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READING PASSAGE NO: 01
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
The development of the London underground railway
In the first half of the 1800s, London’s population grew at an astonishing rate, and the central area became
increasingly congested. In addition, the expansion of the overground railway network resulted in more and more
passengers arriving in the capital. However, in 1846, a Royal Commission decided that the railways should not be
allowed to enter the City, the capital’s historic and business centre. The result was that the overground railway
stations formed a ring around the City. The area within consisted of poorly built, overcrowded slums and the streets
were full of horse-drawn traffic. Crossing the City became a nightmare. It could take an hour and a half to travel 8 km
by horse-drawn carriage or bus. Numerous schemes were proposed to resolve these problems, but few succeeded.
Amongst the most vocal advocates for a solution to London’s traffic problems was Charles Pearson, who worked as a
solicitor for the City of London. He saw both social and economic advantages in building an underground railway that
would link the overground railway stations together and clear London slums at the same time. His idea was to relocate
the poor workers who lived in the inner-city slums to newly constructed suburbs, and to provide cheap rail travel for
them to get to work. Pearson’s ideas gained support amongst some businessmen and in 1851 he submitted a plan to
Parliament. It was rejected, but coincided with a proposal from another group for an underground connecting line,
which Parliament passed.
The two groups merged and established the Metropolitan Railway Company in August 1854. The company’s plan was
to construct an underground railway line from the Great Western Railway’s (GWR) station at Paddington to the edge
of the City at Farringdon Street – a distance of almost 5 km. The organisation had difficulty in raising the funding for
such a radical and expensive scheme, not least because of the critical articles printed by the press. Objectors argued
that the tunnels would collapse under the weight of traffic overhead, buildings would be shaken and passengers
would be poisoned by the emissions from the train engines. However, Pearson and his partners persisted.
The GWR, aware that the new line would finally enable them to run trains into the heart of the City, invested almost
£250,000 in the scheme. Eventually, over a five-year period, £1m was raised. The chosen route ran beneath existing
main roads to minimise the expense of demolishing buildings. Originally scheduled to be completed in 21 months, the
construction of the underground line took three years. It was built just below street level using a technique known as
‘cut and cover’. A trench about ten metres wide and six metres deep was dug, and the sides temporarily help up with
timber beams. Brick walls were then constructed, and finally a brick arch was added to create a tunnel. A two-metre-
deep layer of soil was laid on top of the tunnel and the road above rebuilt.
The Metropolitan line, which opened on 10 January 1863, was the world’s first underground railway. On its first day,
almost 40,000 passengers were carried between Paddington and Farringdon, the journey taking about 18 minutes. By
the end of the Metropolitan’s first year of operation, 9.5 million journeys had been made.
Even as the Metropolitan began operation, the first extensions to the line were being authorised; these were built
over the next five years, reaching Moorgate in the east to London and Hammersmith in the west. The original plan was
to pull the trains with steam locomotives, using firebricks in the boilers to provide steam, but these engines were
never introduced. Instead, the line used specially designed locomotives that were fitted with water tanks in which
steam could be condensed. However, smoke and fumes remained a problem, even though ventilation shafts were
added to the tunnels.
Despite the extension of the underground railway, by the 1880s, congestion on London’s streets had become worse.
The problem was partly that the existing underground lines formed a circuit around the centre of London and
extended to the suburbs, but did not cross the capital’s centre. The ‘cut and cover’ method of construction was not an
option in this part of the capital. The only alternative was to tunnel deep underground.
Although the technology to create these tunnels existed, steam locomotives could not be used in such a confined
space. It wasn’t until the development of a reliable electric motor, and a means of transferring power from the
generator to a moving train, that the world’s first deep-level electric railway, the City & South London, became
possible. The line opened in 1890, and ran from the City to Stockwell, south of the River Thames. The trains were
made up of three carriages and driven by electric engines. The carriages were narrow and had tiny windows just below
the roof because it was thought that passengers would not want to look out at the tunnel walls. The line was not
without its problems, mainly caused by an unreliable power supply, Although the City & South London Railway was a
great technical achievement, it did not make a profit. Then, in 1900, the Central London Railway, known as the
‘Tuppenny Tube’, began operation using new electric locomotives. It was very popular and soon afterwards new
railways and extensions were added to the growing tube network. By 1907, the heart of today’s Underground system
was in place.
Questions 1-6
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
The London underground railway
The problem
● The 1 …………………… of London increased rapidly between 1800 and 1850
● The streets were full of horse-drawn vehicles
The proposed solution
● Charles Pearson, a solicitor, suggested building an underground railway
● Building the railway would make it possible to move people to better housing in the 2 ……………………
● A number of 3 …………………… agreed with Pearson’s idea
● The company initially had problems getting the 4 …………………… needed for the project
● Negative articles about the project appeared in the 5 ……………………
The construction
● The chosen route did not require many buildings to be pulled down
● The ‘cut and cover’ method was used to construct the tunnels
● With the completion of the brick arch, the tunnel was covered with 6 ……………………
Questions 7-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 7-13 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
7 Other countries had built underground railways before the Metropolitan line opened.
8 More people than predicted travelled on the Metropolitan line on the first day.
9 The use of ventilation shafts failed to prevent pollution in the tunnels.
10 A different approach from the ‘cut and cover’ technique was required in London’s central area.
11 The windows on City & South London trains were at eye level.
12 The City & South London Railway was a financial success.
13 Trains on the ‘Tuppenny Tube’ nearly always ran on time.

Insight or evolution?
Two scientists consider the origins of discoveries and other innovative behavior
Scientific discovery is popularly believed to result from the sheer genius of such intellectual stars as naturalist Charles
Darwin and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. Our view of such unique contributions to science often disregards the
person’s prior experience and the efforts of their lesser-known predecessors. Conventional wisdom also places great
weight on insight in promoting breakthrough scientific achievements, as if ideas spontaneously pop into someone’s
head – fully formed and functional.
There may be some limited truth to this view. However, we believe that it largely misrepresents the real nature of
scientific discovery, as well as that of creativity and innovation in many other realms of human endeavor.
Setting aside such greats as Darwin and Einstein – whose monumental contributions are duly celebrated – we suggest
that innovation is more a process of trial and error, where two steps forward may sometimes come with one step back,
as well as one or more stops to the right or left. This evolutionary view of human innovation undermines the notion of
creative genius and recognizes the cumulative nature of scientific progress.
Consider one unheralded scientist: John Nicholson, a mathematical physicist working in the 1910s who postulated the
existence of ‘proto-elements’ in outer space. By combining different numbers of weights of these proto-elements’
atoms, Nicholson could recover the weights of all the elements in the then-known periodic table. These successes are
all the more noteworthy given the fact that Nicholson was wrong about the presence of proto-elements: they do not
actually exist. Yet, amid his often fanciful theories and wild speculations, Nicholson also proposed a novel theory about
the structure of atoms. Niels Bohr, the Nobel prize-winning father of modern atomic theory, jumped off from this
interesting idea to conceive his now-famous model of the atom.
What are we to make of this story? One might simply conclude that science is a collective and cumulative enterprise.
That may be true, but there may be a deeper insight to be gleaned. We propose that science is constantly evolving,
much as species of animals do. In biological systems, organisms may display new characteristics that result from random
genetic mutations. In the same way, random, arbitrary or accidental mutations of ideas may help pave the way for
advances in science. If mutations prove beneficial, then the animal or the scientific theory will continue to thrive and
perhaps reproduce.
Support for this evolutionary view of behavioral innovation comes from many domains. Consider one example of an
influential innovation in US horseracing. The so-called ‘acey-deucy’ stirrup placement, in which the rider’s foot in his left
stirrup is placed as much as 25 centimeters lower than the right, is believed to confer important speed advantages when
turning on oval tracks. It was developed by a relatively unknown jockey named Jackie Westrope. Had Westrope
conducted methodical investigations or examined extensive film records in a shrewd plan to outrun his rivals? Had he
foreseen the speed advantage that would be conferred by riding acey-deucy? No. He suffered a leg injury, which left
him unable to fully bend his left knee. His modification just happened to coincide with enhanced left-hand turning
performance. This led to the rapid and widespread adoption of riding acey-deucy by many riders, a racing style which
continues in today’s thoroughbred racing.
Plenty of other stories show that fresh advances can arise from error, misadventure, and also pure serendipity – a happy
accident. For example, in the early 1970s, two employees of the company 3M each had a problem: Spencer Silver had a
product – a glue which was only slightly sticky – and no use for it, while his colleague Art Fry was trying to figure out
how to affix temporary bookmarks in his hymn book without damaging its pages. The solution to both these problems
was invention of the brilliantly simple yet phenomenally successful Post-It note. Such examples give lie to the claim that
ingenious, designing minds are responsible for human creativity and invention. Far more banal and mechanical forces
may be at work; forces that are fundamentally connected to the laws of science.
The notions of insight, creativity and genius are often invoked, but they remain vague and of doubtful scientific utility,
especially when one considers the diverse and enduring contributions of individuals such as Plato, Leonardo da Vinci,
Shakespeare, Beethoven, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Curie, Pasteur and Edison. These notions merely label rather than
explain the evolution of human innovations. We need another approach, and there is a promising candidate.
The Law of Effect was advanced by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1898, some 40 years after Charles Darwin
published his groundbreaking work on biological evolution, On the Origin of Species. This simple law holds that
organisms tend to repeat successful behaviors and to refrain from performing unsuccessful ones. Just like Darwin’s Law
of Natural Selection, the Law of Effect involves an entirely mechanical process of variation and selection, without any
end objective in sight.
Of course, the origin of human innovation demands much further study. In particular, the provenance of the raw
material on which the Law of Effect operates is not as clearly known as that of the genetic mutations on which the Law
of Natural Selection operates. The generation of novel ideas and behaviors may not be entirely random, but constrained
by prior successes and failures – of the current individual (such as Bohr) or of predecessors (such as Nicholson).
The time seems right for abandoning the naïve notion of intelligent design and genius, and for scientifically exploring
the true origins of creative behavior.
Questions 27-31
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27 The purpose of the first paragraph is to
A defend particular ideas.
B compare certain beliefs.
C disprove a widely held view.
D outline a common assumption.
28 What are the writers doing in the second paragraph?
A criticising an opinion
B justifying a standpoint
C explaining an approach
D supporting an argument
29 In the third paragraph, what do the writers suggest about Darwin and Einstein?
A They represent an exception to a general rule.
B Their way of working has been misunderstood.
C They are an ideal which others should aspire to.
D Their achievements deserve greater recognition.
30 John Nicholson is an example of a person whose idea
A established his reputation as an influential scientist.
B was only fully understood at a later point in history.
C laid the foundations for someone else’s breakthrough.
D initially met with scepticism from the scientific community.
31 What is the key point of interest about the ‘acey-deucy’ stirrup placement?
A the simple reason why it was invented
B the enthusiasm with which it was adopted
C the research that went into its development
D the cleverness of the person who first used it
Questions 32-36
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
32 Acknowledging people such as Plato or da Vinci as geniuses will help us understand the process by which great
minds create new ideas.
33 The Law of Effect was discovered at a time when psychologists were seeking a scientific reason why creativity
occurs.
34 The Law of Effect states that no planning is involved in the behaviour of organisms.
35 The Law of Effect sets out clear explanations about the sources of new ideas and behaviours.
36 Many scientists are now turning away from the notion of intelligent design and genius.
Questions 37-40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
The origins of creative behaviour
The traditional view of scientific discovery is that breakthroughs happen when a single great mind has
sudden 37 …………………… . Although this can occur, it is not often the case. Advances are more likely to be the result of
a longer process. In some cases, this process involves 38 ……………………, such as Nicholson’s theory about proto-
elements. In others, simple necessity may provoke innovation, as with Westrope’s decision to modify the position of
his riding stirrups. There is also often an element of 39 ……………………, for example, the coincidence of ideas that led to
the invention of the Post-It note. With both the Law of Natural Selection and the Law of Effect, there may be no
clear 40 …………………… involved, but merely a process of variation and selection.
