CHUYÊN ĐỀ IELTS READING DETAIL QUESTIONS (Short Answer / Gap - Filling / Multiple Choice / Classification Questions) (PHẦN 2)

• Dạng Detail Question trong IELTS READING là bao gồm những chuyên đề tập trung vào những câu hỏi mang tính chất chi tiết, đòi hỏi thí sinh cần phải đọc kĩ câu hỏi và đoạn văn mới có thể tìm ra đáp án được. 
• Để có thể làm được các bài tập trong dạng Detail Questions, thí sinh cần phải đọc lại lí thuyết hướng dẫn Cách làm dạng bài short Answer trong IELTS READING, Cách làm dạng bài Gap Filling trong IELTS READING, Cách làm dạng vài Multiple Choice trong IELTS READING và Cách làm dạng bài Classification trong IELTS READING.

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1-15, which are based on the reading passage below.

Questions 1-5

The reading passage below has 5 paragraphs (A-E). Which paragraph focuses on the information below? Write the appropriate letters (A-E) beside questions 1-5.

N.B. Write only ONE letter for each answer.

1. The way parameters in the mind help people to be creative

2. The need to learn rules in order to break them

3. How habits restrict us and limit creativity

4. How to train the mind to be creative

5. How the mind is trapped by the desire for order

A. It is a myth that creative people are born with their talents: gifts from God of nature. Creative genius is, in fact, latent within many of us, without our realising. But how far do we need to travel to find the path to creativity? For many people, a long way. In our everyday lives, we have to perform many acts out of habit to survive, like opening the door, shaving, getting dressed, walking to work, and so on. If this were not the case, we would, in all probability, become mentally unhinged. So strongly ingrained are our habits, though this varies from person to person, that, sometimes when a conscious effort is made to be creative, automatic response takes over. We may try, for example, to walk to work following a different route, but end up on our usual path. By then it is too late to go back and change our minds. Another day, perhaps. The same applies to all other areas of our lives. When we are solving problems, for example, we may seek different answers, but, often as not, find ourselves walking along the same well-trodden paths.

B. So, for many people, their actions and behaviour are set in immovable blocks, their minds clogged with the cholesterol of habitual actions, preventing them from operating freely, and thereby stifling creation. Unfortunately, mankind's very struggle for survival has become a tyranny — the obsessive desire to give order to the world is a case in point. Witness people's attitude to time, social customs and the panoply of rules and regulations by which the human mind is now circumscribed.

C. The groundwork for keeping creative ability in check begins at school. School, later university and then work teach us to regulate our lives, imposing a continuous process of restrictions, which is increasing exponentially with the advancement of technology. Is it surprising then that creative ability appears to be so rare? It is trapped in the prison that we have erected. Yet, even here in this hostile environment, the foundations for creativity are being laid, because setting off on the creative path is also partly about using rules and regulations. Such limitations are needed so that once they are learnt, they can be broken.

D. The truly creative mind is often seen as totally free and unfettered. But a better image is of a mind which can be free when it wants, and one that recognises that rules and regulations are parameters, or barriers, to be raised and dropped again at will. An example of how the human mind can be trained to be creative might help here. People's minds are just like tense muscles that need to be freed up and the potential unlocked. One strategy is to erect artificial barriers or hurdles in solving a problem. As a form of stimulation, the participants in the task can be forbidden to use particular solutions or to follow certain lines of thought to solve a problem. In this way they are obliged to explore unfamiliar territory, which may lead to some startling discoveries. Unfortunately, the difficulty in this exercise, and with creation itself, is convincing people that creation is possible, shrouded as it is in so much myth and legend. There is also an element of fear involved, however subliminal, as deviating from the safety of one's own thought patterns is very much akin to madness. But, open Pandora's box, and a whole new world unfolds before your very eyes.

E. Lifting barriers into place also plays a major part in helping the mind to control ideas rather than letting them collide at random. Parameters act as containers for ideas, and thus help the mind to fix on them. When the mind is thinking laterally, and two ideas from different areas of the brain come or are brought together, they form a new idea, just like atoms floating around and then forming a molecule. Once the idea has been formed, it needs to be contained or it will fly away, so fleeting is its passage. The mind needs to hold it in place for a time so that it can recognise it or call on it again. And then the parameters can act as channels along which the ideas can flow, developing and expanding. When the mind has brought the idea to fruition by thinking it through to its final conclusion, the parameters can be brought down and the idea allowed to float off and come in contact with other ideas. (753 words)

Questions 6-10

Choose the appropriate letters (A-D) and write them beside questions 6-10 in your booklet.

6. According to the writer, creative people ...........................

A. are usually born with their talents

B. are born with their talents

C. are not born with their talents

D. are geniuses

7. According to the writer, creativity is ............................

A. a gift from God or nature

B. an automatic response

C. difficult for many people to achieve

D. a well-trodden path

8. According to the writer, ........................

A. the human race's fight to live is becoming a tyranny

B. the human brain is blocked with cholesterol

C. the human race is now circumscribed by talents

D. the human race's fight to survive stifles creative ability

9. Advancing technology .........................

A. holds creativity in check

B. improves creativity

C. enhances creativity

D. is a tyranny

10. According to the author, creativity .......................

A. is common

B. is increasingly common

C. is becoming rarer and rarer

D. is a rare commodity

Questions 11-15
Do the statements on the next page agree with the information in the reading passage? Beside questions 11-15, write:

YES if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

NO if the statement contradicts the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about the statement in the passage.

Example: In some people, habits are more strongly ingrained than in others. (Answer: YES)

11. Rules and regulations are examples of parameters.

12. The truly creative mind is associated with the need for free speech and a totally free society.

13. One problem with creativity is that people think it is impossible.

14. The act of creation is linked to madness.

15. Parameters help the mind by holding ideas and helping them to develop.

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1-14, which are based on the reading passage below.

Malaria is the world's second most common disease causing over 500 million infections and one million deaths every year. Worryingly, it is one of those diseases which is beginning to increase as it develops resistance to treatments. Even in the UK, where malaria has been effectively eradicated, more than 2,000 people are infected as they return from trips abroad and the numbers are rising.

It seems as though malaria has been in existence for millions of years and a similar disease may have infected dinosaurs. Malaria-type fevers are recorded among the ancient Greeks by writers such as Herodotus who also records the first prophylactic measures: fishermen sleeping under their own nets. Treatments up until the nineteenth century were as varied as they were ineffective. Live spiders in butter, purging and bleeding, and sleeping with a copy of the Iliad under the patient's head are all recorded. The use of the first genuinely effective remedy, an infusion from the bark of the cinchona tree, was recorded in 1636 but it was only in 1820 that quinine, the active ingredient from the cinchona bark, was extracted and modern prevention became possible. For a long time the treatment was regarded with suspicion since it was associated with the Jesuits. Oliver Cromwell, the Protestant English leader who executed King Charles I, died of malaria as a result of his doctors refusing to administer a Catholic remedy! Despite the presence of quinine, malaria was still a major cause of illness and death throughout the 19^th century. Hundreds of thousands were dying in southern Europe even at the beginning of the last century. Malaria was eradicated from Rome only in the 1930s when Mussolini drained the Pontine marshes.

Despite the fact that malaria has been around for so long, surprisingly little is known about how to cure or prevent it. Mosquitoes, who are the carriers of the disease, are attracted to heat, moisture, lactic acid and carbon dioxide, but how they sort through this cocktail to repeatedly select one individual for attention over another is not understood. It is known that the malaria parasite, or plasmodium falciparum to give it its Latin name, has a life cycle which must pass through the anopheles mosquito and human hosts in order to live. It can only have attained its present form, after mankind mastered agriculture and lived in groups for this to happen. With two such different hosts, the life cycle of the parasite is remarkable.

There is the sporozoite stage which lives in the mosquito. When a human is bitten by an infected anopheles mosquito, the parasite is passed to the human through the mosquito's saliva. As few as six such parasites may be enough to pass on the infection provided the human's immune system fails to kill the parasites before they reach the liver. There they transform into merozoites and multiply hugely to, perhaps, about 60,000 after 10 days and then spread throughout the bloodstream. Within minutes of this occurring, they attack the red blood cells to feed on the iron-rich hemoglobin which is inside. This is when the patient begins to feel ill. Within hours, they can eat as much as 125 grams of hemoglobin which causes anaemia, lethargy, vulnerability to infection, and oxygen deficiency to areas such as the brain. Oxygen is carried to all organs by hemoglobin in the blood. The lack of oxygen leads to the cells blocking capillaries in the brain, and the effects are very much like that of a stroke with one important difference: the damage is reversible and patients can come out of a malarial coma with no brain damage. Merozoites now change into gametocytes which can be male or female and it is this phase, with random mixing of genes that results, that can lead to malaria developing resistance to treatments. These resistant gametocytes can be passed back to the mosquito if the patient is bitten, and they turn into zygotes. These zygotes divide and produce sporozoites and the cycle can begin again.

