6个已确定标题，把段落的标号写在给出标题的后面
3）选项有6个，题目有10个，空出4道题目
做题的三种方法：
1）首先分析选项及已给出标题
2）如何阅读首末句
3）如何阅读整段
The Birth Of The Microwave
A Chances are, you'll use a microwave oven at least once this week-probably (according to research) for heating up leftovers or defrosting something. Microwave ovens are so common today that it's easy to forget how rare they once were. As late as 1977, only 10% of U.S. homes had one. By 1995, 85% of households had at least one. Today, more people own microwaves than own dishwashers.
B Magnetrons, the tubes that produce microwaves, were invented by British scientists in 1940. They were used in radar systems during World War II, and were instrumental in detecting German planes during the Battle of Britain. These tubes—which are sort of like TV picture tubes—might still be strictly military hardware if Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon (a U.S. defense contractor), hadn't stepped in front of one in 1946. He had a chocolate bar in his pocket; when he went to eat it a few minutes later, he found that the chocolate had almost completely melted. That didn't make sense. Spencer wasn't hot—how could the chocolate bar be? He suspected the magnetron was responsible, so he tried an experiment. He put a bag of popcorn kernels in the tube. Seconds later, they popped. The next day, Spencer brought eggs and an old tea-kettle to work. He cut a hole in the side of the kettle, put an egg in it, an laced it next to the magnetron. Just as a colleague went to see what was happening, the egg exploded.
C Spencer shared his discovery with his employers at Raytheon, and suggested manufacturing magnetron-powered ovens to sell to the public. Raytheon was interested. They had the capacity to produce 10,000 magnetron tubes per week, but with World War II over, military purchases had been cut down to almost nothing. What is the better way to recover lost sales than to put a radar set disguised as a microwave oven in every American home? Raytheon agreed to back the project. The company patented the first "high frequency dielectric heating apparatus" in 1953. Then they held a contest to find a name for their product. Some came up with "Radar Range", which was later combined into the single word—Radarange.
D Raytheon had a great product idea and a great name, but they didn't have an oven anyone could afford. The 1953 model was 51/2 feet tall, weighed more than 750 pounds, and cost $3000. Over the next 20 years, railroads, ocean liners and high-end restaurants were virtually the only Radarange customers. In 1955, a company called Tappan introduced the first microwave oven for average consumers; it was smaller than the Radarange, but still cost $1,295—more than some small homes. Then in 1964, a Japanese company perfected a miniaturized magnetron, and Raytheon soon after introduced a Radarange that used the new magnetron. It sold for $495. But that was still too expensive for the average American family. Finally, in the 1980s, technical improvements lowered the price and improve the quality enough to make microwave ovens both affordable and practical. By 1988, 10% of all new food products in the U.S were microwaveable.
E Here is the first thing you should know about "microwaves": Like visible light, radio waves and X-rays, they are waves of electromagnetic energy. What makes the four waves different from each other? Each has a different length (wavelength) and vibrates at a different speed (frequency). Microwaves get their name because their wavelength is much shorter than electromagnetic waves that carry TV and radio signals. The microwaves in a microwave oven have a wavelength o about four inches, and they vibrate 2.5 billion times per second—about the same natural frequency as water molecules. That's what at makes them so effective at heating food. A conventional oven heats the air in the oven, which then cooks the food. But microwaves cause water molecules in the food to vibrate at high speeds, creating heat. The heated water molecules are what cook the food. Glass, ceramics and plastics contain virtually no water molecules, which is why they don't heat up in the microwave. When the microwave oven is turned on, electricity passes through the magnetron, the tube that produces microwaves. The microwaves are then channeled down a metal tube (waveguide) and through a slow rotating metal fan (stirrer), which scatters them into the part of the oven where the food is placed. The walls of the oven are made of metal, which reflects microwaves the same way that a mirror reflects visible light. So when the microwaves hit the stirrer and are scattered into the food chamber, they bounce off the metal walls and penetrate the food from every direction. Some ovens have a rotating turntable that helps food cook more evenly.
F Do microwaves cook food from the inside out? Some people think so, but the answer seems to be no. Microwaves cook food from the outside in, like conventional ovens. But the microwave energy only penetrates about an inch into the food. The heat that's created by the water molecules then penetrates deeper into the food, cooking it all the way through. This secondary cooking process is known as "conduction".
