Category: Academic Reading Tests

Reading Passage 1

Doctoring Sales

Pharmaceuticals is one of the most profitable industries in North America. But do the drugs industry’s sales and marketing strategies go too far?

1. few months ago Kim Schaefer, sales representative of a minor global pharmaceutical company, walked into a medical center in New York to bring information and free samples of her company’s latest products. That day she was lucky- a doctor was available to see her. ‘The last rep offered me a trip to Florida. What do you have?’ the physician asked. He was only half joking.
2. What was on offer that day was a pair of tickets for a New York musical. But on any given day what Schaefer can offer is typical for today’s drugs rep -a car trunk full of promotional gifts and gadgets, a budget that could buy lunches and dinners for a small county, hundreds of free drug samples and the freedom to give a physician $200 to prescribe her new product to the next six patients who fit the drug’s profile. And she also has a few $ 1,000 honoraria to offer in exchange for doctors’ attendance at her company’s next educational lecture.
3. Selling Pharmaceuticals is a daily exercise in ethical judgment. Salespeople like Schaefer walk the line between the common practice of buying a prospect’s time with a free meal, and bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs. They work in an industry highly criticized for its sales and marketing practices, but find themselves in the middle of the age-old chicken-or-egg question – businesses won’t use strategies that don’t work, so are doctors to blame for the escalating extravagance of pharmaceutical marketing? Or is it the industry’s responsibility to decide the boundaries?
4. The explosion in the sheer number of salespeople in the Reid- and the amount of funding used to promote their causes- forces close examination of the pressures, influences and relationships between drug reps and doctors. Salespeople provide much-needed information and education to physicians. In many cases the glossy brochures, article reprints and prescriptions they deliver are primary sources of drug education for healthcare givers. With the huge investment the industry has placed in face-to-face selling, sales people have essentially become specialists in one drug or group of drugs – a tremendous advantage in getting the attention of busy doctors in need of quick information.
5. But the sales push rarely stops in the office. The flashy brochures and pamphlets left by the sales reps are often followed up with meals at expensive restaurants, meetings in warm and sunny places, and an inundation of promotional gadgets. Rarely do patients watch a doctor write with a pen that isn’t emblazoned with a drug’s name, or see a nurse use a tablet not bearing a pharmaceutical company’s logo. Millions of dollars are spent by pharmaceutical companies on promotional products like coffee mugs, shirts, umbrellas, and golf balls. Money well spent? It’s hard to tell. I’ve been the recipient of golf balls from one company and I use them, but it doesn’t make me prescribe their medicine,’ says one doctor.’ I tend to think I’m not influenced by what they give me.’
6. Free samples of new and expensive drugs might be the single most effective way of getting doctors and patients to become loyal to a product. Salespeople hand out hundreds of dollars’ worth of samples each week-$7.2 billion worth of them in one year. Though few comprehensive studies have been conducted, one by the University of Washington investigated how drug sample availability affected what physicians prescribe. A total of 131 doctors self-reported their prescribing patterns-the conclusion was that the availability of samples led them to dispense and prescribe drugs that differed from their preferred drug choice.
7. The bottom line is that pharmaceutical companies as a whole invest more in marketing than they do in research and development. And patients are the ones who pay-in the form of sky-rocketing prescription prices for every pen that’s handed out, every free theatre ticket, and every steak dinner eaten. In the end, the fact remains that pharmaceutical companies have every right to make a profit and will continue to find new ways to increase sales. But as the medical world continues to grapple with what’s acceptable and what’s not, it is clear that companies must continue to be heavily scrutinized for their sales and marketing strategies.

Questions 1-7

Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

List of Headings

1. Not all doctors are persuaded
2. Choosing the best offers
3. Who is responsible for the increase in promotions?
4. Fighting the drug companies
5. An example of what doctors expect from drug companies
6. Gifts include financial incentives
7. Research shows that promotion works
8. The high costs of research
9. The positive side of drugs promotion
10. Who really pays for doctors’ free gifts?

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G

Questions 8-13

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write

• YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks

8. Sales representatives like Kim Schaefer work to a very limited budget.
9. Kim Schaefer’s marketing technique may be open to criticism on moral grounds.
10. The information provided by drug companies is of little use to doctors.
11. Evidence of drug promotion is clearly visible in the healthcare environment.
12. The drug companies may give free drug samples to patients without doctors’ prescriptions
13. It is legitimate for drug companies to make money.

