READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1.
Optimism and Health
If you have a positive outlook, the likelihood is that you will lead a longer fife. John Nash
examines the link between optimism and good health.

Medical studies are concluding that optimists really do have something to be cheerful about.
Coincidental links between optimism and improved general health have been found by
researchers. Recently, a Yale University psychologists' study of 660 volunteers aged 50 and
above was published. It found that thinking positively about ageing adds an average of seven
years to a person's life. The team, led by Dr Becca Levy, suggests that having an optimistic
attitude can bolster the will to live, though they admit that they cannot explain it fully.

Another American research team, however, says they have identified a physical mechanism
behind the phenomenon. Their eight-year study of 670 men aged about 63 found that the
optimists had significantly better lung function than men who were more pessimistic. This is
the first study to show such a link. The research team at Brigham & Women's Hospital and
Harvard Medical School believes that attitude somehow strengthens the immune system, and
that adopting a more positive outlook may reverse physical decline. 'Preliminary studies on
heart patients suggest that by changing a person's outlook, you can improve their mortality
risk,' says Dr Rosalind Wright.

The role of optimism in good health has long been noted but often sidelined. Sigmund
Freud, the influential psychologist, equated optimism with ignorance, and from 1970 to
2000 there were 46,000 psychology papers on depression and only 40 on joy.

Part of that negativity may be blamed on optimists themselves. They are not necessarily
fun to have around, says Brice Pitt, the Emeritus Professor of the Psychiatry of Old Age
at Imperial College, London. 'Optimists tend to be insufferable people. Always jolly,
always up, and, frankly, they have a hopelessly rosy outlook,' he says. 'Depressive
people see things as they really are, and that is a disadvantage from an evolutionary
point of view. Optimism is a piece of evolutionary equipment that has carried us a long
way through millennia of setbacks '

Studies show that optimists do better than pessimists in work, school and sports, suffer
less depression, achieve more goals, respond better to stress and fight disease better.
Among people aged from their mid-nineties into their hundreds, researchers generally fail
to find consistencies in diet or exercise (and some still smoke). What the super-aged do
tend to share, however, is a positive; optimistic outlook.

Toshihiko Maruta, of the Mayo Institute, headed an earlier American medical study to find
a link between optimism and longevity. Her study found that optimists live about 19 per
cent longer than people with grim outlooks. ‘It tells us that mind and body are linked and that
attitude has an impact on the final outcome: death,' she says. That simple message
might have far more effect than exhortations to eat fresh fruit and warnings to stay out of
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the sun.

Despite the benefits of unprecedented material wealth, the World Health Organisation
estimates that depression is soon to become the second leading cause of disability.
Popular wisdom blames this on our frenetically busy society. According to social
forecasters at the Henley Centre, while people in developed countries are 65 per cent
better off financially today than they were 15 years ago, there is no evidence that they are
any more content with their lives. While much of this is down to the perception among
many of being rushed and pressured for time and space, it is the perception not the
reality that counts, they say.

The Henley researchers found that if people think they have enough time, space or
money, they feel more relaxed about life, regardless of how much of these things they
actually have. 'In terms of money, some of the people who "feel" wealthiest, and some of
those who "feel" poorest; actually have almost the same amount of money at their
disposal. Their attitudes and behaviour patterns, however, are different from one another'
says Chad Wallens, a researcher.

Few studies have tried to ascertain the proportion of optimists in the world. But a 1995
nationwide survey conducted in the USA for the American magazine Adweek found that
about half the population counted themselves as optimists, with women slightly more apt
than men (53 per cent versus 48 per cent) to identify themselves thus. That attitude
drops, however, to less than a third of people between the ages of 55 and 64, which
supports research showing that men, in particular, tend to become more irritable as they
get older. Lynn Myers, a psychotherapist, points out, however, that too much optimism
can be a bad thing: ‘You can be what is called a cock-eyed optimist, the sort of person
who smokes but is convinced they will never get lung cancer.' Curiously, though, the
Brigham & Women's Hospital study found that that optimism was linked to improved lung
function even after smoking was taken into account.

Myers is skeptical about whether there is a simple way that people can become optimistic
in order to improve their health chances. 'I certainly would not suggest that there is
anything like “six easy lessons to change your outlook” But if you can lower your anxiety
levels, it tends to make you more optimistic. Conversely, people who are highly anxious
tend to be pessimistic,' she says.

