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SECTION TEST - ACADEMIC READING
(Time: 60 minutes)

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Passage 1

Recalling it

A Memory and recollection vary from person to person. Take three average citizens with a similar degree of honesty and integrity and ask them to make a statement concerning a bank raid that they all witnessed. Whilst the three statements will contain a fair degree of concurrence, there will also be areas of dissimilarity. When a person observes an event, not only are cognitive (or thinking) powers involved but also emotions are involved, especially when the incident observed is of an unpleasant nature.

B In our primitive ancestors, emotional stress had a survival value. It prepared us to face or flee a danger (‘flight or fight’ syndrome). Today’s stressors are more likely to be perceived threats to an individual’s well-being and self-esteem rather than actual threats to survival. However, any stressful situation, real or apparent, can trigger many of the same effects, for example, increased blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety.

C ‘Pre-exam nerves’ is an anxiety state experienced by candidates prior to an examination. It is perfectly natural to feel apprehensive about an important test. Negative thoughts disappear quickly when the candidate makes a promising start. On the other hand, a poor start increases the stress felt by the individual who can then experience a ‘retrieval failure’. In this circumstance the information is held in the memory but cannot be accessed. The knowledge has been forgotten temporarily to remain on the ‘tip-of the-tongue’. In intensely stressful situations, panic sets in and the relevant knowledge becomes blocked out completely by thoughts of failure.

D The ability to cope with stress is influenced by personality (way of thinking and behaving) and social circumstances, so what one person finds stressful another may find stimulating. Managing your own stress depends in part upon becoming aware of what your own particular stressors are. You can then confront each situation and try to change it and/or change your thoughts and emotional reactions to the stressor, so as to lessen its impact. Emotional support from family, friends and work colleagues leads to an improvement in coping with long-term stress. When confronted with a potentially stressful examination, one solution is to sit back, take a few deep breaths and relax to steady the nerves. Relaxation techniques will improve the memory but they cannot help a candidate to retrieve knowledge that they have yet to acquire. In this respect, short-term memory improves if you repeat new information to yourself several times, learning by rote.

E Clear and precise information is required when giving instructions. How often, in an unfamiliar district, has the reader stopped a passing stranger for simple and clear directions? How often also have the replies been unclear, rambling accompanied by wild gesticulations? The route may be clear in the eye of the director but the message is lost if salient points are either omitted or out of sequence. Accurate recall of past events is facilitated by note-taking and in particular by placing information under the headings: who, what, where, when and how. When information is classified under these headings it acts as a cue that enables the reader to construct partial images of previous events or to recall details that might otherwise be overlooked. It is important not to confuse facts with opinions and to clearly preface opinions with ‘I believe’, ‘I think’, ‘In my view’ or similar words. Memories can be triggered from several sources and it is useful to include both visual and verbal aids when revising for an examination. Revision tools include spider diagrams that expand on a central idea, coloured highlighting of related topics, flash cards with questions and answers, as well as mnemonic devices (small rhymes), such as ‘I before e except after c’, that aid spelling, for example.

F Nerves play a big part in public speaking. Despite this, an impromptu speech can be delivered effectively if the speaker is knowledgeable in the subject matter and sounds enthusiastic. Slide presentations are a popular means of delivering a speech. Typically, a 15-minute talk can be linked to a sequence of 30 slides, lasting 30 seconds on average. Each slide contains a few key elements that serve to cue the memory towards the necessary detail. It is essential to make a solid start, in which case it is advisable to memorize the opening lines of the speech by practising it out loud several times. The slides should link naturally so that the talk never sounds stilted. It is not necessary to memorize the speech word for word. All that is necessary is for the speaker to be familiar with the content of the slide and to develop the speech from the key words. It is advisable to record the speech on a dictaphone and then to play it back to check the continuity and duration.

Passage 2

Nineteenth-Century Paperback Literature

A publishing craze that hit both America and England from the mid- to late nineteenth century attracted the readership of the semiliterate working class. In America, dime novels typically centered on tales of the American Revolution and the Wild West, while British penny bloods (later called penny dreadfuls) told serial tales of horror or fictionalized1 versions of true crimes. These paperback novels were sold at newsstands and dry goods stores and succeeded in opening up the publishing market for both writers and readers. The industrial revolution facilitated the growth of literacy, making it easier to print and transport publications in large quantities, thus providing inexpensive entertainment for the masses.