Reading Passage 2

Do Literate Women Make Better Mothers?

Children in developing countries are healthier and more likely to survive past the age of five when their mothers can read and write. Experts In public health accepted this idea decades ago, but until now no one has been able to show that a woman’s ability to read in Itself Improves her children’s chances of survival.

Most literate women learnt to read In primary school, and the fact that a woman has had an education may simply indicate her family’s wealth or that It values Its children more highly. Now a long-term study carried out In Nicaragua has eliminated these factors by showing that teaching reading to poor adult women, who would otherwise have remained Illiterate, has a direct effect on their children’s health and survival.

In 1979, the government of Nicaragua established a number of social programmes, including a National Literacy Crusade. By 1985, about 300,000 Illiterate adults from all over the country, many of whom had never attended primary school, had learnt how to read, write and use numbers.

During this period, researchers from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Central American Institute of Health In Nicaragua, the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua and the Costa Rican Institute of Health Interviewed nearly 3,000 women, some of whom had learnt to read as children, some during the literacy crusade and some who had never learnt at all. The women were asked how many children they had given birth to and how many of them had died In Infancy. The research teams also examined the surviving children to find out how well-nourished they were.

The Investigators’ findings were striking. In the late 1970s, the infant mortality rate for the children of Illiterate mothers was around 110 deaths per thousand live births. At this point In their lives, those mothers who later went on to learn to read had a similar level Of child mortality (105/1000). For women educated in primary school, however, the Infant mortality rate was significantly lower, at 80 per thousand.

In 1985, after the National Literacy Crusade had ended, the infant mortality figures for those who remained illiterate and for those educated In primary school remained more or less unchanged. For those women who learnt to read through the campaign, the infant mortality rate was 84 per thousand, an impressive 21 points lower than for those women who were still Illiterate. The children of the newly-literate mothers were also better nourished than those of women who could not read.

Why are the children of literate mothers better off? According to Peter Sandiford of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, no one Knows for certain. Child health was not on the curriculum during the women’s lessons, so fie and his colleagues are looking at other factors. They are working with the same group of 3,000 women, to try to find out whether reading mothers make better use of hospitals and clinics, opt for smaller families, exert more control at home, learn modern childcare techniques more quickly, or whether they merely have more respect for themselves and their children.

The Nicaraguan study may have important implications for governments and aid agencies that need to know where to direct their resources. Sandiford says that there is increasing evidence that female education, at any age, is “an important health intervention in its own right’. The results of the study lend support to the World Bank’s recommendation that education budgets in developing countries should be increased, not just to help their economies, but also to improve child health.

We’ve known for a long time that maternal education is important,’ says John Cleland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. ‘But we thought that even if we started educating girls today, we’d have to wait a generation for the pay off. The Nicaraguan study suggests we may be able to bypass that.’

Cleland warns that the Nicaraguan crusade was special in many ways, and similar campaigns elsewhere might not work as well. It is notoriously difficult to teach adults skills that do not have an immediate impact on their everyday lives, and many literacy campaigns in other countries have been much less successful. ‘The crusade was part of a larger effort to bring a better life to the people,’ says Cleland. Replicating these conditions in other countries will be a major challenge for development workers.

Questions 14-18

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.

Write the correct letters, A-J, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

The Nicaraguan National Literacy Crusade aimed to teach large numbers of illiterate (14) ……………… to read and write. Public health experts have known for many years that there is a connection between child health and (15)……………… However, it has not previously been known whether these two factors were directly linked or not. This question has been investigated by (16)……………….. in Nicaragua. As a result, factors such as (17) …………………. and attitudes to children have been eliminated, audit has been shown that 18……………. can in itself improve infant health and survival.

Questions 19-24

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

In boxes 19-24 on your answer sheet, write:

• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

19. About a thousand or the women interviewed by the researchers had learnt to read they were children.
20. Before the National Literacy Crusade, illiterate women had approximately the same levels of infant mortality as those who had learnt to read in primary school.
21. Before and after the National Literacy Crusade, the child mortality rate for the illiterate women stayed at about 110 deaths for each thousand live births.
22. The women who had learnt to read through the National Literacy Crusade showed the greatest change in infant mortality levels.
23. The women who had learnt to read through the National Literacy Crusade had the lowest rates of child mortality.
24. After the National Literacy Crusade, the children of the women who remained illiterate were found to be severely malnourished.

