TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI IELTS Reading B1

VIỆN NGOẠI NGỮ BÀI THI GIỮA KỲ

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Mã đề: VERSION 2
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PASSAGE 1: Questions 1-10

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-10, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.
Model Atmosphere Shows Signs of Life
Life could exist on planets that are much farther from their stars than the Earth is from the
Sun. Planetary scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California have developed
models for climates on other planets that make the existence of life in other solar systems
much more likely.
The scientists, James Kasting, O. Brian Toon and James Pollack, have increased by more
than 75 million kilometers the distance an Earth-sized planet may be from a star and yet
support life. The atmosphere on such a planet could be unlikely to support human life, but
it could support some forms of life, according to the researchers. “We’re saying that these
planets may be habitable, but not necessarily inhabited,” Kasting, an atmospheric physicist,
told New Scientist.
The models suggest that the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be
enough to warm planets and prevent water from freezing as far away as the orbit of Mars
from the Sun – an average distance of 228 million kilometers. The average distance of
Earth from the Sun is 150 million kilometers.
In the past, scientists doubted that “civilizations” could exist in other solar systems because
the chance of an Earth-like planet evolving is slim. Michael Hart of NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center in Maryland has calculated that if the Earth were 5 percent closer to
the Sun, its ocean would evaporate, or if it were 1 per cent farther away, glaciation would
take over. Hart’s work suggests that only a narrow range of orbits – within a few million
kilometers either side of the Earth’s orbit of the Sun – would provide a habitable
environment in another solar system.
But the scientists at Ames have pushed the range of orbits for Earth-like planets by more
than 50 per cent. Habitable planets could be found from 0.95 to 1.5 astronomical units, they

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say. One astronomical unit (AU) is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. 1.5 AU is about
the distance from the Sun to Mars.
The work at Ames might also help to explain what planetary scientists call the “Goldilocks
paradox”. Earth and its two neighboring planets, Mars and Venus, were formed at the same
time, about 4.6 billion years ago, from the same ingredients, including water, carbon
dioxide and nitrogen. But only Earth developed life. Mars is too cold. Venus is too hot, but
Earth is just right, like Goldilock’s porridge.
The scientists say that earlier models, including Hart’s, failed to include the stabilizing
effect of the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the silicate rocks in
the Earth’s crust. This exchange helps to regulate atmospheric and surface temperatures.
Exchange of CO2 also regulated temperatures in the early history of Venus and Mars
before Venus became too hot and Mars became too cold.
In its first few hundred million years, Venus may have had a thin atmosphere and hot
oceans, like the Earth, that were capable of supporting life. The scientists have developed
a new model called “wet greenhouse” to explain how Venus evolved into its current hell-
like state where clouds of sulphuric acid fill the sky and surface temperatures reach 460°C.
The model challenges the generally accepted “runaway greenhouse” model that Fred Hoyle
first suggested in the 1950s.
According to the “runaway greenhouse”, Venus has always had a heavy atmosphere which
traps the Sun’s heat. In primordial times, the atmosphere was a mix of water vapour and
CO2. The water vapour would have risen to the upper atmosphere, well above the level at
which water condenses. Ultraviolet radiation from the magnetically active young Sun
would have split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen would
have escaped into space. The result would be a dry planet, with no oceans and high
concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.
But, say Kasting and his colleagues, there are two problems with this model. Where is the
oxygen stored and why is there no surplus water? Escape of hydrogen from the stratosphere
would have ceased when the level of water vapor in the lower atmosphere reached about
20 per cent of saturation. The stratosphere would have become dry but water should have
remained in the Venusian atmosphere.
By adding a mechanism to recycle CO2 on early Venus as happens today on Earth – the
two objections can be met. The water carried by the lumps of rock from which Venus
formed could well have condensed out to form oceans with at least one tenth of the volume
of those currently on Earth. The oceans were hot, about 100°C but the pressure of the
atmosphere would have prevented excessive evaporation.
An exchange of CO2 occurred for several hundred million years between the atmosphere
and carbonate rocks on the surface of the planet. The process, known as “weathering”,
reduced the density of the Venusian atmosphere to about that of the Earth. The thinner

