READING PRACTICE: TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN (cont.

)
Exercise 6 (10.4.1)

The megafires of California

Drought, housing expansion, and oversupply of tinder make for bigger, hotter fires in the western United States

Wildfires are becoming an increasing menace in the western United States, with Southern California being the hardest
hit area. There’s a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes in Southern California are having such difficulty
containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the
‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themselves, experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than
in the past.

Megafires, also called ‘siege fires’, are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500,000 acres or more – 10 times the
size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. Some recent wildfires are among the biggest ever in California in terms
of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.

One explanation for the trend to more superhot fires is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had
significantly below normal precipitation in many recent years. Another reason, experts say, is related to the century-
long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible.

The unintentional consequence has been to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for
megafires.

Three other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change, marked by a 1-degree Fahrenheit rise in
average yearly temperature across the western states. Second is fire seasons that on average are 78 days longer than
they were 20 years ago. Third is increased construction of homes in wooded areas.

‘We are increasingly building our homes in fire-prone ecosystems,’ says Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of
biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachusetts. ‘Doing that in many of the
forests of the western US is like building homes on the side of an active volcano.’

In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600,000 a year for at least a decade, more residential
housing is being built. ‘What once was open space is now residential homes providing fuel to make fires burn with
greater intensity,’ says Terry McHale of the California Department of Forestry firefighters’ union. ‘With so much
dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job.’

That said, many experts give California high marks for making progress on preparedness in recent years, after some of
the largest fires in state history scorched thousands of acres, burned thousands of homes, and killed numerous people.
Stung in the past by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they might have been contained, personnel
are meeting the peculiar challenges of neighborhood – and canyon- hopping fires better than previously, observers say.

State promises to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled.
Firefighters’ unions that in the past complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines, and insufficient blueprints
for fire safety are now praising the state’s commitment, noting that funding for firefighting has increased, despite huge
cuts in many other programs. ‘We are pleased that the current state administration has been very proactive in its
support of us, and [has] come through with budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought,’ says
Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.
Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traverse the mammoth state and wind along serpentine
canyon roads, the state has invested in better command-and-control facilities as well as in the strategies to run them.
‘In the fire sieges of earlier years, we found that other jurisdictions and states were willing to offer mutual-aid help,
but we were not able to communicate adequately with them,’ says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state’s Office of
Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch.

After a commission examined and revamped communications procedures, the statewide response ‘has become far
more professional and responsive,’ he says. There is a sense among both government officials and residents that the
speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from several states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater
efficiency than in past ‘siege fire’ situations.

In recent years, the Southern California region has improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement
of new technology. ‘I am extraordinarily impressed by the improvements we have witnessed,’ says Randy Jacobs, a
Southern California- based lawyer who has had to evacuate both his home and business to escape wildfires.
‘Notwithstanding all the damage that will continue to be caused by wildfires, we will no longer suffer the loss of life
endured in the past because of the fire prevention and firefighting measures that have been put in place,’ he says.

In boxes 1–7 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 The amount of open space in California has diminished over the last ten years.

2 Many experts believe California has made little progress in readying itself to fight fires.

3 Personnel in the past have been criticised for mishandling fire containment.

4 California has replaced a range of firefighting tools.

5 More firefighters have been hired to improve fire-fighting capacity.

6 Citizens and government groups disapprove of the efforts of different states and agencies working together.

7 Randy Jacobs believes that loss of life from fires will continue at the same levels, despite changes made.

Exercise 7 (11.1.1)

Crop-growing skyscrapers

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth’s population will live in urban centres. Applying the most conservative
estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about three billion people by then. An
estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% larger than Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if
traditional farming methods continue as they are practised today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the
land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management
practices. What can be done to ensure enough food for the world’s population to live on?

