READING PASSAGE 1

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

The Blockbuster Phenomenon: a new museum trend

Museums in Australia, like other pleasure-giving public organizations, are adapting their
activities so that they more closely reflect the marketplace

A
since the 1980s, the term "blockbuster' has become the fashionable word for spectacular, high-
profile museum exhibitions that have the ability to attract large crowds. A blockbuster is a "large-scale
loan exhibition that people who normally don't go to museums will stand in line for hours to see" (Elsen
1984). Once the museum that created the exhibition has shown it to their local market, it can be offered
to other organizations for a fee. This means that you can boost your own door takings and make money
from boosting someone else's door takings.

B While partaking of the excitement of the blockbuster, visitors thus lured are likely to stay
longer at the museum. Betty Churcher, when Director of the Australian National Gallery, Summed up the
new blockbuster creed as follows: The bonus of the blockbuster exhibitions is that people come to see
the blockbuster and they stay to lock at the permanent collection, so you are getting broader exposure
for your collection.

C
Museums across the UK, USA, Canada and Australia currently operate under a system of
plural funding: revenue raised through contributions by federal, state and/or local governments,
combined with revenue raised through admission charges and other activities, Maintaining and
increasing visitor levels is this paramount and involves not only creating or hiring blockbuster
exhibitions, but providing regular exhibition changes and innovations. In addition, the visiting
public have become known as customers rather than visitors, and the skills that are valued in museums
to keep the new customers coming through the door have changed. Curators are now
administrators and being a museum director no longer requires an Arts degree-but public
relations skills are essential if the museum is going to compete with other museums to stage
traveling exhibition which draw
compete with other museums to stage
traveling huge crowds.
D
The convergence of museums, they heritage industry, tourism, profit -making and
pleasure-giving has resulted in the new "museology". This has given rise to much debate about
whether it is appropriate to see museums primarily as tourist attractions. In literature from both UK and
USA, the words that are starting to appear in some descriptions of blockbusters are "less scholarly",
"non-elitist" and "popularist", while others extol the virtues encouraging scholars to co-operate on
projects, and to provide exhibitions that cater for a broad selection of community rather than an elite
sector, whatever commentators may think, manager of museums worldwide are looking for artful
ways to blend culture and commerce, and blockbuster exhibitions are at the top of the list.

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E
But do blockbusters held in public institutions really create a surplus to fund other activities? If
the bottom line is profit, then according to the records of many major museums blockbusters do make
money. For museums in some countries, it may be the money that they require to replace parts of their
collections or to fix buildings that are in need of attention. For some museums in Australia, it may be the
opportunity to illustrate that they are attempting to pay their way by recovering part of their operating
costs. Also, creating or hiring a blockbuster has many positive spin-offs: blockbusters mean
crowds, and crowds are good for the local economy, provide increased trade for shops, hotels,
restaurants, the transport industry and retailers. The arrangement that the arts provide sustained
economic benefits has been well illustrated in impact studies in the USA and UK.

F However, blockbusters require large capital expenditure, and draw on resources across all
branches of an organization, and the costs don't end there. There is a Human Resource Management
cost in addition to a measurable "real" dollar cost. Receiving a touring exhibition draws resources
from across functional management structures in project management style. Everyone, from general
labourers to building services, front of house, technical, promotional, educational and administrative staff,
is required to perform. additional tasks. Furthermore, as an increasing number of institutions try their
hand at increasing visitor numbers and memberships(and therefore revenue) by staging blockbuster
exhibitions, it may be less likely that blockbusters will continue to provide a surplus to subsidize other
activities due to the competitive nature of the market.

G It has been illustrated in both the UK and USA that the blockbuster ideology has resulted in
the false expectation that the momentum required to stage blockbusters can be maintained continually.
Creating, mounting or hiring blockbusters is exhausting, with the real costs throughout an institution
difficult to calculate. Secondly, as some analysts have argued, the "shop keeping " mentality and
cost benefit analysis and a pure concentration on the bottom line, can squeeze substance out of an
exhibition. Taking out substance can be a recipe for blockbuster failure and therefore financial failure.

