READING PASSAGE 1

The Mozart Effect

A. Music has been used for centuries to heal the body. In the Ebers Papyrs (one of the earliest medical documents, circa 1500 B.C.), it was recorded that physicians chanted to heal the sick (Castleman, 1994). In various cultures, we have observed singing as part of healing rituals. In the world of Western medicine, however, using music in medicine lost popularity until the introduction of the radio. Researchers then started to notice that listening to music could have significant physical effects. Therapists noticed music could help calm anxiety and researchers saw that listening to music could cause a drop in blood pressure. In addition to these two areas, music has been used with cancer chemotherapy to reduce nausea, during surgery to reduce stress hormone production, during childbirth, and in stroke recovery (Castleman, 1994 and Westley, 1998). It has been shown to decrease pain as well as enhance the effectiveness of the immune system. In Japan, compilations of music are used as medication, of sorts. For example, if you want to cure a headache or migraine, the album suggested Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song,” Dvorak’s “Humoresque,” or part of George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” (Campbell, 1998). Music is also being used to assist in learning, in a phenomenon called the Mozart Effect.

B. Frances H. Rauscher, Ph.D., first demonstrated the correlation between music and learning in an experiment in 1993. His experiments indicated that a 10 minute dose of Mozart could temporarily boost intelligence. Groups of students were given intelligence tests after listening to silence, relaxation tapes, or Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for a short time. He found that after silence, the average IQ score was 110, and after the relaxation tape, scores rose a point. After listening to Mozart, however, the scores jumped to 119 (Westley, 1998). Even students who did not like the music still had an increased score on the IQ test. Rauscher hypothesized that “listening to complex, non-repetitive music, like Mozart, may simulate neural pathways that are important in thinking” (Castleman, 1994).

C. The same experiment was repeated on rats by Rauscher and Hong Hua Li from Stanford. Rats also demonstrated enhancement in their intelligence performance. These new studies indicate that rats that were exposed to Mozart showed “increased gene expression of BDNF (a neural growth factor), CREB (a learning and memory compound), and Synapsin I(a synaptic growth protein)” in the brain’s hippocampus, compared with rats in the control group, which heard only white noise (e.g. the whooshing sound of a radio tuned between stations)

D. How exactly does the Mozart affect work? Researchers are still trying to determine the actual mechanisms for the formation of these enhanced learning pathways. Neuroscientists suspect that music can actually help build and strengthen connections between neurons in the cerebral cortex in a process similar to what occurs in brain development despite its type. When a baby is born, certain connections have already been made – like connections for heartbeat and breathing. As new information is learned and motor skills develop, new neural connections are formed. Neurons that are not used will eventually die while those used repeatedly will form strong connections. Although a large number of these neural connections require experience, they also must occur within a certain time frame. For example, a child born with cataracts cannot develop connections within the visual cortex. If the cataracts are removed by surgery right away, the child’s vision develops normally. However, after the age of 2, if the cataracts are removed, the child will remain blind because those pathways cannot establish themselves.

E. Music seems to work in the same way. In October of 1997, researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany found that music actually rewires neural circuits (Begley, 1996). Although some of these circuits are formed for physical skills needed to play an instrument, just listening to music strengthens connection used in higher-order thinking. Listening to music can then be thought of as “exercise” for the brain, improving concentration and enhancing intuition.

F. If you’re a little skeptical about the claims made by supporters of the Mozart Effect, you’re not alone. Many people accredit the advanced learning of some children who take music lessons to other personality traits, such as motivation and persistence, which is required in all types of learning. There have also been claims of that influencing the results of some experiments.

G. Furthermore, many people are critical of the role the media had in turning an isolated study into a trend for parents and music educators. After Mozart Effect was published to the public, the sales of Mozart CDs stayed on the top of the hit list for three weeks. In an article by Michael Linton, he wrote that the research that began this phenomenon (the study by researchers at the University of California Irvine) showed only a temporary boost in IQ, which was not significant enough to even last throughout the course of the experiment. Using music to influence intelligence was used in Confucian civilization and Plato alluded to Pythagorean music when he described is ideal state in The Republic. In both of these examples, music did not have caused any overwhelming changes, and the theory eventually died out. Linton also asks, “If Mozart’s Music were able to improve health, why was Mozart himself so frequently sick? If listening to Mozart’s music increases intelligence and encourages spirituality, why aren’t the world’s smartest and most spiritual people Mozart specialists?” Linton raises an interesting point, if the Mozart Effect causes such significant changes, why isn’t there more documented evidence?