The fight against malaria often seems to focus on the work of medical researchers who try to produce solutions such as vaccines. But funding is low because, it is said, malaria is a third-world condition and scarcely troubles the rich, industrialised countries. It is true that malaria is, at root, a disease of poverty. The richer countries have managed to eradicate malaria by extending agriculture and so having proper drainage so mosquitoes cannot breed, and by living in solid houses with glass windows so the mosquitoes cannot bite the human host. Campaigns in Hunan Province in China making use of pesticide impregnated netting around beds, reduced infection rates from over 1 million per year to around 65,000. But the search for medical cures goes on. Some 15 years ago, there were high hopes for DNA-based vaccines which worked well in trials on mice. Some still believe that this is where the answer lies and shortly too. Other researchers are not so confident and expect a wait of at least another 15 years before any significant development. (850 words)

Questions 1-8
Do the following statements agree with the information in the reading passage? Beside questions 1-8, write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

NO if the statement contradicts the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage.

1. Malaria started among the ancient Greeks.

2. Malaria has been eradicated in the wealthier parts of the world.

3. Mosquitoes are discerning in their choice of victims.

4. Treatments in the 19^th century were ineffective.

5. Iron is a form of nourishment for malarial merozoites.

6. A severe attack of malaria can be similar to a stroke.

7. Research into malaria is not considered a priority by the West.

8. Technological solutions are likely to be more effective than low-tech solutions.

Questions 9-14
The diagram on the next page describes the life cycle of the malaria parasite. Complete the spaces with words from the box below. Write your answers in boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet. There are more answers than spaces, so you will not use them all.

resistance

merozoites
zygotes

blood

sporozoites

water

gametocytes

saliva

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1-14, which are based on the reading passage below.

Newspaper headlines and TV or radio news bulletins would have us believe erroneously that a new age has come upon us, the Age of Cassandra. People are being assailed not just with contemporary doom, or past gloom, but with prophecies of disasters about to befall. The dawn of the new millennium has now passed: the earth is still intact, and the fin de siecle Jeremiahs have now gone off to configure a new date for the apocalypse.

It can, I believe, be said with some certainty that the doom-mongers will never run out of business. Human nature has an inclination for pessimism and anxiety, with each age having its demagogues, foretelling doom or dragging it in their wake. But what makes the modern age so different is that the catastrophes arc more 'in your face'. Their assault on our senses is relentless. Whether it be subconscious or not, this is a situation not lost on politicians. They play upon people's propensity for unease, turning it into a very effective political tool.

Deluding the general public

All too often, when politicians want to change the status quo, they take advantage of people's fears of the unknown and their uncertainties about the future. For example, details about a new policy may be leaked to the press. Of course, the worst case scenario is presented in all its depressing detail. When the general public reacts in horror, the government appears to cave in. And then accepting some of the suggestions from their critics, ministers water down their proposals. This allows the government to get what it wants, while at the same time fooling the public into believing that they have got one over on the government. Or even that they have some saying in the making of policy.

There are several principles at play here. And both are rather simple: unsettle people and then play on their fears; and second, people must be given an opportunity to make a contribution, however insignificant, in a given situation, otherwise, they become dissatisfied, not fearful or anxious.
A similar ruse, at a local level, will further illustrate how easily people's base fears are exploited. A common practice is to give people a number of options, say in a housing development, ranging from no change to radical transformation of an area. The aim is to persuade people to agree on significant modifications, which may involve disruption to their lives, and possibly extra expenditure. The individuals, fearful of the worst possible outcome, plump for the middle course. And this, incidentally, is invariably the option favoured by the authorities. Everything is achieved under the guise of market research. But it is obviously a blatant exercise in the manipulation of people's fears.

Fear and survival

Fear and anxieties about the future affect us all. People are wracked with self-doubt and low self-esteem. In the struggle to exist and advance in life, a seemingly endless string of obstacles is encountered, so many, in fact, that any accomplishment seems surprising. Even when people do succeed, they are still nagged by uncertainty.

Not surprisingly, feelings like doubt, fear, anxiety and pessimism are usually associated with failure. Yet if properly harnessed, they are the driving force behind success, the very engines of genius.

If things turn out well for a long time, there is a further anxiety: that of constantly waiting for something to go wrong. People then find themselves propitiating the gods: not walking on lines on the pavements, performing rituals before public performances, wearing particular clothes and colours so that they can blame the ritual not themselves when things go wrong.

But surely the real terror comes when success continues uninterrupted for such a long period of time that we forget what failure is like!

We crave for and are fed a daily diet of anxiety. Horror films and disaster movies have an increasing appeal. Nostradamus pops his head up now and again. And other would-be prophets make a brief appearance, predicting the demise of humankind. Perhaps, this is all just a vestige of the hardships of early man — our attempt to recreate the struggles of a past age, as life becomes more and more comfortable.

Mankind cannot live by contentment alone. And so, a world awash with anxieties it and pessimism has been created. Being optimistic is a struggle. But survival dictates that mankind remain ever sanguine.

Questions 1-5
Choose one phrase (A-K) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A-K) beside questions 1-5.

The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of the point made by the writer.

N.B. There are more phrases than key points, so you will not need to use them all. Yot may use each phrase once only.

Key Points

1. Newspaper headlines and TV or radio news bulletins ...

2. Doom-mongers are popular because people ...

3. Today, catastrophes ...

4. To politicians, people's inclination for fear ...

5. The government ...

List of Phrases

A. are not as threatening as in the past

B. tell the truth

C. blame them

D. try to make us believe mistakenly that we are in a new era

E. calm people down

F. are uncertain about the future

G. are less comfortable

H. are natural pessimists and worriers

I. are more immediate

J. gets what they want by deceiving the public

K. is something they can make use of

Questions 6-9

Choose the appropriate letters (A-D) and write them beside questions 6-9.

6. The housing development example shows that people .................

A. are not that easily deceived

B. like market research

C. lead their fears

D. are easy to delude
 

7. Which one of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A. Market research uses people's fears for their own good.

B. People ate seared by market research techniques

C. Market research techniques are used as a means of taking advantage of people's fears.

D. Market research makes people happy.

8. The engines of genius are ........................

A. properly harnessed

B. the driving force behind success

C. driven by feelings like fear

D. usually associated with failure

9. Continual success .........................

A. makes people arrogant

B. worries people

C. does not have any negative effects on people

D. increases people's self-esteem

Questions 10-14
Do the statements below agree with the information in the reading passage? Beside questions 10-14, write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

NO if the statement contradicts the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about the statement in the passage.

Example: Politicians pretend things are worse than they are. (Answer: YES)

10. The complex relationship between failure and success needs to be addressed carefully.

11. People perform certain rituals to try to avoid failure.

12. Anxiety in daily life is what we want.

13. The writer believes that Nostradamus and certain other prophets are right about their predictions for the end of the human race.

14. Mankind needs to be pessimistic to survive.

One of the most difficult wastes to recycle is mixed plastics, (example). Plastics manufacturers turn their own offcuts into granules that are melted down for reuse. They can also reuse any single, pure thermoplastic materials, (1)................ The British firm Meyer-Newman of Gwent recycles complete telephones into new ones. But mixed plastics have unpredictable properties and low structural strength because (2) ............. So it is difficult to make a material with good and predictable properties from mixed plastics waste.

In the grip of the octopus

One answer is compatibiliser. This is an octopus-like molecule in which each arm represents a section of different polymer, that in turn (3)................ Stirred into a mixture of molten plastics, each arm of the octopus grabs and reacts chemically with a molecule of the one polymer in the mixture. The result is an alloy rather than a mixture. It is strong because of intra-molecular bonding and has highly predictable properties, so it is potentially reusable.

During the past two or three years, many plastics manufacturers have (4) ................. But perhaps the most advanced, 'Bennet', was produced independently two years ago, after 15 years of research, by the Dutch engineer Ben Van Der Groep. His invention is already being used widely, largely in secret (5)....................

Bennet is made up of short sections of several polymers representing the arms of octopus, each able to link the molecules of a different polymer in the mixture. The reliable strength of the plastic 'alloys' made with Bennet suggests that (6) ....................

