READING

READING PASSAGE 1

The history of an invention that makes life more pleasant

Willis Carrier designed the first air-conditioning unit in 1902, just a year after graduating from Cornell
University with a Masters in Engineering.
At a Brooklyn printing plant, fluctuations in heat and moisture were causing the size of the printing paper to
keep changing slightly, making it hard to align different colours. Carrier’s invention made it possible to control
temperature and humidity levels and so align the colours. The invention also allowed industries such as film,
processed food, textiles and pharmaceuticals to improve the quality of their products.
In 1914, the first air-conditioning device was installed in a private house. However, its size, similar to that of
an early computer, meant it took up too much space to come into widespread use, and later models, such as
the Weathermaker, which Carrier brought out in the 1920s, cost too much for most people. Cooling for
human comfort, rather than industrial need, really took off when three air conditioners were installed in the
J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit, Michigan. People crowded into the shop to experience the new
invention. The fashion spread from department stores to cinemas, whose income rose steeply as a result of
the comfort they provided.
To start with, money-conscious employers regarded air conditioning as a luxury. They considered that if they
were paying people to work, they should not be paying for them to be comfortable as well. So in the 1940s
and ’50s, the industry started putting out a different message about its product: according to their research,
installing air conditioning increased productivity amongst employees. They found that typists increased their
output by 24% when transferred from a regular office to a cooled one. Another study into office working
conditions, which was carried out in the late ’50s, showed that the majority of companies cited air
conditioning as the single most important contributor to efficiency in offices.
However, air conditioning has its critics. Jed Brown, an environmentalist, complains that air conditioning is a
factor in global warming. Unfortunately, he adds, because air conditioning leads to higher temperatures,
people have to use it even more. However, he admits that it provides a healthier environment for many
people in the heat of summer.

Questions 1-5
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
1 When Willis Carrier invented air conditioning, his aim was to

A make workers feel cooler.

B produce more attractive paper.

C set up a new business.

D solve problems in a factory.

2 Home air conditioners were not popular at first because they were

A too big and expensive.

B not considered necessary.

C too inefficient.

D complicated to use.
3 Employers refused to put air conditioning in workplaces at first because they

A could not afford to pay for it.

B thought it was more suitable for cinemas.

C did not want to spend money improving working conditions.

D thought people would not work so hard in comfortable conditions.

4 What was the purpose of the research done in the 1940s and ’50s?

A to make office workers produce more

B to compare different types of air conditioner

C to persuade businesses to buy air conditioners

D to encourage employees to change offices

5 What does Jed Brown say about air conditioning?

A In future, everyone will need it.

B Turning it off will not reduce global warming.

C It can seriously damage people’s health.

D It is good for people, but bad for the environment.

