READING PASSAGE 1 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Stonehenge For centuries, historians and archaeologists nave puzzled over the many mysteries of Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument that took an estimated 1,500 years to erect. Located on Salisbury Plain in southern England, it is comprised of roughly 100 massive upright stones placed in a circular layout. Archaeologists believe England's most iconic prehistoric ruin was built in several stages, with the earliest constructed 5,000 or more years ago. First, Neolithic’ Britons used primitive tools, which may have been fashiored out of deer antlers, to dig a massive circular ditch and bank, or henge. Deep pits dating back to that era and located within the circle may have once held a ring of timber posts, according to some scholars. Several hundred years later, it is thought, Stonehenge’s builders hoisted an estimated 80 bluestones, 43 of which remain today, into standing positions and placed them in either a horseshoe or circular formation. These stones have been traced all the way to the Preseli Hills in Wales, some 300 kilomatres from Stonehenge. How, then, did prehistoric builders without sophisticated too's or engineering haul these boulders, which weigh up to four tons, over such a great distance? According to one long-standing theory among archaeologists, Stonehenge's builders fashioned sledges and rollers out of tree trunks to lug the bluestones from the Preseli Hills. They then transferred the boulders onto rafts and floated them first along the Welsh coast and then up the River Avon toward Salisbury Plain; alternatively, they may have towed each stone with a fleet of vessels. More recent archaeological hypotheses have them transporting the bluestones with supersized wicker baskets on a combination of ball bearings and long grooved planks, hauled by oxen. As early as the 1970s, geologists have been adding their voices to the debate over how Stonehenge came into being. Challenging the classic image of industrious builders pushing, carting, rolling or hauling giant stones from faraway Wales, some scientists have suggested that it was glaciers, not humans, that carried the bluestones to Salisbury Plain. Most archaeologists have remained sceptical about this theory, however, wondering how the forces of nature could possibly have delivered the exact number of stones needed to complete the circle. + Neoltnic—The era, also known as the New Stone Age, which began around 12.000 years ago un end around 2500 BCE izone.edu.vn 39Test 2 The third phase of construction took place around 2000 BCE. At this point, sandstone slabs — known as ‘sarsens' — were arranged into an outer crescent or ring; some were assembled into the iconic three-pieced structures called triithons that stand tall in the centre of Stonehenge. Some 50 of these stones are now visible on the site, which may once have contained many more. Radiocarbon dating has revealed that work continued at Stonehenge until roughly 1600 BCE, with the bluestones in particular being repositioned multiple times. But who were the builders of Stonehenge? In the 17th century, archaeologist John ‘Aubrey made the claim that Stonehenge was the work of druids, who had important religious, judicial and political roles in Celtic” society. This theory was widely popularized by the antiquarian William Stukeley, who had unearthed primitive graves at the site. Even today, people who identify as modern druids continue to gather at Stonehenge for the summer solstice. However, in the mid-20th century, radiocarbon dating demonstrated that Stonehenge stood more than 1,000 years before the Celts inhabited the region. Many modem historians and archaeologis's now agree that several distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a different phase of its construction. Bones, tools and other artefects found on the site seem to support this hypothesis. The first stage was achieved by Neolithic agrarians who were likely to have been indigenous to the British Isles. Later, itis believed, groups with advanced tools and a more communal way of life left their mar« on the site. Some believe that they were immigrants from the European continent, while others maintain that they were probably native Britons, descended from the original builders. If the facts surrounding the architects and construction of Stonehenge remain shadowy at best, the purpose of the striking monument is even more of a mystery. While there is consensus among the majority of modern scholars that Stonehenge once served the function of burial ground, they have yet to determine what other purposes it had. In the 1960s, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins suggested that the cluster of megalithic stones operated as a form of calendar, with different points corresponding to astrological phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes and eclipses occurring at different times of the year. While his theory has received a considerable amount of attention over the decades, critics maintain that Stonehenge’s builders probably lacked the knowledge necessary to predict such events or that England's dense cloud cover would have obscured their view of the skies. More recently, signs of illness and injury in the human remains unearthed at Stonehenge led a group of British archaeologists to speculate that it was considered a place of healing, perhaps because bluestones were thought to have curative powers. ec The Cets were people who ved in Brisin and northwest Europe during the ron Age frm 600 BCE to 43 CE 40 izone.edu.vnReading Questions 1-8 Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet. Stonehenge Construction Stage 1: * the ditch and henge were dug, possibly using tools made from 1. ° 2 may have been arranged in deep pits inside the circle Stage 2: . bluestones from the Preseli Hills were placed in standing position * theories about the transportation of the bluestones: — archaeological: © builders used 3 : to make sledges and rollers ° 4. . pulled them on giant baskets = geological: © they were brought from Wales by 5 iw. Stage 3: * sandstone slabs were arranged into an outer crescent or ring Builders © atheory arose in the 17th century that ts builders were Celtic 6. Purpose © many experts agree it has been used as a7 site © in the 1960s, it was suggested that it worked as a kind of 8 ......... izone.edu.vn 41Test 2 Questions 9-13 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write 10 1 12 13 42 TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this During the third phase of construction, sandstone slabs were placed in both the outer areas and the middle of the Stonehenge site. There is scientific proof that the bluestones stood in the same spot until approximately 1600 BCE. John Aubrey's claim about Stonehenge was supported by 20th-century findings. Objects discovered at Stonehenge seem to indicate that it was constructed by a number of different groups of people. Criticism of Gerald Hawkins’ theory about Stonehenge has come mainly from other astronomers. 