Canal

America: The Erie

Shaping Atlantic Ocean via Naw
Lakes to the ew
the Great
which connects works projects of its tima
The Erie Canal, influential public
was oneof the most with dramaticalh,
York's Hudson River, construction, it is credited
of
after eight years
First opened in 1825 thriving
internatonal port, and spurrina
New York into
a
increasing trade, turning
westward expansion.
are home
to a wealth of natural resources
the Great Lakes
The states surrounding on America's
eastern coast to access
difficult for colonists living
which were extremely available in cities like New
Likewise, the
European goods
in the early 19th century. a railway had not yet been
nation's interior. As
unheard of in the
York were practically back and forth was by horse-drawn
the only way of moving supplies
established, In addition, most journeys
for trade goods.
vehicles with a limited capacity barrier created by the
to mention the
wagons
weeks due to poor road conditions, not
lasted the time and
amount of money given
Mountains, and cost a significant
Appalachian were able to
Erie Canal opened, ships
labour each trip entailed.
However, once the
Because they
a matter of days.
from point to point in
haul up to 50 tonnes of freight skyrocketed, and the
of goods that was transported
could carry so much, the quantity cent. It wasn't long
commodities decreased by
as much a s 95 per
price of certain
on a daily basis,
in and out of New York City
before hundreds of boats were coming
America.
making it the busiest port in
for the state to start
New York City, it made sense
With so many goods entering and across the
the East Coast, to the West Indies,
shipping commodities down along
so was very profitable,
but the revenue didn't stop
Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Doing
allowing9
collected on each of the many arriving freights,
there; shipment tolls were was used to pay
coffers. Among other things, the money
the state to quickly fill its
to help funa
million dollars that had been used to construct the canal,
off the seven
the canal
in Washington, and to market popular sites along
government operations tor
New York quickly became a top destination
route, like Niagara Falls. Consequently,
the canal
with thousands taking advantage of
both American and international tourists,
to flock into New York each year.

New York's ever-growing prosperity, coupled with the fact that travelling there within

no longer difficut, saw the population increase from 124,000 to nearly 800,000 W
York
the first few years of the canal's use. While a great many people moved to Ne
f boom

City, some disembarked a other stops along the canal route, where a number o
Rochest
like
towns had been established. This helped to populate areas of New York
beyond the Appalach
and Buffalo. Furthermore, because the canal went west Great

the

Mountains, it encouraged people to venture further, to the states surtrounding i h e s e areas

Lakes: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Ilinois. Many of those who settled in ity of

were new European immigrants who had been lured to America by the &vaished
inexpensive arable farmland. Within a matter of decades, this area had e l y i n g wheat

itself as the heart of America's

to the nation.
agricultural industry -

the breadbasket suppy

174
ONIOV38 SIT31 SAHxJVH UOLOJduog kiewun
10 Dark Matter
A Curious Observation
first suggested by Duteh
the universe was
The existence of invisible matter in
the stars at the outer edaa
when he observed that
astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort in 1932
be given the weak gravitational
faster than they should
of the galaxy were moving much
was being influenced byVa
Oort believed that their speed
pull at the ends of galaxies.
"dark matter because it could
force, which he called
material with intense gravitational
was Swiss astronomer Fritz
this discovery a year later
not be seen. Substantiating
that hidden masses lay amona
observation, maintained
Zwicky who, after a similar
scientific community
claim was accepted by the
invisible ones. However, neither
invisible.
substance with mass to be
because it was unheard of for a

An Invisible Web
to confirm that outlying stars actually
By the 1950s, technology had progressed enough
have the same velocity as the stars at the center of a galaxy. Scientists surmised that

galaxies must contain significant amounts of dark matter for this to be possible, so
they set about learning as much as they could about the elusive material. Aided by

computer-generated models, they speculated that filaments of dark matter comprising

up to 85 per cent of the universe's total mass formed a web and that woven into this
web was all the visible matter of the universe. Some have compared dark matter to

connective tissue in that its apparent function is to bind the various components of the
universe together. In other words, without it, galaxies would simply break apart and
float away.

