METU NEW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY EXAM CAREFUL READING PART SET 1
SADECE BİREYSEL KULLANIM İÇİNDİR
Tüm hakları saklıdır. Bu eserin hiçbir bölümü telif hakkı sahibinin yazılı izni olmadan çoğaltılamaz veya herhangi bir şekilde, fotokopi dahil olmak üzere, elektronik veya mekanik hiçbir araçla ile kopyalanamaz, herhangi bir bilgi depolama aracında saklanamaz, başkalarıyla paylaşılamaz.
© Nükte DURHAN All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or held within any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
1
Text I A. Young people today are behaving and thinking differently from previous groups at the same age. These shifts can be seen in almost every rich country, from America to the Netherlands to South Korea. Some have been under way for many years, but they have accelerated in the past few. Not all of them are harmless. B. Perhaps the most obvious change is that teenagers are getting drunk less often. They start drinking later: the average age at which young Australians first try alcohol has risen from 14.4 to 16.1 since 1998. And even when they start, they sip rather than gulp. In Britain, where a fifth of 16- to 24-year-olds do not drink at all, the number of pubs is falling by about 1,000 a year, and nightclubs are faring even worse. In the past young people went out for a drink and perhaps had something to eat at the same time, says Kate Nicholls, head of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, a trade group. Now it is the other way round. C. Drugs are also falling from favour. Surveys by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show that the proportion of 15- to 16-year-olds who have tried cigarettes has been falling since 1999. A rising proportion of teenagers have never tried anything mind-altering, including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and sedatives. The proportion of complete abstainers rose from 11% to 31% in Sweden between 2003 and 2015, and from 23% to an astounding 61% in Iceland. In America, all illegal drugs except marijuana (which is not illegal everywhere) have become less popular. Fortunately, the decline in teenage opioid use is especially sharp. D. In short, young people are less self-indulgent and break fewer rules than in the past. They are “kind of boring�, says Shoko Yoneyama, an expert on Japanese teenagers at the University of Adelaide. What is going on? E. One possibility is that teenagers and young people are more focused on school and academic work. Across the OECD club of rich countries, the share of 25- to 34-year-olds with a university degree rose from 26% to 43% between 2000 and 2016. A larger proportion of teenagers believe they will go on to university. As a result, they may be staying at home more. Meanwhile paid work is collapsing. In 2016 just 43% of American 16- to 19-year-olds were working in July, during the summer holidays—down from 65% two decades earlier. The move away from lifeguarding and burger-flipping worries some Americans, including Ben Sasse, a senator from Nebraska, who argues that boring paid work builds character and resilience. Teenagers are no fools, however. The average 16- to 19-year-old American worker earned $9.20 an hour in 2016. Though an improvement on previous years, that is nothing next to the cost of university tuition or the large and growing wage differential between professional-level jobs and the rest. The fall in summer working has been mirrored by a rise in summer studying.