The vehicles recycling industry is keen to recycle more plastics. Despite the environmental benefits, they fear that the steady increase in the use of reclaimable plastics will make it uneconomic to recover vehicles from the metals they contain. Some car manufacturers, such as BMW and Mercedes, are now designing products and requesting components that are easier to recycle: (7) .................... (315 words)

Questions 1-7

The passage has eight phrases left out. Decide which phrase (A-L) from the list on the next page should go in each gap and write the letter in the space provided. Note there are more phrases than gaps. One has been done for you as an example.

A. is characteristic of a different plastic

B. developed their own compatibilisers

C. which has never been achieved despite substantial government investment in research

D. often used in wrappers and containers

E. they could be used in high-grade, high-cost applications such as car bumpers

F. it does not have sufficient rigidity

G. for example, car bumpers made from one material instead of up to seven

H. always been sceptical about recycling plastics

I. as manufacturers do not want to be seen to be using recycled plastics in their quality products

J. for example, steel suspension systems and car bodies

K. such as polythene, that are not chemically cross-linked

L. the different plastics in the mixture are not bonded at a molecular level

Example: D

1. ...........................

2. ...........................

3. ...........................

4. ...........................

5. ...........................

6. ...........................

7. ...........................

Asbestos is the generic name for a number of naturally occurring fibrous mineral silicates of which the most common types are crocidolite, also known as blue asbestos, and chrysotile (white asbestos).

Employed for at least 2,000 years, it is valued by industry because of its tensile strength and flexibility, and its resistance to acids, heat and friction. Asbestos has had a very wide variety of applications. It has been commonly employed in the building industry as a fireproofing agent and as a strengthener. The metal frames of buildings were sprayed with an asbestos solution to prevent the spread of fires, while asbestos was routinely mixed in with cement to provide greater resistance to weathering agents. It is also used in motor-vehicle brake linings, gas-mask filters, certain types of talcum powder, fire-resistant clothing, corrugated-iron roofing and in water and air pipes. As a result of such wide employment, it is likely that most people have been exposed to at least a small quantity of asbestos fibres.

During inhalation, all particles which enter the respiratory tract pass through a series of filter mechanisms. Particles are filtered out at different points of the respiratory tract depending on their size. The smaller the particle, the further into the respiratory it may penetrate before being arrested. The first set of filters consists of the hairs and mucous lining of the nose and mouth which prevent the entry of larger particles. When large particles are inhaled, they stimulate this mucous lining, which results in coughing and the consequent expulsion of the particles. The mucous lining extends downwards through hair-lined bronchial tubes of increasingly fine diameter which further filter the air before it reaches the respiratory bronchioles, a series of very fine tubes attached to air exchange chambers known as alveoli. The alveoli are composed of a thin layer of cells through which oxygen passes into blood vessels and is then distributed to the bloodstream.

Particles smaller than eight micrometres may reach the alveoli. This is the case with blue asbestos particles, which are very straight and slender and tend not to be I arrested by mucous and expelled. As a result, they may reach the alveoli and penetrate the delicate cells lining the walls.

Some asbestos fibrils (particles) which reach the alveoli may be surrounded by scavenger cells known as macrophages, which serve to remove the fibrils from the body by expectoration or excretion. Other particles may remain in the alveoli with no adverse effects. In cases where the asbestos particles have penetrated the alveolar wall, scar tissue develops. This reduces the effectiveness of the alveoli and so less oxygen passes into the blood and less carbon dioxide is removed from it. This condition is known as asbestosis. The process of scarring may take place gradually and the disease may not be diagnosed until 20 or 30 years after the initial exposure. (477 words)

Questions 1-5
The reading passage describes a number of cause-and-effect relationships. Match each cause (1-5) in List A with its effect (A-H) in List B. Write your answers (A-H) after questions 1-5 in your booklet.

N.B. There are more effects in List B than you will need, so you will not use all of them. You may use any effect more than once if you wish.

List A - Causes

1. Capable of elasticity and flexibility

Answer: .....................................

2. Widely used in people's life

Answer: .....................................

3. Tiny particles
Answer: .....................................

4. Coughing

Answer: .....................................

5. Delicate alveolar walls penetrated
Answer: .....................................

List B - Effects
A. Scavenger cells known as macrophages

B. Further penetration

C. Generic name

D. Articles containing asbestos fibres

E. Expulsion of asbestos fibrils

F. Air being further filtered

G. Less carbon dioxide removed

H. Fireproofing agent

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1-13, which are based on the reading passage below.

Pronunciation and Physiognomy

Imagine the scene: you are sitting on the tube and on gets someone you instinctively feel is American. To make sure you ask them the time, and are right, but how did you know?

When we say someone 'looks American', we take into consideration dress, mannerism and physical appearance. However, since the Americans do not constitute one single race, what exactly is meant by 'look'? In fact, one salient feature is a pronounced widening around the jaw, a well-documented phenomenon.

The writer Arthur Koestler once remarked that friends of his, whom he met thirty years after they emigrated to the United States, had acquired an 'American physiognomy', i.e. a broadened jaw, an appearance which is also prevalent in the indigenous population. An anthropologist friend of his attributed this to the increased use of the jaw musculature in American enunciation. This 'change of countenance' in immigrants had already been observed by the historian M. Fishberg in 1910.

To paraphrase the philosopher Emerson, certain national, social and religious groups, such as aging actors, long-term convicts and celibate priests, to give just a few examples, develop a distinguishing 'look', which is not easily defined, but readily recognised. Their way of life affects their facial expression and physical features, giving the mistaken impression that these traits are of hereditary of 'racial' origin. All the factors mentioned above contribute, as well as heredity. But the question of appearance being affected by pronunciation, as in the case of American immigrants (including those from other English-speaking countries) over the course of many years, is of great interest, and calls for further study into the science of voice production. This can only benefit those working in the field of speech therapy, elocution and the pronunciation of foreign languages, and help the student from a purely physiological point of view. Naturally, the numerous psychological and sociolinguistic factors that inhibit most adult learners of foreign languages from acquiring a 'good' pronunciation constitute a completely different and no less important issue that requires separate investigation.

The pronunciation of the various forms of English around the world today is affected by the voice being 'placed' in different parts of the mouth. We use our speech organs in certain ways to produce specific sounds, and these muscles have to practise to learn new phonemes. Non-Americans should look in the mirror while repeating. I really never heard of poor reward for valour with full use of the USA retroflex /r/ phoneme, and note what happens to their jawbones after three or four repetitions. Imagine the effect of these movements on the jaw muscles after twenty years! This phoneme is one of the most noticeable features of US English and one that non-Americans always exaggerate when mimicking the accent. Likewise, standard British RP is often parodied, and its whine of superiority mocked to the point of turning the end of one's nose up as much as possible. Not only does this enhance the 'performance', but also begs the question of whether this look is the origin of the expression 'stuck up'?

On a Birmingham bus once, a friend pointed to a fellow passenger and said, 'That man's Brummie accent is written all over his face.' This was from someone who would not normally make crass generalisations. The interesting thing would be to establish whether thin lips and a tense, prominent chin are a result of the way Midlands English is spoken, or its cause, or a mixture of both. Similarly, in the case of Liverpool, one could ask whether the distinctive 'Scouse' accent was a reason for, or an effect of, the frequency of high cheekbones in the local population.

When one 'learns' another accent, as in the theatre for example, voice coaches often resort to images to help their students acquire the distinctive sound of the target pronunciation. With 'Scouse', the mental aid employed is pushing your cheekbones up in a smile as high as they will go and imagining you've got a very slack mouth full of cotton wool. The sound seems to spring off the sides of your face — outwards and upwards. For a Belfast accent, one has to tighten the sides of the jaws until there is maximum tension, and speak opening the lips as little as possible. This gives rise to the well-known 'Ulster jaw' phenomenon. Learning Australian involves imagining the ordeals of the first westerners transported to the other side of the world. When exposed to the merciless glare and unremitting heat of the southern sun, we instinctively screw up our eyes and grimace for protection.

Has this contributed to an Australian 'look', and affected the way 'Aussies' speak English, or vice versa? It is a curious chicken and egg conundrum, but perhaps the answer is ultimately irrelevant. Of course other factors affect the way people look and sound, and I am not suggesting for one minute that all those who speak one form of a language or dialect have a set physiognomy because of their pronunciation patterns. But a large enough number do, and that alone is worth investigating. What is important, however, is establishing pronunciation as one of the factors that determine physiognomy, and gaining a deeper insight into the origins and nature of the sounds of speech. And of course, one wonders what 'look' one's own group has!

Questions 1-3

Use the information in the text to match the people listed (1-3) with the observations (i-vii). Write the appropriate numbers (i-vii) beside questions 1-3 in your booklet. Note that there are more observations than people, so you will not use all of them. You can use each observation once only.