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Questions 1-5
Complete the summary below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
Studies at Yale University have shown that a positive attitude can lengthen someone’s
lifespan by approximately 1……………. Another US research team claims to have found a
physical reason why this happens. As a result of an eight-year study on 2 …………………
male subjects of a certain age, they have noted differences in the 3 ………………… among
positive and negative thinkers. This discovery has led them to conclude that positive
thinking makes the body’s entire 4 ………………… stronger, which, in turn, reduces
ageing. Rosalind Wright cites some early research on 5 ………………… in support of this
view.
Questions 6-10
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-H, below.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.
6 The writer’s reference to Sigmund Freud illustrates the point that
7 According to Brice Pitt of Imperial College, London,
8 Researchers at the Henley Centre have shown that
9 The 1995 Adweek survey found that across the USA
10 The psychotherapist Lynn Myers suggests that

A optimists have an unrealistic view of life.

B long life is also linked to diet and exercise.
C excessive optimism may have negative consequences.
D optimism has not been considered a worthy research topic.
E a hectic lifestyle can lead to poor health.
F happiness is not linked to material wealth and comfort.
G levels of optimism can decrease with age.
H optimism can have a positive effect on pessimists.
Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage.
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writers
NO if statement contradicts the claims of the writers
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writers thinks about this.
11 It has been known for some time that there is a link between optimism and good
health.
12 Optimists have better personal relationships with others than pessimists.
13 People who live to be over ninety-five are known to take the same amount of regular
exercise.
 READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 2.

Waste Production

A What has fins like a whale, skin like a lizard, and eyes like a moth? The future of
engineering. Almost all living organisms are uniquely adapted to the environment in which they
live, some so well that scientists study them in the hope of replicating their natural designs in
technology. This process, called biomimetics, is the crossroads where nature and engineering
meet.

B Perhaps the best example of biomimetics is Velcro. In 1948 a Swiss scientist, George de
Mestral, had trouble removing a plant's prickle which was stuck to his dog's fur, so he studied
it under a microscope. Impressed by the stickiness of the prickle's hooks, he copied the
design; engineering a fastener made of two pieces. One piece has stiff hooks like the prickly
seedcase; while the other has soft loops that allow the hooks to stick. De Mestral named his
invention Velcro - a combination of the words 'velour' and 'crochet.'

C Andrew Parker, a research fellow at the Natural History Museum in London and at the
University of Sydney, is a leading proponent of biomimetics - applying designs from nature to
problems in engineering, materials science, medicine and other fields. He has investigated
indescence in butterflies and beetles and antireflective coatings in moth eyes - studies that
have led to brighter screens for cellular phones and an anticounterfeiting technique so secret
he cannot say which company is behind it. He is working to make technique so secret he
cannot say which company is behind it. He is working to make cosmetics that mimic the
natural sheen of diatoms (a type of algae) and, with the British Ministry of Defence, to emulate
the water-repellent properties of these same creatures. He even draws inspiration from
nature's past: on the eye of a 45-million-year-old fly trapped in amber that he studied in a
museum in Poland, Parker noticed microscopic corrugations that reduced light reflection. This
feature is now being built into solar panels.

D To Parker, every species, even those that have become extinct, is a success story,
optimized by millions of years of natural selection. He asks: Why not learn from this? Parker
explained how the metallic sheen and dazzling colors of certain birds derive not from pigments
but from neatly spaced microstructures that reflect specific wavelengths of light. Such
structural color, fade-proof and more brilliant than pigment, is of great interest to people who
manufacture paint and holograms on credit cards. Glowworms produce a cool light with almost
zero energy loss (a normal light bulb wastes 98 percent of its energy as heat), and bombardier
beetles have a highly effective combustion chamber in their posterior that heats chemicals and
fires them at would-be predators.

E For all nature's sophistication, many of its clever devices are made from simple substances
like keratin, calcium carbonate, and silica, which are manipulated into structures of fantastic
complexity and toughness. The abalone, for example, makes its shell out of calcium
carbonate, the same stuff as soft chalk. Yet by coaxing this substance into walls of staggered,
nanoscale bricks through a subtle play of proteins. It creates an armor 3,000 times harder than
chalk. Understanding the microscale and nanoscale structures responsible for a living
material's exceptional properties is critical to re-creating it synthetically.

