TEM-8 MODEL TEST 3

[45 MINS]

SECTIONA MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

In this section there are four passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For
each multiple question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the
one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.

PASSAGE ONE
(1) A caffeinated bee is a busier bee. It’ll work harder to find food, and to communicate
the location of said food to other bees. It will, however, misjudge the quality of the food it
finds, and so make its colony less productive. The irony of writing about this as I sip an
unwisely strong espresso at 10 pm is not lost on me.
(2) The caffeine in coffee might give me a mental kick, but many plants rely on its bitter
taste to deter plant-eating animals. Others, however, seem to bait themselves with caffeine,
doping their nectar with low concentrations of the stuff. Why add a bitter deterrent to a liquid
that’s meant to entice and attract pollinators?
(3) Geraldine Wright from Newcastle University found one possible answer in 2013,
when she showed that caffeine can improve a honeybee’s memory. Wright fed the insects with
caffeine at concentrations that would affect their bodies, but that wouldn’t register as a bitter
taste. She found that these bees were three times more likely to remember a floral scent.So, by
providing caffeine, plants ensure that their pollinators are more likely to learn the link between
their distinctive scents and the tasty nectar they provide.
(4) What about the bees? Do they benefit from being drugged like this? One might think
so, because they can more efficiently find the food they need. But Margaret Couvillon from the
University of Sussex thinks otherwise.
(5) She trained honeybees to forage from two feeders full of sugar water, one of which
had been laced with a small amount of caffeine.She found that the caffeinated bees made more
visits to the feeders. Once back in the hive,they were more likely to perform the distinctive
waggle dance that tells other bees where to find food, and they performed the dance more
frequently. And this means that a hive which exploits a caffeinated flower will send out about
four times as many workers to that flower.
(6) That wouldn’t be bad if this newly energised armada of workers was behaving more
efficiently. But they’re not. Couvillon’s team showed that they’re more likely to persist with a
caffeinated food source, even when that source no longer becomes useful. They also become
faithful to their chosen feeder and become less likely to stray to a different host plant.
(7) So, there’s the rub. Even though caffeine improves bee memory, it also causes them to
overvalue caffeinated plants over decaffeinated ones that offer the same amount of energy. As
the team writes, “The effects of caffeine in nectar are akin to drugging, where the pollinator’s
perception of the forage quality is altered, which in turn changes its individual behaviours.”
(8) By simulating these effects, Couvillon showed that if 40 percent of plants in the
environment produce small amounts of caffeine—a realistic proportion—bee colonies would
produce around 15 percent less honey every day.

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 (9) They still need to test this prediction in real-world experiments. But if the results check
out, it suggests that plants use caffeine not only as a deterrent against undesirable animals, but
also as a way of manipulating desirable ones.

11. “Mental kick” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ________.

A. mental damage B.mental block C.refreshed mind D.healthy mind

12. Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

A. Some plants use caffeine as a deterrent.
B. Many plants rely on caffeine to scare pollinators away.
C. A caffeinated bee poses a great threat to plants.
D. A caffeinated bee is more likely to estrange itself from other bees.

13. A suitable title for the passage would be ________.

A. Caffeine, Bees and Plants
B. Links between Caffeine and Plants
C. Why Is Caffeine Important to Bees
D. Caffeine Makes for Busy Bees, Not Productive Ones

PASSAGE TWO
(1) Some people have a more complicated sensory life than others. Most taste tuna only
when they eat it.A few, though, taste it when they hear a particular word, such as “castanet”.
Others link the color red with the letter “S”or make some other inappropriate connection
between stimulus and response.Such people are known as synaesthetes, and the phenomenon
of synaesthesia has puzzled brain scientists since it was recognized over a century ago.
(2) Most researchers in the field suspect synaesthesia is caused by crossed wires in
synaesthetes’ brains, but until recently they have had no way to check this hypothesis. However.
the development of a technique called diffusion-tensor imaging has changed that. And
researchers at the University of Amsterdam have just applied it to the brains of 18 women (the
sex more likely to experience synaesthesia) who have the most common form of the condition.
This is called grapheme-color synaesthesia. It is a tendency to see letters and numbers in color.
(3) Diffusion-tensor imaging measures the direction of movement of water molecules.
Since the filaments that connect distant nerve cells are surrounded by fatty sheaths which
restrict the movement of water, such molecules tend to move along a filament rather than out
of it. The upshot is that the technique can detect bundles of such filaments running from one
part of the brain to another.
(4) The grapheme-color synaesthesia was chosen to study for two reasons. One was that it
is common. The other was because there is a specific hypothesis as to its cause. Earlier brain-
scanning studies have shown that the part of the brain which identifies word shape is in an area
called the fusiform gyrus. This is next to an area known as V4, which identifies color.Both
light up simultaneously in traditional scanners when someone is experiencing grapheme-color
synaesthesia, so an inappropriate link between them is an obvious thing to look for.
(5)Diffusion-tensor imaging did, indeed, show strong connections between these two areas