2
F. More importantly, technology has changed people’s behaviour. Teenagers are heavy internet users, the more so as they acquire smartphones. By their own account, 15-year-olds in OECD countries spent 146 minutes a day online on weeknights in 2015, up from 105 minutes in 2012. Social media allow teenagers’ desire for contact with peers to be shaped by parents’ desire to keep their offspring safe and away from harmful substances.(a) In America, surveys known as Monitoring the Future have recorded a decline in unsupervised hanging-out, which has been especially sharp since 2012. (b) Worries about teenagers texting and playing computer games too much have largely given way to worries about smartphones and social media. (c) Teenagers who communicate largely online can exchange gossip, insults and nude pictures, but not bodily fluids, blows, or bottles of vodka. G. The digital compromise comes at a cost. Sophie Wasson, a psychologist at Harvard-Westlake, a private high school in Los Angeles, says that some teenagers seem to use social media as an alternative to face-to-face communication. In doing so, they pass up some opportunities to develop deep emotional connections with their friends, which are built on non-verbal cues as well as verbal ones. Ms Wasson believes that social media widen the gap between how teenagers feel about themselves and what they think their friends want them to be. Online, everybody else is always happy, good-looking and at a party. H. Something is up. Whether it is a consequence of phones, intrusive parenting, an obsessive focus on future job prospects or something else entirely, teenagers seem lonelier than in the past. The OECD’s PISA surveys show that the share of 15-year-olds who say they make friends easily at school has dropped in almost every country. Some Western countries are beginning to look like Japan and South Korea, which struggle with a more extreme kind of social isolation in which young people become virtual solitary beings. Adapted from www.economist.com 1. Which one of the following statements summarizes paragraphs B and C? a) As fewer youngsters go out for drinks in the developed world, more and more pubs are out of business. b) There is a remarkable decrease in the use of alcohol and mind-altering substances among young people. c) Although the number of teenagers who have tried cigarettes has been falling, there is an increase in the popularity of marijuana. 2. In paragraph B, the expression “it is the other way round” refers to the idea that __________. a) young people go out to eat and perhaps have a drink with their food b) the number of night clubs is falling more rapidly than the number of pubs c) young people go out for a drink but don’t eat at the same time
3
3. In paragraph E, “life-guarding and burger-flipping� are examples of __________. a) jobs that young people prefer to do b) boring paid work decreasing in number c) better paid jobs that can be done in summer 4. It can be inferred from paragraph E that teenagers are aware that summer part-time jobs are __________. a) very insufficient in covering the costs of university tuition b) beneficial in terms of gaining experience and strength c) not preparing them for professional level jobs 5. In paragraph F, which underlined sentence does not fit in the paragraph? a) b) c)
(a) (b) (c)
6. What is worrying about the behavioral changes in teenagers is that these changes __________. a) limit young people’s future job opportunities b) cause young people to grow much more slowly than the previous generations c) prevent young people from getting into real communication with peers
4
Text II A Evolution in its traditional sense is alive and well in our species. Not long ago we only knew the composition of a small number of the roughly 20,000 protein-encoding genes in our cells; today we know the function of about 12,000. But genes are only a tiny percentage of the DNA in our genome. More discoveries are certain to come—and quickly. From this genetic information, researchers have already identified dozens of examples of relatively recent evolution. Anatomically modern humans migrated from Africa sometime between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. Our original genetic inheritance was appropriate for the warm climates where we first evolved from early hominins to humans, from knuckle-walkers to hunters and gatherers. But a lot has happened since that time, as humans have expanded around the world and the demands posed by new challenges have changed our genetic makeup. B Recent, real-life examples of this process are plentiful. Australian Aboriginals living in desert climates have a genetic variant, developed in the past 10,000 years, that allows them to adjust more easily to extreme high temperatures. Another example is related to digesting milk. Prehistorically, most humans, like other mammals, could digest milk only in infancy—we had genes that turned off the production of the milk-digesting enzyme when we were weaned. But around 9,000 years ago, some humans began to herd animals rather than just hunt them. These herders developed genetic alterations that allowed them to continue making the relevant enzyme for their whole lives, a useful adaptation when their livestock were producing milk rich in vitamin and protein. C Similarly, the ancestors of all non-Africans came out of Africa with dark skin. Indeed even 10,000 years ago, according to researchers, European and African skin looked much the same. But over time humans in darker northern climates evolved less heavily pigmented skin, which helped absorb the sun’s ultraviolet rays and synthesize vitamin D more efficiently. The Inuit of Greenland have an adaptation that helps them digest the omega-3 fatty acids in fish far better than the rest of us. An indigenous population near the Argentine town of San Antonio de los Cobres has evolved to be able to drink the high levels of arsenic that occurred naturally in their groundwater. D Despite what evolution has accomplished in the recent past, in our world now, the primary mover for reproductive success—and thus evolutionary change—is culture, and its weaponized cousin, technology. That’s because evolution is no match for the speed and variety of modern life. Think of how poorly adapted we are to our computer screens and 24-hour schedules, our salty bags of corn chips and pathogen-depleted environments. Why are our internal clocks so inflexible? Why can’t our seemingly useless appendix, which may have once helped us digest grass, shift to break down sugars instead? If human genetics were a tech company, it would have gone bankrupt when steam power came along. Its business plan calls for a trait to appear by chance and then spread by sexual reproduction.