F Though impressed by biological structures, Robert Cohen, an engineer at MIT in the

United States, considers biology merely a starting point for innovation. 'You don't have to
reproduce a lizard skin to make a water-collection device, or a moth eye to make an
antireflective coating,' Cohen says. 'The biological structure provides a clue to what is useful.
But maybe you can do it better.' Ultimately he considers a biomimetics project a success only
if it has the potential to make a useful tool for people. 'Looking at pretty structures in nature is
not sufficient,' says Cohen. 'What I want to know is, can we actually transform these structures
into something with true utility in the real world?'

G This, of course, is the tricky bit. Potentially one of the most useful embodiments of natural
design is the bio-inspired robot, which could be deployed in places where people would be too
conspicuous, bored to tears, or killed. But such robots are notoriously hard to build. Ronald
Fearing, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, has
taken on one of the biggest challenges of all: to create a miniature robotic fly that is swift,
small, and maneuverable enough for use in surveillance or search-and-rescue operations.

H The key to making his micromechanical flying insect (MFI) work, Fearing says, is not to
attempt to copy the fly, but to isolate the structures crucial to its feats of flying. 'The fly's wing is
driven by 20 muscles, some of which only fire every fifth wing beat, and all you can do is
wonder, "What on earth just happened there?"' says Fearing. 'Some things are just too
mysterious and complex to be able to replicate.'

I For all the power of the biomimetics paradigm, and the brilliant people who practice it,
bio-inspiration has led to surprisingly few mass-produced products, and arguably only one
household word — Velcro. Some biomimeticists blame industry, whose short-term
expectations about how soon a project should be completed and become profitable clash with
the time-consuming nature of biomimetics research. Others lament the difficulty in coordinating
joint work among diverse academic and industrial disciplines, which is required to understand
natural structures and mimic what they do. But the main reason biomimetics has not yet come
of age is that from an engineering standpoint, nature is famously, fabulously complex. For the
present, people cannot hope to reproduce such intricate nanopuzzles. Nonetheless, the gap
with nature is gradually closing.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage 2 has nine sections, A-I.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1 how an organism turns a basic material into something incredibly strong
2 a claim that biomimetics has had limited commercial impact so far
3 a difficulty that led to researcher’s accidental discovery
4 an example of nature being far more efficient than a common household object
5 an ancient specimen that inspired a modern innovation
6 situations where it is preferable to replace a human with a machine

Questions 7-9
Look at the following statements (Questions 7-9) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A-D.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.
7 All living things provide something useful for humans to discover.
8 Natural designs are sometimes impossible for people to copy.
9 Biomimetics achieves nothing unless it has a practical application.
List of people
A George de Mestral
B Andrew Parker
C Robert Cohen
D Ronald Fearing

Questions 10-13
Complete the sentences.
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
10 Andrew Parker is studying the shiny surface of diatoms in order to develop
……………………
11 Paint companies are interested in the way some ………………… get their colour.
12 Bombardier beetles protect themselves by shooting hot …………………… at their
enemies.
13 One scientist is studying the ………………………… to build a tiny robot that can help
people in danger.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading
Passage3.
Business Innovation
As new Wonder products' are getting harder and harder to find, what should companies do
to survive in today's ever more competitive markets?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines innovation as `making changes to something
established'. Invention, by contrast, is the act of 'coming upon or finding; discovery'.
Revolutionary 'inventions' of 20th-century US firms include, for example, the safety razor,
the hydraulic brake, and DNA finger-printing. However, as Adrian Slywotsky of Mercer
Management Consulting says, 'In most industries, truly differentiating new-product
breakthroughs are becoming increasingly rare.' And as 'blockbuster' novel products
become steadily more elusive, big companies would do well to focus instead on making
lots of small things better.
Unfortunately, big companies often have big problems with innovation. ‘Innovators try to
change the status quo,' says Bhaskar Chakravorti of the Monitor Group, 'which is why
markets tend to resist them. ' Innovations frequently disrupt the way companies do things
(and may have been doing them for years). And it is not just markets that are nervous of
Innovation. Michael Hammer, co-author of 'Re-engineering the Corporation', cites the case
of a PC-maker that set out to imitate Dell's famous 'Build to Order' system of computer
assembly. The company found its attempts were frustrated by both its head of
manufacturing, who feared for his job, and its head of marketing, who did not want to upset
his existing retail outlets. So the proposal got nowhere, and Dell continued to dominate the
business.
Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School Professor, describes how disruptive
innovations — simpler, cheaper and more convenient products that seriously upset the
status quo — often herald the rapid downfall of thriving; long-standing businesses. This, it
is widely recognised, is because most such organisations are designed to grow through a
series of sustaining innovations — the sort which simply improve on existing products for
existing markets.
William Baumol, professor at New York University, argues that large companies have been
learning important lessons from the history of innovation. Most have both cut back and re-
directed their Research and Development spending in recent years. Innovation by big
companies is now based less on the discoveries of white-coated scientists, and more on
incremental improvements in the processes that constitute daily operations.
According to marketing specialist Vijay Vishwanath, companies also need to adjust to the
ongoing fragmentation of markets. Once-uniform mass markets are breaking up into
countless 'niches', in which everything has to be customised for a small group of
consumers. Looking for blockbusters in such a world is a daunting task. Another problem,
according to Chakravorti, lies in the marketing of innovations. Too many executives are still