H. The “trendiness” of the Mozart Effect may have died out somewhat, but there are still strong supporters (and opponents) of the claims made in 1993. Since that initial experiment, there has not been a surge of supporting evidence. However, many parents, after playing classical music while pregnant or when theft children are young, will swear by the Mozart Effect. A classmate of mine once told me that listening to classical music while studying will help with memorization. If we approach this controversy from a scientific aspect, although there has been some evidence that music does increase brain activity, actual improvements in learning and memory have not been adequately demonstrated.

Questions 1-5

Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs A-H.

Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

1. Music influences brain development of baby.

2. Popularity of public to the introduction of Mozart Effect

3. Description of the pioneer experiment of a person

4. Music is helpful as a healing method in some places

5. Learning needs other qualities though

Questions 6-8

Complete the summary below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet.

In the experiment carried out by Frances Rauscher, participants were immersed in the music for a …………6…………..period of time before they were tested. Rauscher suggested that enhancement of their performance is related to the…………7…………..nature of Mozart’s music. After that, another parallel experiment was also conducted on…………8…………..

Questions 9-13

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

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information ừ not given in the passage

9 Music has the power to improve people’s brain performance according to the passage.

10 All neural connections are built up after a baby’s born instead of the time he or she had born.

11 There is no one who questions Mozart Effect so far.

12 Michael Linton carried out further experiment on Mozart’s life to support his viewpoint

13 Not sufficient evidence supports Mozart Effect from the very first experiment till now.

 

READING PASSAGE 2

London Swaying Footbridge

A. In September 1996 a competition was organized by the Financial Times in association with the London Borough of Southwark to design a new footbridge across the Thames. The competition attracted over 200 entries and was won by a team comprising Arup (engineers), Foster and Partners (architects) and the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro.

B. The bridge opened to the public on 10 June 2000. Up to 100,000 people crossed it that day with up to 2000 people on the bridge at any one time. At first, the bridge was still. Then it began to sway just slightly. Then, almost from one moment to the next, when large groups of people were crossing, the wobble intensified. This movement became sufficiently large for people to stop walking to retain their balance and sometimes to hold onto the hand rails for support. It was decided immediately to limit the number of people on the bridge, but even so the deck movement was sufficient to be uncomfortable and to raise concern for public safety so that on 12 June the bridge was closed until the problem could be solved.

C. The embarrassed engineers found the videotape that day which showed the center span swaying about 3 inches side to side every second. The engineers first thought that winds might be exerting excessive force on the many large flags and banners bedecking the bridge for its gala premiere. What’s more, they also discovered that the pedestrians also played a key role. Human activities, such as walking, running, jumping, swaying, etc. could cause horizontal force which in turn could cause excessive dynamic vibration in the lateral direction in the bridge. As the structure began moving, pedestrians adjusted their gait to the same lateral rhythm as the bridge. The adjusted footsteps magnified the motion – just like when four people all stand up in a small boat at the same time. As more pedestrians locked into the same rhythm, the increasing oscillations led to the dramatic swaying captured on film.

D. In order to design a method of reducing the movements, the force exerted by the pedestrians had to be quantified and related to the motion of the bridge. Although there are some descriptions of this phenomenon in existing literature, none of these actually quantifies the force. So there was no quantitative analytical way to design the bridge against this effect. An immediate research program was launched by the bridge’s engineering designers Ove Arup, supported by a number of universities and research organizations.

E. The tests at the University of Southampton involved a person walking ‘on the spot’ on a small shake table. The tests at Imperial College involved persons walking along a specially built, 7.2m-long platform which could be driven laterally at different frequencies (n and amplitudes. Each type of test had its limitations. The Imperial College tests were only able to capture 7-8 footsteps, and the ‘walking on the spot’ tests, although monitoring many footsteps, could not investigate normal forward walking. Neither test could investigate any influence of other people in a crowd on the behavior of the individual being tested.

F. The results of the laboratory tests provided information which enabled the initial design of a retro- fit to be progressed. However, the limitations of these tests was clear and it was felt that the only way to replicate properly the precise conditions of the Millennium Bridge was to carry out crowd tests on the bridge deck itself. These tests done by the Arup engineers could incorporate factors not possible in the laboratory tests. The first of these was carried out with 100 people in July 2000. The results of these tests were used to refine the load model for the pedestrians. A second series of crowd tests was carried out on the bridge in December 2000. The purpose of these tests was to further validate the design assumptions and to load test a prototype damper installation. The test was carried out with 275 people.

G. Unless the usage of the bridge was to be greatly restricted, only two generic options to improve its performance were considered feasible. The first was to increase the stiffness of the bridge to move all its lateral natural frequencies out of the range that could be excited by the lateral footfall forces, and the second was to increase the damping of the bridge to reduce the resonant response.