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in the brains of the synaesthetes when they slid into the scanner and viewed color-evoking
letters and numbers. Other unusual connections showed up too, suggesting the phenomenon is
more complex than had been appreciated.By contrast,the brains of 18 non-synaesthetes
matched with the volunteers by age and sex showed no such strong connections.
(6)And the revelations went further. Certain types of grapheme-color synaesthetes have
more connectivity than others. As part of the study, researchers asked volunteers to fill out
questionnaires about how they experience their color sensations. Some reported seeing color
projected on to whatever word or number they were shown. Members of this group are known
as “projectors” .Others, known as“associators”, reported color only in their mind’s
eye.Although both groups of synaesthetes had much more connectivity than non-synaesthetes,
projectors had noticeably more again than associators.
(7) Researchers are not yet sure what form the stronger connections take. They could be
the result of more filaments than normal connecting the areas in question. Or the filaments
might be broader than normal. Or the fatty coatings of the filaments might be thicker, which
would amplify the signal passing along them as well as keeping water molecules on the
straight-and-narrow.
(8)How synaesthesia starts is also unclear. There is evidence of a genetic component but
learning.must be involved as well.People are not born with the concept of the letter “A”. And
they certainly are not born with a bright-red, cherry-colored “A”— however much it feels, as
synaesthetes insist, as though they were.

14. We can infer from the first paragraph that ________.

A. the word “castanet” has something to do with tuna
B. the letter “S” can stimulate people to think of the color red
C. the phenomenon of synaesthesia was under study over a century ago
D. synaesthesia involves the stimulation that evokes the sensation of another

15. “…the development of a technique called diffusion-tensor imaging has changed that”
suggests that ________.
A.technological development has figured out the cause for synaesthesia
B. technological development has proved the hypothesis that synaesthesia is caused by
crossed wires in brains
C. technological development has rejected the hypothesis that synaesthesia is caused by
crossed wires in brains
D.technological development has made hypothesis checking possible

16. What does the following sentence mean? “And they certainly are not born with a bright-red.
cherry-colored ‘A’— however much it feels, as synaesthetes insist, as though they were.”
(Para.8)
A.Exquisite as the sensation is, there is no connection between colors and the letter“A”.
B. Strong as the sensation is, the connection is not an innate sense.
C. The letter“A”can initiate the color sensations that synaestheltes claim to be existing all
along.

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 D.Synaestheltes insist there are intrinsic connections between the letter“A”and the cherry
color.

17. The example at the end of the passage seems to suggest ________.
A. synaesthesia is partly subject to genetic influence
B. people don’t have the concept of the letter “A” when they are born
C. People’s concomitant sensation is usually swayed by learning
D. the connection between the color red and the letter “A” is strong

PASSAGE THREE
(1) Cuckolds are men whose wives gave birth to infants that were blatantly not their own.
The well known trickery of the cuckoo,the bird from which “cuckold” is derived, is as a nest
parasite— laying eggs for other birds to hatch and raise. New research suggests the cuckoo has
another trick it uses to ruffle its victims’ feathers.
(2) Common cuckoos usually lay a single egg in the nest of a host bird. The eggs often
look remarkably similar to the host’s. Upon hatching, the cuckoo chick eliminates any of its
potential rival chicks by pushing them or their eggs out of the nest. However, there is more to
this elaborate deceit than is generally realized.
(3) As far back as ancient times a similarity has been noted between many cuckoo species
and hawks, in size, shape and plumage. More recently researchers have discovered that hawk-
like markings are more prevalent in cuckoo species that engage in nest parasitism than in
cuckoo species that do not. Researchers wondered whether this similarity was noticed by birds
too.
(4) They set up peanut feeding stations and over two years found that great and blue tits.
both of which are not parasitised by cuckoos, were the main visitors. They then experimented
by placing a mounted specimen of a sparrowhawk, cuckoo, dove, or duck, at the feeders for
five minutes. The team reported that the tits were as scared of cuckoos as they were of
sparrowhawks, raising alarm calls and staying away from feeders at all costs. With the duck
and dove they detected no such behavior.
(5) When researchers covered the hawk-like markings on the cuckoo the tits treated it as if
it were a duck or dove.Covering the same markings on the sparrowhawk had no such effect,
but adding them to the dove caused the tits to treat the dove as they would a sparrowhawk or a
cuckoo.
(6) The authors argue that actual cuckoo hosts, such as meadow pipits, dunnocks and reed
warblers, may have directed the evolution of the cuckoo’s resemblance to hawks by attacking
cuckoos that approached their nests. If a cuckoo with slightly hawk-like plumage caused hosts
to delay or avoid an attack in the past,this would have favored the evolution of hawk mimicry.
(7) It is an arms race — and a matter of adapting and counter-adapting. The better the
cuckoo disguises its eggs and itself,the more host birds improve their ability to spot the
impostor. Although such an evolutionary dynamic may seem like something that exists only in
the wild, it is possible for it to happen in human society as well—between cuckolds and their
cheating partners, constantly driving men to be better at detecting adultery and women to be
better at getting away with it.