5
E This works quickly in mice, which can produce a new litter in three weeks, but humans go about things more slowly, producing a new generation only every 25 to 35 years or so. At this rate, it can take thousands of years for an advantageous trait to be spread throughout a population. Technology now does much of the same work and does it far faster, boosting our physical skills, deepening our intellectual range, and allowing us to expand into new and more challenging environments. F Are we then on the way to redefining how we evolve? Does evolution now mean not just the slow routine of natural selection spreading desirable genes, but also everything that we can do to strengthen our powers and the powers of the things we make—a union of genes, culture, and technology? And if so, where is it taking us? We may not know yet where we’re going, but we’ve already left where we’ve been. Like any other species, we are the product of millions of years of evolution. Now we’re taking matters into our own hands. Adapted from: www.nationalgeographic.com 7. The main idea of paragraph A is that evolution of human species____________. a) has been continuing in a dynamic way with some recent changes b) slowed down remarkably around 50 to 80 thousand years ago c) has been minimally influenced by the expansion around the world 8. In paragraphs B and C, we can find examples of evolution that show how _________. a) our ancestors originating in Africa spread their genes to Europe and the Americas b) quickly human genes are altered under the effect of geographical environment c) unimportant are the changes that have occurred in our genes in the last 10 000 years 9. The main point that the writer wants to stress in paragraph D is that ___________. a) natural selection is a power immeasurably superior to man’s weak efforts to develop adaptations. b) the pace of evolution is too slow to keep up with the changes that technology brought to our lives. c) Since the time of industrialization, technology has improved our genetic adaptation to our environment.
6
10. Which one of the following is true in the comparison between mice and mankind? a) Evolution is faster in mice as genetic traits spread much more quickly in mice populations thanks to fast reproduction. b) Mice are much more vulnerable to genetic diseases as they can produce new infected generations within weeks. c) Although mice reproduce much more quickly than humans, human race undergoes more rapid evolutionary changes 11. What is the writer’s opinion about the future of human evolution? a) Natural selection will keep its importance and carry the advantageous genes into future generations d) New and challenging environments will accelerate humans’ natural evolutionary processes e) We will go beyond the limitations of our biology thanks to the power we gain from technology
7
Text III A According to Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Americans say there is solid evidence that Earth has been getting warmer, according to a 2013 opinion poll .But what about the rest? The same poll noted that 26 percent said there was no evidence of global warming, and another 7 percent said evidence was mixed. B "Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal," the American Meteorological Society (AMS) concluded in a 2012 official statement. Measurements show that Earth's surface temperature rose by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) between 1901 and 2010, with most of that change (0.9 degrees F or 0.5 degrees C) occurring over the last 20 years of that period, and all 10 of the warmest years happening since 1997. While the planet has warmed and cooled before, that's the most rapid increase in the past 1,300 years. C So, why do so many people disbelieve global warming? There are a lot of dissenting voices out there. According to one study by Drexel University, an assortment of organizations, often tied to the oil industry, spent nearly $560 million between 2003 and 2010 to fund groups that deny climate change, many with links to sympathetic media and politicians. As a result, if you listen to talk radio or examine the comments on news Web sites, you'll find the following statements that supposedly disprove global warming repeated. The problem is that they don't disprove anything. Here's why. D Firstly, whenever the temperature plunges dramatically and there's heavier snowfall than usual in some states, people will cite the arctic weather as proof that global warming is a hoax. During the cold snap in early 2014, for example, businessman Donald Trump tweeted mockingly, "This very expensive Global Warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing with record low temperatures, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice". E That's not too surprising, actually, since psychological research has found that people's views about climate change tend to be influenced by the weather on the day that they are interviewed. One flaw with this way of looking at things, as Columbia University atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel has pointed out, is that there's a big difference between the weather on a particular day and the climate, which is the pattern of what happens over a much longer time. "In recent times, hightemperature records have been repeatedly broken much more often than low-temperature records," he wrote in an article for CNN. Additionally, he noted, some scientists believe that global warming paradoxically might be causing harsher winter storms, by weakening the jet stream of fast-moving winds that normally block the frigid polar air mass from creeping southward and chilling the U.S. F One of the most compelling moments in the 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was the animated sequence in which a polar bear in the Arctic Ocean was forced to keep swimming because it couldn't find ice upon which it could rest. So that's why climate change disbelievers have been delighted about recent research suggesting that despite shrinking ice, the polar bear population in the Davis Strait area of eastern Canada actually has increased in recent years, to the point where it may be at carrying capacity — that is, the maximum number of bears that the area can support .