You should spend about 20 minutes on question 14-26, which are based on reading passage 2 on the following pages.

Questions 14-17

Choose FOUR letters, A-H.

Write the correct letters in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

Which FOUR of the following situation were witnessed on the opening ceremony of the bridge?

A The frequency of oscillation increased after some time.

B All the engineers went to see the ceremony that day.

C The design of the bridge astonished the people.

D Unexpected sideway movement of the bridge occurred.

E Pedesfrians had difficulty in walking on the deck.

F The bridge fell down when people tried to retain their balance.

G Vibration could be detected on the deck by the pedestrians.

H It was raining when the ceremony began.

Questions 18-22

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage 2 using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 18-22 on your answer sheet

After the opening ceremony, the embarrassed engineers tried to find out the reason of the bridge’s wobbling. Judged from the videotape, they thought that 18……….and 19……….might create excessive force on the bridge. The distribution of 20……….resulted from human activities could cause 21……….throughout the structure. This swaying prompted people to start adjusting the way they walk, which in turn reinforced the 22……….

Questions 23-26

Complete the table below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 2 for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

Research programs launched by universities and organizations

Universities / People	Activity
Test at 23………….	Limited ability to have 7-8 footsteps
‘walking on the spot’ at Southampton	Not enough data on 24…………
Crowd test conducted by 25……	Aim to verify 26…………

READING PASSAGE 3

Book review on Musiccophilia

Norman M. Weinberger reviews the latest work of Oliver Sacks

A. Music and the brain are both endlessly fascinating subjects, and as a neuroscientist specialising in auditory learning and memory, I find them especially intriguing. So I had high expectations of Musicophilia, the latest offering from neurologist and prolific author Oliver Sacks. And I confess to feeling a little guilty reporting that my reactions to the book are mixed.

B. Sacks himself is the best part of Musicophilia. He richly documents his own life in the book and reveals highly personal experiences. The photograph of him on the cover of the bookwhich shows him wearing headphones, eyes closed, clearly enchanted as he listens to Alfred Brendel perform Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata-makes a positive impression that is home out by the contents of the book. Sacks’s voice throughout is steady and erudite but never pontifical. He is neither selfconscious nor self-promoting.

C. The preface gives a good idea of what the book will deliver. In it Sacks explains that he wants to convey the insights gleaned from the “enormous and rapidly growing body of work on the neural underpinnings of musical perception and imagery, and the complex and often bizarre disorders to which these are prone.” He also stresses the importance of “the simple art of observation” and “the richness of the human context.” He wants to combine “observation and description with the latest in technology,” he says, and to imaginatively enter into the experience of his patients and subjects. The reader can see that Sacks, who has been practicing neurology for 40 years, is tom between the ‘ old-fashioned path o observation and the new fangled, high-tech approach: He knows that he n

eeds to take heed of the latter, but his heart lies with the former.

D. The book consists mainly of detailed descriptions of cases, most of them involving patients whom Sacks has seen in hispractice. Brief discussions of contemporary neuroscientific reports are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Part, “Haunted by Music,” begins with the strange case of Tony Cicoria, a nonmusical, middle-aged surgeon who was consumed by a love of music after being hit by lightning. He suddenly began to crave listening to piano music, which he had never cared for in the past. He started to play the piano and then to compose music, which arose spontaneously in his mind in a “torrent” of notes. How could this happen? Was the cause psychological? (He had had a near-death experience when the lightning struck him.) Or was it the direct result of a change in the auditory regions of his cerebral cortex? Electroencephalography (EEG) showed his brain waves to be normal in the mid-1990s, just after his, trauma and subsequent “conversion” to music. There are now more sensitive tests, but Cicoria, has declined to undergo them; he does not want to delve into the causes of his musicality. What a shame!

E. Part II, “A Range of Musicality,” covers a wider variety of topics, but unfortunately, some of the chapters offer little or nothing that is new. For example, chapter 13, which is five pages long, merely notes that the blind often have better hearing than the sighted. The most interesting chapters are those that present the strangest cases. Chapter 8 is about “amusia,” an inability to hear sounds as music, and “dysharmonia,” a highly specific impairment of the ability to hear harmony, with the ability to understand melody left intact. Such specific “dissociations” are found throughout the cases Sacks recounts.

