READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.

The Development of Exploration and Scientific

Research in Antarctica

The modern scientific age in Antarctica really began with the introduction of aircraft in the
1920s. Aircraft transformed the possibilities of exploring the frozen continent around the
South Pole, because before that Antarctic travel had been limited to the use of dog-
teams pulling sledges. A plane could survey thousands of square kilometres an hour,
equivalent to a whole summer’s work using previous techniques. However, the first
planes in Antarctica, such as the Lockheed Vega and the Ford Trimotor, were unreliable
in freezing conditions. This made polar flying particularly hazardous, since there was
little chance of rescue if a plane was forced down in a remote region.
It was in 1928 that Herbert Wilkins hoped to make the first flight in Antarctica, attempting
to cross the continent. A further attempt in 1930 was also unsuccessful, but Wilkins’
aerial photographs seemed to show that the Antarctic Peninsula was in fact an island,
not part of the continent as had previously been thought. This new theory caused some
excitement among geographers and cartographers. However, the British Grahamland
Expedition of 1934-37 proved conclusively that the Antarctic Peninsula was attached to
the rest of the continent.
In 1929, the famous American pilot Richard Byrd flew over the South Pole, and another
American, Lincoln Ellsworth, made a successful Antarctic flight in 1935. Although
Ellsworth claimed a sector of the continent for the USA, the American government did
not follow it up. In 1938, the German explorer, Alfred Ritscher, led an expedition south
across the sea Once Antarctica was reached, the aircraft that had been stored in pieces
on the ship’s deck was reconstructed. The aeroplane was then launched and used to
stake a claim to one section of Antarctica by dropping thousands of tiny flags from the
air.
A significant motivation behind many Antarctic expeditions right up to the 1940s was
simply the spirit of adventure. Many of these expeditions had a large measure of private
funding, and often the subsequent book about the expedition was a means of clearing
debts incurred. The vast majority of Antarctic expeditions since 1940 have been funded
by governments, usually for political reasons and scientific research.
The setting up of the Research and Development Committee in Britain was a significant
development in the history of science in the Antarctic. The Committee’s report, published
in 1920, focused particularly on the sea that circles the Antarctic continent. The report
proposed detailed scientific investigations of the physiology and behaviour of the whales
inhabiting the region. As a result, a shore station at
Grytviken on the island of South Georgia near Antarctica was occupied by scientists for
six years. In addition, three research ships were commissioned. They travelled through
the Southern Ocean all year, researching physical and chemical oceanography. The
high quality of the specimens and data collected by scientists produced nearly 40 large
volumes of reports. This entire project came to be known as the Discovery
Investigations. The costs of the Discovery Investigations were completely covered by the
proceeds of a tax that was placed on whaling businesses operating in the area.
It was in 1875 that the idea of international scientific collaboration at the poles was first
proposed, with the aim of collecting valuable data. The result was the first Polar Year in
1882-83. A second Polar Year was organised 50 years later, involving 44 nations and
scientific bodies. Both of these Polar Years had been timed to coincide with a period
when the sun was at its lowest level of activity, in order to monitor the impact this had.
So much interest was aroused by this process that a third Polar Year was organised 25
years later. In 1951 it was decided that this scientific programme should be expanded to
cover the globe. This new project was renamed the International Geophysical Year
(IGY). Antarctica was chosen as an area for particular attention because of its important
influence on global weather. Throughout this period, politics were kept firmly in the
background.
The IGY took place in 1957-58 and it was during this period that the last great Antarctic
journey was accomplished. Dr Vivian Fuchs’ privately-funded Trans Antarctic Expedition
finally achieved what the explorer Ernest Shackleton had first set out to do in 1914.
Driving modified tractors, Fuchs’ team traversed Antarctica from coast to coast in 99
days and covered 2,180 miles or roughly 3,500 kilometres. But there were scientific
objectives as well, because the expedition’s measurements allowed the first estimates to
be made of the volume of ice that existed across the whole continent. So successful was
the IGY that it was extended for a further year in order to promote Antarctic science. It
also led directly to the signing of a treaty by members of the international community to
regulate human conduct in Antarctica over the years ahead.
Questions 1 - 6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 Until the 1920s, humans relied on animals to explore Antarctica.
2 Herbert Wilkins failed to fly across the Antarctic continent in 1928.
3 The expedition of 1934-37 confirmed a new theory about the Antarctic
Peninsula.
4 Lincoln Ellsworth was influenced by the flight of Richard Byrd.
5 The government of the USA claimed part of Antarctica in 1935.
6 After 1940, nations rather than individuals paid for most Antarctic expeditions.

