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SECTION TEST - ACADEMIC READING
(Time: 60 minutes)
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Passage 1
Ocean Acidification Caspar Henderson reports on some new concerns. A few years ago, biologist, Victoria Fabry, saw the future of the world’s oceans in ajar. She was aboard a research ship in the North Pacific, carrying out experiments on a species of pteropod - small molluscs with shells up to a centimetre long, which swim in a way that resembles butterfly flight, propelled by small flaps. Something strange was happening in Fabry’s jars. ‘The pteropods were still swimming, but their shells were visibly dissolving,’ says Fabry. She realised that the animals’ respiration had increased the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the jars, which had been sealed for 48 hours, changing the water’s chemistry to a point where the calcium carbonate in the pteropods’ shells had started to dissolve. What Fabry had stumbled on was a hint of ‘the other CO2 problem’. It has taken several decades for climate change to be recognised as a serious threat. But another result of our fossil-fuel habit - ocean acidification - has only begun to be researched in the last few years. Its impact could be momentous, says Joanie Kleypas of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. CO2 forms carbonic acid when it dissolves in water, and the oceans are soaking up more and more of it. Recent studies show that the seas have absorbed about a third of all the fossil-fuel carbon released into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid-eighteenth century, and they will soak up much more over the next century. Yet until quite recently many people dismissed the idea that humanity could alter the acidity of the oceans, which cover 71% of the planet’s surface to an average depth of about four kilometres. The ocean’s natural buffering capacity was assumed to be capable of preventing any changes in acidity even with a massive increase in CO2 levels. And it is - but only if the increase happens slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years. Over this timescale, the release of carbonates from rocks on land and from ocean sediments can neutralise the dissolved CO2, just like dropping chalk in an acid. Levels of CO2 are now rising so fast that they are overwhelming the oceans’ buffering capacity. In 2003 Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, and Michael Wickett at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, calculated that the absorption of fossil CO2 could make the oceans more acidic over the next few centuries than they have been for 300 million years, with the possible exception of rare catastrophic events. The potential seriousness of the effect was underlined in 2005 by the work of James Zachos of the University of California and his colleagues, who studied one of those rare catastrophic events. They showed that the mass extinction of huge numbers of deep-sea creatures around 55 million years ago was caused by ocean acidification after the release of around 4500 gigatonnes of carbon. It took over 100,000 years for the oceans to return to their normal state. Around the same time as the Zachos paper, the UK’s Royal Society published the first comprehensive report on ocean acidification. It makes grim reading, concluding that ocean acidification is inevitable without drastic cuts in emissions. Marine ecosystems, especially coral reefs, are likely to be affected, with fishing and tourism based around reefs losing billions of dollars each year. Yet the report also stressed that there is huge uncertainty about the effects on marine life. The sea creatures most likely to be affected are those that make their shells or skeletons from calcium carbonate, including tiny plankton and huge corals. Their shells and skeletons do not dissolve only because the upper layers of the oceans are supersaturated with calcium carbonate. Acidification reduces carbonate ion concentrations, making it harder for organisms to build their shells or skeletons. When the water drops below the saturation point, these structures will start to dissolve. Calcium carbonate comes in two different forms, aragonite and calcite, aragonite being more soluble. So organisms with aragonite structures, such as corals, will be hardest hit. So far the picture looks relentlessly gloomy, but could there actually be some positive results from adding so much CO2 to the seas? One intriguing finding, says Ulf Riebesell of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, concerns gases that influence climate. A few experiments suggest that in more acidic conditions, microbes will produce more volatile organic compounds such as dimethyl sulphide, some of which escapes to the atmosphere and causes clouds to develop. More clouds would mean cooler conditions, which could potentially slow global warming. Calculating the effect of ocean acidification on people and economies is virtually impossible, but it could be enormous. Take the impact on tropical corals, assuming that warming and other pressures such as pollution do not decimate them first. Reefs protect the shorelines of many countries. Acidification could start eating away at reefs just when they are needed more than ever because of rising sea levels. ‘No serious scientist believes the oceans will be devoid of life,’ says Caldeira. ‘Wherever there is light and nutrients something will live. A likely outcome will be a radical simplification of the ecosystem.’ Taking this and other scientists’ views into account, it seems clear that acidification will mean the loss of many species, so our children will not see the amazingly beautiful things that we can. It is important to tell them to go and see the corals now before it is too late.
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
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their shells / the shells / shells
small flaps / flaps
fishing and tourism / tourism and fishing
coral / corals
rocks / rocks on land
over 100,000 years / 100,000 years
about 1/3 / about a third / 1/3 / a third
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Complete the flow-chart below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
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microbes
global warming
clouds
cooler
the atmosphere / atmosphere
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Choose the correct answer choice.
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1. Which of the following best summarises the writer′s view in the passage?
