READING PASSAGE 1

d on Reading Passage 1
s 1�13, wh ,c• h are base
You should spend about 20 minutes on Question
on pages 2 and 3.
thing
The last man who knew every
. . 1e �
or even the most learned
In the 21st century, it would be .
qwte 1mpossib
18th century there were
man to know everything. However, as recentl y as th_e
mation av� ilable at
those whose knowledge encompassed most of the mfor
n
that time. This is a review of a biography of one such ma
ding to the
Thomas Young (1773 - 1829) contributed receptors in the eye correspon
en and
63 articles to the great British three 'principal colours' (red, gre
encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia, Britannica, violet) to which the retina could respo nd.
including 46 biographical entries (mostly All these hypotheses were subsequently
on scientists and classical scholars), and proved to be correct. Lat er in his life,
substantial essays on 'Bridge' (a caxd when he was in his forties, Young was
game), 'Egypt', 'Languages' and 'Tides'. instrumental in cracking the code that
Was someone who could write unlocked the unknown script on the
authoritatively about so many subjects a Rosetta Stone, a tablet found in Egyp t by
genius, or a dilettante*? In an ambitious the Napoleonic army in 1799. The stone
biography, Andxew Robinson argues that has text in three alphabets: Greek,
Young is a good contender to be described E gyptian hieroglyphs, and something
as 'the last man who knew everything'. originally unrecognisable. The
Young has competition, however: the unrecognisable script is now known as
phrase which Robinson uses as the title 'demotic' and, as Young deduced, is
of his biography of Young also serves as related directly to E gyp tian hieroglyphs.
the subtitle of two other recent His initial work on this appeared in the
biographies: Leonard Warren's 1998 life Britannica entry 'Egyp t'. In another
of palaeontologist Joseph Leidy (1823 - entry, Young coined the term 'Indo­
1891) and Paula Findlen's 2004 book on European' to describe the family of
Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 1680). languages spoken throughout most of
Young, of course, did more than write Europe and northern India. The se works
encyclopaedia entries. He presented his are the landmark achievements of a man
first paper, on the human eye, to the who was a child prodigy but wh un
prestigious academic institution, the o like
�any remarkable children, did
Royal Society of London** at the age of �ot fade
mto obscurity as an adul
20 and was elected a Fellow of the t.
Bor� in 17:3 in Somers
Society shortly afterwards. In the paper, et in England,
young hved with his
which seeks to explain how the eye m ate rnal
grandfather from an
focuses on objects at varying distances, early age. He
devoured books from
Young hypothesised that this was . the a ge o f two, and
excelled at Latm , Greek, mathematics
achieved by changes in the shape of the and natu ral philoso
lens. He also theorised that light travels . phY (the 18th-century
ter.m for scie nce) · Aft er leavmg school , he
in waves, and believed that, to be able to was greatly encou
see in colour, there must be three raged bY R'ich ard
BrocklesbY, a phy
sician and Fellow of

* dilettante: someone who is not seri ous about any one

sub·
** Royal Soc i ety of London: the oldest sci entific society in
J�t�i n
 3

the Royal Society. Following Brocklesby's Greek elegiacs. Young was introduced
lead, Young decided to pursue a career in into elite society, attended the theatre
medicine. He studied in London and then and learned to dance and play the flute.
moved on to more formal education in In addition, he was an accomplished
Edinblll·gh, Gottingen and Cambridge. horseman. However, his personal life
After completing his medical training at looks pale next to his vibrant career and
the University of Cambridge in 1808, studies.
Young set up practice as a physician in Young married Eliza Maxwell in
London and a few years later was 1804, and according to Robinson, 'their
appointed physician at St. George's marriage was happy and she appreciated
Hospital. his work'. Almost all we know about her
Young's skill as a physician, however, is that she sustained her husband
did not equal his talent as a scholar of through some rancorous disputes about
natural philosophy or linguistics. In optics and that she worried about money
1801, he had been appointed to a when his medical career was slow to take
professorship of natural philosophy at off. Little evidence survives concerning
the Royal Institution, where he delivered the complexities of Young's relationships
as many as 60 lectures a year. His with his mother and father. Robinson
opinions were requested by civic and does not credit them with shaping
national authorities on matters such as Young's extraordinary mind. Despite the
the introduction of gas lighting to London lack of details concerning Young's
streets and methods of ship construction. relationships, however, anyone interested
From 1819, he was superintendent of the in what it means to be a genius should
Nautical Almanac and secretary to the read this book.
Board of Longitude. Between 1816 and
1825, he contributed many entries to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
throughout his career he authored
numerous other essays, papers and
books.
Young is a perfect subject for a
biography - perfect, but daunting. Few
men contributed so much to so many
technical fields. Robinson's aim is to
introduce non-scientists to Young's work
and life. He succeeds, providing clear
expositions of the technical material
(especially that on optics and Egyptian
hieroglyphs). Some readers of this book
will, like Robinson, find Young's
accomplishments impressive; others will
see him as some historians have - as a
dilettante. Yet despite the rich material
presented in this book, readers will not
end up knowing Young personally. We
catch glimpses of a playful Young,
doodling Greek and Latin phrases in his
notes on medical lectures and translating
the verses that a young lady had written
on the walls of a summerhouse into
 4

