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SPRING UNIVERSITY ,MYANMAR

PREOGRESS CHECK 1 21 JANUARY 2025
READING TEST
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 below. Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO
Crop-growing skyscrapers WORDS from the passage for each
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth’s population will live in urban centres. answer.
Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the Write your answers in boxes 1-7 on your
human population will increase by about three billion people by then. An answer sheet.
estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% larger than Brazil) will be needed
to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming methods continue as they Indoor farming
are practised today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is 1 Some food plants,
suitable for raising crops is in use. Historically, some 15% of that has been laid including……………… are already grown
waste by poor management practices. What can be done to ensure enough food indoors.
for the world’s population to live on? 2 Vertical farms would be located
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes in………………, meaning that there would
and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent be less need to take them long
need to scale up this technology to accommodate another three billion people. distances to customers.
Many believe an entirely new approach to indoor farming is required, employing 3 Vertical farms could use methane
cutting-edge technologies. One such proposal is for the ‘Vertical Farm’. The concept from plants and animals to
is of multi-storey buildings in which food crops are grown in environmentally produce………………..
controlled conditions. Situated in the heart of urban centres, they would drastically 4 The consumption of…………………
reduce the amount of transportation required to bring food to consumers. Vertical would be cut because agricultural
farms would need to be efficient, cheap to construct and safe to operate. If vehicles would be unnecessary.
successfully implemented, proponents claim, vertical farms offer the promise of 5 The fact that vertical farms would
urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (through need……………….. light is a disadvantage.
year-round production of all crops), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that 6 One form of vertical farming
have been sacrificed for horizontal farming. involves planting in……………….. which
It took humans 10,000 years to learn how to grow most of the crops we now take are not fixed.
for granted. Along the way, we despoiled most of the land we worked, often 7 The most probable development is
turning verdant, natural ecozones into semi-arid deserts. Within that same time that food will be grown on…………………
frame, we evolved into an urban species, in which 60% of the human population in towns and cities.
now lives vertically in cities. This means that, for the majority, we humans have
shelter from the elements, yet we subject our food-bearing plants to the rigours of
the great outdoors and can do no more than hope for a good weather year.
However, more often than not now, due to a rapidly changing climate, that is not Questions 8-13
what happens. Massive floods, long droughts, hurricanes and severe monsoons Do the following statements agree with
take their toll each year, destroying millions of tons of valuable crops. the information given in Reading
The supporters of vertical farming claim many potential advantages for the system. Passage?
For instance, crops would be produced all year round, as they would be kept in In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet,
artificially controlled, optimum growing conditions. There would be no weather- write
related crop failures due to droughts, floods or pests. All the food could be grown TRUE if the statement agrees
organically, eliminating the need for herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers. The with the information
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system would greatly reduce the incidence of many infectious diseases that are FALSE if the statement
acquired at the agricultural interface. Although the system would consume energy, contradicts the information
it would return energy to the grid via methane generation from composting NOT GIVEN if there is no information
nonedible parts of plants. It would also dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, by on this
cutting out the need for tractors, ploughs and shipping. 8 Methods for predicting the Earth’s
A major drawback of vertical farming, however, is that the plants would require population have recently changed.
artificial light. Without it, those plants nearest the windows would be exposed to 9 Human beings are responsible for
more sunlight and grow more quickly, reducing the efficiency of the system. Single- some of the destruction to food-
storey greenhouses have the benefit of natural overhead light; even so, many still producing land.
need artificial lighting. 10 The crops produced in vertical
A multi-storey facility with no natural overhead light would require far more. farms will depend on the season.
Generating enough light could be prohibitively expensive, unless cheap, renewable 11 Some damage to food crops is
energy is available, and this appears to be rather a future aspiration than a caused by climate change.
likelihood for the near future. 12 Fertilisers will be needed for
One variation on vertical farming that has been developed is to grow plants in certain crops in vertical farms.
stacked trays that move on rails. Moving the trays allows the plants to get enough 13 Vertical farming will make plants
sunlight. This system is already in operation, and works well within a single-storey less likely to be affected by infectious
greenhouse with light reaching it from above: it Is not certain, however, that it can diseases.
be made to work without that overhead natural light.
Vertical farming is an attempt to address the undoubted problems that we face in
producing enough food for a growing population. At the moment, though, more
needs to be done to reduce the detrimental impact it would have on the
environment, particularly as regards the use of energy. While it is possible that
much of our food will be grown in skyscrapers in future, most experts currently
believe it is far more likely that we will simply use the space available on urban
rooftops.