A invention B goals C compromise
D mistakes E luck F inspiration
G experiments

The Step Pyramid of Djoser
A.The pyramids are the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt and still hold enormous interest for people in the
present day. These grand, impressive tributes to the memory of the Egyptian kings have become linked with the country
even though other cultures, such as the Chinese and Mayan, also built pyramids. The evolution of the pyramid form has
been written and argued about for centuries. However, there is no question that, as far as Egypt is concerned, it began
with one monument to one king designed by one brilliant architect: the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.
B.Djoser was the first king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt and the first to build in stone. Prior to Djoser’s reign, tombs
were rectangular monuments made of dried clay brick, which covered underground passages where the deceased
person was buried. For reasons which remain unclear, Djoser’s main official, whose name was Imhotep, conceived of
building a taller, more impressive tomb for his king by stacking stone slabs on top of one another, progressively making
them smaller, to form the shape now known as the Step Pyramid. Djoser is thought to have reigned for 19 years, but
some historians and scholars attribute a much longer time for his rule, owing to the number and size of the monuments
he built.
C.The Step Pyramid has been thoroughly examined and investigated over the last century, and it is now known that the
building process went through many different stages. Historian Marc Van de Mieroop comments on this, writing ‘Much
experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex.
It had several plans … before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six levels on top of one another … The
weight of the enormous mass was a challenge for the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to
prevent the monument breaking up.’
D.When finally completed, the Step Pyramid rose 62 meters high and was the tallest structure of its time. The complex
in which it was built was the size of a city in ancient Egypt and included a temple, courtyards, shrines, and living quarters
for the priests. It covered a region of 16 hectares and was surrounded by a wall 10.5 meters high. The wall had 13 false
doors cut into it with only one true entrance cut into the south-east corner; the entire wall was then ringed by a trench
750 meters long and 40 meters wide. The false doors and the trench were incorporated into the complex to discourage
unwanted visitors. If someone wished to enter, he or she would have needed to know in advance how to find the
location of the true opening in the wall. Djoser was so proud of his accomplishment that he broke the tradition of having
only his own name on the monument and had Imhotep’s name carved on it as well.
E.The burial chamber of the tomb, where the king’s body was laid to rest, was dug beneath the base of the pyramid,
surrounded by a vast maze of long tunnels that had rooms off them to discourage robbers. One of the most mysterious
discoveries found inside the pyramid was a large number of stone vessels. Over 40,000 of these vessels, of various forms
and shapes, were discovered in storerooms off the pyramid’s underground passages. They are inscribed with the names
of rulers from the First and Second Dynasties of Egypt and made from different kinds of stone. There is no agreement
among scholars and archaeologists on why the vessels were placed in the tomb of Djoser or what they were supposed
to represent. The archaeologist Jean-Philippe Lauer, who excavated most of the pyramid and complex, believes they
were originally stored and then give a ‘proper burial’ by Djoser in his pyramid to honor his predecessors. There are other
historians, however, who claim the vessels were dumped into the shafts as yet another attempt to prevent grave robbers
from getting to the king’s burial chamber.
F.Unfortunately, all of the precautions and intricate design of the underground network did not prevent ancient robbers
from finding a way in. Djoser’s grave goods, and even his body, were stolen at some point in the past and all
archaeologists found were a small number of his valuables overlooked by the thieves. There was enough left throughout
the pyramid and its complex, however, to astonish and amaze the archaeologists who excavated it.
G.Egyptologist Miroslav Verner writes, ‘Few monuments hold a place in human history as significant as that of the Step
Pyramid in Saqqara … It can be said without exaggeration that this pyramid complex constitutes a milestone in the
evolution of monumental stone architecture in Egypt and in the world as a whole.’ The Step Pyramid was a revolutionary
advance in architecture and became the archetype which all the other great pyramid builders of Egypt would follow.
Questions 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, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i The areas and artefacts within the pyramid itself
ii A difficult task for those involved
iii A king who saved his people
iv A single certainty among other less definite facts
v An overview of the external buildings and areas
vi A pyramid design that others copied
vii An idea for changing the design of burial structures
viii An incredible experience despite the few remains
ix The answers to some unexpected questions
14 Paragraph A
15 Paragraph B
16 Paragraph C
17 Paragraph D
18 Paragraph E
19 Paragraph F
20 Paragraph G
Questions 21-24
Complete the notes below.
The Step Pyramid of Djoser
The complex that includes the Step Pyramid and its surroundings is considered to be as big as an
Egyptian 21 ………………….. Of the past. The area outside the pyramid included accommodation that was occupied
by 22 …... along with many other buildings and features.
A wall ran around the outside of the complex and a number of false entrances were built into this. In addition, a
long 23 ………………….. encircled the wall. As a result, any visitors who had not been invited were cleverly prevented from
entering the pyramid grounds unless they knew the 24 ………………….. Of the real entrance.
Questions 25-26
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following points does the writer make about King Djoser?
A Initially he had to be persuaded to build in stone rather than clay.
B There is disagreement concerning the length of his reign.
C He failed to appreciate Imhotep’s part in the design of the Step Pyramid.
D A few of his possessions were still in his tomb when archaeologists found it.
E He criticised the design and construction of other pyramids in Egypt.
The future of work
According to a leading business consultancy, 3-14% of the global workforce will need to switch to a different occupation
within the next 10-15 years, and all workers will need to adapt as their occupations evolve alongside increasingly capable
machines. Automation – or ‘embodied artificial intelligence’ (AI) – is one aspect of the disruptive effects of technology
on the labour market. ‘Disembodied AI’, like the algorithms running in our smartphones, is another.
Dr Stella Pachidi from Cambridge Judge Business School believes that some of the most fundamental changes are
happening as a result of the ‘algorithmication’ of jobs that are dependent on data rather than on production – the so-
called knowledge economy. Algorithms are capable of learning from data to undertake tasks that previously needed
human judgement, such as reading legal contracts, analysing medical scans and gathering market intelligence.
‘In many cases, they can outperform humans,’ says Pachidi. ‘Organisations are attracted to using algorithms because
they want to make choices based on what they consider is “perfect information”, as well as to reduce costs and enhance
productivity.’
‘But these enhancements are not without consequences,’ says Pachidi. ‘If routine cognitive tasks are taken over by AI,
how do professions develop their future experts?’ she asks. ‘One way of learning about a job is “legitimate peripheral
participation” – a novice stands next to experts and learns by observation. If this isn’t happening, then you need to find
new ways to learn.’
Another issue is the extent to which the technology influences or even controls the workforce. For over two years,
Pachidi monitored a telecommunications company. ‘The way telecoms salespeople work is through personal and
frequent contact with clients, using the benefit of experience to assess a situation and reach a decision. However, the
company had started using a(n) … algorithm that defined when account managers should contact certain customers
about which kinds of campaigns and what to offer them.’
The algorithm – usually build by external designers – often becomes the keeper of knowledge, she explains. In cases like
this, Pachidi believes, a short-sighted view begins to creep into working practices whereby workers learn through the
‘algorithm’s eyes’ and become dependent on its instructions. Alternative explorations – where experimentation and
human instinct lead to progress and new ideas – are effectively discouraged.
Pachidi and colleagues even observed people developing strategies to make the algorithm work to their own advantage.
‘We are seeing cases where workers feed the algorithm with false data to reach their targets,’ she reports.
It’s scenarios like these that many researchers are working to avoid. Their objective is to make AI technologies more
trustworthy and transparent, so that organisations and individuals understand how AI decisions are made. In the
meantime, says Pachidi, ‘We need to make sure we fully understand the dilemmas that this new world raises regarding
expertise, occupational boundaries and control.’
Economist Professor Hamish Low believes that the future of work will involve major transitions across the whole life
course for everyone: ‘The traditional trajectory of full-time education followed by full-time work followed by a
pensioned retirement is a thing of the past,’ says Low. Instead, he envisages a multistage employment life: one where
retraining happens across the life course, and where multiple jobs and no job happen by choice at different stages.
On the subject of job losses, Low believes the predictions are founded on a fallacy: ‘It assumes that the number of jobs
is fixed. If in 30 years, half of 100 jobs are being carried out by robots, that doesn’t mean we are left with just 50 jobs
for humans. The number of jobs will increase: we would expect there to be 150 jobs.’
Dr Ewan McGaughey, at Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research and King’s College London, agrees that ‘apocalyptic’
views about the future of work are misguided. ‘It’s the laws that restrict the supply of capital to the job market, not the
advent of new technologies that causes unemployment.’
His recently published research answers the question of whether automation, AI and robotics will mean a ‘jobless future’
by looking at the causes of unemployment. ‘History is clear that change can mean redundancies. But social policies can
tackle this through retraining and redeployment.’
He adds: ‘If there is going to be change to jobs as a result of AI and robotics then I’d like to see governments seizing the
opportunity to improve policy to enforce good job security. We can “reprogramme” the law to prepare for a fairer future
of work and leisure.’ McGaughey’s findings are a call to arms to leaders of organisations, governments and banks to pre-
empt the coming changes with bold new policies that guarantee full employment, fair incomes and a thriving economic
democracy.
‘The promises of these new technologies are astounding. They deliver humankind the capacity to live in a way that
nobody could have once imagined,’ he adds. ‘Just as the industrial revolution brought people past subsistence
agriculture, and the corporate revolution enabled mass production, a third revolution has been pronounced. But it will
not only be one of technology. The next revolution will be social.’
Questions 27-30
27 The first paragraph tells us about
A the kinds of jobs that will be most affected by the growth of AI.
B the extent to which AI will after the nature of the work that people do.
C the proportion of the world’s labour force who will have jobs in AI in the future.
D the difference between ways that embodied and disembodied AI with impact on workers.
28 According to the second paragraph, what is Stella Pachidi’s view of the ‘knowledge economy’?
A It is having an influence on the number of jobs available.
B It is changing people’s attitudes towards their occupations.
C It is the main reason why the production sector is declining.
D It is a key factor driving current developments in the workplace.
29 What did Pachidi observe at the telecommunications company?
A staff disagreeing with the recommendations of AI
B staff feeling resentful about the intrusion of AI in their work
C staff making sure that AI produces the results that they want
D staff allowing AI to carry out tasks they ought to do themselves
30 In his recently published research, Ewan McGaughey
A challenges the idea that redundancy is a negative thing.
B shows the profound effect of mass unemployment on society.
C highlights some differences between past and future job losses.
D illustrates how changes in the job market can be successfully handled.
Questions 31-34
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.
The ‘algorithmication’ of jobs
Stella Pachidi of Cambridge Judge Business School has been focusing on the ‘algorithmication’ of jobs which rely not on
production but on 31 …………………. .
While monitoring a telecommunications company, Pachidi observed a growing 32 …………………. on the recommendations
made by AI, as workers begin to learn through the ‘algorithm’s eyes’. Meanwhile, staff are deterred from experimenting
and using their own 33 …………………., and are therefore prevented from achieving innovation.
To avoid the kind of situations which Pachidi observed, researchers are trying to make AI’s decision-making process
easier to comprehend, and to increase users’ 34 …………………. with regard to the technology.
A pressure B satisfaction C intuition
D promotion E reliance F confidence
G information
Questions 35-40
Look at the following statements (Questions 35-40) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A, B or C.
Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
35 Greater levels of automation will not result in lower employment.
36 There are several reasons why AI is appealing to businesses.
37 AI’s potential to transform people’s lives has parallels with major cultural shifts which occurred in previous eras.
38 It is important to be aware of the range of problems that AI causes.
39 People are going to follow a less conventional career path than in the past.
40 Authorities should take measures to ensure that there will be adequately paid work for everyone
List of people
A Stella Pachidi
B Hamish Low
C Ewan McGaughey

Driverless cars
A
The automotive sector is well used to adapting to automation in manufacturing. The implementation of robotic car
manufacture from the 1970s onwards led to significant cost savings and improvements in the reliability and flexibility of
vehicle mass production. A new challenge to vehicle production is now on the horizon and, again, it comes from
automation. However, this time it is not to do with the manufacturing process, but with the vehicles themselves.
Research projects on vehicle automation are not new. Vehicles with limited self-driving capabilities have been around
for more than 50 years, resulting in significant contributions towards driver assistance systems. But since Google
announced in 2010 that it had been trialling self-driving cars on the streets of California, progress in this field has quickly
gathered pace.
B
There are many reasons why technology is advancing so fast. One frequently cited motive is safety; indeed, research at
the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory has demonstrated that more than 90 percent of road collisions involve human
error as a contributory factor, and it is the primary cause in the vast majority. Automation may help to reduce the
incidence of this.
Another aim is to free the time people spend driving for other purposes. If the vehicle can do some or all of the driving,
it may be possible to be productive, to socialise or simply to relax while automation systems have responsibility for safe
control of the vehicle. If the vehicle can do the driving, those who are challenged by existing mobility models – such as
older or disabled travellers – may be able to enjoy significantly greater travel autonomy.
C
Beyond these direct benefits, we can consider the wider implications for transport and society, and how manufacturing
processes might need to respond as a result. At present, the average car spends more than 90 percent of its life parked.
Automation means that initiatives for car-sharing become much more viable, particularly in urban areas with significant
travel demand. If a significant proportion of the population choose to use shared automated vehicles, mobility demand
can be met by far fewer vehicles.
D
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated automated mobility in Singapore, finding that fewer than 30
percent of the vehicles currently used would be required if fully automated car sharing could be implemented. If this is
the case, it might mean that we need to manufacture far fewer vehicles to meet demand. However, the number of trips
being taken would probably increase, partly because empty vehicles would have to be moved from one customer to the
next.
Modelling work by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute suggests automated vehicles might
reduce vehicle ownership by 43 percent, but that vehicles’ average annual mileage double as a result. As a consequence,
each vehicle would be used more intensively, and might need replacing sooner. This faster rate of turnover may mean
that vehicle production will not necessarily decrease
E
Automation may prompt other changes in vehicle manufacture. If we move to a model where consumers are tending
not to own a single vehicle but to purchase access to a range of vehicle through a mobility provider, drivers will have
the freedom to select one that best suits their needs for a particular journey, rather than making a compromise across
all their requirements.
Since, for most of the time, most of the seats in most cars are unoccupied, this may boost production of a smaller, more
efficient range of vehicles that suit the needs of individuals. Specialised vehicles may then be available for exceptional
journeys, such as going on a family camping trip or helping a son or daughter move to university.
F
There are a number of hurdles to overcome in delivering automated vehicles to our roads. These include the technical
difficulties in ensuring that the vehicle works reliably in the infinite range of traffic, weather and road situations it might
encounter; the regulatory challenges in understanding how liability and enforcement might change when drivers are no
longer essential for vehicle operation; and the societal changes that may be required for communities to trust and accept
automated vehicles as being a valuable part of the mobility landscape.
G
It’s clear that there are many challenges that need to be addressed but, through robust and targeted research, these
can most probably be conquered within the next 10 years. Mobility will change in such potentially significant ways and
in association with so many other technological developments, such as telepresence and virtual reality, that it is hard to
make concrete predictions about the future. However, one thing is certain: change is coming, and the need to be flexible
in response to this will be vital for those involved in manufacturing the vehicles that will deliver future mobility.
Questions 14-18
Which section contains the following information?
14 reference to the amount of time when a car is not in use
15 mention of several advantages of driverless vehicles for individual road-users
16 reference to the opportunity of choosing the most appropriate vehicle for each trip
17 an estimate of how long it will take to overcome a number of problems
18 a suggestion that the use of driverless cars may have no effect on the number of vehicles manufactured
Questions 19-22
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
The impact of driverless cars

Figures from the Transport Research Laboratory indicate that most motor accidents are partly due to 19…………………….,
so the introduction of driverless vehicles will result in greater safety. In addition to the direct benefits of automation, it
may bring other advantages. For example, schemes for 20………………………. will be more workable, especially in towns
and cities, resulting in fewer cars on the road.
According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, there could be a 43 percent drop
in 21…………………….. of cars. However, this would mean that the yearly 22…………………….. of each car would, on average,
be twice as high as it currently is. this would lead to a higher turnover of vehicles, and therefore no reduction in
automotive manufacturing.
Questions 23 and 24
Which TWO benefits of automated vehicles does the writer mention?
A Car travellers could enjoy considerable cost savings.
B It would be easier to find parking spaces in urban areas.
C Travellers could spend journeys doing something other than driving.
D People who find driving physically difficult could travel independently.
E A reduction in the number of cars would mean a reduction in pollution.
Questions 25 and 26
Which TWO challenges to automated vehicle development does the writer mention?
A making sure the general public has confidence in automated vehicles
B managing the pace of transition from conventional to automated vehicles
C deciding how to compensate professional drivers who become redundant
D setting up the infrastructure to make roads suitable for automated vehicles
E getting automated vehicles to adapt to various different driving condition

Having a laugh
The findings of psychological scientists reveal the importance of humour
Humans start developing a sense of humour as early as six weeks old, when babies begin to laugh and smile in response
to stimuli. Laughter is universal across all human cultures and even exists in some form in rats, chimps, and bonobos.
Like other human emotions and expressions, laughter and humour psychological scientists with rich resources for
studying human psychology, ranging from the development of language to the neuroscience of social perception.
Theories focusing on the evolution of laughter point to it as an important adaptation for social communication. Take,
for example, the recorded laughter in TV comedy shows. Back in 1950, US sound engineer Charley Douglass hated
dealing with the unpredictable laughter of live audiences, so started recording his own ‘laugh tracks’. These were
intended to help people at home feel like they were in a social situation, such as a crowded theatre. Douglass even
recorded various types of laughter, as well as mixtures of laugher from men, women, and children. In doing so, he picked
up on a quality of laughter that is now interesting researchers: a simple ‘haha’ communicates a remarkable amount of
socially relevant information.
In one study conducted in 2016, samples of laughter from pairs of English-speaking students were recorded at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. A team made up of more than 30 psychological scientists, anthropologists, and
biologists then played these recording to listeners from 24 diverse societies, from indigenous tribes in New Guinea to
city-dwellers in India and Europe. Participants were asked whether they thought the people laughing were friends or
strangers. On average, the results were remarkably consistent: worldwide, people’s guesses were correct approximately
60% of the time.
Researchers have also found that different types of laughter serve as codes to complex human social hierarchies. A team
led by Christopher Oveis from the University of California, San Diego, found that high-status individuals had different
laughs from low-status individuals, and that strangers’ judgements of an individual’s social status were influenced by
the dominant or submissive quality of their laughter. In their study, 48 male college students were randomly assigned
to groups of four, with each group composed of two low-status members, who had just joined their college fraternity
group, and two high-status members, older student took a turn at being teased by the others, involving the use of mildly
insulting nicknames. Analysis revealed that, as expected, high-status individuals produced more dominant laughs and
fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status individuals. Meanwhile, low-status individuals were more likely to
change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the newcomers produced more dominant laughs when
they were in the ‘powerful’ role of teasers. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more variable in tone
than submissive laughter.
A random group of volunteers then listened to an equal number of dominant and submissive laughs from both the high-
and low-status individuals, and were asked to estimate the social status of the laughter. In line with predictions, laughers
producing dominant laughs were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughers producing submissive
laughs. ‘This was particularly true for low-status individuals, who were rated as significantly higher in status when
displaying a dominant versus submissive laugh,’ Oveis and colleagues note. ‘Thus, by strategically displaying more
dominant laughter when the context allows, low-status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.’
However, high-status individuals were rated as high-status whether they produced their natural dominant laugh or tried
to do a submissive one.
Another study, conducted by David Cheng and Lu Wang of Australian National University, was based on the hypothesis
that humour might provide a respite from tedious situations in the workplace. This ‘mental break’ might facilitate the
replenishment of mental resources. To test this theory, the researchers recruited 74 business students, ostensibly for
an experiment on perception. First, the students performed a tedious task in which they had to cross out every instance
of the letter ‘e’ over two pages of text. The students then were randomly assigned to watch a video clip eliciting either
humour, contentment, or neutral feelings. Some watched a clip of the BBC comedy Mr. Bean, others a relaxing scene
with dolphins swimming in the ocean, and others a factual video about the management profession.
The students then completed a task requiring persistence in which they were asked to guess the potential performance
of employees based on provided profiles, and were told that making 10 correct assessments in a row would lead to a
win. However, the software was programmed such that is was nearly impossible to achieve 10 consecutive correct
answers. Participants were allowed to quit the task at any point. Students who had watched the Mr. Bean video ended
up spending significantly more time working on the task, making twice as many predictions as the other two groups.
Cheng and Wang then replicated these results in a second study, during which they had participants complete long
multiplication questions by hand. Again, participants who watched the humorous video spent significantly more time
working on this tedious task and completed more questions correctly than did the students in either of the other groups.
‘Although humour has been found to help relieve stress and facilitate social relationships, traditional view of task
performance implies that individuals should avoid things such as humour that may distract them from the
accomplishment of task goals,’ Cheng and Wang conclude. ‘We suggest that humour is not only enjoyable but more
importantly, energising.’
Questions 27-31
27 When referring to laughter in the first paragraphs, the writer emphasises
A impact on language.
B its function in human culture.
C its value to scientific research.
D its universality in animal societies.
28 What does the writer suggest about Charley Douglass?
A He understood the importance of enjoying humour in a group setting.
B He believed that TV viewers at home needed to be told when to laugh.
C He wanted his shows to appeal to audiences across the social spectrum.
D He preferred shows where audiences were present in the recording studio.
29 What makes the Santa Cruz study particularly significant?
A the various different types of laughter that were studied
B the similar results produced by a wide range of cultures
C the number of different academic disciplines involved
D the many kinds of people whose laughter was recorded
30 Which of the following happened in the San Diego study?
A Some participants became very upset.
B Participants exchanged roles.
C Participants who had not met before became friends.
D Some participants were unable to laugh.
31 In the fifth paragraph, what did the results of the San Diego study suggest?
A It is clear whether a dominant laugh is produced by a high- or low-status person.
B Low-status individuals in a position of power will still produce submissive laughs.
C The submissive laughs of low- and high-status individuals are surprisingly similar.
D High-status individuals can always be identified by their way of laughing.
Questions 32-36
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-H, below.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.
The benefits of humour
In one study at Australian National University, randomly chosen groups of participants were shown one of three videos,
each designed to generate a different kind of 32………………….. . When all participants were then given a deliberately
frustrating task to do, it was found that those who had watched the 33…………………….. video persisted with the task for
longer and tried harder to accomplish the task than either of the other two groups.
A second study in which participants were asked to perform a particularly 34……………………… task produced similar
results. According to researchers David Cheng and Lu Wang, these findings suggest that humour not only
reduces 35…………………… and helps build social connections but it may also have a 36……………………. Effect on the body
and mind.
A laughter B relaxing C boring
D anxiety E stimulating F emotion
G enjoyment H amusing
Questions 37-40
TRUE if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
37 Participants in the Santa Cruz study were more accurate at identifying the laughs of friends than those of strangers.
38 The researchers in the San Diego study were correct in their predictions regarding the behaviour of the high-status
individuals.
39 The participants in the Australian National University study were given a fixed amount of time to complete the task
focusing on employee profiles.
40 Cheng and Wang’s conclusions were in line with established notions regarding task performance.
The psychology of innovation
Why are so few companies truly innovative?