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18. According to the passage,why is “cuckold” derived from “cuckoo”?
A.Because they both mimic the distinctive appearance of others.
B. Because the cuckoo’s stealth is as analogous to a cuckold’s deceit.
C. Because both cuckolds and cuckoos have others raise their descendants.
D.Because the cuckoo’s invasion of other birds’ nests is analogous to the stealing of a
wife’s affections by another man.

19. Which of the following statements about the second paragraph is NOT true?
A.Cuckoos usually lay eggs of similar shape and color to the host’s in other birds’ nest.
B.Cuckoo chicks can get rid of the host birds’ chicks.
B. Cuckoo chicks can get rid of the host birds’ eggs before they hatch.
C. Cuckoo chicks mimic the appearance of the host birds’ chicks.

20. Which of the following experiments has NOT been done by researchers?
A.They placed a sparrowhawk, cuckoo,dove, or duck around the tits and observed the tits’
reaction.
B. They set up feeding stations and observed why tits are not parasitized by cuckoos.
C. They covered hawk-like markings on the cuckoo and observed the tits’ reaction.
D.They added hawk-like markings on the dove and observed the tits’ reaction.

21. According to the passage, which of the following statements is CORRECT?

A.Dunnocks and reed warblers attacked cuckoos, so that their nests have escaped the
doomed fate of being parasitised.
B. Cuckoos have a gift for hawk mimicry.Accordingly,they are not attacked by hosts.
C. Both meadow pipits and reed warblers have contributed to the evolution of hawk
mimicry
D.The hawk-like plumage is favored by actual cuckoo hosts.

PASSAGE FOUR
(1) I first met him in a small lumbertown. I was sitting in front of the hotel watching
people pass by. It was a warm day. Now and then, a group of laughing rivermen marched by.
(2) One group especially caught my eye. They wore bright red shirts and heavy boots.
Suddenly, one of them came up to me. “Say, Mister,” he said. “You look mighty interested.Are
we your long lost friends?”
(3) His voice was friendly enough but he seemed ready for any answer... trouble, if I
wanted it, or help if I needed it.
(4) “Can you tell me where all these people are going?”
(5) He pushed his little cap further back on his head. “Birling match!” he said. “Come
on!”
(6) I joined him and we followed the crowd to the river.There, we saw six men running
toward the river with their peaveys. They used the round metal hooks on the end of the peaveys
to push a heavy log into the water. Then one of the men took a long leap and landed on the end

