READING PASSAGE 1
The students’ problem
(A) The college and university
accommodation crisis in Ireland has become ‘so chronic’ that students are being
forced to sleep rough, share a bed with strangers – or give up on studying
altogether.
(B) The deputy president of the Union of
Students in Ireland, Kevin Donoghue, said the problem has become particularly
acute in Dublin. He told the Irish Mirror: “Students are so desperate, they’re
not just paying through the nose to share rooms – they’re paying to share a bed
with complete strangers. It reached crisis point last year and it’s only
getting worse. “We’ve heard of students sleeping rough; on sofas, floors and in
their cars and I have to stress there’s no student in the country that hasn’t
been touched by this crisis. “Commutes – which would once have been considered
ridiculous – are now normal, whether that’s by bus, train or car and those who
drive often end up sleeping in their car if they’ve an early start the next
morning.”
(C) Worry is increasing over the
problems facing Ireland's 200,000 students as the number increases over the
next 15 years. With 165,000 full-time students in Ireland – and that figure
expected to increase to around 200,000 within the next 15 years –fears remain
that there aren’t enough properties to accommodate current numbers.
(D) Mr. Donoghue added: “The lack of
places to live is actually forcing school-leavers out of college altogether.
Either they don’t go in the first place or end up having to drop out because
they can’t get a room and commuting is just too expensive, stressful and
difficult.”
(E) Claims have emerged from the country
that some students have been forced to sleep in cars, or out on the streets,
because of the enormous increases to rent in the capital. Those who have been
lucky enough to find a place to live have had to do so ‘blind’ by paying for
accommodation, months in advance, they haven’t even seen just so they will have
a roof over their head over the coming year.
(F) According to the Irish Independent,
it’s the ‘Google effect’ which is to blame. As Google and other blue-chip
companies open offices in and around Dublin’s docklands area, which are ‘on the
doorstep of the city’, international professionals have been flocking to the
area which will boast 2,600 more apartments, on 50 acres of undeveloped land,
over the next three to 10 years.
(G) Rent in the area soared by 15 per
cent last year and a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the Grand Canal costs
€2,100 (£1,500) per month to rent. Another two-bedroom apartment at Hanover
Dock costs €2,350 (almost £1,700) with a three-bedroom penthouse – measuring
some 136 square metres – sits at €4,500 (£3,200) per month in rent.
(H) Ireland’s Higher Education Authority
admitted this was the first time they had seen circumstances ‘so extreme’ and
the Fianna Fáil party leader, Michael Martin, urged on the Government to
intervene. He said: “It is very worrying that all of the progress in opening up
access to higher education in the last decade – particularly for the working
poor – is being derailed because of an entirely foreseeable accommodation
crisis.
Questions 1-8
Reading Passage 1 has eight
paragraphs, A–H.
Choose the most suitable paragraph headings
from the list of headings and write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 1–8
on your answer sheet.
1. Cons of the commuting
2. Thing that students have to go
through
3. Commutes have become common in
Ireland nowadays
4. Danger of the overflow
5. Cause of the problems
6. Pricing data
7. Regression
8. Eyeless choice
Questions 9–14
Do the following statements agree with the
information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 9–14 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. The accommodation problem in Ireland
is especially bad in Dublin.
10. Commutes are considered
ridiculous.
11. The number of students in Ireland is
not likely to increase in the future.
12. Due to the opening of the new
offices around Dublin, the number of local restaurants will go up significantly
over the next 3 to 10 years.
13. The rent price went up by 15% last
year.
14. Michael Martin stated that crisis
could have been omitted if the government reacted properly.
READING PASSAGE 2
The science of sleep
We
spend a third of our lives doing it. Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and
Margaret Thatcher got by on four hours a night. Thomas Edison claimed it was
waste of time.
So why
do we sleep? This is a question that has baffled scientists for centuries and
the answer is, no one is really sure. Some believe that sleep gives the body a
chance to recuperate from the day's activities but in reality, the amount of
energy saved by sleeping for even eight hours is miniscule - about 50 kCal, the
same amount of energy in a piece of toast.
With
continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls
language, memory, planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically
shutting down. In fact, 17 hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease
in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of
wine). This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK.
Research also shows that sleep-deprived
individuals often have difficulty in responding to rapidly changing situations
and making rational judgements. In real life situations, the consequences are
grave and lack of sleep is said to have been be a contributory factor to a
number of international disasters such as Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl,
Three Mile Island and the Challenger shuttle explosion.
Sleep
deprivation not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on
emotional and physical health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which result in
excessive daytime sleepiness have been linked to stress and high blood
pressure. Research has also suggested that sleep loss may increase the risk of
obesity because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in controlling
appetite and weight gain are released during sleep.
What
happens when we sleep?
What
happens every time we get a bit of shut eye? Sleep occurs in a recurring cycle
of 90 to 110 minutes and is divided into two categories: non-REM (which is
further split into four stages) and REM sleep.