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes and other produce has been in vogue
for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another three billion people.
Many believe an entirely new approach to indoor farming is required, employing cutting-edge technologies. One such
proposal is for the ‘Vertical Farm’. The concept is of multi-storey buildings in which food crops are grown in
environmentally controlled conditions. Situated in the heart of urban centres, they would drastically reduce the amount
of transportation required to bring food to consumers. Vertical farms would need to be efficient, cheap to construct and
safe to operate. If successfully implemented, proponents claim, vertical farms offer the promise of urban renewal,
sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (through year-round production of all crops), and the eventual
repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

It took humans 10,000 years to learn how to grow most of the crops we now take for granted. Along the way, we
despoiled most of the land we worked, often turning verdant, natural ecozones into semi-arid deserts. Within that same
time frame, we evolved into an urban species, in which 60% of the human population now lives vertically in cities.
This means that, for the majority, we humans have shelter from the elements, yet we subject our food-bearing plants to
the rigours of the great outdoors and can do no more than hope for a good weather year. However, more often than not
now, due to a rapidly changing climate, that is not what happens. Massive floods, long droughts, hurricanes and severe
monsoons take their toll each year, destroying millions of tons of valuable crops.

The supporters of vertical farming claim many potential advantages for the system. For instance, crops would be
produced all year round, as they would be kept in artificially controlled, optimum growing conditions. There would be
no weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods or pests. All the food could be grown organically, eliminating
the need for herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers. The system would greatly reduce the incidence of many infectious
diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface. Although the system would consume energy, it would return
energy to the grid via methane generation from composting nonedible parts of plants. It would also dramatically
reduce fossil fuel use, by cutting out the need for tractors, ploughs and shipping.

A major drawback of vertical farming, however, is that the plants would require artificial light. Without it, those plants
nearest the windows would be exposed to more sunlight and grow more quickly, reducing the efficiency of the system.
Single-storey greenhouses have the benefit of natural overhead light; even so, many still need artificial lighting.

A multi-storey facility with no natural overhead light would require far more. Generating enough light could be
prohibitively expensive, unless cheap, renewable energy is available, and this appears to be rather a future aspiration
than a likelihood for the near future.

One variation on vertical farming that has been developed is to grow plants in stacked trays that move on rails.
Moving the trays allows the plants to get enough sunlight. This system is already in operation, and works well within a
single-storey greenhouse with light reaching it from above: it is not certain, however, that it can be made to work
without that overhead natural light.

Vertical farming is an attempt to address the undoubted problems that we face in producing enough food for a growing
population. At the moment, though, more needs to be done to reduce the detrimental impact it would have on the
environment, particularly as regards the use of energy. While it is possible that much of our food will be grown in
skyscrapers in future, most experts currently believe it is far more likely that we will simply use the space available on
urban rooftops.

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

2 Human beings are responsible for some of the destruction to food-producing land.

3 The crops produced in vertical farms will depend on the season.

4 Some damage to food crops is caused by climate change.

5 Fertilisers will be needed for certain crops in vertical farms.

6 Vertical farming will make plants less likely to be affected by infectious diseases.

Exercise 8 (11.1.2)

The Falkirk Wheel

A unique engineering achievement

The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is the world’s first and only rotating boat lift. Opened in 2002, it is central to the
ambitious £84.5m Millennium Link project to restore navigability across Scotland by reconnecting the historic
waterways of the Forth & Clyde and Union Canals.

The major challenge of the project lays in the fact that the Forth & Clyde Canal is situated 35 metres below the level
of the Union Canal. Historically, the two canals had been joined near the town of Falkirk by a sequence of 11 locks –
enclosed sections of canal in which the water level could be raised or lowered – that stepped down across a distance of
1.5 km. This had been dismantled in 1933, thereby breaking the link. When the project was launched in 1994, the
British Waterways authority were keen to create a dramatic twenty-first-century landmark which would not only be a
fitting commemoration of the Millennium, but also a lasting symbol of the economic regeneration of the region.

Numerous ideas were submitted for the project, including concepts ranging from rolling eggs to tilting tanks, from
giant seesaws to overhead monorails. The eventual winner was a plan for the huge rotating steel boat lift which was to
become The Falkirk Wheel. The unique shape of the structure is claimed to have been inspired by various sources,
both manmade and natural, most notably a Celtic double headed axe, but also the vast turning propeller of a ship, the
ribcage of a whale or the spine of a fish.

