IELTS Matching Headings in Reading Module
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Sample 1
Questions 15-21
The
text on the next page has seven sections, A–G.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i–x, in
boxes 15–21 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i.
How can reflection problems be avoided?
ii. How long should I work without a break?
iii What if I experience any problems?
iv. When is the best time to do filing chores?
v. What makes a good seat?
vi. What are the common health problems?
vii. What is the best kind of lighting to have?
viii. What are the roles of management and workers?
ix. Why does a VDU create eye fatigue?
x. Where should I place the documents?
15. Section A
16. Section B
17. Section C
18. Section D
19. Section E
20. Section F
21. Section G
Look at the information about
the 'Beneficial work practices for the keyboard operator'
and answer questions 15-21.
BENEFICIAL
WORK PRACTICES FOR THE
KEYBOARD
OPERATOR
A. Sensible work practices
are an important factor in the prevention of muscular fatigue; discomfort or
pain in the arms, neck, hands or back; or eye strain which can be associated
with constant or regular work at a keyboard and visual display unit (VDU).
B. It
is vital that the employer pays attention to the physical setting such as
workplace design, the office environment, and placement of monitors as well as
the organisation of the work and individual work habits. Operators must be able
to recognise work-related health problems and be given the opportunity to
participate in the management of these. Operators should take note of and
follow the preventive measures outlined below.
C.
The typist must be comfortably accommodated in a chair that is adjustable for
height with a backrest that is also easily adjustable both for angle and
height. The backrest and sitting ledge (with a curved edge) should preferably
be cloth-covered to avoid excessive perspiration.
D. When
the keyboard operator is working from a paper file or manuscript, it should be
at the same distance from the eyes as the screen. The most convenient position
can be found by using some sort of holder. Individual arrangements will vary
according to whether the operator spends more time looking at the VDU or the
paper – whichever the eyes are focused on for the majority of time should be
put directly in front of the operator.
E. While
keying, it is advisable to have frequent but short pauses of around thirty to
sixty seconds to proofread. When doing this, relax your hands. After you have
been keying for sixty minutes, you should have a ten-minute change of activity.
During this spell, it is important that you do not remain seated but stand up
or walk around. This period could be profitably used to do filing or collect
and deliver documents.
F. Generally, the best position for a VDU is at right
angles to the window. If this is not possible then glare from the window can be
controlled by blinds, curtains or movable screens. Keep the face of the VDU
vertical to avoid glare from overhead lighting.
G. Unsatisfactory work practices or working
conditions may result in aches or pain. Symptoms should be reported to your
supervisor early on so that the cause of the trouble can be corrected and the
operator should seek medical attention.
Sample 2
Questions 14-17
Read the notice on below
about Student Clubs and Societies. The notice has four
main paragraphs A-D.
Choose the most suitable heading for each
paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers i-x in
boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i.
English Society
ii.
Education Club
iii.
Film Appreciation Society
iv.
Drama Society
v.
Music Club
vi.
Games Society
vii.
Women’s Club
viii.
Debating Club
ix.
United Nations Student Club
x.
Technical Students’ Club
14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
Questions 18 and 19:
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS, answer the following
questions.
JOIN
A CLUB OR SOCIETY AND HAVE FUN!
A
This club was first started by a group of friends who enjoyed going to the
cinema. When our trips became more frequent we realised that there must be
others who also shared our love of movies. This club is for those people.
Membership gives wide access to other activities like basketball and football
as well as barbeques and other social functions. We don’t just enjoy movies.
B
The association has many opportunities to debate and we are a non-political
unbiased international organisation which aims to promote international
awareness on campus. We establish links and access to the organisation’s
agencies and other internationalist organisations and their resources. Our
plans this year include discussion groups, guest speakers and to build a model
of the UN General Assembly.
C
Whether for fun or debating experience, we discuss everything from personal experience, future society or feminism. This year we plan an internal competition, weekly debates and beginners’ lessons as well as chances to compete nationally. Whether it be to improve your verbal or social skills the society provides both!
D
Want to be a movie star? Then go somewhere else! On the other hand, want to
work really hard for great rewards? Then come and join the club where the
interesting theatre is created. We usually put on three productions each year.
So if you like to write, paint, act, direct or do anything in the theatre, come
and put your name down with us.
Matching Headings (List of Headings)
Write the correct number i-x in
boxes 28-34 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Bee behaviour is a mystery
ii Communicating direction when outside a hive
iii How bees carry food on their bodies
iv Von Frisch discovers that bees communicate
v How bees communicate direction when inside a hive
vi The special position of bee language
vii Expressing distance by means of dance
viii The purpose of the two simple dances
ix The discovery that bees have a special scent
x Von Frisch discovers three types of dance
28. Section A
29. Section B
30. Section C
31. Section D
32. Section E
33. Section F
34. Section G
Understanding
Bee Behaviour
A. A bee’s brain is the size of a grass
seed, yet in this tiny brain are encoded some of the most complex and amazing
behavioural patterns witnessed outside humankind. For
bees are arguably the only animals apart from humans which have their own
language. Earlier this century Karl von Frisch, a professor of Zoology at
Munich University, spent decades of ‘the purest joy of discovery’ unravelling
the mysteries of bee behaviour. For his astonishing achievements he was awarded
the Nobel Prize and it is from his work that most of today’s knowledge of what
bees say to each other derives.
