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C2
Let’s Go Bats – Reading 1
A Bats have a problem: how to find their way around in the dark they hunt at
flight, and cannot use light to help them find prey and avoid obstacles. You might
say that this is a problem of their own making one that they could avoid simply
by changing their habits and hunting by day. But the daytime economy is already
heavily exploited by other creatures such as birds. Given that there is a living to
be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly
occupied, natural selection has favored bats that make a go of the night-hunting
trade. It is probable that the nocturnal trades go way back in the ancestry of all
mammals. In the time when the dinosaurs. dominated the daytime economy, our
mammalian ancestors probably only managed to survive at all because they
found ways of scraping a living at night. Only after the my stenos mass extinction
of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago were our ancestors able to emerge
into the daylight in any substantial numbers. 

B  Bats have an engineering problem: how to find their way and find their prey in
the absence of light Bats are not the only creatures to face this difficulty today.
Obviously, the night-flying insects that they prey on must find their way about
somehow. Deep-sea fish and whales have little or no light by day or by night. Fish
and dolphins that live in extremely muddy water cannot see because, although
there is light, it is obstructed and scattered by the dirt in the water Plenty" of
other modern animals make their living in conditions where seeing is difficult or
impossible.

C Given the questions of how to manoeuvre in the dark, what solutions might an
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engineer consider? The first one that might occur to him is to manufacture light,
to use a lantern or a searchlight Fireflies and some fish (usually with the help of
bacteria) have the power to - manufacture their own light but the process seems
to consume a large amount of energy. Fireflies use their light for attracting mates.
This doesn't require a prohibitive amount of energy: a male's tiny pinprick of
light can be seen by a female from some distance on a dark night since her eyes
are exposed directly to the light source itself. However, using light to find one's
own way around requires vastly more energy, since the eyes have to detect the
tiny fraction of the light that bounces off each part of the scene. The light source
must, therefore, be immensely brighter if it is to be used as a headlight to
illuminate the path, than if it is to be used as a signal to others. In any event,
whether or not the reason is the energy expense, it seems to be the case that with
the possible exception of some weird deep-sea fish, no animal apart from man
uses manufactured light to find its way about

D What else might the engineer think off Well, blind humans sometimes seem to
have an uncanny sense of obstacles in their path, ft has been given the name’
facial vision', because blind people have reported that Ft feels a bit like the sense
of touch, on the face. One report tells of a totally blind boy who could and his
tricycle at good speed round the block near his home, using facial vision.
Experiments showed that, in fact, facial vision is nothing to do with touch or the
front of the face, although the sensation may be referred to the front of the face,
like the referred pain in a phantom limb The sensation of facial vision, it turns
out really goes in through the ears. Blind people, without even being aware of the
fact are actually using echoes of their own footsteps and of other sounds, to sense
the presence of obstacles. Before this was discovered, engineers had already built
instruments to exploit the principle, for example, to measure the depth of the sea
under a ship. After this technique had been invented, it was only a matter of time
before weapons designers adapted ft for the detection of submarines. Both sides
in the Second World War relied heavily on these devices, under such code names
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as Asdic (British) and Sonar (American), as wall as Radar (American) or RDF

(British), which uses radio echoes rather than sound echoes.

E The Sonar and Radar pioneers Didn’t know it then, but all the world now
knows that bats, or rather natural selection working on bats, had perfected the
system tens of millions of years earlier, and their radar'" achieves feats of
detection and navigation that would strike an engineer dumb with admiration It
is technically incorrect to talk about bat'radar1, since they do not use radio
waves. It is sonar. But the underlying mathematical the ones of radar and sonar
are very similar, and much of our scientific understanding of the details of what
bats are doing has’ come from applying radar theory to them. The American
zoologist Donald Griffin, who was largely responsible for the discovery of sonar
in bats, coined the term 'echolocation' to cover both sonar and radar, whether
used’ by animals or by human instruments.