F. To Sacks’s credit, part III, “Memory, Movement and Music,” brings US into the underappreciated realm of music therapy. Chapter 16 explains how “melodic intonation therapy” is being used to help expressive aphasic patients (those unable to express their thoughts verbally following a stroke or other cerebral incident) once again become capable of fluent speech. In chapter 20, Sacks demonstrates the near-miraculous power of music to animate Parkinson’s patients and other people with severe movement disorders, even those who are frozen into odd postures. Scientists cannot yet explain how music achieves this effect

G. To readers who are unfamiliar with neuroscience and music behavior, Musicophilia may be something of a revelation. But the book will not satisfy those seeking the causes and implications of the phenomena Sacks describes. For one thing, Sacks appears to be more at ease discussing patients than discussing experiments. And he tends to be rather uncritical in accepting scientific findings and theories.

H. It’s true that the causes of music-brain oddities remain poorly understood. However, Sacks could have done more to draw out some of the implications of the careful observations that he and other neurologists have made and of the treatments that have been successful. For example, he might have noted that the many specific dissociations among components of music comprehension, such as loss of the ability to perceive harmony but not melody, indicate that there is no music center in the brain. Because many people who read the book are likely to believe in the brain localisation of all mental functions, this was a missed educational opportunity.

I. Another conclusion one could draw is that there seem to be no “cures” for neurological problems involving music. A drug can alleviate a symptom in one patient and aggravate it in another, or can have both positive and negative effects in the same patient. Treatments mentioned seem to be almost exclusively antiepileptic medications, which “damp down” the excitability of the brain in general; their effectiveness varies widely.

J. Finally, in many of the cases described here the patient with music-brain symptoms is reported to have “normal” EEG results. Although Sacks recognises the existence of new technologies, among them far more sensitive ways to analyze brain waves than the standard neurological EEG test, he does not call for their use. In fact, although he exhibits the greatest compassion for patients, he conveys no sense of urgency about the pursuit of new avenues in the diagnosis and treatment of music-brain disorders. This absence echoes the book’s preface, in which Sacks expresses fear that “the simple art of observation may be lost” if we rely too much on new technologies. He does call for both approaches, though, and we can only hope that the neurological community will respond.

Questions 27-30

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet

27 Why does the writer have a mixed feeling about the book?

A The guilty feeling made him so.

B The writer expected it to be better than it was.

C Sacks failed to include his personal stories in the book.

D This is the only book written by Sacks.

28 What is the best part of the book?

A the photo of Sacks listening to music

B the tone of voice of the book

C the autobiographical description in the book

D the description of Sacks ’s wealth

29 In the preface, what did Sacks try to achieve?

A make a herald introduction of the research work and technique applied

B give detailed description of various musical disorders

C explain how people understand music

D explain why he needs to do away with simple observation

30 What is disappointing about Tony Cicoria’s case?

A He refuses to have further tests.

B He can’t determine the cause of his sudden musicality.

C He nearly died because of the lightening.

D His brain waves were too normal to show anything.

Questions 31-36

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 31-36 on your answer sheet write

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts with the views of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

31 It is difficult to give a well-reputable writer a less than totally favorable review.

32 Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata is a good treatment for musical disorders.

33 Sacks believes technological methods is of little importance compared with traditional observation when studying his patients.

34 It is difficult to understand why music therapy is undervalued

35 Sacks held little skepticism when borrowing other theories and findings in describing reasons and notion for phenomena he depicts in the book.

36 Sacks is in a rush to use new testing methods to do treatment for patients.

Questions 37-40

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.

Write correct letter, A-F, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet

37 The content covered dissociations in understanding between harmony and melody

38 The study of treating musical disorders

39 The EEG scans of Sacks’s patients

40 Sacks believes testing based on new technologies

—————

A. show no music-brain disorders.

B. indicates that medication can have varied results,

C. is key for the neurological community to unravel the mysteries.

D. should not be used in Isolation.

E. indicate that not everyone can receive good education.

F. show a misconception that there is function centre localized in the brain

READING PASSAGE 1

MENTAL GYMNASTICS

A. THE working day has just started at the head office of Barclays Bank in London. Seventeen staff are helping themselves to a buffet breakfast as young psychologist Sebastian Bailey enters the room to begin the morning’s framing session. But this is no ordinary training session. He’s not here to sharpen their finance or management skills. He’s here to exercise their brains.

B. Today’s workout, organised by a company called the Mind Gym in London, is entitled “having presence”. What follows is an intense 90-minute session in which this rather abstract concept is gradually broken down into a concrete set of feelings, mental tricks and behaviours. At one point the bankers are instructed to shut then eyes and visualise themselves filling the room and then the building. They finish up by walking around the room acting out various levels of presence, from low-key to over the top.

