Reading

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on the following pages.

Questions 14-17

Reading Passage 2 has five paragraphs, A-E.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets
ii Appropriate responses to signals from other civilisations
iii Vast distances to Earth's closest neighbours
iv Assumptions underlying the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
v Reasons for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
vi Knowledge of extra-terrestrial life forms
vii Likelihood of life on other planets

Example Answer
Paragraph A V

14 Paragraph B
15 Paragraph C
16 Paragraph D
17 Paragraph E

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Test 1

The question of whether we are alone in the

Universe has haunted humanity for centuries,
but we may now stand poised on the brink of
the answer to that question, as we search for
radio signals from other intelligent civilisations.
This search, often known by the acronym SETI
[search for extra-terrestrial intelligence}, is a
difficult one. Although groups around the world
have been searching intermittently for three
decades, it is only now that we have reached
the level of technology where we can make a
determined attempt to search all nearby stars
for any sign of life.

A
The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity - the same curiosity about the natural
world that drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe.
We want to know whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there
is something very special about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that
we see around us on the planet. The simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to
answer this most basic of all questions. In this sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery
of pure science which is continually pushing out the horizon of our knowledge. However,
there are other reasons for being interested in whether life exists elsewhere. For example,
we have had civilisation on Earth for perhaps only a few thousand years, and the threats of
nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have told us that our survival may be
tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe ourselves out? Since the
lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that, if other civilisations
do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. Thus any
other civilisation that we hear from is likely to be far older, on average, than ourselves. The
mere existence of such a civilisation will tell us that long-term survival is possible, and gives
us some cause for optimism. It is even possible that the older civilisation may pass on the
benefits of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global
pollution, and other threats that we haven't yet discovered.

B
In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First,
UFOs [Unidentified Flying Objects) are generally ignored since most scientists don't ·
consider the evidence for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration
[although it is also important to keep an open mind in case any really convincing evidence
emerges in the future). Second, we make a very conservative assumption that we are
looking for a life form that is pretty well like us, since if it differs radically from us we may
well not recognise it as a life form, quite apart from whether we are able to communicate

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Reading

with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads
and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with
its fellows, be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and
perhaps most restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.

C
Even when we make these assumptions, our understanding of other life forms is still
severely limited. We do not even know, for example, how many stars have planets, and we
certainly do not know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions.
However, when we look at the 100 billion stars in our galaxy [the Milky Way), and 100
billion galaxies in the observable Universe, it seems inconceivable that at least one of
these planets does not have a life form on it; in fact, the best educated guess we can
make, using the little that we do know about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us
to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting
it. That means that our nearest neighbours are perhaps 100 light years away, which is
almost next door in astronomical terms.

D
An alien civilisation could choose many different ways of sending information across the
galaxy, but many of these either require too much energy, or else are severely attenuated
while traversing the vast distances across the galaxy. It turns out that, for a given amount
of transmitted power, radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the
greatest distance, and so all searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves
in this frequency range. So far there have been a number of searches by various groups
around the world, including Australian searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New
South Wales. Until now there have not been any detections from the few hundred stars
which have been searched. The scale of the searches has been increased dramatically since
1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to conduct a
thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this project is being spent
on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies at once. The project
has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world's largest radio telescopes, the
American-operated telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and the French telescope in Nancy
in France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with high
sensitivity for signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other part of the
project is an undirected search which is monitoring all of space with a lower sensitivity, using
the smaller antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network.

E
There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien
civilisation. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart from the
impracticality of sending a reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host
of ethical questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any
reply could be sent. Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior
and much older civilisation? Luckily, there is no urgency about this. The stars being
searched are hundreds of light years away, so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to
reach us, and a further few hundred years for our reply to reach them. It's not important,
then, if there's a delay of a few years, or decades, while the human race debates the
question of whether to reply, and perhaps carefully drafts a reply.

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Test 1

Questions 18-20

Answer the questions below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 18-20 on your answer sheet.

18 What is the life expectancy of Earth?
19 What kind of signals from other intelligent civilisations are SETI scientists searching
for?
20 How many stars are the world's most powerful radio telescopes searching?

Questions 21-26

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

21 Alien civilisations may be able to help the human race to overcome serious
problems.
22 SETI scientists are trying to find a life form that resembles humans in many ways.
23 The Americans and Australians have co-operated on joint research projects.
24 So far SETI scientists have picked up radio signals from several stars.
25 The NASA project attracted criticism from some members of Congress.
26 If a signal from outer space is received, it will be important to respond promptly.

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