People

1. Koestler

2. Fishberg

3. Emerson

Observations 

i. Americans use their jaws more to enunciate.

ii. Immigrants acquire physiognomical features common among the indigenous population.

iii. Facial expression and physical features are hereditary.

iv. Lifestyle affects physiognomy.

v. Americans have a broadened jaw.

vi. The appearance of his friends had changed since they moved to the United States.

vii. The change of countenance was unremarkable.

Questions 4-9
Do the statements below agree with the information in the reading passage? Beside questions 4-9, write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

NO if the statement contradicts the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about the statement in the passage.

Example: Appearance is affected by pronunciation. (Answer: YES)

4. Further study into the science of voice production will cost considerable sums of money.

5. The psychological and socio-linguistic factors that make it difficult for adult learners of foreign languages to gain 'good' pronunciation are not as important as other factors.

6. Speech organs are muscles.

7. New phonemes are difficult to learn.

8. People often make fun of standard British RP.

9. Facial features contribute to the incomprehensibility of Midlands English.

Question 10-13
Choose one phrase (A-I) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A-I) beside questions 10-13.

The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of the points made by the writer.

N.B. There are more phrases than key points, so you will not need to use them all. You may use each phrase once only.

Key Points

10. Voice coaches ...

11. The 'Scouse' accent ...

12. Whether the way we look affects the way we speak or the other way round ...

13. It is important to prove that pronunciation ...

List of Phrases 

A. can be achieved by using a mental aid

B. is irrelevant

C. is worth investigating

D. use images to assist students with the desired pronunciation

E. is a chicken and egg conundrum

F. get the target

G. can affect appearance

H. is not as easy as a Belfast one

I. makes you smile

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the passage 'Prosecuting Corporate Fraud' below.

The celebrity ex-bosses will put up a good fight in court.

After the humiliating 'perk walks' and charges of corruption and fraud, it may be surprising that America's celebrity ex-bosses have much light left in them. But as Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco's ex-boss, and Frank Quattrone, a former star banker, arrived at separate New York courts this week to begin their trials, it became clear that, for all their tribulations, they are not about to accept their fate meekly.

Outside court, Mr. Kozlowski chatted with reporters about his daughter's wedding at the weekend. Mr. Quattrone strode confidently into court with John Keker, his defence lawyer, who drew attention not just to the charges — that Mr. Quattrone had obstructed a federal investigation into the IPO share-allocation practices of his former employer, CSFB — but to why prosecutors might have brought them. 'You're sitting in judgment of a man, not a symbol,' said Mr. Keker, as he warned the jury that it would probably be hearing about Mr. Quattrone's famously lavish pay.

Other legal talents will soon echo Mr. Keker's theme. The Kozlowski and Quattrone trials mark the start of a clutch of white-collar cases featuring former business stars from the late 1990s. Defence lawyers in most of these will claim that overzealous prosecutors, under pressure to slake the public's thirst for blood, picked on their clients as expedient symbols of greed and excess — but their clients did not commit any crime. ln April, John Rigas, the former boss of Adelphia, a bust cable-TV firm, made an emotional plea in the NEW YORK TIMES, claiming that the charges of looting filed against him and his two sons were a 'misrepresentation, a big PR effort'. Facing charges that she obstructed an insider-trading investigation and defrauded her own shareholders, Martha Stewart, ex-boss of the eponymous home-furnishing empire, has also fought bad. 'Why has the government, after nearly a year and a half, chosen to file these charges?' asked Robert Morvillo, her defence lawyer, in June. 'Is it for publicity purposes because Martha Stewart is a celebrity?'

Of all the ex-bosses, she may have the best shot with this defence. The securities fraud charge is a legal innovation. The government's apparent intention to force Ms. Stewart's own lawyers, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to testify against her is raising eyebrows. Should her case go to trial, the jury may find these tactics aggressive and unfair. The risk for the prosecution, says Daniel Horwitz of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, a law firm, is that the jury will throw out the obstruction-of-justice charges along with everything else.

Then there is the evidence. Mr. Quattrone's case involves a series of e-mails. One, from a colleague, forwarded by Mr. Quattrone only two days after he heard about possible subpoenas from federal investigators, urges staff to 'clean up those flies'. Mr. Keker claimed this week that the forwarded e-mail only addressed, in a general way, the wisdom of enforcing the bank's document-retention policy. The prosecution will rely on testimony from David Brodsky, the bank's former general counsel, that he had only just made Mr. Quattrone aware of the feds' interest.

The trial of Mr. Kozlowski, who is accused of looting Tyco of hundreds of millions of dollars, will last up to four months, the judge told astonished jurors this week. Stephen Kaufman, Mr. Kozlowski's lawyer, will point out that his client did not hide anything, that the firm's auditor at Price Waterhouse Coopers was informed about all the disputed transactions (many of which involved using an executive loan scheme to buy property), and that the auditor talked regularly with the board.

Prosecutors will emphasise that the board did not explicitly authorise many of the transactions, that Mr. Kozlowski had bought board loyalty, and that the auditor has since been barred for life. Prosecutors will also hope that the sheer volume of evidence eventually weighs on the jury. The indictment of Mr. Kozlowski and his chief financial officer, Mark Swartz, lists 15 separate charges of grand larceny and 67 charges of falsifying business records.

The trial of Mr. Rigas, scheduled for January, is likely to involve a similar exploration of what the board, auditor and outside counsel knew of and approved, and the intent of Mr. Rigas when he authorised borrowings by private family companies partly secured (and undisclosed to shareholders) by Adelphia's assets.

Do the ex-bosses have a point? It is true that prosecuting corporate fraud became a top political priority last year. It is also true that what has really animated the public — obscene executive pay — seems mostly to have been a social pathology, not a crime. And with the emphasis they place on a few 'rotten apples', celebrity trials could detract from the broader task of reforming governance and regulation. But the charges mostly look well-investigated. No criminal charges, meanwhile, have yet been brought against the former chief executives of HealthSouth or Enron, two of the biggest scandal-hit firms, although Enron's former finance chief, Andrew Fastow is due to stand trial next year. (836 words)

Questions 1-8

Read the information given in the previous passage and decide whether the following statements are true, false or not given. In your booklet, write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

FALSE if the statement disagrees with the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if the statement contains no information in the passage.

1. Dennis Kozlowski and Frank Quattrone are in jail waiting for the prosecution.

Answer: .....................................................................
2. 1999's business stars are now viewed by some as the symbols of greed and excess.

Answer: .....................................................................
3. John Rigas, the former boss of a TV firm, was accused of insider-trading.
Answer: .....................................................................
4. In the Martha Stewart case, the jury will reject the obstruction-of-justice charges along with everything else.

Answer: .....................................................................
5. Mr. Keker claimed that it is part of the bank's computer operation command to clean up files.

Answer: .....................................................................
6. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz are mainly charged with stealing the company's properties.

Answer: .....................................................................
7. Tyco's board is also involved in the many of the corporate crimes as claimed by the prosecutors.

Answer: .....................................................................
8. The author thinks too much focus on celebrities' crime will weaken the attempt to reform the corporate governance. Answer: .....................................................................

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the passage 'Where's the lawyer?' below.

Where's the Lawyer?

Nowadays every firm should have its own in-house lawyer-statesman, says Ben Heineman.

'It is the best of times for general counsels and it is the worst of times.' So paraphrases Ben Heineman, who has just given up the title of general counsel - though not necessarily the influence that came with it - at General Electric (GE) after nearly 17 years in which he became arguably the world's most admired in-house corporate lawyer and, it is said, its highest paid. He will remain at GE as 'senior vice-president, law and public affairs'.

For the worst of times, look no further than the recent ethical crisis in corporate America. As Mr. Heineman reminded the 'in-house bar' at last week's General Counsel Roundtable hosted by THE ECONOMIST and CORPORATE BOARD MEMBER, some general counsels have been indicated and others accused of heading departments where there is credible evidence of malpractice and breach of fiduciary duties. Still others, he observed, are now 'haunted by the question "Where were they?" as their enterprises literally collapsed in internal fraud and corruption'.

The best of times are not so obvious. Mr. Heineman believes that the woes of corporate America have created an opportunity, and a pressing need, for general counsels to carry out the 'rather grandiloquently named role of "lawyer-statesman" or "statesman-adviser"'. He has in mind a sort of EMINENCE GRISE function, the corporate equivalent of Pere Joseph to Cardinal Richelieu, instead of the narrow, technical lawyer that was too often the general counsel of recent years - though not, ahem, at GE.