C. It’s easy to poke fun. Yet similar mental workouts are happening in corporate seminar rooms around the globe. The Mind Gym alone offers some 70 different sessions, including ones on mental stamina, creativity for logical thinkers and “zoom learning”. Other outfits draw more directly on the exercise analogy, offering “neurobics” courses with names like “brain sets” and “cerebral fitness”. Then there are books with titles like Pumping Ions, full of brainteasers that claim to “flex your mind”, and software packages offering memory and spatialawareness games.

D. But whatever the style, the companies’ sales pitch is invariably the same— follow our routines to shape and sculpt your brain or mind, just as you might tone and train your body. And, of course, they nearly all claim that their mental workouts draw on serious scientific research and thinking into how the brain works.

E. One outfit, Brainergy of Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: “Because your grey matter matters”) puts it like this: “Studies have shown that mental exercise can cause changes in brain anatomy and brain chemistry which promote increased mental efficiency and clarity. The neuroscience is cutting-edge.” And on its website, Mind Gym trades on a quote from Susan Greenfield, one of Britain’s best known neuroscientists: “It’s a bit like going to the gym, if you exercise your brain it will grow.”

F. Indeed, die Mind Gym originally planned to hold its sessions in a local health club, until its founders realised where the real money was to be made. Modem companies need flexible, bright thinkers and will seize on anything that claims to create them, especially if it looks like a quick fix backed by science. But are neurobic workouts really backed by science? And do we need them?

G. Nor is there anything remotely high-tech about what Lawrence Katz, coauthor of Keep Your Brain Alive, recommends. Katz, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical School in North Carolina, argues that just as many of US fail to get enough physical exercise, so we also lack sufficient mental stimulation to keep our brain in trim. Sine we are busy with jobs, family and housework. But most of this activity is repetitive routine. And any leisure time is spent slumped in front of the TV.

H. So, read a book upside down. Write or brush your teeth with your wrong hand. Feel your way around the room with your eyes shut. Sniff vanilla essence while listening intently to orchestral music. Anything, says Katz, to break your normal mental routine. It will help invigorate your brain, encouraging its cells to make new connections and pump out neuroteophins, substances that feed and sustain brain circuits.

I. Well, up to a point it will. “What I’m really talking about is brain maintenance rather than bulking up your IQ,” Katz adds. Neurobics, in other words, is about letting your brain fulfill its potential. It cannot create super-brains. Can it achieve even that much, though? Certainly the brain is an organ that can adapt to the demands placed on it. Tests on animal brain tissue, for example, have repeatedly shown that electrically stimulating the synapses that connect nerve cells thought to be crucial to learning and reasoning, makes them stronger and more responsive. Brain scans suggest we use a lot more of our grey matter when carrying out new or strange tasks than when we’re doing well-rehearsed ones. Rats raised in bright cages with toys sprout more neural connections than rats raised in bare cages— suggesting perhaps that novelty and variety could be crucial to a developing brain. Katz, And neurologists have proved time and again that people who lose brain cells suddenly during a stroke often sprout new connections to compensate for the loss—especially if they undergo extensive therapy to overcome any paralysis.

J. Guy Claxton, an educational psychologist at the University of Bristol, dismisses most of the neurological approaches as “neuro-babble”. Nevertheless, there are specific mental skills we can learn, he contends. Desirable attributes such as creativity, mental flexibility, and even motivation, are not the fixed faculties that most of US think. They are thought habits that can be learned. The problem, says Claxton, is that most of US never get proper training in these skills. We develop our own private set of mental strategies for tackling tasks and never learn anything explicitly. Worse still, because any learned skill— even driving a car or brushing our teeth-quickly sinks out of consciousness, we can no longer see the very thought habits we’re relying upon. Our mental tools become invisible to US.

K. Claxton is the academic adviser to the Mind Gym. So not surprisingly, the company espouses his solution-that we must return our thought patterns to a conscious level, becoming aware of the details of how we usually think. Only then can we start to practise better thought patterns, until eventually these become our new habits. Switching metaphors, picture not gym classes, but tennis or football coaching.

L. In practice, the training can seem quite mundane. For example, in one of the eight different creativity workouts offered by the Mind Gym—entitled “creativity for logical thinkers” one of the mental strategies taught is to make a sensible suggestion, then immediately pose its opposite. So, asked to spend five minutes inventing a new pizza, a group soon comes up with no topping, sweet topping, cold topping, price based on time of day, flat-rate prices and so on.

M. Bailey agrees that the trick is simple. But it is surprising how few such tricks people have to call upon when they are suddenly asked to be creative: “They tend to just label themselves as uncreative, not realising that there are techniques that every creative person employs.” Bailey says the aim is to introduce people to half a dozen or so such strategies in a session so that what at first seems like a dauntingly abstract mental task becomes a set of concrete, learnable behaviours. He admits this is not a short cut to genius. Neurologically, some people do start with quicker circuits or greater handling capacity. However, with the right kind of training he thinks we can dramatically increase how efficiently we use it.