B. It started simply enough. Von
Frisch knew from experiments by an earlier researcher that if he put out a bowl
of sweet sugar syrup, bees might at first take some time to find it but, once
they had done so, within the hour, hundreds of other bees would be eagerly
taking the syrup. Von Frisch realised that, in some way, messages were being
passed on back at the hive1”, messages which
said, ‘Out there, at this spot, you’re going to find food.’
C. But how was it happening? To
watch the bees, von Frisch constructed a glass-sided hive. He found that, once
the scout bees arrived back at the hive, they would perform one of three dance
types. In the first type, a returning scout scampered in circles, alternating
to right and left, stopping occasionally to regurgitate food samples to the
excited bees chasing after her. In the second dance, clearly an extended
version of this round dance, she performed a sickle-shaped figure-of-eight
pattern instead. In the third, distinctly different dance, she started by
running a short distance in a straight line, waggling her body from side to
side, and returning in a semi-circle to the starting point before repeating the
process. She also stopped from time to time to give little bits of food to
begging bees. Soon the others would excitedly leave the hive in search of food.
Minutes later, many of them, marked by von Frisch, could be seen eating at the
bowls of sugar syrup.
D. Experimenting further, von Frisch
unravelled the mystery of the first two related types, the round and the sickle
dances. These dances, he concluded, told the bees simply that, within quite
short distances of the hive there was a food source worth chasing. The longer
and more excitedly the scout danced, the richer the promise of the food source.
The scent she carried in her samples and on her body was a message to the other
bees that this particular food was the one they were looking for. The others
would then troop out of the hive and fly in spiralling circles ‘sniffing’ in
the wind for the promised food.
E. At first, von Frisch thought the
bees were responding only to the scent of the food. But what did the third
dance mean? And if bees were responding only to the scent, how could they also
‘sniff down’ food hundreds of metres away from the hive, food which was
sometimes downwind? On a hunch, he started gradually moving the feeding dish
further and further away and noticed as he did so, that the dances of the
returning scout bees also started changing. If he placed the feeding dish over
nine metres away, the second type of dance, the sickle version, came into play.
But once he moved it past 36 metres, the scouts would then start dancing the
third, quite different, waggle dance.
The measurement of the actual distance too, he
concluded, was precise. For example, a feeding dish 300 metres away was
indicated by 15 complete runs through the pattern in 30 seconds. When the dish
was moved to 60 metres away, the number dropped to 11.
F. Von Frisch noted something
further. When the scout bees came home to tell their sisters about the food
source, sometimes they would dance outside on the horizontal entrance platform
of the hive, and sometimes on the vertical wall inside. And, depending on where
they danced, the straight portion of the waggle dance would point in different
directions. The outside dance was fairly easy to decode: the straight portion
of the dance pointed directly to the food source, so the bees would merely have
to decode the distance message and fly off in that direction to find their
food.
G. But by studying the dance on the inner
wall of the hive, von Frisch discovered a remark-able method which the dancer
used to tell her sisters the direction of the food in relation to the sun. When
inside the hive, the dancer cannot use the sun, so she uses gravity instead.
The direction of the sun is represented by the top of the hive wall. If she
runs straight up, this means that the feeding place is in the same direction as
the sun. However, if, for example, the feeding place is 40° to the left of the
sun, then the dancer would run 40° to the left of the vertical line. This was
to be the first of von Frisch’s remarkable discoveries. Soon he would also
discover a number of other remarkable facts about how bees communicate and, in
doing so, revolutionise the study of animal behaviour generally.
Sample 2
Questions
28-33
The text has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each section
from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i The
link between feathers and a wider international awareness
ii An unsuitable decoration for military purposes
iii A significant rise in the popularity of feathers
iv Growing disapproval of the trapping of birds for their feathers
v A new approach to researching the past
vi Feathers as protection and as a symbol of sophistication
vii An interesting relationship between the wearing of feathers and
gender
viii A reason for the continued use of feathers by soldiers
28. Section A
29. Section B
30. Section C
31. Section D
32. Section E
33. Section F
Feathers as decoration in European history
A. Today,
we do not generally associate feathers with the military in Europe, yet history
shows that in fact feathers have played an intriguing role in European military
clothing. The Bersaglieri of the Italian Army, for example, still wear a bunch
of long black feathers in their hats hanging down to one side, while British
fusiliers have a clipped feather plume whose colour varies according to their
regiment. The Royalists in the English Civil War adorned their headgear with
ostrich feathers. ‘Historically, feathers were an incredibly expressive
accessory for men,1 observes Cambridge historian, Professor Ulinka Rublack.
‘Nobody has really looked at why this was the case. That’s a story that I want
to tell.’
Rublack
is beginning to study the use of featherwork in early modern fashion as part of
a joint project between the Universities of Cambridge, Basel and Bern. To the
outsider, its preoccupations (her co-researchers are studying gold, glass and
veils) might seem surprising. Yet such materials sustained significant
economies and expertise.
