HANOI UNIVERSITY

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEST
------- ² ------- READING (VBA19-2 – 40’) – Final-term 4
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Mark Number

PART 1
The Romans Reveal their Secrets
As Katherine Sheen rested on the banks of Hensham river on 3 August 2005, her gaze fell upon a small,
dirt-covered object amongst a tangle of tree roots. Cleaning away the soil, the realised it was a leather
pouch. It fell apart as Katherine opened it, and the item inside fell to the ground. Although her university
degree had merely touched on the Roman occupation of ancient Britain, providing a very general
overview of everyday activities, once she’d rubbed off some of the dirt, Katherine immediately identified
the coins in her hand as coming from that era. Despite their discoloration, Katherine had no doubt they
were historically significant. As soon as she got home, she informed the police of her find.
That might have been the end of the story – except for the fact that the farmer who owned the adjacent
field then mentioned the lines of large stones his plough kept running into. By mid-August, with the
farmer’s permission, a team of archaeologists, led by Professor Kevin Durrand, were camped out in the
field. Durrand had previously worked on other projects, where pieces of ancient pottery and the discovery
of an old sword had led archaeologiests to unearth sizeable Roman settlements. He was keen to start
excavations at Hensham, and had got funding for a three-month dig. What his team eventually
discovered, three weeks into excavations, were the remains of the outer walls of a Roman villa. As many
Romans in Britain simply lived in wooden houses with thatched roofs, the family that occupied the villa
must have been very wealthy. As the team continued their work, they looked for evidence that might
indicate whether the villa had been attacked and purposely demolished, or fallen into such a poor state
that it eventually collapsed. Looking at the way a set of slate roof tiles had fallen to the ground, they
decided on the latter. What caused the noble Roman family and their servants to abandon the villa
remains open to speculation. Another find was six blue beads, crafted from glass, which the
archaeologists speculated were part of a necklace. Durrand has previously found gold bracelets on other
sites, but for him the beads are no less significant. ‘Every find contributes to the story,’ he says.
On the outer western wall, the archaeologists uncovered a number of foundation stones. On one is carved
what the archaeologists made out to be a Latin inscription. But as the stone itself has endured centuries of
erosion, the team has yet to work out what it says. Another find was a section of traditional Roman
mosaic. Although incomplete, enough pieces remain to show a geometrical pattern and stylised fish.
From this, Durrand assumes that a bath house would have been a feature of the villa. While his team have
so far not found any hard proof of this, Durrand is confident it will turn out to be the case.
Something that the team are particularly excited about is evidence of a heating system, which would have
served the Roman family and their visitors well in winter months. Although much of the system has long
since crumbled at Hensham, Durrand and his team believe it would have been based on a typical Roman
hypocaust; they have created a model for visitors to see. The furnace that produced the hot air needed to
be kept burning all the time, a task that would have fallen to the villa’s slaves. As large branches would
have taken too long to produce the heat required, it is more likely that twigs would have been gathered
from surrounding woodland instead. Another fuel source used in some Roman hypocausts was charcoal,
but evidence for this at Hensham has not presented itself. The underfloor space was made by setting the
floor on top of piles of square stones. Known as pilae, these stones stood approximately two feet high.
The gap this created meant that the hot air coming out of the furnace was not trapped and restricted.
Instead its distribution around the pilae and under the floor was free flowing. Floor tiles were not placed
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directly onto the pilae but separated by a layer of concrete, or at least a primitive version of it. This would
have made the whole structure more solid, and helped reduce the risk of fire spreading to upper levels.
The walls of the rooms above the heating system were made of bricks, but the key point here is that they
were hollow, in order to allow heat to rise around the rooms and provide insulation. Some have been
recovered from the Hensham villa and are now undergoing preservation treatment.
Another feature of the heating system that archaeologists have identified at Hensham was its clay pipes.
These were cleverly built into the wall so as not to take up space. The principal reason for including the
pipes was to let out air through a vent in the roof once it had cooled down. What the Romans may not
have realised, however, was that gas produced by the burning fuel was expelled in this way too. In high
doses, it could have been lethal if it had leaked into the upper levels. Inside the rooms in the villa, a layer
of plaster would have been applied to the walls and painted in rich colours. Sadly, none of the original
plaster at Hensham still exists. However, some of the tiles that the family would have walked on have
survived. They would certainly have felt warm underfoot and helped generate an indoor climate that the
family could relax in. In its day, the Hensham hypocaust would have been a remarkable piece of
engineering.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-you’re
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.   Katherine Sheen’s university course looked at Roman life in Britain only briefly.
2.   It was clear to Sheen that the contents of the leather pouch were financially valuable.
3.   Before excavations started, Kevin Durrand believed they would discover a Roman settlement.
4.   Durrand’s team eventually concluded that the villa had been deliberately destroyed.
5.   The blue beads would once have been owned by a Roman woman of high status.
6.   The archaeologists now understand the Roman writing on the foundation stone.
7.   In Durrand’s opinion, the mosaic strongly suggests that the villa contained a bath house.

