READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.

Museums and family visitors in Australia

Museums in Australia have recognised the need to become more responsive to their
audiences, especially families who visit museums in large numbers. Research has
consistently found that positive early family visits to museums have a significant impact on
later visiting habits. What is more, researchers have identified the importance of learning in
family visits and the different roles that various family members play before, during and after
their visit.

For many years museums in Australia have acknowledged the importance of families as
visitors, with several establishing separate spaces for these groups, especially those with very
young children. Major museums have developed dedicated spaces specifically designed for
children and families. For example, the Melbourne Museum's Children's Gallery is aimed at
three- to eight-year-olds and has a mandate to encourage children to discover and explore
within a range of science issues. The goal is to provide an interactive, hands-on and playful
space that engages all the senses through continually updated exhibitions. The National
Museum of Australia in Canberra developed Kspace, an interactive space where children
'design their own future with the help of technology. This museum also designed Our Place, a
series of cosy play spaces where children can explore the museum's themes in their own
ways.

Other museums have also considered the entire family when designing their dedicated
spaces. The Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, when developing Pirates, its
below-the-deck pirate ship experience, realised that exhibitions aimed at children, particularly
school-aged children, also needed more sophisticated exhibits to occupy their accompanying
parents. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, while catering to varying tastes within families
through its many temporary exhibitions and programs, recognised the value of a dedicated
space for children who were visiting with their parents. The museum's installation, Zoe's
House, caters specifically for children aged three to five years, to facilitate cooperation in
children through play.

Family visits to museums in Australia share a number of characteristics. Generally, visitors

take time for orientation, enter with a sense of curiosity, link what they see to their own prior
experiences and are most attracted to interactive displays. Their common viewing behaviour
involves looking very closely at each display in the first gallery and then skimming and moving
randomly in subsequent galleries. Their visiting behaviour is modified by increased
experience with the setting: they like to revisit favourite displays, share their viewing and
learning in a social context and interact with people from the museum. They respond to
physical needs by using the comfortable chairs provided or having a break after a little more
than an hour, and generally stay for two hours at most.
Research has found that adult members of family groups play three roles which are
particularly relevant to the family group during the visit, visit manager by directing and
organising; museum expert through explaining clarifying and correcting; and learning-
facilitator in questioning and reminiscing. These roles occur simultaneously, are closely linked
to the process of learning and are dependent on both the social context of the visit and the
group composition, particularly the ages of any accompanying children.

Parents consider museum visits to be valuable in creating and strengthening relationships

with their children and in enabling them to tune into what fascinates their children. Parents
make use of learning facilities such as open access libraries and activity kits if they know the
resources are there and understand their role. Family members each take notice of different
aspects of an exhibit and construct a shared meaning together. Museums are seen as a good
clay out, something the whole family can enjoy as a different form of education and are
generally considered good value for money.
In this increasingly complex world, where the real and virtual are blurring, and where changes
in society can seem overwhelming, museums are able to provide spaces for families to be
together as well as learn together. Parents value museum visits because they provide
children with opportunities to learn in different ways through bringing concepts to life and
enhancing school learning experiences. Museums stimulate visitors of all ages and open their
minds to new ideas, the world around them, history and other cultures. Children enjoy
museums as places where they can fantasise, explore and learn in ways that are more
engaging than they experience in more formal settings, such as school. Museums need to
identify the elements that families value, the ways families interact with museums, and how
museums operate as extremely effective learning units. The challenge is for museums to then
apply these principles, not only to the development of future exhibitions and programs, but
also to the ways they plan for all visitors.
Questions 1-5 Complete the table below

Chose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer Write your answer in

boxes 1-5 on you answer sheet

Dedicated museum spaces for families with children
Museums Dedicated spaces Target users Aim of dedicated spaces
Melbourne Museum Children's Gallery 3-8 year olds - present 1.............. topics
in interesting ways
- stimulate children's senses
National Museum of Kspace Our Place Children Use 2..................... to
Australia imagine the future
Australian National Pirates - Children of Stimulate the life of a pirate
Maritime Museum school age 3...

4 ................. Zoe's House Pre-schoolers Use play to encourage 5

Museum ................ between children

Questions 6 - 9 Complete the notes below

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer

Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet

Family visits to museums
When families visit museums, they usually:
• determine the location of exhibits
• prefer exhibits that are 6 .....................
• move slowly through the first gallery
• move without planning through the remaining galleries
• enjoy seeing their 7 .................... a second time
• speak to staff
• sit or take a 8....................
• stay for a maximum of 9......................
Questions 10 -13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1 ? In

boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE NOT if the statement contradicts the information
GIVEN if there is no information on this

10. Some adult visitors behave like a museum specialist when guiding younger
visitors.
11. It is more enjoyable to visit a museum with a group of children who are all the same
age.
12. Parents think that the cost of visiting museums is too high.
13. Children want to visit museums after they learn about a topic at school.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.