B.
Rublack has spotted that something unusual started to happen with feathers
during the 16th century. In 1500, they were barely worn at all in Europe; 100
years later they had become an indispensable accessory for the fashionable
European man. In prosperous trading centres, the citizens started wearing hats
bedecked with feathers from cranes and swallows. Headgear was specially
manufactured so that feathers could be inserted more easily. By 1573, Plantin’s
Flemish-French dictionary was even obliged to offer words to describe people
who chose not to wear them, recommending such terms as: ‘the featherless’ and
‘unfeathered’.
Featherworking
became big business. From Prague and Nuremberg to Paris and Madrid, people
started to make a living from decorating feathers for clothing. Impressive
efforts went into dyeing them. A 1548 recipe recommends using ashes, lead
monoxide and river water to create a ‘very beautiful’ black, for example.
C. Why
this happened will become clearer as Rublack’s project develops. One crucial
driver, however, was exploration – the discovery of new lands, especially in
South America. Compared with many of the other species that early European
colonists encountered, exotic birds could be captured, transported and kept
with relative ease. Europe experienced a sudden ‘bird-craze’, as exotic birds
became a relatively common sight in the continent’s largest markets.
Given
the link with new territories and conquest, ruling elites wore feathers partly
to express their power and reach. But there were also more complex reasons. In
1599, for example, Duke Frederick of Wurttemberg held a display at his court at
which he personally appeared wearing a costume covered in exotic feathers and
representing the Americas. This was not just a symbol of power, but of cultural
connectedness, Rublack suggests: The message seems to be that he was embracing
the global in a duchy that was quite insular and territorial.’
D. Nor
were feathers worn by the powerful alone. In 1530, a legislative assembly at
Augsburg imposed restrictions on peasants and traders adopting what it clearly
felt should be an elite fashion. The measure did not last, perhaps because
health manuals of the era recommended feathers could keep the wearer safe from
‘bad’ air – cold, miasma, damp or excessive heat – all of which were regarded as
hazardous. During the 1550s, Eleanor of Toledo had hats made from peacock
feathers to keep her dry in the rain. Gradually, feathers came to indicate that
the wearer was healthy and civilised. Artists and musicians took to wearing
them as a mark of subtlety and style.
E. As
with most fads, this enthusiasm eventually wore off. By the mid-17th century,
feathers were out of style, with one striking exception. Within the armies of
Europe feathers remained an essential part of military costume. Rublack thinks
that there may have been several reasons for this strange contradiction. ‘It’s
associated with the notion of graceful warfaring,’ she says. This was a period
when there were no standing armies and it was hard to draft soldiers. One
solution was to aestheticise the military, to make it seem graceful and
powerful.’ Feathers became associated with the idea of an art of warfare.
They
were also already a part of military garb among many native American peoples
and in the Ottoman empire. Rublack believes that just as some of these cultures
considered the feathers of certain birds to be highly significant, and
sometimes sacred, European soldiers saw the feathers as imparting noble
passions, bravery and courage.
F. In
time, her research may therefore reveal a tension about the ongoing use of
feathers in this unlikely context. But, as she also notes, she is perhaps the
first historian to have spotted the curious emotional resonance of feathers in
military fashion at all. All this shows a sea-change in methodologies:
historians now chart the ways in which our identities are shaped through deep
connections with ‘stuff’ – the material objects that are parts of our lives.
Sample
3
Read
the text below and answer Questions 28-40.
Questions 28-34
The text has seven paragraphs, A- G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph
from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i- viii, in boxes 28 - 34 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i A
time when opportunities were limited
ii The reasons why Ferrando’s product is needed
iii A no-risk solution
iv Two inventions and some physical details
v The contrasting views of different generations
vi A disturbing experience
vii The problems with replacing a consumer item
viii Looking back at why water was bottled
28. Paragraph A
29. Paragraph B
30. Paragraph C
31. Paragraph D
32. Paragraph E
33. Paragraph F
34. Paragraph G
Plastic is no longer fantastic
A.
In 2017, Carlos Ferrando, a Spanish engineer-turned-entrepreneur, saw a
piece of art in a museum that profoundly affected him. ‘What Lies Under’, a
photographic composition by Indonesian digital artist Ferdi Rizkiyanto, shows a
child crouching by the edge of the ocean and ‘lifting up’ a wave, to reveal a
cluster of assorted plastic waste, from polyethylene bags to water bottles. The
artwork, designed to raise public awareness, left Ferrando angry – and fuelled
with entrepreneurial ideas.
B.
Ferrando runs a Spanish-based design company, Closca, that produces an
ingenious foldable bicycle helmet. But he has now also designed a stylish glass
water bottle with a stretchy silicone strap and magnetic closure mechanism that
means it can be attached to almost anything, from a bike to a bag to a
pushchair handle. The product comes with an app that tells people where they
can fill their bottles with water for free.
C. The
intention is to persuade people to stop buying water in plastic bottles, thus
saving consumers money and reducing the plastic waste piling up in our oceans.
