TEST 1

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.

Mungo Lady and Mungo Man

Controversies in Australian Prehistory

Fifty thousand years ago, a lush landscape greeted the first Australians moving towards the
south-east of the continent. Temperatures were cooler than now. Megafauna - giant
prehistoric animals such as marsupial lions and the rhinoceros-sized diprotodon - were
abundant. Freshwater lakes in areas of western New South Wales (NSW) were brimming
with fish. But change was coming. By 40,000 years ago, water levels had started to drop.

A study of the sediments and graves of Lake Mungo, a dry lake bed in western NSW, has
uncovered the muddy layers deposited as the lake began to dry up. Forty thousand years
ago, families took refuge at the lake from the encroaching desert, leaving artefacts such as
stone tools, which researchers used to determine that the first wanderers came to the area
between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago. By 20,000 years ago, the lake had become the dry,
dusty hole it is today. This area was first examined by the University of Melbourne geologist
Professor Jim Bowler in 1969. He was searching for ancient lakes and came across the
remains of a woman who had been buried with some ceremony; she was given the name
'Mungo Lady'. In 1974, he found a second set of remains, Mungo Man, buried 300 metres
away. Bowler's comprehensive study of different sediment layers has concluded that both
graves are 40,000 years old.

This is much younger than the 62,000 years Mungo Man was attributed with in 1999 by a
team led by Professor Alan Thorne, of the Australian National University. Thorne is the
country's leading opponent of the 'Out of Africa' theory - that modern humans spread around
the globe from Africa about 100,000 years ago. The revision of Mungo Man's age has
refocused attention on academic disputes about mankind's origins.

The arrival date of these early Australians is linked to another vexed question: the reason for
the disappearance of the megafauna. Dr Tim Flannery, a proponent of the controversial
theory that these animals were wiped out by the extreme hunting practices of humans,
claims that the new Mungo dates support this view. For Bowler, however, these debates are
speculative distractions. At 40,000 years old, he argues, Mungo Man and Mungo Lady
remain Australia's oldest human burials and the earliest evidence on Earth of cultural
sophistication. 'At Lake Mungo, we have a cameo of people reacting to environmental
change. It is one of the great stories of the people of the world.'

Two rival groups of researchers have each attacked the techniques used by the other to
ascertain the date of Mungo Man. In the 1999 study, Thorne's team used three techniques to
date Mungo Man - bone, tooth enamel and sand. Bowler has strongly challenged the results
ever since. Dating human bones is 'notoriously unreliable', he says. In addition, the sand
sample used by Thorne's group was taken hundreds of metres from the burial site.

Bowler has stated that it is not difficult 'to realise that the age of sand is not the same as the
age of the grave'. He says his team's results are based on careful fieldwork, crosschecked
between four laboratories, while Thorne's team misinterpreted the evidence, "locked in a
laboratory in Canberra". Thorne counters that Bowler's team used one dating technique,
while his used three. Best practice is to have at least two methods producing the same
result. A Thorne team member, Professor Rainer Grün, says the fact that the latest results
were consistent between laboratories doesn't mean they are correct. "We now have two data
sets that are contradictory. I do not have a plausible explanation.

Thorne recently made headlines with a study of Mungo Man's DNA, which he claimed
supported his idea that modern humans developed from archaic humans in several places
around the world, rather than emerging from Africa a relatively short time ago. Now,
however, Thorne says the age of Mungo Man is irrelevant. Recent fossil finds show that
modern humans were in China 110,000 years ago. 'So he has a long time to arrive in
Australia. It doesn't matter if he is 40,000 or 60,000 years old.

In 2001, a member of Bowler's team, Dr Richard Roberts of Wollongong University, along

with Flannery, Director of the South Australian Museum, published research on the
extinction of the megafauna. They dated 28 sites across the continent, arguing that their
analysis showed that the megafauna died out suddenly 46,600 years ago. This conclusion
has been challenged by other scientists, including Dr Judith Field of the University of Sydney
and Dr Richard Fullager of the Australian Museum, who point to the presence of megafauna
fossils at the 36,000-year-old Cuddie Springs site in NSW.

