READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 2(1 minitus on Questions 1- 13 , which are based on Reading Passage 1 on page 2
and 3.
sorry-who are you?
Prosopagnasia is a medical condition that stops people from recognizing people 's faces, But
how common is it and why does it happen!!
It was jacob hodes' first day at college He an si recall pending an enjoyable afternoon
being shown around campus by a second year students name Daniel Byrne, who happened
to be from his home town, Jocbo then spent the rest of the year ignoring him, “ I never saw
him again “ he say. Well, I'm sure I waked past him plenty of times, but I just didn't see
him . This behavior wasn't intentional. Jacob just coii1dn't recollect what his fellow student
looked like. He had had the same trouble all his life. Friends and relatives would greet him
and he would have no idea who they were.
It wasn't until five years ago that it all made sense. That was when Hodes was diagnosed
with prosopagnosia, a condition that means he is unable to recognise faces. According to
researchers, he is far from alone. In fact the condition is not that uncommon but until a few
yeors ago only a few dozen cases had ever been described, and all of these had been caused
by brain injury. Recently, though, researchers identified a second form of face blindness
developmental prosopagnosia, which is either present from birth or develops very early in
life.
in May a team fioin Harvard University in the US and University College London (UCL)
announced the results of a web survey of 1, ‹i00 people, suggesting that up to 2 per cent of
people have some degree of face blindness. Then in August. Martina Gruter and colleagues
at the Institute for Human Genetics in Munster, Germany, similarly reported that 2.J per
cent of 700 secondary school pupils they had tested had trouble recognising faces. The
results of the survey took everyone by surprise.
It seems that if you have never known what it is to recognise a face, you don't necessarily
know that you are supposed to be able to. Prosopagnosics almost always know that they
have trouble recognising people, but they often don't realise that other People have better
recognition skills than they do, says Brad Duchaine, a researcher at UCL
Despite these issues, the majority of developmental prosopagnosics possess strategies that
allow them to get around their difficulty, for instance, by recognising hair, clothing or a
person’s way of speaking so, unless they see a familar person out of context, with a new
hairstyle or in difference clothes, they can recognise people just fine. Even so, the discovery of
developmental prosopagnosia has attracted attention from neuroscientists keen to discover
what is different about the brain of face-blind people. This difference, they believe, could
help solve the problem of how the brain deals with information in general: not just visual
data. In other words, it may show whether the brain has specialised parts for specific tasks
or is more of a general-purpose information proces
One issue. however, that will present challenges for researchers is that no two
prosopagnosics are the same. Some have problems only with faces, while others have
trouble with ordinary everyday objects and, so it trims out, animals which would normally
be familiar as well. Some prosopagnetles can train themselves to recognise specific faces
others can't even recognise their own in a mirror. When some have been tested they could
identify the emotion which was conveyed on another's face, even though the face itself
seemed unfamiliar, while for other subjects this was an impossibility. Some cannot recognise
the faces of old friends or fellow students but have no trouble telling whether a particular
face rom such groups would be attractive to most people. Because of this diversity, working
out the cause of prosopagnosia will not be easy.
In Martina Gruter's study, the prosopagnosics who agreed to have their parents and
relatives tested reported at least one with the condition. Having looked at 3S cases in seven
families, the German team believe they have good evidence that a single gene could be
responsible. Duchaine also bas some evidence that face blindness could be inherited but
thinks other factors might be more significant. He refers to studies of babies born with a
condition which means the eye's lens is not dear, and when it's the left one, being unable to
see through this eye during the first two months of life is a major risk factor for
prosopagnosia
Whatever the cause, what most prosopagnosics want to know is whether they can do
anything to improve their face recognition skills, Joseph Degutis, a graduate student at the
University of California, recently reported successfully training a severe developmental
prosopagnosic to recognise faces during tests carried out in the laboratory. The subject also
reported that recognising faces in everyday life became easier due to the training. Duchaine
now plans to attempt to train sufferers to recognise the five people that they most need to
know, maybe their immediate family, for example, and essential colleagues. Thomas Gruter
Martina Gruter's husband, who also works on her team, however, s not convinced it w'
work. ' I don't know how you can have more training than you have already had. he says.
"Humans already spend all day looking at faces. He also points out that cheating is a
possibility during tests and provides an example. One person we studied said that when she
was doing the face-recognition test. she memorised the distance between nose and upper
lip. She wasn't the only one. So you can perform well in the test and not do so well in real life.