The ideal of the lawyer-statesman first emerged after the Second WorId War, along with the big modern corporation. Among his skills, the lawyer-statesman would supply practical wisdom, not just technical mastery; an understanding of long-term effects, not just how to achieve short-term advantage; and a deep concern (or, at least, the appearance of it) for the public interest as well as for the private good of his client. In those golden days, the lawyer-statesman was not in-house but, rather, a senior partner in a top private law firm, who provided counsel to top corporate clients as well as occasionally becoming a real statesman. Mr. Heineman cites Cyrus Vance, secretary of state under Jimmy Carter, and James Baker, who did the same job under the first President George Bush — as well as helping to install the second with his legal strategy in Florida. In private practice, both men advised many corporate chiefs.

Long before the Enron scandal, the decline of the lawyer-statesman was being regretted in books such as THE LOST LAWYER, by Tony Kronman, a dean of Yale Law School, and THE BETRAYED PROFESSION, by Sol Linowitz, a former general counsel (and chairman) of Xerox. Among the reasons suggested for the decline were the growing specialisation of law firms, reducing their ability to offer a broad view; a greater emphasis on profit by these firms; and the use of competitive bidding by companies buying legal services. 'A senior partner is more likely to be bidding for work than whispering in the ear of the CEO,' says Mr. Heineman. GE recently increased such pressure by making law firms compete for its legal business in online auctions.

Though, says Mr. Heineman, a few lawyer-statesmen remain in private practice, in future they are more likely to thrive inside companies. This view is controversial. After all, the pressure to compromise bearing down on an in-house lawyer from his sole client, in practice the chief executive, may be even harder to resist than that facing a private law firm, which can at least compete for work from many clients. Crucially, says Mr. Heineman, the chief executive must 'want, really want, unvarnished views' and the general counsel must be strong enough to give them, and to resign if they are not accepted.

And the role of in-house EMINENCE GRISE may simply be impossibly demanding. Consider Mr. Heineman's efforts to guide his long-time Cardinal Richelieu, Jack Welch, GE's former CEO. If Mr. Heineman gave Mr. Welch unvarnished views about the obvious antitrust risks in Europe surrounding GE's planned acquisition of Honeywell, they went expensively unheeded. Nor did he succeed in preventing an embarrassing row about Mr. Welch's perks in retirement, nor curb his enthusiasm for a compliant board or for smoothing GE's profits to keep investors sweet. On the other hand, he was impressively statesmanlike in quickly getting a grip when GE's record came under post-Enron scrutiny. He presided over a rapid, sweeping reform of the firm's corporate governance and executive pay that has won praise. (756 words)

Questions 1-8
Read the information given in the above passage and decide whether the statements on the next page are true, false or not given. In your booklet, write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information in the passage;

FALSE if the statement disagrees with the information in the passage;

NOT GIVEN if the statement contains no information in the passage.

1. Mr. Heineman, before becoming the senior vice-president of GE, has been acting as an in-house lawyer of GE for two decades.

Answer: ............................................
2. The public believes it is the general counsels of the big corporations that should take the responsibility for the recent corporate scandals.

Answer: ............................................
3. Mr. Heineman believes that general counsels should govern the company the same way as the statesmen govern the country.

Answer: ............................................
4. Lawyer-statesmen are those who are capable of both law practice and politics.
Answer: ............................................
5. Specialisation of the law firms strengthens their competitive force in the market of legal business.

Answer: ............................................
6. Private law firms, compared with the in-house lawyer, would be able to exert a greater pressure on the CEOs.

Answer: ............................................
7. Jack Welch, GE's former CEO, would welcome any clear facts revealing the investment risk.

Answer: ............................................
8. Senior counsels are definitely working more effectively with more trust from the company CEOs.

Answer: ............................................

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the passage 'Turning up the Heat in the Greenhouse' below.

For a century that produces more than 20 per cent of the planet's greenhouse gases, the United States (example). But in a report, a National Academy of Sciences panel warned that using the atmosphere as an industrial sewer could send temperatures soaring 2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit in the near future — and called for measures that would (1)................. Says Yale University economist and panel member William Nordhaus, 'it is worth making modest investments today to slow climate change and prepare for it.'

How? The panel recommended phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, (2) ................ Next comes energy efficiency. Replacing standard light bulbs with compact fluorescents that are more efficient and raising miles-per-gallon standards for new cars would more than pay for themselves — and cut the use of the fuels that emit greenhouse gases. It urged lawmakers to raise energy prices, impose more efficient building codes, increase support for mass transit and (3) ............... And it called on Americans to prepare for the side effects of a changing climate, for example by reducing that amount of the wasted water, (4) .........................

While they applauded the report, the environmentalists worried that its recommendations would meet with stiff resistance from the White House. Moreover, many scientists continue to doubt that global temperatures are rising at alarming rates — (5) ................ Panel member Jessica Tuchman Mathews, vice-president of the World Resources Institute, concedes that the science of measuring climate changes (6) ................. 'But when there's the potential of irreversible consequences,' she says, 'we have to act'. The question is whether the findings will be acted on, or just added to the hot air. (272 words)

Questions 1-6
Look at the reading passage. Seven phrases have been left out. Decide which phrase (A-I) from the list below should go in each gap and write the letter in the space provided. Note that there are more phrases than gaps. One has been done as an example.

A. boost efficiency standards for electrical appliances

B. reduce temperatures by a similar amount

C. the chemicals that both destroy the ozone layer and heat the atmosphere

D. or even that the earth is warming at all

E. has been slow to do much about global warming

F. a major cause of the rise in the sea level

G. is imprecise

H. cut greenhouse emissions 10 to 40 per cent with minimal cost to the economy

I. which could become scarcer in the years ahead

Example: E

1. .................................
2. .................................
3. .................................
4. .................................
5. .................................
6. .................................

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the passage 'Why Women Have to Work' below.

Why are today's mothers working so hard, putting in long hours at home and at the office? For the money.

Oh, sure, those ladies who took their grandmothers' advice and married a doctor, a lawyer or an Enron executive may show up for work to 'fulfil themselves' or to 'expand their horizons'. But for most women who, like me, came of age in the '90s, it comes down to dollars and cents, and the calculation is brutal.

Because in most of the US it is no longer possible to support a middle-class family on Dad's income alone. This isn't a question of having enough cash to buy Game Boys and exotic trips. It is a question of having enough to buy the basics.

Like a home. Anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock in Montana knows that it costs more to purchase a house than it used to. But what many do not realise is that this increase has become a family problem, with mothers caught in the cross hairs. Over the past generation, home prices have risen twice as fast for couples with young children as for those without kids. Why?

Confidence in the public schools has dwindled, leaving millions of families to conclude that the only way to ensure Junior a slot in a safe, quality school is to snatch up a home in a good school district. In most cities that means paying more

for the family home. Since the mid-'70s, the amount of the average family budget earmarked for the mortgage has increased a whopping 69% (adjusted for inflation). At the same time, the average father's income increased less than 1%. How to make up the difference? With Mom's paycheck, of course.

These moms aren't marching to the office so they can get into brand new McMansions. In fact, the average family today lives in a house that is older than the one Mom and Dad grew up in, and scarcely half a room bigger. The average couple with young children now shells out more than $127,000 for a home, up from $72,000 (adjusted for inflation) less than 20 years ago.

Then there is preschool. No longer an optional 'Mother's Day Out' enterprise, preschool is widely viewed as a prerequisite for elementary school. But that pre-requisite isn't offered at most public schools, which means that any mother who wants her kids to have access to this 'essential start to early education', as the experts call it, has to come up with cold, hard cash. A full-time preschool programme can cost over $5,000 a year — more than a year's tuition at most state universities! Add the cost of health insurance (for those lucky enough to have it) and the eventual price of sending a kid to college (double — when adjusted for inflation — what it was a generation ago), and most middle-class moms find they have no choice but to get a job if they want to make ends meet.

To be sure, there are plenty of mothers who scrimp and save and find a way to stay home (at least for a few years). But there are plenty more who decide that the cost is just too high, and the choice of whether to stay home is no choice at all. (550 words)

Questions 1-5

The reading passage describes a number of cause-and-effect relationships. Match each cause (1-5) in List A with its effect (A-I) in List B. Write your answers (A-I) after questions 1-5 in your booklet.

List A — Causes
1. Make ends meet

Answer: ...........................

2. Low confidence in public schools

Answer: ...........................

3. Experts' strong recommendation

Answer: ...........................

4. Rising home prices

Answer: ...........................

5. Wishing to stay home

Answer: ...........................