G When sales of microwave ovens took off in the late 1980s, millions of cooks discovered the same thing: Microwaves just don't cook some foods as well as regular ovens do. The reason: Because microwaves cook by exciting the water molecules in food, the food inside the microwave oven rarely cooks at temperature higher than 212°F, the temperature at which water turns to steam. Conventional ovens, on the other hand, cook to temperatures as high as 550°F. High temperatures are needed to caramelize sugars and break down proteins, carbohydrates and other substances, and combine them into more complex flavors. So, microwave oven can't do any of this, and it can't bake, either. Some people feel this is the microwave's Achilles heel. "The name 'microwave oven' is a misnomer," says Cindy Ayers, an executive with Campbell Soup. "It doesn't do what an oven does." "It's a glorified popcorn popper," says Tom Vierhile, a researcher with Marketing Intelligence, a newsletter that tracks microwave sales. "When the microwave first came out, people thought they had stumbled on nirvana. It's not the appliance the food industry thought it would be. It's a major disappointment." Adds one cooking critic: "Microwave sales are still strong, but time will tell whether they have a future in the American kitchen."
Questions 1 - 6
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A - G. State which paragraph discusses each of the points below. Write the appropriate letters A - G in boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet.
Examples The Discovery That Spencer Made
Answer B
1. The Introduction of the Radarange
2. The Conduction Process of Heating Food
3. Basic Cooking Method of Microwave oven
4. The Commercial Development of the Microwave
5. Popularity of Microwaves Today
6. Limitations of the Microwave
Twist in the Tale
A Less than three years ago, doom merchants were predicting that the growth in video games and the rise of the Internet would sound the death knell for children's literature. But contrary to popular myth, children are reading more books than ever. A recent survey by Books Marketing found that children up to the age of 11 read on average for four hours a week, particularly girls.
B Moreover, the children's book market, which traditionally was seen as a poor cousin to the more lucrative and successful adult market, has come into its own. Publishing houses are now making considerable profits on the back of new children's books and children's authors can now command significant advances. "Children's books are going through an incredibly fertile period," says Wendy Cooling, a children's literature consultant." There's a real buzz around them. Book clubs are happening, sales are good, and people are much more willing to listen to children's authors."
C The main growth area has been the market for eight to fourteen-year-olds, and there is little doubt that the boom has been fuelled by the bespectacled apprentice, Harry Potter. So influential has J.K. Rowling's series of books been that they have helped to make reading fashionable for pre-teens. "Harry made it OK to be seen on a bus reading a book, "says Cooling." To a child, that is important." The current buzz around the publication of the fourth Harry Potter beats anything in the world of adult literature.
D "People still tell me, 'Children don't read nowadays', "says David Almond, the award-winning author of children's books such as Skelling." The truth is that they are skilled, creative readers. When I do classroom visits, they ask me very sophisticated questions about use of language, story structure, chapters and dialogue." No one is denying that books are competing with other forms of entertainment for children's attention but it seems as though children find a special kind of mental nourishment within the printed page.
E "A few years ago, publishers lost confidence and wanted to make books more like television, the medium that frightened them most," says children's book critic Julia Eccleshare. "But books aren't TV, and you will find that children always say that the good thing about books is that you can see them in your head. Children are demanding readers," she says. "If they don't get it in two pages, they'll drop it."
F No more are children's authors considered mere sentimentalists or failed adult writers. "Some feted adult writers would kill for the sales," says Almond, who sold 42,392 copies of Skelling in 1999 alone. And advances seem to be growing too: UK publishing outfit Orion recently negotiated a six-figure sum from US company Scholastic for The Seeing Stone, a children's novel by Kevin Crossley-Holland, the majority of which will go to the author.
G It helps that once smitten, children are loyal and even fanatical consumers. Author Jacqueline Wilson says that children spread news of the books like a bushfire. "My average reader is a girl of ten," she explains. "They're sociable and acquisitive. They collect. They have parties—where books are a good present. If they like something, they have to pass it on." After Rowling, Wilson is currently the best-selling children's writer, and her sales have boomed over the past three years. She has sold more than three million books, but remains virtually invisible to adults, although most ten-year-old girls know about her.
