PASSAGE 1

THE STORY OF SILK

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

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

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

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

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

Silk production thus spread through Africa, Sicily and Spain as the Arabs swept, through
these lands. Andalusia in southern Spain was Europe’s main silk-producing centre in the
tenth century. By the thirteenth century, however, Italy had become Europe’s leader in
silk production and export. Venetian merchants traded extensively in silk and encouraged
silk growers to settle in Italy. Even now, silk processed in the province of Como in
northern Italy enjoys an esteemed reputation.
The nineteenth century and industrialisation saw the downfall of the European silk
industry. Cheaper Japanese silk, trade in which was greatly facilitated by the opening of
the Suez Canal, was one of the many factors driving the trend. Then in the twentieth
century, new manmade fibres, such as nylon, started to be used in what had traditionally
been silk products, such as stockings and parachutes. The two world wars, which
interrupted the supply of raw material from Japan, also stifled the European silk industry.
After the Second World War, Japan’s silk production was restored, with improved
production and quality of raw silk. Japan was to remain the world’s biggest producer of
raw silk, and practically the only major exporter of raw silk, until the 1970s. However, in
more recent decades, China has gradually recaptured its position as the world’s biggest
producer and exporter of raw silk and silk yarn. Today, around 125,000 metric tons of
silk are produced in the world, and almost two thirds of that production takes place in
China.

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-9 on your answer sheet.

THE STORY OF SILK

Early silk production in China

• Around 3000 BC, according to legend:

– silkworm cocoon fell into emperor’s wife’s 1………………

– emperor’s wife invented a 2……………. to pull out silk fibres

• Only 3……………… were allowed to produce silk

• Only 4………………. were allowed to wear silk

• Silk used as a form of 5……………….

– e.g. farmers’ taxes consisted partly of silk

• Silk used for many purposes

– e.g. evidence found of 6……………… made from silk around 168 AD

Silk reaches rest of world

• Merchants use Silk Road to take silk westward and bring back 7…………….. and
precious metals

• 550 AD: 8……………… hide silkworm eggs in canes and take them to
Constantinople

• Silk production spreads across Middle East and Europe

• 20th century: 9……………… and other manmade fibres cause decline in silk
production

Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage?

In boxes 10-13 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

10. Gold was the most valuable material transported along the Silk Road.

TRUE
 FALSE

NOT GIVEN
11. Most tradesmen only went along certain sections of the Silk Road.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
12. The Byzantines spread the practice of silk production across the West.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
13. Silk yarn makes up the majority of silk currently exported from China.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN

PASSAGE 2
GREAT MIGRATIONS

Animal migration, however it is defined, is far more than just the movement of animals.
It can loosely be described as travel that takes place at regular intervals – often in an
annual cycle – that may involve many members of a species, and is rewarded only after a
long journey. It suggests inherited instinct. The biologist Hugh Dingle has identified five
characteristics that apply, in varying degrees and combinations, to all migrations. They
are prolonged movements that carry animals outside familiar habitats; they tend to be
linear, not zigzaggy; they involve special behaviours concerning preparation (such as
overfeeding) and arrival; they demand special allocations of energy. And one more:
migrating animals maintain an intense attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps
them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other
animals aside.

An arctic tern, on its 20,000 km flight from the extreme south of South America to the
Arctic circle, will take no notice of a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher’s
boat along the way. While local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts, the tern
flies on. Why? The arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven at that moment by an
instinctive sense of something we humans find admirable: larger purpose. In other words,
it is determined to reach its destination. The bird senses that it can eat, rest and mate later.
Right now it is totally focused on the journey; its undivided intent is arrival.

Reaching some gravelly coastline in the Arctic, upon which other arctic terns have
converged, will serve its larger purpose as shaped by evolution: finding a place, a time,
and a set of circumstances in which it can successfully hatch and rear offspring.

But migration is a complex issue, and biologists define it differently, depending in part on
what sorts of animals they study. Joel Berger, of the University of Montana, who works
on the American pronghorn and other large terrestrial mammals, prefers what he calls a
simple, practical definition suited to his beasts: ‘movements from a seasonal home area
away to another home area and back again’. Generally the reason for such seasonal back-
and-forth movement is to seek resources that aren’t available within a single area year-
round.

But daily vertical movements by zooplankton in the ocean – upward by night to seek
food, downward by day to escape predators – can also be considered migration. So can
the movement of aphids when, having depleted the young leaves on one food plant, their
offspring then fly onward to a different host plant, with no one aphid ever returning to
where it started.