Flannery praises the Bowler team's research as thorough and rigorous. He says the finding
that humans arrived at Lake Mungo between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago supports the
idea that that was a critical time in Australia's history. There is no evidence of a dramatic
climate change at that time, he says. 'It's my view that humans arrived and megafauna
extinction took place in almost the same geological instant. Bowler, however, is sceptical of
Flannery's theory about the disappearance of the giant animals. He argues that climate
change 40,000 years ago was more intense than has been previously realised and could
have played an important role in their extinction.

Questions 1-8

Look at the following theories (Questions 1-8) and the list of researchers below.
Match each theory with the correct researcher(s), A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

1 Our human ancestors did not originate in only one area.

2 The extinction of the megafauna happened within a brief period.
3 The megafauna died out as a result of human activity.
4 The similarity of results does not always guarantee their validity.
5 How old Mungo Man is, is unimportant.
6 There is evidence to disprove the theory of mass megafauna extinction.
7 An extreme environmental change occurred at the time that humans first moved into the
Lake Mungo area.
8 The earliest evidence of advanced human culture is found in Australia.

List of Researchers
A Jim Bowler
B Alan Thorne
C Tim Flannery
D Rainer Grün
E Richard Roberts and Tim Flannery
F Judith Field and Richard Fullager

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:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9 Objects found in the Lake Mungo area were used to date the arrival of humans.
10 Ancient weapons were found in the Lake Mungo area.
11 Scientists agree about the age of Mungo Man.
12 Thorne's research involved analysing more than one material.
13 Bowler has criticised the research methods used by Thorne.

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
passage 2 on pages 7 and 8.

Questions 14-19

Reading Passage 2 has six sections, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Being able to experiment without consequences
ii Why stories are included in games
iii The key role of the unexpected for game players
iv Transferring features of games to other types of products
v The age group that games most appeal to The development of
vi The video game design industry
vii Players' ability to control what occurs in games

14 Section A
15 Section B
16 Section C
17 Section D
18 Section E
19 Section F

The attraction of video games

The world's love of video games has much to do with people's desires and motives
A Video games, it is often claimed, are about wasting time. It is a misunderstanding that
players and game makers have been trying to correct for many years. While movies and
television are endlessly analysed in the media, games are often dismissed as irresponsible,
unimportant by-products of the broader digital revolution.
But a growing number of experts disagree. This is, after all, an entertainment medium that
worldwide makes $50b a year. Using ideas from psychology and sociology, theorists and
designers suggest that our love of video games may actually have important things to tell us
about our most basic desires and motivations.
Game design has become big business and has led to the creation of a multitude of
companies. 'The industry attitude toward training has changed radically,' says prominent
game researcher Jesper Juul. 'I recall hearing professionals claim that game design was a
strange and unteachable art, but now this attitude has mostly faded.' Designing video games
is increasingly recognised as a valid field of university study throughout the world.

B Central to an understanding of games is the theory that games are fun because they
teach us in a way that our brains prefer, that is, through systems and puzzles. Raph Koster,
designer of multiplayer fantasy games, points out that an effective learning environment is
one in which failure is acceptable, even welcomed. Accordingly, Koster says that in games,
the player enters into a situation where the rules of the real world don't apply - and typically
being judged on success and failure is part of the real world.
When gaming, people feel free to try things and to learn, and not worry about what might
happen.
Consistently, Koster says, the best games are the ones that provide us with interesting tools
such as weapons or magic, and allow us to experiment with them. For example, in one early
game, players are given the ability to jump, and can practise this for as long as they like, but
to get to the next stage they need to master this ability so they can leap over an enemy and
onto a platform. 'Games allow us to create these little systems where learning is controlled
really brilliantly,' says Margaret Robertson, director at a London-based game design
company. 'Something we don't talk about is that, actually, one of the strengths of games is
the vague sense of disapproval that still surrounds them - they feel like something that's
forbidden!' And that can, of course, be very exciting.

C Another important element in the popularity of games is the player's ability to determine
what happens. Games tap into our need to have direction; this is very obvious in games
where we shape the lives of virtual humans, but it's becoming a vital element of action
adventures too.
'Games are increasingly complex systems,' says Dan Pinchbeck, an experimental game
designer. 'There's an emphasis on the pleasure of choosing and planning. We've moved
quite dramatically away from the very first video games. These games mostly involved the
player merely reacting to events. But games then became more about approaching a
situation and making a plan depending on your preferred play style.'