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of the log. The force of his jump pushed the log out into the middle of the river. The man, arms
folded over his chest, stood straight up like a statue of bronze.
(7) The crowd roared approval. The man’s name was Darrell. He was a small man, but he
had wide shoulders and long arms. He walked to the center of the long heavy log and turned to
face the crowd.Then, slowly, he began to walk, not forward or backward, but in the same
place... in the center of the log. The log began to turn under his feet.It rolled around and around.
His folded arms, his straight back, did not move, only his legs and feet, soon the log was
spinning. Suddenly the man jumped up in the air and came down on the log with both feet. The
log stopped turning and rested under him like a great quaking animal.
(8)The man on the log then dropped his arms and stood still for a moment. And he jumped
into the air again. But this time he turned completely over in the air, then landed on the log
with both feet.The crowd roared again. Someone pushed a long pole out toward the log. The
log, with Darrell on top, was pulled toward shore.Another man then ran to the river and jumped
on the log with Darrell.
(9) They stood facing each other. Then, together, they began to walk, slowly at first, then
faster. The log began to turn around under them, spinning faster and faster. Soon, it became
clear that the other man could not keep up with Darrell. The man was being forced off the top
of the log.Suddenly, the man fell backward into the water.
(10) “Clean birled?” my friend said. Twelve other men—one after the other—tried to get
Darrell to fall into the water. But none of them could move their feet as fast as he could. The
crowd now shouted for someone to stop Darrell.It wanted the best and began to shout: “We
want Powers!” Jimmy Powers was my friend.He got up, ran to the river and jumped onto the
log with Darrell.
(11) At first, the two men just stood looking at each other waiting for the first move.
Suddenly, Darrell birled the log three times quickly, then jumped up and down to stop it.
(12) Powers felt the log shake under him but kept his balance. The battle
started.Sometimes, the log rolled left to right, then right to left. They moved their feet together
faster and faster. At every move, the crowd shouted for Powers to throw Darrell into the water.
Suddenly, there was a big splash. There was Powers swimming toward shore.
(13) I walked over to him. “How did he do it?” I asked. He turned to me and I saw the
anger in his wet face. “Oh, it’s you? Well,that’s how he did it,” and he showed me a row of
holes in his boot. Blood was running from the holes. “He jumped on my foot with his boots
and pushed the metal spikes right through.” “Why didn’t you say something?”I asked.
(14) “Look,Mister,” he said, “I am big enough to take care of myself. Don’t lose any hair
over this. I’ll stop Darrell next time.”
(15) The following year I visited the old lumbertown again. But this time the town was
empty. “Everybody has gone to see the log jam.” The jam was up the hill above town. When I
got there everybody was down at the river. There, in the middle of the water, was a mountain of
logs. Thousands of them, one on top of the other, blocking the river. About fifty men were
using peaveys to free the logs. Sometimes, one would break loose and ten others followed. All
floated down the river away from the jam.At noon, the men came to shore for lunch. “Hello,
Powers,” I said. “Do you remember me?”
(16) “Sure,” he said. “Aren’t you a little early this year?” “No,” I said, “this is better than

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a birling match. It will be a great sight when the logs break loose.”
(17) “You bet it will,” he said. We talked of many things and finally I said, “Darrell is your
boss this year, huh? Did you ever get a chance to birl him off a log?”
(18) “Mister,” he said, “those little marks are still on my foot.Just you remember this:
Dicky Darrell will get his from me!”
(19) About three o’clock that afternoon the log jam began to break up. There was no
warning—just a loud cracking sound that got louder and louder as the rows of logs began to hit
each other. At first, a few hundred broke loose and fell into the swift water. Others quickly
followed.
(20)The rivermen separated. They raced away in all directions, leaping and hopping from
log to log to get to shore. One man fell into the water and started to swim to shore. It was
Darrell. He was caught in the river, a thousand logs rushing toward him. Suddenly another
riverman raced across the floating logs, seized Darrell by the coat collar and started to climb up
the mountain of logs,pulling Darrell with him. It was an exciting rescue. The logs were falling
and rolling down toward them, but they finally got to the top of the pile. Without stopping for
thanks or shaking hands,the two men immediately went to work. They pushed and pulled the
logs on top to keep the others moving. Forty other men attached the logs. Then with a mighty
roar the mountain broke free. The falling logs leaped forward like animals down into the swift
water. The log jam was broken.
(21) One by one, the town people left. The sun moved down behind the trees and a cool
evening breeze came up the river. Jimmy Powers walked toward me. “You know,” he said, “the
owner of the largest lumber mill saw me work today and offered me a job as a boss. Imagine
that ... me, a boss.”
(22) There was a strange look on his face. “Well,” I said, “you earned it. I’m not going to
call you a hero because you wouldn’t like that. But what you did this afternoon showed
courage. It was a brave act. But it was better because you saved your enemy ... you are a leader
of men.” I stopped. Jimmy kept looking at me.
(23) “Mister,” he said, “if you are going to hang stars on my Christmas tree,just stop right
now. I didn’t rescue Darrell because I had any Christian feeling for him. I was just saving him
for the birling match next Fourth of July.”

22. Who invited the author to watch the birling match?

A. A riverman in a small lumbertown. B. Jimmy Powers.
C. Darrell. D. The boos of the lumber mill.

23. When was the birling match held?

A. On Independence Day. B. On the Easter holidays.
C. At Christmas. D. On New Year’s Day.

24. What’s Powers’ attitude towards his defeat?

A. He was very disappointed. B. He blew the competition off.
C. He was very angry. D. He was at a loss.

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SECTION B SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS
In this section there are eight short-answer questions based on the passages in SECTION
A. Answer each question with NO MORE THAN TEN words in the space provided on ANSWER
SHEET TWO.

