SECTION I: LISTENING (50 points)

Part 1: Listen and complete the notes below with no more ONE WORD AND/OR A
NUMBER for each answer in the numbered boxes provided. (14 points)
SOUTH CITY CYCLING CLUB

Membership
• Full membership costs $260; this covers cycling and (1.) _______________ all over
Australia
• Recreational membership costs $108
• Cost of membership includes the club fee and (2.) ________________
• The club kit is made by a company called Jerriz.
Training rides
• Chance to improve cycling skills and fitness
• Level B: speed about (3.) ______________kph
• Weekly sessions
Tuesday at 5.30 am, meet at the stadium.
Thursday at 5.30 am, meet at the entrance to the (4.) ____________
Further information
• Rides are about an hour and a half.
• Members often have a (5.) ______________ together afterwards
• There is not always a (6.) ______________ with the group in these rides
• Bikes must have (7.) ______________

Part 2: You will hear a lecture being given to a group of parents about keeping children safe
in water. For questions 8 – 15, complete the lecture notes.
KIDS AND WATER SAFETY
Lecturer: Deborah Green from the (8)___________________________
Babies can be taken to pools as young as (9)___________________________
Pools are supervised by trained (10___________________________
There should be one supervising adult to every (11)___________________________
Make sure swimming aids conform to (12)___________________________
At the beach, make sure the child is (13)___________________________
You should not swim when there is (14)___________________________
Safety is just a matter of (15)___________________________

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 READING PRACTICE
PRACTICE 1: READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE AND DO THE TASKS THAT FOLLOW.
List of Headings
i. Effect of city life on mental health
ii. Stress reduction in animals
iii. Two types of stress
iv. The fallout of cell death
v. The best type of exercise
vi. How stress can be useful
vii. One reason behind bad tempers
ix. Neuron loss in childhood
x. Regrowing the brain with exercise
1 Paragraph A _________
2 Paragraph B _________
3 Paragraph C _________
4 Paragraph D _________
5 Paragraph E _________

A
Despite its bad reputation, stress historically had a vital role to play. Commonly referred to as the
‘fight or flight’ mode, the sudden release of stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol causes the
heart to beat faster, airways to dilate and blood vessels to open up, all of which push the body
towards optimal performance and, ultimately, survival. In the rest of the animal kingdom, this is
still often the difference between life and death. As he springs off to freedom, the lucky gazelle
who escapes the lion can thank this primal evolutionary response.
B
In ordinary modern life, although we’re in little danger of being stalked by wild beasts down city
streets, our bodies react to stress in the same ways. Experiencing anxiety, fear and stress is
considered a normal part of life when it is occasional and temporary, such as feeling anxious and
stressed before an exam or a job interview. It is when these acute reactions are prolonged or cannot
be switched off, however, that serious physical, social and cognitive issues can result. In contrast
to the normal everyday stress of modern life, chronic stress is a pathological state which can
significantly interfere with daily living activities such as work, school and relationships, wreaking
havoc on the body’s immune, metabolic and cardiovascular systems.
C
Of major concern is the impact on the brain. Researchers have found that the hippocampus, the
control centre of memory and our ability to learn, can physically shrink in response to prolonged
release of stress hormones like cortisol which result from chronic stress. Neurons in this area do
not just get smaller, but actually die, which weakens the neural connections, affecting the way
memories are organised and stored in the brain. A chronically stressed person would recognise this
as a ‘brain fog’, and it also has ramifications for other areas such as creativity and adaptability.
D
While this part of the brain gets smaller, another area, the amygdala, which is involved in
processing emotions, can grow with chronic stress. Across species, a larger amygdala has been
found to correlate with aggression and this, coupled with the weakened connection to the
prefrontal cortex, the brain’s decision-making centre, can profoundly impact mood and behaviour.
With the link between emotions and decision-making compromised, a person is much less able to
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stop and reflect, becoming instead reactive and short-fused. Think of the difference between being
able to tolerate a screaming child and instead giving in to the desire to scream back.
E
In the past, it was accepted that there was a limited number of neurons in the brain and as they died
off as a result of ageing, stress or substance abuse, for instance, they were lost forever. It turns out,
however, that this is not the case and that stem cells within the brain are actually able to create new
neurons. In other words, lost neurons can be replaced. What makes this discovery even more
powerful is the fact that replenishing neurons is rather straightforward. One of the most powerful
stimulants for neuron growth is physical activity. So, in addition to its role in the reduction of
stress hormones in the first place, and its ability to stimulate the release of endorphins, exercise has
now been shown to contribute to the repair of the chronically stressed brain.