H Children's books are surprisingly relevant to contemporary life. Provided they are handled with care, few topics are considered off-limits for children. One senses that children's writers relish the chance to discuss the whole area of topics and language. But Anne Fine, author of many awardwinning children's books is concerned that the British literati still ignore children's culture. "It's considered worthy but boring," she says.
I "I think there's still a way to go," says Almond, who wishes that children's books were taken more seriously as literature. Nonetheless, he derives great satisfaction from his child readers. "They have a powerful literary culture," he says. "It feels as if you're able to step into the store of mythology and ancient stories that run through all societies and encounter the great themes: love and loss and death and redemption."
J At the moment, the race is on to find the next Harry Potter. The bidding for new books at Bologna this year—the children's equivalent of the Frankfurt Book Fair—was as fierce as anything anyone has ever seen. All of which bodes well for the long-term future of the market—and for children's authors, who have traditionally suffered the lowest profile in literature, despite the responsibility of their role.
Questions 15 - 21
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs A - I.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers i - xi in boxes 15 - 21 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i Wide differences in leisure activities according to income
ii Possible inconsistencies in Ms Costa's data
iii More personal income and time influence leisure activities
iv Investigating the lifestyle problem from a new angle
v Increased incomes fail to benefit everyone
vi A controversial development offers cheaper leisure activities
vii Technology heightens differences in living standards
viii The gap between income and leisure spending closes
ix Two factors have led to a broader range of options for all
x Have people's lifestyles improved?
xi High earners spend less on leisure
Example Answer
Paragraph E iii
15. Paragraph A
16. Paragraph B
17. Paragraph C
18. Paragraph D
19. Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G
21. Paragraph H
Fun for the Masses
Americans worry that the distribution of income is increasingly unequal. Examining leisure spending, changes that picture.
A Are you better off than you used to be? Even after six years of sustained economic growth, Americans worry about that question. Economists who plumb government income statistics agree that Americans' incomes, as measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, have risen more slowly in the past two decades than in earlier times, and that some workers' real incomes have actually fallen. They also agree that by almost any measure, income is distributed less equally than it used to be. Neither of those claims, however, sheds much light on whether living standards are rising or falling. This is because "living standard" is a highly amorphous concept. Measuring how much people earn is relatively easy, at least compared with measuring how well they live.
B A recent paper by Dora Costa, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looks at the living-standards debate from an unusual direction. Rather than worrying about cash incomes, Ms Costa investigates Americans' recreational habits over the past century. She finds that people of all income levels have steadily increased the amount of time and money they devote to having fun. The distribution of dollar incomes may have become more skewed in recent years, but leisure is more evenly spread than ever.
C Ms Costa bases her research on consumption surveys dating back as far as 1888. The industrial workers surveyed in that year spent, on average, three-quarters of their incomes on food, shelter and clothing. Less than 2% of the average family's income was spent on leisure but that average hid large disparities. The share of a family's budget that was spent on having fun rose sharply with its income: the lowest-income families in this working-class sample spent barely 1% of their budgets on recreation, while higher earners spent more than 3%. Only the latter group could afford such extravagances as theatre and concert performances, which were relatively much more expensive than they are today.
D Since those days, leisure has steadily become less of a luxury. By 1991, the average household needed to devote only 38% of its income to the basic necessities, and was able to spend 6% on recreation. Moreover, Ms Costa finds that the share of the family budget spent on leisure now rises much less sharply with income than it used to. At the beginning of this century a family's recreational spending tended to rise by 20% for every 10% rise in income. By 1972 - 73, a 10% income gain led to roughly a 15% rise in recreational spending, and the increase fell to only 13% in 1991. What this implies is that Americans of all income levels are now able to spend much more of their money on having fun.
E One obvious cause is that real income overall has risen. If Americans in general are richer, their consumption of entertainment goods is less likely to be affected by changes in their income. But Ms Costa reckons that rising incomes are responsible for, at most, half of the changing structure of leisure spending. Much of the rest may be due to the fact that poorer Americans have more time off than they used to. In earlier years, low-wage workers faced extremely long hours and enjoyed few days off. But since the 1940s, the less skilled (and lower paid) have worked ever-fewer hours, giving them more time to enjoy leisure pursuits.
