READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Mungo Lady and Mungo Man
Controversies in Australian Prehistory
Fifty thousand years ago, a lush landscape greeted the first Australians moving towards the south-east of the continent. Temperatures were cooler than now. Megafauna—giant prehistoric animals such as marsupial lions and the rhinoceros-sized diprotodon—were abundant. Freshwater lakes in areas of western New South Wales (NSW) were brimming with fish. But change was coming. By 40,000 years ago, water levels had started to drop.
A study of the sediments and graves of Lake Mungo, a dry lake bed in western NSW, has uncovered the muddy layers deposited as the lake began to dry up. Forty thousand years ago, families took refuge at the lake from the encroaching desert, leaving artefacts such as stone tools, which researchers used to determine that the first wanderers came to the area between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago. By 20,000 years ago, the lake had become the dry, dusty hole it is today. This area was first examined by the University of Melbourne geologist Professor Jim Bowler in 1969. He was searching for ancient lakes and came across the remains of a woman who had been buried with some ceremony; she was given the name Mungo Lady. In 1974, he found a second set of remains, Mungo Man, buried 300 metres away. Bowler's comprehensive study of different sediment layers has concluded that both graves are 40,000 years old.
This is much younger than the 62,000 years Mungo Man was attributed with in 1999 by a team led by Professor Alan Thorne, of the Australian National University. Thorne is the country's leading opponent of the 'Out of Africa' theory—that modern humans spread around the globe from Africa about 100,000 years ago. The revision of Mungo Man's age has refocused attention on academic disputes about mankind's origins.
The arrival date of these early Australians is linked to another vexed question: the reason for the disappearance of the megafauna. Dr Tim Flannery, a proponent of the controversial theory that these animals were wiped out by the extreme hunting practices of humans, claims that the new Mungo dates support this view. For Bowler, however, these debates are speculative distractions. At 40,000 years old, he argues, Mungo Man and Mungo Lady remain Australia's oldest human burials and the earliest evidence on Earth of cultural sophistication. 'At Lake Mungo, we have a cameo of people reacting to environmental change. It is one of the great stories of the people of the world.'
Two rival groups of researchers have each attacked the techniques used by the other to ascertain the date of Mungo Man. In the 1999 study, Thorne's team used three techniques to date Mungo Man—bone, tooth enamel and sand. Bowler has strongly challenged the results ever since. Dating human bones is 'notoriously unreliable', he says. In addition, the sand sample used by Thorne's group was taken hundreds of metres from the burial site. Bowler has stated that it is not difficult 'to realise that the age of sand is not the same as the age of the grave'. He says his team's results are based on careful fieldwork, crosschecked between four laboratories, while Thorne's team misinterpreted the evidence, 'locked in a laboratory in Canberra'. Thorne counters that Bowler's team used one dating technique, while his used three. Best practice is to have at least two methods producing the same result. A Thorne team member, Professor Rainer Grün, says the fact that the latest results were consistent between laboratories doesn't mean they are correct. 'We now have two data sets that are contradictory. I do not have a plausible explanation.'
Thorne recently made headlines with a study of Mungo Man's DNA, which he claimed supported his idea that modern humans developed from archaic humans in several places around the world, rather than emerging from Africa a relatively short time ago. Now, however, Thorne says the age of Mungo Man is irrelevant. Recent fossil finds show that modern humans were in China 110,000 years ago. 'So he has a long time to arrive in Australia. It doesn't matter if he is 40,000 or 60,000 years old.'
In 2001, a member of Bowler's team, Dr Richard Roberts of Wollongong University, along with Flannery, Director of the South Australian Museum, published research on the extinction of the megafauna. They dated 28 sites across the continent, arguing that their analysis showed that the megafauna died out suddenly 46,600 years ago. This conclusion has been challenged by other scientists, including Dr Judith Field of the University of Sydney and Dr Richard Fullager of the Australian Museum, who point to the presence of megafauna fossils at the 36,000-year-old Cuddie Springs site in NSW.