Innovation is key to business survival, and companies put substantial resources into inspiring employees to develop
new ideas. There are, nevertheless, people working in luxurious, state-of-the-art centres designed to stimulate
innovation who find that their environment doesn’t make them feel at all creative. And there are those who don’t
have a budget, or much space, but who innovate successfully.
For Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, one reason that companies don’t succeed as
often as they should is that innovation starts with recruitment. Research shows that the fit between an employee’s
values and a company’s values makes a difference to what contribution they make and whether, two years after they
join, they’re still at the company. Studies at Harvard Business School show that, although some individuals may be
more creative than others, almost every individual can be creative in the right circumstances.
One of the most famous photographs in the story of rock’n’roll emphasises Ciaidini’s views. The 1956 picture of
singers Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis jamming at a piano in Sun Studios in Memphis tells
a hidden story. Sun’s ‘million-dollar quartet’ could have been a quintet. Missing from the picture is Roy Orbison’ a
greater natural singer than Lewis, Perkins or Cash. Sam Phillips, who owned Sun, wanted to revolutionise popular
music with songs that fused black and white music, and country and blues. Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis
instinctively understood Phillips’s ambition and believed in it. Orbison wasn’t inspired by the goal, and only ever
achieved one hit with the Sun label.
The value fit matters, says Cialdini, because innovation is, in part, a process of change, and under that pressure we, as
a species, behave differently, ‘When things change, we are hard-wired to play it safe.’ Managers should therefore
adopt an approach that appears counterintuitive -they should explain what stands to be lost if the company fails to
seize a particular opportunity. Studies show that we invariably take more gambles when threatened with a loss than
when offered a reward.
Managing innovation is a delicate art. It’s easy for a company to be pulled in conflicting directions as the marketing,
product development, and finance departments each get different feedback from different sets of people. And
without a system which ensures collaborative exchanges within the company, it’s also easy for small ‘pockets of
innovation’ to disappear. Innovation is a contact sport. You can’t brief people just by saying, ‘We’re going in this
direction and I’m going to take you with me.’
Cialdini believes that this ‘follow-the-leader syndrome, is dangerous, not least because it encourages bosses to go it
alone. ‘It’s been scientifically proven that three people will be better than one at solving problems, even if that one
person is the smartest person in the field.’ To prove his point, Cialdini cites an interview with molecular biologist
James Watson. Watson, together with Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA, the genetic information carrier
of all living organisms. ‘When asked how they had cracked the code ahead of an array of highly accomplished rival
investigators, he said something that stunned me. He said he and Crick had succeeded because they were aware that
they weren’t the most intelligent of the scientists pursuing the answer. The smartest scientist was called Rosalind
Franklin who, Watson said, “was so intelligent she rarely sought advice”.’
Teamwork taps into one of the basic drivers of human behaviour. ‘The principle of social proof is so pervasive that we
don’t even recognise it,’ says Cialdini. ‘If your project is being resisted, for example, by a group of veteran employees,
ask another old-timer to speak up for it.’ Cialdini is not alone in advocating this strategy. Research shows that peer
power, used horizontally not vertically, is much more powerful than any boss’s speech.
Writing, visualising and prototyping can stimulate the flow of new ideas. Cialdini cites scores of research papers and
historical events that prove that even something as simple as writing deepens every individual’s engagement in the
project. It is, he says, the reason why all those competitions on breakfast cereal packets encouraged us to write in
saying, in no more than 10 words: ‘I like Kellogg’s Com Flakes because… .’ The very act of writing makes us more likely
to believe it.
Authority doesn’t have to inhibit innovation but it often does. The wrong kind of leadership will lead to what Cialdini
calls ‘captainitis, the regrettable tendency of team members to opt out of team responsibilities that are properly
theirs’. He calls it captainitis because, he says, ‘crew members of multipilot aircraft exhibit a sometimes deadly
passivity when the flight captain makes a clearly wrong-headed decision’. This behaviour is not, he says, unique to air
travel, but can happen in any workplace where the leader is overbearing.
At the other end of the scale is the 1980s Memphis design collective, a group of young designers for whom ‘the only
rule was that there were no rule’. This environment encouraged a free interchange of ideas, which led to more
creativity with form, function, colour and materials that revolutionised attitudes to furniture design.
Many theorists believe the ideal boss should lead from behind, taking pride in collective accomplishment and giving
credit where it is due. Cialdini says: ‘Leaders should encourage everyone to contribute and simultaneously assure all
concerned that every recommendation is important to making the right decision and will be given full attention.’ The
frustrating thing about innovation is that there are many approaches, but no magic formula. However, a manager who
wants to create a truly innovative culture can make their job a lot easier by recognising these psychological realities.
Questions 27-30
27 The example of the ‘million-dollar quartet’ underlines the writer’s point about
A recognising talent.
B working as a team.
C having a shared objective.
D being an effective leader.
28 James Watson suggests that he and Francis Crick won the race to discover the DNA code because they
A were conscious of their own limitations.
B brought complementary skills to their partnership.
C were determined to outperform their brighter rivals.
D encouraged each other to realise their joint ambition.
29 The writer mentions competitions on breakfast cereal packets as an example of how to
A inspire creative thinking.
B generate concise writing.
C promote loyalty to a group.
D strengthen commitment to an idea.
30 In the last paragraph, the writer suggests that it is important for employees to
A be aware of their company’s goals.
B feel that their contributions are valued.
C have respect for their co-workers‟ achievements.
D understand why certain management decisions are made.
Questions 31-35
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet
31 Employees whose values match those of their employers are more likely to
32 At times of change, people tend to
33 If people are aware of what they might lose, they will often
34 People working under a dominant boss are liable to
35 Employees working in organisations with few rules are more likely to
A take chances.
B share their ideas.
C become competitive.
D get promotion.
E avoid risk.
F ignore their duties.
G remain in their jobs.
Questions 36-40
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
36 The physical surroundings in which a person works play a key role in determining their creativity.
37 Most people have the potential to be creative.
38 Teams work best when their members are of equally matched intelligence.
39 It is easier for smaller companies to be innovative.
40 A manager’s approval of an idea is more persuasive than that of a colleague.

Artificial artist?
Can computers really create works of art?
The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs which, so their makers claim, possess creative
talents. Classical music by an artificial composer has had audiences enraptured, and even tricked them into believing a
human was behind the score. Artworks painted by a robot have sold for thousands of dollars and been hung in
prestigious galleries. And software has been built which creates are that could not have been imagined by the
programmer.
Human beings are the only species to perform sophisticated creative acts regularly. If we can break this process down
into computer code, where does that leave human creativity? ‘This is a question at the very core of humanity,’ says
Geraint Wiggins, a computational creativity researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. ‘It scares a lot of people.
They are worried that it is taking something special away from what it means to be human.’
To some extent, we are all familiar with computerised art. The question is: where does the work of the artist stop and
the creativity of the computer begin? Consider one of the oldest machine artists, Aaron, a robot that has had paintings
exhibited in London’s Tate Modern and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Aaron can pick up a paintbrush and
paint on canvas on its own. Impressive perhaps, but it is still little more than a tool to realise the programmer’s own
creative ideas.
Simon Colton, the designer of the Painting Fool, is keen to make sure his creation doesn’t attract the same criticism.
Unlike earlier ‘artists’ such as Aaron, the Painting Fool only needs minimal direction and can come up with its own
concepts by going online for material. The software runs its own web searches and trawls through social media sites. It
is now beginning to display a kind of imagination too, creating pictures from scratch. One of its original works is a series
of fuzzy landscapes, depicting trees and sky. While some might say they have a mechanical look, Colton argues that such
reactions arise from people’s double standards towards software-produced and human-produced art. After all, he says,
consider that the Painting Fool painted the landscapes without referring to a photo. ‘If a child painted a new scene from
its head, you’d say it has a certain level of imagination,’ he points out. ‘The same should be true of a machine.’ Software
bugs can also lead to unexpected results. Some of the Painting Fool’s paintings of a chair came out in black and white,
thanks to a technical glitch. This gives the work an eerie, ghostlike quality. Human artists like the renowned Ellsworth
Kelly are lauded for limiting their colour palette – so why should computers be any different?
Researchers like Colton don’t believe it is right to measure machine creativity directly to that of humans who ‘have had
millennia to develop our skills’. Others, though, are fascinated by the prospect that a computer might create something
as original and subtle as our best artists. So far, only one has come close. Composer David Cope invented a program
called Experiments in Musical Intelligence, or EMI. Not only did EMI create compositions in Cope’s style, but also that of
the most revered classical composers, including Bach, Chopin and Mozart. Audiences were moved to tears, and EMI
even fooled classical music experts into thinking they were hearing genuine Bach. Not everyone was impressed however.
Some, such as Wiggins, have blasted Cope’s work as pseudoscience, and condemned him for his deliberately vague
explanation of how the software worked. Meanwhile, Douglas Hofstadter of Indiana University said EMI created replicas
which still rely completely on the original artist’s creative impulses. When audiences found out the truth they were often
outraged with Cope, and one music lover even tried to punch him. Amid such controversy, Cope destroyed EMI’s vital
databases.
But why did so many people love the music, yet recoil when the discovered how it was composed? A study by computer
scientist David Moffat of Glasgow Caledonian University provides a clue. He asked both expert musicians and non-
experts to assess six compositions. The participants weren’t told beforehand whether the tunes were composed by
humans or computers, but were asked to guess, and then rate how much they liked each one. People who thought the
composer was a computer tended to dislike the piece more than those who believed it was human. This was true even
among the experts, who might have been expected to be more objective in their analyses.
Where does this prejudice come from? Paul Bloom of Yale University has a suggestion: he reckons part of the pleasure
we get from art stems from the creative process behind the work. This can give it an ‘irresistible essence’, says Bloom.
Meanwhile, experiments by Justin Kruger of New York University have shown that people’s enjoyment of an artwork
increases if they think more time and effort was needed to create it. Similarly, Colton thinks that when people
experience art, they wonder what the artist might have been thinking or what the artist is trying to tell them. It seems
obvious, therefore, that with computers producing art, this speculation is cut short – there’s nothing to explore. But as
technology becomes increasingly complex, finding those greater depths in computer art could become possible. This is
precisely why Colton asks the Painting Fool to tap into online social networks for its inspiration: hopefully this way it will
choose themes that will already be meaningful to us.
Questions 27-31
27 What is the writer suggesting about computer-produced works in the first paragraph?
A People’s acceptance of them can vary considerably.
B A great deal of progress has already been attained in this field.
C They have had more success in some artistic genres than in others.
D the advances are not as significant as the public believes them to be.
28 According to Geraint Wiggins, why are many people worried by computer art?
A It is aesthetically inferior to human art.
B It may ultimately supersede human art.
C It undermines a fundamental human quality.
D It will lead to a deterioration in human ability.
29 What is a key difference between Aaron and the Painting Fool?
A its programmer’s background
B public response to its work
C the source of its subject matter
D the technical standard of its output
30 What point does Simon Colton make in the fourth paragraph?
A Software-produced art is often dismissed as childish and simplistic.
B The same concepts of creativity should not be applied to all forms of art.
C It is unreasonable to expect a machine to be as imaginative as a human being.
D People tend to judge computer art and human art according to different criteria.
31 The writer refers to the paintings of a chair as an example of computer art which
A achieves a particularly striking effect.
B exhibits a certain level of genuine artistic skill.
C closely resembles that of a well-known artist.
D highlights the technical limitations of the software.
Questions 32-37
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G below.
32 Simon Colton says it is important to consider the long-term view then
33 David Cope’s EMI software surprised people by
34 Geraint Wiggins criticized Cope for not
35 Douglas Hofstadter claimed that EMI was
36 Audiences who had listened to EMI’s music became angry after
37 The participants in David Moffat’s study had to assess music without
List of Ideas
A generating work that was virtually indistinguishable from that of humans.