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Explain:
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Passage 2
GREYING POPULATION STAYS IN THE PINK Elderly people are growing healthier, happier and more independent, say American scientist. The result of a 14-year study to be announced later this month reveal that the diseases associated with old age are afflicting fewer and fewer people and when they do strike, it is much later in life. In the last 14 years, the National Long-term Health Care Survey has gathered data on the health and lifestyles of more than 20,000 men and women over 65. Researchers, now analysing the results of data gathered in 1994, say arthritis, high blood pressure and circulation problems - the major medical complaints in this age group - are troubling a smaller proportion every year. And the data confirms that the rate at which these diseases are declining continues to accelerate. Other diseases of old age - dementia, stroke, arteriosclerosis and emphysema - are also troubling fewer and fewer people. 'It really raises the question of what should be considered normal ageing,' says Kenneth Manton, a demographer from Duke University in North Carolina. He says the problems doctors accepted as normal in a 65-year-old in 1982 are often not appearing until people are 70 or 75. Clearly, certain diseases are beating a retreat in the face of medical advances. But there may be other contributing factors. Improvements in childhood nutrition in the first quarter of the twentieth century, for example, gave today's elderly people a better start in life than their predecessors. On the downside, the data also reveals failures in public health that have caused surges in some illnesses. An increase in some cancers and bronchitis may reflect changing smoking habits and poorer air quality, say the researchers. 'These may be subtle influences,' says Manton, 'but our subjects have been exposed to worse and worse pollution for over 60 years. It's not surprising we see some effect.' One interesting correlation Manton uncovered is that better-educated people are likely to live longer. For example, 65-year-old women with fewer than eight years of schooling are expected, on average, to live to 82. Those who continued their education live an extra seven years. Although some of this can be attributed to a higher income, Manton believes it is mainly because educated people seek more medical attention. The survey also assessed how independent people over 65 were, and again found a striking trend. Almost 80% of those in the 1994 survey could complete everyday activities ranging from eating and dressing unaided to complex tasks such as cooking and managing their finances. That represents a significant drop in the number of disabled old people in the population. If the trends apparent in the United States 14 years ago had continued, researchers calculate there would be an additional one million disabled elderly people in today's population. According to Manton, slowing the trend has saved the United States government's Medicare system more than $200 billion, suggesting that the greying of America's population may prove less of a financial burden than expected. The increasing self-reliance of many elderly people is probably linked to a massive increase in the use of simple home medical aids. For instance, the use of raised toilet seats has more than doubled since the start of the study, and the use of bath seats has grown by more than 50%. These developments also bring some health benefits, according to a report from the MacArthur Foundation's research group on successful ageing. The group found that those elderly people who were able to retain a sense of independence were more likely to stay healthy in old age. Maintaining a level of daily physical activity may help mental functioning, says Carl Cotman, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine. He found that rats that exercise on a treadmill have raised levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor coursing through their brains. Cotman believes this hormone, which keeps neurons functioning, may prevent the brains of active humans from deteriorating. As part of the same study, Teresa Seeman, a social epidemiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, found a connection between self-esteem and stress in people over 70. In laboratory simulations of challenging activities such as driving, those who felt in control of their lives pumped out lower levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. Chronically high levels of these hormones have been linked to heart disease. But independence can have drawbacks. Seeman found that elderly people who felt emotionally isolated maintained higher levels of stress hormones even when asleep. The research suggests that older people fare best when they feel independent but know they can get help when they need it. 'Like much research into ageing, these results support common sense,' says Seeman. They also show that we may be underestimating the impact of these simple factors. 'The sort of thing that your grandmother always told you turns out to be right on target,' she says.
Complete the summary using the list of words below. cost | falling | technology | undernourished | earlier | later | disabled | more | increasing | nutrition | education | constant | medicine | pollution | environmental | health | independent | | | |
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nutrition
pollution
increasing
medicine
disabled
falling
education
later
cost
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Complete each sentence with the correct ending.
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1. Home medical aids ................
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Explain:
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2. Regular amounts of exercise ................
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Explain:
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3. Feelings of control over life ................
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Explain:
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4. Feelings of loneliness ................