The various parts of The Falkirk Wheel were all constructed and assembled, like one giant toy building set, at
Butterley Engineering’s Steelworks in Derbyshire, some 400 km from Falkirk. A team there carefully assembled the
1,200 tonnes of steel, painstakingly fitting the pieces together to an accuracy of just 10 mm to ensure a perfect final fit.
In the summer of 2001, the structure was then dismantled and transported on 35 lorries to Falkirk, before all being
bolted back together again on the ground, and finally lifted into position in five large sections by crane. The Wheel
would need to withstand immense and constantly changing stresses as it rotated, so to make the structure more robust,
the steel sections were bolted rather than welded together. Over 45,000 bolt holes were matched with their bolts, and
each bolt was hand-tightened.

The Wheel consists of two sets of opposing axe-shaped arms, attached about 25 metres apart to a fixed central spine.
Two diametrically opposed water-filled ‘gondolas’, each with a capacity of 360,000 litres, are fitted between the ends
of the arms. These gondolas always weigh the same, whether or not they are carrying boats. This is because, according
to Archimedes’ principle of displacement, floating objects displace their own weight in water. So when a boat enters a
gondola, the amount of water leaving the gondola weighs exactly the same as the boat. This keeps the Wheel balanced
and so, despite its enormous mass, it rotates through 180° in five and a half minutes while using very little power. It
takes just 1.5 kilowatt-hours (5.4 MJ) of energy to rotate the Wheel - roughly the same as boiling eight small domestic
kettles of water.

Boats needing to be lifted up enter the canal basin at the level of the Forth & Clyde Canal and then enter the lower
gondola of the Wheel. Two hydraulic steel gates are raised, so as to seal the gondola off from the water in the canal
basin. The water between the gates is then pumped out. A hydraulic clamp, which prevents the arms of the Wheel
moving while the gondola is docked, is removed, allowing the Wheel to turn. In the central machine room an array of
ten hydraulic motors then begins to rotate the central axle. The axle connects to the outer arms of the Wheel, which
begin to rotate at a speed of 1/8 of a revolution per minute. As the wheel rotates, the gondolas are kept in the upright
position by a simple gearing system. Two eight-metre-wide cogs orbit a fixed inner cog of the same width, connected
by two smaller cogs travelling in the opposite direction to the outer cogs – so ensuring that the gondolas always remain
level. When the gondola reaches the top, the boat passes straight onto the aqueduct situated 24 metres above the canal
basin.

The remaining 11 metres of lift needed to reach the Union Canal is achieved by means of a pair of locks. The Wheel
could not be constructed to elevate boats over the full 35-metre difference between the two canals, owing to the
presence of the historically important Antonine Wall, which was built by the Romans in the second century AD. Boats
travel under this wall via a tunnel, then through the locks, and finally on to the Union Canal.

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 The Falkirk Wheel has linked the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal for the first time in their history.

2 There was some opposition to the design of the Falkirk Wheel at first.

3 The Falkirk Wheel was initially put together at the location where its components were manufactured.

4 The Falkirk Wheel is the only boat lift in the world which has steel sections bolted together by hand.

5 The weight of the gondolas varies according to the size of boat being carried.

6 The construction of the Falkirk Wheel site took into account the presence of a nearby ancient monument.

Exercise 9 (11.2.1)

Raising the Mary Rose

How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed

On 19 July 1545, English and French fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in the area
of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Among the English vessels was a warship by the
name of Mary Rose. Built in Portsmouth some 35 years earlier, she had had a long and successful fighting career, and
was a favourite of King Henry VIII. Accounts of what happened to the ship vary: while witnesses agree that she was
not hit by the French, some maintain that she was outdated, overladen and sailing too low in the water, others that she
was mishandled by undisciplined crew. What is undisputed, however, is that the Mary Rose sank into the Solent that
day, taking at least 500 men with her. After the battle, attempts were made to recover the ship, but these failed.
The Mary Rose came to rest on the seabed, lying on her starboard (right) side at an angle of approximately 60 degrees.
The hull (the body of the ship) acted as a trap for the sand and mud carried by Solent currents. As a result, the
starboard side filled rapidly, leaving the exposed port (left) side to be eroded by marine organisms and mechanical
degradation. Because of the way the ship sank, nearly all of the starboard half survived intact. During the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, the entire site became covered with a layer of hard grey clay, which minimised further
erosion.