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stuck with the strategies used to sell Kodak's first camera 120 years ago, when the product
was so revolutionary that the company could forget about competition for at least a decade.
Today, rival products can be rushed onto the market at speeds which would lave been
unimaginable in those days.
Companies that fail to come up with headline-hitting new products should not despair.
There are plenty of other, albeit less glamorous, areas where innovation can take place,'
says Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He claims that the roots of
the USA's productivity surge originate in 'a genuine revolution in how American companies
are using information technology to reinvent their business processes from top to bottom'.
Hammer highlights several instances where firms have added considerably to their
shareholder value through what he calls operational innovations — creativity in their
business processes. Notable among these is the American retail giant Wal-Mart. While
superficially mundane, their pioneering idea of 'cross-docking' — shifting merchandise off
trucks from suppliers and straight onto trucks heading for stores — has been fundamental
to the company's ability to offer low prices, the platform for its outstanding success.
Companies are also being encouraged to embrace strategic innovations, following the
example of such firms as Southwest Airlines, a low-cost American regional carrier, whose
creative strategies and shrewd timing won it a victory over its ailing competitor US Airways.
The Swedish packaging company Tetra Pak also used this style of innovation, by moving
away from delivering ready-made containers for customers into providing machinery and
supplying dedicated materials for them to make their own packaging. This strips out many
costs from the process, and also makes it very difficult for the customer to switch suppliers.
Like Southwest Airlines, they achieved success through strategic innovations alone with
little innovation in either the underlying technology or the product sold.
In his book 'How to Grow When Markets Don't', Slywotsky and his co-author Richard Wise
recommend what they call demand innovations. A few far-sighted organisations such as
the French industrial gas company Air Liquide have found success not — as in the case of
strategic innovations — by meeting existing demand in a new way; but by discovering new
forms of demand and adapting to supply the products or services required. Air Liquide had
been a leading supplier of industrial gases until the early 1990s; when gas became a
commodity and their operational income plunged. Realising the value of the skills they had
gained over the decades, the company became a supplier not only of gas, but also of the
management services to accompany it. Within a short time their profits rose again.
There are certain things that managers can do to make innovations like these happen
within their organisations. For example, projects with potential should be rapidly hived off
into independent business units, away from the smothering influence of the status quo. The
ultimate outcome of any one innovation may still be unpredictable, the process from which
it emerges is not.

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Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 1-5 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
1 In order to stay in the market, companies today need to concentrate their efforts on
finding genuinely original products.
2 Disruptive innovations often pose serious threats to even successful, well-established
companies.
3 A key stage in the development of sustaining innovations involves research into the
strengths and weaknesses of competitor’s products.
4 Manufacturers today are able to compete with innovations over shorter time periods than
in the past.
5 It is hard to tell what the long-term result of any innovation might be.

Questions 6-9
Look at the following statements (Questions 6-9) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

6 the need for companies to cater for ever more specialised sets of customers
7 an explanation for the recent upward trend in the US economy.
8 an example of company personnel who resisted innovation
9 a shift in the way many companies are organising their budgets.

List of People
A Bhaskar Chakravorti
B Michael Hammer
C William Baumol
D Vijay Vishwanath
E Erik Brynjolfsson
Questions 10-14
Complete the note below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Type of innovations
Operational innovations
Definition
Being innovative in the way existing business 10………………………… are carried out
Example
Moving goods by system known as: 11. ……………………………
Company
Wal-Mart
Type of innovations
12 ………………………… innovations
Definition
Developing new approaches to meeting needs of existing markets
Example
Giving customers means to manufacture products themselves
Company
Tetra Pak
Type of innovations
13 …………………………… innovations
Definition
Identifying and meeting new types of customer needs
Example
Offering customers 14 …………………………… to go with the main product
Company
Air Liquide