PRACTICE 2: READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE AND DO THE TASKS THAT FOLLOW.
Questions 1- 5
Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-E
from the headings below. Write the correct number: i-vii, in boxes 1 – 5 on your answer
sheet.
List of Headings
i. Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets
ii. Appropriate responses to signals from other civilizations
iii. Vast distances to Earth’s closest neighbours
iv. Assumptions underlying the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
v. Reasons for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
vi. Knowledge of extra-terrestrial life forms
vii. Likelihood of life on other planets
1. Paragraph A _____________
2. Paragraph B_____________
3. Paragraph C_____________
4. Paragraph D_____________
5. Paragraph E_____________
IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has haunted humanity for centuries, but we
may now stand poised on the brink of the answer to that question, as we search for radio signals
from other intelligent civilizations. This search often known by the acronym SETI [search for
extraterrestrial intelligence], is a difficult one. Although groups around the world have been
searching intermittently for three decades, it is only now that we have reached the level of
technology where we can make a determined attempt to search all nearby stars for any sign of life.

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A
The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity - the same curiosity about the natural world
that drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe. We want to
know whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there is something
very special about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that we see around us on the
planet. The simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to answer this most basic of all
questions. In this sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery of pure science which is continually
pushing out the horizon of our knowledge. However, there are other reasons for being interested in
whether life exists elsewhere. For example, we have had civilization on Earth for perhaps only a
few thousand years, and the threats of nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have
told us that our survival may be tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe
ourselves out? Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that if
other civilizations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years.
Thus any other civilization that we hear from is likely to be far older on average than ourselves.
The mere existence of such a civilization will tell of that long term survival is possible, and gives
us some cause for optimism. It is even possible that the older civilization may pass on the benefits
of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and
other threats that we haven't yet discovered.
B
In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First. UFOs
[Unidentified Flying objects] are generally ignored since most scientists don`t consider the
evidence for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration (although it is also important
to keep an open mind in casa any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we
make a very conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like us,
since if it differs radically from us we may well not recognize it as a life form, quite apart from
whatever we are able to communicate with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may
well have two green heads and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should
communicate with its fellows. Be interested in the Universe, Live on a planet orbiting a star like
our Sun, and perhaps most restrictively have chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.
C
Even when we make these assumptions. our understanding of other life forms is still severely
limited. We do not even know. for example, how many stars have planets, and we certainly do not
know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions. However, when we
look at the 100 billion stars in our galaxy [the Milky Way], and 100 billion galaxies. In the
observable Universe, It seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life
form on it; in fact, the best educated guess we can make using the little that we do know about the

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conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have
a life-bearing planet orbiting it. That means that our nearest neighbours are perhaps 1000 light
years away. which is almost next door in astronomical terms.
D
An alien civilization could choose many different ways of sending information across the galaxy,
but many of these either require too much energy. or else are severely attenuated while traversing
the vast distances across the galaxy. lt bums out that. for a given amount of transmitted power:
radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance. and so all
searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. So far there
have been a number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian
searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales. Until now there have not been any
detections from the few hundred stars which have been searched. The scale of the searches has
been increased dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year
for ten years to conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this
project is being spent on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies et
once. The project has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world's largest radio
telescopes. The American-operated telescope in Arecibo. Puerto Rico and the French telescope in
Nancy in France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with high
sensibility for signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other part of the project is an
undirected search which is monitoring all of space with a lower using the smaller antennas of
NASA`s Deep Space Network.
E
There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien
civilization. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart from the
impracticality of sending a reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host of ethical
questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any reply could be sent.
Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior and much older civilization?
Luckily, there is no urgency about this. The stars being searched are hundreds of light years away.
so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to reach us, and a further few hundred years for our
reply to reach them. It's not important, then, if there’s a delay of a few years, or decades, while the
human race debates the question of whether to reply and perhaps carefully drafts a reply.
Questions 6 – 10
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage? In boxes
6 – 10 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

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NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this more than once.
6. Alien civilizations may be able to help the human race to overcome serious problems. ______
7. The Americans and Australians have co-operated on joint research projects. ______
8. So far SETI scientists have picked up radio signals from several stars. ______
9. The NASA project attracted criticism from some members of Congress. ______
10. If a signal from outer space is received, it will be important to respond promptly. ______

PRACTICE 3: READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE AND DO THE TASKS THAT FOLLOW.
Write the correct letter, A-F, 18-21 on your answer sheet.
18. Nutrients contained in the unused parts of harvested crops________
19. Synthetic fertilizers produced with Haber-Bosch process ________
20. Addition of a mixture developed by Pius Floris to the soil________
21. The idea of zero net soil degradation ________

A may improve the number and quality of plants growing there.

