MOCK TEST

I. READING
The animal that regrows its head

In a windowless lab at the University of Galway in Ireland, there’s a fish tank containing an extraordinary
creature. Perched on blue cocktail sticks like lollipops, rows of seashells are coated in a strange “living
hair”, buffeted by gently flowing seawater. This colony of tiny marine animals – known as “snail fur” –
was harvested in Irish rockpools off the backs of hermit crabs, and is related to jellyfish, corals and sea
anemones.

Each no bigger than a baby’s eyelash, they are called Hydractinia, and up close resemble a tree, each
with a foot, a trunk and a tentacled head used for catching tasty passing detritus. They also have a
superpower: when grazing fish frequently bite off those tentacle heads, they re-sprout to their former
hirsute glory within a week.

It’s this talent that has captured the attention of Uri Frank and colleagues at Galway’s Regenerative
Medicine Institute. Along with a growing number of researchers, he claims that the tissue regeneration
seen in creatures like Hydractinia could be an ancient power possessed by most animals, including
humans – it’s just dormant. So, how does this “snail fur” regrow itself? And could it hold the key to tissue
regeneration in human beings too?

Many animals can regenerate body parts, from starfish to salamanders. But primitive snail fur is
unusual, not least because its abilities are so extreme.

Marshalling stem cells

The key to Hydractinia’s regenerative talent is the fact that it retains its embryonic stem cells for life. This
means that any wound healing process doesn’t just produce a scab and a scar but a whole new body
part as it would in an embryo, even a head.

At a gathering of developmental biologists earlier this year, Frank showed a video of the creature’s
head-budding process in action, embryonic stem cells that had been genetically altered to glow green
rushing to the neck end of a headless Hydractinia. Attendees were agog. As one tweeted: “Uri Frank
shows timelapse movie of Hydractinia stem cells physically moving across to head (wound site) – Wow!”

Since recording that video the Galway team have been working to understand how Hydractinia rebuilds
its severed body and hope to publish their findings shortly in a scientific journal. While they’re keeping
schtum about the details, the paper will focus on how the creature marshalls its stem cells to regrow its
head – for example, how stem cells know the head’s missing – and where exactly the embryonic stem
cells come from.

Studying Hydractinia has also led Frank and colleagues to ask a bigger question: why can only a few
animals regenerate while most can’t? A salamander can regrow a lost tail but closely related frogs can’t
regrow a lost limb. And if a tiny marine creature can regrow its own head, why can’t humans even
regrow their adult teeth? After all, says Frank, it’s not as if human and Hydractinia stem cell systems are
so very different.

Ancient ancestor
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Key stem cell processes are ancient and common to many animal species. For instance, the complex
“Wnt” signalling system, which controls stem cells in developing embryos and, when uncontrolled,
causes cancer, is very similar in all animals, including Hydractinia and people. It’s one of a handful of
complex stem cell systems, each involving hundreds of elements, which have remained the same since
Hydractinia branched off the evolutionary tree that eventually led to us around 600 million years ago.

Over the past decade or so, researchers have started to believe that stem cells first evolved in a creature
even more ancient than Hydractinia, whose soft body has long since dissolved in ancient seabeds. In this
as-yet-unknown creature, the power of regeneration may have first evolved, says Frank, endowing all
later animals with a basic toolkit for regrowing lost body parts – one which mainly lies dormant in
present-day life.

“It’s maybe not such a crazy idea. Stem cell systems are enormously complex and 600 million years may
not be long enough to reinvent another system from scratch. So it’s more likely to believe that our stem
cell system and Hydractinia’s stem cell system were actually inherited from a common ancestor,” says
Frank. “And if you think about it, Hydractinia can grow a new head and, although we cannot as adults,
we can do that as embryos when we make our own head. So it is possible that this ability to do so is
switched off in human adults and in Hydractinia it’s not.”