B knowing whether it was the work of humans or software.
C producing work entirely dependent on the imagination of its creator.
D comparing the artistic achievements of humans and computers.
E revealing the technical details of his program.
F persuading the public to appreciate computer art.
G discovering that it was the product of a computer program
Questions 38-40
38 Moffat’s research may help explain people’s reactions to EMI.
39 The non-experts in Moffat’s study all responded in a predictable way.
40 Justin Kruger’s findings cast doubt on Paul Bloom’s theory about people’s prejudice towards computer art.

SAVING THE SOIL
More than a third of the Earth’s top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s most precious resource?
A
More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report. If we don’t slow the decline, all
farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil grows 95% of our food, and sustains human life in other more
surprising ways, that is a huge problem.
B
Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points out that soil scientists have been
warning about the degradation of the world’s soil for decades. At the same time, our understanding of its importance
to humans has grown. A single gram of healthy soil might contain 100 million bacteria, as well as other microorganisms
such as viruses and fungi, living amid decomposing plants and various minerals.
That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our existing antibiotics, and could be our
best hope in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms
within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times the amount of carbon
as does the entire atmosphere. Soils also store water, preventing flood damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads
and bridges from floods caused by soil degradation costs £233 million every year.
C
If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in big trouble. The danger is not that the
soil will disappear completely, but that the microorganisms that give it its special properties will be lost. And once this
has happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to recover.
Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow they remove nutrients from the soil, but then
when the plants die and decay these nutrients are returned directly to the soil. Humans tend not to return unused parts
of harvested crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less fertile. In the past we
developed strategies to get around the problem, such as regularly varying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields
uncultivated for a season.
D
But these practices became inconvenient as populations grew and agriculture had to be run on more commercial lines.
A solution came in the early 20th century with the Haber-Bosch process for manufacturing ammonium nitrate. Farmers
have been putting this synthetic fertiliser on their fields ever since.
But over the past few decades, it has become clear this wasn’t such a bright idea. Chemical fertilisers can release
polluting nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and excess is often washed away with the rain, releasing nitrogen into rivers.
More recently, we have found that indiscriminate use of fertilisers hurts the soil itself, turning it acidic and salty, and
degrading the soil they are supposed to nourish.
E
One of the people looking for a solution to his problem is Pius Floris, who started out running a tree-care business in the
Netherlands, and now advises some of the world’s top soil scientists. He came to realise that the best way to ensure his
trees flourished was to take care of the soil, and has developed a cocktail of beneficial bacteria, fungi and humus* to do
this. Researchers at the University of Valladolid in Spain recently used this cocktail on soils destroyed by years of fertiliser
overuse. When they applied Floris’s mix to the desert-like test plots, a good crop of plants emerged that were not just
healthy at the surface, but had roots strong enough to pierce dirt as hard as rock. The few plants that grew in the control
plots, fed with traditional fertilisers, were small and weak
F
However, measures like this are not enough to solve the global soil degradation problem. To assess our options on a
global scale we first need an accurate picture of what types of soil are out there, and the problems they face. That’s not
easy. For one thing, there is no agreed international system for classifying soil. In an attempt to unify the different
approaches, the UN has created the Global Soil Map project. Researchers from nine countries are working together to
create a map linked to a database that can be fed measurements from field surveys, drone surveys, satellite imagery,
lad analyses and so on to provide real-time data on the state of the soil. Within the next four years, they aim to have
mapped soils worldwide to a depth of 100 metres, with the results freely accessible to all.
G
But this is only a first step. We need ways of presenting the problem that bring it home to governments and the wider
public, says Pamela Chasek at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, in Winnipeg, Canada. ‘Most
scientists don’t speak language that policy-makers can understand, and vice versa.’ Chasek and her colleagues have
proposed a goal of ‘zero net land degradation’. Like the idea of carbon neutrality, it is an easily understood target that
can help shape expectations and encourage action.
For soils on the brink, that may be too late. Several researchers are agitating for the immediate creation of protected
zones for endangered soils. One difficulty here is defining what these areas should conserve: areas where the greatest
soil diversity is present? Or areas of unspoilt soils that could act as a future benchmark of quality?
Whatever we do, if we want our soils to survive, we need to take action now.
Questions 14-17
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Why soil degradation could be a disaster for humans
Healthy soil contains a large variety of bacteria and other microorganisms, as well as plant remains
and 14 ……………………….. It provides us with food and also with antibiotics, and its function in storing 15 ………………………….
has a significant effect on the climate. In addition, it prevents damage to property and infrastructure because it
holds 16……………………………
If these microorganisms are lost, soil may lose its special properties. The main factor contributing to soil degradation is
the 17………………………….. carried out by humans.
Questions 18-21
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.
18 Nutrients contained in the unused parts of harvested crops
19 Synthetic fertilisers produced with Haber-Bosch process
20 Addition of a mixture developed by Pius Floris to the soil
21 The idea of zero net soil degradation
A may improve the number and quality of plants growing there.
B may contain data from up to nine countries.
C may not be put back into the soil.
D may help governments to be more aware of soil-related issues.
E may cause damage to different aspects of the environment.
F may be better for use at a global level.
Questions 22-26
22 a reference to one person’s motivation for a soil-improvement project
23 an explanation of how soil stayed healthy before the development of farming
24 examples of different ways of collecting information on soil degradation
25 a suggestion for a way of keeping some types of soil safe in the near future
26 a reason why it is difficult to provide an overview of soil degradation
Book Review
The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being
By William Davies
‘Happiness is the ultimate goal because it is self-evidently good. If we are asked why happiness matters we can give no
further external reason. It just obviously does matter.’ This pronouncement by Richard Layard, an economist and
advocate of ‘positive psychology’, summarises the beliefs of many people today. For Layard and others like him, it is
obvious that the purpose of government is to promote a state of collective well-being. The only question is how to
achieve it, and here positive psychology – a supposed science that not only identifies what makes people happy but also
allows their happiness to be measured – can show the way. Equipped with this science, they say, governments can
secure happiness in society in a way they never could in the past.
It is an astonishingly crude and simple-minded way of thinking, and for that very reason increasingly popular. Those who
think in this way are oblivious to the vast philosophical literature in which the meaning and value of happiness have
been explored and questioned, and write as if nothing of any importance had been thought on the subject until it came
to their attention. It was the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who was more than anyone else responsible for
the development of this way of thinking. For Bentham it was obvious that the human good consists of pleasure and the
absence of pain. The Greek philosopher Aristotle may have identified happiness with self-realisation in the 4th century
BC, and thinkers throughout the ages may have struggled to reconcile the pursuit of happiness with other human values,
but for Bentham all this was mere metaphysics or fiction. Without knowing anything much of him or the school of moral
theory he established – since they are by education and intellectual conviction illiterate in the history of ideas – our
advocates of positive psychology follow in his tracks in rejecting as outmoded and irrelevant pretty much the entirety
of ethical reflection on human happiness to date.
But as William Davies notes in his recent book The Happiness Industry, the view that happiness is the only self-evident
good is actually a way of limiting moral inquiry. One of the virtues of this rich, lucid and arresting book is that it places
the current cult of happiness in a well-defined historical framework. Rightly, Davies his story with Bentham, noting that
he was far more than a philosopher. Davies writes, ‘Bentham’s activities were those which we might now associate with
a public sector management consultant’. In the 1790s, he wrote to the Home Office suggesting that the departments of
government be linked together through a set of ‘conversation tubes’, and to the Bank of England with a design for a
printing device that could produce unforgeable banknotes. He drew up plans for a ‘frigidarium’ to keep provisions such
as meat, fish, fruit and vegetables fresh. His celebrated design for a prison to be known as a ‘Panopticon’, in which
prisoners would be kept in solitary confinement while being visible at all times to the guards, was very nearly adopted.
(Surprisingly, Davies does not discuss the fact that Bentham meant his Panopticon not just as a model prison but also as
an instrument of control that could be applied to schools and factories.)
Bentham was also a pioneer of the ‘science of happiness’. If happiness is to be regarded as a science, it has to be
measured, and Bentham suggested two ways in which this might be done. Viewing happiness as a complex of
pleasurable sensations, he suggested that it might be quantified by measuring the human pulse rate. Alternatively,
money could be used as the standard for quantification: if two different goods have the same price, it can be claimed
that they produce the same quantity of pleasure in the consumer. Bentham was more attracted by the latter measure.
By associating money so closely to inner experience, Davies writes, Bentham ‘set the stage for the entangling of
psychological research and capitalism that would shape the business practices of the twentieth century’.
The Happiness Industry describes how the project of a science of happiness has become integral to capitalism. We learn
much that is interesting about how economic problems are being redefined and treated as psychological maladies. In
addition, Davies shows how the belief that inner of pleasure and displeasure can be objectively measured has informed
management studies and advertising. The tendency of thinkers such as J B Watson, the founder of behaviourism*, was
that human beings could be shaped, or manipulated, by policymakers and managers. Watson had no factual basis for
his view of human action. When he became president of the American Psychological Association in 1915, he ‘had never
even studied a single human being’: his research had been confined to experiments on white rats. Yet Watson’s
reductive model is now widely applied, with ‘behaviour change’ becoming the goal of governments: in Britain, a
‘Behaviour Insights Team’ has been established by the government to study how people can be encouraged, at minimum
cost to the public purse, to live in what are considered to be socially desirable ways.
Modern industrial societies appear to need the possibility of ever-increasing happiness to motivate them in their
labours. But whatever its intellectual pedigree, the idea that governments should be responsible for promoting
happiness is always a threat to human freedom.
———————–
* ‘behaviourism’: a branch of psychology which is concerned with observable behaviour
Questions 27-29
27 What is the reviewer’s attitude to advocates of positive psychology?
A They are wrong to reject the ideas of Bentham.
B They are over-influenced by their study of Bentham’s theories.
C They have a fresh new approach to ideas on human happiness.
D They are ignorant about the ideas they should be considering.
28 The reviewer refers to the Greek philosopher Aristotle in order to suggest that happiness
A may not be just pleasure and the absence of pain.
B should not be the main goal of humans.
C is not something that should be fought for.
D is not just an abstract concept.
29 According to Davies, Bentham’s suggestion for linking the price of goods to happiness was significant because
A it was the first successful way of assessing happiness.
B it established a connection between work and psychology.
C it was the first successful example of psychological research.
D it involved consideration of the rights of consumers.
Questions 30-34
Complete the summary using the list of words A-G below.
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was active in other areas besides philosophy. In the 1970s he suggested a type of technology to
improve 30……………………… for different Government departments. He developed a new way of printing banknotes to
increase 31………………………… and also designed a method for the 32 …………………………. of food. He also drew up plans
for a prison which allowed the 33…………………………. of prisoners at all times, and believed the same design could be used
for other institutions as well. When researching happiness, he investigated possibilities for its 34…... and suggested some
methods of doing this.
A measurement
B security
C implementation
D profits
E observation
F communication
G preservation
Questions 35-40
35 One strength of The Happiness Industry is its discussion of the relationship between psychology and economics.
36 It is more difficult to measure some emotions than others.
37 Watson’s ideas on behaviourism were supported by research on humans he carried out before 1915.
38 Watson’s ideas have been most influential on governments outside America.
39 The need for happiness is linked to industrialisation.
40 A main aim of government should be to increase the happiness of the population.

Whatever happened to the Harappan Civilization?
New research sheds light on the disappearance of an ancient society
A
The Harappan Civilisation of ancient Pakistan and India flourished 5,000 years ago, but a thousand years later their cities
were abandoned. The Harappan Civilisation was a sophisticated Bronze Age society who built ‘megacities’ and traded
internationally in luxury craft products, and yet seemed to have left almost no depictions of themselves. But their lack
of self-imagery – at a time when the Egyptians were carving and painting representations of themselves all over their
temples – is only part of the mystery.