Questions 7 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Scientific Research
• a 1920 report called for research into the whales in the sea around Antarctica
• researchers worked from the station at Grytviken and also from several
7...................
• local companies paid a 8 ..................... which funded the Discovery
Investigations
• the first two Polar Years researched the effects of the 9.........................
• Antarctica affects the world’s 10 .......................... so it was a focus for the IGY
• Vivian Fuchs’ expedition crossed Antarctica using special 11 ........................
• the total amount of 12 ......................in Antarctica was calculated by Fuchs’
expedition
• one result of the IGY was the establishment of a 13........................ to control
aspects of Antarctica’s future
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.
Questions 14 - 19
Reading Passage 2 has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i Do we have sufficient resources to feed the human population?

ii Will population increase pose disaster for our supply of raw materials?
iii Would population decline benefit the world?
iv Is disease a key factor?
v Is population decrease good for productivity?
vi What is the impact of population movement?
vii What can past events tell us about the effects of population decline?
viii What can our governments do to guarantee supplies of food and resources?

14 Section A
15 Section B
16 Section c
17 Section D
18 Section E
19 Section F
 Effects of changes in world population
A. Human fertility rates around the world are dropping for a variety of complex
reasons. While the population itself continues to increase, the rate of increase is
slowing, and sometime in the next 80 years, world population will peak
somewhere in the vicinity of nine billion before contracting. That raises an
important question: is population contraction a bad thing?
Some think not. There is a school of thought that argues that smaller populations
are good. Population control proponents claim variously that (1) we do not have
the food to sustain higher populations; (2) our planet already suffers from
overcrowding; (3) the environmental impact of increased populations will bring
catastrophe either through pollution or consumption of finite natural resources; or
in contrast, they argue decreased populations will lead to higher wages and a
better quality of life as available supplies exceed reduced demands. These
arguments seem reasonable at first, but do not withstand scrutiny.

B. Let’s start with food. The worry about mass starvation is a remnant of Paul
Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb. Ehrlich, Professor of Population
Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University in
California, wrote that in the face of expanding populations, ‘the world will undergo
famines - hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.’ As Ehrlich
himself now admits, this prediction proved faulty. Instead, the availability of food
has greatly increased, even with a growing population. Demographer Philip
Longman notes that food shortages have become ‘a political problem, related to
fair distribution, not an issue of inadequate supply’. How did this happen? In
1965, Danish economist Ester Boserup proposed that population increase fosters
agricultural innovation, which in turn increases production. Her theories have
been borne out by events, which show that some areas of the world may lack
sufficient supplies while the world has an overall surplus.

c. What about overcrowding? Everywhere you go today, you find traffic jams and
sprawl, with people packed into crowded places. But this is a problem of density,
not population. There’s plenty of land available out there. The problem is that
people who used to live in the rural areas have relocated to cities. This massive
migration into cities has caused urbanization, which is different from
overpopulation, and the problems associated with this include air pollution, lower
wages, and limited access to healthcare and educational opportunities.

D. Environmental concerns are more interesting, but such end-of-the-world

warnings are not new. Global warming and the fact that the Earth has only finite
amounts of natural resources that we will surely deplete, are the two main
concerns of environmentalists.
This, too, is an argument we have heard before. As Massimo Livi-Bacci,
Professor of Demography at the University of Florence, Italy, explains in his
Concise History of World Population, more than 100 years ago economists
‘feared that coal supplies would he exhausted, and about 30 years ago the Club
of Rome made similar predictions regarding other natural resources’. Instead,
innovation stepped in to provide greater efficiency. For instance, in
 the America of 1850, you needed an average of 4.6 tons of petroleum equivalent
to produce $1,000 of goods and services. By 1950, you needed only 1.8 tons,
and by 1978, 1.5 tons.

E. This leaves us with the economy. In 1971, Simon Smith Kuznets won the Nobel
Prize in Economics for his theory of ‘tested knowledge’. Kuznets explained, ‘More
population means more creators and producers, both of goods along established
production patterns and of new knowledge and inventions.’
Kuznets was codifying what others had noticed before. Political economist Adam
Smith remarked that ‘the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is
the increase of the number of its inhabitants.’ As Livi-Bacci observes, ‘All things
being equal, population increase is followed by increased per capita production.’
So the proposed ‘benefits’ of population decline are, at the very least, suspect. In
addition, there are worrying potential costs of population decline. Of course, this
worry is theoretical because we’ve never seen population decline on the massive
scale that’s coming our way. Or rather, we’ve never seen it in the modem world.