Non-REM sleep
Stage
one: Light Sleep
During
the first stage of sleep, we're half awake and half asleep. Our muscle activity
slows down and slight twitching may occur. This is a period of light sleep,
meaning we can be awakened easily at this stage.
Stage
two: True Sleep
Within
ten minutes of light sleep, we enter stage two, which lasts around 20 minutes.
The breathing pattern and heart rate start to slow down. This period accounts
for the largest part of human sleep.
Stages
three and four: Deep Sleep
During
stage three, the brain begins to produce delta waves, a type of wave that is
large (high amplitude) and slow (low frequency). Breathing and heart rate are
at their lowest levels.
Stage
four is characterised by rhythmic breathing and limited muscle activity. If we
are awakened during deep sleep we do not adjust immediately and often feel
groggy and disoriented for several minutes after waking up. Some children
experience bed-wetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during this stage.
REM
sleep
The
first rapid eye movement (REM) period usually begins about 70 to 90 minutes
after we fall asleep. We have around three to five REM episodes a night.
Although we are not conscious, the brain is
very active - often more so than when we are awake. This is the period when
most dreams occur. Our eyes dart around (hence the name), our breathing rate
and blood pressure rise. However, our bodies are effectively paralysed, said to
be nature's way of preventing us from acting out our dreams.
After
REM sleep, the whole cycle begins again.
How
much sleep is required?
There
is no set amount of time that everyone needs to sleep, since it varies from
person to person. Results from the sleep profiler indicate that people like to
sleep anywhere between 5 and 11 hours, with the average being 7.75 hours.
Jim
Horne from Loughborough University's Sleep Research Centre has a simple answer
though: "The amount of sleep we require is what we need not to be sleepy
in the daytime."
Even
animals require varied amounts of sleep:
Species
|
Average total sleep time per day
|
Python
|
18 hrs
|
Tiger
|
15.8 hrs
|
Cat
|
12.1 hrs
|
Chimpanzee
|
9.7 hrs
|
Sheep
|
3.8 hrs
|
African elephant
|
3.3 hrs
|
Giraffe
|
1.9 hr
|
The
current world record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days, set by
Randy Gardner in 1965. Four days into the research, he began hallucinating.
This was followed by a delusion where he thought he was a famous footballer.
Surprisingly, Randy was actually functioning quite well at the end of his
research and he could still beat the scientist at pinball.
Questions 15–22
Do the following statements agree with the
information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 15–22 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
15. Thomas Edison slept 4 hours a
night.
16. Scientists don't have a certain
answer for why we have to sleep.
17. Lack of sleep might cause various
problems.
18. Sleep-deprivation may be the cause
of anorexia.
19. There are four stages of the REM
sleep.
20. According to Jim Horne, we need to
sleep as much as it takes to not be sleepy during the day.
21. Giraffes require less sleep than
dogs.
22. After four sleepless days, Randy had
a delusion about him being a football celebrity.
Questions 23–27
Choose the correct letter, A, B,
C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 23–27 on
your answer sheet.
23. During the Light Sleep stage:
Muscle
activity increases
Jiggling
might occur
It is not
easy to be woken up
After
waking up, one may experience slight disorientation
24. Heart rate is at the lowest level
during:
Light Sleep
stage
Rem Sleep
True Sleep
stage
Third Sleep
stage
25. The brain activity is really high:
During REM
sleep
During the
stage of True Sleep
When we are
awake
During the
Deep sleep stage
26. Humans require at least:
7.75 hours
of sleep
5 hours of
sleep
8 hours
There is no
set amount of time
27. Pythons need:
Less sleep
than tigers
Twice as
much sleep as cats
Almost ten
times more sleep than giraffes
More sleep
than any other animal in the world
Questions 28–30
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from
the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 28–30 on your answer
sheet.
28. If we continually lack sleep, the
specific part of our brain that controls language, is .
29. True Sleep lasts approximately .
30. Although during REM sleep our
breathing rate and blood pressure rise, our bodies .
READING PASSAGE 3
A new study finds that half of human cultures don't practice romantic
lip-on-lip kissing. Animals don't tend to bother either. So how did it evolve?
When
you think about it, kissing is strange and a bit icky. You share saliva with
someone, sometimes for a prolonged period of time. One kiss could pass on 80
million bacteria, not all of them good.
Yet
everyone surely remembers their first kiss, in all its embarrassing or
delightful detail, and kissing continues to play a big role in new romances.
At least,
it does in some societies. People in western societies may assume that romantic
kissing is a universal human behaviour, but a new analysis suggests that less
than half of all cultures actually do it. Kissing is also extremely rare in the
animal kingdom.
So
what's really behind this odd behaviour? If it is useful, why don't all animals
do it – and all humans too? It turns out that the very fact that most animals
don't kiss helps explain why some do.
According to a new study of kissing
preferences, which looked at 168 cultures from around the world, only 46% of
cultures kiss in the romantic sense.
Previous estimates had put the figure at 90%.
The new study excluded parents kissing their children, and focused solely on
romantic lip-on-lip action between couples.