Boring buildings
There could be more than an economic or nostalgic price to impersonal retail and high-
rise construction; boring architecture may take an emotional toll on the people forced to
live with it

A A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical and mental
toll bland cityscapes take on residents. Generally, these researchers argue that humans
are healthier when they live surrounded by variety or work in well- designed, unique
spaces, rather than unattractive, generic ones. Urban policy professor Justin Hollander
and architect Ann Sussman review scientific data to help architects and urban planners
understand how, exactly, people respond to their built surroundings, particularly at
work. People, they argue, function best in intricate settings, not 'big, blank, boxy offices'

B Indeed, that's what Colin Ellard, a neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo in

Canada, has found in his work. Five years ago, Ellard became interested in a certain
building - the gigantic Whole Foods Market 'plopped into' a notoriously textured part of
lower Manhattan in New York. Ellard partnered with the Guggenheim Museum to
analyze what happens when someone walks out of a tiny neighborhood restaurant and
encounters a full city block with nothing but 'the long, blank facade of the Whole Foods
Market' building.

In 2011, Ellard led small groups on Lower East Side walks to measure the effect of the
urban environment on them. Participants recorded their response to questions at each
stopping point and wore sensors that measured skin conductance, a response to
emotional excitement. Passing the monolithic Whole Foods Market, people's state of
arousal plummeted. Physiologically, Ellard explained, they were bored. To describe this
place, they used words like 'bland' and 'passionless'. In contrast, one block east at the
other test site - a 'lively sea of restaurants with lots of open doors and windows' - people
measured high levels of excitement, and they listed words like 'lively', and 'socializing'.
Ellard explains that the main objective of urban design should be to produce some kind
of novelty or change every few seconds; otherwise, we become cognitively disengaged.

C The trick, it seems, is to design a world that excites but doesn't overload our faculties
with a constant barrage of information. 'We are, as animals, programmed to respond to
thrill,' said professor Brendan Walker. In Walker's 'thrill laboratory' at the University of
Nottingham in the UK, devices measure heart rate and skin conductance to see how
people respond to adrenaline-producing experiences such as a roller-coaster ride. A
thrilling encounter moves us quickly from a state of equilibrium to a desirable
'disorientation'. 'Humans want a certain element of turmoil or confusion,' he said.
'Complexity is thrilling whether in an amusement park or architecture.'
D Psychologists have found that awe-inspiring moments can potentially improve our
well-being. One study conducted by Melanie Rudd, Kathleen Vohs and Jennifer Aaker
of Stanford University in the US showed that the feeling of 'awe' can make people more
patient and less materialistic. In an experiment, the researchers showed students 60-
second clips of waterfalls, whales, or astronauts in space. After only a minute of virtual
images, those who said they were awed also felt less pressed for time. And in another
variation, people made hypothetical choices between physical and experiential goods
of equal monetary value. Those who had just 'felt awe' were more likely to choose an
experience over a possession, a choice that is linked with greater satisfaction in the
long run. In other words, a visual buzz - whether architectural or natural - might have
the ability to change our frame of mind, making modern-day life more satisfying and
interactive.

E It's important to note, however, that architectural boredom isn't about how pristine a
street is. People often confuse successful architecture with whether an area looks
pleasant. On the contrary, when it comes to city buildings, people often focus too
narrowly on aesthetics, said Charles Montgomery, author of Happy City: Transforming
Our Lives Through Urban Design. Some of the happiest blocks in New York City, he
argues, are 'kind of ugly and messy'.

In 2014, Montgomery's Happy City lab conducted an experiment in which he found a

strong correlation between messier blocks and pro-social behavior. Montgomery sent
researchers, posing as lost tourists, to places he coded as either 'active' or 'inactive'
facades. He concluded that the former had a high level of interest, that is they were
messy, while the latter had no special features such as long warehouse blocks.
Pedestrians at active sites were nearly five times more likely to offer assistance than at
inactive ones. Of those who assisted, seven times as many at the active site offered
use of their phone.