F Conveniently, Americans have had an increasing number of recreational possibilities to choose from. Public investment in sports complexes, parks and golf courses has made leisure cheaper and more accessible. So too has technological innovation. Where listening to music used to imply paying for concert tickets or owning a piano, the invention of the radio made music accessible to everyone and virtually free. Compact discs, videos and other paraphernalia have widened the choice even further.
G At a time when many economists are pointing accusing fingers at technology for causing a widening inequality in the wages of skilled and unskilled workers, Ms Costa's research given it a much more egalitarian face. High earners have always been able to afford amusement. By lowering the price of entertainment, technology has improved the standard of living of those in the lower end of the income distribution. The implication of her results is that once recreation is taken into account, the differences in Americans' living standards may not have widened so much after all.
H These findings are not water-tight. Ms Costa's results depend heavily upon what exactly is classed as a recreational expenditure. Reading is an example. This was the most popular leisure activity for working men in 1888, accounting for one-quarter of all recreational spending. In 1991, reading took only 16% of the entertainment dollar. But the American Department of Labour's expenditure surveys do not distinguish between the purchase of a mathematics tome and that of a best-selling novel. Both are classified as recreational expenses. If more money is being spent on textbooks and professional books now than in earlier years, this could make "recreational" spending appear stronger than it really is.
I Although Ms Costa tries to address this problem by showing that her results still hold even when tricky categories, such as books, are removed from the sample, the difficulty is not entirely eliminated. Nonetheless, her broad conclusion seems fair. Recreation is more available to all and less dependent on income. On this measure at least, inequality of living standards has fallen.
Questions 22 - 26
Complete each of the following statements Questions 22 - 26 using words from the box. Write the appropriate letters A - I in boxes 22 - 26 on your answer sheet.
22. It is easier to determine ________ than living standards.
23. A decrease in ________ during the 20th century led to a bigger investment in leisure.
24. According to Ms Costa, how much Americans spend on leisure has been directly affected by salaries and ________.
25. The writer notes both positive and negative influences of ________.
26. According to the writer, the way Ms Costa defined ________ may have been misleading.
A. recreational activities
B. the family budget
C. holiday time
D. government expenditure
E. computer technology
F. income levels
G. non-luxury spending
H. professional reading
I. high-income earners
Questions 27
Choose the appropriate letter A - D and write it in box 27 on your answer sheet.
The writer thinks that Ms Costa
A. provides strong evidence to support her theory.
B. displays serious flaws in her research methods.
C. attempts to answer too many questions.
D. has a useful overall point to make.
翻开《学术类阅读理解》，
这本书上的List of headings 题一道题都不要做。
翻开《学术类阅读理解辅导》
P18 1 - 5 时间4分钟
P22 1 - 4 时间5分钟
P25 1 - 4 时间5分钟
翻到《学术类阅读理解辅导》目录
划掉第一部分 阅读理解学前自测题
划掉第二部分 阅读理解专项练习的练习五、六
不用背第三和第四部分
把第五部分 阅读理解全真模拟试题做了
翻到《学术类阅读理解》目录
除了list of headings 题，整套题目可以练习的有：Test 2, Test 3, Test 7, Test 9, Test 10; 剩余的做TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN, 选择题，summary。
雅思阅读最新参考书：
外研社与剑桥大学共同出版
《POST PAPER ONE》和《POST PAPER TWO》
《HOW TO PREPARE FOR IELTS》重要题型
1）MC 2）TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN 3）MATCHING
4）LIST OF HEADINGS
注意阅读速度
雅思语法参考书：
《郎文实用语法》或《牛津实用语法》
泛读材料
m
m
雅思学术阅读理解辅导
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TESTING SYSTEM
ACADEMIC READING
TIME ALLOWED: 1 Hour
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 38
Instructions
ALL ANSWERS MUST BE WRITTEN ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is divided as follows:
- Reading Passage 1 Question 1-11
- Reading Passage 2 Question 12-25
- Reading Passage 3 Question 26-38
Start at the beginning of the test and work through it. You should answer all the questions. If you cannot do a parricular 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 1-11 which are based on Reading Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.