Then, on 16 June 1836, some fishermen in the Solent found that their equipment was caught on an underwater
obstruction, which turned out to be the Mary Rose. Diver John Deane happened to be exploring another sunken ship
nearby, and the fishermen approached him, asking him to free their gear. Deane dived down, and found the equipment
caught on a timber protruding slightly from the seabed. Exploring further, he uncovered several other timbers and a
bronze gun. Deane continued diving on the site intermittently until 1840, recovering several more guns, two bows,
various timbers, part of a pump and various other small finds.

The Mary Rose then faded into obscurity for another hundred years. But in 1965, military historian and amateur diver
Alexander McKee, in conjunction with the British Sub-Aqua Club, initiated a project called ‘Solent Ships’. While on
paper this was a plan to examine a number of known wrecks in the Solent, what McKee really hoped for was to find
the Mary Rose. Ordinary search techniques proved unsatisfactory, so McKee entered into collaboration with Harold E.
Edgerton, professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1967, Edgerton’s side-
scan sonar systems revealed a large, unusually shaped object, which McKee believed was the Mary Rose.

Further excavations revealed stray pieces of timber and an iron gun. But the climax to the operation came when, on 5
May 1971, part of the ship’s frame was uncovered. McKee and his team now knew for certain that they had found the
wreck, but were as yet unaware that it also housed a treasure trove of beautifully preserved artefacts. Interest in the
project grew, and in 1979, The Mary Rose Trust was formed, with Prince Charles as its President and Dr Margaret
Rule its Archaeological Director. The decision whether or not to salvage the wreck was not an easy one, although an
excavation in 1978 had shown that it might be possible to raise the hull. While the original aim was to raise the hull if
at all feasible, the operation was not given the go-ahead until January 1982, when all the necessary information was
available.

An important factor in trying to salvage the Mary Rose was that the remaining hull was an open shell. This led to an
important decision being taken: namely to carry out the lifting operation in three very distinct stages. The hull was
attached to a lifting frame via a network of bolts and lifting wires. The problem of the hull being sucked back
downwards into the mud was overcome by using 12 hydraulic jacks. These raised it a few centimetres over a period of
several days, as the lifting frame rose slowly up its four legs. It was only when the hull was hanging freely from the
lifting frame, clear of the seabed and the suction effect of the surrounding mud, that the salvage operation progressed
to the second stage. In this stage, the lifting frame was fixed to a hook attached to a crane, and the hull was lifted
completely clear of the seabed and transferred underwater into the lifting cradle. This required precise positioning to
locate the legs into the stabbing guides’ of the lifting cradle. The lifting cradle was designed to fit the hull using
archaeological survey drawings, and was fitted with air bags to provide additional cushioning for the hull’s delicate
timber framework. The third and final stage was to lift the entire structure into the air, by which time the hull was also
supported from below. Finally, on 11 October 1982, millions of people around the world held their breath as the
timber skeleton of the Mary Rose was lifted clear of the water, ready to be returned home to Portsmouth.

In boxes 1–4 on your answer sheet, write

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1 There is some doubt about what caused the Mary Rose to sink.

2 The Mary Rose was the only ship to sink in the battle of 19 July 1545.

3 Most of one side of the Mary Rose lay undamaged under the sea.

4 Alexander McKee knew that the wreck would contain many valuable historical objects.

Exercise 10 (11.3.1)

The story of silk

The history of the world’s most luxurious fabric, from ancient China to the present day

Silk is a fine, smooth material produced from the cocoons – soft protective shells – that are made by mulberry
silkworms (insect larvae). Legend has it that it was Lei Tzu, wife of the Yellow Emperor, ruler of China in about 3000
BC, who discovered silkworms. One account of the story goes that as she was taking a walk in her husband’s gardens,
she discovered that silkworms were responsible for the destruction of several mulberry trees. She collected a number
of cocoons and sat down to have a rest. It just so happened that while she was sipping some tea, one of the cocoons
that she had collected landed in the hot tea and started to unravel into a fine thread. Lei Tzu found that she could wind
this thread around her fingers. Subsequently, she persuaded her husband to allow her to rear silkworms on a grove of
mulberry trees. She also devised a special reel to draw the fibres from the cocoon into a single thread so that they
would be strong enough to be woven into fabric. While it is unknown just how much of this is true, it is certainly
known that silk cultivation has existed in China for several millennia.