Question 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE lf the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN If there is no information on this
1 Before attending college Jacob was capable of recognising people he knew well.
2 Researchers believe that prosopagnosia may be a growing problem.
3 It is harder to identify developmental prosapagnos a in babies than in young children.
4 A German study seems to support the Harvard and UCL research findings,
S In general, prosopagnosics are aware that other people can recognise faces more
easily than they can
6 In most crises. prosopagnosics have developed ways to deal with their problem.
7 The study of prosopagnosia may help neuroscientists to treat different kinds of brain injury.
Questions 8-13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
White your answer in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.
The challenges for prosopagnosia researchers
Differences in prosopagnosics
As we as being unable to recognize facial features prosopagnosics may also have
problems recognizing
• commonly seen 8. ......................... and objects.
• The 9. ........................... on someone else face.
Some prosopagnosics can recognize that people are regarded as attractive by others
Causes of prosopagnosia
Prosopagnosia way be caused by
« just one 10. ............................................. according to Martina Gruter
• a defect in the 11. ..................................... eye according to Brad Duchane
Treatment for prosopagnosia
Joseph Degutis patent proved he had been successfully trained to recognize faces inside
the 12.......................................and in the outside world.
Duchaine's training may allow prosopagnosics to recognise faces belonging to family and
workmates.
Thomas Gruter doubts that train will work and mentions that 13. ...................................... by some
subjects can affect research results
Turn over
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 2(1 minutes on Questions 14-2f\, which are based on Reading Passage 2 pages 6
and 7.
MAMMOTH KILL
What Led to the disappearance of the giant mammals? Kate Wong examines the
theories
Although it's hard to imagine in this age of urban sprawl and automobiles, North
America once belonged to huge, elephant-like mammoths, camels, bear-sized beavers
and other giant beasts, collectively known as 'megafauna .Some 11,000 years ago,
however, these large-bodied mammals -about 70 species in all-disappeared .Their
demise coincided roughly with the arrival t humans in this on and dramatic
climate change-factors that have inspired several theories about the die off. Yet
despite decades of scientific investigation, the exact cause remains a mystery. Now new
findings offer support to one of these controversial hypotheses: that human hunting
drove these huge ”megafauna species to extinction.
This belief resulted in the overkill model which emerged in the 1960s, when it was put
forth by Paul S Martin of the University of Arizona. Since then, critics have charged that
no archaeological remains exist to support the idea that the first Americans hunted to
the extent necessary to cause these extinctions, But at the annual meeting of the Society
of Vertebrate Paleontology in Mexico City in October 1999, specialist john Alroy of the
University of California at Santa Barbara argued that in fact, hunting-driven extinct ion
is not only plausible, it was unavoidable. He has determined, using a computer
simulation, that even a very modest amount of hunting would have wiped out these
animals.
Assuming an initial human population of 100 people that grew no more than two per
cent annually, Alroy determined that, if each band of, say, 50 people killed 15 to 20
large animals a year, humans could have eliminated the animal populations within
1, 000 years. Large mammals in particular would have been vulnerable to the pressure
because they have longer gestation periods than smaller mammals and their young
require extended cure.
However, not everyone agrees with alroy's assessment. For one thing, the results
depend on population size estimates for the extinct animals -estimates that are not
necessarily reliable. But a more specific criticism comes from mammal expert Ross DE
Macphee of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who points
out that the relevant archaeological record contains barely a dozen examples of stone
points embedded in mammoth bones (and none, it should be noted, are known from
other megafaunal remains)-hardly what one might expect if hunting drove these
animals to extinction. Furthermore, some of these species had a vast range, covering
the whole continent-the Jefferson's Ground Sloth, for example, lived as far north as the
the Yukon and as far south as Mexico- which would have made hunting them in numbers sufficient
to cause their extinction rather unlikely, he says.
Macphee agrees that humans most likely brought about these extinctions (as well as
others around the world that coincided with human arrival), but not directly Rather
than through hunting, he suggests that people may have introduced a deadly disease.
perhaps through their dogs or accompanying vermin, which then spread wildly among
the native species because of their low resistance to the new introductions. Repeated
outbreaks of a deadly disease could thus quickly drive them to the point of no return
So far, Macphee does not have empirical evidence for this theory, and it will not be
easy to come by: such disease would kill far too quickly to leave its signature on the
bones themselves. But he hopes that analyses of tissue and DNA from the most recent
animal remains will eventually reveal the microbes responsible.