READING PASSAGE 2
Questions 14-19
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Do the following statements agree with
Reading Passage 2 below. the information given in Reading
Passage 2?
The Falkirk Wheel In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet,
A unique engineering achievement write
The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is the world’s first and only rotating boat lift. Opened TRUE if the statement agrees
in 2002, it is central to the ambitious £84.5m Millennium Link project to restore with the information
navigability across Scotland by reconnecting the historic waterways of the Forth & FALSE if the statement
Clyde and Union Canals. contradicts the information
The major challenge of the project lays in the fact that the Forth & Clyde Canal is NOT GIVEN if there is no information
situated 35 metres below the level of the Union Canal. Historically, the two canals on this
had been joined near the town of Falkirk by a sequence of 11 locks – enclosed 14 The Falkirk Wheel has linked the
sections of canal in which the water level could be raised or lowered – that stepped Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union
down across a distance of 1.5 km. This had been dismantled in 1933, thereby Canal for the first time in their history.
breaking the link. When the project was launched in 1994, the British Waterways
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authority were keen to create a dramatic twenty-first-century landmark which 15 There was some opposition to the
would not only be a fitting commemoration of the Millennium, but also a lasting design of the Falkirk Wheel at first.
symbol of the economic regeneration of the region. 16 The Falkirk Wheel was initially put
Numerous ideas were submitted for the project, including concepts ranging from together at the location where its
rolling eggs to tilting tanks, from giant seesaws to overhead monorails. The components were manufactured.
eventual winner was a plan for the huge rotating steel boat lift which was to 17 The Falkirk Wheel is the only boat
become The Falkirk Wheel. The unique shape of the structure is claimed to have lift in the world which has steel sections
been inspired by various sources, both manmade and natural, most notably a Celtic bolted together by hand.
double headed axe, but also the vast turning propeller of a ship, the ribcage of a 18 The weight of the gondolas varies
whale or the spine of a fish. according to the size of boat being
The various parts of The Falkirk Wheel were all constructed and assembled, like carried.
one giant toy building set, at Butterley Engineering’s Steelworks in Derbyshire, 19 The construction of the Falkirk
some 400 km from Falkirk. A team there carefully assembled the 1,200 tonnes of Wheel site took into account the
steel, painstakingly fitting the pieces together to an accuracy of just 10 mm to presence of a nearby ancient
ensure a perfect final fit. In the summer of 2001, the structure was then monument.
dismantled and transported on 35 lorries to Falkirk, before all being bolted back
together again on the ground, and finally lifted into position in five large sections Questions 20-26
by crane. The Wheel would need to withstand immense and constantly changing Label the diagram below.
stresses as it rotated, so to make the structure more robust, the steel sections were Choose ONE WORD from the passage
bolted rather than welded together. Over 45,000 bolt holes were matched with for each answer.
their bolts, and each bolt was hand-tightened. Write your answers in boxes 20-26 on
The Wheel consists of two sets of opposing axe-shaped arms, attached about 25 your answer sheet.
metres apart to a fixed central spine. Two diametrically opposed water-filled How a boat is lifted on the Falkirk
‘gondolas’, each with a capacity of 360,000 litres, are fitted between the ends of Wheel
the arms. These gondolas always weigh the same, whether or not they are carrying
boats. This is because, according to Archimedes’ principle of displacement, floating
objects displace their own weight in water. So when a boat enters a gondola, the
amount of water leaving the gondola weighs exactly the same as the boat. This
keeps the Wheel balanced and so, despite its enormous mass, it rotates through
180° in five and a half minutes while using very little power. It takes just 1.5
kilowatt-hours (5.4 MJ) of energy to rotate the Wheel -roughly the same as boiling
eight small domestic kettles of water.
Boats needing to be lifted up enter the canal basin at the level of the Forth & Clyde
Canal and then enter the lower gondola of the Wheel. Two hydraulic steel gates are
raised, so as to seal the gondola off from the water in the canal basin. The water
between the gates is then pumped out. A hydraulic clamp, which prevents the
arms of the Wheel moving while the gondola is docked, is removed, allowing the
Wheel to turn. In the central machine room an array of ten hydraulic motors then
begins to rotate the central axle. The axle connects to the outer arms of the Wheel,
which begin to rotate at a speed of 1/8 of a revolution per minute. As the wheel
rotates, the gondolas are kept in the upright position by a simple gearing system.
Two eight-metre-wide cogs orbit a fixed inner cog of the same width, connected by
two smaller cogs travelling in the opposite direction to the outer cogs – so ensuring
that the gondolas always remain level. When the gondola reaches the top, the boat
passes straight onto the aqueduct situated 24 metres above the canal basin.
The remaining 11 metres of lift needed to reach the Union Canal is achieved by
means of a pair of locks. The Wheel could not be constructed to elevate boats over
the full 35-metre difference between the two canals, owing to the presence of the
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historically important Antonine Wall, which was built by the Romans in the second
century AD. Boats travel under this wall via a tunnel, then through the locks, and
finally on to the Union Canal.