Questions 1 - 7
assage 1?
. rmati. on given in Reading P
Do the following statements agree with the in fo

In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write

·th the .information
TRUE if the statement agrees WI th m
ts � formation
FALSE if the statement contradic
on thIs
NOT GIVEN if there is no information
n who knew everything'.
1 Other people have been referred to as ,the I ast ma
adulthood wa s normal.
2 The fact that Young's childhood brilliance continued into
other skills.
3 Young's talents as a doctor are described as surpassing his
nal
4 Young's advice was sought by several bodies responsible for local and natio
matters.
5 All Young's written works were published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

6 Young was interested in a range of social pastimes.

7 Young suffered from poor health in his later years.

Questions 8 - 13

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER nrom the passage for
each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8 How many life stories did Thomas Young write for the
Encyclopaedia Britannica?
9 What was the subject of Thomas Young's first acad .
emIc paper?
10 What name did Young give to a group of Ianguag
es?
11 Who inspired Young to enter the medical pro,&es
s1o
• n?

12 At which place of higher learning did Young h

ol d a tea ching p
osition?
13 What was the improvement to London roa
ds on Which y
oung's ideas were sought?
Reading passage 2
The return of monkey life
Rain forest trees growing anew on Central American farmland are helping scientists find
ways for monkeys and agriculture to benefit one another.

A. Hacienda La Pacifica, a remote working cattle ranch in Guanacaste province of

northern Costa Rica, has for decades been home to a community of mantled howler
monkeys. Other native primates- white-faced capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys
were once common in this area, too, but vanished after the Pan-American Highway was
built nearby in the 1950s and most of the surrounding land was cleared for
cattle-raising. At Hacienda La Pacifica, however, an enlightened ranch owner chose to
leave some strips of native trees growing. He used these as windbreaks to protect both
cattle and their food crops from dry-season winds. In the process, the farmer unwittingly
founded a unique laboratory for the study of monkeys.

B. Ken Glander, a primatologist from Duke University in the USA, is studying La

Pacifica’s monkeys in an effort to understand the relationship between howlers and
regenerating forests at the edges of grazing lands. Studying such disturbed woodlands
is increasingly important because throughout much of the New World Tropics, these are
the only forests left. In the 18th century, tropical dry forests once covered most of
Central America, but by the 1980s less than two percent remained undisturbed, and
less than one percent was protected.

C. Howlers persist at La Pacifica, Glander explains, because they are leaf-eaters. They
eat fruit when it is available but, unlike capuchin and spider monkeys, do not depend on
large areas of fruiting trees. Glander is particularly interested in howlers’ ability to thrive
on leaves loaded with toxins- poisonous substances designed to protect the plants. For
leaf-eaters, long-term exposure to a specific plant toxin can increase their ability to
neutralize the poisonous substances and absorb the leaf nutrients. Watching
generations of howlers at La Pacifica has shown Glander that the monkeys keep their
systems primed by sampling a variety of plants and then focusing on a small number of
the most nutritious food items. The leaves that grow in regenerating forests, like those
at La Pacifica, are actually more howler-friendly than those produced by the
centuries-old trees that survive farther south. In younger forests, trees put most of their
limited energy into growing wood, leaves, and fruit, so they produce much lower levels
of toxin than do well-established, old-growth trees.

D. The value of maturing forests to primates is also a subject of study at Santa Rosa
National Park, about 35 miles northwest of La Pacifica. Large areas of Santa Rosa’s
forests had at one time been burnt to make space for cattle ranching and coffee
farming, thereby devastating local monkey habitat. But in 1971 the government
protected the area by designating it a National Park, and species of Indigenous Lees
which had been absent for decades began to invade the abandoned pastures.
Capuchins were the first to begin using the reborn forests, followed by howlers.
Eventually, even spider monkeys, fruit-eaters that need large areas of continuous forest,
returned. In the first 28 years following protection of the area, the capuchin population
doubled, while the number of howlers increased sevenfold.