Questions 25 and 26

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet

Which TWO important implications drawn from the Nicaraguan study are mentioned by the writer of the passage?

1. It is better to educate mature women than young girls
2. Similar campaigns in other countries would be equally successful.
3. The effects of maternal literacy programmes can be seen very quickly
4. Improving child health can quickly affect a country’s economy.
5. Money spent on female education will improve child health.

Reading Passage 3

Persistent bullying is one of the worst experiences

Persistent bullying is one of the worst experiences a child can face. How can it be prevented? Peter Smith, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, directed the Sheffield Anti-Bullying Intervention Project, funded by the Department for Education. Here he reports on his findings.

1. Bullying can take a variety of forms, from the verbal -being taunted or called hurtful names- to the physical- being kicked or shoved- as well as indirect forms, such as being excluded from social groups. A survey I conducted with Irene Whitney found that in British primary schools up to a quarter of pupils reported experience of bullying, which in about one in ten cases was persistent. There was less bullying in secondary schools, with about one in twenty-five suffering persistent bullying, but these cases may be particularly recalcitrant.
2. Bullying is clearly unpleasant and can make the child experiencing it feel unworthy and depressed. In extreme cases, it can even lead to suicide, though this is thankfully rare. Victimised pupils are more likely to experience difficulties with interpersonal relationships as adults, while children who persistently bully are more likely to grow up to be physically violent, and convicted of anti-social offences.
3. Until recently, not much was known about the topic, and little help was available to teachers to deal with bullying. Perhaps as a consequence, schools would often deny the problem. ‘There is no bullying at this school’ has been a common refrain, almost certainly all true. Fortunately, more schools are now saying: There is not much bullying here, but when it occurs we have a clear policy for dealing with it.
4. Three factors are involved in this change. First is an awareness of the severity of the problem. Second, a number of resources to help tackle bullying have become available in Britain. For example, the Scottish Collllcil for Research in Education produced a package of materials, Action Against Bullying, circulated to all schools in England and Wales as well as in Scotland in summer 1992, with a second pack, Supporting Schools Against Bullying, produced the following year. In Ireland, Guidelines on Countering Bullying Behaviour in Post-Primary Schools was published in 1993. Third, there is evidence that these materials work and that schools can achieve something. This comes from carefully conducted ‘before and after” evaluations of interventions in schools, monitored by a research team. In Norway, after an intervention campaign was introduced nationally, an evaluation of forty-two schools suggested that, over a two-year period, bullying was halved. The Sheffield investigation, which involved sixteen primary schools and seven secondary schools, found that most schools succeeded in reducing bullying.
5. Evidence suggests that a key step is to develop a policy on bullying, saying clearly what is meant by bullying, and giving explicit guidelines on what will be done if it occurs, what record will be kept, who will be informed, what sanctions will be employed. The policy should be developed through consultation, over a period of time- not just imposed from the head teacher’s office! Pupils, parents and staff should feel they have been involved in the policy, which needs to be disseminated and implemented effectively. Other actions can be taken to back up the policy. There are ways of dealing with the topic through the curriculum, using video, drama and literature. These are useful for raising awareness, and can best be tied into early phases of development while the school is starting to discuss the issue of bullying. They are also useful in renewing the policy for new pupils or revising it in the light of experience. But curriculum work alone may only have short-term effects; it should be an addition to policy work, not a substitute. There are also ways of working with individual pupils, or in small groups. Assertiveness training for pupils who are liable to be victims is worthwhile, and certain approaches to group bullying such as ‘no blame’, can be useful in changing the behaviour of bullying pupils without confronting them directly, although other sanctions may be needed for those who continue with persistent bullying. Work in the playground is important, too. One helpful step is to train lunchtime supervisors to distinguish bullying from playful fighting and help them break up conflicts. Another possibility is to improve the playground environment so that pupils are less likely to be led into bullying from boredom or frustration.
6. With these developments, schools can expect that at least the most serious kinds of bullying can largely be prevented. The more effort put in and the wider the whole school involvement, the more substantial the results are likely to be. The reduction in bullying – and the consequent improvement in pupil happiness- is surely a worthwhile objective.

Questions 27-30

Reading Passage 3 has six sections.