F Fortunately, it's not necessarily a dichotomy - new architecture can achieve the
optimal level of cacophony and beauty. Take the 2006 Hearst Tower in midtown
Manhattan. Designed by architect Norman Foster, Hearst Tower is a glass-and-steel
skyscraper, 40 stories of which are designed in a triangular pattern, differing in style
from the 1920s Art Deco base. From the outside, the facade jolts city dwellers from
their daily commutes, while energizing employees who enter it each morning. For many
who walk by, Hearst Tower's design may not be the easiest to understand; it's both
sleek and old. The top looks like it traveled from the future. Inside, workers travel upon
diagonal escalators, up a three-story water sculpture, through the tower's historic
atrium, flooded with light. Few New Yorkers who pass by would find this building boring.
And they're likely to be happier - maybe even nicer to each other - because of it.
Questions 1 4 - 1 8

Reading Passage 2 has six sections, A-F.

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

14 a description of a building that has a positive effect

15 a reference to architecture affecting people's performance in their jobs

16 examples of the intensity of people's reactions in two urban settings

17 details of a study where seeing certain pictures reduced people's stress

18 a claim about feelings experienced in response to both architecture and
leisure settings

Questions 1 9 - 2 3

Look at the following statements (Questions 19-23) and the list of researchers below. Match

each statement with the correct researcher, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

19 The aim of good city planning is to provide variety in architecture.

20 People in untidy areas were more helpful.

21 People who had recently felt amazed, placed less importance on material
goods.

22 'Attractive' places are not necessarily the most enjoyable places to be.

23 One particular building failed to provide visual stimulation.

List of Researchers
A Colin Ellard
B Brendan Walker
C Rudd, Vohs and Aaker
D Charles Montgomery
Questions 24 - 26 Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Hearst Tower
Norman Foster's Hearst Tower was built in 2006. The 40-storey modern triangular- patterned
building is made of glass and steel, contrasting with the base which is in
the style of the 1920s. The sight of the building's 24 ........................ has a striking
impact on commuters and employees. Some passers-by may find the building's
design confusing, as it mixes old and new elements. Inside the tower
25 ................. carry employees up past a large water sculpture in the light-filled
26 .................
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 on pages 11 and 12.

Thinking for themselves

Some insights into animal intelligence
In 1977 Irene Pepperberg brought Alex, a one-yew-old African gray parrot, into her lab
at Harvard University to teach him to reproduce the sounds of English. At that time most
scientists considered animals mere machines, lacking the ability to think in a rational
way or feel emotions as humans do. ‘I wasn’t trying to see if Alex could learn a human
language,’ said Pepperberg. ‘My plan always was to use his imitative skills to get a
better understanding of avian cognition.’ Given that Alex’s brain was the size of a
walnut, most researchers thought Pepperberg’s study would be futile.
But by the time Alex died in 2007, he knew 150 words, could count, do simple
arithmetic, and distinguish between objects according to shape, color, and material.
Many of Alex’s skills, such as his ability to understand the concepts of ‘same’ and
‘different’, are generally ascribed only to higher mammals. But parrots, like higher apes
(and humans), live in complex societies, and need to monitor changing relationships
and environments.
They need to distinguish colors to know when a fruit is ripe or unripe,’ Pepperberg
noted. They need to categorize things - what’s edible, what isn’t - and to know the
shapes of predators. And it helps to have a concept of numbers if you need to keep
track of your flock. For a long-lived bird, you can’t do all of this with instinct; cognition
must be involved.’
Just how easily mental skills can be acquired is perhaps best illustrated by dogs. For
abstract thinking, humans employ symbols, letting one thing stand for another. And
Juliane Kaminski, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
believes that dogs can do this too. In 2008, Kaminski and her colleague Sebastian
Tempelmann conducted an experiment with a border collie. The dog successfully
selected and brought her owner toys which she had never seen before, prompted only
by a picture of each toy.
Creativity is another skill which seems to have evolved in humans and animals alike.
‘People were initially surprised to discover that chimpanzees make tools,’ says
behavioral ecologist Alex Kacelnik. ‘But then people thought, “Well, they share our
ancestry - of course they’re smart.” Now we’re finding these kinds of exceptional
behaviors in some species of birds.’ New Caledonian crows, for example, use their
beaks and claws to fashion tools to poke out grubs from palm trees. ‘But the problem is
we don’t have a recently shared ancestry with birds - our last common ancestor was a
reptile living over 300 million years ago.’
Kacelnik and his researchers at Oxford University were particularly impressed with the
ingenuity of one of the crows - Betty, a wild-caught female. In one experiment, Betty
successfully selected a hook-shaped wire to get a piece of meat from a glass tube.
Then, when another bird unexpectedly stole the hook, Betty took a straight piece of
wire, shaped it into a hook, and retrieved the food. This was the first time Betty had
seen a piece of wire like this, Kacelnik says, ‘is a major kind of cognitive sophistication.’
We are clearly not alone in our ability to invent or plan - or even to plot and lie. Studies
show that western scrub jays can guess another bird’s intentions and act on that
knowledge. A jay knows that if another jay watches it hide a nut, there’s a chance it will
be stolen. So the first jay will return to move the nut when the other jay is gone. ‘It’s
some of the best evidence so far of experience projection in another species,’ says
Nicky Clayton of Cambridge University. What’s more, the jays seem to know how long
ago they hid a particular kind of food, and they manage to retrieve it before it spoils.
Human cognitive psychologists call this ability ‘episodic memory' and argue that it only
exists in species that can mentally travel back in time. They believe that animals cannot
distinguish among past, present, and future the way humans do. Such skepticism is a
challenge for Clayton. ‘We have good evidence that jays remember specific hiding
events, which is the original definition of episodic memory. But now the goalposts have
moved. Whenever we find a mental skill in a species that is reminiscent of human
ability, the human cognition scientists change the definition.’
Cognitive psychologist Louis Herman has spent decades studying bottlenose dolphins.
These intelligent mammals are highly interactive, social and cosmopolitan, living in
subpolar to tropical environments worldwide. Among the many skills exhibited by
Herman’s dolphins is the ability to imitate the motor behaviors of instructors. If a trainer
bent backward and lifted a leg, the dolphin would turn on its back and lift its tail in the
air. This requires the imitator to form a mental image of the other individual’s body, then
adjust its own body accordingly - actions that imply an awareness of one’s self, an
ability once seen as the sole preserve of humans.
What Herman finds fascinating is that these aquatic creatures diverged from primates
millions of years ago. That kind of cognitive convergence suggests there must be some
similar pressures selecting for intellect. We don’t share their biology or ecology, but do
share the need to establish life-long bonds and alliances. This appears to be the likely
common driving force.’
Questions 27 - 30
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below. Write