E. Some of the same traits that allow howlers to survive at La Pacifica also explain their
population boom in Santa Rosa, Howler reproduction is faster than that of other native
monkey species. They give birth for the first time at about 3.5 years of age, compared
with seven years for capuchins, and eight or more for spider monkeys. Also, while a
female spider monkey will have a baby about once every four years, well-fed howlers
can produce an infant every two years. Another factor is diet. Howlers are very
adaptable feeders, and only need a comparatively small home range. Spider monkeys,
on the other hand, need to occupy a huge home range. Also crucial is the fact that the
leaves howlers eat hold plenty of water, so the monkeys can survive away from open
streams and water holes. This ability gives them a real advantage over capuchin and
spider monkeys, which have suffered during the long, ongoing drought in the area.

F. Alejandro Estrada, an ecologist at Estacion de Biologia Los Tuxtlas en Veracruz,

Mexico, has been studying the ecology of a group of howler monkeys that thrive in a
habitat totally altered by humans: a cacao plantation in Tabasco state, Mexico. Cacao
plants need shade to grow, so 40 years ago the owners of Cholula Cacao Farm planted
figs, monkeypod and other tall trees to form a protective canopy over their crop. The
howlers moved in about 25 years ago after nearby forests were cut. This strange habitat
seems to support about as many monkeys as would a same-sized patch of wild forest.
The howlers eat the leaves and fruit of the shade trees, leaving the valuable cacao pods
alone.

G. Estrada believes the monkeys bring underappreciated benefits to such plantations,

dispersing the seeds of fruits such as fig and other shade trees, and fertilizing the soil.
Spider monkeys also forage for fruit here, though they need nearby areas of forest to
survive in the long term. He hopes that farmers will begin to see the advantages of
associating with wild monkeys, which could include potential ecotourism projects,
‘Conservation is usually viewed as a conflict between farming practices and the need to
preserve nature,’ Estrada says. ‘We’re moving away from that vision and beginning to
consider ways in which commercial activities may become a tool for the conservation of
primates in human-modified landscapes.’
Questions
1. Questions 14 – 17
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once

14 a reason why newer forests provide howlers with better feeding opportunities than
older forests

15 a reference to a change in farmers’ attitudes towards wildlife

16 a description of the means by which howlers select the best available diet for
themselves

17 figures relating to the reduction of natural wildlife habitat over a period of time

2. Questions 18 – 21
Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.

Why do howlers have an advantage over other Central American monkeys?

Howler monkeys have a more rapid rate of 18 …… than either capuchin of spider
monkeys.

Unlike the other local monkey species, howlers can survive without eating 19 ….., and
so can live inside a relatively small habitat area. Their diet is more flexible, and they are
able to tolerate leaves with high levels of 20…..Howlers can also survive periods of 21
… better than the other monkey species can.

3. Questions 22-26
Look at the following features (Questions 22-26) and the list of locations below.

Match each feature with the correct location, A, B or C.

Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

List of Locations

A Hacienda La Pacifica

B Santa Rosa National Park

C Cholula Cacao Farm

22 It has seen the return of native tree species.

23 It supports only one species of native monkey.

24 Its monkey population helps the agriculture of the area.

25 It is home to populations of all three local monkey species.

26 Its landscape was altered by the construction of a transport link.

Reading passage 3
Art-based training for engineers

An assessment of how effective an art-based program was in improving the

communication skills of engineers.

The CONNECT Program in the Engineering School of The Cooper Union for the
Advancement of Science and Art has served as a laboratory for testing the
effectiveness of art-based learning for technical graduates.

Our underlying concept with CONNECT is that most communication breakdowns

involving engineers happen because they know every aspect of their subject matter and
assume that others do too. Engineers spend a great deal of time ensuring their work is
accurate, and their solutions to engineering problems are workable, meet official
requirements, are environmentally sound, and so on. They are persuaded by sound
content. Others may not be.

Communicating with an audience is essentially a social skill with a behavioral basis. A

fact that becomes all too apparent when one's audience has a divergent set of
assumptions. Failing to understand your audience opens up an 'audience gap'. To give
engineering graduates the skills to close this gap. CONNECT turned to the theatre.
Performing artists specialize in the effective communication of any content- good, bad,
or indifferent-through vocal, physical, and socially appropriate behaviors keyed to a
particular audience. CONNECT applied stage movement analysis to interaction with
clients, meetings with colleagues, and job interviews. It also made use of vocal and
physical exercises and directing techniques, to equip technical personnel for the
everyday communication challenges they face, as well as for formal talks.