Flannery praises the Bowler team's research as thorough and rigorous. He says the finding that humans arrived at Lake Mungo between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago supports the idea that that was a critical time in Australia's history. There is no evidence of a dramatic climate change at that time, he says. 'It's my view that humans arrived and megafauna extinction took place in almost the same geological instant.' Bowler, however, is sceptical of Flannery's theory about the disappearance of the giant animals. He argues that climate change 40,000 years ago was more intense than has been previously realised and could have played an important role in their extinction.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Bovids
A
The family of mammals called bovids belongs to the Artiodactyl class, which also includes giraffes. Bovids are a highly diverse group consisting of 137 species, some of which are man’s most important domestic animals.
B
Bovids are well represented in most parts of Eurasia and Southeast Asian islands, but they are by far the most numerous and diverse in the latter Some species of bovid are solitary, but others live in large groups with complex social structures. Although bovids have adapted to a wide range of habitats, from arctic tundra to deep tropical forest, the majority of species favour open grassland, scrub or desert. This diversity of habitat is also matched by great diversity in size and form: at one extreme is the royal antelope of West Africa, which stands a mere 25 cm at the shoulder; at the other, the massively built bison of North America and Europe, growing to a shoulder height of 2.2m.
C
Despite differences in size and appearance, bovids are united by the possession of certain common features. All species are ruminants, which means that they retain undigested food in their stomachs, and regurgitate it as necessary. Bovids are almost exclusively herbivorous: plant-eating “incisors: front teeth herbivorous”.
D
Typically their teeth are highly modified for browsing and grazing: grass or foliage is cropped with the upper lip and lower incisors (the upper incisors are usually absent), and then ground down by the cheek teeth. As well as having cloven, or split, hooves, the males of ail bovid species and the females of most carry horns. Bovid horns have bony cores covered in a sheath of horny material that is constantly renewed from within; they are unbranched and never shed. They vary in shape and size: the relatively simple horns of a large Indian buffalo may measure around 4 m from tip to tip along the outer curve, while the various gazelles have horns with a variety of elegant curves.
E
Five groups, or sub-families, may be distinguished: Bovinae, Antelope, Caprinae, Cephalophinae and Antilocapridae. The sub-family Bovinae comprises most of the larger bovids, including the African bongo, and nilgae, eland, bison and cattle. Unlike most other bovids they are all non-territorial. The ancestors of the various species of domestic cattle banteng, gaur, yak and water buffalo are generally rare and endangered in the wild, while the auroch (the ancestor of the domestic cattle of Europe) is extinct.
F
The term ‘antelope is not a very precise zoological name – it is used to loosely describe a number of bovids that have followed different lines of development. Antelopes are typically long-legged, fast-running species, often with long horns that may be laid along the back when the animal is in full flight. There are two main sub-groups of antelope: Hippotraginae, which includes the oryx and the addax, and Antilopinae, which generally contains slighter and more graceful animals such as gazelle and the springbok. Antelopes are mainly grassland species, but many have adapted to flooded grasslands: pukus, waterbucks and lechwes are all good at swimming, usually feeding in deep water, while the sitatunga has long, splayed hooves that enable it to walk freely on swampy ground.
G
The sub-family Caprinae includes the sheep and the goat, together with various relatives such as the goral and the tahr. Most are woolly or have long hair. Several species, such as wild goats, chamois and ibex, are agile cliff – and mountain-dwellers. Tolerance of extreme conditions is most marked in this group: Barbary and bighorn sheep have adapted to arid deserts, while Rocky Mountain sheep survive high up in mountains and musk oxen in arctic tundra.
H
The duiker of Africa belongs to the Cephalophinae sub-family. It is generally small and solitary, often living in thick forest. Although mainly feeding on grass and leaves, some duikers – unlike most other bovids – are believed to eat insects and feed on dead animal carcasses, and even to kill small animals.