The third explanation for what brought on this North American extinction does not
involve human beings. Instead, its proponents blame the loss on the climate. The
Pleistocene epoch in question witnessed considerable climate instability, explains
Russell W Graham of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. As a result, their
regular habitats disappeared, and species that had once formed communities split apart.
For some animals, this brought opportunity. For much of the megafauna, however, the
increasingly uniform terrain left them with shrinking geographical ranges-a death
sentence for large animals, which need correspondingly large ranges. Although these
creatures managed to maintain viable populations through most of the Pleistocene
period, the final major climate fluctuation pushed them over the edge, Graham says.
For his part, Alroy is still convinced that human hunters were the destroyers of the giant
animals. The overkill model explains everything the disease and climate scenarios explain, he
asserts, and in addition makes accurate predictions about which species would eventually
become extinct.
Questions 14-20
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
write your answers in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet
Three theories have been put forward to explain the disappearance of the different species
of large mammals that inhabited 14..................... 11.000 years ago. The 15. ............. proposed
around fifty years ago by Paul S Martin, blames 16. ........................ by people for mass extinction.
Computer calculations seem to support this explanation, but critics question the reliability of
the figures thev are based on.
The second theory suggests that humans introduced a 17. .......................which wiped out the
large mammals. However, so far this theory also lacks any 18........................
The final theory suggests that this period experienced significant 19. ......................... which
eventually led to the loss of habitat and to the division of the 20. ........................ that some of the
large mammals had organized.
Questions 21-26
Look at the allowing statements (Questions 21-26) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A B or C.
Write the correct letter, A B or C in boxes 21-20 on your answer sheet
NB You may use any letter more than once.
21 Too little evidence exists to support the hunting theory.
22 The bigger the animal, the bigger the territory it requires for survival.
23 Globally, humans have been indirectly responsible for the elimination of many
species.
24 Population estimates can be used to understand how large mammals become
extinct.
25 Scientific examination of fossil remains may provide some proof for one of the
theories.
26 Environmental changes negatively affected the social groupings of some large
species.
List of People
A John AIroy
Ross D E Macphee
Russell W Graham
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on pages 2
and 3.
A Brief History of Humans and Food
During the journey from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the present day there have been three seismic changes
that leave had an impact on the food we eat: the discovery of cooking. the emergence of agriculture and the
invention of methods of presenting food.
The 19th-century scientist Charles Darwin thought that cooking. after language, was the greatest discovery
made by man. All of us eat some raw food, for instance flirt and vegetables, but the
great majority or food we eat is cooked. Cooking can turn plants that are inedible into edible food by
destroying toxic chemicals that plants often manufacture to protect themselves against attack by insects or
other herbivorous animals. These toxic chemicals are referred to as ‘plant secondary compounds’, because
they are not directly involved in the plant’s normal growth, development and reproduction, and are
produced purely as chemical defences. They give many of the plants we consume, such as coffee or brussels
sprouts. their bitter taste.
Cooked food is often more digestible, because heat breaks down tough cellulose cell walls in plants or tough
connective tissue in animals. Chewing raw turnip, a plate of uncooked rice, or a raw leg of lamb is much
harder work than eating the cooked equivalent. The energy expended in chewing to break down the tot'gh
material is replaced by energy from the fuel that is used in cooking the food, so the ratio of energy gained to
energy expended by the body is greater when food is cooked
Until the development of agriculture, hunter-gatherers spent rip to seven hours a day gathering food. This all
began to change around 10,500 years ago with the advent of farming, which led to some dramatic changes in
human societies. People bedpan to create a variety of new tools to help with survival, and in turn populations
increased in size. These changes led to the possibility of specialisation of different tasks within society. It was
around this time that writing became more sophisticated and allowed people to maintain records of the harvest
and taxes. Eventually. formalised structures of government were established as people settled in one area
The arrival of agriculture meant that, for the first time, our ancestors had more food than they could eat
immediately. This, combined with the seasonality of production, led them to discover methods of
preserving food: smoking, drying, adding acid by fermentation or’ adding salt. These four methods all share
one feature in common: they make the food a more hostile environment for bacteria that can cause it to
spoil. They also tend to slow down any natural chemical reactions in the food that would cause decay.