A make their own tools.

B copy a human’s posture.
C recognise their own images.
D interpret visual representations of objects.
E use language creatively.
F predict another individual’s actions.
G learn basic number skills.
the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
27 Irene Pepperberg has shown that parrots can
28 Experiments have indicated that dogs know how to
29 Research has revealed that scrub jays are able to
30 Captive dolphins have been seen to

Questions 31 - 35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet.
31 What is Pepperberg doing in the third paragraph?
A justifying her belief in birds’ cognitive skills

B explaining how cognition-based skills can be tested

C detailing the process by which birds acquire cognitive skills

D describing the differences between instinct- and cognition-based skills

32 According to Kacelnik, people doubt birds’ tool-making abilities because of the
birds’
A brain size.
B physical limitations.
C evolutionary history.
D feeding requirements.
33 What does Kacelnik say is most significant about Betty the crow’s behaviour?
A her ability to visualise the finished tool
B her physical dexterity at crafting the tool
C her speed in solving a variety of problems
D her understanding of the flexible properties of the wire

34 What is Clayton’s complaint about human cognition scientists?

A They use different criteria to judge human and animal study findings.
B They alter the meanings of the terms of reference they use.
C They fail to understand the purpose of her investigations.
D They claim that ere are flaws in her research methods.
35 According to Herman, what is an important factor in the development of
cognitive skills in both humans and dolphins?
A communicative ability
B brain capacity
C range of habitat
D social relationships

Questions 36 - 40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

36 In 1977 only a few scientists believed that birds were capable of logical
thought.
37 Pepperberg wanted to see if Alex could be trained to speak English fluently.
38 Higher apes such as chimpanzees show an awareness of others’ intentions.
39 Betty was the only crow in Kacelnik’s study who made a tool out of wire.
40 It is now widely accepted that animals understand about past events.
 VOL 2 TEST 2
Museums and family visitors in Thinking for themselves
Australia 27. G
1. science 28. D
2. technology 29. F
3. parents 30. B
4. Powerhouse 31. A
5. cooperation 32. C
6. interactive 33. D
7. favorite displays 34. B
8. break 1 35. B
9. two hours 36. YES
10. TRUE 37. NO
11. NOT GIVEN 38. NOT GIVEN
12. FALSE 39. YES
13. NOT GIVEN 40. NO

Boring buildings
14. F
15. A
16. B
17. D
18. D
19. A
20. D
21. C
22. D
23. A
24. facade
25. escalators
26. atrium