List B — Effects

A. Budget for preschool education

B. Expand their horizons

C. Go out to work

D. Father's income decreases

E. Be economical in life

F. Home near a good school

G. Essential early education

H. Inflation

I. Mother's Day Out

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the passage 'How Fire Leapt to Life' below.

How Fire Leapt to Life

The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of humanity's step towards a hie-enhancing technology.

Fire-lighting was revolutionised by the discovery of phosphorus, isolated in 1669 by a German alchemist trying to transmute silver into gold. Impressed by the element's combustibility, several 17^th century chemists used it to manufacture fire-lighting devices, but the results were dangerously inflammable. With phosphorus costing the equivalent of several hundred pounds per ounce, the first matches were expensive.

The quest for a practical match really began after 1781 when a group of French chemists came up with the Phosphoric Candle or Ethereal Match, a sealed glass tube containing a twist of paper tipped with phosphorus. When the tube was broken, air rushed in, causing the phosphorus to self-combust. An even more hazardous device, popular in America, was the Instantaneous Light Box — a bottle filled with sulphuric acid into which splints treated with chemicals were dipped.

The first matches resembling those used today were made in 1827 by John Walker, an English pharmacist who borrowed the formula from a military rocket-maker called Congreve. Costing a shilling a box, Congreves were splints coated with sulphur and tipped with potassium chlorate. To light them, the user drew them quickly through folded glass paper.

Walker never patented his invention, and three years later it was copied by a Samuel Jones, who marketed his product as Lucifers. About the same time, a French chemistry student called Charles Sauria produced the first 'strike-anywhere' match by substituting white phosphorus for the potassium chlorate in the Walker formula. However, since white phosphorus is a deadly poison, from 1845 match-makers exposed to its fumes succumbed to necrosis, a disease that eats away jawbones. It wasn't until 1906 that the substance was eventually banned.

That was 62 years after a Swedish chemist called Pasch had discovered non-toxic red or amorphous phosphorus, a development exploited commercially by Pasch's compatriot J. E. Lundstrom in 1885. Lundstrom's safety matches were safe because the red phosphorus was non-toxic, it was painted onto the striking surface instead of the match tip, which contained potassium chlorate with a relatively high ignition temperature of 182 degrees centigrade.

America lagged behind Europe in match technology and safety standards. It wasn't until 1900 that the Diamond Match Company bought a French patent for safety matches — but the formula did not work properly in the different climatic conditions prevailing in America and it was another 11 years before scientists finally adapted the French patent for the US.

The Americans, however, can claim several 'firsts' in match technology and marketing. In 1892 the Diamond Match Company pioneered book matches. The innovation didn't catch on until after 1896, when a brewery had the novel idea of advertising its product in match books. Today book matches are the most widely used type in the US, with 90 per cent handed out free by hotels, restaurants and others.

Other American innovations include an anti-afterglow solution to prevent the match from smouldering after it has been blown out; and the waterproof match, which lights after eight hours in water. (516 words)

Questions 1-7
Look at the following notes that have been made about the matches described in the passage. Decide which type of match (A-H) corresponds with each description (1-7) and write your answers in the blanks after questions 1-7.

NB. There are more matches than descriptions, so you will not use them all. You may use any match more than once.

Example: Could be lit after soaking in water (Answer: H)

1. Made using a less poisonous type of phosphorus ....................

2. Identical to a previous type of match ...............................

3. Caused a deadly illness ...................

4. First to look like modern matches .....................

5. First matches used for advertising ...................

6. Relied on an airtight glass container .....................

7. Made with the help of an army design ........................

Types of Match

A. the Ethereal Match

B. the Instantaneous Light Box

C. Congreves

D. Lucifers

E. the first `strike-anywhere' match

F. Lundstrom's safety matches

G. book matches

H. waterproof matches

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the passage 'Circadian Rhythms of a Day' below.

Since the early work of Halberg (1960), the existence of human 'circadian rhythms' has been well known to biologists and psychologists. Circadian rhythms dictate that there are certain times of the day when we are at our best both physically and psychologically. At its simplest, the majority of us feel more alive and creative in the mornings, while come the evenings we are fit only for collapsing with a good book or in front of the television. Others of us note that in the morning, we take a great deal of time to get going physically and mentally, but by the evening are full of energy and bright ideas, while a very few of us feel most alert and vigorous in the late afternoon.

Irrespective of our personal rhythms, most of us have a productive period between 10 a.m. and noon, when the stomach, pancreas, spleen and heart all appear to be in their most active phases. Conversely, the majority of us experience a low period in the hour or two after lunch (a time when people in some societies sensibly take a rest), as most of our energy is devoted to the process of digestion. The simple rules here are: don't waste too much prime time having a coffee break around 11 a.m. when you should be doing some of your best work, and don't make the alter-lunch period even less productive by overloading your digestion. A short coffee or tea break is, in fact, best taken on arrival at the office, when it helps us start the day in a positive mood, rather than mid-morning when it interrupts the flow of our activities. Lunch is best taken early, when we are just beginning to feel hungry, and we are likely to eat less than if we leave it until later. An early lunch also means that we can get back into our productive stride earlier in the afternoon.

Changes in one's attitude can also enhance personal time management. For example, the notion of pro-action is eminently preferable to reaction. To pro-act means to anticipate events and be in a position to take appropriate action as soon as the right moment arrives. To react, on the other hand, means to have little anticipation and do something only when events force you to do so. Pro-actors tend to be the people who are always one step ahead of other people, who always seem to be in the right place at the right time, and who are always better informed than anyone else. Many of us like an easy life, and so we tend to be reactors. This means that we aren't alert to the challenges and opportunities coming our way, with the consequence that challenges bother us or opportunities pass us by before we're even properly aware they're upon us. We can train ourselves in pro-action by regularly taking the time to sit down and appraise the likely immediate future, just as we sit down and review the immediate past.

Psychologists recognise that we differ in the way in which we characteristically attribute responsibility for the various things that happen to us in life. One of the ways in which we do this is known as locus of control (Weiner, 1979), which refers to assigning responsibility. At its simplest, some individuals have a predominantly external locus of control, attributing responsibility to outside causes (for example, the faults of others or the help given by them), while with other individuals the locus of control is predominantly internal, in which responsibility is attributed to oneself (for example, one's own abilities or lack of them, hard work, etc.).

However, the picture usually isn't as simple as this. Many people's locus of control is more likely to be specific to a particular situation, for example internal in certain areas, such as their social lives, and external in others, such as their working lives. Or, to take another example, they may attribute certain kinds of results to themselves, such as their successes, and certain kinds of results to other people, such as their failures. Obviously the best kind of locus of control is one that is realistic and able to attribute every effect to its appropriate cause, and this is particularly important when it comes to time management. Certainly, there are occasions when other people are more responsible for our time loss than we are, but for most of us, and for most of the time, the blame must fall fairly and squarely upon ourselves. (756 words)

Questions 1-6

Choose ONE PHRASE (A-J) from the list below to match each of the following key points. Write the appropriate letters (A-J) in spaces 1-6 in your booklet.

The information in the matched sentences should be in agreement with the points made by the writer.

N.B. There are more phrases than key points, so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.

Example: Our patterns of circadian rhythms (Answer: G)

Key Points

1. A pro-active person ...............

2. A reactive person ...................

3. Analysing circadian rhythms ......................

4. The idea that the best time to work is in the morning .......................

5. The notion of feeling alert in the late afternoon .............................

6. Productivity appears to be enhanced .................................

List of Phrases 

A. agrees with the circadian rhythms of most people

B. makes us feel alive and creative

C. conforms to the circadian rhythms of a minority of people

D. if our energy is in a low phase

E. is more able to take advantage of events when they happen

F. enables one to gauge physical potential at particular times throughout the day

G. can affect us physically and mentally

H. when several specific internal organs are active

I. takes a more passive attitude toward events

J. when we eat lunch early

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on this passage.

American banks continue to make vast profits. Will the good times end when the Fed raises interest rates?

Mr. Greenspan's scepticism, you might not be surprised to hear, was warranted. American banks cruised through the downturn following the stockmarket crash of 2000 with barely a dent in the bumper, and since then their profits have accelerated. Last year Citigroup, the largest financial firm in the world, made more money than any other company has ever made before. In the first quarter of this year, it made another $5.3 billion, putting it on course to break last year's record. Bank after bank has announced a sharp increase in profits in the first quarter. And yet bank shares have foundered: the banking bit of the S&P 500 is some 7% off its high. Investors, it seems, doubt whether the good times can continue. And the reason for these fears is a slew of robust economic statistics suggesting that the Federal Government is likely to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. This, they think, will hurt banks.