Dingle is an evolutionary biologist who studies insects. His definition is more intricate
than Berger’s, citing those five features that distinguish migration from other forms of
movement. They allow for the fact that, for example, aphids will become sensitive to blue
light (from the sky) when it’s time for takeoff on their big journey, and sensitive to
yellow light (reflected from tender young leaves) when it’s appropriate to land. Birds will
fatten themselves with heavy feeding in advance of a long migrational flight. The value
of his definition, Dingle argues, is that it focuses attention on what the phenomenon of
wildebeest migration shares with the phenomenon of the aphids, and therefore helps
guide researchers towards understanding how evolution has produced them all.

Human behaviour, however, is having a detrimental impact on animal migration. The

pronghorn, which resembles an antelope, though they are unrelated, is the fastest land
mammal of the New World. One population, which spends the summer in the
mountainous Grand Teton National Park of the western USA, follows a narrow route
from its summer range in the mountains, across a river, and down onto the plains. Here
they wait out the frozen months, feeding mainly on sagebrush blown clear of snow. These
pronghorn are notable for the invariance of their migration route and the severity of its
constriction at three bottlenecks. If they can’t pass through each of the three during their
spring migration, they can’t reach their bounty of summer grazing; if they can’t pass
through again in autumn, escaping south onto those windblown plains, they are likely to
die trying to overwinter in the deep snow. Pronghorn, dependent on distance vision and
speed to keep safe from predators, traverse high, open shoulders of land, where they can
see and run. At one of the bottlenecks, forested hills rise to form a V, leaving a corridor
of open ground only about 150 metres wide, filled with private homes. Increasing
development is leading toward a crisis for the pronghorn, threatening to choke off their
passageway.

Conservation scientists, along with some biologists and land managers within the USA’s
National Park Service and other agencies, are now working to preserve migrational
behaviours, not just species and habitats. A National Forest has recognised the path of the
pronghorn, much of which passes across its land, as a protected migration corridor. But
neither the Forest Service nor the Park Service can control what happens on private land
at a bottleneck. And with certain other migrating species, the challenge is complicated
further – by vastly greater distances traversed, more jurisdictions, more borders, more
dangers along the way. We will require wisdom and resoluteness to ensure that migrating
species can continue their journeying a while longer.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage2?

In boxes 14-18 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

14. Local gulls and migrating arctic terns behave in the same way when offered food.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
15. Experts’ definitions of migration tend to vary according to their area of study.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
16. Very few experts agree that the movement of aphids can be considered migration.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
17. Aphids’ journeys are affected by changes in the light that they perceive.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
18. Dingles aim is to distinguish between the migratory behaviours of different species.

TRUE

FALSE

NOT GIVEN
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.

A be discouraged by difficulties.
B travel on open land where they can look out for predators.

C eat more than they need for immediate purposes.

D be repeated daily.

E ignore distractions.

F be governed by the availability of water.

G follow a straight line.

19. According to Dingle, migratory routes are likely to

20. To prepare for migration, animals are likely to

21. During migration, animals are unlikely to

22. Arctic terns illustrate migrating animals’ ability to

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

The migration of pronghorns

Pronghorns rely on their eyesight and 23……………. to avoid predators. One particular
population’s summer habitat is a national park, and their winter home is on
the 24……………… where they go to avoid the danger presented by the snow at that
time of year. However, their route between these two areas contains
three 25……………… One problem is the construction of new homes in a
narrow 26……………… of land on the pronghorns’ route.

PASSAGE 3

PREFACE TO ‘HOW THE OTHER HALF THINKS:

ADVENTURES IN MATHEMATICAL REASONING’

Occasionally, in some difficult musical compositions, there are beautiful, but easy parts –
parts so simple a beginner could play them. So it is with mathematics as well. There are
some discoveries in advanced mathematics that do not depend on specialized knowledge,
not even on algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. Instead they may involve, at most, a little
arithmetic, such as ‘the sum of two odd numbers is even’, and common sense. Each of
the eight chapters in this book illustrates this phenomenon. Anyone can understand every
step in the reasoning.

The thinking in each chapter uses at most only elementary arithmetic, and sometimes not
even that. Thus all readers will have the chance to participate in a mathematical
experience, to appreciate the beauty of mathematics, and to become familiar with its
logical, yet intuitive, style of thinking.

One of my purposes in writing this book is to give readers who haven’t had the
opportunity to see and enjoy real mathematics the chance to appreciate the mathematical
way of thinking. I want to reveal not only some of the fascinating discoveries, but, more
importantly, the reasoning behind them.
In that respect, this book differs from most books on mathematics written for the general
public. Some present the lives of colorful mathematicians. Others describe important
applications of mathematics. Yet others go into mathematical procedures, but assume that
the reader is adept in using algebra.