READING PASSAGE 2

Learning to Walk

These days the feet of a typical city dweller rarely encounter terrain any more uneven than a crack in the
pavement. While that may not seem like a problem, it turns out that by flattening our urban environment we
have put ourselves at risk of a surprising number of chronic illnesses and disabilities. Fortunately, the
commercial market has come to the rescue with a choice of products. Research into the idea that flat floors
could be detrimental to our health was pioneered back in the late 1960s in Long Beach, California. Podiatrist
Charles Brantingham and physiologist Bruce Beekman were concerned with the growing epidemic of high
blood pressure, varicose veins and deep-vein thromboses and reckoned they might be linked to the
uniformity of the surfaces that we tend to stand and walk on.
The trouble, they believed, was that walking continuously on flat floors, sidewalks and streets concentrates
forces on just a few areas of the foot. As a result, these surfaces are likely to be far more conducive to
chronic stress syndromes than natural surfaces, where the foot meets the ground in a wide variety of
orientations. They understood that the anatomy of the foot parallels that of the human hand - each having
26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments - and that modern lifestyles waste all
this potential flexibility.
Brantingham and Beekman became convinced that the damage could be rectified by making people wobble.
To test their ideas, they got 65 factory workers to try standing on a variable terrain floor - spongy mats with
varying degrees of resistance across the surface. This modest irregularity allowed the soles of the volunteers'
feet to deviate slightly from the horizontal each time they shifted position. As the researchers hoped, this
simple intervention made a huge difference, within a few weeks. Even if people were wobbling slightly, it
activated a host of muscles in their legs, which in turn helped pump blood back to their hearts. The muscle
action prevented the pooling of blood in their feet and legs, reducing the stress on the heart and circulation.
Yet decades later, the flooring of the world's largest workplaces remains relentlessly smooth. Earlier this
year, however, the idea was revived when other researchers in the US announced findings from a similar
experiment with people over 60. John Fisher and colleagues at the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene
designed a mat intended to replicate the effect of walking on cobblestones*.
In tests funded by the National Institute of Aging, they got some 50 adults to walk on the toots in their bare
feet for less than an hour, three times a week. After 16 weeks, these people showed marked improvements
in mobility, and even a significant reduction in blood pressure. People in a control group who walked on
ordinary floors also improved but not as dramatically. The mats are now available for purchase and
production is being scaled up. Even so, demand could exceed supply if this footstimulating activity really is a
'useful nonpharmacological approach for preventing or controlling hypertension of older adults, as the
researchers believe. They are not alone in recognising the benefits of cobblestones. Reflexologists have long
advocated walking on textured surfaces to stimulate so-called 'acupoints' on the soles of the feet. They
believe that pressure applied to particular spots on the foot connects directly to particular organs of the body
and somehow enhances their function. In China, spas, apartment blocks and even factories promote their
cobblestone paths as healthful amenities. Fisher admits he got the concept from regular visits to the country.
Here, city dwellers take daily walks along cobbled paths for five or ten minutes, perhaps several times a day,
to improve their health. The idea is now taking off in Europe too.
People in Germany, Austria and Switzerland can now visit 'barefoot parks' and walk along 'paths of the senses
- with mud, logs, stone and moss underfoot. And it is not difficult to construct your own path with simple
everyday objects such as stones or bamboo poles. But if none of these solutions appeal, there is another
option. A new shoe on the market claims to transform flat, hard, artificial surfaces into something like uneven
ground. 'These shoes have an unbelievable effect,' says Benno Nigg, an exercise scientist at Calgary University
in Canada.
Known as the Masai Barefoot Technology, the shoes have rounded soles that cause you to rock slightly when
you stand still, exercising the small muscles around the ankle that are responsible for stability. Forces in the
joint are reduced, putting less strain on the system, Nigg claims.
Some of these options may not appeal to all consumers and there is a far simpler alternative.
If the urban environment is detrimental to our health, then it is obvious where we should turn. A weekend or
even a few hours spent in the countryside could help alleviate a sufferer's aches and pains, and would require
only the spending of time.
However, for many modern citizens, the countryside is not as accessible as it once was and is in fact a
dwindling resource. Our concrete cities are growing at a terrifying rate - perhaps at the same rate as our
health problems.

Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-5 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
1 Brantingham and Beekman were the first researchers to investigate the relationship
between health problems and flat floors.

2 The subjects in Fisher's control group experienced a decline in their physical condition.

3 The manufacturers are increasing the number of cobblestone mats they are making.

4 Fisher based his ideas on what he saw during an overseas trip.

5 The Masai Barefoot Technology shoes are made to fit people of all ages.

Questions 6-11
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet.

In their research, Brantingham and Beekman looked at the complex physical 6 of the foot and
noted that the surfaces of modem environments restrict its movement. They invented a mat which they tried

out on factory workers. Whenever the workers walked on it, the different levels of 7 in the mat

would encourage greater muscle action. In turn, this lessened the effect of 8 on the
cardiovascular system.

Similar research was undertaken by John Fisher and colleagues in Oregon. As a result of their findings, they

decided to market cobblestone mats to the elderly as a means of dealing with 9 . Reflexologists

claim that by manipulating specific parts of the feet, the performance of certain 10 will also

improve. Finally, Benno Nigg at Calgary University believes that specially shaped 11 on shoes
should give health benefits.

READING PASSAGE 3

Global Warming
Day after day we hear about how anthropogenic development is causing global warming. According to an
increasingly vocal minority, however, we should be asking ourselves how much of this is media hype cud how
much is based on real evidence. It seems, as so often is the ease, that it depends on which expert you listen
to, or which statistics you study. Yes, It is true that there is a mass of evidence to indicate that the world is
getting wanner, with one of the world’s leading weather predictors stating that air temperatures have frown
an increase of just under half a degree Celsius since the beginning of the twentieth century. And while this
may not sound like anything worth losing sleep over, the international press would have us believe that the
consequences could be devastating. Other experts, however, are of the opinion that what we are seeing is
just part of a natural upward and downward swing flint has always been part of the cycle of global weather.
An analysis of the views of major meteorologists in the United States showed that less than 20% of them
believed that any change in temperature over the lust hundred years was our own fault – the rest attributed
it to natural cyclical changes.