8
G But the polar bears' story may be a bit more complicated than it seems. For one, counting these animals is a tricky business, and the fact that the ice is breaking up weeks earlier than it did in the past (due to climate change) may actually make it easier for scientists to spot them by helicopter. This could inflate their numbers. Even if the bear population is indeed increasing, this could be due to a 1980s European ban on the importing of baby harp seal hides, which has led to an increase in the bears' food supply. But as climate change worsens, that momentary brake on the polar bears' decline may not be enough. H Finally, some people who acknowledge the planet is warming insist there's no proof that humans are the cause. Instead, they discuss natural heating and cooling cycles in Earth's history, and how this period happens to be one of them. ________.Over the past century or so, the climate has heated up at a faster rate than at any time during the previous 11,300 years, which is about as far back as scientists can calculate reliably. And our planet's actual temperature is warmer than it ever was during most of that longer period. I It's hard to escape the suspicion that our modern industrial civilization, which has raised levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere to the highest levels in the past 650,000 years, might have something to do with it. "While natural variations have altered the climate significantly in the past, it is very unlikely that the changes in climate observed since the mid-20th century can be explained by natural processes alone," the climate change primer on NASA's Web site explains. Adapted from www.howstuffworks.com
12. The word “unequivocal” in paragraph B probably means ____________. a) unnatural
b) undeniable
c) unclear
13. According to the text, one reason there are still many people who do not believe in global warming is that ____________. a) the Earth’s surface temperature has not risen remarkably over the last two decades b) climate change sceptics come up with convincing arguments c) oil industry promotes the denial of climate change through media 14. How does paragraph E relate to the main idea in paragraph D? a) It provides evidence for low-temperature records expressed in paragraph D. b) It presents arguments that disprove the claims about cooling trends in paragraph D. c) It gives a justification for people’s reactions to daily weather conditions mentioned in paragraph D.
9
15. According to the writer, which of the following might be a possible reason for the increase in the number of polar bears? a) Adaptation to shrinking ice conditions b) Success of the rescue projects c) Increase in the number of harp seals 16. Which of the sentences below best completes the blank in paragraph H? a) Just about every major scientific academy and professional organization in the world have adopted the position that humans are largely responsible for climate change. b) That the earth is going through a natural heating cycle would be a comforting notion, but it is incorrect. c) They say that there is strong data to back up their claim that global warming was being caused by human activity. 17. What conclusion can we draw about the writer’s attitude towards data related to climate change? a) He is not convinced by climate change skeptics as they cannot present strong evidence to challenge the theory of human induced global warming. b) He believes that climate change critics have a point as climate related research continues and climatology is far from being a settled science yet. c) He seems indecisive as both sides of the global warming debate have strong arguments.