N. It is hard to prove that the training itself is effective. How do you measure a change in an employee’s creativity levels, or memory skills? But staff certainly report feeling that such classes have opened their eyes. So, neurological boosting or psychological training? At the moment you can pay your money and take your choice. Claxton for one believes there is no reason why schools and universities shouldn’t spend more time teaching basic thinking skills, rather than trying to stuff heads with facts and hoping that effective thought habits are somehow absorbed by osmosis.

Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1 In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement is true

NO if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

1 Mind Gym coach instructed employees to imagine that they are the building.

2 Mind Gym uses the similar marketing theory that is used all round

3 Susan Greenfield is the founder of Mind Gym.

4 All business and industries are using Mind Gym’s session globally.

5 According to Mind Gym, extensive scientific background supports their mental training sessions.

Questions 6-13

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-D) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 6-13 on your answer sheet.

A. Guy Claxton

B. Sebastian Bailey

C. Susan Greenfield

D. Lawrence Katz

NB You may use any letter more than once

6 We do not have enough inspiration to keep our brain fit.

7 The more you exercise your brain like exercise in the gym, the more brain will grow.

8 Exercise can keep your brain health instead of improving someone’s IQ.

9 It is valuable for schools to teach students about creative skills besides basic known knowledge.

10 We can develop new neuron connections when we lose old connections via certain treatment.

11 People usually mark themselves as not creative before figuring out there are approaches for each person.

12 An instructor in Mind Gym who guided the employees to exercise.

13 Majority of people don’t have appropriate skills-training for brain.

READING PASSAGE 2

Finding Our Way

A. “Drive 200 yards, and then turn right,” says the car’s computer voice. You relax in the driver’s seat, follow the directions and reach your destination without error. It’s certainly nice to have the Global Positioning System (GPS) to direct you to within a few yards of your goal. Yet if the satellite service’s digital maps become even slightly outdated, you can become lost. Then you have to rely on the ancient human skill of navigating in three-dimensional space. Luckily, your biological finder has an important advantage over GPS: it does not go awry if only one part of the guidance system goes wrong, because it works in various ways. You can ask questions of people on the sidewalk. Or follow a street that looks familiar. Or rely on a navigational rubric: “If I keep the East River on my left, I will eventually cross 34th Street.” The human positioning system is flexible and capable of learning. Anyone who knows the way from point A to point B—and from A to C—can probably figure out how to get from B to c, too.

B. But how does this complex cognitive system really work? Researchers are looking at several strategies people use to orient themselves in space: guidance, path integration and route following. We may use all three or combinations thereof. And as experts learn more about these navigational skills, they are making the case that our abilities may underlie our powers of memory and logical thinking. Grand Central, Please Imagine that you have arrived in a place you have never visited-New York City. You get off the train at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. You have a few hours to explore before you must return for your ride home. You head uptown to see popular spots you have been told about: Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You meander in and out of shops along the way. Suddenly, it is time to get back to the station. But how?

C. If you ask passersby for help, most likely you will receive information in many different forms. A person who orients herself by a prominent landmark would gesture southward: “Look down there. See the tall, broad MetLife Building? Head for that “the station is right below it.” Neurologists call this navigational approach “guidance,” meaning that a landmark visible from a distance serves as the marker for one’s destination.

D. Another city dweller might say: “What places do you remember passing? … Okay. Go toward the end of Central Park, then walk down to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A few more blocks, and Grand Central will be off to your left.” In this case, you are pointed toward the most recent place you recall, and you aim for it. Once there you head for the next notable place and so on, retracing your path. Your brain is adding together the individual legs of your trek into a cumulative progress report. Researchers call this strategy “path integration.” Many animals rely primarily on path integration to get around, including insects, spiders, crabs and rodents. The desert ants of the genus Cataglyphis employ this method to return from foraging as far as 100 yards away. They note the general direction they came from and retrace then steps, using the polarization of sunlight to orient themselves even under overcast skies. On their way back they are faithful to this inner homing vector. Even when a scientist picks up an ant and puts it in a totally different spot, the insect stubbornly proceeds in the originally determined direction until it has gone “back” all of the distance it wandered from its nest. Only then does the ant realize it has not succeeded, and it begins to walk in successively larger loops to find its way home.

E. Whether it is trying to get back to the anthill or the train station, any animal using path integration must keep track of its own movements so it knows, while returning, which segments it has already completed. As you move, your brain gathers data from your environment—sights, sounds, smells, lighting, muscle contractions, a sense of time passing—to determine which way your body has gone. The church spire, the sizzling sausages on that vendor’s grill, the open courtyard, and the train station—all represent snapshots of memorable junctures during your journey.

