READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage
3 on pages 10 and 11.
Theories of planet formation questioned

A The traditional view of astronomy has been that Planets form slowly as material congeals
within the disk of gas, dust and ice known to surround young stars. First, gravity gathers
together bits of dust that merge to form boulder-sized bodies, which themselves coalesce into
bigger and bigger objects. In about a million years, these form rocky planets like Earth and Mar.
Over the next few million years, gas from the disk settles around some of these solid bodies
and they grow far larger, becoming giants like gaseous Saturn and Jupiter. This theory of
planet formation is known as the care-accretion model. However, several astronomers now say
that this model for making planets may not be entirely correct.

B These astronomers have devised an alternative theory in which planets as massive as Jupiter,
whether orbiting our sun or a distant star, would form completely within a few hundred years,
rather than millions of years as previously believed. Both theories for planet formation start with
the same reservoir of planet-making materials. The spinning cloud of gas, dust and ice rapidly
fattens into disk-like shapes known as proto-planetary disks: and, as time goes by, gravity
causes material in these disks to clump into planet-sized objects. However, it is the speed of
the clustering, and the size of the initial clumps, that provide the disparity in the two models for
planet formation.

C According to the core-accretion model, the making of Jupiter required the initial formation of a
solid core five to ten times Earth's mass, It would have taken about a million years to achieve
this. Most astronomers believe that the large core then had enough gravity to attract a huge
amount of gas from the proto-planetary disk to create a planet of the massive proportions of
Jupiter. In this core-accretion model, these 'gas giants may take as long as ten million years to
form.

D That is several million years too long in the opinion of Lucio Mayer of Zurich University. Direct
telescope sightings suggest that the proto-planetary disks do not last more than about seven
million years, and studies of the environment in which stars form suggest that many disks may
evaporate in much less time, Mayer asserts that most stars in the Milty Way form in dense
clouds of gas, dust and ice. Their temperatures are very intense and the ultraviolet light they
send into space can evaporate a proto-planetary disk in less than 100,000 years. In the core-
accretion model, that is not enough time for a Jupiter-like planet to form.

E Recent computer simulations show that when individual stars form, the gravitational pull
between them can result in the outer gaseous parts of the proto-planetary disks being
destroyed in 100 000 years or less. Thus, Thomas Quinn of the University of Washington
concludes that if a 'gas giant' planet cannot form quickly, it will probably never form. He also
asserts that if the core-accretion model is correct. Gas giant planets like Jupiter should be rare.
However, since 1995, astronomers have found more than one hundred planets as large as
Jupiter outside our solar system.

F Quinn and his colleagues recently analysed the standard core-accretion model of planet
formation and investigated whether not giant planets could form quickly. They looked at the
 work of Gerard Kuiper who, in the 1950s, proposed that they could. Alan P Boss of the
Carnegie Institute did more extensive work on the subject in the late 1980s. Using computer
simulations, he was surprised to find that ratty could cause a proto-planetary disk. after a few
orbits of its parent star, to break into clumps as big as an average- sized planet. The clumps
would continue to pull in gas, ice and dust. This is called the gravitational-instability model of
planet formation.

G Recent calculations have suggested that many of the solid bodies that might be the rocky core
for Jupiter-size planets in the traditional theory would pin into the parent star before the
massive planet could form. Moreover, further analysis has shown that other effects could also
cause a proto-planetary disk to become unstable and split into large fragments. For instance,
within the disk, electrically charged material might accumulate, leading to fragmentation of the
disk. Or a powerful gravitational disturbance, such as the pull of a star passing nearby, could
produce instability in the proto-planetary disk.

H Nevertheless, the gravitational-instability model has problems of its own, as it is mathematically

complicated and requires sophisticated computer use. Therefore, no one has studied the
simulations long enough to establish conclusively that the model allows for the formation of
massive planets. In response, Mayer says that he and his team have described the results of
an extensive simulation based on the gravitational-instability model. They spent two years
refining calculations to track what would happen to a proto-planetary disk over one thousand
years, which is more than any other simulation had done. In addition, over a decade previously
Mayer and his team had made simulations of the formation and evolution of galaxies. In doing
this, they had already developed a fast computer code that could run in parallel on machines
with hundreds of processors, and this knowledge assisted them in investigating their
gravitational-instability theory.
Questions 27–32

Reading Passage 3 has nine paragraphs, A–I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–I, in boxes 27–32 on your answer sheet.

27 the significance of recent discoveries of a large number of massive planets

28 an explanation of the difference between the theories of planet creation
29 the difficulties of proving that the more recent theory of planet creation is correct
30 reasons why Mayer claims he was able to develop his theory
31 a detailed explanation of the long-held theory of planet creation
32 description of the destructive effect of heat in space

Questions 33–37

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.

Write the correct letter, A–G, in boxes 33–37 on your answer sheet.

33 Traditionally astronomers have believed that

34 LCIO Mayer physically observed that
35 Thomas Quinn believes that
36 Gerard Kuiper was the first to suggest that
37 Alan P Boss discovered that

A gaseous planets form before smaller rocky planets.