Choose the correct heading for sections A-D from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

1. The role of video violence
2. The failure of government policy
3. Reasons for the increased rate of bullying
4. Research into how common bullying is in British schools
5. The reaction from schools to enquiries about bullying
6. The effect of bullying on the children involved
7. Developments that have led to a new approach by schools

27. Section A
28. Section B
29. Section C
30. Section D

Questions 31-34

Choose the correct letter. A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 31-34 on your answer sheet.

31. A recent survey found that in British secondary schools
    1. there was more bullying than had previously been the case.
    2. there was less bullying than in primary schools.
    3. cases of persistent bullying were very common.
    4. indirect forms of bullying were particularly difficult to deal with.
32. Children who are bullied
    1. are twice as likely to commit suicide as the average person.
    2. find it more difficult to relate to adults.
    3. are less likely to be violent in later life.
    4. may have difficulty forming relationships in later life.
33. The writer thinks that the declaration ‘There is no bullying at this school’
    1. is no longer true in many schools.
    2. was not in fact made by many schools.
    3. reflected the school’s lack of concern.
    4. reflected a lack of knowledge and resources.
34. What were the findings of research carried out in Norway?
    1. Bullying declined by 50% after an anti-bullying campaign.
    2. Twenty-one schools reduced bullying as a result of an anti-bullying campaign
    3. Two years is the optimum length for an anti-bullying campaign.
    4. Bullying is a less serious problem in Norway than in the UK.

Questions 35-39

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer

Write your answers in boxes 35-39 on your answer sheet.

What steps should schools take to reduce bullying?The most important step is for the school authorities to produce a (35) ………………….. which makes the school’s attitude towards bullying quite clear. It should include detailed 36 …………………… as to how the school and its staff will react if bullying occurs. In addition, action can be taken through the (37) ……………………… This is particularly useful in the early part of the process, as a way of raising awareness and encouraging discussion On its own, however, it is insufficient to bring about a permanent solution. Effective work can also be done with individual pupils and small groups. For example, potential (38) ……………………. of bullying can be trained to be more self-confident. Or again, in dealing with group bullying, a ‘no blame’ approach, which avoids confronting the offender too directly, is often effective. Playground supervision will be more effective if members of staff are trained to recognise the difference between bullying and mere (39) ……………………. .

Question 40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 3?

1. Bullying: what parents can do
2. Bullying: are the media to blame?
3. Bullying: the link with academic failure
4. Bullying: from crisis management to prevention

Reading Passage 1

BAKELITE – The birth of modern plastics

In 1907, Leo Hendrick Baekeland, a Belgian scientist working in New York, discovered and patented a revolutionary new synthetic material. His invention, which he named ‘Bakelite’, was of enormous technological importance, and effectively launched the modern plastics industry.

The term ‘plastic’ comes from the Greek plassein, meaning ‘to mould’. Some plastics are derived from natural sources, some are semi-synthetic (the result of chemical action on a natural substance), and some are entirely synthetic, that is, chemically engineered from the constituents of coal or oil. Some are ‘thermoplastic’, which means that, like candlewax, they melt when heated and can then be reshaped. Others are ‘thermosetting’: like eggs, they cannot revert to their original viscous state, and their shape is thus fixed for ever, Bakelite had the distinction of being the first totally synthetic thermosetting plastic.

The history of today’s plastics begins with the discovery of a series of semi-synthetic thermoplastic materials in the mid-nineteenth century. The impetus behind the development of these early plastics was generated by a number of factors – immense technological progress in the domain of chemistry, coupled with wider cultural changes, and the pragmatic need to find acceptable substitutes for dwindling supplies of ‘luxury’ materials such as tortoiseshell and ivory.

Baekeland’s interest in plastics began in 1885 when, as a young chemistry student in Belgium, he embarked on research into phenolic resins, the group of sticky substances produced when phenol (carbolic acid) combines with an aldehyde (a volatile fluid similar to alcohol). He soon abandoned the subject, however, only returning to it some years later. By 1905 he was a wealthy New Yorker, having recently made his fortune with the invention of a new photographic paper. While Baekeland had been busily amassing dollars, some advances had been made in the development of plastics. The years 1899 and 1900 had seen the patenting of the first semi-synthetic thermosetting material that could be manufactured on an industrial scale. In purely scientific terms, Baekeland’s major contribution to the field is not so much the actual discovery of the material to which he gave his name, but rather the method by which a reaction between phenol and formaldehyde could be controlled, thus making possible its preparation on a commercial basis. On 13 July 1907, Baekeland took out his famous patent describing this preparation, the essential features of which are still in use today.