F. In addition to guidance and path integration, we use a third method for finding our way. An office worker you approach for help on a Manhattan street comer might say: “Walk straight down Fifth, turn left on 47th, turn right on Park, go through the walkway under the Helmsley Building, then cross the street to the MetLife Building into Grand Central.” This strategy, called route following, uses landmarks such as buildings and street names, plus directions-straight, turn, go through—for reaching intermediate points. Route following is more precise than guidance or path integration, but if you forget the details and take a wrong turn, the only way to recover is to backtrack until you reach a familiar spot, because you do not know the general direction or have a reference landmark for your goal. The route-following navigation strategy truly challenges the brain. We have to keep all the landmarks and intermediate directions in our head. It is the most detailed and therefore most reliable method, but it can be undone by routine memory lapses. With path integration, our cognitive memory is less burdened; it has to deal with only a few general instructions and the homing vector. Path integration works because it relies most fundamentally on our knowledge of our body’s general direction of movement, and we always have access to these inputs. Nevertheless, people often choose to give route following directions, in part because saying “Go straight that way!” just does not work in our complex, man-made surroundings.

G. Road Map or Metaphor? On your next visit to Manhattan you will rely on your memory to get around. Most likely you will use guidance, path integration and route following in various combinations. But how exactly do these constructs deliver concrete directions? Do we humans have, as an image of the real world, a kind of road map in our heads—with symbols for cities, train stations and churches; thick lines for highways; narrow lines for local streets? Neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists do call the portion of our memory that controls navigation a “cognitive map.” The map metaphor is obviously seductive: maps are the easiest way to present geographic information for convenient visual inspection. In many cultures, maps were developed before writing, and today they are used in almost every society. It is even possible that maps derive from a universal way in which our spatial-memory networks are wired.

H. Yet the notion of a literal map in our heads may be misleading; a growing body of research implies that the cognitive map is mostly a metaphor. It may be more like a hierarchical structure of relationships. To get back to Grand Central, you first envision the large scale-that is, you visualize the general direction of the station. Within that system you then imagine the route to the last place you remember. After that, you observe your nearby surroundings to pick out a recognizable storefront or street comer that will send you toward that place. In this hierarchical, or nested, scheme, positions and distances are relative, in contrast with a road map, where the same information is shown in a geometrically precise scale.

Questions 14-18

Use the information in the passage to match the category of each navigation method (listed A-C) with correct statement. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

A. Guidance

B. Path integration,

C. Route following

———————-

14 Using basic direction from starting point and light intensity to move on.

15 Using combination of place and direction heading for destination.

16 Using an iconic building near your destination as orientation.

17 Using a retrace method from a known place if a mistake happens.

18 Using a passed spot as reference for a new integration.

Questions 19-21

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

Write your answers in boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet.

19. What dose the ant of Cataglyphis respond if it has been taken to another location according to the passage?

A. Changes the orientation sensors improvingly

B. Releases biological scent for help from others

C. Continues to move by the original orientation

D. Totally gets lost once disturbed

20. Which of the followings is true about “cognitive map” in this passage?

A. There is not obvious difference contrast by real map

B. It exists in our head and is always correct

C. It only exists under some cultures

D. It was managed by brain memory

21. Which of following description of way findings correctly reflects the function of cognitive map?

A. It visualises a virtual route in a large scope

B. It reproduces an exact details of every landmark

C. Observation plays a more important role

D. Store or supermarket is a must in file map

Questions 22-26

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

22 Biological navigation has a state of flexibility.

23 You will always receive good reaction when you ask direction.

24 When someone follows a route, he or she collects comprehensive perceptional information in mind on the way.

25 Path integration requires more thought from brain compared with routefollowing.

26 In a familiar surrounding, an exact map of where you are will automatically emerge in your head.

READING PASSAGE 3

Mystery in Easter

A. One of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island. The island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. The island received its most wellknown current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.

B. In the early 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl popularized the idea that the island had been originally settled by advanced societies of Indians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown this hypothesis to be inaccurate. It is now recognized that the original inhabitants of Easter Island are of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this, that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD (carbon dating of reeds from a grave confirms this). At the time of their arrival, much of the island was forested, was teeming with land birds, and was perhaps the most productive breeding site for seabirds in the Polynesia region. Because of the plentiful bird, fish and plant ‘ food sources, the human population grew and gave rise to a rich religious and artistic culture.