‘Bottled water is now a $100 billion business, and 81 per cent of the bottles
are not recycled . It’s a complete waste – water is only 1.5 per cent of the
price of the bottle!’ Ferrando cries. Indeed, environmentalists estimate that
by 2050 there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish and that’s mainly
down to such bottles. ‘We are trying to create a sense that being
environmentally sophisticated is a status symbol,’ he adds. ‘We want people to
clip their bottles onto what they are wearing, to show that they are recycling
– and to look cool.’
D. Ferrando’s
story is fascinating because it seems like an indicator of something
unexpected. Three decades ago, conspicuous consumption – the purchase of
luxuries, such as handbags, shoes, cars, etc. on a lavish scale – heightened
people’s social status. Indeed, the closing decades of the 20th century were a
time when it seemed that anything could be turned into a commodity. Hence the
fact that water became a consumer item, sold in plastic bottles, instead of
just emerging, for free, from a tap.
E. Today,
though, conspicuous extravagance no longer seems desirable among consumers.
Now, recycling is fashionable – as is cycling rather than driving. Plastic
water bottles have become so common that they do not command status; instead,
what many millennials – young people born in the late 20th century – prefer to
post on social media are ‘real’ (refillable) bottles or even the once
widespread Thermos bottles. Some teenagers currently think that these
stainless-steel vacuum-insulated water bottles that are coming back onto the
market are ultra ‘cool’; never mind the fact that they feel oddly out-of-date
to anyone over the age of 40 or that teenagers in the 1970s would have avoided
ever being seen with one.
F. It
is uncertain whether Clesca will succeed in its goal. Although its foldable
bike helmet is available in some outlets in New York, includ ing the Museum of
Modern Art, it can be very hard for any design entrepreneur to really take off
in the global mass market, though not as hard as it might have been in the
past. If an entrepreneur had wanted to fund a smart invention a few decades
ago, he or she would have had to either raise a bank loan, borrow money from a
family member or use a credit card. Things have moved on slightly since then.
G. Entrepreneurs
are still using the last two options, but some are also tapping into the
ever-growing pot of money that is becoming available in the management world
for ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) investments. And then there are
other options for those who wish to raise money straight away. Ferrando posted
details about his water-bottle venture on a large , recognised platform for
funding creative projects. He appealed for people to donate $30,000 of seed
money – the money he needed to get his project going – and promised to give a
bottle to anyone who provided more than $39 in ‘donations’. If he received the
funds, he stated that the company would produce bottles in grey and white; if
$60,000 was raised, a multicoloured one would be made. Using this approach,
none of the donors has a stake in his idea, nor does he have any debt. Instead,
it is almost a pre-sale of the product, in a manner that tests demand in
advance and creates a potential crowd of enthusiasts. This old-fashioned
community funding with a digital twist is supporting a growing array of
projects ranging from films to card games, videos, watches and so on. And, at
last count, Closca had raised some $52,838 from 803 backers. Maybe, 20 years
from now, it will be the plastic bottle that seems peculiarly old-fashioned.
Sample
3
Questions 28-33
The following text has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of
headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i The need for population reduction
ii
The problem with being a fussy eater
iii
Reproductive patterns
iv
The need for further research
v
A possible solution to falling numbers
vi
The fastest runners
vii
A rather lonely beginning
viii
A comparison between past and present survival rates
ix
Useful physical features
28. Paragraph A
29. Paragraph B
30. Paragraph C
31. Paragraph D
32. Paragraph E
33. Paragraph F
Understanding hares
With its wild stare, swift
speed and secretive nature, the UK’s brown hare is the rabbit’s mysterious
cousin. Even in these days of agricultural intensification, the hare is still
to be seen in open countryside, but its numbers are falling.
A. Like
many herbivores, brown hares spend a relatively large amount of their time
feeding. They prefer to do this in the dark, but when nights are short, their
activities do spill into daylight hours. Wherever they live, hares appear to
have a fondness for fields with a variety of vegetation, for example, short as
well as longer clumps of grasses. Studies have demonstrated that they benefit
from uncultivated land and other unploughed areas on farms, such as field
margins. Therefore, if farmers provided patches of woodland in areas of pasture
as well as assorted crops in arable areas, there would be year-round shelter
and food, and this could be the key to turning round the current decline in hare
populations.
B. Brown hares have a number of
physical adaptations that enable them to survive in open countryside. They have
exceptionally large ears that move independently, so that a range of sounds can
be pinpointed accurately. Positioned high up on their heads, the hares’ large
golden eyes give them 360° vision, making it hard to take a hare by surprise.
Compared to mammals of a similar size, hares have a greatly enlarged heart and
a higher volume of blood in their bodies, and this allows for superior speed
and stamina. In addition, their legs are longer than those of a rabbit,
enabling hares to run more like a dog and reach speeds of up to 70 kph.