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H Perhaps the best pathway to take is one that balances both blockbusters and regular
exhibitions. However, this easy middle ground may only work if you have enough space, and
have alternate sources of funding to continue to support the regular, less exciting fare. Perhaps the
advice should be to make sure that you find out what your local community, wants from you and
make sure that your regular activities and exhibitions are more ending

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Questions 14

Reading Passage t has eight paragraphs. A-H

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

NB
You may use any letter more than once
1

2
34

the reason why museum directors need to constantly alter and update their exhibits mention of
the length of time people will queue up to see a blockbuster
terms that people have used when referring to blockbusters
the various ways that institutions like museums get financial support

Questions 5-8

Complete the sentences below

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. While
your answers in boxes 5-8 an your answer sheet
5
6
7
These days. museum visitors tend to be referred to as....

Museum curators now need.......................rather than academic qualifications The linking of a

range of public institutions that entertain the public is

known as...............

8 There is discussion about whether museums can be regarded in the same way as
other......

Questions 9 and 10

Choose TWO letters, A-E

ters in

XAMS
was 9 and 10 on your
answer sheet.
Write the correct letters in boxes 9 and 10 on your answer sheet.

Which Two of the following are mentioned by the writer as advantages of blockbusters?

D
A
B
C
D
E
Some of the money they raise can be used for structural repairs.
They can provide funds to help support amateur artists.
Local services benefit from the extra business they bring about. They encourage
overseas workers into the local area.
They raise employee performance levels.
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Question 11-13

Chooses THREE letters, A-G

Write the correct letters in boxes 1-13 on you answer sheet.

Which THREE of the following are mentioned by the writer as disadvantages of

blockbusters?

A
they do not suit museum management styles.

B
Specialist business advice has to be paid for

C
They involve an increased workload for personnel

D They do not increase overall annual visitor numbers

E
They are very tiring to put on

F
What is popular in one country may not be popular in another

G
The content can be weakened through financial pressure.

ELTS
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Saving the Bittern

The bittern, A British waterbird, does not have a good record as far as survival is.
concerned. By 1886, habitat destruction and other pressures had pushed it close to extinction.
Fortunately, it recovered a few decades later, and in 1950 the numbers of nature
male bitterns rose to a peak of about 70. By the 1980s, however, it was clear that the bird was in trouble
again. The bittern needs extensive wet reedbeds to survive, and long periods of drainage, pollution and
lack of management had destroyed most of its habitat. By 1997, it again faced imminent extinction.
To prevent this, the British government set up a plan for the bittern, aiming to establish a population of 50
males by 2010. However, this target was reached six years early, a rate of recovery faster than anyone
had dared hope for. We at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) now claim the
bittern as one of Britain's greatest wildlife success stories,since figures reveal that the number of these
rare birds has increased fivefold in just seven years.

B Bitterns have feathers that help them to conceal themselves and a shy nature; they usually
remain hidden within the cover of reedbed vegetation. Our first challenge was to develop
standard methods to monitor their numbers. The booming call of the male bittern is its most distinctive of
feature during the breeding season, and we developed a method to count them using the sound patterns
unique to each individual. This not only allowed us to be much more certain of the number of booming
males in the UK, but also enabled us to estimate local survival of males from one year to the next.

C Our first direct understanding of what breeding bitterns require in their ideal habitat came from
comparisons of reedbed sits that had lost their male birds with those that
retained them. This research showed that bitterns had been retained in reedbeds where the natural process of
drying out had been slowed through management. Based on this work, broad recommendations
on how to manage and rehabilitate rehabilitate reedbeds for bitterns were made, and funding was
provided through a European Union (EU) wildlife fund to manage 13 sites within the core breeding
range.

D To refine these recommendations and provide fine-scale, quantitative habitat prescriptions on the
bitterns' preferred feeding habitat, we started radio-tracking male bitterns on the RSPB's Minsmere
and Leighton Moss reserves. This showed clear preferences for feeding in the wetter reedbed areas,
particularly within reedbed next to larger open pools. The average home range sizes of the male bitterns
we followed (about 20 hectares) provided a good indication of the area of reedbed necessary
when managing or creating habitat indication of the area of reedbed necessary when managing or
creating habitat for this species. Female bitterns undertake all the incubation and care of the young, so it
was important to understand their requirements as well. Over the course of your research, we located 87
bittern nests and found that female bitterns preferred to nest in areas of continuous vegetation, well into
the reedbed, but where was still present during the driest part of the breeding season.