READING PASSAGE 3
Questions 27-29
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 has eight
Reading Passage 3 below. paragraphs A-H
Which paragraph contains the following
Reducing the Effects of Climate Change information?
Mark Rowe reports on the increasingly ambitious geo-engineering projects being Write the correct letter, A-H, in
explored by scientists boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.
A 27 mention of a geo-engineering
Such is our dependence on fossil fuels, and such is the volume of carbon dioxide project based on an earlier natural
already released into the atmosphere, that many experts agree that significant phenomenon
global warming is now inevitable. They believe that the best we can do is keep it at 28 an example of a successful use of
a reasonable level, and at present the only serious option for doing this is cutting geo-engineering
back on our carbon emissions. But while a few countries are making major strides
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in this regard, the majority are having great difficulty even stemming the rate of 29 a common definition of geo-
increase, let alone reversing it. Consequently, an increasing number of scientists engineering
are beginning to explore the alternative of geo-engineering — a term which
generally refers to the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment.
According to its proponents, geo-engineering is the equivalent of a backup Questions 37-40
generator: if Plan A – reducing our dependency on fossil fuels – fails, we require a Look at the following statements
Plan B, employing grand schemes to slow down or reverse the process of global (Questions 37-40) and the list of
warming. scientists below.
B Match each statement with the correct
Geo-engineering; has been shown to work, at least on a small localised scale. For scientist, A-D.
decades, MayDay parades in Moscow have taken place under clear blue skies, Write the correct letter, A-D, in
aircraft having deposited dry ice, silver iodide and cement powder to disperse boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
clouds. Many of the schemes now suggested look to do the opposite, and reduce
the amount of sunlight reaching the planet. The most eye-catching idea of all is List of Scientists
suggested by Professor Roger Angel of the University of Arizona. His scheme would A Roger Angel
employ up to 16 trillion minute spacecraft, each weighing about one gram, to form B Phil Rasch
a transparent, sunlight-refracting sunshade in an orbit 1.5 million km above the C Dan Lunt
Earth. This could, argues Angel, reduce the amount of light reaching the Earth by D Martin Sommerkorn
two per cent.
C
The majority of geo-engineering projects so far carried out — which include
planting forests in deserts and depositing iron in the ocean to stimulate the growth 37 The effects of geo-engineering may
of algae – have focused on achieving a general cooling of the Earth. But some look not be long-lasting.
specifically at reversing the melting at the poles, particularly the Arctic. The 38 Geo-engineering is a topic worth
reasoning is that if you replenish the ice sheets and frozen waters of the high exploring.
latitudes, more light will be reflected back into space, so reducing the warming of 39 It may be necessary to limit the
the oceans and atmosphere. effectiveness of geo-engineering
D projects.
The concept of releasing aerosol sprays into the stratosphere above the Arctic has 40 Research into non-fossil-based
been proposed by several scientists. This would involve using sulphur or hydrogen fuels cannot be replaced by geo-
sulphide aerosols so that sulphur dioxide would form clouds, which would, in turn, engineering.
lead to a global dimming. The idea is modelled on historic volcanic explosions, such