F. There are, however, two historical examples. Between 400 BC and AD 1, world
population increased from about 153 million to 252 million. For the next 200
years, growth slowed almost to a halt. Then, between AD 200 and AD 600, the
population shrank from 257 million to 208 million. It took an additional 400 years
for the population to recover to the level it had attained in AD 1.
The other drop in population occurred between 1340 and 1400, when the Black
Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history, ravaged the world.
Global population fell from 442 million to 375 million. Neither of these drops was
a particularly pleasant period in human history. Or, as Canadian journalist Mark
Steyn notes in America Alone, Them is no precedent in human history for
economic growth on declining human capital.’
It is impossible to anticipate with certainty the effects of population decline. But
there is good mason to believe it will be bad for us. Innovation will suffer as the
demand for nearly everything slackens. Instead of producing windfalls of excess
supply, economies will probably contract. As Livi-Bacci observes, ‘Historically,
areas depopulated or in the process of losing population have almost always
been characterized by backward economies.’
The real question therefore is whether or not falling populations will lead to the
demise of civilization as we know it.
Questions 20 - 22
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.
20 Boserup’s ideas explain why overall, the world can have a food ......................
while some areas do not have enough.
21 In the last 100 years or so, ....................... has led to a more efficient use of
resources.
22 Adam Smith argued that a country’s ........................... is caused by a growth In
population.

Questions 23 and 24
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading
Passage 2?
A The availability of food is greater now than previously.
B A decrease in population will lead to a higher standard of education.
C Smaller populations result in higher wages.
D Cities will become overcrowded if they are unsuitably located.
E People have moved from rural areas to urban centres.

Questions 25 and 26
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO claims does the writer make about future population decline?
A Recovery may take at least 400 years.
B It may be caused by disease.
C It might mean a decrease in the number of new ideas.
D There may be an overabundance of food as a result.
E It could result in economies becoming smaller.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 on pages 9 and 10.

The lost animals of Australia

The history of Australia’s animals over years ago, the increased aridity would
the past 50,000 years has been largely seem to be the more likely cause.
one of extinction. The time has been too
Before these extinctions, Australia
short for new species of large animals to
was a very different place. Naturally
evolve and, over this period, nearly one-
occurring fires were probably less
third of Australia’s mammal species
frequent than they are now, because
have become extinct, along with nearly
large marsupial herbivores (of which
all the large reptiles and many of the
there were about forty species) reduced
flightless birds. The cause of these
the standing crop of vegetation.
extinctions is still hotly debated. One
Rainforest plants were widespread in
school of thought suggests that humans
the parts of Australia which are now very
caused the extinctions, and another that
dry. The largest marsupial species was
they were due to changes in climate.
the diprotodon, which, like other
The greatest problem in evaluating
Australian marsupial giants, was about
these theories is that we do not know
one-third the weight of its ecological
exactly when these animals became
equivalent elsewhere. It probably
extinct. Fossils from a number of well-
weighed between 1,000 and 2,000
dated cave and lakeside sites suggest
kilograms, while the elephant of Afro-
that all the now-extinct species had
Asia weighed about
already vanished 35,000 years ago, but
5,0 kilograms. The relatively small
a few other sites suggest that giant
size of the Australian marsupial giants
marsupialsYnight have survived until
has been attributed to Australia’s
25.0 years ago, or even as late as
extraordinarily poor soils and erratic
6.0 years ago.
climate, both factors which typically limit
One certainty is that Australia’s plant growth.
climate has changed greatly over the
Judging by the teeth of extinct
past 40,000 years. Between 25,000 and
species, there were many specialist
15,000 years ago, the sea level dropped
grazers and browsers, paralleling the
by more than 100 metres and the
great mammal communities of Africa
continent experienced an extremely arid
today. But the Australian carnivores
phase. Clearly, the timing of the
were very different to their African
extinctions is of critical importance. If
equivalents. For example, the Australian
they can be shown to coincide with the
marsupial lion was only about the size of
arrival of humans, about 50,000 years
a leopard; there was no equivalent of
ago, then circumstantial evidence would
the large group of cat- and dog-like
point to humans as the cause. If,
carnivores of Africa. The
however, the
giant marsupials survived until 25,000