C. Brown hares have unusual
lifestyles for their large size, breeding from a young age and producing many
leverets (babies). There are about three litters of up to four leverets every
year. Both males and females are able to breed at about seven months old, but
they have to be quick because they seldom live for more than two years. The
breeding season runs from January to October, and by late February most females
are pregnant or giving birth to their first litter of the year. So it seems
strange, therefore, that it is in March, when the breeding season is already
underway, that hares seemingly go mad: boxing, dancing, running and fighting.
This has given rise to the age-old reference to ‘mad March hares’. In fact,
boxing occurs throughout the breeding season, but people tend to see this
behaviour more often in March. This is because in the succeeding months, dusk –
the time when hares are most active – is later, when fewer people are about.
Crops and vegetation are also taller, hiding the hares from view. Though it is
often thought that they are males fighting over females, boxing hares are
usually females fighting off males. Hares are mostly solitary, but a female
fights off a series of males until she is ready to mate. This occurs several
times through the breeding season because, as soon as the female has given
birth, she will be ready to mate again.
D. But how can females manage
to do this while simultaneously feeding themselves and rearing their young? The
reason is that hares have evolved such self-sufficient young. Unlike baby
rabbits, leverets are born furry and mobile. They weigh about 100 g at birth
and are immediately left to their own devices by their mothers. A few days
later, the members of the litter creep away to create their own individual
resting places, known as ‘forms’. Incredibly, their mother visits them only
once every 24 hours and, even then, she only suckles them for a maximum of five
minutes each. This lack of family contact may seem harsh to us, but it is a
strategy that draws less attention from predators. At the tender age of two
weeks, leverets start to feed themselves, while still drinking their mother’s
milk. They grow swiftly and are fully weaned at four weeks, reaching adult
weight at about six months.
E. Research has shown that
hares’ milk is extremely rich and fatty, so a little goes a long way. In order
to produce such nutritious milk, females need a high-quality, high-calorie
diet. Hares are selective feeders at the best of times: unlike many herbivores,
they can’t sit around waiting to digest low-quality food – they need high-
energy herbs and other leaves in order to sprint. This causes them problems
when faced with the smallest alterations in food availability and abundance.
So, as well as reductions in the diversity of farmland habitat, the decline in
the range of food plants is injurious to hares.
F. The rapid turnaround in the
breeding cycle suggests that hares should, in principle, be able to increase
their populations quickly to exploit new habitats. They certainly used to:
studies show that hares evolved on the open plains and spread rapidly westward
from the Black Sea after the last ice age (though they were probably introduced
to Britain as a species to be hunted for the pot by the Romans). But today’s
hares are thwarted by the lack of rich farmland habitat. When the delicate
herbs and other plants they rely on are ploughed up or poisoned by herbicides,
these wonderful, agile runners disappear too, taking with them some of the
wildness from our lives.
Sample
4
Read
the text below and answer Questions 28-36.
Questions 28-36
The
text has nine paragraphs, A-I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 28-36 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Various
sources of supplies
ii. The effects of going outside
iii. Oymyakon past and present
iv. A contrast in the landscape
v. Animals that can survive the cold
vi. How Oymyakon is affected by its location
vii. Keeping out the cold
viii. Not the only challenging time of the year
ix. Better than its reputation
x. Very few facilities in buildings
xi. More snow than anywhere else in the world
28.
Paragraph A
29. Paragraph B
30. Paragraph C
31. Paragraph D
32. Paragraph E
33. Paragraph F
34. Paragraph G
35. Paragraph H
36. Paragraph I
A visit to Oymyakon, the world’s coldest town
A. You
don’t need a sat nav to drive to Oymyakon. From Yakutsk, you cross the Lena
River and simply follow the M56 almost all of the way before taking a left at
Tomtor for the final few kilometres. The journey takes two days of hard
driving; two days of glistening landscapes, frozen rivers and untouched snow;
two days of endless forest and breathtaking beauty; two days to penetrate the
heart of Siberia and reach the coldest inhabited place on Earth. The beauty
surprised me. Siberia isn’t known for its pleasant appearance. It’s always
billed as a place of hardship. But for hour after hour, the wintry wonderland
was bathed in a crisp, clean sunshine, presenting a continuous panorama of
conifer trees wreathed in silence and snow.
B. As we
left the flat plain, the road began to twist and turn, leading us into
untouched hills and on towards the Verkhoyansk Mountains. Beneath their
snow-clad peaks, the slopes became steeper and the valleys deeper. Down in a
valley, we stopped to look at a hot spring beside the road. It was immediately
obvious against the snow – a spot shrouded in heavy mist. Trees emerged from
the strange haze as ghostly silhouettes.
C.
Despite the magical ambience of the Siberian wilderness, its reputation for
hardship hit me every time I climbed out of the vehicle. Within less than a
minute, the skin all over my face began to feel as if it were burning. If I
wasn’t wearing my two sets of gloves, I rapidly lost the feeling in my
fingertips. I learned very quickly not to draw too deep a breath because the
shock of the cold air in my lungs invariably set me off on an extended bout of
coughing. Siberia in winter is a world barely fit for human habitation. This is
a place of such searing cold that it bites through multiple layers of clothing
as if they aren’t there.
D.