This theory ties in with a study published last year in the journal Nature, about two varieties of an
ancient form of flatworm, the planarian. This worm has been studied for over a century because of its
amazing regenerative powers. Slice them up into tiny pieces and some planarian worms can regrow their
bodies from even the tiniest tailpiece. Others need most of their body intact to regrow a head. Until now,
that is.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute tested the idea that all planarian flatworms have the same
regenerative superpowers but that in some it’s switched off early in development. They were right. With
a relatively simple tweak to the stem cell system of a developing embryo they turned a creature that in
nature couldn’t regrow a head out of a tiny tailpiece, into one that could.

In Galway, Frank hopes his research will help to explain the apparently miraculous results from planarian
experiments and unravel other mysteries, too. Why, for instance, do planarians easily grow new tails
when Hydractinia struggles to regrow its foot? One idea is that body symmetry - front/back or left-right
as in planarians and humans but not snail fur – may dictate where stem cells in the body can migrate to.

In theory, it’s possible that humans may harbour the same dormant regenerative superpowers as snail
fur and flatworms, however far they seem from humans. At the most basic cellular level there are
striking similarities. Studying them could teach us how to regrow damaged or lost body parts too. “While
there’s no market for regrowing human heads,” says Frank, “wouldn’t it be great if we could repair
spinal cords, damaged hearts, damaged kidneys, hands and any other organs we might lose?”

The flatworm studies imply this might not be quite as unthinkable as once thought. The Victorian father
of regenerative science, Thomas Hunt Morgan carried out flatworm experiments showed their amazing
powers to regrow a whole body from a stump in 1901. But he abandoned the study, writing: “We will
never understand the phenomena of development and regeneration.”
 MOCK TEST

Clearly, there are many mysteries of regeneration still to be revealed, yet now it seems that a tiny
creature living in a fish tank in Galway and its ilk could help us unlock the bizarre process of regrowing
body parts sooner than we thought.

Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information in the IELTS reading text?

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. "Snail fur" is related to jellyfish, corals and sea anemones.

2. Judging by the picture, Hydractinia can regrow its head in a day.

3. Uri Frank thinks that even humans can possess regenerating powers.

4. Snail fur is similar to salamnders and starfish.

5. Healing in Hydractinia produces new body part.

Questions 6-9

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

6. Which of the following DIDN'T happen at a gathering of developmental biologists?

A. Uri Frank showed a video of Hydractinia regenerating its head.

B. Some stem sells of the creature were glowing green.

C.Attendants were astonished by the show.

D.Research conference afterwards took place.

7. The Galway team will focus on what in their future paper?

A. How Hydractinia manages to regrow its head.

B. How stem cells know that the head is missing.

C. Where the stem cells come from.

D.All of the above.

8. According to Frank Uri and his team

A. human and Hydractinia stem cells are similar.

B. most organisms can regenerate themselves.

C. frogs can regrow lost limbs.

D. salamander and frogs are not closely related.

Questions 9-13

Complete the sentences below.

Write ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.

9. “Wnt” signalling system can cause ………………………………………………………..

if uncontrolled.

10. Human and Hydractinia stem cells might actually be from a common …………………………………………..

11. The thing that dictates where stem cells in the body can migrate to might be body
………………………………

12. Humans might possibly harbour the same ………………………………………..

regenerative superpowers as snail fur and flatworms.

13.Thomas Hunt Morgan said that we will never understand the ……………………………………….

of development and regeneration.

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Penguins' anti-ice trick revealed

Scientists studying penguins’ feathers have revealed how the birds stay ice free when hopping in and out
of below zero waters in the Antarctic. A combination of nano-sized pores and an extra water repelling
preening oil the birds secrete is thought to give Antarctic penguins’ feathers superhydrophobic
properties. Researchers in the US made the discovery using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to study
penguin feathers in extreme detail. Antarctic penguins live in one of Earth’s most extreme environments,
facing temperatures that drop to -40C, winds with speeds of 40 metres per second and water that stays
around -2.2C. But even in these sub-zero conditions, the birds manage to prevent ice from coating their
feathers.