D Many studios design their games around reward systems. 'A good game will have
progression at the end of each level, but it will also provide surprise rewards halfway
through,' says Ben Weedon, a games studio consultant. 'In a game, you're essentially
pressing these buttons and doing the same things over and over again, so you need those
occasional surprises to stay motivated.' (OCR "thessing the se bultons" đã được sửa thành
"pressing these buttons" cho hợp lý)

E Games have constantly evolved over the years and continue to do so right up to the
present. Now, incorporating a narrative structure into a game is becoming increasingly
important. Many games have adopted Hollywood's three-act structure, which is designed to
maintain our loyalty to a particular game. As in many films, a short final act is often used to
give a sense of acceleration towards a preferably startling climax. Opening levels of games
are also short, because this flatters us into thinking we're making good progress, whereas
the middle levels are more extensive.

F Games even tap into our friendships. The rise of multiplayer gaming means that gaming
increasingly involves social interaction. And other businesses are taking notice and using
this as an element in advertising their brands. Then there's the new concept of 'gamification',
in which websites and smartphone apps are being designed like games, with high scores
and achievement points to keep customers entertained. Research estimates that businesses
spent more than $100m worldwide on gamification projects last year, a figure predicted to
rise to $1.6b in the next four years.

G So, in fact, games aren't just an insignificant fad, as some people might suggest. They
fulfil intrinsic human needs, whether we are conscious of it or not. The loop of learning
control and rewards is at the heart of something very important, and very attractive.

Questions 20-23

Look at the following statements (Questions 20-23) and the list of experts below.
Match each statement with the correct expert, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

20 Players' involvement in games often includes thinking ahead.

21 The inclusion of unanticipated elements keeps players interested.
22 It's now accepted that creating video games is a skill that can be learned.
23 Early games were much simpler than more recent ones

List of experts
A Jesper Juul
B Raph Koster
C Margaret Robertson
D Dan Pinchbeck
E Ben Weedon

Questions 24-26

Complete the sentences below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

24 Koster believes that games remove people's fear of ……………………….

25 Robertson's view is that games feel exciting partly because of the ……………………….
that is associated with them.

26 Narrative games are often structured so that the first and last part are both..........

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 on pages 10 and 11.

Blind to Change
How much of the world around you do you really see?

Picture the following and prepare to be amazed. You're walking across a college campus
when a stranger asks you for directions. While you're talking to him, two men pass between
you carrying a wooden door. You feel a moment's irritation, but you carry on describing the
route. When you've finished, you're told you've just taken part in a psychology experiment.
'Did you notice anything after the two men passed with the door?' the stranger asks. 'No,'
you reply uneasily. He explains that the man who initially approached you walked off behind
the door leaving him in his place. The first man now rejoins you. Comparing them, you notice
that they are of different height and build and are dressed very differently.
Daniel Simons of Harvard University found that 50% of participants missed the substitution
because of what is called 'change blindness'. When considered with a large number of
recent experimental results, this phenomenon suggests we 'see' far less than we think we
do. Rather than logging every detail of the visual scene, says Simons, we are actually highly
selective. Our impression of seeing everything is just that. In fact, we extract a few details
and rely on memory, or even our imagination, for the rest.

Until recently, scientists believed that vision involved creating images within the brain. By
forming detailed internal representations of our surroundings and comparing them over time,
we could detect any alterations. However, in his book Consciousness Explained, philosopher
Daniel Dennett argued that our brains only store a few key details about the world, which is
why we can function effectively. According to Dennett, creating elaborate images in short-
term memory would consume valuable cognitive resources. Instead, we record what has
changed and assume everything else remains unchanged. As a result, we inevitably
overlook some details. Experiments had demonstrated that we tend to ignore elements in
our visual field that seem unimportant, such as a repeated word or line in a text. But even
Dennett didn't fully realize just how little we actually 'see.'