There is, of course, no denying that we are still at a very early stage in understanding weather. The effects of
such variables as rainfall, cloud formation, the seas and oceans, gases such as methane and ozone, or even
solar energy are still not really understood, and therefore the predictions that we make using them cannot
always be relied on. Dr. James Hansen, in 19BH, was predicting that the likely effects of global warming
would be a raising of world temperature which would have disastrous consequences for mankind: “a strong
cause arid effect relationship between the current climate and human alteration of the atmosphere”. He has
now gone on record as stating that using artificial models of climate as a way of predicting change is all but
impossible. In fact, he now believes that, rather than getting hotter, our planet is getting greener as a result
of the carbon dioxide increase, with the prospect of increasing vegetation In areas which in recent history
have been frozen wastelands.

In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that as our computer-based weather models have become more
sophisticated, the predicted rises In temperature have been cut back. In addition, if we Look at the much
reported rise in global temperature over the last century, a close analysis reveals that the lion’s share of that
increase, almost three quarters in total, occurred before man began to “poison” his world with industrial
processes anti the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the twentieth century.

So should we pay any attention to those stories that scream out at us from billboards and television news
headlines, claiming that man, with his inexhaustible dependence on oil-based machinery and ever more
sophisticated forms of transport is creating a nightmare level of greenhouse gas emissions, poisoning his
environment and ripping open the ozone layer? Doubters point to scientific evidence, which can prove that,
of all the greenhouse gases, only two percent come From man-made sources, the rest resulting from natural
emissions. Who, then, to believe: the environmentalist exhorting us to leave the car at home, to buy re-
usable products packaged in recycled paper and to plant trees in our back yard? Or the sceptics, including, of
course, a lot of big businesses who have most to lose, when they tell us that we are making a mountain out of
a molehill? And my own opinion? The jury’s still out as for as I am concerned!

Questions 1 and 2
Complete the sentences below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each blank
space. Write your answers in Boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.
12) As well as planting trees and not driving, the environmentalist would like us to
choose products that are wrapped 1 and can be used more than once.

13) Big businesses would have us believe that we are making too much fuss about global warming, because

they have 2

Question 3
Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in Box 14 on your answer sheet
3) Which of these is the best title for this text?

A Global Warming is for real

B Global warming – media hype or a genuine threat?