Though Johann Gutenberg’s printing press was designed in the fifteenth century, it was not until after the first newspapers began circulating in the eighteenth century that it became a profitable invention. Throughout the nineteenth century, commoners in England were becoming educated through normal schools, church schools, and mutual instruction classes, and by the 1830s, approximately 75 percent of the working class had learned to read. In 1870, the Forster Education Act made elementary education mandatory for all children. Though few children’s books were available, penny dreadfuls were highly accessible, especially to male youths who created clubs in order to pool their money and start their own libraries. Similar to reading a newspaper, dime novels and penny dreadfuls were meant to be read quickly and discarded, unlike the hardbound high literature that was written in volumes and published for the elite. Struggling authors, many of whom had limited writing and storytelling skills, suddenly found an audience desperate to read their work. When the first typewriter became available in the 1870s, authors were able to maximize2 their output. Successful authors, some of whom wrote over 50,000 words a month, were able to earn a decent living at a penny per word.

From the 1830s to 1850s, penny bloods featured tales of gore that often depicted the upper class as corrupt. One of the most beloved characters from the penny blood serials was Sweeney Todd. In the original story, String of Pearls: ARomance, published in 1846, Sweeney Todd was a demon barber who used his razor to torture his victims before turning them into meat pies. In 1847, hack- playwright George Dibdin Pitt adapted Thomas Prest’s story for the stage, renaming it The String of Pearls: The Fiend of Fleet Street. With no copyright laws, authors were always at risk of having their ideas pilfered. Pitt’s play was released again one year later at one of London’s “bloodbath” theaters1 under the name Founded on Fact. The Sweeney Todd story also made its way into musicals and comedies. Controversy still exists over whether Thomas Prest’s character was based on a real person. No records of a barber shop on Fleet Street, or a barber named Sweeney Todd have been found, though Thomas Prest was known for getting his inspiration from “The Old Bailey” of the London Times, a section devoted to real-life horror stories.

Despite the warning from Lord Shaftsbury that the paperback literature was seducing middle-class society into an unproductive life of evil, the penny bloods grew in popularity. They provided a literary voice for commoners at an affordable price. Eventually, penny bloods became known as penny dreadfuls and began to focus more on adventure than horror.

In 1860, Beadle and Adams was the first firm in the United States to publish a title that would be categorized2 as a dime novel. Malaeska: The IndianWife of the White Hunter, by Anne Stephens, had originally been published twenty years earlier as a series in a magazine. In novel form, approximately 300,000 copies of the story were sold in the first year, paving the way for the new fad in America. Many dime novels were written as serials with recurring characters, such as Deadwood Dick, Commander Cody, and Wild Bill. Originally, the paperbacks were intended for railroad travelers; however, during the Civil War, soldiers quickly became the most avid dime novel readers. Beadle dime novels became so popular that the company had to build a factory of hack writers to mass produce them. As urbanization3 spread, stories of the Wild West were in less demand, and tales of urban outlaws became popular. At that time, dime novels were chosen for their illustrated covers rather than their sensational stories and characters. Despite their popularity, by the late 1880s dry goods stores were so full of unsold books that prices dropped to less than five cents per copy. Many titles that could still not sell were given away or destroyed. The International Copyright Law, passed by Congress in 1890, required publishers to pay royalties to foreign authors. Selling at less than five cents a copy, the paperback industry was doomed until the arrival of pulp paper.

Passage 3

Bubbly and burgers

When is Champagne not Champagne? The answer is when it is sparkling wine produced outside the Champagne region of France. Unfair trading is a breach of civil law that covers unfair practices towards consumers. Customers are misled into believing that they are buying goods or services associated with a wellknown, more established business, through the use of confusingly similar trademarks or trade names. In the UK, unfair trading is known as ‘passing off’ and in the USA as ‘palming off’. The protection of a trading name is essential for an established business because associations with a lesser firm can damage a company’s reputation. Nevertheless, some businesses still try to bolster trade by incorporating descriptive elements or imagery from better known, more attractive brands, into their own signs and logos.