B
‘There is plenty of archaeological evidence to tell us about the rise of the Harappan Civilisation, but relatively little about
its fall,’ explains archaeologist Dr Cameron Petrie of the University of Cambridge. ‘As populations increased, cities were
built that had great baths, craft workshops, palaces and halls laid out in distinct sectors. Houses were arranged in blocks,
with wide main streets and narrow alleyways, and many had their own wells and drainage systems. It was very much a
“thriving” civilisation.’ Then around 2100 BC, a transformation began. Streets went uncleaned, buildings started to be
abandoned, and ritual structures fell out of use. After their final demise, a millennium passed before really large-scale
cities appeared once more in South Asia.
C
Some have claimed that major glacier-fed rivers changed their course, dramatically affecting the water supply and
agriculture; or that the cities could not cope with an increasing population, they exhausted their resource base, the
trading economy broke down or they succumbed to invasion and conflict; and yet others that climate change caused an
environmental change that affected food and water provision. ‘It is unlikely that there was a single cause for the decline
of the civilisation. But the fact is, until now, we have had little solid evidence from the area for most of the key elements,’
said Petrie. ‘A lot of the archaeological debate has really only been well-argued speculation.’
D
A research team led by Petrie, together with Dr Ravindanath Singh of Banaras Hindu University in India, found early in
their investigations that many of the archaeological sites were not where they were supposed to be, completely altering
understanding of the way that this region was inhabited in the past. When they carried out a survey of how the larger
area was settled in relation to sources of water, they found inaccuracies in the published geographic locations of ancient
settlements ranging from several hundred metres to many kilometres. They realised that any attempts to use the
existing data were likely to be fundamentally flawed. Over the course of several seasons of fieldwork they carried out
new surveys, finding an astonishing 198 settlement sites that were previously unknown.
E
Now, research published by Dr Yama Dixit and Professor David Hodell, both from Cambridge’s Department of Earth
Sciences, has provided the first definitive evidence for climate change affecting the plains of north-western India, where
hundreds of Harappan sites are known to have been situated. The researchers gathered shells of Melanoides
tuberculate snails from the sediments of an ancient lake and used geochemical analysis as a means of tracing the climate
history of the region. ‘As today, the major source of water into the lake is likely to have been the summer monsoon,’
says Dixit. ‘But we have observed that there was an abrupt change about 4,100 years ago, when the amount of
evaporation from the lake exceeded the rainfall – indicative of a drought.’ Hodell adds: ‘We estimate that the weakening
of the Indian summer monsoon climate lasted about 200 years before recovering to the previous conditions, which we
still see today.’
F
It has long been thought that other great Bronze Age civilisations also declined at a similar time, with a global-scale
climate event being seen as the cause. While it is possible that these local-scale processes were linked, the real
archaeological interest lies in understanding the impact of these larger-scale events on different environments and
different populations. ‘Considering the vast area of the Harappan Civilisation with its variable weather systems,’ explains
Singh, ‘it is essential that we obtain more climate data from areas close to the two great cities at Mohenjodaro and
Harappa and also from the Indian Punjab.’
G
Petrie and Singh’s team is now examining archaeological records and trying to understand details of how people led
their lives in the region five millennia ago. They are analysing grains cultivated at the time, and trying to work out
whether they were grown under extreme conditions of water stress, and whether they were adjusting the combinations
of crops they were growing for different weather systems. They are also looking at whether the types of pottery used,
and other aspects of their material culture, were distinctive to specific regions or were more similar across larger areas.
This gives us insight into the types of interactive networks that the population was involved in, and whether those
changed.
H
Petrie believes that archaeologists are in a unique position to investigate how past societies responded to environmental
and climatic change. ‘By investigating responses to environmental pressures and threats, we can learn from the past to
engage with the public, and the relevant governmental and administrative bodies, to be more proactive in issues such
as the management and administration of water supply, the balance of urban and rural development, and the
importance of preserving cultural heritage in the future.’
Questions 27-31
Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs, A-H.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once
27 proposed explanations for the decline of the Harappan Civilisation
28 reference to a present-day application of some archaeological research findings
29 a difference between the Harappan Civilisation and another culture of the same period
30 a description of some features of Harappan urban design
31 reference to the discovery of errors made by previous archaeologists
Questions 32-36
Looking at evidence of climate change
Yama Dixit and David Hodell have found the first definitive evidence of climate change affecting the plains of north-
western India thousands of years ago. By collecting the 32………………………… of snails and analysing them, they discovered
evidence of a change in water levels in a 33……………………….. in the region. This occurred when there was
less 34…………………………….. than evaporation, and suggests that there was an extended period of drought.
Petrie and Singh’s team are using archaeological records to look at 35…………………………… from five millennia ago, in order
to know whether people had adapted their agricultural practices to changing climatic conditions. They are also
examining objects including 36………………………….. , so as to find out about links between inhabitants of different parts
of the region and whether these changed over time.
Questions 37-40
Look at the following statements (Questions 38-40) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
37 Finding further information about changes to environmental conditions in the region is vital.
38 Examining previous patterns of behaviour may have long-term benefits.
39 Rough calculations indicate the approximate length of a period of water shortage.
40 Information about the decline of the Harappan Civilisation has been lacking.
List of Researchers
A Cameron Petrie
B Ravindanath Singh
C Yama Dixit
D David Hodell
READING PASSAGE 1
The Lake Erie Canal
Begun in 1817 and opened in its entirety in 1825, the Erie Canal is considered by some to be the engineering marvel of
the nineteenth century. When the federal government concluded that the project was too ambitious to undertake, the
State of New York took on the task of carving 363 miles of canal through the wilderness, with nothing but the muscle
power of men and horses.
Once derided as ‘Clinton’s Folly’ for the Governor who lent his vision and political muscle to the project, the Erie Canal
experienced unparalleled success almost overnight. The iconic waterway established settlement patterns for most of
the United States during the nineteenth century, made New York the financial capital of the world, provided a critical
supply line that helped the North win the Civil War, and precipitated a series of social and economic changes throughout
a young America.
Explorers had long searched for a water route to the west. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the
lack of an efficient and safe transportation network kept populations and trade largely confined to coastal areas. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the Allegheny Mountains were the Western Frontier. The Northwest Territories
that would later become Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio were rich in timber, minerals, and fertile land for farming,
but it took weeks to reach these things. Travellers were faced with rutted turnpike roads that baked to hardness in the
summer sun. In the winter, the roads dissolved into mud.
An imprisoned flour merchant named Jesse Hawley envisioned a better way: a canal from Buffalo on the eastern shore
of Lake Erie to Albany on the upper Hudson River, a distance of almost 400 miles. Long a proponent of efficient water
transportation, Hawley had gone bankrupt trying to move his products to market. Hawley’s ideas caught the interest of
Assemblyman Joshua Forman, who submitted the first state legislation related to the Erie Canal in 1808, calling for a
series of surveys to be made examining the practicality of a water route between Lake Erie and the Hudson River. In
1810, Thomas Eddy, and State Senator Jonas Platt, hoping to get plans for the canal moving forward, approached
influential Senator De Witt Clinton, former mayor of New York City, to enlist his support. Though Clinton had been
recruited to the canal effort by Eddy and Platt, he quickly became one of the canal’s most active supporters and went
on to successfully tie his very political fate to its success.
On April 15th, 1817, the New York State Legislature finally approved construction of the Erie Canal. The Legislature
authorised $7 million for construction of the 363-mile long waterway, which was to be 40 feet wide and eighteen feet
deep. Construction began on July 4th 1817 and took eight years.
Like most canals, the Erie Canal depended on a lock system in order to compensate for changes in water levels over
distance. A lock is a section of canal or river that is closed off to control the water level, so that boats can be raised or
lowered as they pass through it. Locks have two sets of sluice gates (top and bottom), which seal off and then open the
entrances to the chamber, which is where a boat waits while the movement up or down takes place. In addition, locks
also have valves at the bottom of the sluice gates and it is by opening these valves that water is allowed into and out of
the chamber to raise or lower the water level, and hence the boat.
The effect of the Erie Canal was both immediate and dramatic, and settlers poured west. The explosion of trade
prophesied by Governor Clinton began, spurred by freight rates from Buffalo to New York of $10 per ton by canal,
compared with $100 per ton by road. In 1829, there were 3,640 bushels of wheat transported down the canal from
Buffalo. By 1837, this figure had increased to 500,000 bushels and, four years later, it reached one million. In nine years,
canal tolls more than recouped the entire cost of construction. Within 15 years of the canal’s opening, New York was
the busiest port in America, moving tonnages greater than Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined. Today, it can
still be seen that every major city in New York State falls along the trade route established by the Erie Canal and nearly
80 per cent of upstate New York’s inhabitants live within 25 miles of the Erie Canal.
The completion of the Erie Canal spurred the first great westward movement of American settlers, gave access to the
resources west of the Appalachians and made New York the preeminent commercial city in the United States. At one
time, more than 50,000 people depended on the Erie Canal for their livelihood. From its inception, the Erie Canal helped
form a whole new culture revolving around canal life. For those who travelled along the canal in packet boats or
passenger vessels, the canal was an exciting place. Gambling and entertainment were frequent pastimes, and often
families would meet each year at the same locations to share stories and adventures. Today, the canal has returned to
its former glory and is filled with pleasure boats, fishermen, holidaymakers and cyclists riding the former towpaths
where mules once trod. The excitement of the past is alive and well.
Questions 1-6
Choose SIX letters, A-K.
What SIX of the following were effects of the Lake Erie Canal?
Write the correct letter, A-K, in any order in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
A It brought building materials to expand the city of Chicago.
B It established the financial dominance of New York City.
C It generated taxes that stimulated the whole region.
D It helped the north win the US Civil War.
E It was used for training troops in World War One.
F It helped boost a politician’s career.
G It stimulated the shipbuilding industry.
H It led to cheaper distribution for goods.
I It influenced New York State’s population distribution.
J It allowed damaging species of fish to travel to different ecosystems.
K It became a boost for tourism.
Questions 7-9
Label the diagram below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Questions 10 -13
Answer the questions below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.
10 What was the beneficial factor for productive agriculture in the Northwest Territories at the beginning of the
nineteenth century?
11 In what commodity did the person who first came up with the idea of the Erie Canal trade?
12 How long did it take to build the Erie Canal?
13 How were the Erie Canal’s building costs recovered?

Artificial artist?
Can computers really create works of art?
The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs which, so their makers claim, possess creative
talents. Classical music by an artificial composer has had audiences enraptured, and even tricked them into believing a
human was behind the score. Artworks painted by a robot have sold for thousands of dollars and been hung in
prestigious galleries. And software has been built which creates are that could not have been imagined by the
programmer.
Human beings are the only species to perform sophisticated creative acts regularly. If we can break this process down
into computer code, where does that leave human creativity? ‘This is a question at the very core of humanity,’ says
Geraint Wiggins, a computational creativity researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. ‘It scares a lot of people.
They are worried that it is taking something special away from what it means to be human.’
To some extent, we are all familiar with computerised art. The question is: where does the work of the artist stop and
the creativity of the computer begin? Consider one of the oldest machine artists, Aaron, a robot that has had paintings
exhibited in London’s Tate Modern and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Aaron can pick up a paintbrush and
paint on canvas on its own. Impressive perhaps, but it is still little more than a tool to realise the programmer’s own
creative ideas.
Simon Colton, the designer of the Painting Fool, is keen to make sure his creation doesn’t attract the same criticism.