I hope this book will help bridge that notorious gap that separates the two cultures: the
humanities and the sciences, or should I say the right brain (intuitive) and the left brain
(analytical, numerical). As the chapters will illustrate, mathematics is not restricted to the
analytical and numerical; intuition plays a significant role. The alleged gap can be
narrowed or completely overcome by anyone, in part because each of us is far from using
the full capacity of either side of the brain. To illustrate our human potential, I cite a
structural engineer who is an artist, an electrical engineer who is an opera singer, an
opera singer who published mathematical research, and a mathematician who publishes
short stories.

Other scientists have written books to explain their fields to non-scientists, but have
necessarily had to omit the mathematics, although it provides the foundation of their
theories. The reader must remain a tantalized spectator rather than an involved
participant, since the appropriate language for describing the details in much of science is
mathematics, whether the subject is expanding universe, subatomic particles, or
chromosomes. Though the broad outline of a scientific theory can be sketched intuitively,
when a part of the physical universe is finally understood, its description often looks like
a page in a mathematics text.

E
Still, the non-mathematical reader can go far in understanding mathematical reasoning.
This book presents the details that illustrate the mathematical style of thinking, which
involves sustained, step-by-step analysis, experiments, and insights. You will turn these
pages much more slowly than when reading a novel or a newspaper. It may help to have a
pencil and paper ready to check claims and carry out experiments.

As I wrote, I kept in mind two types of readers: those who enjoyed mathematics until
they were turned off by an unpleasant episode, usually around fifth grade, and
mathematics aficionados, who will find much that is new throughout the book.

This book also serves readers who simply want to sharpen their analytical skills. Many
careers, such as law and medicine, require extended, precise analysis. Each chapter offers
practice in following a sustained and closely argued line of thought. That mathematics
can develop this skill is shown by these two testimonials:

A physician wrote, ‘The discipline of analytical thought processes [in mathematics]

prepared me extremely well for medical school. In medicine one is faced with a problem
which must be thoroughly analyzed before a solution can be found. The process is similar
to doing mathematics.’

A lawyer made the same point, “Although I had no background in law – not even one
political science course — I did well at one of the best law schools. I attribute much of
my success there to having learned, through the study of mathematics, and, in particular,
theorems, how to analyze complicated principles. Lawyers who have studied
mathematics can master the legal principles in a way that most others cannot.’
I hope you will share my delight in watching as simple, even naive, questions lead to
remarkable solutions and purely theoretical discoveries find unanticipated applications.

Reading Passage has seven sections, A-G.

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

27. a reference to books that assume a lack of mathematical knowledge

28. the way in which this is not a typical book about mathematics

29. personal examples of being helped by mathematics

30. examples of people who each had abilities that seemed incompatible

31. mention of different focuses of books about mathematics

32. a contrast between reading this book and reading other kinds of publication

33. a claim that the whole of the book is accessible to everybody

34. a reference to different categories of intended readers of this book

Complete the sentences below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.

35. Some areas of both music and mathematics are suitable for someone who is
a………………

36. It is sometimes possible to understand advanced mathematics using no more than a

limited knowledge of………………

37. The writer intends to show that mathematics requires……………… thinking, as well
as analytical skills.

38. Some books written by………………. have had to leave out the mathematics that is
central to their theories.

39. The writer advises non-mathematical readers to perform………………. while reading

40. A lawyer found that studying………………. helped even more than other areas of
mathematics in the study of law.

KEY

1
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Đáp án đúng:CURRENCY

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Đáp án đúng:TRUE
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Đáp án đúng:FALSE

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Đáp án đúng:NOT GIVEN

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Đáp án đúng:FALSE

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Đáp án đúng:TRUE

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Đáp án đúng:NOT GIVEN

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Đáp án đúng:TRUE

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Đáp án đúng:FALSE

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Đáp án đúng:G

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Đáp án đúng:C

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Đáp án đúng:A

22
Đáp án đúng:E

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Đáp án đúng:SPEED

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Đáp án đúng:PLAINS

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Đáp án đúng:BOTTLENECKS

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Đáp án đúng:CORRIDOR/PASSAGEWAY

27

Đáp án đúng:D

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Đáp án đúng:B

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Đáp án đúng:E
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Đáp án đúng:A

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Đáp án đúng:F

35

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36

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Đáp án đúng:SCIENTISTS

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Đáp án đúng:EXPERIMENTS

40

Đáp án đúng:THEOREMS