Questions 1-5
Reading Passage 1 has five paragraphs, A-E.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter. A-E, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

 NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. examples of wildlife other than bats which do not rely on vision to navigate by
2. how early mammals avoided dying out
3. why bats hunt in the dark
4. how a particular discovery has helped our understanding of bats
5. early military uses of echolocation

Questions 6-9
Complete the summary below.
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Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

Facial Vision
Blind people report that so-called 'facial vision' is comparable to the sensation of
touch on the face. In fact, the sensation is more similar to the way in which pain
from a 6…………… arm or leg might be felt. The ability actually comes from
perceiving 7………….. through the ears. However, even before this was
understood, the principle had been applied in the design of instruments which
calculated the 8 ………….. of the seabed. This was followed by a wartime
application in devices for finding 9……………….. .

Question 10-13
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

10  Long before the invention of radar, ……………  had resulted in a sophisticated
radar-like system in bats.
11  Radar is an inaccurate term when referring to bats because …………… are not
used in their navigation system.    
12  Radar and sonar are based on similar……………    
13  The word 'echolocation' was first used by someone working as a ……………

 
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 Is There Anybody Out There? –

Reading 2
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

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

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

In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules.
First. UFOs [Unidentified Flying objects] are generally ignored since most
scientists don`t consider the evidence for them to be strong enough to bear
serious consideration (although it is also important to keep an open mind in case
any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we make a very
conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like
us, since if it differs radically from us we may well not recognize it as a life form,
quite apart from whatever  we are able to communicate with it. In other words,
the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads and seven fingers,
but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its
fellows. Be interested in the Universe, Live on a planet orbiting a star like our
Sun, and perhaps most restrictively have chemistry, like us, based on carbon and
water.

Even when we make these assumptions. our understanding of other life forms is
still severely limited. We do not even know. for example, how many stars have
planets, and we certainly do not know how likely it is that life will arise naturally,
given the right conditions. However, when we look at the 100 billion stars in our
galaxy [the Milky Way], and 100 billion galaxies. In the observable Universe, It
seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life form on
it; in fact, the best educated guess we can make using the little that we do know
about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one
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in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting it. That means that our
nearest neighbors are perhaps 1000 light years away. which is almost next door
in astronomical terms.

An alien civilization could choose many different ways of sending information

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

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

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on
Reading Passage.

Questions 14—17
Reading Passage 49 has five paragraphs, A-E.

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

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

List of Headings
     I.     Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets
     II.    Appropriate responses to signals from other civilizations
     III.   Vast distances to Earth’s closest neighbors
     IV.   Assumptions underlying the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
     V.    Reasons for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
     VI.   Knowledge of extra-terrestrial life forms
     VII.  Likelihood of life on other planets

Example                                                                      Answer
Paragraph A                                                                       v
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14.  Paragraph B
15.  Paragraph C
16.  Paragraph D
17.  Paragraph E

Question 18-20
Answer the Questions Below

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for

each answer

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

18. What is the life expectancy of Earth?

19. What kind of signals from other intelligent civilizations are SETI scientists
searching for?
20. How many stars are the world’s most powerful radio telescopes searching?

Questions 21-26
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading
Passage 49?

In boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet, write:

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

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

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

Reducing the Effects of Climate

Change

- Reading 3
Mark Rowe reports on the increasingly ambitious geo-engineering projects 
being explored by scientists

A
Such is our dependence on fossil fuels, and such is the volume of carbon dioxide
already released into the atmosphere, that many experts agree that significant
global warming is now inevitable. They believe that the best we can do is keep it
at a reasonable level, and at present, the only serious option for doing this is
cutting back on our carbon emissions. But while a few countries are making
major strides in this regard, the majority are having great difficulty even
stemming the rate of increase, let alone reversing it. Consequently, an increasing
number of scientists are beginning to explore the alternative of geo-engineering
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— a term which generally refers to the intentional large-scale manipulation of

the environment. According to its proponents, geo-engineering is the equivalent
of a backup generator: if Plan A - reducing our dependency on fossil fuels - fails,
we require a Plan B, employing grand schemes to slow down or reverse the
process of global warming.

B
Geo-engineering; has been shown to work, at least on a small localised scale. For
decades, MayDay parades in Moscow have taken place under clear blue skies,
aircraft having deposited dry ice, silver iodide and cement powder to disperse
clouds. Many of the schemes now suggested look to do the opposite, and reduce
the amount of sunlight reaching the planet. The most eye-catching idea of all is
suggested by Professor Roger Angel of the University of Arizona. His scheme
would employ up to 16 trillion minute spacecraft, each weighing about one gram,
to form a transparent, sunlight-refracting sunshade in an orbit 1.5 million km
above the Earth. This could, argues Angel, reduce the amount of light reaching
the Earth by two per cent.