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 atmosphere allowed most of the hydrogen to escape. The remainder escaped more slowly
over the next few billion years, so that Venus now has about 100,000 times less water than
Earth. According to Kasting and his colleagues, the early interaction between the
atmosphere and the surface rocks may also have locked up most of the planet’s oxygen.
After the water was gone, exchange of CO2 would have ceased and the level of CO2 in the
atmosphere would have risen causing a severe “greenhouse” effect. Clouds of sulphuric
acid would also have evolved. On Mars, according to the model, carbonates were recycled
for about a billion years but eventually, the exchange broke down because the planet was
too small to retain its internal heat. The CO2 has become trapped in carbonate rocks. The
thin atmosphere caused the planet’s surface to freeze.
Question 1
Look at the reading passage and choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS to answer
the following question:
1. What helps regulate atmospheric exchange and surface temperature?
Questions 2 – 10
Complete the table below with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS

Distance from Effects of Periods of the Reason of Surface

the Sun distance on exchange of CO2 breakdown of temperature
planets occurs CO2 exchange

Earth 2. …………… 3. …………… constantly

Mars 4. …………… 5. …………… 6. ……………… too small to retain freezing

its internal heat

Venus 7. …………… 8. ……………… 9. ……………… 10. …………

PASSAGE 2: Questions 11-20

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 11-20, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
Are you a machine of many parts?
1 What will future historians remember about the impact of science during the last
decade of the 20th century? They will not be much concerned with many of the marvels
that currently preoccupy us, such as the miraculous increase in the power of home
computers and the unexpected growth of the Internet. Nor will they dwell much on global

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warming, the loss of biodiversity and other examples of our penchant for destruction.
Instead, the end of the 20th century will be recognized as the time when, for better or worse,
science began to bring about a fundamental shift in our perception of ourselves.
2 It will be the third time that science has forced us to re-evaluate who we are. The
first time, of course, was the revolution that began with Copernicus in 1543 and continued
with Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Despite the Church’s opposition, we came to realize that
the Earth does not lie at the center of the universe. Instead, we gradually found we live on
a small planet on the edge of a minor galaxy, circling one star in a universe that contains
billions of others. Our unique position in the universe was gone for ever.
3 A few centuries later, we were moved even further from stage centre. The Darwinian
revolution removed us from our position as a unique creation of God. Instead, we
discovered we were just another part of the animal kingdom proud to have “a miserable
ape for a grandfather”, as Thomas Huxley put it in 1860. We know now just how close to
the apes we are – over 90% of our genes are the same as those of the chimpanzee.
4 Increasing knowledge of our own genetics is one of the driving forces in the third
great conceptual shift that will soon take place. Others are the growing knowledge of the
way out minds work, our new ability to use knowledge of the nervous system to design
drugs that affect specific states of mind and the creation of sophisticated scanners which
enable us to see what is happening inside our brains. In the third revolution, we are taking
our own selves to pieces and finding the parts which make up the machine that is us.
5 Much of the new knowledge from genetics, molecular biology and the neuro-
sciences is esoteric. But its cultural impact is already running ahead of science. People
begin to see themselves not as wholes with a moral centre but the result of the combined
action of parts for which they have little responsibility.
6 It’s Nobody Fault is the title of a popular American book on “difficult” children.
Many different children, the book explains, are not actually difficult but are suffering from
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). There is nothing wrong with them or the way they have
been brought up. Rather, the part of the brain which controls attention is short of a particular
neuro-transmitter.
7 ADD is currently the world’s faster growing psychological problem. In the United
States, a survey showed that 1.5m children between the ages of five and eighteen were
being treated with a drug, Ritalin, for the disorder. Since then the number taking drug is
believed to have doubted.
8 You might, as many people do, question the way in which the disorder has been
diagnosed on such a staggering scale. But that is not the point. The cultural shift is that
people are not responsible for their disorders, only for obtaining treatment for the parts of
them that have gone wrong.
9 The more we know about the parts of ourselves, the more cures for our defects will
appear. Prozac is one example. The best-selling Listening to Prozac claimed the drug “can
transform pessimists into optimists, turn loners into extroverts”. And Prozac, the book
explained, “was not so much discovered as planfully created, through the efforts of a large