10
Text IV A Jane Austen was born on December 16th 1775, one of eight children. She briefly attended school, but this proved too expensive for her father. So she educated herself in his library instead, and spent her teenage years scribbling cheerful tales of female drunkenness and violence. It is believed that she received a marriage proposal, yet chose the financially risky option of remaining single. She completed six novels—two of which were published posthumously—but they brought little income. Austen died at 41, and was laid to rest in Winchester Cathedral. B Though she had demonstrated smartness in business by retaining the copyright of her later novels, Austen’s family represented her as a modest lady who wrote for pleasure, not for profit. Cassandra, her sister, edited or destroyed many of her letters. Austen’s epitaph - the inscription on her tombstone - written by her brother James, fails to mention her writing career, noting instead her “charity, devotion, faith and purity”. Her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, in what is considered the first full biography, stated that her “happy Christian life” was “singularly barren” of events. C How did this apparently unremarkable woman become one of Britain’s best-known writers? At first it was because she was considered to have introduced a new type of novel: a realist form derived entirely from everyday life. John Murray, a publisher, rejected stories like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, but chose to issue “Emma” in 1815 on the grounds that Austen’s work featured “no dark passages; no secret chambers; no wind-whistling in long galleries; no drops of blood upon a rusty dagger”. But her uniqueness lay in combining that realism with a new narrative style, one which moved skillfully between the narrator’s voice and the characters’ inner thoughts. This “free indirect speech” allowed the reader to see, think and feel exactly as the character did while also maintaining a critical distance and the ability to move between various points of view. It was radically inventive. D In the early 20th century the suffrage movement (the universal right to vote in elections) claimed her as one of its icons, marching with her name displayed on its banners as proof of women’s intellectual competence. Bringing Austen to mind not only strengthened the movement’s point—she was admired across party lines and by both men and women—but also had the benefit of affirming Austen’s particular talent. If women historically struggled to make their voices heard and their opinions known, Austen prevailed as a result of her undeniable skill. Readers on both sides of the debate turned to her books once more. E If Austen’s work is perceived as typically British, it has found significance across the world. Events are being organized for the bicentenary of her death all over Europe. The Jane Austen Society of North America boasts more than 5,000 members; reading groups exist across Latin America. The Jane Austen Society of Japan was established in 2006 and manga versions of “Pride and Prejudice”, “Emma” and “Sense and Sensibility” were issued in 2015 and 2016.
11
F It is the Asian subcontinent, however, that has embraced her books most enthusiastically, with Austen societies established in both India and Pakistan. Big-screen adaptations have fused Regency drama with Bollywood spirit. “Bride and Prejudice” (2004), set in Amritsar, substituted Lalita Bakshi for Elizabeth Bennet and Indian weddings for country dances. “Kandukondain Kandukondain” (2000), a Tamil romance film, and “Kumkum Bhagya” (2014), an Indian soap opera, are both based on “Sense and Sensibility”; “Aisha” (2010) is an adaptation of “Emma” set amid Delhi’s upper class. G The economic and social position of women, their reputation and eligibility are all themes that are easy to adapt to different cultural contexts, but there are specifics that resonate in Indian and Pakistani society, too, such as the importance of familial bonds, the preference given to male inheritance, the dowry system and the “marrying off” of young women by overenthusiastic mothers and aunts. H This is the key to Austen’s transformation from little known spinster-scribbler to literary superstar. Western readers may no longer empathize with the urgency that surrounds marriage or the idea that a relationship can be stopped in its tracks by monetary circumstance. But everyone has encountered a flirty, shallow Isabella Thorpe or a gracious but nasty Henry Crawford. Two hundred years on, Austen’s critical observations of human vanity and foolishness still hit the mark. Adapted from: www.economist.com 18. It can be inferred from the details about Jane Austin’s life that in the 18th century in England marriage ____________. a) provided financial security for women b) was an obstacle to women’s literary creativity c) prevented women from continuing their education 19. From the examples given in paragraph B, we understand that Austen’s family________. a) managed to get the profit from her novels b) tried to destroy her writing career by interfering with her texts c) failed to appreciate the value of her literary work 20. According to the writer, Jane Austen’s literary originality for her time lies in her special narrative style that ____________.