A year later, John Grimes from the University of Illinois drew attention by showing that
people who were presented with computer-generated images of natural scenes failed to
notice changes made while their eyes were, for example, scanning the scene or blinking.
Dennett was pleased: "In hindsight, I wish I had been bolder, as the effects are more
pronounced than I originally claimed."
Subsequently, it was discovered that our eyes don't even need to be moving to be deceived.
A typical laboratory experiment might display an image on a computer screen, like a couple
dining on a terrace. The image would briefly disappear, replaced by a blank screen, then
reappear with a significant change, such as a raised railing behind the couple. Many people
search the screen for up to a minute before spotting the alteration, and some never see it.

This is disconcerting. However, 'change blindness' is somewhat artificial because, in real-life

scenarios, a visible motion usually signals a change. Yet, not always. As Simons points out,
"We all know the experience of missing a traffic signal change because we briefly looked
away. 'Inattentional blindness' refers to not noticing a feature of a scene when you aren't
paying attention to it."
Last year, Simons showed people a video of a basketball game and asked them to count the
passes made by one of the teams. After 45 seconds, a man in a gorilla suit slowly walked
behind the players. Forty percent didn't notice him. When the tape was replayed, and they
were simply told to watch it, they easily saw the gorilla. Some even doubted it was the same
video.
Now, consider if the viewers had been driving a car, and the man in the gorilla suit had been
a pedestrian. Some estimates suggest that nearly half of all fatal motor vehicle accidents in
the US result from driver error, including attention lapses. It's more than just academic
interest that has spurred research into these cognitive errors.
These errors prompt critical questions: how can we reconcile such significant lapses with our
subjective experience of continuously perceiving a rich visual environment? Last year,
Stephen Kosslyn from Harvard University demonstrated that imagining a scene activates
parts of the visual cortex similarly to actually seeing it. He argues that this supports the idea
that we only absorb the information we consider important and mentally fill in the gaps where
details are less crucial. "The illusion that we see 'everything' is partly due to filling in gaps
with memory," he says. "These memories can be shaped by beliefs and expectations."

Ronald Rensink from the University of British Columbia in Canada believes our perception of
a detailed visual world comes from constructing internal representations. He suggests that
the brain first creates a temporary layout of the visual scene, and then our attention
enhances the resolution of the scene. "What attention does," he explains, "is stabilize these
representations so they form distinct objects. Once attention shifts, they revert to an
unstable, unresolved state." While Rensink or Kosslyn propose that internal images or
memory play some role, others argue that we can perceive visual richness without storing
any of that richness in our brains. Kevin O'Regan, an experimental psychologist, contends
that our brains do not store a visual image of the world. Instead, we rely on the external
visual environment as different parts of a scene become relevant.

According to O'Regan, our sense of controlling what we see is also an illusion. "We believe
that when something flickers outside the window, we choose to look," says Susan
Blackmore from the University of the West of England, who supports O'Regan's view. "In
reality," she explains, "our change detection mechanisms automatically drag our attention to
various stimuli."

Questions 27-30

Look at the following people (Questions 27-30) and the list of claims below. Match each
person with the correct claim, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

27 Daniel Dennett
28 John Grimes
29 Stephen Kosslyn
30 Kevin O'Regan

List of Claims
A People overlook changes that happen during eye movements.
B At times, we fail to notice something because we choose to deceive ourselves.
C Retaining every image and memory would hinder our ability to function effectively.
D Sometimes, people overlook the significance of a crucial figure in a scene.
E We misunderstand what we see because we rely on our imagination.
F We don't have complete control over what captures our attention.
G Imagining a scene and physically being there impact our visual processes in similar ways.

Questions 31-35
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet, write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

31 One expert expressed regret for having underemphasized his argument in a publication.
32 We overlook insignificant items that come into our view.
33 Research into cognitive errors might potentially save lives.
34 The aging process increases the need to fill in gaps in our visual perception.
35 Our eyes are only at risk of being deceived when they are in motion.

Questions 36-40

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below. Write the correct letter, A-G, in
boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

36 Concentrating on a particular aspect of an activity or scene

37 The fact that we make visual errors
38 The part of the picture that we fail to see clearly
39 The idea that we see everything in our visual field
40 Research into the nature of human vision

A is not backed by scientific evidence.

B is provided by memory.
C has been especially fruitful in recent times.
D causes us to overlook other details.
E has sparked significant public debate.
F is challenging for us to accept.
G helps us see the overall picture more clearly.