The original patent outlined a three-stage process, in which phenol and formaldehyde (from wood or coal) were initially combined under vacuum inside a large egg-shaped kettle. The result was a resin known as Novalak, which became soluble and malleable when heated. The resin was allowed to cool in shallow trays until it hardened, and then broken up and ground into powder. Other substances were then introduced: including fillers, such as woodflour, asbestos or cotton, which increase strength and. moisture resistance, catalysts (substances to speed up the reaction between two chemicals without joining to either) and hexa, a compound of ammonia and formaldehyde which supplied the additional formaldehyde necessary to form a thermosetting resin. This resin was then left to cool and harden, and ground up a second time. The resulting granular powder was raw Bakelite, ready to be made into a vast range of manufactured objects. In the last stage, the heated Bakelite was poured into a hollow mould of the required shape and subjected to extreme heat and pressure; thereby ‘setting’ its form for life.

The design of Bakelite objects, everything from earrings to television sets, was governed to a large extent by the technical requirements of the moulding process. The object could not be designed so that it was locked into the mould and therefore difficult to extract. A common general rule was that objects should taper towards the deepest part of the mould, and if necessary the product was moulded in separate pieces. Moulds had to be carefully designed so that the molten Bakelite would flow evenly and completely into the mould. Sharp corners proved impractical and were thus avoided, giving rise to the smooth, ‘streamlined’ style popular in the 1930s. The thickness of the walls of the mould was also crucial: thick walls took longer to cool and harden, a factor which had to be considered by the designer in order to make the most efficient use of machines.

Baekeland’s invention, although treated with disdain in its early years, went on to enjoy an unparalleled popularity which lasted throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It became the wonder product of the new world of industrial expansion -‘the material of a thousand uses’. Being both non-porous and heat-resistant, Bakelite kitchen goods were promoted as being germ-free and sterilisable. Electrical manufacturers seized on its insulating: properties, and consumers everywhere relished its dazzling array of shades, delighted that they were now, at last, no longer restricted to the wood tones and drab browns of the pre-plastic era. It then fell from favour again during the 1950s, and was despised and destroyed in vast quantities. Recently, however, it has been experiencing something of a renaissance, with renewed demand for original Bakelite objects in the collectors’ marketplace, and museums, societies and dedicated individuals once again appreciating the style and originality of this innovative material.

Questions 1-3

Complete the summary.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.

Some plastics behave in a similar way to (1) ……………….. in that they melt under heat and can be moulded into new forms. Bakelite was unique because it was the first material to be both entirely (2) ……………….. in origin, and thermosetting. There were several reasons for the research into plastics in the nineteenth century, among them the great advances that had been made in the field of (3) ……………….. and the search for alternatives to natural resources like ivory.

Questions 4-8

Complete the flow-chart.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 4-8 on your answer sheet.

Questions 9-10

Write your answers in boxes 9 and 10 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following factors influencing the design of Bakelite objects are mentioned in the text?

1. the function which the object would serve
2. the ease with which the resin could fill the mould
3. the facility with which the object could be removed from the mould
4. the limitations of the materials used to manufacture the mould
5. the fashionable styles of the period

Questions 11-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write

• TRUE                       if the statement is true according to the passage
• FALSE                     if the statement is false according to the passage
• NOT GIVEN          if the information is not given in the passage

11. Modern-day plastic preparation is based on the same principles as that patented in 1907.
12. Bakelite was immediately welcomed as a practical and versatile material.
13. Bakelite was only available in a limited range of colours.

Reading Passage 2

John McCrone reviews recent research on humour

The joke comes over the headphones: ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left.’ No, not funny. Try again. ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside.’ Hah! The punchline is silly yet fitting, tempting a smile, even a laugh. Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: ‘unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose’.

Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree. Plato expressed the idea that humour is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies on building up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline. But most modern humour theorists have settled on some version of Aristotle’s belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.

Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humour but language understanding and reasoning in machines. He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift. A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.

So even if a punchline sounds silly, the listener can see there is a clever semantic fit and that sudden mental ‘Aha!’ is the buzz that makes us laugh. Viewed from this angle, humour is just a form of creative insight, a sudden leap to a new perspective.