C. That culture’s most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet and 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons. Depending upon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rollers made from the island’s trees.

D. Scholars are unable to definitively explain the function and use of the moai statues. It is assumed that their carving and erection derived from an idea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but which evolved in a unique way on Easter Island. Archaeological and iconographic analysis indicates that the statue cult was based on an ideology of male, lineage based authority incorporating anthropomorphic symbolism. The statues were thus symbols of authority and power, both religious and political. But they were not only symbols. To the people who erected and used them, they were actual repositories of sacred spirit. Carved stone and wooden objects in ancient Polynesian religions, when properly fashioned and ritually prepared, were believed to be charged by a magical spiritual essence called mana. The ahu platforms of Easter Island were the sanctuaries of the people, and the moai statues were the ritually charged sacred objects of those sanctuaries.

E. Besides its more well-known name, Easter Island is also known as Te-Pito-OTe-Henua, meaning ‘The Navel of the World’, and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning ‘ Eyes Looking at Heaven ‘. These ancient name and a host of mythological details ignored by mainstream archaeologists, point to the possibility that the remote island may once have been a geodetic marker and the site of an astronomical observatory of a long forgotten civilization. In his book. Heaven’s Mirror, Graham Hancock suggests that Easter Island may once have been a significant scientific outpost of this antediluvian civilization and that its location had extreme importance in a planet-spanning, mathematically precise grid of sacred sites. Two other alternative scholars, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, have extensively studied the location and possible function of these geodetic markers. In their fascinating book, Uriel’s Machine, they suggest that one purpose of the geodetic markers was as part of global network of sophisticated astronomical observatories dedicated to predicting and preparing for future commentary impacts and crystal displacement cataclysms.

F. In the latter years of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century various writers and scientists have advanced theories regarding the rapid decline of Easter Island’s magnificent civilization around the time of the first European contact. Principal among these theories, and now shown to be inaccurate, is that postulated by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to or Survive. Basically these theories state that a few centuries after Easter Island’s initial colonization the resource needs of the growing population had begun to outpace the island’s capacity to renew itself ecologically. By the 1400s the forests had been entirely cut, the rich ground cover had eroded away, the springs had dried up, and the vast flocks of birds coming to roost on the island had disappeared. With no logs to build canoes for offshore fishing, with depleted bird and wildlife food sources, and with declining crop yields because of the erosion of good soil, the nutritional intake of the people plummeted. First famine, then cannibalism, set in. Because the island could no longer feed the chiefs, bureaucrats and priests who kept the complex society running, the resulting chaos triggered a social and cultural collapse. By 1700 the population dropped to between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former number, and many of the statues were toppled during supposed “clan wars ” of the 1600 and 1700s.

G. The faulty notions presented in these theories began with the racist assumptions of Thor Heyerdahl and have been perpetuated by writers, such as Jared Diamond, who do not have sufficient archaeological and historical understanding of the actual events which occurred on Easter Island. The real truth regarding the tremendous social devastation which occurred on Easter Island is that it was a direct consequence of the inhumane behavior of many of the first European visitors, particularly the slavers who raped and murdered the islanders, introduced small pox and other diseases, and brutally removed the natives to mainland South America.

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list below.

Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them

List of Headings

i. The famous moai

ii. The status represented symbols of combined purposes

iii. The ancient spots which indicates scientific application

iv. The story of the name

v. Early immigrants, rise and prosperity

vi. The geology of Easter Island

vii. The begin of Thor Heyerdahl’s discovery

viii. The countering explaination to the misconceptions politaically manipulated

ix. Symbols of authority and power

x. The Navel of the World

xi. The norweigian Invaders’legacy

Questions 27-3

Example                  Answer

Paragraph A              iv

27 Paragraph B

28 Paragraph D

29 Paragraph E

30 Paragraph G

Questions 31-36

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 31 -36on your answer sheet write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

31 The first inhabitants of Easter Island are Polynesian, from the Marquesas or Society islands.

32 Construction of some moai statues on the island was not finished.

33 The Moai can be found not only on Easter Island but also elsewhere in Polynesia.

34 Most archeologists recognised the religious and astronomical functions for an ancient society

35 The structures on Easter Island work as an astronomical outpost for extraterrestrial visitors.

36 the theory that depleted natural resources leading to the fail of Easter Island actual has a distorted perspective

Questions 37-40

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Many theories speculated that Easter Island’s fall around the era of the initial European contact. Some say the resources are depleted by a 37…………; The erroneous theories began with a root of the 38………… advanced by some scholars. Early writers did not have adequate 39…………. understandings to comprehend the true result of 40………..nature of events on the island. The social devastation was in fact a direct of the first European settlers.