C Weather changes over the last 100 years

D Global Warming – the greatest threat to mankind

READING PASSAGE 4

The Power of Nothing

A
Want to devise a new form of alternative medicine? No problem. Here is the recipe. Be warm, sympathetic,
reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your
patients should last at least half an hour. Encourage your patients to take an active part in their treatment
and understand how their disorders relate to the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies possess
the true power to heal. Make them pay you out of their own pockets. Describe your treatment in familiar
words, but embroidered with a hint of mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians,
forces, auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an earlier age: wisdom carelessly swept aside
by the rise and rise of blind, mechanistic science. Oh, come off it, you are saying. Something invented off the
top of your head could not possibly work, could it?
B
Well yes, it could – and often well enough to earn you a living. A good living if you are sufficiently convincing,
or better still, really believe in your therapy. Many illnesses get better on their own, so if you are lucky and
administer your treatment at just the right time you will get the credit. But that’s only part of it. Some of the
improvement really would be down to you. Your healing power would be the outcome of a paradoxical force
that conventional medicine recognizes but remains oddly ambivalent about: the placebo effect.
C
Placebos are treatments that have no direct effect on the body, yet still, work because the patient has faith in
their power to heal. Most often the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies just as much to any device or
procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal to an operation. The existence of the placebo effect implies
that even quackery may confer real benefits, which is why any mention of placebo is a touchy subject for
many practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine, who are likely to regard it as tantamount to
a charge of charlatanism. In fact, the placebo effect is a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or
otherwise, though its role is often neglected or misunderstood.
D
One of the great strengths of CAM may be its practitioners’ skill in deploying the placebo effect to accomplish
real healing. “Complementary practitioners are miles better at producing non-specific effects and good
therapeutic relationships,” says Edzard Ernst, professor of CAM at Exeter University. The question is whether
CAM could be integrated into conventional medicines, as some would like, without losing much of this
power.
E
At one level, it should come as no surprise that our state of mind can influence our physiology: anger opens
the superficial blood vessels of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But exactly how placebos work their
medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research done so far has focused on the control of
pain because it’s one of the commonest complaints and lends itself to experimental study. Here, attention
has turned to the endorphins, morphine-like neurochemicals known to help control pain.
F
But exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research to
date has focused on the control of pain because it’s one of the commonest complaints and lends itself to
experimental study. Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, natural counterparts of morphine that are
known to help control pain. “Any of the neurochemicals involved in transmitting pain impulses or modulating
them might also be involved in generating the placebo response,” says Don Price, an oral surgeon at the
University of Florida who studies the placebo effect in dental pain.
G
“But endorphins are still out in front.” That case has been strengthened by the recent work of Fabrizio
Benedetti of the University of Turin, who showed that the placebo effect can be abolished by a drug,
naloxone, which blocks the effects of endorphins. Benedetti induced pain in human volunteers by inflating a
blood-pressure cuff on the forearm. He did this several times a day for several days, using morphine each
time to control the pain. On the final day, without saying anything, he replaced the morphine with a saline
solution. This still relieved the subjects’ pain: a placebo effect. But when he added naloxone to the saline the
pain relief disappeared. Here was direct proof that placebo analgesia is mediated, at least in part, by these
natural opiates.
H
Still, no one knows how belief triggers endorphin release, or why most people can’t achieve placebo pain
relief simply by willing it. Though scientists don’t know exactly how placebos work, they have accumulated a
fair bit of knowledge about how to trigger the effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that red
dummy capsules made more effective painkillers than blue, green or yellow ones. Research on American
students revealed that blue pills make better sedatives than pink, a colour more suitable for stimulants. Even
branding can make a difference: if Aspro or Tylenol is what you like to take for a headache, their chemically
identical generic equivalents may be less effective.
I
It matters, too, how the treatment is delivered. Decades ago, when the major tranquilliser chlorpromazine
was being introduced, a doctor in Kansas categorised his colleagues according to whether they were keen on
it, openly skeptical of its benefits, or took a “let’s try and see” attitude. His conclusion: the more enthusiastic
the doctor, the better the drug performed. And this year Ernst surveyed published studies that compared
doctors’ bedside manners. The studies turned up one consistent finding: “Physicians who adopt a warm,
friendly and reassuring manner,” he reported, “are more effective than those whose consultations are formal
and do not offer reassurance.”
J
Warm, friendly and reassuring are precisely CAM’s strong suits, of course. Many of the ingredients of that
opening recipe – the physical contact, the generous swathes of time, the strong hints of supernormal healing
power – are just the kind of thing likely to impress patients. It’s hardly surprising, then, that complementary
practitioners are generally best at mobilising the placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman, professor of social
anthropology at Harvard University.

LISTENING
LISTENING PART 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=JFdLhXh4Ucs
Questions 1-5
Choose the correct answer, A, B or C.

Museum work placement

1 On Monday, what will be the students’ working day?

A 9.00 a.m. - 5.00 p,m.

B 8.45 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.

C 9.00 a.m. - 4.45 p.m.

2 While working in the museum, students are encouraged to wear

A formal clothing such as a suit.

B a cap with the museum logo.

C their own casual clothes.

3 If students are ill or going to be late, they must inform

A the museum receptionist.

B their museum supervisor.

C their school placement tutor.

4 The most popular task whilst on work placement is usually

A making presentations in local primary schools.

B talking to elderly people in care homes.

C conducting workshops in the museum.

5 The best form of preparation before starting their work placement is to read

A the history of the museum on the website.

B the museum regulations and safety guidance.

C notes made by previous work placement students.

Questions 6-10
Label the plan below.
Write the correct letter, A-l, next to questions 6-10
Where in the museum are the following places?

6 Sign-in office
7 Gallery

8 Key box

9 Kitchen area

10 Staff noticeboard

LISTENING PART 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=C9nVfjAe-gg
Questions 1-10
You will hear a man called Tim and a woman called Laura discussing preparations for their holiday.
Complete the notes below.
Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Things to do before we go
Example
Collect the currency.

 Cancel appointment with the 1 (Monday)

 Begin taking the 2 (Tuesday)

 Buy 3 , a small bag, a spare 4 , an electrical 5

 book a 6

Instructions for Laura's mum

 Feed the cat

Vet's details:

Name: Colin 7
Tel: 8

Address: Fore Street (opposite the 9 )

 Water the plants

 Meet the heating engineer on 10

LISTENING PART 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ZFMY96B7W4Q
Questions 1-6
Complete the form below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

CUSTOMER ORDER FORM

Example:
ORDER PLACED BY: John Carter

ACCOUNT NUMBER 1

COMPANY NAME 2

Envelopes
Size A4 normal

Colour 3

Quantity 4
Photocopy paper

Colour 5
Quantity 6

Questions 7-9
List THREE additional things that the man requests.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

Questions 10
Complete the notes.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for your answer.

Special instructions: Deliver goods 10