The
Spectacular
Eruption
of
Mount
St. Helens
A The eruption in May 1980 of Mount St. Helens, Washington State, astounded the world with its violence. A gigantic explosion tore much of the volcano's summit to fragments; the energy released was equal to that of 500 of the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
B The event occurred along the boundary of two of the moving plates that make up the Earth's crust. They meet at the junction of the North American continent and the Pacific Ocean. One edge of the continental North American plate over-rides the oceanic Juan de Fuca micro-plate, producing the volcanic Cascade range that includes Mounts Baker, Rainier and Hood, and Lassen Peak as well as Mount St. Helens.
C Until Mount St. Helens began to stir, only Mount Baker and Lassen Peak had shown signs of life during the 20th century. According to geological evidence found by the United States Geological Survey, there had been two major eruptions of Mount St. Helens in the recent (geologically speaking)past: around 1900 B.C., and about A.D. 1500. Since the arrival of Europeans in the region, it had experienced a single period of spasmodic activity, between 1831 and 1857. Then, for more than a century, Mount St. Helens lay dormant.
D By 1979, the Geological Survey, alerted by signs of renewed activity, had been monitoring the volcano for 18 months. It warned the local population against being deceived by the mountain's outward calm, and forecast that an eruption would take place before the end of the century. The inhabitants of the area did not have to wait that long. On March 27, 1980,a few clouds of smoke formed above the summit , and slight tremors were felt. On the 28th, larger and darker clouds,. consisting of gas and ashes,. emerged and climbed as high as 20,000 feet. In April a slight lull ensued, but the volcanologists remained pessimistic. The, in early May, the northern flank of the mountain bulged, and the summit rose by 500 feet.
E Steps were taken to evacuate the population. Most- campers, hikers, timbercuttersleft the slopes of the mountain. Eighty-four-year-old Harry Truman, a holiday lodge owner who had lived there for more than 50 years, refused to be evacuated, in spite of official and public, including an entire class of school children, wrote to him, begging him to leave. He never did.
F On May 18, at 8.32 in the morning, Mount St. Helens blew its top. literally. Suddenly, it was 1300 feet shorter than it had been before its growth had begun. Over half a cubic mile of rock had disintegrated . At the same moment, an earthquake with an intensity of 5 on the Richter scale was recorded. It triggered an avalanche of snow and ice. mixed with hot rock-the entire north face of the mountain had fallen away. A wave of scorching volcanic gas and rock fragments shot horizontally from the volcano's riven flank, at an inescapable 200 miles per hour. As the sliding ice and snow melted, it touched off devastating torrents of mud and debris, which destroyed all life in their path. Pulverised, which destroyed all life in their path. Pulverised rock climbed as a dust cloud into the atmosphere. Finally, viscous lava, accompanied by burning clouds of ash and gas, welled out of volcano's new crater, and from lesser vents and cracks in its flanks.
G Afterwards, scientists were able to analyse the sequence of events. First, magmamolten rock-at temperatures above 2000oF. had surged into the volcano from the Earth's mantle. The build-up was accompanied by an accumulation of gas, which increased as the mass of magma grew. It was the pressure inside the mountain that made it swell. Next, the rise in gas pressure caused a violent decompression. Which ejected the shattered summit like a cork from a shaken soda bottle. With the summit gone, the molten rock within was released in a jet of gas and fragmented magma, and lava welled from the crater.
H The effects of the Mount St. Helens eruption were catastrophic. Almost all the trees of the surrounding forest, mainly Douglas firs. were flattened. and their branches and bark ripped off by the shock wave of the explosion. Ash and mud spread over nearly 200 square miles of country. All the towns and settlements in the area were smothered in an even coating of ash. Volcanic ash silted up the Columbia River 35 miles away, reducing the debris that accumulated at the foot of the volcano reached a depth. in places, of 200 feet.
I The eruption of Mount St. Helens was one of the most closely observed and analysed in history. Because geologists had been expecting the event, they were able to amass vast amounts of technical data when it happened. Study of atmospheric particles formed as a result of the explosion showed that droplets of sulphuric acid, acting as a screen between the Sun and the Earth's surface, caused a distinct drop in temperature. There is no doubt that the activity of Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes since 1980 has influenced our climate . Even so, it has been calculated that the quantity of dust ejected by Mount St. Helens - a quarter of a cubic mile- was negligible in comparison with that thrown out by earlier eruptions, such as that of Mount Katmai in Alaska in 1912 (three cubic miles). The volcano is still active. Lava domes have formed inside the new crater, and have periodically burst. The threat of Mount St Helens lives on.
