EAP Reading

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

2018 – 2019

Reading Examination

Text Booklet

Examination session Time allowed

Semester 2 1 hour
(plus 15 minutes’ transfer time)

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS

This examination has three sections.

The marks for each section are indicated in square brackets [ ].

You will be given 15 minutes at the end of the examination to transfer all your
answers to the answer sheet provided.

• Write your NCUK ID Number clearly in the space provided on the answer sheet.

• Answer all sections.

• Write all your answers on the answer sheet.

• All spelling must be correct.

• Write clearly in pen, not pencil.

• No dictionaries, printed or electronic, are allowed in the examination room.

• Examination materials must not be removed from the examination room.

DO NOT OPEN THIS TEXT BOOKLET UNTIL INSTRUCTED BY THE INVIGILATOR.

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 1 of 8

 EAP Reading

Reading Text 1

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 – 12 [12 Marks]

which are based on Text 1 below.

A Humans like to think that they rule the planet. But our stewardship has been anything
but successful. Geologists have even given this era in the history of the Earth a new
name to reflect our role: the Anthropocene, the age of humans. It is the first time in
the history of the Earth in which one species dominates all the others. The vast majority
are small and humble invertebrates who are busy maintaining the fabric of the world
around us. They make the soil, pollinate the flowers, spread seeds, and recycle
valuable nutrients back into the soil. They are also food for many birds, and keep other
small animals in check. Yet most of us are unaware of the many roles of these mostly
small animals. If all their services were gone tomorrow, many plants would soon go
extinct. Crops would be lost overnight. Many birds would die from lack of food, and soil
formation would largely halt. The consequences would be huge as food webs collapse.

B Showing children that this miniature world is there, and that it is crucial, is probably
one of the best things to do to help the next generation survive the future. Being aware
of what the various species actually do for maintaining ecosystems is essential to
understanding how complex the world around us is. Pointing out, for example, that a
bee is intimately connected with flowers, and an ant is the cleaner of the forest floor
is important. Then we can conceptually jump to the whole landscape, where there are
millions of such small animals.

C What this means is that for conservation, while we use conceptual icons, like the bee
and the butterfly, the actual aim is to conserve landscapes so that all the natural
processes can continue as they would without humans. Conservationists have
developed approaches and strategies that maintain all the natural processes intact in
defined areas. The processes that are conserved include behavioural activities,
ecological interactions and evolutionary trends. This umbrella approach is highly
effective for conserving the great complexity of the natural world. This does not mean
that particular species are overlooked.

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 2 of 8

 EAP Reading

D Small-creature conservationists work on and develop strategies that work at three

levels. The first is at the larger scale of the landscape. The second is the medium
scale of the features of the landscape, which includes features like logs, ponds
and rock crevices. The third is the still smaller scale of the actual species. At this
fine scale of species, conservationists focus attention on identified and threatened
species that need special attention in their own right. For example, the beautiful
Amatola Malachite damselfly, which lives in the Eastern Cape mountains of South
Africa.

E The common thought is that it is only tigers and whales that need conserving. But
there are hundreds of small creatures that all need special conservation focus, like
bees for example. And this focus becomes increasingly and critically important
every year that passes. It is crucial to think about and conserve all these small
animals that make up the platform for our future survival on the planet. Time is
short as the Anthropocene marches on. Putting in place strategies that conserve
as many animals as possible, along with the rest of biodiversity, is not a luxury
for the future.

Adapted from The Conversation, 2017/03/02.

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 3 of 8

 EAP Reading

Reading Text 2

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 13 – 25 [13 Marks]

which are based on Text 2 below.

How to teach children morals

A Schools in England are legally required to promote the moral development of pupils.
Unfortunately, there is little agreement on what this involves. Most people recognise
that morality is important and needs to be taught – but when it comes to saying what it
is and how to teach it, the consensus soon breaks down.

B Although recent government initiatives on promoting values like community and helping
children to be resilient may have merits, they have little to do with the teaching of
morality. Indeed, one reason for the general confusion about moral education is that
moral values have not been clearly distinguished from values of other kinds. Someone
who fails to value community certainly gets something wrong, but the failing is not a
moral one. And the character traits of resilience, confidence and ambition are no doubt
necessary for survival, but they are not requirements of morality.

C It can be argued that to have a moral value is to subscribe to a standard in a particular

way. A standard is a rule specifying something to be done or not done. Subscribing to a
standard involves intending to respect it, being in the habit of respecting it, and feeling
bad about failing to respect it. A person subscribes to the standard “do not lie”, for
example, when they try not to lie, tend not to lie, and regret the lies they tell.
Subscribing to a standard counts as a moral when it has two further features. First, the
subscriber not only tries to comply with the standard themselves, but wants everyone
else to comply with it too. Second, they see deviating from the standard as deserving of
disapproval.

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 4 of 8

 EAP Reading

D The stability of human social groups depends on people subscribing to at least some
standards in this way. At the very least, people must be committed to not causing
harm, treating others fairly, keeping their promises and helping those in need. These
standards make up the core of common morality.