Although foods today are still preserved in the ancient ways. two more recent methods of preserving
food have become more common: canning and freezing. fanning was invented by a Frenchman,
Nicholas Appert, in the early-19th century. He sealed food in bottles fabricated from glass and then
heated them in boiling water to cook the contents. Appert’s method had great advantages over older
methods of food preservation: it could be applied to a wide range of foods,
and the flavour of the food as well as the texture were similar to the freshly cooked product His idea
was soon copied be Englishman, Peter Durand Until this point containers had weighed too much to
be widely used, but he produced the first ones which were light and resistant to damage. T o years
later, in 1812, two Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, starred the commercial canning of food,
although the real take-off in popularity of canning had to wait until the can opener was invented in
1855. Up to this time, cans were opened with a chisel which was used to break open the top when
hit with a hammer. Canning is an extremely effective way of preserving food: one can which
contained meat dating from 1824 was opened in 1939 and the contents were still in good condition.
In the 2 I st century, the dominance of canning as a method of food presentation has been overtaken
by another technology: freezing. Chilling food to keep it fresh is an old idea. The
earl test mentions of icehouses, thick-walled buildings, half underground, date back to l,700BC in
northwest Iran. In early l6th-century Italy, water was mixed with chemicals to lower its freezing point
to -18 degrees Celsius, and several centuries later frozen fish and other goods were transported by ship
from Australia to England. But the modern frozen food industry was started in the 1S20s by an
American, Clarence Birdseye. While Birdseye was on a fishing trip with the Inuit in the Canadian
Arctic, he observed that very rapid 1'reezing creates smaller ice crystals and therefore causes less
Marriage to food. This was something he had not expected. Nevertheless, the big growth in demand for
frozen food came about with the arrival of freezers in the homes of ordinary people. The advantages of
frozen over canned food include the fact that the flavour and consistency are often identical io the
equivalent fresh product, and that freezing can be used to preserve a huge variety of foods
Questions l — 5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage I?
In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write
1 According to Darwin, cooking was the most significant development in human history.
2 The process o1'cooking gets rid of’ some plant poisons.
3 Eating cooked food is more energy efficient than eating raw food.
4 Clarence Birdseye had previously worked in the Australian food industry.
S Birdseye's trip with the not confirmed what he already believed about rapid freezing.
Questions 6 — 13 Complete
the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write
your answers in boxes 6-13 on your answer sheet.
The development of agriculture and food preservation
The changes agriculture brought about were:
• the deve1opment of equipment and larger 6 ......... .......
• the ability to keep 7 ........................... as writing developed
• the setting up of organised government
Food preservation
• early methods of’ food preservation included: smoking, drying and combining tood with acid
or 8
• fanning
- Nicholas Appert put food into containers made of 9
- Appert’s method resulted in preserved food that had the same taste and 10 as
fresh food
- Peter Demand introduced cans which had the advantage of being 11 ..................
and hard to break
- in 1855, the metal can opener replaced the 12 ............................... which had been used
with a hammer to open cans
- some food was still found to be edible after more than a hundred years, e.g. an
old can of 13
• freezing
6
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reacting Passage 2 on pages
6 and 7.
Why do we need the arts?
Sometimes people question why we need ‘the arts’, what functions do
art, music, dance and literature serve?
A. Imagine a world in which people spend hours working in offices or factories, and then go
home in the evening to sit down to dinner, after which they sleep until it's time to get up and
work again. In this world, people do not read or watch TV, listen to music, play computer
games or have pictures to decorate their homes. In fact, there are no pictures in this world —
not even advertisements are illustrated, but all are words, and very plain ones at that, with no
playfulness left in them. The buildings are completely functional without a single decorative
feature anywhere, and there is no music to dance to and enjoy. Such a world is a world without
the arts in any form.
B. To ask what the arts are good for is not exactly the same as asking what their purpose is. The
arts do not have to maybe a purpose — they do not exist in order to teach, to make a moral
point. to entertain, to distract, to amuse, to support a revolution, to disgust, to challenge, to
stimulate or to cheer; they exist chiefly for their own sake. It is artists, not the arts as such,
that may have an aim in mind, and their aim may be to do any of the things just listed. But
equally, artists may just make a work of art because they feel compelled to. Because the
work is its own justification, no aim or goal is necessarily required to explain or, still less,
to justify its existence.