B may contain data from up to nine countries.
C may not be put back into the soil.
D may help governments to be more aware of soil-related issues.
E may cause damage to different aspects of the environment.
F may be better for use at a global level

SAVING THE SOIL

More than a third of the Earth’s top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s most precious
resource?
A
More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report. If we don’t
slow the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil grows 95% of our food and
sustains human life in other more surprising ways, that is a huge problem.
B
Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points out that soil
scientists have been warning about the degradation of the world’s soil for decades. At the same
time, our understanding of its importance to humans has grown. A single gram of healthy soil
might contain 100 million bacteria, as well as other microorganisms such as viruses and fungi,
living amid decomposing plants and various minerals. That means soils do not just grow our food,
but are the source of nearly all our existing antibiotics, and could be our best hope in the fight
against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms
within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times
the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere. Soils also store water, preventing flood

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damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads, and bridges from floods caused by soil
degradation costs £233 million every year.
C
If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in big trouble. The
danger is not that the soil will disappear completely, but that the microorganisms that give it its
special properties will be lost. And once this has happened, it may take the soil thousands of years
to recover. Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow they remove
nutrients from the soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are returned directly
to the soil. Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested crops directly to the soil to enrich
it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less fertile. In the past, we developed strategies to get
around the problem, such as regularly varying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields
uncultivated for a season.
D
But these practices became inconvenient as populations grew and agriculture had to be run on
more commercial lines. A solution came in the early 20th century with the Haber-Bosch process
for manufacturing ammonium nitrate. Farmers have been putting this synthetic fertiliser on their
fields ever since. But over the past few decades, it has become clear this wasn’t such a bright idea.
Chemical fertilisers can release polluting nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and excess is often
washed away with the rain, releasing nitrogen into rivers. More recently, we have found that
indiscriminate use of fertilisers hurts the soil itself, turning it acidic and salty, and degrading the
soil they are supposed to nourish.
E
One of the people looking for a solution to his problem is Pius Floris, who started out running a
tree-care business in the Netherlands, and now advises some of the world’s topsoil scientists. He
came to realise that the best way to ensure his trees flourished was to take care of the soil, and has
developed a cocktail of beneficial bacteria, fungi, and humus to do this. Researchers at the
University of Valladolid in Spain recently used this cocktail on soils destroyed by years of
fertiliser overuse. When they applied Floris’s mix to the desert-like test plots, a good crop of plants
emerged that were not just healthy at the surface, but had roots strong enough to pierce dirt as hard
as a rock. The few plants that grew in the control plots, fed with traditional fertilisers, are small
and weak.
F
However, measures like this are not enough to solve the global soil degradation problem. To assess
our options on a global scale we first need an accurate picture of what types of soil are out there,
and the problems they face. That’s not easy. For one thing, there is no agreed international system
for classifying soil. In an attempt to unify the different approaches, the UN has created the Global

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Soil Map project. Researchers from nine countries are working together to create a map linked to a
database that can be fed measurements from field surveys, drone surveys, satellite imagery, lad
analyses, and so on to provide real-time data on the state of the soil. Within the next four years,
they aim to have mapped soils worldwide to a depth of 100 meters, with the results freely
accessible to all.
G
But this is only a first step. We need ways of presenting the problem that brings it home to
governments and the wider public, says Pamela Chasek at the International Institute for
Sustainable Development, in Winnipeg, Canada. ‘Most scientists don’t speak the language that
policy-makers can understand, and vice versa.’ Chasek and her colleagues have proposed a goal of
‘zero net land degradation’. Like the idea of carbon neutrality, it is an easily understood target that
can help shape expectations and encourage action.For soils on the brink, that may be too late.
Several researchers are agitating for the immediate creation of protected zones for endangered
soils. One difficulty here is defining what these areas should conserve: areas where the greatest
soil diversity is present? Or areas of unspoiled soils that could act as a future benchmark of
quality? Whatever we do, if we want our soils to survive, we need to take action now.

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