Oymyakon is a quiet little town – the world’s coldest – of about 550
inhabitants, with its own power station, a school, two shops and a small
hospital. It probably originated as a seasonal settlement where reindeer
herders spent the summer on the banks of the Indigirka River.
E. The
temperature when I arrived was -45°C – not particularly cold, I was informed. A
number of factors combine to explain Oymyakon’s record low temperatures. It is
far from the ocean, with its moderating effect on air temperature. In addition,
the town sits in a valley, below the general level of the Oymyakon Plateau,
which, in turn, is enclosed on all sides by mountains up to 2,000 metres in
height. As the cold air sinks, it accumulates in the valley, with little wind
to disturb it. Oymyakon’s average temperature in January is -50°C. Lower
temperatures have been recorded in Antarctica, but there are no permanent
inhabitants there.
F.
Day-to-day life in Oymyakon presents certain challenges during the long
winters. There are hardly any modern household conveniences. Water is hacked
out of the nearby river as great chunks of ice and dragged home on a sledge.
The giant ice cubes are stacked outdoors and carried into the house one at a
time to melt when needed. The lack of running water also means no showers or
baths, or indeed flushing toilets. Since 2008, the town’s school has enjoyed
the luxury of indoor toilets, however. It’s one of the small number of civic
buildings in the centre of town that are linked to the power station.
G. The
power station provides winter heating in the form of hot water, but many houses
lie outside its range and rely on their own wood-burning stove. Fuel is
plentiful enough in the surrounding forest, but someone still has to venture
out to cut the wood. Everybody in Oymyakon owns good boots, a hat made of
animal fur and fur-lined mittens. The boots are usually made from reindeer
hide, which is light but keeps your feet very warm – the individual hairs are
hollow, like a thin tube with air inside. Since air is a poor conductor of
heat, the skin makes excellent winter footwear, and felt soles give added
insulation. Hats come in a variety of furs, including fox, raccoon, sable and
mink.
H.
Oymyakon’s two shops keep a decent stock of basic foods in tins and packets,
but locals also have do-it-yourself options, including hunting, trapping,
ice-fishing, reindeer-breeding and horse-breeding. Indeed, being
self-sufficient runs in the blood in Siberia. The Oymyakon diet relies heavily
on meat for its protein, a primary source of energy in the prolonged winter.
Unsurprisingly, given the weather, everyone eats heartily in Oymyakon. A
typical meal I was offered consisted of a thick horse soup and huge piles of
horse meatballs, all washed down with cloudberry cordial.
I. Spring
is the best season here, I’m told. The snow melts, the river flows once more
and the forest is full of wildflowers. But it’s short. In the summer Oymyakon
can be uncomfortably hot. Much of the forest becomes boggy, so mosquitoes are a
constant presence. Oymyakon’s climate certainly wouldn’t suit me, but residents
I spoke to said they wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Sample
5
Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.
Questions 28-34
The text below has seven sections, A-G.
Choose
the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-x, in boxes 28-34 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Sightings
in Britain
ii. Origins of the name.
iii. Eating Habits
iv. Dwelling places
v. Sightings in the world
vi. Favourite places
viii. Amount of species
ix. Food storage facilities
x. Appearance and temperament
28.
Section A
29. Section B
30. Section C
31. Section D
32. Section E
33. Section F
34. Section G
NUTHATCH BIRDS
A. The
name nuthatch is derived from nut hacker, reflecting the bird's method of
opening up nuts by jamming them into a crevice then hammering at them. Old
country names include mud dabbler and mud stopper, both of which note the
bird's curious habit of plastering mud around the entrance hole to its nest.
B. Unlike
the treecreeper, which only moves up the trunk of a tree, nuthatches will move
both up and down. Once a bird restricted largely to south-eastern England, the
20th century witnessed a spread to the north, with breeding in Scotland first
confirmed in 1989. Studies have shown that large gardens with oak trees provide
the optimum habitat for this species. One of the reasons for the expansion
seems to be the nuthatch's increasing use of bird feeders and bird tables.
C. As
anyone who has nuthatches visiting their feeders will know, they are bold and
aggressive, able to stand their ground when larger birds such as starlings
attempt to intimidate them. They will take food from the bird table to store
elsewhere: this can lead to sunflowers sprouting in expected places. Pairs are
strongly territorial throughout the year. The fact that food is stored within
the territory strengthens the need to defend it.
D. Though
they will readily adopt nest boxes, they cannot resist plastering mud around
the entrance hole, even if the latter is already the right size. The most
favoured natural site for a nuthatch is the old nest hole of a great spotted
woodpecker. Nuthatches are one of the nosiest woodland birds in the early
spring but are relatively silent when breeding.
E. There
are 24 different species of nuthatches in the world: our bird has much the
widest distribution, as it breeds continually from Portugal to Korea and Japan.
The nuthatch has never been recorded in Ireland. Most nuthatches are highly
sedentary, seldom moving far from where they hatched. The average distance
travelled by a ringed adult nuthatch is less than a kilometre.