I
The pronghorn is the sole survivor of a New World sub-family of herbivorous ruminants, the Antilocapridae in North America. It is similar in appearance and habits to the Old World antelope. Although greatly reduced in numbers since the arrival of Europeans, and the subsequent enclosure of grasslands, the pronghorn is still found in considerable numbers throughout North America, from Washington State to Mexico. When alarmed by the approach of wolves or other predators, hairs on the pronghorn’s rump stand erect, so showing and emphasizing the white patch there. At this signal, the whole herd gallops off at speed of over 60 km per hour.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Jacob and Wilhelm, named their story collection Children’s and Household Tales and published the first of its seven editions in Germany in 1812. The table of contents reads like an A-list of fairy-tale celebrities: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, the Frog King. Drawn mostly from oral narratives, the 210 stories in die Grimm’s’ collection represent an anthology of fairy tales, animal fables, rustic farces, and religious allegories that remain unrivalled to this day.
Such lasting fame would have shocked the humble Grimms. During their lifetimes the collection sold modestly in Germany, at first only a few hundred copies a year. The early editions were not even aimed at children. The brothers initially refused to consider illustrations, and scholarly footnotes took up almost as much space as the tales themselves. Jacob and Wilhelm viewed themselves as patriotic folklorists, not as entertainers of children. They began their work at a time when Germany had been overrun by the French under Napoleon, who was intent on suppressing local culture. As young, workaholic scholars, single and sharing a cramped flat, the Brothers Grimm undertook the fairy-tale collection with the goal of serving the endangered oral tradition of Germany.
For much of the 19th century teachers, parents, and religious figures, particularly in the United States, deplored the Grimms’ collection for its raw, uncivilized content. Offended adults objected to the gruesome punishments inflicted on the stories’ villains. In the original “Snow White” the evil stepmother is forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she falls down dead. Even today some protective parents shy from the Grimms’ tales because of their reputation for violence.
Despite its sometimes rocky reception, Children’s and Household Tales gradually took root with the public. The brothers had not foreseen that the appearance of their work would coincide with a great flowering of children’s literature in Europe. English publishers led the way, issuing high-quality picture books such as Jack and the Beanstalk and handsome folktale collections, all to satisfy a newly literate audience seeking virtuous material for the nursery. Once the Brothers Grimm sighted this new public, they set about refining and softening their tales, which had originated centuries earlier as earthy peasant fare. In the Grimms’ hands, cruel mothers became nasty stepmothers, unmarried lovers were made chaste, and the incestuous father was recast as the devil.
In the 20th century the Grimms’ fairy tales have come to rule the bookshelves of children’s bedrooms. The stories read like dreams come true: handsome lads and beautiful damsels, armed with magic, triumph over giants and witches and wild beasts. They outwit mean, selfish adults. Inevitably the boy and girl fall in love and live happily ever after. And parents keep reading because they approve of the finger-wagging lessons inserted into the stories: keep your promises, don’t talk to strangers, work hard, obey your parents. According to the Grimms, the collection served as “a manual of manners”.
Altogether some 40 persons delivered tales to the Grimms. Many of the storytellers came to the Grimms’ house in Kassel. The brothers particularly welcomed the visits of Dorothea Viehmann, a widow who walked to town to sell produce from her garden. An innkeeper daughter, Viehmann had grown up listening to stories from travellers on the road to Frankfurt. Among her treasure was “Aschenputtel” -Cinderella. Marie Hassenpflug was a 20-year-old friend of their sister, Charlotte, from a well-bred, French-speaking family. Marie’s wonderful stories blended motifs from the oral tradition and from Perrault’s influential 1697 book, Tales of My Mother Goose, which contained elaborate versions of “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Snow White”, and “Sleeping Beauty”, among others. Many of these had been adapted from earlier Italian tales.
Given that the origins of many of the Grimm fairy tales reach throughout Europe and into the Middle East and Orient, the question must be asked: How German are the Grimm tales? Very, says scholar Heinz Rolleke. Love of the underdog, rustic simplicity, creative energy—these are Teutonic traits. The coarse texture of life during medieval times in Germany, when many of the tales entered the oral tradition, also coloured the narratives. Throughout Europe, children were often neglected and abandoned, like Hansel and Gretel. Accused witches were burned at the stake, like the evil mother-in-law in “The Six Swans”. “The cruelty in the stories was not the Grimm’s fantasy”, Rolleke points out” It reflected the law-and-order system of the old times”.