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E
The success of the habitat prescriptions developed from this research has been spectacular. For
instance, at minsmere, male bittern numbers gradually increased from one to ten following reedbed
lowering, a management technique designed to halt the drying out process. After a low point of 11 mature
males in 1997, bittern numbers in Britain responded to all the habitat management work and started to
increase for the first time since 1950.

F The final phase of research involved understanding the diet, survival and dispersal of bittern
chicks. To do this we fitted small radio tags to young bittern chicks in the nest, to determine their fate
through to fledging, when they begin to fly,and beyond. Many chicks did not survive to this stage, and
starvation was found to be the most likely reason for their demise. The fish prey fed to chicks was
mainly those species penetrating into the reed edge. So, an important element of recent studies has
been development of recommendations on habitat and water conditions to promote native fish
populations. Once independent, radio- tagged young bitterns were found to seek out new sites during
their first winter, a proportion of these would remain on new sites to breed if the conditions were suitable.
A second EU-funded project aims to provide these suitable sites in new areas. A network of 19 sites
developed through this partnership project will secure a more sustainable UK bittern population with
successful breeding outside of the core area, less vulnerable to chance.
events and sea level rise.

G By 2004, the number of booming male bitterns in the UK had increased to 55. Almost all of the
increase occurred on those sites undertaking management based on advice derived from our
research. What rescuing the bittern, the work has helped a range of other spectacular wetland
species such as otters. Although science has been at the core of the bittern story, success has only been
achieved through the trust, hard work and dedication of all the managers, owners and wardens of sites
that have implemented, in some cases very drastic, management to secure the future of this
wetland species in the UK.

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Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-25, which are based on Reading Passage
2 on page 7 and 8

Question 14-20

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs A-G

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, in boxes 14-20 on you answer sheet.

 R
AL
List of Headings

Fluctuations in bittern numbers over time

Research findings on habitat needs of adult bitterns

||

|||
Predators in the natural world

IV
The importance in the natural world

V Initial habitat investigation and decisions.

VI
The need for co-operation to ensure nature preservation.

VII Impressive results of initial intervention

VIII determining how many bitterns there are

IX Education as the key to preserving wildlife

s to wildli
M
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14
Paragraph A

15
Paragraph B

16
Paragraph C

17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E

19
Paragraph F

20
Paragraph G

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Question 21-25

Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 21-25 on your answer sheet.

21
When was the bittern population largest?

22
What word is used in the passage to describe the bittern's character?

23
What is probably the main cause of death of bittern chicks?

24
What food supply do bittern chicks depend on?

25
What other creature mentioned in the passage have also benefited from
improvement made to the bittern's habitat?

Question 26

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D

Write the correct letter in box on your answer sheet.

 What is the main theme of Reading Passage 2?
IS
26

B
CO

D
how one species may be helped at the expense of another

disagreement among environmentalists on methods to protect species

from extinction

fighting the destruction of wetland reedbeds

how research and good management can save an endangered species rch
and good management in save an endanger

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Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on reading passage 3
on page 10 and 11.

The Placebo Effect

With the right encouragement, your mind can convince the body to heal itself.

What is the mysterious force that can do this?

Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here's the recipe. As
a practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve
physical contact, and each session with your patients should take at least half an hour. Encourage your
patients to take an active part in their treatment and understand how their disorders relate to the rest of their
lives. Tell them that their own

bodies possess the true power to heal. Get them to pay you well. Describe your treatment in familiar
words, but embroidered with a hint of mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks,
meridians, forces, auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an early age: wisdom
carelessly swept aside by the rise of blind mechanistric science. Oh, come off it, you're saying.
Something like that couldn't possibly work, could it?

Well yes, it could -and often well enough to earn you a living. And a very good living if
you are sufficiently convincing or, better still, really believe in you therapy. Many illness get
better on their own, so if you are lucky and administer your treatment at just the right time you'll
get the credit. But that's only part of it. Some of the improvement really would be down to you. Not
necessarily because you'd recommended ginseng rather than chamomile tea o used
this crystal as opposed to that pressure point. Nothing so specific. Your healing power would be the
outcome of a paradoxical force that conventional medicine recognizes but remains oddly
ambivalent about the placebo effect.