PASSAGE ONE
25. What do the plants benefit from doping their nectar with caffeine?

PASSAGE TWO
26. Among the three groups, which one had the most connectivity, non-synaesthetes, projectors
or associators?

PASSAGE THREE
27. What does the experiment conducted by researchers in the fourth paragraph suggest?

28. How did the tits treat the cuckoo when its hawk-like markings were covered?

29. What role does the last paragraph play in the passage?

PASSAGE FOUR
30. Why was Powers defeated by Darrell?

31. When would a player be considered as a winner of the birling match?

32. Why did Powers save Darrell’s life?

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 TEM-8 MODEL TEST 4
[45 MINS]

SECTIONA MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

In this section there are four passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For
each multiple question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the
one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.

PASSAGE ONE
(1) Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing,
not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair,
from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a
yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find,
thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they
wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them
from the frost.
(2) Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Miller’s place, it
was called. It stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses
could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was
approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and
under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars ( 杨 树 ). At the rear things were on even a more
spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held
forth, rows of vine-clad servants’ cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long
grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant
for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller’s boys took their morning
plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon.
(3) And over this great demesne (自用地) Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had
lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other dogs. There could not but be other
dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous
kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese
pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, —strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or
set foot to ground.On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who
yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protected
by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
(4) But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was his. He
plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and
Alice, the Judge’s daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he
lay at the Judge’s feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge’s grandsons on his
back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to
the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry
patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored,
for he was king,— king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place,
humans included.

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 (5) His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge’s inseparable companion,
and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He was not so large, — he weighed only
one hundred and forty pounds,— for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog.
Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of
good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During
the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated (饱享的) aristocrat; he had a
fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become
because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered
house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his
muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a
health preserver.
(6) And this was the manner of Buck in the fall of 1897, when the Klondike strike
dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers,
and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardener’s helpers, was an undesirable
acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play lottery. Also, in his gambling, he
had one besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to
play a system requires money, while the wages of a gardener’s helper do not lap over the needs
of a wife and numerous progeny.

11. The description in Para. 2 is meant to introduce ________.

A. the social background of the story B. the good living conditions of Buck
C. the layout of Judge Miller’s place D. the contrast between Buck and others

12. Which of the following BEST explains Buck’s superiority over other dogs?
A. Buck was the favorite dog of the house owner.
B. Kennel-dogs were not allowed to walk around.
C. Buck lived in the house longer than other dogs.
D. House-dogs were well protected by housemaids.

13. When describing Buck, the author’s tone is ________.

A. critical B. sarcastic C. humorous D. friendly

14. What follows the last paragraph of the passage will most probably narrate ________.
A. how the lottery system worked in 1897 B. what was written in the newspapers
C. How Manuel managed to win lottery D. the troubles Manuel brought to Buck

PASSAGE TWO
(1) Early this winter, the hundreds of climbers making plans for spring-summit attempts
on Mount Qomolangma suddenly faced a new set of rules. In December, the Nepalese
government decreed that it would no longer issue permits to blind, solo, or double-amputee
mountaineers for any of its high peaks. Furthermore, all expeditions would have to employ at
least one Sherpa (夏尔巴人向导) and would be forbidden from using helicopters to reach high
camps.
(2) The regulations fit a pattern established by Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism, which in the