E Schools have a role to play in passing on common morality to the next generation.
To do this, they must provide two kinds of moral education. The first is moral
formation – cultivating in children the intentions, feelings and habits of moral
subscription. This involves teachers giving children moral guidance, rewarding them
for doing right and punishing them for doing wrong, as well as modelling good conduct
and modelling appropriate reactions to the conduct of others. From the experience of
having their behaviour regulated, children learn to self-regulate. In addition, by
imitating the moral reactions of others, children learn to react in those ways
themselves.

F The second kind of moral education is moral inquiry – engaging children in discussion
and reflection on the nature and justification of moral values. Teachers must ensure,
by explicit intervention or gentle steering, that moral inquiry brings to light the
justification for common morality. It is vital that children come to understand what
morality is for and why it demands the things it does. Of course, alongside the task
of passing on common morality, schools must also help children to pick their way
through the minefields of moral controversy. Many moral standards are disputed and
it is not for schools to decide whether or not they are justified. Here moral inquiry
should take the form of open-ended exploration, with the aim of equipping children
to form their own considered views.

G Promoting the moral development of pupils is difficult, but the challenges it poses are
not impossible. Ensuring children subscribe to common morality, and understand the
reasons for it, is a task schools must not shrink from – society depends on it.

Adapted from https://theconversation.com/how-to-teach-children-morals-87960.

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 5 of 8

 EAP Reading

READING TEXT 3

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-40, [15 Marks]
which are based on Text 3 below.

Speech Recognition Technology

A Speech recognition has made remarkable advances. Computerised personal assistants,

such as Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana, can now understand a wide variety of
questions and return accurate answers in a natural-sounding voice. Despite this, many
remain reluctant to exploit these systems on a regular basis. When Apple introduced
Siri in 2011, it was frustrating to use, resulting in a large number of customer
complaints. A recent survey estimates that only around a third of smartphone owners
use their personal assistants daily. 95% have tried them at some point but have not
persisted in their use. Many of these discouraged users may not, however, realise how
much they have improved.

B The first step in speech recognition involves transcribing speech into text. In principle,
it should be easy to turn the human voice into writing. Machines are trained to match
sounds found in training data gathered earlier. This data is sound recordings previously
transcribed by humans. The software has both a sound and a text input and matches
the two. When the system 'hears' a stream of sound, it simply guesses which words
have been said based on the kinds of words and phrases seen earlier in the training
text. However, the nature of live speech makes this difficult for machines. Sounds are
not pronounced individually; they mostly come in a constant stream. Finding the
boundaries between words is therefore not easy. Speakers differ in pitch of voice and
accent. Conversation is also far less clear than careful dictation. People stop and restart
much more often than they realise.

C Despite such issues, technology has gradually mitigated many of these problems. Error
rates in speech recognition software have thus fallen steadily over the years.
Microphones are less expensive and better quality. Data can thus be collated quickly
and with ease. With wireless internet, a greater number of speech recordings can be

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 6 of 8

 EAP Reading

uploaded for analysis, and smartphones are now powerful enough to carry out this
task.

D As in other areas of language technology, advances in artificial intelligence have

sharply reduced error rates. Fifteen years ago, quality had stalled, with error rates of
20%-30%. A recent experiment using computer networks in combination achieved
error rates similar to those of human transcribers. These improvements are now being
enthusiastically applied to products in the real world, the automobile industry being a
case in point. Cars are being fitted with voice-activated controls of various kinds. The
vocabulary involved is necessarily limited, which ensures high accuracy. Microphones
are also getting better at identifying the relevant speaker among a group.

E Some problems do remain. Children and elderly speakers, as well as people moving
around in a room, are harder to understand. Background noise is a great concern as,
if it is different from that heard in the training data, the software finds it harder to
generalise from what it has learned. Such problems limit the success of speech
recognition in contexts where it could be useful, such as a noisy factory floor or a care
home for the elderly. Issues regarding safety in contexts like these currently limit the
use of speech recognition software, as mistakes in interpreting commands could result
in serious accidents or even loss of life. However, as the technology continues to
improve, we are likely to see an increasing use of speech recognition in our everyday
lives.

F Though it is widely accepted that machines save time and money, their use prompts a
series of questions that have yet to be answered. Changes brought about by machines
are often met with suspicion. In particular, speech recognition raises questions about
what it means to be human. Language may be seen as a distinguishing human trait.
Researchers insist that machines do not think like people, but if they can listen and
talk like humans, what does that make them? As humans teach ever more capable
machines to use language, the once-obvious line between them may become blurred.

Adapted from The Economist (2017) 'Language: finding a voice', 5 January. Available at:
http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2017-05-01/language (Accessed 18 January, 2018).

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 7 of 8

 EAP Reading

EAP Reading V5 1819 © 2019 Northern Consortium UK Ltd. Page 8 of 8