Placebos are treatments that have no direct effect on the body, yet still work because the patient
has faith in their power to heal. Most often the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies just as much to
any device or procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal. The existence of the placebo effect implies
that even a complete fraud could make a difference to someone's health, which is why some
practitioners of alternative medicine are sensitive about any mention of the subject. In fact, the
placebo is a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or otherwise, though its role is often neglected
and misunderstood.

At one level,it should come as no surprise that our state of mind can influence our physiology:
anger opens the superficial blood vessels of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But
exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research to
date has focused on the control of pain, because it's one of the commonest complaints and lend itself to
experimental study. Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, natural substances produced in the
brain that are known to help control pain. Any of the neurochemicals involved in transmitting pain
impulses or modulating them

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might also be involved in generating the placebo response; says Don Price, an oral surgeon at the
University of Florida.

That case has been strengthened by the recent work of Fabrizio Benedetti of the University
of Turin, who showed that

The placebo effect can be abolished by a drug, naloxone, which blocks the effects of
endorphins. Benedetti induced pain in pressure cuff on the forearm. He did this several times a day for
several days, using morphine each time to control the pain. On the final day, without saying anything,
he replaced the morphine with a saline solution. This still relieved the subjects' pain: a placebo
effect. But when he added naloxone to the saline, and blocked the endorphins, the pain relief
disappeared. Here was direct proof that the relief of pain by a placebo is carried out, at least in part, by
these natural opiates.

Though scientists don't know exactly how placebos work, they have accumulated a fair bit of
knowledge about how to trigger the effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that
red dummy capsules made more effective painkillers than blue, green or yellow ones. Research on
American students revealed that blue pills make better tranquiliser than pink, a colour more suitable for
stimulants. Even branding can make a difference: if Aspro or Tylenol are what you like to take for
a headache, their chemically identical generic equivalents may be less effective.

It matters too how the treatment is delivered. Decades ago, when the major tranquilliser
chlorpromazine was being introduced, a doctor in Kansas categorized his colleague according to
whether they were keen on it, openly skeptical of its benefits, or took a let's try and see attitude. His
conclusion: the more enthusiastic the doctor, the better the drug performed. A recent survey by Ernst
on doctor's bedside manners turned up one consistent finding: Physicians who adopt a warm,
friendly, reassuring manner are more
effective than those whose consultations are formal and do not offer reassurance.

Warm, friendly and I reassuring are precisely what alternative treatment is all about, of
course. Many of the ingredients of that opening recipe-the physical contact, the generous swaths of
time,the strong hints of supernormal healing power-are just the kind of thing likely to impress
patients. It's hardly surprising then, that complementary practitioners are generally best at moblishing,the
placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman, professor of social anthropology at Harvard University.
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Questions 27-31

Complete each sentence with the correct ending. A-H below.

Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

27

28

29

30

31
An appointment with an altemative practitoner
An alternative practitioners explanation of their treatment If alternative
practitioners have faith in their treatment, they Quite often, a
patient's illness
Conventional doctors are aware of the placebo effect and they

A Should be easy to understand

E
can improve without treatment

C
can cost the patient less

AL
D ought to last a minimum length of time

TS
can require a range of different products

F can be described as serious

G
should give it greater recognition

AMS
H should be able to get a high income

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Questions 32-34

Choose the correct letter A,B, C or D

Write the correct letter in boxes 32-34 on your answer sheet.

32
In the third paragraph, the writer says that the placebo effect

A
works best in tablet form.

B
is a new type of medical treatment.

C
is trusted more by some patients than others.

D has a significant role in both alternative and conventional medicine.

33
A reference is made to anger and sadness in order to show that

A
personal feelings can alter our physical condition

B
some human behavior has no clear explanation

C
placebos, like emotions,are experienced by everyone.

D
people find some physical reactions hard to control.

Questions 35-40

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading passage 3?

In boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES

NO

NO GIVEN
35

36

37

38
if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

if the statement contracts with the claims of the writer

if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

Scientists now have enough information to understand how the placebo

effect becomes active in people

ments, some painkillers

have an eff
As a result of experiments, some painkillers have been taken off the market.

Individual preference can have an impact on the effectiveness of different

brands of headache tablet

Doctors expressed a range of views on the drug chlorpromazine when it was

first introduced.

39
Emst's study had a big influence on doctor's behavior with patients

40
Alternative practitioners work in a way that is likely to trigger the placebo effect

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