The editorial fingerprints left by the Grimms betray the specific values of 19th-century Christian, bourgeois German society. But that has not stopped the tales from being embraced by almost every culture and nationality in the world. What accounts for this widespread, enduring popularity? Bernhard Lauer points to the “universal style” of the writing, you have no concrete descriptions of the land, or the clothes, or the forest, or the castles. It makes the stories timeless and placeless,” The tales allow us to express ‘our utopian longings’,” says Jack Zipes of the University of Minnesota, whose 1987 translation of the complete fairy tales captures the rustic vigour of the original text. They show a striving for happiness that none of us knows but that we sense is possible. We can identify with the heroes of the tales and become in our mind the masters and mistresses of our own destinies.”
Fairy tales provide a workout for the unconscious, psychoanalysts maintain. Bruno Bettelheim famously promoted the therapeutic of the Grimms’ stories, calling fairy tales the “great comforters. By confronting fears and phobias, symbolized by witches, heartless stepmothers, and hungry wolves, children find they can master their anxieties. Bettelheim’s theory continues to be hotly debated. But most young readers aren’t interested in exercising their unconsciousness. The Grimm tales, in fact, please in an infinite number of ways, something about them seems to mirror whatever moods or interests we bring to our reading of them. The flexibility of interpretation suits them for almost any time and any culture.
Part 1
Questions 1-8
Look at the following theories (Questions 1-8) and the list of researchers below.
|
List of Researchers A Jim Bowler |
Match each theory with the correct researcher(s), A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1 Our human ancestors did not originate in only one area.
2 The extinction of the megafauna happened within a brief period.
3 The megafauna died out as a result of human activity.
4 The similarity of results does not always guarantee their validity.
5 How old Mungo Man is, is unimportant.
6 There is evidence to disprove the theory of mass megafauna extinction.
7 An extreme environmental change occurred at the time that humans first moved into the Lake Mungo area.
8 The earliest evidence of advanced human culture is found in Australia.
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 agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
9
Objects found in the Lake Mungo area were used to date the arrival of humans.
10
Ancient weapons were found in the Lake Mungo area.
11
Scientists agree about the age of Mungo Man.
12
Thorne's research involved analysing more than one material.
13
Bowler has criticised the research methods used by Thorne.
Part 2
Questions 14-16
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet.
Questions 17-21
Look at the following characteristics (Questions 17-21) and the list of sub-families below.
Match each characteristic with the correct sub-family, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 17-21 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
|
List of sub-families A Antelope B Bovinae C Caprinae D Cephalophinae |
17 can endure very harsh environments
18 includes the ox and the cow
19 may supplement its diet with meat
20 can usually move a speed
21 does not defend a particular area of land
Questions 22-26
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.
22 What is the smallest species of Bovid called?
22
23 Which species of Bovinae hos now died out?
23
24 What facilitates the movement of the sitatunga over wetland?
24
25 What sort of terrain do barbary sheep live in?
25
26 What is the only living member of the Antilocapridae sub-family?
26
Part 3
Questions 27-32
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-6 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
27 The Grimm brothers believed they would achieve international fame.
28 The Grimm brothers were forced to work in secret.
29 Some parents today still think Grimm fairy tales are not suitable for children.
30 The first edition of Grimm’s fairy tales sold more widely in England than in Germany.
31 Adults like reading Grimm’s fairy tales for reasons different from those of children.
32 The Grimm brothers based the story “Cinderella” on the life of Dorothea Viehmann
Questions 33-35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
Questions 36-40
Choose the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.
|
A. reflect what life was like at that time B. help children deal with their problems C. demonstrate the outdated system D. tell of the simplicity of life in the German countryside E. encourage people to believe that they can do anything F. recognize the heroes in the real life G. contribute to the belief in nature power H. avoid details about characters’ social settings |
36 Heinz Rolleke said the Grimm’s tales are “German” because the tales 36
37 Heinz Rolleke said the abandoned children in tales 37
38 Bernhard Lauer said the writing style of the Grimm brothers is universal because they 38
39 Jack Zipes said the pursuit of happiness in the tales means they 39
40 Bruno Bettelheim said the therapeutic value of the tales means that the fairy tales 40