Though fully in agreement with these views, his dismal track record at the very least requires Buttonwood to put the case for the defence. Far from falling, bank profits could actually rise when the Federal Government puts up rates. All things equal, says David Fanger of Moody's, a rating agency, banks make more money when interest rates are high than when they are low, because they benefit more from paying low or no interest on checking (current) accounts and so forth. The attraction of such cheap sources of funding is the main reason why banks have built up their branch networks in recent years, helping them to suck in deposits, which have been growing at almost 10% a year. The cheap funding from deposits, says Mr. Fanger, accounts for 25%-40% of profits, depending on the bank. It would mean still more profits were rates to rise.

But while banks' funding will benefit from the rise in short-term rates, they will lose out (in one way, at least) if higher long-term rates do not rise too. Banks essentially take two risks. The first, dubbed 'maturity transformation' risk, involves borrowing short and lending long. The bigger the difference between short- and long-term rates, the more money banks make. Thanks to the largesse of the Fed and its 1% short-term rates, the yield curve — the difference between short and long rates — has been at or near a record high over the past couple of years. The difference between two- and ten-year Treasuries — a good way of measuring the slope of the curve — has been two and a half times its average of the past 20 years, says David Hendler of Credit-Sights, an independent research firm. As a result, he says, 'you could have strapped any monkey to a trading chair and made money.'

Banks have played the yield curve for all they are worth, in the sure knowledge that the Fed will give ample warning before it alters short-term rates. Although commercial lending has dropped, banks' holdings of government securities have grown, as have their investments in mortgage-backed securities, which have gone up by almost $100 billion, or a third, since last September. The market for interest-rate swaps is another favoured playground. Here, banks simply pay a low, short-term floating rate and receive a high, fixed one. Half the top 20 American banks get at least 10% of their profits from this spread, according to Mr. Hendler; for J. P. Morgan Chase, it was an astonishing 33% last year.

The fear, of course, is that banks could lose heavily if long-term rates rise sharply, because the securities that they have bought already would fall in value (although, of course, they would be able to earn a decent spread on new ones). And many other investors have also taken full advantage of the steep yield curve, which might mean a decidedly nasty fall as they head for the exits at the same time.

Most economists put 'fair value' of ten-year Treasuries at 5.5% or so. This would mean big losses on all those bonds and swaps positions that banks had taken out when rates were a lot lower and prices higher. It would, however, be mainly a valuation loss, and banks might avoid the worst of it by transferring positions to that part of their balance sheet that they do not have to mark to the market price. They would, however, be left with low-yielding assets at a time when the cost of their liabilities in the capital markets was rising. Of course, banks are not stupid: they know that the Fed will raise rates at some point. But the pressure on them to increase profits is so great that most of them have stayed put for as long as possible. All of this means, at the very least, lower profits on existing positions. And if short-term rates rise sharply, as they did in 1994, banks will be in trouble.

But the second risk that banks take — credit risk — is just as big a concern in a rising interest-rate environment. Credit costs have fallen sharply in recent years for consumers and companies alike, thanks to a buoyant economy and low rates. Mr. Fanger argues that those costs are likely to remain low because the Fed will be raising rates at a time when the economy is humming along nicely. But given how high consumer and corporate debts are, and how low the price now charged to lend to riskier borrowers is, such a view seems overly sanguine. You may feel, however, that such warnings can be safely ignored. (921 words)

Questions 1-6

Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings (A-K) below. Write the appropriate letters (A-K) in the spaces provided after questions 1-6.

N.B. There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.

List of Headings

A. Short-term and long-term interest rates

B. Taking advantage of a record high curve

C. The warning issued by Federal Government

D. Doubt about the sustainable bank profits

E. Fear about sudden policy change

F. Leave the scepticism alone

G. Bank profit losses due to the rise of interest rates

H. The way banks gain profits

I. Theoretical estimate of a long-term gain

J. Rising bank profits with rising interest rates

K. Sharply fallen credit costs

1. Paragraph 1

2. Paragraph 2
3. Paragraph 3

4. Paragraph 4
Example: Paragraph 5 E
5. Paragraph 6
6. Paragraph 7

Questions 7-10

Answer the questions using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text for each answer. Write your answer in the blank below the question.

7. What are the investors afraid of most in recent months?

...............................................................................................

8. How have bankers made profits?

...............................................................................................

9. What are banks trying to make full use of?

...............................................................................................

10. What banking product is more risky when the interest rates are rising?

...............................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on this passage.

Section 1

Hypnosis is an intriguing and fascinating process. A trance-like mental state is induced in one person by another, who appears to have the power to command that person to obey instructions without question. Hypnotic experiences were described by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, while references to deep sleep and anaesthesia have been found in the Bible and in the Jewish Talmud. In the mid-1700s, Franz Mesmer, an Austrian physician, developed his theory of ‘animal magnestism’, which was the belief that the cause of disease was the ‘improper distribution of invisible magnetic fluids’. Mesmer used water tubs and magnetic wands to direct these supposed fluids to his patients. In 1784, a French commission studied Mesmer’s claims, and concluded that these cues were only imagined by patients. However, people continued to believe in this process of ‘mesmerism’ and it was soon realised that successful results could be achieved, but without the need for magnets and water.

Section 2

The term hypnotism was first used by James Braid, a British physician who studied suggestion and hypnosis in the mid-1800s. He demonstrated that hypnosis differed from sleep, that it was a physiological response and not a result of secret powers. During the same period, James Esdaile, a Scottish doctor working in India, used hypnotism instead of anaesthetic in over 200 major surgical operations, including leg amputations. Later that century a French neurologist, Jean Charcot, successfully experimented with hypnosis in his clinic for nervous disorders.

Section 3

Since then, scientists have shown that the state of hypnosis is a natural human behaviour, which can affect psychological, social and/or physical experiences. The effects of hypnotism depend on the ability, willingness and motivation of the person being hypnotised. Although hypnosis has been compared to dreaming and sleepwalking, it is not actually related to sleep. It involves a more active and intensive mental concentration of the person being hypnotised. Hypnotised people can talk, write, and walk about and they are usually fully aware of what is being said and done.

Section 4

There are various techniques used to induce hypnosis. The best known is a series of simple suggestions repeated continuously in the same tone of voice. The subject is instructed to focus their attention on an object or fixed point, while being told to relax, breathe deeply, and allow the eyelids to grow heavy and close. As the person responds, their state of attention changes, and this altered state often leads to other changes. For example, the person may experience different levels of awareness, consciousness, imagination, memory and reasoning or becoming more responsive to suggestions. Additional phenomena may be produced or eliminated such as blushing, sweating, paralysis, muscle tension or anaesthesia. Although these changes can occur with hypnosis, none of these experiences is unique to it. People who are very responsive to hypnosis are also more responsive to suggestions when they are hypnotised. This responsiveness increases during hypnotism. This explains why hypnosis takes only a few seconds for some, whilst other people cannot be easily hypnotised.

Section 5

It is a common misunderstanding that hypnotists are able to force people to perform criminal or any other acts against their will. In fact, subjects can resist suggestions, and they retain their ability to distinguish right from wrong. This misunderstanding is often the result of public performances where subjects perform ridiculous or highly embarrassing actions at the command of the hypnotist. These people are usually instructed not to recall their behaviour after re-emerging from the hypnotic state, so it appears that they were powerless while hypnotised. The point to remember, however, is that these individuals chose to participate, and the success of hypnotism depends on the willingness of a person to be hypnotised.

Section 6

Interestingly, there are different levels of hypnosis achievable. Thus deep hypnosis can be induced to allow anaesthesia or surgery, childbirth or dentistry. This contrasts to a lighter state of hypnosis, which deeply relaxes the patient who will then follow simple directions. This latter state may be used to treat mental health problems, as it allows patients to feel calm while simultaneously thinking about distressing feelings or painful memories. Thus patients can learn new responses to situations or come up with solutions to problems. This can help recovery from psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression or phobias. Sometime after traumatic incidents, memory of the incidents may be blocked. For example, some soldiers develop amnesia (loss of memory) as a result of their experiences during wartime. Through hypnosis these repressed memories can be retrieved and treated. A variation of this treatment involves age regression, when the hypnotist takes the patient back to a specific age. In this way patients may remember events and feelings from that time, which may be affecting their current well-being.

Section 7

Physicians also have made use of the ability of a hypnotised person to remain in a given position for long periods of time. In one case, doctors had to graft skin onto a patient’s badly damaged foot. First, skin from the person’s abdomen was grafted onto his arm; then the graft was transferred to his foot. With hypnosis, the patient held his arm tightly in position over his abdomen for three weeks, then over his foot for four weeks. Even though these positions were unusual, the patient at no time felt uncomfortable!