However, there is another type of laughter, the laughter of social appeasement and it is important to understand this too. Play is a crucial part of development in most young mammals. Rats produce ultrasonic squeaks to prevent their scuffles turning nasty. Chimpanzees have a ‘play-face’ – a gaping expression accompanied by a panting ‘ah, ah’ noise. In humans, these signals have mutated into smiles and laughs. Researchers believe social situations, rather than cognitive events such as jokes, trigger these instinctual markers of play or appeasement. People laugh on fairground rides or when tickled to flag a play situation, whether they feel amused or not.

Both social and cognitive types of laughter tap into the same expressive machinery in our brains, the emotion and motor circuits that produce smiles and excited vocalisations. However, if cognitive laughter is the product of more general thought processes, it should result from more expansive brain activity.

Psychologist Vinod Goel investigated humour using the new technique of ‘single event’ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRl). An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to track the changes in oxygenated blood that accompany mental activity. Until recently, MRI scanners needed several minutes of activity and so could not be used to track rapid thought processes such as comprehending a joke. New developments now allow half-second ‘snapshots’ of all sorts of reasoning and problem-solving activities.

Although Goel felt being inside a brain scanner was hardly the ideal place for appreciating a joke, he found evidence that understanding a joke involves a widespread mental shift. His scans showed that at the beginning of a joke the listener’s prefrontal cortex lit up, particularly the right prefrontal believed to be critical for problem solving. But there was also activity in the temporal lobes at the side of the head (consistent with attempts to rouse stored knowledge) and in many other brain areas. Then when the punchline arrived, a new area sprang to life -the orbital prefrontal cortex. This patch of brain tucked behind the orbits of the eyes is associated with evaluating information.

Making a rapid emotional assessment of the events of the moment is an extremely demanding job for the brain, animal or human. Energy and arousal levels may need, to be retuned in the blink of an eye. These abrupt changes will produce either positive or negative feelings. The orbital cortex, the region that becomes active in Goel’s experiment, seems the best candidate for the site that feeds such feelings into higher-level thought processes, with its close connections to the brain’s sub-cortical arousal apparatus and centres of metabolic control.

All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to their own thoughts. Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition. Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response. The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine. Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a person’s outlook.

Humour may be a luxury, but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. As Peter Derks, a psychologist at William and Mary College in Virginia, says: ‘I like to think of humour as the distorted mirror of the mind. It’s creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. If we can figure out how the mind processes humour, then we’ll have a pretty good handle on how it works in general.

Questions 14-20

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet, write

• TRUE                     if the statement is true according to the passage
• FALSE                   if the statement is false according to the passage
• NOT GIVEN        if the information is not given in the passage

14. Arthur Koestler considered laughter biologically important in several ways.
15. Plato believed humour to be a sign of above-average intelligence.
16. Kant believed that a successful joke involves the controlled release of nervous energy.
17. Current thinking on humour has largely ignored Aristotle’s view on the subject.
18. Graeme Ritchie’s work links jokes to artificial intelligence.
19. Most comedians use personal situations as a source of humour.
20. Chimpanzees make particular noises when they are playing.

Questions 21-23

The diagram below shows the areas of the brain activated by jokes.

Label the diagram.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Questions 24-27

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G below.

Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.

1. react to their own thoughts.
2. helped create language in humans.
3. respond instantly to whatever is happening.
4. may provide valuable information about the operation of the brain.
5. cope with difficult situations.
6. relate to a person’s subjective views.
7. led our ancestors to smile and then laugh.
   24. One of the brain’s most difficult tasks is to
   25. Because of the language they have developed, humans
   26. Individual responses to humour
   27. Peter Derks believes that humour

Reading Passage 3

The Birth of Scientific English

World science is dominated today by a small number of languages, including Japanese, German and French, but it is English which is probably the most popular global language of science. This is not just because of the importance of English-speaking countries such as the USA in scientific research; the scientists of many non-English-speaking countries find that they need to write their research papers in English to reach a wide international audience. Given the prominence of scientific English today, it may seem surprising that no one really knew how to write science in English before the 17th century. Before that, Latin was regarded as the lingua franca for European intellectuals.

The European Renaissance (c. 14th-16th century) is sometimes called the ‘revival of learning’, a time of renewed interest in the ‘lost knowledge’ of classical times. At the same time, however, scholars also began to test and extend this knowledge. The emergent nation states of Europe developed competitive interests in world exploration and the development of trade. Such expansion, which was to take the English language west to America and east to India, was supported by scientific developments such as the discovery of magnetism (and hence the invention of the compass), improvements in cartography and – perhaps the most important scientific revolution of them all – the new theories of astronomy and the movement of the Earth in relation to the planets and stars, developed by Copernicus (1473-1543).