“They are an amazing species, living in extreme conditions, and great swimmers. Basically they are living
engineering marvels,” says research team member Dr Pirouz Kavehpour, professor of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Birds’ feathers are known to
have hydrophobic, or non-wetting, properties. But scientists from UCLA, University of Massachusetts
Amherst and SeaWorld, wanted to know what makes Antarctic penguins’ feathers extra ice repelling.

“What we learn here is how penguins combine oil and nano-structures on the feathers to produce this
effect to perfection,” explains Kavehpour. By analysing feathers from different penguin species, the
researchers discovered Antarctic species the gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) was more
superhydrophobic compared with a species found in warmer climes – the Magellanic penguin
(Spheniscus magellanicus) – whose breeding sites include Argentinian desert.

Gentoo penguins’ feathers contained tiny pores which trapped air, making the surface hydrophobic. And
they were smothered with a special preening oil, produced by a gland near the base of the tail, with
which the birds cover themselves. Together, these properties mean that in the wild, droplets of water on
Antarctic penguins’ superhydrophobic feathers bead up on the surface like spheres – formations that,
according to the team, could provide geometry that delays ice formation, since heat cannot easily flow
out of the water if the droplet only has minimal contact with the surface of the feather.

“The shape of the droplet on the surface dictates the delay in freezing,” explains Kavehpour. The water
droplets roll off the penguin's feathers before they have time to freeze, the researchers propose.
Penguins living in the Antarctic are highly evolved to cope with harsh conditions: their short outer
feathers overlap to make a thick protective layer over fluffier feathers which keep them warm. Under
their skin, a thick layer of fat keeps them insulated. The flightless birds spend a lot of time in the sea and
are extremely agile and graceful swimmers, appearing much more awkward on land.

Kavehpour was inspired to study Antarctic penguins’ feathers after watching the birds in a nature
documentary: “I saw these birds moving in and out of water, splashing everywhere. Yet there is no single
drop of frozen ice sticking to them,” he tells BBC Earth. His team now hopes its work could aid design of
better man-made surfaces which minimise frost formation.
 MOCK TEST

“I would love to see biomimicking of these surfaces for important applications, for example, de-icing of
aircrafts,” says Kavehpour. Currently, airlines spend a lot of time and money using chemical de-icers on
aeroplanes, as ice can alter the vehicles’ aerodynamic properties and can even cause them to crash.

Questions 13-17

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 29-33 on your answer sheet.

13. Penguins stay ice free due to:

A. A combination of nano-sized pores

B.An extra water repelling preening oil

C. A combination of nano-sized pores and an extra water repelling preening oil

D. A combination of various factors

14. Antarctic penguins experience extreme weather conditions, including:

A. Low temperature, that can drop to -40

B. Severe wind, up to 40 metres per second

C. Below zero water temperature

D. All of the above

15. In line 5 words engineering marvels mean:

A. That penguins are very intelligent

B. That penguins are good swimmers

C. That penguis are well prepared to living in severe conditions

D. Both B and C

16. Penguis feather has everything, EXCEPT:

A. Hydrophobic properties

B.Extra ice repelling

C. Soft structures

D. Oil structures

17. The gentoo penguin:

A.Is less superhydrophobic compared to the Magellanic penguin

B.Has feathers that contain tiny pores

C. Can't swim

D. Lives in Argentinian desert

Questions 18-25

Complete the sentences below.

Write ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet.

18. Formations like ………………………………….. could provide geometry that delays ice formation.

19. The delay in freezing is dictated by the ………………………………… of the droplet.

20.. Penguins in Antarctic are highly evolved to be able to cope with …………………………………… conditions.

21. Penguins are insulated by a ……………….. layer of fat.

22. On the land, penguins appear much more ……………………………… than in the sea.

23. The inspiration came to Kavehpour after watching a ………………………………….. about penguins.

24. Kavehpour would like to see …………………………… surfaces which minimise frost formation.

II. WRITING
 MOCK TEST

The most important component of a person’s life is his or her career, and life turns meaningless when no
job satisfaction is obtained. To what extent do you agree or disagree?