Unlike earlier ‘artists’ such as Aaron, the Painting Fool only needs minimal direction and can come up with its own
concepts by going online for material. The software runs its own web searches and trawls through social media sites. It
is now beginning to display a kind of imagination too, creating pictures from scratch. One of its original works is a series
of fuzzy landscapes, depicting trees and sky. While some might say they have a mechanical look, Colton argues that such
reactions arise from people’s double standards towards software-produced and human-produced art. After all, he says,
consider that the Painting Fool painted the landscapes without referring to a photo. ‘If a child painted a new scene from
its head, you’d say it has a certain level of imagination,’ he points out. ‘The same should be true of a machine.’ Software
bugs can also lead to unexpected results. Some of the Painting Fool’s paintings of a chair came out in black and white,
thanks to a technical glitch. This gives the work an eerie, ghostlike quality. Human artists like the renowned Ellsworth
Kelly are lauded for limiting their colour palette – so why should computers be any different?
Researchers like Colton don’t believe it is right to measure machine creativity directly to that of humans who ‘have had
millennia to develop our skills’. Others, though, are fascinated by the prospect that a computer might create something
as original and subtle as our best artists. So far, only one has come close. Composer David Cope invented a program
called Experiments in Musical Intelligence, or EMI. Not only did EMI create compositions in Cope’s style, but also that of
the most revered classical composers, including Bach, Chopin and Mozart. Audiences were moved to tears, and EMI
even fooled classical music experts into thinking they were hearing genuine Bach. Not everyone was impressed however.
Some, such as Wiggins, have blasted Cope’s work as pseudoscience, and condemned him for his deliberately vague
explanation of how the software worked. Meanwhile, Douglas Hofstadter of Indiana University said EMI created replicas
which still rely completely on the original artist’s creative impulses. When audiences found out the truth they were often
outraged with Cope, and one music lover even tried to punch him. Amid such controversy, Cope destroyed EMI’s vital
databases.
But why did so many people love the music, yet recoil when the discovered how it was composed? A study by computer
scientist David Moffat of Glasgow Caledonian University provides a clue. He asked both expert musicians and non-
experts to assess six compositions. The participants weren’t told beforehand whether the tunes were composed by
humans or computers, but were asked to guess, and then rate how much they liked each one. People who thought the
composer was a computer tended to dislike the piece more than those who believed it was human. This was true even
among the experts, who might have been expected to be more objective in their analyses.
Where does this prejudice come from? Paul Bloom of Yale University has a suggestion: he reckons part of the pleasure
we get from art stems from the creative process behind the work. This can give it an ‘irresistible essence’, says Bloom.
Meanwhile, experiments by Justin Kruger of New York University have shown that people’s enjoyment of an artwork
increases if they think more time and effort was needed to create it. Similarly, Colton thinks that when people
experience art, they wonder what the artist might have been thinking or what the artist is trying to tell them. It seems
obvious, therefore, that with computers producing art, this speculation is cut short – there’s nothing to explore. But as
technology becomes increasingly complex, finding those greater depths in computer art could become possible. This is
precisely why Colton asks the Painting Fool to tap into online social networks for its inspiration: hopefully this way it will
choose themes that will already be meaningful to us.
Questions 27-31
27 What is the writer suggesting about computer-produced works in the first paragraph?
A People’s acceptance of them can vary considerably.
B A great deal of progress has already been attained in this field.
C They have had more success in some artistic genres than in others.
D the advances are not as significant as the public believes them to be.
28 According to Geraint Wiggins, why are many people worried by computer art?
A It is aesthetically inferior to human art.
B It may ultimately supersede human art.
C It undermines a fundamental human quality.
D It will lead to a deterioration in human ability.
29 What is a key difference between Aaron and the Painting Fool?
A its programmer’s background
B public response to its work
C the source of its subject matter
D the technical standard of its output
30 What point does Simon Colton make in the fourth paragraph?
A Software-produced art is often dismissed as childish and simplistic.
B The same concepts of creativity should not be applied to all forms of art.
C It is unreasonable to expect a machine to be as imaginative as a human being.
D People tend to judge computer art and human art according to different criteria.
31 The writer refers to the paintings of a chair as an example of computer art which
A achieves a particularly striking effect.
B exhibits a certain level of genuine artistic skill.
C closely resembles that of a well-known artist.
D highlights the technical limitations of the software.
Questions 32-37
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G below.
32 Simon Colton says it is important to consider the long-term view then
33 David Cope’s EMI software surprised people by
34 Geraint Wiggins criticized Cope for not
35 Douglas Hofstadter claimed that EMI was
36 Audiences who had listened to EMI’s music became angry after
37 The participants in David Moffat’s study had to assess music without
List of Ideas
A generating work that was virtually indistinguishable from that of humans.
B knowing whether it was the work of humans or software.
C producing work entirely dependent on the imagination of its creator.
D comparing the artistic achievements of humans and computers.
E revealing the technical details of his program.
F persuading the public to appreciate computer art.
G discovering that it was the product of a computer program
Questions 38-40
38 Moffat’s research may help explain people’s reactions to EMI.
39 The non-experts in Moffat’s study all responded in a predictable way.
40 Justin Kruger’s findings cast doubt on Paul Bloom’s theory about people’s prejudice towards computer art.

Beyond the blue horizon
Ancient voyagers who settled the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean
An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has revealed traces
of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians. The site came to light only by chance. An
agricultural worker, digging in the grounds of a derelict plantation, scraped open a grave – the first of dozens in a burial
ground some 3,000 years old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, and it harbors the remains of an
ancient people archaeologists call the Lapita.
They were daring blue-water adventurers who used basic canoes to rove across the ocean. But they were not just
explorers. They were also pioneers who carried with them everything they would need to build new lives – their
livestock, taro seedlings and stone tools. Within the span of several centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of
their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga.
The Lapita left precious few clues about themselves, but Efate expands the volume of data available to researchers
dramatically. The remains of 62 individuals have been uncovered so far, and archaeologists were also thrilled to find six
complete Lapita pots. Other items included a Lapita burial urn with modeled birds arranged on the rim as though peering
down at the human remains sealed inside. ‘It’s an important discovery,’ says Matthew Spriggs, professor of archaeology
at the Australian National University and head of the international team digging up the site, ‘for it conclusively identifies
the remains as Lapita.’
DNA teased from these human remains may help answer one of the most puzzling questions in Pacific anthropology:
did all Pacific islanders spring from one source or many? Was there only one outward migration from a single point in
Asia, or several from different points? ‘This represents the best opportunity we’ve had yet,’ says Spriggs, ‘to find out
who the Lapita actually were, where they came from, and who their closest descendants are today.’
There is one stubborn question for which archaeology has yet to provide any answers: how did the Lapita accomplish
the ancient equivalent of a moon landing, many times over? No-one has found one of their canoes or any rigging, which
could reveal how the canoes were sailed. Nor do the oral histories and traditions of later Polynesians offer any insights,
for they turn into myths long before they reach as far back in time as the Lapita.
‘All we can say for certain is that the Lapita had canoes that were capable of ocean voyages, and they had the ability to
sail them,’ says Geoff Irwin, a professor of archaeology at the University of Auckland. Those sailing skills, he says, were
developed and passed down over thousands of years by earlier mariners who worked their way through the
archipelagoes of the western Pacific, making short crossings to nearby islands. The real adventure didn’t begin, however,
until their Lapita descendants sailed out of sight of land, with empty horizons on every side. This must have been as
difficult for them as landing on the moon is for us today. Certainly it distinguished them from their ancestors, but what
gave them the courage to launch out on such risky voyages?
The Lap it as thrust into the Pacific was eastward, against the prevailing trade winds, Irwin notes. Those nagging
headwinds, he argues, may have been the key to their success. ‘They could sail out for days into the unknown and assess
the area, secure in the knowledge that if they didn’t find anything, they could turn about and catch a swift ride back on
the trade winds. This is what would have made the whole thing work.’ Once out there, skilled seafarers would have
detected abundant leads to follow to land: seabirds, coconuts and twigs carried out to sea by the tides, and the
afternoon pile-up of clouds on the horizon which often indicates an island in the distance.
For returning explorers, successful or not, the geography of their own archipelagoes would have provided a safety net.
Without this to go by, overshooting their home ports, getting lost and sailing off into eternity would have been all too
easy. Vanuatu, for example, stretches more than 500 miles in a northwest-southeast trend, its scores of intervisible
islands forming a backstop for mariners riding the trade winds home.
All this presupposes one essential detail, says Atholl Anderson, professor of prehistory at the Australian National
University: the Lapita had mastered the advanced art of sailing against the wind. ‘And there’s no proof they could do
any such thing,’ Anderson says. ‘There has been this assumption they did, and people have built canoes to re-create
those early voyages based on that assumption. But nobody has any idea what their canoes looked like or how they were
rigged.’
Rather than give all the credit to human skill, Anderson invokes the winds of chance. El Nino, the same climate disruption
that affects the Pacific today, may have helped scatter the Lapita, Anderson suggests. He points out that climate data
obtained from slow-growing corals around the Pacific indicate a series of unusually frequent El Ninos around the time
of the Lapita expansion. By reversing the regular east-to-west flow of the trade winds for weeks at a time, these super
El Ninos might have taken the Lapita on long unplanned voyages.
However they did it, the Lapita spread themselves a third of the way across the Pacific, then called it quits for reasons
known only to them. Ahead lay the vast emptiness of the central Pacific and perhaps they were too thinly stretched to
venture farther. They probably never numbered more than a few thousand in total, and in their rapid migration
eastward they encountered hundreds of islands – more than 300 in Fiji alone.
Questions 27-31
Complete the summary using the list of words and phrases, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 37-31 on your sheet.
The Éfaté burial site
A 3,000-year-old burial ground of a seafaring people called the Lapita has been found on an abandoned 27……………. on
the Pacific island of Efate. The cemetery, which is a significant 28…………….. , was uncovered accidentally by an
agricultural worker.
The Lapita explored and colonised many Pacific islands over several centuries. They took many things with them on
their voyages including 29……………… and tools.
The burial ground increases the amount of information about the Lapita available to scientists. A team of researchers,
led by Matthew Spriggs from the Australian National University, are helping with the excavation of the site. Spriggs
believes the 30………………. which was found at the site is very important since it confirms that the 31……………… found
inside are Lapita.
A proof B plantation C harbour
D bones G burial urn J map
E data H source
F archaeological discovery I animals
Questions 32-35
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
32 According to the writer, there are difficulties explaining how the Lapita accomplished their journeys
because
A canoes that have been discovered offer relatively few clues.
B archaeologists have shown limited interest in this area of research.
C little information relating to this period can be relied upon for accuracy.
D technological advances have altered the way such achievements are viewed.
33 According to the sixth paragraph, what was extraordinary about the Lapita?
A They sailed beyond the point where land was visible.
B Their cultural heritage discouraged the expression of fear.
C They were able to build canoes that withstood ocean voyages.
D Their navigational skills were passed on from one generation to the next.
34 What does ‘This’ refer to in the seventh paragraph?
A the Lapita’s seafaring talent
B the Lapita s ability to detect signs of land
C the Lapita’s extensive knowledge of the region
D the Lapita’s belief they would be able to return home
35 According to the eighth paragraph, how was the geography of the region significant?
A It played an important role in Lapita culture.
B It meant there were relatively few storms at sea.
C It provided a navigational aid for the Lapita.
D It made a large number of islands habitable.
Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
36 It is now clear that the Lapita could sail into a prevailing wind.
37 Extreme climate conditions may have played a role in Lapita migration.
38 The Lapita learnt to predict the duration of El Ninos.
39 It remains unclear why the Lapita halted their expansion across the Pacific.
40 It is likely that the majority of Lapita settled on Fiji.

Does education fuel economic growth?
A
Over the last decade, a huge database about the lives of southwest German villagers between 1600 and 1900
has been compiled by a team led by Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Economics.