Attending workshops based on the CONNECT model resulted in observably improved

behaviors. Our data demonstrate that, while not every engineer is likely to become a
great communicator, almost all are capable of becoming better communicators. In a
survey of corporate recruiters, potential employees who had taken one or more
CONNECT workshops were rated higher overall in areas such as confidence and
maturity than those who had not participated in CONNECT. Those who had taken a
range of workshops, including one in advanced non-verbal behavior, were rated even
higher. These results were achieved after mixed early assessment results led us to
significantly refine our methods.

Just as important to the improvements we saw after the first year was an adjustment to
how we approached the students themselves. We needed ti practice what we reached,
and that meant understanding our own audience of young engineers. We needed to
behave in ways that would get through to them. Too often in early workshops, our
performer-facilitators assumed that a technical audience would respond to theatrical
training material in the same positive way that performers did. However, we came to
realize that technical audiences need to be approached differently if arts-based training
is to achieve its full potential.

Adjusting our approach to achieve this was key to the improvement in results. Changing
how we behaved toward our audience of young engineers required real sensitivity to
what was happening in the workshops, and to how our facilitators related to the
students. What we learned during this process can be distilled into 'rules' for maximizing
the effectiveness of performing-arts -based training in a technical field.

There are at least three approaches possible for facilitating a workshop, and the final'
rule' is to incorporate these in the most appropriate way. The 'prescriptive' approach
tells trainees what is necessary, the 'experiential' approach lets them personally
experience what happens when a new element is added to a situation, and the
'demonstrative' approach requires them to observe certain ways of doing things. The
prescriptive approach, although the engineers tended to expect it, was by far the least
effective, while the experiential approach met resistance because the purpose of the
exercise was not always immediately obvious. The demonstrative approach, on the
other hand, mirrors the way technical objects are accomplished, which is to solve
problems through testing and observation. The observation of effective and ineffective
communication behaviors in others proved to be a good way of demonstrating the
options available to everyone.

These 'rules' are, of course, only a starting point. We have learned to apply them both
rigorously and with flexibility. At the Engineering School of The Cooper Union,
customization menat establishing a mini-conservatory. We have learned that you can't
close someone else's audience gap without looking at things from their perspective. In
another setting, playing to the technical audience might require a completely different
sort of customization and a subtly different set of training behaviors. What CONNECT
has shown is that knowing one's audience - and knowing it specifically rather than
generally- is fundamental.

Questions
1. QUESTIONS 27 - 32
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-1, below.

Write the correct letter, A-l, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
List of words

A presentations

B details

C efficiencies

D regulations

E interruptions

F expectations

G failures

H actions

I tools

The CONNECT workshop

The concept behind the CONNECT program is that the (27)________ in communication
experienced by engineers, are due to their tendency to concentrate on technical (28)
______ rather than adapt their approach to meet the (29) ________of their audience.

This is mainly because engineers are used to focusing on the accuracy of their work
and ensuring that it complies with (30) _______

Thus, the program aimed to provide technical graduates with the (31) ________ they
needed to bridge the resulting communication gap.

Having developed an awareness of the audience, the engineers would then be in a

better position to give effective (32)_____ and communicate more appropriately in
everyday situations.

2. QUESTIONS 33 - 36

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading
Passage 3?

In boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

33. The study carried out by CONNECT indicates that any technical graduate has the
ability to become an expert communicator.

34. Employers said that they were particularly keen to hire technical graduates who had
attended sessions in time management.

35. Assessment results from the early workshops led to changes being made to the
delivery of the CONNECT program.

36. It became apparent that some of the CONNECT participants were too young to
appreciate the purpose of the workshops.

3. QUESTIONS 37 - 40
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

37. What is the writer doing in the fifth paragraph?

A advising trainers on how they should incorporate the rules into workshops.

B comparing how the young engineers reacted to the content of the workshops.

C explaining the context in which the rules for effective training were arrived at.

D describing how trainers assessed the performance of workshop participants.

38. In the seventh paragraph, what does the writer say about activities such as 'passing
a ball of energy'?

A The timing had to be adapted to make them suitable for the engineers.

B The point of them had to be explained to the engineers numerous times.

C The engineers were initially unconvinced of their value.

D The engineers misunderstood how they should be performed.

39. What does the writer attribute the success of the demonstrative approach to?

A It complemented the way the technical graduates usually worked.

B It was a highly innovative method of working.

C It combined well with the two other approaches.

D It met the participants expectations about a workshop situation.

40. What is the writer's main point in the final paragraph?

A The differences between the facilitators and the trainees remained immense.

B The facilitators had to put into practice what they were attempting to teach.

C The program that has been developed is suitable for any technical audience.

D The facilitators on the program acknowledged they had learnt very little.