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past few years has issued a series of proclamations—climbers must announce plans to set
records, trekkers must carry location beacons—that suggest improved management of its
high-altitude peaks. Each new declaration generates a rush of international news reports about
authorities making strides toward addressing safety at the top of the world. The truth is a lot
more complicated.
(3) Mountaineering is big business in Nepal. Industry experts estimate that it generates
some $26.5 million in tourism income each year, with around $11 million of that coming from
Qomolangma climbers alone.The enduring obsession of the Western media with tragic deaths
on these far-off snowy peaks has resulted in a lot of free marketing. Nepal’s Ministry of
Tourism, perhaps concerned that all the morbid tales might drive climbers to Qomolangma’s
less used Chinese side, has gained some control of that narrative by broadcasting more positive
developments through the Nepalese press. But the rules announced to date would do nothing to
mitigate the dangers of climbing Qomolangma even if Nepal had the resources and conviction
to enforce them, which it doesn't.
(4) Making a huge, hugely popular mountain safer is possible. On Alaska’s Denali,
fulltime climbing rangers conduct safety checks of many teams and are mobilized for rescue
operations. On Argentina's Aconcagua, rangers patrol all high camps, and until recently, permit
fees included the cost of helicopter rescues. Adopting similar policies in Nepal would be a
good start. A longer list of true reforms would include ordering all climbers to have previously
summited a 7,000-meter peak, requiring non-guides working above Base Camp to take a
course at the Khumbu Climbing Center (hundreds have done so since it was founded in 2003),
and capping the total number of climbers on the mountain at 500 per season, including support
staff. That last policy would both reduce dangerous crowding and help keep the mountain
clean.
(5) Unfortunately, these kinds of rules are less likely than ever to be instituted on
Qomolangma, owing to the rise of budget guiding companies. Beginning in the early
1990s,Western outfitters established commercial mountaineering on the Nepal side of the peak
by attracting clients willing to pay as much as $65,000 to be guided to the summit. That
business model dominated for more than two decades, bringing an estimated 9,000 paying
climbers to Base Camp. Consequently, Qomolangma earned a reputation as a magnet for the
rich, ambitious, and inexperienced.
(6) As in many markets, savvy entrepreneurs saw opportunities for disruption.
Lower-cost guiding companies, some founded by Westerners and others by Nepalese, slowly
gained attraction by offering Qomolangma climbs for as little as a third of the going rate
among high-end outfitters. Then came 2014, when 16 Sherpas died after a serac ( 冰 塔 )
collapsed onto the Khumbu Icefall, part of the main route from Base Camp to Camp I. In the
wake of that tragedy, a small group of Sherpas demanded that the Nepalese government
establish regulations that would improve working conditions, increase pay, boost life-insurance
coverage, and provide a funeral stipend. Ultimately, Sherpas received a bit more insurance—
the minimum payout was doubled from $5,500 to $11,000—but not much else.
(7) Partly in response to media attention of these events, Nepali-owned guiding companies
have continued to gain influence and market share on Qomolangma. The shift away from
foreign control of the mountain is welcomed by many in the climbing community. Another
positive development: lower-cost operators are increasing diversity on Qomolangma, attracting

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climbers from China’s and India’s burgeoning middle classes with aggressive pricing. Based on
numbers from the Himalayan Database, in 2010, four Indian and eight Chinese climbers
attempted the mountain, just 6 percent of the total. Last year, Chinese and Indian clients
accounted for 60 of the 199 Nepal-side summits.
(8) Unfortunately, in the absence of substantive government oversight, some of the budget
companies are making Qomolangma more dangerous by flooding the already overcrowded
route with novice climbers led by inexperienced guides. Any operators charging less for guided
climbs are prone to bolster profits through scale, booking dozens of clients on expeditions.
(The most respected outfitters set a maximum of ten.) Putting aside 2014’s tragedy and 2015’s
earthquake-induced avalanche, which killed at least 17 people at Base Camp, 12 of the 17
climber deaths on the South Col route between 2011 and 2017 appear to have been clients of
budget outfitters.
(9) During last year’s peak season. Kathmandu-based Seven Summit Treks, known for
bringing large groups of climbers Qomolangma, allegedly promoted young support staffer
named Sange to guide Qomolangma and assigned him to an older Pakistani client. The pair
reached the summit late in the day and got into trouble on their descent. They had to be rescued
by experienced Sherpas from another Nepalese outfitter. Sange later had all his fingers
amputated due to severe frostbite.
(10) Veteran guides are reacting to all this in different ways. Adrian Ballinger, founder of
the California outfitter Alpenglow, has abandoned the Nepal side of Qomolangma and is
instead leading teams from China. As he explained it, the higher risk from natural dangers
(avalanches, seracs, crevasses), the low standards of other outfitters, and Nepal’s
mismanagement add up to an unacceptable environment. Several other prominent guides have
come to the same conclusion, including Austrian Lukas Furtenbach. Others are staying put.
International Mountain Guides co-owner Eric Simonson, whose first expedition on
Qomolangma was in 1982, insists that upgrades in route-making through the Khumbu Icefall,
and the establishment of dual ropes in areas prone to bottlenecks, have made the Nepal side
safer, even as the crowds have grown.
(11) Qomolangma remains the ultimate conquest for many climbers. And while most
embrace the risk of high-altitude mountaineering, few understand that the biggest dangers are
all too often the result of economics, not the forces of nature. Ultimately, the top priority of
many tourism officials and outfitters isn’t safety. It’s the bottom line.