It includes court records, guild ledgers, parish registers, village censuses, tax lists and – the most recent addition
– 9,000 handwritten inventories listing over a million personal possessions belonging to ordinary women and
men across three centuries. Ogilvie, who discovered the inventories in the archives of two German
communities 30 years ago, believes they may hold the answer to a conundrum that has long puzzled
economists: the lack of evidence for a causal link between education and a country’s economic growth.
B
As Ogilvie explains, ‘Education helps us to work more productively, invent better technology, and earn more …
surely it must be critical for economic growth? But, if you look back through history, there’s no evidence that
having a high literacy rate made a country industrialise earlier.’ Between 1600 and 1900, England had only
mediocre literacy rates by European standards, yet its economy grew fast and it was the first country to
industrialise. During this period, Germany and Scandinavia had excellent literacy rates, but their economies
grew slowly and they industrialised late. ‘Modern cross-country analyses have also struggled to find evidence
that education causes economic growth, even though there is plenty of evidence that growth increases
education,’ she adds.
C
In the handwritten inventories that Ogilvie is analysing are the belongings of women and men at marriage,
remarriage and death. From badger skins to Bibles, sewing machines to scarlet bodices – the villagers’ entire
worldly goods are included. Inventories of agricultural equipment and craft tools reveal economic activities;
ownership of books and education-related objects like pens and slates suggests how people learned. In
addition, the tax lists included in the database record the value of farms, workshops, assets and debts;
signatures and people’s estimates of their age indicate literacy and numeracy levels; and court records reveal
obstacles (such as the activities of the guilds*) that stifled industry.
Previous studies usually had just one way of linking education with economic growth – the presence of schools
and printing presses, perhaps, or school enrolment, or the ability to sign names. According to Ogilvie, the
database provides multiple indicators for the same individuals, making it possible to analyse links between
literacy, numeracy, wealth, and industriousness, for individual women and men over the long term.
D
Ogilvie and her team have been building the vast database of material possessions on top of their full
demographic reconstruction of the people who lived in these two German communities. ‘We can follow the
same people – and their descendants – across 300 years of educational and economic change,’ she says.
Individual lives have unfolded before their eyes. Stories like that of the 24-year-olds Ana Regina and Magdalena
Riethmüllerin, who were chastised in 1707 for reading books in church instead of listening to the sermon. ‘This
tells us they were continuing to develop their reading skills at least a decade after leaving school,’ explains
Ogilvie. The database also reveals the case of Juliana Schweickherdt, a 50-year-old spinster living in the small
Black Forest community of Wildberg, who was reprimanded in 1752 by the local weavers’ guild for ‘weaving
cloth and combing wool, counter to the guide ordinance’. When Juliana continued taking jobs reserved for
male guild members, she was summoned before the guild court and told to pay a fine equivalent to one third
of a servant’s annual wage. It was a small act of defiance by today’s standards, but it reflects a time when laws
in Germany and elsewhere regulated people’s access to labour markets. The dominance of guilds not only
prevented people from using their skills, but also held back even the simplest industrial innovation.
E
The data-gathering phase of the project has been completed and now, according to Ogilvie, it is time ‘to ask
the big questions’. One way to look at whether education causes economic growth is to ‘hold wealth constant’.
This involves following the lives of different people with the same level of wealth over a period of time. If
wealth is constant, it is possible to discover whether education was, for example, linked to the cultivation of
new crops, or to the adoption of industrial innovations like sewing machines. The team will also ask what aspect
of education helped people engage more with productive and innovative activities. Was it, for instance,
literacy, numeracy, book ownership, years of schooling? Was there a threshold level – a tipping point – that
needed to be reached to affect economic performance?
F
Ogilvie hopes to start finding answers to these questions over the next few years. One thing is already clear,
she says: the relationship between education and economic growth is far from straightforward. ‘German-
speaking central Europe is an excellent laboratory for testing theories of economic growth,’ she explains.
Between 1600 and 1900, literacy rates and book ownership were high and yet the region remained poor. It
was also the case that local guilds and merchant associations were extremely powerful and legislated against
anything that undermined their monopolies. In villages throughout the region, guilds blocked labour migration
and resisted changes that might reduce their influence.
‘Early findings suggest that the potential benefits of education for the economy can be held back by other
barriers, and this has implications for today,’ says Ogilvie. ‘Huge amounts are spent improving education in
developing countries, but this spending can fail to deliver economic growth if restrictions block people –
especially women and the poor – from using their education in economically productive ways. If economic
institutions are poorly set up, for instance, education can’t lead to growth.’
——————–
* guild: an association of artisans or merchants which oversees the practice of their craft or trade in a particular
area
Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 an explanation of the need for research to focus on individuals with a fairly consistent income
15 examples of the sources the database has been compiled from
16 an account of one individual’s refusal to obey an order
17 a reference to a region being particularly suited to research into the link between education and economic
growth
18 examples of the items included in a list of personal possessions
Questions 19-22
Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
Demographic reconstruction of two German communities
The database that Ogilvie and her team has compiled sheds light on the lives of a range of individuals, as well
as those of their 19 …………………, over a 300-year period. For example, Ana Regina and Magdalena Riethmüllerin
were reprimanded for reading while they should have been paying attention to a 20 ………………… .
There was also Juliana Schweickherdt, who came to the notice of the weavers’ guild in the year 1752 for
breaking guild rules. As a punishment, she was later given a 21 ………………… . Cases like this illustrate how the
guilds could prevent 22 ………………… and stop skilled people from working
Questions 23 and 24
Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about literacy rates in Section B?
A Very little research has been done into the link between high literacy rates and improved earnings.
B Literacy rates in Germany between 1600 and 1900 were very good.
C There is strong evidence that high literacy rates in the modern world result in economic growth.
D England is a good example of how high literacy rates helped a country industrialise.
E Economic growth can help to improve literacy rates.
Questions 25 and 26
Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make in Section F about guilds in German-speaking
Central Europe between 1600 and 1900?
A They helped young people to learn a skill.
B They were opposed to people moving to an area for work.
C They kept better records than guilds in other parts of the world.
D They opposed practices that threatened their control over a trade.
E They predominantly consisted of wealthy merchants.
READING PASSAGE NO 16
A second attempt at domesticating the tomato
A
It took at least 3,000 years for humans to learn how to domesticate the wild tomato and cultivate it for food.
Now two separate teams in Brazil and China have done it all over again in less than three years. And they have
done it better in some ways, as the re-domesticated tomatoes are more nutritious than the ones we eat at
present.
This approach relies on the revolutionary CRISPR genome editing technique, in which changes are deliberately
made to the DNA of a living cell, allowing genetic material to be added, removed or altered. The technique
could not only improve existing crops, but could also be used to turn thousands of wild plants into useful and
appealing foods. In fact, a third team in the US has already begun to do this with a relative of the tomato called
the groundcherry.
This fast-track domestication could help make the world’s food supply healthier and far more resistant to
diseases, such as the rust fungus devastating wheat crops.
‘This could transform what we eat,’ says Jorg Kudla at the University of Munster in Germany, a member of the
Brazilian team. ‘There are 50,000 edible plants in the world, but 90 percent of our energy comes from just 15
crops.’
‘We can now mimic the known domestication course of major crops like rice, maize, sorghum or others,’ says
Caixia Gao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. ‘Then we might try to domesticate plants that have
never been domesticated.’
B
Wild tomatoes, which are native to the Andes region in South America, produce pea-sized fruits. Over many
generations, peoples such as the Aztecs and Incas transformed the plant by selecting and breeding plants with
mutations* in their genetic structure, which resulted in desirable traits such as larger fruit.
But every time a single plant with a mutation is taken from a larger population for breeding, much genetic
diversity is lost. And sometimes the desirable mutations come with less desirable traits. For instance, the
tomato strains grown for supermarkets have lost much of their flavour.
By comparing the genomes of modern plants to those of their wild relatives, biologists have been working out
what genetic changes occurred as plants were domesticated. The teams in Brazil and China have now used this
knowledge to reintroduce these changes from scratch while maintaining or even enhancing the desirable traits
of wild strains.
C
Kudla’s team made six changes altogether. For instance, they tripled the size of fruit by editing a gene called
FRUIT WEIGHT, and increased the number of tomatoes per truss by editing another called MULTIFLORA.
While the historical domestication of tomatoes reduced levels of the red pigment lycopene – thought to have
potential health benefits – the team in Brazil managed to boost it instead. The wild tomato has twice as much
lycopene as cultivated ones; the newly domesticated one has five times as much.
‘They are quite tasty,’ says Kudla. ‘A little bit strong. And very aromatic.’
The team in China re-domesticated several strains of wild tomatoes with desirable traits lost in domesticated
tomatoes. In this way they managed to create a strain resistant to a common disease called bacterial spot race,
which can devastate yields. They also created another strain that is more salt tolerant – and has higher levels
of vitamin C.
D
Meanwhile, Joyce Van Eck at the Boyce Thompson Institute in New York state decided to use the same
approach to domesticate the groundcherry or goldenberry (Physalis pruinosa) for the first time. This fruit looks
similar to the closely related Cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana).
Groundcherries are already sold to a limited extent in the US but they are hard to produce because the plant
has a sprawling growth habit and the small fruits fall off the branches when ripe. Van Eck’s team has edited the
plants to increase fruit size, make their growth more compact and to stop fruits dropping. ‘There’s potential
for this to be a commercial crop,’ says Van Eck. But she adds that taking the work further would be expensive
because of the need to pay for a licence for the CRISPR technology and get regulatory approval.
E
This approach could boost the use of many obscure plants, says Jonathan Jones of the Sainsbury Lab in the UK.
But it will be hard for new foods to grow so popular with farmers and consumers that they become new staple
crops, he thinks.
The three teams already have their eye on other plants that could be ‘catapulted into the mainstream’,
including foxtail, oat-grass and cowpea. By choosing wild plants that are drought or heat tolerant, says Gao,
we could create crops that will thrive even as the planet warms.
But Kudla didn’t want to reveal which species were in his team’s sights, because CRISPR has made the process
so easy. ‘Any one with the right skills could go to their lab and do this.’
———————-
* mutations: changes in an organism’s genetic structure that can be passed down to later generations
Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has five paragraphs, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 a reference to a type of tomato that can resist a dangerous infection.
15 an explanation of how problems can arise from focusing only on a certain type of tomato plant.
16 a number of examples of plants that are not cultivated at present but could be useful as food sources.
17 a comparison between the early domestication of the tomato and more recent research
18 a personal reaction to the flavour of a tomato that has been genetically edited
Questions 19-23
Look at the following statements (Questions 19-23) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-D.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.
19 Domestication of certain plants could allow them to adapt to future environmental challenges.
20 The idea of growing and eating unusual plants may not be accepted on a large scale.
21 It is not advisable for the future direction of certain research to be made public.
22 Present efforts to domesticate one wild fruit are limited by the costs involved.
23 Humans only make use of a small proportion of the plant food available on Earth.
List of Researchers
A Jorg Kudla
B Caixia Gao
C Joyce Van Eck
D Jonathan Jones
Questions 24-26
Complete the sentences below.
24 An undesirable trait such as loss of ……………………… may be caused by a mutation in a tomato gene.
25 By modifying one gene in a tomato plant, researchers made the tomato three times its original
………………………
26 A type of tomato which was not badly affected by ………………………, and was rich in vitamin C, was produced
by a team of researchers in China.
READING PASSAGE 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.
Questions 14-19
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
14 The Falkirk Wheel has linked the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal for the first time in their history.
15 There was some opposition to the design of the Falkirk Wheel at first.
16 The Falkirk Wheel was initially put together at the location where its components were manufactured.
17 The Falkirk Wheel is the only boat lift in the world which has steel sections bolted together by hand.
18 The weight of the gondolas varies according to the size of boat being carried.
19 The construction of the Falkirk Wheel site took into account the presence of a nearby ancient monument.
Questions 20-26
Label the diagram below.
Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
How a boat is lifted on the Falkirk Wheel

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The impact of driverless cars

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