Questions 8-13
Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

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PART 2
The Truth about Lying

A An area of scientific study that caught the public imagination during the 1970s involved a gorilla
called Koko. Animal psychologist Francine Patterson claimed to have taught Koko a simplified form of
American Sign Language, and through signing, Koko could apparently communicate basic ideas such as
‘food’ and ‘more’, as well as concepts such as ‘good’ and ‘sorry’. But Koko also used signs to blame
other people for damage she had caused herself. While today there is some dispute about whether Koko
truly understood the meaning of all the signs she made, Professor Karen Goodger believes she was
certainly capable of dishonesty. ‘People use words to lie, but for animals with higher brain functions,
there’s also a higher probability that they’ll demonstrate manipulative behaviours. We see this not just in
gorillas, but in other creatures with a large neocortex.’
B Human societies may appear to disapprove of lying, but that doesn’t mean we don’t all do it. And it
seems that the ability, or at least the desire to deceive, starts from an early age. In one study run by
psychologist Kang Lee, children were individually brought into a laboratory and asked to face a wall.
They were asked to guess what toy one of Lee’s fellow researchers had placed on a table behind them –
for example, a fluffy cat or dog. The researcher would then announce they had to leave the lab to take a
phone call, reminding the child not to turn around. The research team were well aware that many children
would be unable to resist peeking at the toy. Secret cameras showed that 30% of two-year-old children
lied about not looking. This went up to 50% for three-year-olds and almost 80% of eight-year-olds.
Interestingly, whereas the younger children simply named the toy and denied taking a peek, the older
ones came up with some interesting reasons to explain how they had identified the toy correctly. Lee is
reassured by this trend, seeing it as evidence in each case that the cognitive growth of a human child is
progressing as it should. Parents, of course, may not be so pleased.
C Adults, however, can hardly criticise children. According to Professor Richard Wiseman, it appears
that adults typically tell two major lies per day, and that one third of adult conversations contain an
element of dishonesty. Other research indicates that spouses lie in one out of every 10 interactions. This
probably comes as no surprise to Tali Sharot at University College London, who has run a series of
experiments proving we become desensitised to lying over time. She has found that while we might
initially experience a sense of shame about small lies, this feeling eventually wears off. The result, Sharot
has found, is that we progress to more serious ones.
D Other researchers, including Tim Levine at the University of Alabama, have analysed our motives for
lying. By far the most common is our desire to cover up our own wrongdoing. Second to this are lies we
tell to gain economic advantage – we might lie during an interview to increase the chances of getting a
job. Interestingly, ‘white lies’, the kind we tell to avoid hurting people’s feelings, account only for a small
percentage of our untruths. But if we recognise our own tendency to lie, why don’t we recognise it in
others? Professor Goodger thinks it has something to do with our strong desire for certain information we
hear to be true, even when we might suspect it isn’t. This is because we might be ‘comforted by other’s
lies or excited by the promise of a good outcome’, Goodger says.
E We might not expect ordinary people to be good at recognising lies, but what about people whose job
it is to investigate the behavior of others? Paul Ekman is a psychologist from the University of California.
As part of his research into deception, he has invited a range of experts to view videos of people telling
lies and of others telling the truth. Among the experts have been judges, psychiatrists and people who
operate polygraph machines for police investigations. None of these experts have shown they can detect
dishonesty any better than people without their experience. Part of the problem is that so many myths still
prevail about ‘give-away signs’ indicating that someone is lying.
F A common claim, for example, is that liars won’t look people in the eye during their explanations or
while being questions. Another is that they are likely to gesture as they tell their story, but so frequently
that is seems unnatural – as if they are trying to convince others of their sincerity. However, many
researchers have come to reject these ideas, suggesting a more effective approach is to listen to their
narration style. A difficulty that liars face is having to remember exactly what they said, which is why
they don’t provide as many details as a person giving an honest account would. It is also typical of liars to

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mentally rehearse their story, and this is why one stage follows another in apparently chronological
fashion. Honest stories, however, feature revisions and repetition. Recent research has also disproved the
widely believed notion that liars have a habit of fidgeting in their seats. Rather, it seems that they keep
still, especially in the upper body, possibly hoping to give the impression of self-assurance. Liars also put
some psychological distance between themselves and their lies. For that reason, they avoid the use of ‘I’
when narrating their stories. The reverse is true, however, when people write fake reviews of, say, a hotel
or restaurant. In these instances, ‘I’ features again and again as they attempt to convince us that their
experience was real.
Questions 14-18
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write
the correct letter, A-F, in boxed 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14. details regarding the frequency at which the average person tends to lie
15. a reference to an experiment testing the lie-detecting skills of various professional groups
16. an explanation of why people might frequently refer to themselves when lying
17. examples of the reasons why some people might choose to lie to others
18. a description of an experiment that gave participants the opportunity to lie

Questions 19-22
Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct
researcher, A, B or C. Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 19-22 on your answer shee. You may
use any letter more than once.
19. Guilt often diminishes as people become used to telling lies.
20. People’s need to feel reassured and hopeful makes them susceptible to lies.
21. More intelligent species are more likely to be deceptive.
22. The increasing sophistication of lying is part of normal development.

List of Researchers
A Karen Goodger
B Kang Lee
C Tali Sharot

Questions 23-25
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 23-25 on your answer sheet.
Signs that someone is lying
It is commonly claimed that people who are lying will avoid making eye contact with others and will
23…………………… a lot. Many researchers now disagree with these claims. Instead they analyse the
way that people tell their stories. For example, liars tend to offer fewer 24…………………… than people
who are telling the truth. However, each 25…………………… of their story seems to be in order,
because they have carefully planned what they want to say. And contrary to what many people believe,
liars often remain still as they lie, perhaps in the belief that they will come across as more confident than
they really are.

The End

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