B large planets take millions of years to form.
C large planets must form fast or not at all.
D large planets had the potential to develop relatively fast.
E gravity could cause planet-sized pieces to break off quickly.
F hot clumps of gas, dust and ice were destroyed relatively quickly.
G computer studies of planets are too mathematically complex.
READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading passage 3

on page 10 and 11.

The Placebo Effect

With the right encouragement, your mind can convince the body to heal itself.
What is the mysterious force that can do this?

Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here's the recipe. As a
practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve
physical contact, and each session with your patients should take at least half an hour. Encourage
your patients to take an active part in their treatment and understand how their disorders relate to
the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies possess the true power to heal. Get them to
pay you well. Describe your treatment in familiar words, but embroidered with a hint of mysticism:
energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians, forces, auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to
the knowledge of an early age: wisdom carelessly swept aside by the rise of blind mechanistric
science. Oh, come off it, you're saying. Something like that couldn't possibly work, could it?

Well yes, it could --and often well enough to earn you a living. And a very good living if you are
sufficiently convincing or, better still, really believe in you therapy. Many illness get better on their
own, so if you are lucky and administer your treatment at just the right time you'll get the credit. But
that's only part of it. Some of the improvement really would be down to you. Not necessarily
because you'd recommended ginseng rather than chamomile tea or used this crystal as opposed
to that pressure point. Nothing so specific. Your healing power would be the outcome of a
paradoxical force that conventional medicine recognizes but remains oddly ambivalent about: the
placebo effect.

Placebos are treatments that have no direct effect on the body, yet still work because the patient
has faith in their power to heal. Most often the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies just as
much to any device or procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal. The existence of the placebo
effect implies that even a complete fraud could make a difference to someone's health, which is
why some practitioners of alternative medicine are sensitive about any mention of the subject. In
fact, the placebo is a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or otherwise, though its role is
often neglected and misunderstood.

At one level, it should come as no surprise that our state of mind can influence our physiology:
anger opens the superficial blood vessel of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But exactly
how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research to date
has focused on the control of pain, because it's one of the commonest complaints and lend itself to
experimental study. Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, natural substances produced in
the brain that are known to help control pain. Any of the neurochemicals involved in transmitting
pain impulses or modulating them might also be involved in generating the placebo response; says
Don Price, an oral surgeon at the University of Florida.

That case has been strengthened by the recent work of Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of
Turin, who showed that the placebo effect can be abolished by a drug, naloxone, which blocks the
effects of endorphins. Benedetti induced pain in pressure cuff on the forearm. He did this several
times a day for several days, using morphine each time to control the pain. On the final day,
without saying anything, he replaced the morphine with a saline solution. This still relieved the
subjects' pain: a placebo effect. But when he added naloxone to the saline, and blocked the
endorphins, the pain relief disappeared. Here was direct proof that the relief of pain by a placebo is
carried out, at least in part, by these natural opiates.

Though scientists don't know exactly how placebos work, they have accumulated a fair bit of
knowledge about how to trigger the effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that red
dummy capsules made more effective painkillers than blue, green or yellow ones. Research on
American students revealed that blue pills make better tranquiliser than pink, a colour more
suitable for stimulants. Even branding can make a difference: if Aspro or Tylenol are what you like
to take for a headache, their chemically identical generic equivalents may be less effective.

It matters too how the treatment is delivered. Decades ago, when the major tranquilliser
chlorpromazine was being introduced, a doctor in Kansas categorized his colleague according to
whether they were keen on it, openly skeptical of its benefits, or took a let's try and see attitude.
His conclusion: the more enthusiastic the doctor, the better the drug performed. A recent survey by
Ernst on doctor's bedside manners turned up one consistent finding: Physicians who adopt a
warm, friendly, reassuring manner are more effective than those whose consultations are formal
and do not offer reassurance.

Warm, friendly and I reassuring are precisely what alternative treatment is all about, of course.
Many of the ingredients of that opening recipe-the physical contact, the generous swaths of time,
the strong hints of supernormal healing power-are just the kind of thing likely to impress patients.
It's hardly surprising then, that complementary practitioners are generally best at moblishing, the
placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman, professor of social anthropology at Harvard University.
Questions 27–31

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–H below.

Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet.

27 An appointment with an alternative practitioner

28 An alternative practitioner’s explanation of their treatment
29 If alternative practitioners have faith in their treatment, they
30 Quite often, a patient's illness
31 Conventional doctors are aware of the placebo effect and they

A should be easy to understand.

B can improve without treatment.
C can cost the patient less.
D ought to last a minimum length of time.
E can require a range of different products.
F can be described as serious.
G should give it greater recognition.
H should be able to get a high income.
Questions 32–34

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 32–34 on your answer sheet.

32 In the third paragraph, the writer says that the placebo effect
A works best in tablet form.
B is a new type of medical treatment.
C is trusted more by some patients than others.
D has a significant role in both alternative and conventional medicine.
33 A reference is made to anger and sadness in order to show that
A personal feelings can alter our physical condition.
B some human behavior has no clear explanation.
C placebos like emotions, are experienced by everyone.
D people find some physical reactions hard to control.
34 Fabrizio Benedetti’s research on endorphins indicates that
A they are widely used to regulate pain.
B they can be produced by willful thoughts.
C they can be neutralised by introducing naloxone.
D their pain-relieving effects do not last long enough.