15. Which of the following is NOT a safety measure according to Paras. 1&2?
A. Employment of Sherpas on all expeditions. B. Announcement of climbers’ plans.
C. Use of helicopters to get to high camps D. Permits issued to able-bodied trekkers.

16. What is the main purpose of Para. 4?

A. To list the necessary conditions. B. To make recommendations with examples.
C. To show the policies in other regions. D. To emphasize the importance of training.

17. What can be inferred from Paras. 5&6?

A. Budget guiding companies may fail to ensure climbers’ safety.
B. Western outfitters are more reliable than Nepalese companies.

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 C. Working conditions for Sherpas have been much improved.
D. Cost of climbing business has been greatly reduced recently.

18. The case of Sange in Para. 9 is cited to illustrate ________.

A. the importance of guides B. the complexity of climbing
C. the required health conditions D. the problems of budget outfitters

19. The function of “Others are staying put” in Para. 10 is to ________.

A. list factors B. show contrast
C. introduce a point D. provide an example

PASSAGE THREE
(1) Vast stretches of central Asia feel eerily uninhabited. Fly at 30,000 feet over the
southern part of the former Soviet Union and there are long moments when no town or road or
field is visible from your window. The landscape of stark desert, trackless steppe (大草原), and
rugged mountains seems to swallow up anything human. It is little surprise, then, that this
region remains largely unknown to most archaeologists.
(2) Wandering bands and tribes roamed this immense area for 5,000 years, herding goat,
sheep, cattle, and horses across immense steppes, through narrow valleys, and over high snowy
passes. They left occasional tombs that survived the ages, and on rare occasions settled down
and built towns or even cities. But for the most part, these peoples left behind few physical
traces of their origins, beliefs, or ways of life. What we know of these nomadic pastoralists
comes mainly from their periodic forays into India, the Middle East, and China, where they
often wreaked havoc and earned a fearsome reputation as enemies of urban life.
(3) In the past century, scholars criticized these people as destructive, dismissed them as
marginal, or, at best, cast them as a harsh tonic for restoring vigor to decaying and soft
agricultural societies from ancient Mesopotamia to Imperial Rome to Han China. In the
1950’s, a British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler blamed the aggressive, chariot-driving
Aryans who swept in from the steppes for the demise of the peaceful Indus River civilization
after 1800 B.C., though later archaeologists dismissed that claim.
(4) But Michael Frachetti, a young archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis,
takes the radical view that Central Asians were early midwives in the birth of civilization rather
than a destructive force. Frachetti argues that ancient pastoralists living in the third millennium
B.C., at the time of the first great cities of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus, created a
network stretching across thousands of miles that passed along goods, technologies, and ideas
central to urban life. He believes they helped create civilization rather than hindering it.
(5) Most archaeological work in Central Asia during the past century has focused on the
open and rolling plains that stretch from the Black Sea to Manchuria. These steppes only came
to life after 2000 B.C. when horse domestication and riding suddenly turned a forbidding
landscape for pedestrians into a natural highway of grass.
(6) By contrast, the areas to the south of the steppes have long been dismissed as
backwaters of history. In the past, these southern mountains and deserts were considered too
remote, rugged, and inhospitable to have played a role in early migrations or the emergence of
urban life. The Karakum Desert, where it might rain once in a decade, covers nearly two-thirds