.
Questions 1 and 2
Reading Passage 1 has 9 paragraphs labelled A-I
Answer questions 1 and 2 by writing the appropriate letter A-I inboxes 1 and 2 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
Which paragraph compares the eruption to the energy A
released by nuclear bomb?
1. Which paragraph describes the evacuation of the mountain?
2. Which paragraph describes the moment of the explosion of Mount St. Helens?
Questions 3 and 4
3. What are the dates of the TWO major eruptions of Mount St. Helens before 1980?
Write TWO dates in box 3 on your answer sheet.
4 How do scientists know that the volcano exploded around the two dates above?
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS , write your answer in box 4 on your answer sheet
Questions 5-8
Complete the summary of events below leading up to the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
In 1979 the Geological Survey warned ... (5) ... to expect a violent eruption before the end of the century. The forecast was soon proved accurate. At the end of March there were tremors and clouds formed above the mountain. This was followed by a lull, but in early May the top of the mountain rose by ... (6)... . People were ...(7) ... from around the mountain. Finally, on May 18th at ...(8) ..., Mount St. Helens exploded.
Question 9 and 10
Complete the table below giving evidence for the power of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
Write your answers in boxes 9 and 10 on your answer sheet.
Item Equivalent to
Example
The energy released by the explosion of Mount St. Helens Answer
500 nuclear bombs
The area of land covered in mud or ash ...(9)...
The quantity of dust ejected ...(10)...
Question 11
Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 11 one your answer sheet.
11. According to the text the eruption of Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes has influenced our climate by ...
A increasing the amount of rainfall.
B heating the atmosphere.
C cooling the air temperature.
D causing atmospheric storms.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 12-25 which and based on Reading Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.
Questions 12-16
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-E and G from the list of heading below.
Write the appropriate numbers (i-x) in boxes 12-16 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them.
You may use any of the headings more than once.
List of Headings
(i) The effect of changing demographics on organisations
(ii) Future changes in the European workforce
(iii) The unstructured interview and its validity
(iv) The person-skills match approach to selection
(v) The implications of a poor person-environment fit
(vi) Some poor selection decisions
(vii) The validity of selection procedures
(viii) The person-environment fit
(ix) Past and future demographic changes in Europe
(x) Adequate and inadequate explanations of organisational failure
Example Paragraph A Answer (x)
12. Paragraph B
13. Paragraph C
14. Paragraph D
15. Paragraph E
Example Paragraph F Answer (ix)
16. Paragraph G
PEOPLE AND ORGANISATIONS: THE SELECTION ISSUE
A In 1991, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, a record 48,000 British companies went out of business. When businesses fail, the post-mortem analysis is traditionally undertaken by accountants and market strategists. Unarguably organisations do fail because of undercapitalisation, poor financial management, adverse market conditions etc. Yet, conversely, organisations with sound financial backing, good product ideas and market acumen often underperform and fail to meet shareholders' expectations. The complexity, degree and sustainment of organisational performance requires an explanation which goes beyond the balance sheet and the "paper conversion" of financial inputs into profit making outputs. A more complete explanation of "what went wrong" necessarily must consider the essence of what an organisation actually is and that one of the financial inputs, the most important and often the most expensive, is people.
B An organisation is only as good as the people it employs. Selecting the right person for the job involves more than identifying the essential or desirable range of skills, educational and professional qualifications necessary to perform the job and then recruiting the candidate who is most likely to possess these skills or at least is perceived to have the ability and predisposition to acquire them. This is a purely person/skills match approach to selection.
C Work invariably takes place in the presence and/or under the direction of others, in a particular organisational setting. The individual has to "fit" in with the work environment, with other employees, with the organisational climate, style or work, organisation and culture of the organisation. Different organisations have different cultures (Cartwright & Cooper, 1991; 1992). Working as an engineer at British Aerospace will not necessarily be a similar experience to working in the same capacity at GEC or Plessey.