a) succeeded in attracting the reader with the inclusion of very few horror scenes b) allowed the reader to fully understand the characters’ feelings but keep a distance at the same time c) reflected everyday life in Britain but still managed to create interesting plots and unique characters
12
21. In paragraph D the writer emphasizes that in the 20th century____________. a) Austen continued to have a strong influence b) the feminist movement included mixed feelings for Austen c) Austen’s literary skill became debatable
22. Which one of the following statements best summarizes the paragraphs F and G? a) Because Austen’s books are easy to adapt for the cinema and TV, there have been many Big-screen and TV adaptations by Indian and Pakistani film makers. b) The parallelism that exists between Austen’s themes and the social structure in India and Pakistan makes her books very popular in those countries. c) It is thanks to Bollywood that the main characters created by Austen became known by the audiences in India and Pakistan. 23. Which one of the following is the best title for the text? a) Why Jane Austin became so popular in Asia b) Jane Austen: the first leading figure in feminist literature c) How an ordinary Englishwoman became a literary power 24. The writer’s main opinion about Jane Austen’s literary career is that ____________. a) Austen became famous by total coincidence of circumstances b) Austen’s work has a timeless and universal appeal c) The film adaptations of her novels are more successful than the books themselves
13
Text V A Every journalist in Gaza knew the rule: one strike usually means two, so stay well away until you hear the next hit. But the cameraman staying in my hotel forgot, and that night he didn’t return. It was 2002, the second intifada had been raging for 18 months, and hundreds had died on both sides. Determined to capture the story, he rushed to the scene of an Israeli attack without waiting for the second missile. “He made a big mistake,” said his colleague. It was an epic misjudgment – fortunately, not a fatal one. But you couldn’t put it down to stupidity. Many psychological studies have shown that under high stress, when your life is threatened or you have witnessed something terrible, it can be difficult to remember what to do. Or, if you do remember, to actually do it. B This helps explain why so many people caught in building fires and ferry disasters do nothing to save themselves; why people struggle to dial the emergency services in their moment of need; why 11 per cent of sky-diving deaths are due to parachutists failing to pull their reserve chutes. No one becomes smarter under stress. The question really is who gets dumb faster. So what confuses our brains when the unthinkable happens, and can we do anything about it? That question has long obsessed the emergency services, military and others who regularly put themselves in danger. But we can all benefit from understanding what happens in our heads during a fire, mugging or terrorist attack- and we can use that knowledge to give ourselves the best shot at surviving. C It has become standard procedure for companies and governments to put employees through hostile environment awareness training (HEAT) before sending them to high risk areas. But is it really possible to prepare for something so unpredictable? “Training for emergencies certainly works, there’s no doubt about that,” says John Leach, a former military survival instructor who studies survival psychology at the University of Portsmouth, UK. “How people respond depends very much on what they know”. Prior knowledge is crucial, because when disaster strikes, your brain is in no rational consideration. It takes just seconds for adrenaline to flood into your bloodstream, pushing your heart rate up from about 70 beats per minute to over 200. Then the body’s central stress system releases the hormone cortisol, boosting blood sugar levels and suppressing non-essential functions such as digestion. D This evolved fight or flight mechanism prepares us for physical action, but inhibits areas of the brain that govern working memory and process new information. In other words, it prepares us to act but not to think. With our reasoning abilities weakened, if the threatening situation is one we have never been before, there’s little chance of figuring out a solution. E ________. Leach estimates that in mass disasters such as ferry sinkings and aircraft fires, about 75 percent of people suffer mental paralysis, resulting in complete inaction. “Our brains build up a model of the world, and for most part that model is accurate,” he says. “But in a threat situation, the model in our head no longer represents the truth on the ground.” Because it would be unethical to conduct experiments that risk traumatizing the participants, most studies of survival behavior involve elite military recruits who choose extreme scenarios as part their training. Even in this self-selecting group, highly stressful situations can have a big effect on performance.