Theories on the Composition of Dark Matter

But just what is dark matter made of? Many cosmologists believe that it may be

composed of a subatomic particle that has not yet been identified. Meanwhile, some
astronomers consider massive compact halo objects, or MACHOS, a possibility
MACHOS are believed to reside in the halos of galaxies but defy detection because
of their low luminosities. Other astronomers think that WIMPs, or weakly interac
massive particles, are strong candidates. WIMPs are hypothetical at this point but are a

popular choice because scientists believe that they formed

shortly after the Big bau
Being massive, slow-moving, and incapable of emitting light, it is theorised that tne
particles clumped together to form the structure of the universe. npts

to prove their existence have

Unsurprisingly, ane Such

been determined, and

as the
state-of-the-art technologies,
Large Hadron Collider, are currently being used to try to produce them.
Mapping Dark Matter
Although there remains a lack of solid
matter

evidence, support for the theory of dai*

has grown
extensively. It is now the consensus
scientists that it does
tand

that, despite its inability to produce light, it can be detected. This is due to theex"
among

176
 it causes light from galaxies to
distort, creating luminous
optical illusions. Scientists observing
these phenomena measure the
displacement of light to determine the
of the dark matter. They then chart these approximate location
positions on maps. While scientists engaged in the
search for dark matter often come up
empty-handed, they remain optimistic and driven by
discoveries like one made by a team in Munich,
Germany in which it was possible to detect
and map dark matter in a cluster of galaxies about 2.7 billion light years away.

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-H, below.

What is Dark Matter?

There are several theories about what comprises dark matter. Some say it is made up of an
undiscovered 30 . ... while others think that dense halo objects are more likely
*****'*'°°"
candidates. WIMPs are yet another possibility. This is because their 31...
*******°'**°.
may have begun immediately following the Big Bang. The 32... of these particles
is something that scientists are currently trying to prove using the Large Hadron Collider.
Scientists now believe that even though dark matter produces no 33 . it will be
possible to detect it somehow. They are studying dark matter's impact on the light emitted CH
by galaxies to judge its 34. ..... and chartit on a map.

A light B force C formation

D velocity E presence F position

G particle H illusion

Dáp án-Djch nghla-Chú giäi trang 428

v. chúng minh mass

moi noi trong vú tru) ubstantiate
dark matter phr. vât ch¥t tÑi (vât ch¥t án tôn tai kháp khó nàm bâr filament n. soi/dây nhó weave
tóc elusive adj.
n. khoi
luong, khói/dóng velocity n. tóc dÙ, vân Subatomic particle phr. hat ha
V. det, két lai connective tissue phr. mô liên két
cosmologist n. nhà vú tru hÍc
tú và là thành phan cau tao nên nguyên tú) halo n. quang
vói nguyên
nguyen tú (các hat nhó hon nhiéu lán so dua ra giá thuyét clump together phr. tu
theorise v. t¡o ra ly thuyét,
Vong sáng luminosity n. tinh sáng, dÙ sáng
Máy Gia tóc Hat lón (máy tao va cham truc diÇn giúa các tia proton)
la Cung nhau Large Hadron Collider phr. distort v. làm bién dang, bôp
méo optical illusion phr. åo giác chart V.
Consensus n. su dông tâm, su nhát trí
làp biéu dô, vë ô thi

CHAPTER 06 Summary Completion 177

 HACKERS TEST

READING PASSAGE

1-13, which are based on

minutes on Questions
You should spend about 20

Reading Passage below

The Speech Chain

is possible
An overview of theprocess through which communication

of human language systems

It is to argue that the complexity and versatility
possible
is however a recent phenomenon
is what distinguishes us from other animals. Language
and it is one that is
in evolutionary terms, having arisen only over the last 200,000 years,
studies of primates show
grounded in basic biology. This biological basis is largely cognitive;
no significant difference between them and humans in their
anatomical capacity for speech. It
is our cognitive capacity for language, working in conjunction with our physical apparatus for

speaking and listening, that therefore distinguishes humanity.

The neurophysiological process for speaking and understanding is complex and requires
multiple organs working in conjunction with our cognitive capacity. This process has been
labelled the 'speech chain' and understanding how it works requires a combination of
linguistics, cognitive science, biology and pragmatics, the study of how language is used
to communicate. The speech chain describes the process by which a piece of speech is
transmitted from the speaker to the listener, breaking it down into multiple stages which reveal
the complex interplay of physical and cognitive processes involved.

The speech chain is useful for researchers who want to understand how the feedback between
the brain, sensory nerves and sound waves, as well as the
vocal cords and ear, can influence
meaning and either enable or disrupt full understanding. Speech science, the
experimenta
study of communication, focuses on the moment when an

mental process. Researchers involved in this

language is a physical rather u
field thus study the speech chain to
how acoustic sounds relate to articulation deter
and how speech sounds can s and
vary in sty
emotions.