D Poor selection decisions are expensive. For example, the costs of training a policeman are about 20,000 (approx. US$ 30,000). The costs of employing an unsuitable technician on an oil rig or in a nuclear plant could, in an emergency, result in millions of pounds of damage or loss of life. The disharmony of a poor person-environment fit (PE-fit) is likely to result in low job satisfaction, lack of organisational commitment and employee stress, which affect organisational outcomes i.e. productivity, high labour turnover and absenteeism, and individual outcomes i.e. physical, psychological and mental well-being.
E However, despite the importance of the recruitment decision and the range of sophisticated and more objective selection techniques available, including the use of psychometric tests, assessment centres etc., many organisations are still prepared to make this decision on the basis of a single 30 to 45 minute unstructured interview. Indeed, research has demonstrated that a selection decision is often made within the first four minutes of the interview. In the remaining time, the interviewer then attends exclusively to information that reinforces the initial "accept" or "reject" decision. Research into the validity of selection methods has consistently demonstrated that the unstructured interview, where the interviewer asks any questions he or she likes, is a poor predictor of future job performance and fares little better that more controversial methods like graphology and astrology. In times of high unemployment,! recruitment becomes a "buyer's market" and this was the case in Britain during the 1980s.
F The future, we are told, is likely to be different. Detailed surveys of social and economic trends in the European community show that Europe's population is falling and getting older, The birth rate in the Community is now only three-quarters of the level needed to ensure replacement of the existing population. By the year 2020, it is predicted that more than one in four Europeans will be aged 60 or more and barely one in five will be under 20. In a five-year period between 1983 and 1988 the Community's female workforce grew by almost six million. As a result, 51% of all women aged 14 to 64 are now economically active in the labour market compared with 78% of men.
G The changing demographics will not only affect selection ratios. They will also make it increasingly important for organisations wishing to mainta in their competitive edge to be more responsive and accommodating to the changing needs of their workforce if they are to retain and develop their human resources. More flexible working hours, the opportunity of work from home or job share, the provision of childcare facilities etc., will play a major role in attracting and retaining staff in the future.
Questions 17-22
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 17-22 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement does not agree with the writer
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage
17. Organisations should recognise that their employees are a significant part of their
financial assets.
18. Open-structured 45 minute interviews are the best method to identify suitable employees.
19. The rise in the female workforce in the European Community is a positive trend.
20. Graphology is a good predictor of future fob performance.
21. In the future, the number of people in employable age groups will decline.
22. In 2020, the percentage of the population under 20 will be smaller than now.
Questions 23-25
Complete the notes below with words taken from Reading Passage 2. Use NO MORE THAN ONE or TWO WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 23-25 on your answer sheet.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-38 which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 9 and 10.
"The Rollfilm Revolution"
The introduction of the dry plate process brought with it many advantages. Not only was it much more convenient, so that the photographer no longer needed to prepare his material in advance, but its much greater sensitivity made possible a new generation of cameras. Instantaneous exposures had been possible before, but only with some difficulty and with special equipment and conditions. Now, exposures short enough to permit the camera to the held in the hand were easily achieved. As well as fitting shutters and viewfinders to their conventional stand cameras, manufacturers began to construct smaller cameras in tended specifically for hand use.
One of the first designs to be published was Thomas Bolas' s 'Detective' camera of 1881. Externally a plain box, quite unlike the folding bellows camera typical of the period, it could be used unobtrusively. The name caught on, and for the next decade or so almost all hand cameral were called ' Detectives', Many. of the new designs in the 1880s were for magazine cameras, in which a number of dry plates could be pre-loaded and changed one after another following exposure. Although much more convenient than stand cameras, still used by most serious workers, magazine plate cameras were heavy, and required access to a darkroom for loading and processing the plates. This was all changed by a young American bank clerk turned photographic manufacturer, George Eastman, from Rochester, New York.
Eastman had begun to manufacture gelatine dry plates in 1880. being one of the first to do so in America. He soon looked for ways of simplifying photography, believing that many people were put off by the complication and messiness. His first step was to develop, wih the camera manufacturer William H. Walker, a holder for a long roll of paper negative 'film'. This could be fitted to a standard plate camera and up to forty-eight exposures made before reloading. The combined weight of the paper roll and the holder was far less than the same number of glass plates in their ling-tight wooden holders. Although roll-holders had been made as early as the 1850s, none had been very successful be cause of the limitations of the photographic materials then available. Eastman's rollable paper film was sensitive and gave negatives of good quality; the Eastman-Walker roll-holder was a great success.