C
The majority of geo-engineering projects so far carried out — which include
planting forests in deserts and depositing iron in the ocean to stimulate the
growth of algae - have focused on achieving a general cooling of the Earth. But
some look specifically at reversing the melting at the poles, particularly the
Arctic. The reasoning is that if you replenish the ice sheets and frozen waters of
the high latitudes, more light will be reflected back into space, so reducing the
warming of the oceans and atmosphere.

D
The concept of releasing aerosol sprays into the stratosphere above the Arctic
has been proposed by several scientists. This would involve using sulphur or
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hydrogen sulphide aerosols so that sulphur dioxide would form clouds, which
would, in turn, lead to a global dimming. The idea is modelled on historic volcanic
explosions, such as that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which led
to a short-term cooling of global temperatures by 0.5 °C. Scientists have also
scrutinised whether it's possible to preserve the ice sheets of Greenland with
reinforced high-tension cables, preventing icebergs from moving into the sea.
Meanwhile, in the Russian Arctic, geo-engineering plans include the planting of
millions of birch trees. Whereas the -regions native evergreen pines shade the
snow an absorb radiation, birches would shed their leaves in winter, thus
enabling radiation to be reflected by the snow. Re-routing Russian rivers to
increase cold water flow to ice-forming areas could also be used to slow down
warming, say some climate scientists.

E
But will such schemes ever be implemented? Generally speaking, those who are
most cautious about geo-engineering are the scientists involved in the research.
Angel says that his plan is ‘no substitute for developing renewable energy: the
only permanent solution'. And Dr Phil Rasch of the US-based Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory is equally guarded about the role of geo-engineering: 'I think
all of us agree that if we were to end geo-engineering on a given day, then the
planet would return to its pre-engineered condition very rapidly, and probably
within ten to twenty years. That’s certainly something to worry about.’

F
The US National Center for Atmospheric Research has already suggested that the
proposal to inject sulphur into the atmosphere might affect rainfall patterns
across the tropics and the Southern Ocean. ‘Geo-engineering plans to inject
stratospheric aerosols or to seed clouds would act to cool the planet, and act to
increase the extent of sea ice,’ says Rasch. ‘But all the models suggest some
impact on the distribution of precipitation.’
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G
A further risk with geo-engineering projects is that you can “overshoot Y says Dr
Dan Hunt, from the University of Bristol’s School of Geophysical Sciences, who
has studied the likely impacts of the sunshade and aerosol schemes on the
climate. ‘You may bring global temperatures back to pre-industrial levels, but the
risk is that the poles will still be warmer than they should be and the tropics will
be cooler than before industrialisation.’To avoid such a scenario,” Hunt says,
“Angel’s project would have to operate at half strength; all of which reinforces his
view that the best option is to avoid the need for geo-engineering altogether.”

H
The main reason why geo-engineering is supported by many in the scientific
community is that most researchers have little faith in the ability of politicians to
agree - and then bring in — the necessary carbon cuts. Even leading conservation
organisations see the value of investigating the potential of geo-engineering.
According to Dr Martin Sommerkorn, climate change advisor for the World
Wildlife Fund’s International Arctic Programme, ‘Human-induced climate change
has brought humanity to a position where we shouldn’t exclude thinking
thoroughly about this topic and its possibilities.’

Questions 27-29

Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs A-H

Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.

27. mention of a geo-engineering project based on an earlier natural

phenomenon

28. an example of a successful use of geo-engineering

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29. a common definition of geo-engineering

Questions 30-36

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in
boxes 30-36 on your answer sheet.

Questions 37-40
Look at the following statements (Questions 37-40) and the list of scientists
below.
Match each statement with the correct scientist, A-D.

Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
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List of Scientists

A.    Roger Angel
B.    Phil Rasch
C.    Dan Lunt
D.    Martin Sommerkorn

37. The effects of geo-engineering may not be long-lasting.

38. Geo-engineering is a topic worth exploring.
39. It may be necessary to limit the effectiveness of geo-engineering projects.
40. Research into non-fossil-based fuels cannot be replaced by geo-engineering.