F. No
British-ringed individuals have ever been recovered abroad, while similarly no
birds ringed on the Continent have been found here. Individuals breeding in
Sweden and Norway have distinctive white underparts, unlike the peachy buff of
our birds. Remarkably, a red-breasted nuthatch from North America spent nearly
seven months at Holkham in Norfolk from October 1989 to May 1990.
G. Perhaps
surprisingly, the nuthatch has received little in the way of study in Britain,
and most of our knowledge comes from work carried out in Sweden and Belgium.
Numbers are known to fluctuate quite widely from year to year, probably
reflecting the availability of seed during the winter.
Sample 3
Questions 27-32
The following Reading Passage
has seven paragraphs (A-G).
Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs A-B and D-G from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers
(i-ix) in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
NB There
are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
List of Headings
i Robots
working together
ii Preparing LGVs for take-over
iii Looking ahead
iv The LGVs' main functions
v Split location for newspaper production
vi Newspapers superseded by technology
vii Getting the newspaper to the printing centre
viii Controlling the robots
ix Beware of robots!
Example
Answer
Paragraph C
ix
27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
31. Paragraph F
32. Paragraph G
ROBOTS
AT WORK
A
The newspaper production process has come a long way from the old days when the
paper was written, edited, typeset and ultimately printed in one building with
the journalists working on the upper floors and the printing presses going on
the ground floor. These days the editor, subeditors and journalists who put the
paper together are likely to find themselves in a totally different building or
maybe even in a different city. This is the situation which now prevails in
Sydney. The daily paper is compiled at the editorial headquarters, known as the
prepress centre, in the heart of the city, but printed far away in the suburbs
at the printing centre. Here human beings are in the minority as much of the
work is done by automated machines controlled by computers.
B
Once the finished newspaper has been created for the next morning’s edition,
all the pages are transmitted electronically from the prepress centre to the
printing centre. The system of transmission is an update on the sophisticated
page facsimile system already in use in many other newspapers. An imagesetter
at the printing centre delivers the pages as films. Each page takes less than a
minute to produce, although for colour pages four versions, once each for
black, cyan, magenta and yellow are sent. The pages are then processed
into photographic negatives and the film is used to produce aluminium printing
plates ready for the presses.
C
A procession of automated vehicles is busy at the new printing centre where the
Sydney Morning Herald is printed each day. With lights flashing and warning
horns honking, the robots (to give them their correct name, the LGVs or laser
guided vehicles) look for all the world like enthusiastic machines from a
science fiction movie, as they follow their own random paths around the plant
busily getting on with their jobs. Automation of this kind is now standard in
all modern newspaper plants. The robots can detect unauthorised personnel and
alert security staff immediately if they find an “intruder”; not surprisingly,
tall tales are already being told about the machines starting to take on
personalities of their own.
D
The robots’ principal job, however, is to shift the newsprint (the printing
paper) that arrives at the plant in huge reels and emerges at the other end
sometime later as newspapers. Once the size of the day’s paper and the
publishing order are determined at head office, the information is punched into
the computer and the LGVs are programmed to go about their work. The LGVs
collect the appropriate size paper reels and take them where they have to go.
When the press needs another reel its computer alerts the LGV system. The
Sydney LGVs move busily around the press room fulfilling their two key
functions to collect reels of newsprint either from the reel stripping stations
or from the racked supplies in the newsprint storage area. At the stripping
station, the tough wrapping that helps to protect a reel of paper from rough
handling is removed. Any damaged paper is peeled off and the reel is then
weighed.
E
Then one of the four paster-robots moves in. Specifically designed for the job,
it trims the paper neatly and prepares the reel for the press. If required the
reel can be loaded directly onto the press; if not needed immediately, an LGV
takes it to the storage area. When the press computer calls for a reel, an LGV
takes it to the reel loading area of the presses. It lifts the reel into the
loading position and places it in the correct spot with complete accuracy. As
each reel is used up, the press drops the heavy cardboard core into a waste
bin. When the bin is full, another LGV collects it and deposits the cores into
a shredder for recycling.
F
The LGVs move at walking speed. Should anyone step in front of one or get too
close, sensors stop the vehicle until the path is clear. The company has chosen
a laser guide function system for the vehicles because, as the project
development manager says “The beauty of it is that if you want to change the
routes, you can work out a new route on your computer and lay it down for them
to follow”. When an LGV’s batteries run low, it will take itself offline and go
to the nearest battery maintenance point for replacement batteries. And all
this is achieved with absolute minimum human input and a much reduced risk of
injury to people working in the printing centres.
G
The question newspaper workers must now ask, however, is, “how long will it be
before the robots are writing the newspapers as well as running the printing
centre, churning out the latest edition every morning?”
Sample 4
Choose the correct heading for sections C-H from the list of headings below. Section A and Section B have been done for you.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 28-33 on
your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Where to buy the best Echinacea
ii. What 'snake oil' contained
iii. Growing Echinacea
iv. How to use the Echinacea plant
v. Earlier applications of Echinacea
vi. The origins of the term 'snake oil'
vii. Early research into the effectiveness of Echinacea
viii. How 'snake oil' was first invented
ix. The use of Echinacea in new locations
x. Modern evidence of the effectiveness of Echinacea
xi. Early kinds of 'snake oil'
Examples
Answers
Section
A vi
Section
B xi
28. Section C
29. Section D
30. Section E
31. Section F
32. Section G
33. Section H
Snake Oil
A. Back in the days of America's Wild
West, when cowboys roamed the range and people were getting themselves caught
up in gunfights, a new phrase - 'snake oil' – entered the language. It was a
dismissive term for the patent medicines, often useless, sold by travelling
traders who always claimed miraculous cures for everything from baldness to
snakebite.