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Explain:
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Passage 3
THE BIRTH OF SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH World science is dominated today by a small number of languages, including Japanese, German and French, but it is English which is probably the most popular global language of science. This is not just because of the importance of English-speaking countries such as the USA in scientific research; the scientists of many non-English-speaking countries find that they need to write their research papers in English to reach a wide international audience. Given the prominence of scientific English today, it may seem surprising that no one really knew how to write science in English before the 17th century. Before that, Latin was regarded as the lingua franca for European intellectuals. The European Renaissance (c. 14th-16th century) is sometimes called the 'revival of learning', a time of renewed interest in the 'lost knowledge' of classical times. At the same time, however, scholars also began to test and extend this knowledge. The emergent nation states of Europe developed competitive interests in world exploration and the development of trade. Such expansion, which was to take the English language west to America and east to India, was supported by scientific developments such as the discovery of magnetism (and hence the invention of the compass), improvements in cartography and - perhaps the most important scientific revolution of them all - the new theories of astronomy and the movement of the Earth in relation to the planets and stars, developed by Copernicus (1473-1543). England was one of the first countries where scientists adopted and publicised Copernican ideas with enthusiasm. Some of these scholars, including two with interests in language - John Wallis and John Wilkins - helped found the Royal Society in 1660 in order to promote empirical scientific research. Across Europe similar academies and societies arose, creating new national traditions of science. In the initial stages of the scientific revolution, most publications in the national languages were popular works, encyclopaedias, educational textbooks and translations. Original science was not done in English until the second half of the 17th century. For example, Newton published his mathematical treatise, known as the Principia, in Latin, but published his later work on the properties of light - Opticks - in English. There were several reasons why original science continued to be written in Latin. The first was simply a matter of audience. Latin was suitable for an international audience of scholars, whereas English reached a socially wider, but more local, audience. Hence, popular science was written in English. A second reason for writing in Latin may, perversely, have been a concern for secrecy. Open publication had dangers in putting into the public domain preliminary ideas which had not yet been fully exploited by their 'author'. This growing concern about intellectual property rights was a feature of the period - it reflected both the humanist notion of the individual, rational scientist who invents and discovers through private intellectual labour, and the growing connection between original science and commercial exploitation. There was something of a social distinction between 'scholars and gentlemen' who understood Latin, and men of trade who lacked a classical education. And in the mid-17th century it was common practice for mathematicians to keep their discoveries and proofs secret, by writing them in cipher, in obscure languages, or in private messages deposited in a sealed ox with the Royal Society. Some scientists might have felt more comfortable with Latin precisely because its audience, though international, was socially restricted. Doctors clung the most keenly to Latin as an 'insider language'. A third reason why the writing of original science in English was delayed may have been to do with the linguistic inadequacy of English in the early modern period. English was not well equipped to deal with scientific argument. First, it lacked the necessary technical vocabulary. Second, it lacked the grammatical resources required to represent the world in an objective and impersonal way, and to discuss the relations, such as cause and effect, that might hold between complex and hypothetical entities. Fortunately, several members of the Royal Society possessed an interest in language and became engaged in various linguistic projects. Although a proposal in 1664 to establish a committee for improving the English language came to little, the society's members did a great deal to foster the publication of science in English and to encourage the development of a suitable writing style. Many members of the Royal Society also published monographs in English. One of the first was by Robert Hooke, the society's first curator of experiments, who described his experiments with microscopes in Micrographia (1665). This work is largely narrative in style, based on a transcript of oral demonstrations and lectures. In 1665 a new scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, was inaugurated. Perhaps the first international English-language scientific journal, it encouraged a new genre of scientific writing, that of short, focused accounts of particular experiments. The 17th century was thus a formative period in the establishment of scientific English. In the following century much of this momentum was lost as German established itself as the leading European language of science. If is estimated that by the end of the 18th century 401 German scientific journals had been established as opposed to 96 in France and 50 in England. However, in the 19th century scientific English again enjoyed substantial lexical growth as the industrial revolution created the need for new technical vocabulary, and new, specialised, professional societies were instituted to promote and publish in the new disciplines.
Complete the summary. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. In Europe, modern science emerged at the same time as the nation state. At first, the scientific language of choice remained (1)………. It allowed scientists to communicate with other socially privileged thinkers while protecting their work from unwanted exploitation. Sometimes the desire to protect ideas seems to have been stronger than the desire to communicate them, particularly in the case of mathematicians and (2)……….
In Britain, moreover, scientists worried that English had neither the (3)............ nor the grammatical resources to express their ideas. This situation only changed after 1660 when scientists associated with the (4)………… set about developing English. An early scientific journal fostered a new kind of writing based on short descriptions of specific experiments. Although English was then overtaken by (5) ……………,it developed again in the 19th century as a direct result of the (6)……………
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Royal Society
German
technical vocabulary
industrial revolution
doctors
Latin
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Complete the table. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Science written in the first half of the 17th century | Language used | Latin | English | Type of science | Original | (1)……… | Examples | (2)……… | Encyclopaedias | Target audience | International scholars | (3)………, but socially wider |
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Principia / the Principia / Newton's Principia / mathematical treatise
popular
local / more local / local audience
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Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage? YES if the statement agrees with the writers claims NO if the statement contradicts the writer's claims NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
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1. There was strong competition between scientists in Renaissance Europe.
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Explain:
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2. The most important scientific development of the Renaissance period was the discovery of magnetism.
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Explain:
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3. In 17th-century Britain, leading thinkers combined their interest in science with an interest in how to express ideas.
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Explain:
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| No. | Date | Right Score | Total Score |
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