Section 8

Hypnosis occasionally has been used with witnesses and victims of crime to enable people to remember important clues, such as a criminal’s physical appearance or other significant details that might help to solve a crime. However, as people can both lie and make mistakes while hypnotised, the use of hypnotism in legal situations can cause serious problems. Also hypnosis cannot make a person divulge secret information if they don’t want to. This was confirmed by the Council on Scientific Affairs of American Medical Association, which, in 1985 reported that memories refreshed through hypnosis may include inaccurate information, false memories, and confabulation (fact and fantasy combined) (979 words)

Questions 11-17

The passage has eight sections. Choose the most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings (A-L) below. The first one has been done for you as an example. Write your answers in the spaces provided.

N.B. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of them.

Example Answer

Section 1 J

11. Section 2

12. Section 3

13. Section 4

14. Section 5

15. Section 6

16. Section 7

17. Section 8

List of Headings

A. Use of hypnotism in criminal cases

B. The body posture and hypnosis

C. Early medical experiments with hypnotism

D. Early association of hypnotists with psychology

E. Dangers of hypnotism

F. How to hypnotise

G. Hypnosis and free will

H. Difference between mesmerism and hypnotism

I. Therapeutic uses of hypnosis

J. Origins of hypnosis

K. The normality of hypnotised subjects' behaviour

L. Circumspection of hypnotism in legal process

Questions 18-22

Complete the notes of the history of hypnosis using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage.

References to hypnotism can be found both in the Talmud and the (18).............. Even when Mesmer’s (19).............were not used, successful results occurred without them. Braid identified hypnosis as a natural (20)................response, rather than magical or mystical. Early psychological studies showed the difference between sleep and hypnosis. Successful hypnosis requires the subject’s active (21)....................... Consequently subjects can speak or move around and are (22)............of their surroundings.

Questions 23-26

Decide which of the alternatives is the correct answer and circle the appropriate letter in your booklet.

23. In order to induce hypnosis, the hypnotist will ....................

A. encourage the person to relax using a repetitively even tone of voice.

B. say a specific set of words in a special tone of voice.

C. say any words but in a particular tone of voice.

D. encourage the person to relax while focusing on a slowly moving object.

24. Hypnotised subjects can be instructed to ..........................

A. do something they have previously said against their wishes.

B. demonstrate physical strength they would normally not have.

C. reveal confidential information against their will.

D. do something that they would not normally be opposed to doing.

25. Past events are recalled under hypnosis .................

A. to entertain the hypnotist.

B. to allow the subject to reassess them without distress.

C. to help the subject improve their memories.

D. to make the subject feel young

26. After surgery, hypnosis may be used ......................

A. to make drugs unnecessary.

B. to keep the patient mobile.

C. to make the patient forget to move.

D. to minimise a patient's discomfort while immobile.

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on this passage.

Section I

The most difficult aspect of money to understand is its function as a unit of account. In linear measurement we find the definition of a yard, or a metre, easy to accept. In former times, these lengths were defined in terms of fine lines etched onto brass rods maintained in standards laboratories at constant temperatures. Money is much more difficult to define, however, because the value of anything is ultimately in the mind of the observer, and such values will change with time and circumstance.
Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Royal Mint, defined the pound sterling in 1717 as 113 grains of pure gold. This took Britain off silver and onto gold as defining the unit of account. The pound was 113 grains of pure gold, the shilling was 1/20 of that, and the penny 1/240 of it.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the gold standard had spread around most of the trading world, with the result that there was a single world money. It was called by different names in different countries, but all these supposedly different currencies were rigidly interconnected through their particular definition in terms of a quantity of gold.

Section II
In economic life, the prices of different commodities and services are always changing with respect to each other. If the potato crop, for example, is ruined by frost or flood, the price of potatoes will go up. The consequences of that particular price increase will be complex and unpredictable. Because of the high price of potatoes, prices of other things will decline, as demand for them declines. Similarly, the argument that the Middle East crisis following the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait would, because of increased oil prices, have led to sustained general inflation is, although widely accepted, entirely without foundation. With sound money (money whose purchasing power does not decline over time), a sudden price shock in any one commodity will not lead to a general price increase, but to changes in relative prices throughout the economy. As oil increases, other goods or services will drop in price, and oil substitutes will rise in price, as the consequences of the oil price increase work their unpredictable and complex way through the economy.
The use of gold as a unit of account during the days of the gold standard meant that the price of all other commodities and services would swing up and down with the reference to the price of gold, which was fixed. If gold supplies diminished, as they did when 1850s' gold rushes in California and Australia petered out, the deflation (a general price level decrease) would set in. When new gold rushes followed in South Africa and again in Australia, in the 1880s and 1980s, the general price level increased, gently around the world.

Section III
The end of the gold standard began with the introduction of the Bretton-Woods Agreement in 1946. This fixed the value of all world currencies relative to the US dollar, which in turn was fixed to a specific value of gold (US$0.35/oz). However, in 1971, the US government finally refused to exchange US dollars for gold, and other countries soon followed. Governments printed as much paper money or coinage as they wanted, and the more that was printed, the less each unit of currency was worth.
The key problem with these government 'fiat' currencies is that their value is not defined; such value is subject to how much money a government cares to print. Their future value is unpredictable, depending as it does on political chance. In our economic calculations concerning the past, we automatically convert incomes and expenditures to dollars of a particular year, using CPI deflators which are stored in our computers. When we perform economic calculations into the future, we guess at inflation rates and include these guesses in our figures. Our guesses are entirely based on past experience. In Australia most current calculations assume a 3 to 4 per cent inflation rate.

Section IV
The great advantage of the nineteenth-century gold standard was not just that it defined the unit of account, but that it operated throughout almost the entire world. A price in England was the same as price in Australia and in North America. Anthony Trollope tells us in his diaries about his Australia travels in 1873 that a pound of meat, selling in Australia for two pence, would have cost ten pence or even a shilling in the UK. It was this price difference which drove investment and effort into the development of shipboard refrigeration, and opening up of major new markets for Australian meat, at great benefit to the British public.
Today we can determine price differences between countries by considering the exchange rate of the day. In twelve months' time, even a month's time, however, a totally different situation may prevail, and investments of time and money made on the basis of an opportunity at an exchange rate of the day become completely wasted because of subsequent exchange rate movements.
The great advantage of having a single table world money is that such money has very high information content. It tells people where to invest their time, energy and capital, all around the world, with much greater accuracy and predictability than would otherwise be possible. (879 words)

Glossary:

CPI deflator: a mathematical calculation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that allows us to compare past prices to current prices.

Questions 27-30
The reading passage has four sections. Choose the most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings (i-vi) below. Write the answers in the spaces provided in your booklet.
N.B. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of them.

List of Headings

i. The price of gold

ii. The notion of money and its expression

iii. The rise of problematic modern currencies

iv. Stable money compared to modern 'fiat' currencies

v. The effects of inflation

vi. The interrelationship of prices

27. Section I

28. Section II

29. Section III

30. Section IV

Questions 31-35
Using the information from the text, match each of the following causes with an effect. Write the appropriate letter under the question statement.

Causes
31. The price of potatoes goes up.

Answer:............................................

32. Oil prices rise.

Answer:............................................

33. The amount of gold available went up.

Answer:............................................

34. The amount of gold available went down.

Answer:............................................
35. Meat in Australia was cheaper than elsewhere.

Answer:............................................

Effects

A. Oil substitutes become more expensive.

B. Oil substitutes drop in price.

C. People developed techniques of transporting it to other places.

D. More people went to live in Australia.

E. The prices of other things go down, because fewer people could afford to buy them.

F. People used gold instead of silver as money.

G. All prices went up slightly everywhere.

H. There is no observed effect.

I. All prices went down everywhere.

Questions 36-40
In the reading passage, the writer compares money based on a gold standard and 'fiat' currencies. Using the information in the passage, match the writer's opinions in List 1 with a phrase A, B, or C in List 2 to show which kind of money is meant. Write your answers in the spaces provided.

List 1
36. The writer states that it has a clearly defined value.

Answer:..................................................

37. The writer states that its value by definition varies over time.

Answer:..................................................

38. The writer describes its future value as predictable.

Answer:..................................................

39. The writer knows one can calculate its past value.
Answer:..................................................
40. The writer believes it makes international investment easier.
Answer:..................................................

List 2

A. Money based on a gold standard.

B. Government fiat monopoly currencies.

C. Both money based on a gold standard and 'fiat' currencies.

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