England was one of the first countries where scientists adopted and publicised Copernican ideas with enthusiasm. Some of these scholars, including two with interests in language -John Wall’s and John Wilkins – helped Found the Royal Society in 1660 in order to promote empirical scientific research.

Across Europe similar academies and societies arose, creating new national traditions of science. In the initial stages of the scientific revolution, most publications in the national languages were popular works, encyclopaedias, educational textbooks and translations. Original science was not done in English until the second half of the 17th century. For example, Newton published his mathematical treatise, known as the Principia, in Latin, but published his later work on the properties of light – Opticks – in English.

There were several reasons why original science continued to be written in Latin. The first was simply a matter of audience. Latin was suitable for an international audience of scholars, whereas English reached a socially wider, but more local, audience. Hence, popular science was written in English.

A second reason for writing in Latin may, perversely, have been a concern for secrecy. Open publication had dangers in putting into the public domain preliminary ideas which had not yet been fully exploited by their ‘author’. This growing concern about intellectual property rights was a feature of the period – it reflected both the humanist notion of the individual, rational scientist who invents and discovers through private intellectual labour, and the growing connection between original science and commercial exploitation.

There was something of a social distinction between ‘scholars and gentlemen’ who understood Latin, and men of trade who lacked a classical education. And in the mid-17th century it was common practice for mathematicians to keep their discoveries and proofs secret, by writing them in cipher, in obscure languages, or in private messages deposited in a sealed box with the Royal Society. Some scientists might have felt more comfortable with Latin precisely because its audience, though international, was socially restricted. Doctors clung the most keenly to Latin as an ‘insider language’.

A third reason why the writing of original science in English was delayed may have been to do with the linguistic inadequacy of English in the early modern period. English was not well equipped to deal with scientific argument. First, it lacked the necessary technical vocabulary. Second, it lacked the grammatical resources required to represent the world in an objective and impersonal way, and to discuss the relations, such as cause and effect, that might hold between complex and hypothetical entities.

Fortunately, several members of the Royal Society possessed an interest in language and became engaged in various linguistic projects. Although a proposal in 1664 to establish a committee for improving the English language came to little, the society’s members did a great deal to foster the publication of science in English and to encourage the development of a suitable writing style. Many members of the Royal Society also published monographs in English. One of the first was by Robert Hooke, the society’s first curator of experiments, who described his experiments with microscopes in Micrographia (1665). This work is largely narrative in style, based on a transcript of oral demonstrations and lectures.

In 1665 a new scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, was inaugurated. Perhaps the first international English-language scientific journal, it encouraged a new genre of scientific writing, that of short, focused accounts of particular experiments.

The 17th century was thus a formative period in the establishment of scientific English. In the following century much of this momentum was lost as German established itself as the leading European language of science. It is estimated that by the end of the 18th century 401 German scientific journals had been established as opposed to 96 in France and 50 in England. However, in the 19th century scientific English again enjoyed substantial lexical growth as the industrial revolution created the need for new technical vocabulary, and new, specialised, professional societies were instituted to promote and publish in the new disciplines.

Questions 28-34

Complete the summary.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 28-34 on your answer sheet.

In Europe modem science emerged at the same time as the nation state. At first, the scientific language of choice remained (28) ……………….. It allowed scientists to communicate with other socially privileged thinkers while protecting their work from unwanted exploitation. Sometimes the desire to protect ideas seems to have been stronger than the desire to communicate them, particularly in the case of mathematicians and (29) ……………….. In Britain, moreover, scientists worried that English had neither the (30) ……………….. nor the (31) ……………….. to express their ideas.This situation only changed after 1660 when scientists associated with the (32) ……………….. set about developing English. An early scientific journal fostered a new kind of writing based on short descriptions of specific experiments. Although English was then overtaken by (33) ……………….. it developed again in the 19th century as a direct result of the (34) …………………

Questions 35-37

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet, write

• TRUE                        if the statement is true according to the passage
• FALSE                      if the statement is false according to the passage
• NOT GIVEN           if the information is not given in the passage

35. There was strong competition between scientists in Renaissance Europe.
36. The most important scientific development of the Renaissance period was the discovery of magnetism.
37. In 17th-century Britain, leading thinkers combined their interest in science with an interest in how to express ideas.

Questions 38-40

Complete the table.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.