14
F Charles Morgan, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of New Haven, Connecticut, looked at how a mock capture and interrogation simulation affected the cognition of pilots and aircrew at a US military survival school. He used a test of visuo-spatial processing and working memory that involves copying out a complex line figure, and then reproducing it from memory. Compared with controls, the recruits who attempted this in captivity not only had great difficulty reproducing the drawing from memory, they also copied it in a disorganized manner generally done only by children under 10. This test showed that very stressful situations are likely to result in faulty decision-making, particularly if time is short. “The only way to guard against such decisionmaking errors, Morgan says, is to have a checklist of actions that you have practiced and can follow when you can’t think straight. G The main purpose of such HEAT courses, apart from increasing confidence, is to create a procedural memory to guide your actions when your thinking powers are crippled. It doesn’t happen quickly, says Sarita Robinson at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has been studying people who undergo helicopter underwater evacuation training which is obligatory for oil rig workers, search and rescue pilots and others who regularly fly over the sea. It involves being strapped into a mock-up of a helicopter that is then plunged at speed into a pool. H On their first trial, says Robinson, most people behave in one of three ways. Either they freeze and don’t attempt to escape; or they make a sequential error, like trying to get out of a window before undoing their strap; or, most commonly, they revert to a familiar yet inappropriate action, such as trying to release their four-point strap as if it’s a car seatbelt. “In that very high pressure environment, they can’t inhibit that behavior or they can’t think about a new one.” But by the time they have been dropped into the pool five or six times, the behaviours they have been taught kick in automatically. “They just activate the script and do the action. No need for working memory.” Adapted from www.newscientist.com 25. The example in paragraph A is used in order to illustrate the________. a) difficulty of making the right decision in an emergency situation b) risks presented by sending untrained journalists to war zones c) fatality caused by an even small mistake in life-threatening situations 26. What is the function of the examples given in paragraph B? a) To give knowledge that will improve our chances of survival in a dangerous situation. b) To emphasize that the psychology of those caught in a disaster is still being researched. c) To draw attention to the fact that our thinking processes are hindered during an emergency. 27. According to John Leach, previous knowledge about emergency situations ________. a) has little importance as the risks are so unpredictable b) helps you control the adrenaline levels in your bloodstream c) increases your chances of survival when the disaster hits
15
28. Which one of the following is the first sentence of paragraph E? a) To practice a list of procedures to follow in an emergency situation helps people act efficiently. b) One consequence is that most people neither fight nor flee: they freeze. c) Researchers are convinced that training increases your chance of surviving. 29. The group best equipped to cope in traumatizing situations are ________. a) elite military recruits trained in extreme scenarios b) people who have a correct model of the world in their mind c) those who experienced a real mass disaster before
Match the statements a-e below with the related researcher. There are more statements than you need. a) Children cope better in the environment of a disaster because of their superior visuo-spatial processing. b) In an emergency situation, the mental representation of the world in our mind does not correspond to the reality in the field. c) The continuous repetition of a certain procedure in training sessions help the trainees act in the right way automatically during the disaster. d) The visuo-spatial processing and working memory are so weakened during a lifethreatening situation that people cannot make correct decisions. e) Anxious people are more cautious about threats, so they will be faster to notice danger and faster to want to act on it.
30. John Leach _______ 31. Charles Morgan _______ 32. Sarita Robinson _______
16
Answer Key 1. b
17. a
2. a
18. a
3. b
19. c
4. a
20. b
5. b
21. a
6. c
22. b
7. a
23. c
8. b
24. b
9. b
25. a
10. a
26. c
11. c
27. c
12. b
28. b
13. c
29. a
14. b
30. b
15. c
31. d
16. b
32. c
17