* marsupial: a type of mammal which carries

its young in a pouch
marsupial lion was Australia’s only cat-
like species; there was one dog-like
species, the thylocine, which vanished
from mainland Australia about 3,000
years ago, but seems to have survived
on the Australian island of Tasmania
until the 1930s, and one
scavenger/carnivore, the Tasmanian
devil. The larger Australian carnivores
were all reptiles. The largest of these,
the gigantic snakes of the genus
Wonambi, were more than 8 metres
long, and together with the 7-metre
goanna and the 3-metre land crocodile,
were the main predators. There were
never vast numbers of most species.
Large, warm-blooded creatures were at
a disadvantage, their prey being limited
by the nature of the soil and the climate.
The cold-blooded reptilian carnivores,
which required less energy, were
therefore able to dominate.
There is strong evidence to support
the theory that humans were responsible
for the decline of large animals in
Australia. In their Afro- Eurasian
homeland, humans were medium-sized
members of a very large community of
carnivores and omnivores. But by 40,000
years ago, they were taking a very broad
range of prey, including mammals much
larger than themselves. Studies have
shown that when humans or other
predators arrive in areas where there
have previously been no ecologically
equivalent species, they invariably have
a profound impact. For example, over
the past 1,000 years, Polynesians in
Hawaii have destroyed more than 70%
of the bird species, and, during the
1800s, hunters on islands close to
Antarctica severely depleted many seal
species.
Australian animals were particularly
vulnerable to the impact of humans.
Marsupial herbivores were adapted only
to avoiding predation by large but
relatively unintelligent reptiles, while
humans are the most efficient predators
that have ever existed. From the
mountain rainforests to the desert
centre, eftinctions emptied landscape
after landscape, until finally the largest
surviving mammals were humans
themselves. Medium-sized animal
species weighing between 10 and 100
kilograms either also became extinct or
became smaller over thousands of
years. Grey kangaroos are now only half
the size they once were, while koalas
and Tasmanian devils weigh, on
average, one-third less than they once
did.
In general, in Australia, the larger the
species, the more it has reduced in size,
with the exception of humans and
wombats; the latter may have been
protected by their burrowing habits. This
shrinking may also be attributable to
human hunting practices. If hunters
claimed the largest individuals of these
species, fast-maturing small specimens
would have been more likely to survive
to maturity.
Increasingly, they would have produced
smaller offspring. Only the smallest
mammals, those weighing less than 10
kilograms, survived unaltered, although
some may have been restricted to a
smaller number of areas. This extinction
pattern changed with the arrival of
Europeans towards the end of the 18th
century. As a result of this, a large
number of smaller species also became
extinct over the course of the following
century, together with 21 medium-sized
mammals and one large mammal
species.
Questions 27 - 32
Choose the correct letter, A, B, c or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
27 The writer states that it is difficult to decide why prehistoric Australian animals became
extinct because
A relevant fossils are scarce.
B fossil evidence has been destroyed,
c the evidence is somewhat contradictory.
D there has not been enough time to carry out research.
28 The writer suggests that Australia’s larger mammals were smaller than those of Africa
and Asia because
A there was an insufficient supply of food.
B the country was covered with thick forest, c smaller animals
escaped predators more easily.
D they had difficulty digesting the available food.
29 According to the writer, large Australian carnivores were mostly reptiles because
A mammals were less skilful at hunting.
B reptiles had faster breeding rates,
c reptiles were more suited to the environment.
D mammals had to compete for territory.
30 According to the writer, the effect of the first humans in Australia was particularly great
because Australian animals
A were slow and awkward.
B had skins that could be used for severalpurposes,
c had little experience in escaping from such skilful hunters.
D were attracted towards human settlements because of the food available
there.
31 What, according to the writer, does the wombat have in common with humans?
A Its size has remained the same.
B Its diet was similar to the human diet,
c It made shelters to protect itself.
D It was able to evade reptiles easily.
32 The writer suggests that Australian mammals have become smaller because
A they were able to live underground.
B they were vulnerable to human diseases, c bigger
examples of the species were killed.
D their territories expanded in size.
Questions 33 - 36
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below. Write the correct letter, A-F, in
boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet

A is due to the fact that not enough time has passed.

B is evidenced by the remains of their teeth.
C is responsible for the disappearance of habitat.
D is often responsible for a significant number of extinctions. E is
theoretically based on a large herbivore population.
F is a crucial factor that has yet to be resolved.
33 The failure of a new species of large mammals to evolve
34 The extinction date of the large Australian animals
35 A reduction in the number of forest fires
36 The arrival of humans in a previously uninhabited area

Questions 37 - 40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 37-40 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
37 Mass extinction in Australia was limited to giant mammals.
38 Australia’s climate became cooler about 50,000 years ago.
39 The wonambi snake was the biggest Australian carnivore.
40 Europeans caused the extinction of some smaller Australian mammals.
 VOL 2 TEST 1

The Development of Exploration and The lost animals of Australia

Scientific Research in Antarctica 27. c
1. TRUE 28. A
2. TRUE 29. c
3. FALSE 30. c
4. NOT GIVEN 31. A
5. FALSE 32. c
6. TRUE 33. A
7. ships 34. F
8. tax 35. E
9. sun 36. D
10. weather 37. NO
11. tractors 38. NOT GIVEN
12. ice 39. YES
13. Treaty 40. YES

Effects of changes in world population

14. iii
15. i
16. vi
17. ii
18. V
19. vii
20. surplus
21. innovation
22. prosperity
23. A
24. E
25. C
26. E