as that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which led to a short-term
cooling of global temperatures by 0.5 °C. Scientists have also scrutinised whether
it’s possible to preserve the ice sheets of Greenland with reinforced high-tension
cables, preventing icebergs from moving into the sea. Meanwhile in the Russian
Arctic, geo-engineering plans include the planting of millions of birch trees.
Whereas the -regions native evergreen pines shade the snow an absorb radiation,
birches would shed their leaves in winter, thus enabling radiation to be reflected by
the snow. Re-routing Russian rivers to increase cold water flow to ice-forming areas
could also be used to slow down warming, say some climate scientists.
E
But will such schemes ever be implemented? Generally speaking, those who are
most cautious about geo-engineering are the scientists involved in the research.
Angel says that his plan is ‘no substitute for developing renewable energy: the only
permanent solution’. And Dr Phil Rasch of the US-based Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory is equally guarded about the role of geo-engineering: ‘I think all of us
agree that if we were to end geo-engineering on a given day, then the planet would
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return to its pre-engineered condition very rapidly, and probably within ten to
twenty years. That’s certainly something to worry about.’
F
The US National Center for Atmospheric Research has already suggested that the
proposal to inject sulphur into the atmosphere might affect rainfall patterns across
the tropics and the Southern Ocean. ‘Geo-engineering plans to inject stratospheric
aerosols or to seed clouds would act to cool the planet, and act to increase the
extent of sea ice,’ says Rasch. ‘But all the models suggest some impact on the
distribution of precipitation.’
G
‘A further risk with geo-engineering projects is that you can “overshoot”,’ says Dr
Dan Hunt, from the University of Bristol’s School of Geophysical Sciences, who has
studied the likely impacts of the sunshade and aerosol schemes on the climate.
‘You may bring global temperatures back to pre-industrial levels, but the risk is that
the poles will still be warmer than they should be and the tropics will be cooler
than before industrialisation.’ To avoid such a scenario,” Hunt says, “Angel’s project
would have to operate at half strength; all of which reinforces his view that the
best option is to avoid the need for geo-engineering altogether.”
H
The main reason why geo-engineering is supported by many in the scientific
community is that most researchers have little faith in the ability of politicians to
agree – and then bring in — the necessary carbon cuts. Even leading conservation
organisations see the value of investigating the potential of geo-engineering.
According to Dr Martin Sommerkorn, climate change advisor for the World Wildlife
Fund’s International Arctic Programme, ‘Human-induced climate change has
brought humanity to a position where we shouldn’t exclude thinking thoroughly
about this topic and its possibilities.’

GEO-ENGINEERING PROJECTS

Procedure Aim

put a large number of tiny spacecraft into to create a 30………….. that would reduce the
orbit far above Earth amount of light reaching Earth

place 31…………… in the sea to encourage 32…………… to form

to create 33……………. that would reduce the

release aerosol sprays into the stratosphere
amount of light reaching Earth

fix strong 34…………… to Greenland ice sheets to prevent icebergs moving into the sea
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plant trees in Russian Arctic that would lose

to allow the 35…………… to reflect radiation
their leaves in winter

to bring more cold water into ice-forming

change the direction of 36……………
areas