Many
hunter-gatherer groups showed no evidence of kissing or desire to do so. Some
even considered it revolting. The Mehinaku tribe in Brazil reportedly said it
was "gross". Given that hunter-gatherer groups are the closest modern
humans get to living our ancestral lifestyle, our ancestors may not have been
kissing either.
The
study overturns the belief that romantic kissing is a near-universal human
behaviour, says lead author William Jankowiak of the University of Nevada in
Las Vegas. Instead it seems to be a product of western societies, passed on
from one generation to the next, he says. There is some historical evidence to
back that up.
Kissing as we do it today seems to be a fairly
recent invention, says Rafael Wlodarski of the University of Oxford in the UK.
He has trawled through records to find evidence of how kissing has changed. The
oldest evidence of a kissing-type behaviour comes from Hindu Vedic Sanskrit
texts from over 3,500 years ago. Kissing was described as inhaling each other's
soul.
In
contrast, Egyptian hieroglyphics picture people close to each other rather than
pressing their lips together.
So
what is going on? Is kissing something we do naturally, but that some cultures
have suppressed? Or is it something modern humans have invented?
We can
find some insight by looking at animals.
Our
closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, do kiss. Primatologist Frans de
Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has seen many instances of chimps
kissing and hugging after conflict.
For
chimpanzees, kissing is a form of reconciliation. It is more common among males
than females. In other words, it is not a romantic behaviour.
Their
cousins the bonobos kiss more often, and they often use tongues while doing so.
That's perhaps not surprising, because bonobos are highly sexual beings.
When
two humans meet, we might shake hands. Bonobos have sex: the so-called bonobo
handshake. They also use sex for many other kinds of bonding. So their kisses
are not particularly romantic, either.
These
two apes are exceptions. As far as we know, other animals do not kiss at all.
They may nuzzle or touch their faces together, but even those that have lips
don't share saliva or purse and smack their lips together. They don't need to.
Take
wild boars. Males produce a pungent smell that females find extremely
attractive. The key chemical is a pheromone called androstenone that triggers
the females' desire to mate.
From a
female's point of view this is a good thing, because males with the most androstonene
are also the most fertile. Her sense of smell is so acute, she doesn't need to
get close enough to kiss the male.
The
same is true of many other mammals. For example, female hamsters emit a
pheromone that gets males very excited. Mice follow similar chemical traces to
help them find partners that are genetically different, minimising the risk of
accidental incest.
Animals often release these pheromones in
their urine. "Their urine is much more pungent," says Wlodarski.
"If there's urine present in the environment they can assess compatibility
through that."
It's
not just mammals that have a great sense of smell. A male black widow spider
can smell pheromones produced by a female that tell him if she has recently
eaten. To minimise the risk of being eaten, he will only mate with her if she
is not hungry.
The
point is, animals do not need to get close to each other to smell out a good
potential mate.
On the
other hand, humans have an atrocious sense of smell, so we benefit from getting
close. Smell isn't the only cue we use to assess each other's fitness, but
studies have shown that it plays an important role in mate choice.
A study published in 1995 showed that women,
just like mice, prefer the smell of men who are genetically different from them.
This makes sense, as mating with someone with different genes is likely to
produce healthy offspring. Kissing is a great way to get close enough to sniff
out your partner's genes.
In
2013, Wlodarski examined kissing preferences in detail. He asked several
hundred people what was most important when kissing someone. How they smelled
featured highly, and the importance of smell increased when women were most
fertile.
It turns out that men also make a version of
the pheromone that female boars find attractive. It is present in male sweat,
and when women are exposed to it their arousal levels increase slightly.
Pheromones are a big part of how mammals chose
a mate, says Wlodarski, and we share some of them. "We've inherited all of
our biology from mammals, we've just added extra things through evolutionary
time."
On
that view, kissing is just a culturally acceptable way to get close enough to
another person to detect their pheromones.
In
some cultures, this sniffing behaviour turned into physical lip contact. It's
hard to pinpoint when this happened, but both serve the same purpose, says
Wlodarski.
So if
you want to find a perfect match, you could forego kissing and start smelling
people instead. You'll find just as good a partner, and you won't get half as
many germs. Be prepared for some funny looks, though.
Questions 31–35
Do the following statements agree with the
information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 31–35 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
31. Both Easter and Wester societies
presume that kissing is essential for any part of the world.
32. Our ancestors were not likely to
kiss.
33. Chimpanzees and bonbons kiss not for
the romance.
34. There are other animal, rather than
apes, that kiss.
35. Scent might be important in choosing
your partner.
Questions 36–39
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from
the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35–39 on your
answer sheet.
36. According to the Mehinaku tribe,
kissing is .
37. Human tradition is to when they meet.
38. A male black widow will mate with
the female if only she is .
39. Humans benefit from getting close
due to the fact that we have an of smell.
Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B,
C or D.
40. Passage 3 can be described as:
Strictly
scientific text
Historical
article
Article
from a magazine
Dystopian
sketch
Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers.
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