The Champagne growers of France have successfully defended the Champagne brand against any sparkling wine produced outside the Champagne region. So, for example, you will not find any Spanish Champagne on the shelves, only Cava. Other sparkling wines barred from describing themselves as Champagne include: Asti (Italy); Espumante (Portugal); Sekt (Germany); and Shiraz (Australia). Sparkling French wines made outside of the Champagne region are termed Crenmant and Mousseaux. All these ‘copycat’ sparkling wines are made by the traditional Champagne method, in which case they are permitted to state MethodeTraditionelle on the label. In the traditional method, the fizz is obtained via a secondary fermentation process inside a sealed bottle. In a budget sparkling wine, the fizz is generated artificially by injecting highpressurecarbondioxide gas into still wine prior to bottling, as per carbonated drinks. Carbonated wines release large bubbles to develop foam that rises and subsides quickly, whereas Champagne releases uniquely fine bubbles that rise slowly to create longlasting foam.

The defence of the Champagne name has not been entirely successful. Elderflower ‘Champagne’ is a favourite nonalcoholic summer drink in the UK. It selfferments to produce Champagnelike foam when the bottle is opened. In 1993, the Thorncroft Vineyards in Surrey, England, successfully defended a passingoff lawsuit when the judge deemed that the risk of damage to the reputation of genuine Champagne was negligible, even though Thorncroft had presented the drink in a champagnestyle bottle with a wired cork. Despite this initial ruling, the decision was overturned in an appeal case a few months later. The judges felt that consumers might believe that the drink was a nonalcoholic version of Champagne, and that to maintain its exclusiveness, only authentic Champagne could describe itself as Champagne. Other drinks manufacturers have found it necessary to protect their brand’s identities by invoking the passingoff law. Sherry and Port are names that are restricted to fortified wines that emanate from Jerez in Spain, and the Douro Valley in Portugal, respectively. Warninks Advocaat is a traditional egg and brandy liqueur made in Holland since 1616, which Keeling’s Old English Advocaat failed to usurp in 1979. In 2010, Diageo Smirnoff Vodka prevented Intercontinental Brands from selling a cheaper vodkacontaining drink named Vodkat, primarily because it did not contain the necessary 37.5% alcohol to be classed as vodka.

A passingoff claim is likely to succeed in circumstances where the consumer might be deceived into purchasing a product that is similar to that of a claimant who has a strong brand identity and a reputation to protect, that is to say, there is a risk of damage to the claimant’s ‘goodwill’. A passingoff claim is less likely to succeed when the defendant is innocently using his or her own name, or the claimant’s product and labelling are not distinct enough to distinguish it as only belonging to them. Norman McDonald ran a small restaurant named McDonald’s Hamburgers Country drivein. He fell foul of the McDonald’s restaurant chain by including two lit golden arches in his sign. He was forced to remove the arches and add Norman in front of McDonald’s on the sign, so as not to misrepresent the business as a McDonald’s franchise.

McDonald’s has taken legal action against several businesses that refused to drop Mc from their trading name, including those with very similar names, such as MacDonald’s and Mcdonald. McDonald’s have not always won their legal cases. However, they were more likely to succeed if the defendants had a clear association with a food service that could be confused with McDonald’s. So a fastfood outlet in the Philippines named MacJoy was forced to change its name and became MyJoy; Elizabeth McCaughey had to alter the name of her coffee shop from McCoffee, which was a play on her name; and a Scottish sandwichshop owner was restrained from using the name McMunchies; but McChina Wok Away was permitted because it was ruled that McChina would not cause any confusion amongst customers. It was also indicated that McDonald’s did not have exclusive rights to the prefix Mc. This was confirmed when McDonalds lost its case against McCurry despite an earlier ruling that the prefix Mc, combined with colours distinctive of the McDonald’s brand, might confuse and deceive customers. The business had claimed that McCurry stood for Malaysian Chicken Curry.

Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

not exclusive alcohol a food service very similar names negligible risk

In 1993, Thorncroft won a lawsuit because it was deemed that Champagne′s reputation was at of being damaged.
Vodkat was banned mainly because it contained insufficient .
McDonald′s, Macdonald and Mcdonald are .
McDonald′s were more likely to win their cases if the defendants had obvious links with similar to McDonald′s.
A ruling indicated that the rights to use the prefix Mc were to McDonald′s.

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