Originally, silkworm farming was solely restricted to women, and it was they who were responsible for the growing,
harvesting and weaving. Silk quickly grew into a symbol of status, and originally, only royalty were entitled to have
clothes made of silk. The rules were gradually relaxed over the years until finally during the Qing Dynasty (1644—
1911 AD), even peasants, the lowest caste, were also entitled to wear silk. Sometime during the Han Dynasty (206
BC-220 AD), silk was so prized that it was also used as a unit of currency. Government officials were paid their salary
in silk, and farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk. Silk was also used as diplomatic gifts by the emperor. Fishing
lines, bowstrings, musical instruments and paper were all made using silk. The earliest indication of silk paper being
used was discovered in the tomb of a noble who is estimated to have died around 168 AD.

Demand for this exotic fabric eventually created the lucrative trade route now known as the Silk Road, taking silk
westward and bringing gold, silver and wool to the East. It was named the Silk Road after its most precious
commodity, which was considered to be worth more than gold. The Silk Road stretched over 6,000 kilometres from
Eastern China to the Mediterranean Sea, following the Great Wall of China, climbing the Pamir mountain range,
crossing modern-day Afghanistan and going on to the Middle East, with a major trading market in Damascus. From
there, the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea. Few merchants travelled the entire route; goods
were handled mostly by a series of middlemen.

With the mulberry silkworm being native to China, the country was the world’s sole producer of silk for many
hundreds of years. The secret of silk-making eventually reached the rest of the world via the Byzantine Empire, which
ruled over the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East during the period 330—
1453 AD. According to another legend, monks working for the Byzantine emperor Justinian smuggle silkworm eggs
to Constantinople (Istanbul in modern-day Turkey) in 550 AD, concealed inside hollow bamboo walking canes. The
Byzantines were as secretive as the Chinese, however, and for many centuries the weaving and trading of silk fabric
was a strict imperial monopoly. Then in the seventh century, the Arabs conquered Persia, capturing their magnificent
silks in the process.

Silk production thus spread through Africa, Sicily and Spain as the Arabs swept, through these lands. Andalusia in
southern Spain was Europe’s main silk-producing centre in the tenth century. By the thirteenth century, however, Italy
had become Europe’s leader in silk production and export. Venetian merchants traded extensively in silk and
encouraged silk growers to settle in Italy. Even now, silk processed in the province of Como in northern Italy enjoys
an esteemed reputation.

The nineteenth century and industrialisation saw the downfall of the European silk industry. Cheaper Japanese silk,
trade in which was greatly facilitated by the opening of the Suez Canal, was one of the many factors driving the trend.
Then in the twentieth century, new manmade fibres, such as nylon, started to be used in what had traditionally been
silk products, such as stockings and parachutes. The two world wars, which interrupted the supply of raw material
from Japan, also stifled the European silk industry. After the Second World War, Japan’s silk production was restored,
with improved production and quality of raw silk. Japan was to remain the world’s biggest producer of raw silk, and
practically the only major exporter of raw silk, until the 1970s. However, in more recent decades, China has gradually
recaptured its position as the world’s biggest producer and exporter of raw silk and silk yarn. Today, around 125,000
metric tons of silk are produced in the world, and almost two thirds of that production takes place in China.

In boxes 1–4 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 Gold was the most valuable material transported along the Silk Road.

2 Most tradesmen only went along certain sections of the Silk Road.

3 The Byzantines spread the practice of silk production across the West.

4 Silk yarn makes up the majority of silk currently exported from China.