The speech
chain itself describes the from
process which occurs when a message
the mind of a
speaker
to mind of a listener. The process can be broken down into
the trav everal

stages, each of which occurs in a different >sad. I

part of either the
speaker's listener
or
also occurs on a succession of
levels which reflect the nd
biological processes that are incorporated into the complex coordination of linguitic
chain. These levels include the
level,the physiological level and the acoustic level, and an lmh o.
be

successfully communicated. utterance must use all thre

The first step of the speech chain is the
encoding of the Stic concep
which occurs in the brain. In this step the message as a linguistic a n d the
message must be put into a
linguistic ror
178
 HACKERS IELTS READING
pronunciation elements must be
programmed
encoding the appropriate instructions of the braincorrectly
will
so that it is
coherent. Following this
of impulses
before they reach the travel along the motor
vocal organs, which nerves in the form
and lips. These will then enact include the lungs, vocal
the process of cords,
this noise generating part of the speech by collectively creating a soundtongue
chain is also known as
an aeroacoustic wave
process.
The sound waves travel
through the air, toward the listener, where
ears' hearing mechanisms and
are translated into
they are picked up by their
brain. Here they are decoded to nerve impulses which travel towards their
establish meaning. The brain
reveals recognition of the activity during this moment
speaker's statement and the interpretation of these
sensations as pronunciation and auditory
meaning if the message is understood. This establishes a
-

connection between the speaker's brain

and the listener's brain, which is the
the ultimate aim of
speech chain and is what enables
communication.
There is one more step in the
chain, which is the simultaneous transmission of sound waves
to the speaker's ears from his or her vocal organs. This creates a feedback link which
allows
the speaker to check the coherence or accuracy of their own statement. This is fundamental
to the process of communication since it allows the 06
speaker to compare the quality of their
expression with what they intended and make adjustments based on this feedback. The
disruption to this feedback loop caused by deafness can have significant detrimental effects
on the ability to speak coherently.

Overall this speech chain reveals the basis for speech and establishes a framework for the
study of communication. Researchers continue to delve into how exactly the brain encodes
meaning, and how the vocal organs are capable of creating sound waves, as well as the effect
of feedback on the speech process. It is worth noting that whilst this process describes the
cognitive and auditory basis for communication, there is also a very important visual eiement
facial gestures and bodily motions play a key part in the production of meaning. It is also worth
remembering that the process illustrated in the speech chain happens almost instantaneously,
or at least at the speed of sound, a fact that underlines the staggering complexity and capability

of the human body.

CHAPTER 06 Summary Completion

179
 Questions 1-7

Complete the summary using the list of words A-l, below.

Researching the Speech Chain

Experts can utilise the speech chain to learn about feedback between the brain and
and
other auditory factors. This feedback can be supportive of or disruptive to completa
They can also gain knowledge about the relationship of acoustie
SOunds to 2 The various stages of the speech chain
happen on
different levels that indicate the complicated 3. of different processes.
******* *****************''**
The final 4 ..of the speech chain is to establish a connection betwaen
* *****************"
the brain ofa speaker and listener. An additional phase involves the 5
. ***'"' '****'*****..
of sound between the speaker's vocal cords and ears. Feedback then lets the speaker
make
sure that his or her 6 the intended quality. Overall, the
. . .
* .meets
******************"
speech
chain isfundamental aspect of biology which has allowed humankind to
a
develop as a social
communicative species. It is this chain that is behind the foundation of
speech, and it sets up
the 7 *****'** '' *'***'********
for communication research.

A framework B coordination C sensation

D transmission
aim F expression
G articulation H perception
understanding

Questions 8-10

Complete each sentence with the correct

ending, A-G, below.
8 The human differs from
other primates because it
9 The breaking down of speech into stages
10 The visual
component in the production of
meaning
A
depends heavily on communicative
B feedback.
uses only the sensory nerves when
utilises a unique anatomical set communicating.
of speech organs.
D shows the interaction of
E
cognitive and
physical processes.
includes body movements and
facial
F has more than expressions.
just physical capacity for
a
G translates verbal signs into visual speech.
symbols.

180
 D

ONIOV3H SI131S83XOVH UOLadwog Aewuns