9 /@ p. 122 izone.edu.vnReading READING PASSAGE 3 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Conquering Earth’s space junk problem Satellites, rocket shards and collision debris are creating major traffic risks in orbit around the planet. Researchers are working to reduce these threats A. Last year, commercial companies, military and civil departments and amateurs sent more than 400 satellites into orbit, over four times the yearly average in the previous decade. Numbers could rise even more sharply if leading space companies follow through on plans to deploy hundreds to thousands of large constellations of satellites to space in the next few years. All that traffic can lead to disaster. Ten yzars ago, a US commercial Iridium satellite smashed into an inactive Russian communications satellite called Cosmos-2251, creating thousands of new pieces of space shrapnel that now threaten other satellites in low Earth orbit — the zone stretching up to 2,000 kilometres in altitude. Altogether, there are roughly 20,000 human-made objects in orbit, from working satellites to small rocket pieces. And satellite operators can’t steer away from every potential crash, because each move consumes time and fuel that could otherwise be used for the spacecraft's main job. B Concern about space junk goes back to the beginning of the satellite era, but the number of objects in orbit is rising so rapidly that researchers are investigating new ways of attacking the problem. Several teams are trying to improve methods for assessing what is in orbit, so that satellite operators can work more efficiently in ever-more-crowded space. Some researchers are now starting to compile a massive data set that includes the best possible information on where everything is in orbit. Others are developing taxonomies of space debris — working on measuring properties such as the shape and size of an object, so that satellite operators know how much to worry about what's coming their way. The alternative, many say, is unthinkable. Just a few uncontrolled space crashes could generate enough debris to set off a runaway cascade of fragments, rendering near-Earth space unusable. ‘If we go on like this, we will reach a point of no return,’ says Carolin Frueh, an astrodynamical researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. © Even as our ability to monitor space objects increases, so too does the total number of items in orbit. That means companies, governments and other players in space are collaborating in new ways to avoid a shared threat. International groups such as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee have developed guidelines on space sustainability. Those include inactivating satellites at the end of their useful life by venting pressurised materials or leftover fuel that might izone.edu.vn 25Test 1 26 lead to explosions. The intergovernmental groups also advise lowering satellites deep enough into the atmosphere that they will burn up or disintegrate within 25 years. But so far, only about half of all missions have abided by this 25-year goal, says Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency's space-debris office in Darmstadt, Germany. Operators of the planned large constellations of satellites say they will be responsible stewards in their enterprises in space, but Krag worries that problems could increase, despite their best intentions. ‘What happens to those that fail or go bankrupt?’ he asks. ‘They are probably not going to spend money to remove their satellites from space.’ In theory, given the vastness of space, satellite operators should have plenty of room for all these missions to fly safely without ever nearing another object. So some scientists are tackling the problem of space junk by trying to find out where all the debris is to a high degree of precision. That would alleviate the need for many of the unnecessary manoeuvres that are carried out to avoid potential collisions. ‘If you knew precisely whe'e everything was, you would almost never have a problem,’ says Marion Sorge, a space-debris specialist at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. The field is called space traffic management, because it's similar to managing traffic on the roads or in the air. Think about a busy day at an airport, says Moriba Jah, an astrodynamicist at the University of Texas at Austin: planes line up in the sky, landing and taking off close to one another in a carefully choreographed routine. Air-traffic controllers know the location of the planes down to one metre in accuracy. The same can't be said for space debris. Not all objects in orbit are known, and even those included in databases are not tracked consistently. ‘An additional problem is that there is no authoritative catalogue that accurately lists the orbits of all known space debris. Jah illustrates this with a web-based database that he has developed. It draws on several sources, such as catalogues maintained by the US and Russian governments, to visualise where objects are in space. When he types in an identifier for a particular space object, the database draws a purple line to designate its orbit. Only this doesn't quite work for a number of objects, such as a Russian rocket body designated in the database as object number 32280. When Jah enters that number, the database draws two purple lines: the US and Russian sources contain two completely different orbits for the same object. Jah says that it is almost impossible to tell which is correct, unless a third source of information made it possible to cross-correlate. Jah describes himself as a space environmentalist: ‘I want to make space a place that is safe to operate, that is free ard useful for generations to come.’ Until that happens, he argues, the space community will continue devolving into a tragedy in which all spaceflight operators are polluting a common resource. izone.edu.vnReading Questions 27-31 Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-F. Which section contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet. 27 reference to the cooperation that takes place to try and minimise risk 28 an explanation of a person's aims 29 a description of a major collision that occurred in space 30 a comparison between tracking objects in space and the efficiency of a transportation system 31 areference to efforts to classify space junk Questions 32-35 Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee The committee gives advice on HOW the 32 vemnnnmnmnnnn OF SPACE CAN be achieved. The committee advises that when satellites are no longer active, any unused 33 ue» OF pressurised material that could cause 34. should be removed Although operators of large satellite constellations accept that they have obligations as stewards of space, Holger Krag points out that the operators that become 35 ... are unlikely to prioritise removing their satellites from space. izone.edu.vn 27Test 1 Questions 36-40 Look at the following statements (Questicns 36-40) and the list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once. 36 37 38 39 40 28 Knowing the exact location of space junk would help prevent any possible danger. Space should be available to everyone and should be preserved for the future. A recommendation regarding satellites is widely ignored. There is conflicting information about where some satellites are in space. There is a risk we will not be able to undo the damage that occurs in space. List of People A Carolin Frueh B Holger Krag Marlon Sorge D_ Moriba Jah (Gp. 120 izone.edu.vn