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of today’s Turkmenistan, while the perpetually snow-covered Tian Shan Mountains of western
China and eastern Kyrgyzstan soar 24,000 feet into the thin air. It is there that Frachetti and a
new generation of archaeologists from the United States and Central Asian nations are
discovering evidence of a network of pastoralists who thrived centuries before hooves
resounded on the steppes to the north. These forgotten peoples may have carried such markers
of civilization as ceramics and grains across thousands of miles, two millennia before the Silk
Road linked the Roman Empire with Han China. Frachetti argues that the new data emerging
from the region force archaeologists to rethink their ideas about trade across Eurasia during the
Bronze Age, when the first civilizations were taking form to the east, south, and west.
(7) Frachetti, who has studied modern-day pastoralists in such unforgiving landscapes as
the Sahara and Scandinavia, was drawn to the southern region of Central Asia for its
environmental diversity of desert, grassland, and meadows. Instead of a wasteland, he saw an
ideal landscape for enterprising herders who wanted to pasture their animals in all seasons.
Together with his colleagues, Frachetti began digging a decade ago in the Dzhungar Mountains
of Kazakhstan. Covering nearly 500 square miles, this region lies between the Tian Shan and
Altai Mountain ranges, and boasts sharp peaks topping 12,000 feet, as well as harsh desert. At
a site near a village called Begash, on a flat terrace enclosed by steep canyon walls alongside a
small stream, the team uncovered the foundations of simple stone structures along with an
array of potsherds ( 陶 瓷 碎 片 ) and bronze and stone artifacts in stone-lined oval and
rectangular tombs. The earliest layers at Begash date to at least as early as 2500 B.C., based on
alpha magnetic spectrometry dating of organic remains, says Frachetti. One woman was laid to
rest with a bell-shaped hooked bronze earring around 1700 B.C., according to electron spin
resonance dating. Similar earrings are only found several centuries later some 600 miles to the
north on the Siberian steppes, hinting at styles that moved north over time.
(8) More surprisingly, the excavators found wheat, which was first domesticated in the
Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, and broomcorn millet that was first widely grown in
northern China. The grains were used ritually in a burial, and radiocarbon dating of the remains
dates them to about 2200 B.C., making them the oldest known domesticated grains in Central
Asia. The people of Begash may not have grown either grain—there are no grinding stones, a
sign of grain preparation—but instead received it via trade networks stretching from the Near
East to China.
(9) Dorian Fuller, a leading expert in ancient grains based at University College London,
calls the finds “important and well dated.” He adds that Chinese crops such as millet began to
appear in southwest Asia around 1900 B.C., a few centuries after they reached Begash, which
could mean the passage through the mountain regions was a means of gradual transmission
from east to west. Frachetti speculates that the grains may have been acquired from other tribes
and used for ritual purposes, and then perhaps were passed on in turn to other pastoral peoples.
(10) What makes the Begash discoveries so important is that previously this region was
assumed to have been a land of scattered foragers (狩猎者) until steppe peoples trickled down
into the area’s valleys and mountain ranges after 2000 B.C. But it is becoming evident that the
people of Begash were not simple foragers, but sophisticated pastoralists who tended their
flocks, much as people in the area still do today. The inhabitants did not begin to use horses
until well into the second millennium B.C., and the varieties of sheep and goat found here
today appear to be related to the varieties first domesticated thousands of years before in

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western Iran, near ancient Mesopotamia. This indicates that Begash was “at the crossroads of
extremely wide networks among Eurasian communities by the third millennium B.C.,” asserts
Frachetti. That doesn’t mean that traders traversed thousands of miles in this early period.
Instead, the archaeologist envisions pastoralists taking their flocks to higher pastures in the
summer,where they encountered neighbors from other valleys doing the same. Thus, ideas and
technologies might have passed gradually through the mountain corridors of southern Central
Asia. This corridor, Frachetti believes, may have been a key conduit for Bronze Age
developments farther into East Asia and Mongolia.

20. According to Paras. 1 &2, the nomadic pastoralists were depicted as ________ people.
A. peace-loving B. mysterious C. urban D. friendly

21. According to the passage, what made the steppes accessible to travelers?
A. Climate change. B. Emergence of towns.
C. Horse domestication. D. Population movement.

21. Frachetti was initially interested in the areas to the south of the steppes because of ______.
A. their varied geographical features
B. their harsh climate and terrain
C. their role in the emergence of urban life
D. their location in the trade route to the north

23. Which of the following statements about the wheat and millet found in Begash is
CORRECT?
A. They were early signs of agriculture there.
B. They were the result of trading with China.
C. They were mainly used in religious rituals.
D. They were probably given by other tribes.

24 .What is the significance of the Begash discoveries according to Para. 10?

A. People in the area lived basically as hunters.
B. New views about the region came into being.
C. Begash was at the center of the trading network.
D. Begash was part of the Eurasian community.

SECTION B SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS

In this section there are eight short-answer questions based on the passages in SECTION
A. Answer each question with NO MORE THAN TEN words in the space provided on ANSWER
SHEET TWO.

PASSAGE ONE
25. Why were dogs wanted in the Northland?

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26. Use adjectives to describe Buck’s physical appearance and personality. You should write
at least TWO adjectives for each.

PASSAGE TWO
27. What does the author think of the rules announced so far?

28. Why is there a limit on the total number of climbers per season?

29. What does to “bolster profits through scale” mean in Para.8?

PASSAGE THREE
30. What does the statement “Central Asians were early midwives in the birth of civilization”
mean in Para. 4?

31. What examples are used to illustrate the harsh environment in the south of the steppes in
Para.6?

32. What did the discovery of the earrings in the tombs and those found later indicate
(Para.7)?

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