Selling 'snake oil' was almost as risky a business as cattle stealing; you
might be run out of town if your particular medicine, as you realised it would,
failed to live up to its claims. Consequently, the smarter - 'snake oil'
sellers left town before their customers had much chance to evaluate the 'cure'
they had just bought.
B.
The remarkable thing about many of the medicines dismissed then as 'snake oil'
is not so much that they failed to live up to the outrageous claims made for
them - those that weren't harmless coloured water could be positively
dangerous. What's remarkable is that so many of the claims made for some of
these remedies, or at least their ingredients, most of them, plant based, have
since been found to have at least some basis in fact.
One, Echinacea, eventually turned out to be far more potent than even its
original promoter claimed. Echinacea first appeared in 'Meyer's Blood
Purifier', promoted as a cure-all by a Dr H.C.F. Meyer - a lay doctor with no
medical qualifications. 'Meyer's Blood Purifier' claimed not only to cure
snakebite, but also to eliminate a host of other ailments.
C.
Native to North America, the roots of Echinacea, or purple coneflower, had been
used by the Plains Indians for all kinds of ailments long before Meyer came
along. They applied poultices of it to wounds and stings, used it for teeth and
gum disease and made a tea from it to treat everything from colds and measles
to arthritis. They even used it for snakebite.
D.
Settlers quickly picked up on the plant's usefulness but until Meyer sent
samples of his 'blood purifier' to John Lloyd, a pharmacist, it remained
a folk remedy. Initially dismissing Meyer's claims as nonsense, Lloyd was
eventually converted after a colleague, John King, tested the herb and
successfully used it to treat bee stings and nasal congestion.
In fact, he went much further in his claims than Meyer ever did and by the
1890s a bottle of tincture(1) of
Echinacea could be found in almost every American home, incidentally making a
fortune for Lloyd's company, Lloyd Brothers Pharmacy.
E.
As modern antibiotics became available, the use of Echinacea products declined
and from the 1940s to the 1970s it was pretty much forgotten in the USA. It was
a different story in Europe, where both French and German herbalists and
homeopaths continued to make extensive use of it.
It had been introduced there by Gerhard Madaus, who travelled from Germany to
America in 1937, returning with seed to establish commercial plots of
Echinacea. His firm conducted extensive research on echinacin, a concentrate they
made from the juice of flowering tops of the plants he had brought back. It was
put into ointments, liquids for internal and external use, and into products
for injections.
F. There
is no evidence that Echinacea is effective against snakebite, but Dr Meyer –
who genuinely believed in Echinacea - would probably be quite amused if
he could come back and see the uses to which modern science has put 'his' herb.
He might not be surprised that science has confirmed Echinacea's role as a
treatment for wounds, or that it has been found to be helpful in relieving
arthritis, both claims Meyer made for the herb.
He might though be surprised to learn how Echinacea is proving to be an effective
weapon against all sorts of disease, particularly infections. German
researchers had used it successfully to treat a range of infections and found
it to be effective against bacteria and protozoa (2).
There are many other intriguing medical possibilities for extracts from the
herb, but its apparent ability to help with our more common ailments has seen
thousands of people become enthusiastic converts. Dozens of packaged products
containing extracts of Echinacea can now be found amongst the many herbal
remedies and supplements on the shelves of health stores and pharmacies. Many
of those might be the modern equivalents of 'snake oil', but Echinacea at least
does seem to have some practical value.
G.
Echinacea is a dry prairie plant, drought-resistant and pretty tolerant of most
soils, although it does best in good soil with plenty of sun. Plants are
usually grown from seed but they are sometimes available from nurseries.
Echinacea is a distinctive perennial with erect, hairy, spotted stems up to a
meter tall. Flower heads look like daisies, with purple rayed florets and a
dark brown central cone. The leaves are hairy; the lower leaves are oval to
lance-shaped and coarsely and irregularly toothed.
H. There
are nine species of Echinacea in all but only three are generally grown for
medicinal use. All have similar medicinal properties. Most European studies
have used liquid concentrates extracted from the tops of plants, whereas
extraction in the USA has usually been from the roots. Today most
manufacturers blend both, sometimes adding flowers and seeds to improve the
quality.
For the home grower, the roots of all species seem equally effective. Dig them
up in autumn after the tops have died back after the first frost. Wash and dry
them carefully and store them in glass containers. You can harvest the tops
throughout the summer and even eat small amounts of leaf straight from the
plant.
Even if you don't make your fortune from this herb, there are few sights more
attractive than a field of purple coneflowers in all their glory. And with a
few Echinacea plants nearby, you'll never go short of a cure.
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