But to say that the arts do not have to serve an aim beyond themselves, even though they may
sometimes do so, is not to say that they are good for nothing On the contrary, as such an important
part of human experience, they ate good for many things. The distinction here lies between things
that are instrumental and things that are ends in themselves. An instrument exists for something
beyond itself — namely, for what it can be used to do. We know that pictures are used as instruments
in advertising, and the objective is always to persuade us to buy something. Similarly, music can be
written chiefly to accompany dancing, or as a soundtrack to a movie. A play can be written to point
out to the theatre audience a social injustice or other problems that should be dealt with. But even
though the arts can sometimes be instrumental, that fact is not essential to their nature. W hat the arts
are ‘good tin arises from their being an end in themselves, or more accurately, representing many
different things that are valuable for their own sakes
— such as, for instance, the creation of beauty
D. The phrase ‘the arts includes painting, sculpture, music, literature, dance and theatre
performance, and whatever else (to quote the famous US artist Andy Warhol) anyone can get
away with in calling their creation a contribution to the arts’. But the generalisation that the
arts, whatever else they are, are always an end in themselves, applies to them all. The arts are
one major form of response to the world. They are often an attempt to capture an aspect of the
world, to draw attention to something about it to comment on it, to
7
present a surprising or fresh angle on it, to represent it for the sake of exploring something about it, or
enjoying or celebrating it. "they can help people to focus on, fo1 example, the colour or shape of an
object, its eccentricity or typicality, and the interest or perhaps disgust it provokes in them.
E. For a loose comparison, think of laughing at a joke. We do not laugh so that we can achieve
a further goal — in order to be healthy or relaxed. say, even if we thereby succeed in being
healthier or more relaxed — but simply because the joke has elicited that reaction. But although it
is merely a reaction. laughing is, in fact, good for something nevertheless; it does make people
feel better. The Arts ai e a reaction in the same way. French artist Cézanne painted Mont
Sainte-Victoire repeatedly because he was fascinated by it, not because he thought that
painting it would say something about politics or society or human hopes. Being fascinated by
something, attracted to it, repelled by it, keen to reveal an unusual aspect of it, are all responses
to that thing; the making of the arts is one outstanding way of expressing such responses
F. But the arts are a response not only to things in the world but also to experience of the world,
which lies inside the artist himself. And they are also often an expression of what presses
from within the artist without being elicited by externals. Music is a prime example. A
symphony, unless it is devised to represent bird song, rain, the sea and the like, is an abstract
expression of a composers conception. We may be able to describe what the Russian
composer Tchaikovsky is doing in his ballet music, but how can we describe what he is
expressing in his piano concertos? Composers may experiment with melody and rhythm in
very abstract, sometimes mathematical, ways.
When artists get to work responding to and expressing ideas, whether or not they also want to make a
point. entertain, d1Stract, support a revolution and the rest, they are producing something that someone
else will react to in some way. They seek to connect with their audience and express an idea or
emotion which has the capacity to enrich our experience of life itself.
8
Questions 14 — 18
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs. A-G
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 a claim that artists may have no clear objective when creating a piece of art
15 a description of lion’ artists hope to benefit other people
16 a comparison between the arts and things made to perform a particular function
17 a claim that it's possible to convince the world that anything you have made is a work
of art
18 an example of something that has an unintentional benefit for us
Questions 19 — 22
9
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write
your answers in boxes l 5-22 on your answer sheet.
The arts and human experience
Some people may claim that the arts serve no useful purpose, that they achieve nothing measurable and help
nobody. But there at e many clear examples of their usefulness, such as the inter-dependent relationship
between music and 19 .......................................................................... , or between the visual arts and
the 20 . . .. . . . . . . . . . .... business. A dramatist may use a 21 .... . . . . . .. .. ... to draw our attention to various
issues in society, for example some kind of injustice which needs correcting. Apart from these obvious
practical benefits, there are other benefits that we gain from things, such as the
22........................ we find in an artist's work.
Questions 23 and 24 Choose
TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.
In paragraph D, which TIVO of the following effects does the writer say the arts can have?
A They can interest people from all over the world.
B They can make us see things from a different perspective,
C They can inspire us to take up an artistic activity ourselves
D They can encourage us to think about our reactions to things around us
E They can draw our attention to serious global issues.
Questions 25 and 26 Choose
TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements about composers and music does the writer make?
A Music tends to spring from the composer's individual experiences.
B Composers need to structure music very carefully.
C Music can be quite unrelated to the natural world.
D Music finds its best expression in a symphony.
E Composers are good at depicting the world around us.