The next step was to combine the roll-holder with a small hand camera; Eastman's first design was patented with an employee, F. M. Cossitt, in 1886. It was not a success. Only fifty Eastman detective cameras were made, and they were sold as a lot to a dealer in 1887; the cost was too high and the design too complicated. Eastman set about developing a new model, which was launched in June 1888. It was a small box, containing a roll of paperbased stripping film sufficient for 100 circular exposures 6 cm in diameter. Its operation was simple: set the shutter by pulling a wire string; aim the camera using the V line impression in the camera top; press the release botton to activate the exposure; and turn a special key to wind to the film. A hundred exposures had to be made, so it was important to record each picture in the memorandum book provided, since there was no exposure counter. Eastman gave his camera the invented name 'Kodak'-which was easily pronounceable in most languages. and had two Ks which Eastman felt was a firm, uncompromising kind of letter.
The importance of Eastman's new roll-film camera was not that it was the first. There had been several earlier cameras, notably the Stirn 'America', first demonstrated in the spring of 1887 and on sale from early 1888. This also used a roll of negative paper, and had such refinements as a reflecting viewfinder and an ingenious exposure marker. The real significance of the first Kodak camera was that it was backed up by a developing and printing service. Hitherto ,virtually all photographers developed and printed their own pictures. This required that facilities of a darkroom and the time and inclination to handle the necessary chemicals, make the prints and so on. Eastman recognized that not everyone had the resources or the desire to do this. When a customer had made a hundred exposures in the Kodak camera, he sent it to Eastman's factory in Rochester (or later in Harrow in England) where the film was unloaded, processed and printed, the camera reloaded and returned to the owner. "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest" ran Eastman's classic marketing slogan; photography had been brought to everyone. Everyone, that is, who could afford $ 25 or five guineas for the camera and $ 10 or two guineas for the developing and printing . A guinea ( $ 5 ) was a week's wages for many at the time, so this simple camera cost the equivalent of hundreds of dollars today.
In 1889 an improved model with a new shutter design was introduced, and it was called the No. 2 Kodak camera. The paper-based stripping film was complicated to manipulate, since the processed negative image had to be stripped from the paper base for printing. At the end of 1889 Eastman launched a new roll film on a celluloid base. Clear, tough, transparent and flexible, the new film not only made the rollfilm camera fully practical, but provided the raw material for the introduction of cinematography a few years later. Other, larger models were introduced, including several folding versions, one of which took pictures 21.6 cm x 16.5 cm in size. Other manufacturers in America and Europe introduced cameras to take the Kodak roll-films, and other firms began to offer developing and printing services for the benefit of the new breed of photographers.
By September 1889 , over 5,000 Kodak cameras had been sold in the USA, and the company was daily printing 6-7,000 negatives, Holidays and special events created enormous surges in demand for processing: 900 Kodak users returned their cameras for processing and reloading in the week after the New York centennial celebration.
Questions 26-29
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 26-29 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement does agree with the writer
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage
26. Before the dry plate process short exposures could only b achieved with cameras held in the hand.
27. Stirn's America' camera lacked Kodak's developing service.
28. The first Kodak film cost the equivalent of a week's wages to develop.
29. Some of Eastman's 1891 range of cameras could be loaded in daylight.
Questions 30-34
Complete the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 30-34 on your answer sheet.
Questions 35-38
Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35-38 on your answer sheet.
Year Developments Name of person/people
1880 Manufacture of gelatine dry plates .....(35).....
1881 Release of 'Detective' camera Thomas Bolas
.....(36)..... The roll-holder combined with .....(37)..... Eastman and F.M. Cossitt
1889 Introduction of model with .....(38)..... Eastman
ACADEMIC READING-ANSWER KEY
Each question correctly answered scores 1 mark.
Reading Passage 1, Questions 1-11
1. E
2. F
3. 1900 B.C. AND A.D. 1500 (Both for 1 mark.) NOT 1900 AND 1500
4. (according to/from)geological evidence/signs/data
5. (the) local population //inhabitants