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pharmaceutical firm … the likely result of this form of research is not medicines that
correct particular illnesses but medicines that affect clusters of functions in the human
brain.”
10 Even when a treatment is not to hand, the notion that we are made of “clusters of
functions” remains strong. Genetic analysis supports this view. A gene linked to alcoholism
has been located and a Gallup poll has revealed that the great majority of Americans
consider alcoholism to be a disease. There are claims of genes too for obesity,
homosexuality and even for laziness.
11 Some claims about genes may be silly. Or you may think that the current conceptual
shift is just a re-run of old arguments about the relative roles of nature and nurture. Instead,
take one drug, Viagra, as an example of the new way of thinking about ourselves. If you
suffer from impotence, it might have a variety of physiological causes. Or you might just
be anxious about sexual performance. But Viagra does not make such fine distinctions: it
acts at the level of the chemical reactions that control the blood flow needed to maintain
an erection.
12 Once we can dissect ourselves into parts and know how the parts work, it really does
not matter what was the initial cause of the problem. If you own a car and the brakes wear
out quickly, it is not important whether you’ve been driving the car too hard or you bought
cheap brake shoes to begin with. You just need to change the brakes.
13 The more direct means we have of changing who we are, through changing the parts
that we are composed of, the harder becomes the question of who was the person who made
the decision to change, before becoming someone else. This will be the real issue for the
21st century: who are we, if we are the sum of our parts and science has given us the power
to change those parts?
Questions 11 – 16
Answer the following questions by choosing appropriate letter(s) and write the letter(s) in boxes
11-16 on your answer sheet.
11. What is the most important scientific progress in the 20th century?
A. The development of computer technology.
B. The birth and growth of the Internet.
C. Mankind’s ability to control global warming.
D. People’s new knowledge of themselves.
12. What did Copernicus discover?
A. The Earth does not lie at the centre of the universe.
B. The Church was wrong about the history of mankind.
C. Human beings live on a small planet.
D. Mankind have a unique position in the universe.

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13. What did Darwin discover?
A. Human beings were a unique creation of God.
B. Human beings and apes shared a common ancestor.
C. Human beings were lucky while apes were miserable.
D. Human beings and chimpanzees were nearly identical.
14. Which of the following is NOT “one of the driving forces in the third great conceptual
shift”?
A. Knowledge of our own genetics.
B. Knowledge of the way our minds work.
C. Knowledge of how to use sophisticated scanners.
D. Knowledge of how to design drugs that affect specific states of mind.
15. Which of the following is likely to be the main idea of the book It’s Nobody’s Fault?
A. Many children are suffering from ADD.
B. ADD is the problem for the problematic children.
C. Some people’s brains do not have neurotransmitters.
D. The way people are brought up determines their behaviour.
16. How many people are taking Ritalin in the US?
A. Less than 1.5 million people
B. 1.5 million of the people aged 5 – 18.
C. 3 million of the people aged 5 – 18.
D. More than 3 million teenagers.
17. Which of the following reflects the cultural shift?
A. More people are diagnosed to be suffering from mental disorders.
B. People are not responsible for the problems they have.
C. More people are seeking mental treatment.
D. People begin to question the accuracy of doctors’ diagnoses.
18. What is Prozac?
A. A book C. A type of people
B. A medicine D. A mental disorder.
19. Genetic analysis seems to have confirmed that there is a gene in our body that is
responsible for
A. Alcoholism C. Homosexuality
B. Obesity D. Laziness
20. Which of the following does the drug Viagra illustrate?
A. “Some claims about genes may be silly.”
B. We have a “new way of thinking about ourselves”.
C. A physical disorder “might have a variety of physiological causes”.
D. “People … are … obtaining treatment for the parts of them that have gone wrong.”