READING PASSAGE - 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 - 13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.

Bovids
A. The family of mammals called bovids belongs to the Artiodactyl class, which also
includes giraffes. Bovids are highly diverse group consisting of 137 species, some of
which are man’s most important domestic animals.
B. Bovids are well represented in most parts of Eurasia and Southeast Asian islands,
but they are by far the most numerous and diverse in the latter Some species of bovid
are solitary, but others live in large groups with complex social structures. Although
bovids have adapted to a wide range of habitats, from arctic tundra to deep tropical
forest, the majority of species favour open grassland, scrub or desert. This diversity of
habitat is also matched by great diversity in size and form: at one extreme is the royal
antelope of West Africa, which stands a mere 25 cm at the shoulder; at the other, the
massively built bisons of North America and Europe, growing to a shoulder height of
2.2m.
C. Despite differences in size and appearance, bovids are united by the possession of
certain common features. All species are ruminants, which means that they retain
undigested food in their stomachs, and regurgitate it as necessary. Bovids are almost
exclusively herbivorous*.
D. Typically their teeth are highly modified for browsing and grazing: grass or foliage is
cropped with the upper lip and lower incisors** (the upper incisors are usually absent),
and then ground down by the cheek teeth. As well as having cloven, or split, hooves, the
males of ail bovid species and the females of most carry horns. Bovid horns have bony
cores covered in a sheath of horny material that is constantly renewed from within; they
are unbranched and never shed. They vary in shape and size: the relatively simple
horns of a large Indian buffalo may measure around 4 m from tip to tip along the outer
curve, while the various gazelles have horns with a variety of elegant curves.
E. Five groups, or sub-families, may be distinguished: Bovinae, Antelope, Caprinae,
Cephalophinae and Antilocapridae. The sub-family Bovinae comprises most of the larger
bovids, including the African bongo, and nilgae, eland, bison and cattle. Unlike most
other bovids they are all non-territorial. The ancestors of the various species of domestic
cattle banteng, gaur, yak and water buffalo are generally rare and endangered in the
wild, while the auroch (the ancestor of the domestic cattle of Europe) is extinct.
F. The term ‘antelope’ is not a very precise zoological name it is used to loosely
describe a number of bovids that have followed different lines of development. Antelopes
are typically long-legged, fast-running species, often with long horns that may be laid
along the back when the animal is in full flight. There are two main sub-groups antelope:
Hippotraginae, which includes the oryx and the addax, and Antilopinae, which generally
contains slighter and more graceful animals such as gazelle and the springbok.
Antelopes are mainly grassland species, but many have adapted to flooded grasslands:
pukus, waterbucks and lechwes are all good at swimming, usually feeding in deep water,
while the sitatunga has long, splayed hooves that enable it to walk freely on swampy
ground.
G. The sub-family Caprinae includes the sheep and the goat, together with various
relatives such as the goral and the tahr. Most are woolly or have long hair. Several
species, such as wild goats, chamois and ibex, are agile cliff and mountain-dwellers.
Tolerance of extreme conditions is most marked in this group: Barbary and bighorn
sheep have adapted to arid deserts, while Rocky Mountain sheep survive high up in
mountains and musk oxen in arctic tundra.
H. The duiker of Africa belongs to the Cephalophinae sub-family. It is generally small
and solitary, often living in thick forest. Although mainly feeding on grass and leaves,
some duikers, unlike most other bovids, are believed to eat insects and feed on dead
animal carcasses, and even to kill small animals.
I. The pronghorn is the sole survivor of a New World sub-family of herbivorous
ruminants, the Antilocapridae in North America. It is similar in appearance and habits to
the Old World antelope. Although greatly reduced in numbers since the arrival of
Europeans, and the subsequent enclosure of grasslands, the pronghorn is still found in
considerable numbers throughout North America, from Washington State to Mexico.
When alarmed by the approach of wolves or other predators, hairs on the pronghorn’s
rump stand erect, so showing and emphasising the white patch there. At this signal, the
whole herd gallops off at speed of over 60 km per hour.

*herbivorous: plant-eating
**incisors: front teeth

Questions 1 – 3
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

1. In which region is the biggest range of bovids to be found?

A. africa
B. eurasia
C. north america
D. south-east asia

2. Most bovids have a preference for living in

A. isolation
B. small groups
C. tropical forest
D. wide open spaces

3. Which of the following features do all bovids have in common?

A. their horns are shot
B. they have upper incisors
C. they store food in the body
 D. their hooves are undivided

Questions 4-8
Look at the following characteristics (Question 4 – 8) and the list of sub-families
below. Match each characteristic with the correct sub-family, A, B, C or D.
NB: You may use any letter more than once
List of sub-families
A. Antelope
B. Bovinae
C. Caprinae
D. Cephalophinae

• can endure very harsh environments

• includes the ox and the cow

• may supplement its diet with meat

• can usually move at speed

• does not defend a particular area of land

Questions 9-13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

• What is the smallest species of Bovid called?

• Which species of Boviae has now died out?

• What facilitates the movement of the sitatunga over wetland?

• What sort of terrain do barbary sheep live in?

• What is the only living member of the Antilocapridae sub-family?

READING PASSAGE - 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 - 26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.

Twin study: Two of a kind

A. The scientific study of twins goes back to the late 19th century, when Francis Galton,
an early geneticist, realized that they came in two varieties: identical twins born from one
egg and non-identical twins that had come from two. That insight turned out to be key,
although it was not until 1924 that it was used to formulate what is known as the twin
rule of pathology, and twin studies really got going.
B. The twin rule of pathology states that any heritable disease will be more concordant
(that is, more likely to be jointly present or absent) in identical twins than in non-identical
twins—and, in turn, will be more concordant in non-identical twins than in non-siblings.
Early work, for example, showed that the statistical correlation of skin-mole counts
between identical twins was 0.4, while non-identical twins had a correlation of only 0.2.
(A score of 1.0 implies perfect correlation, while a score of zero implies no correlation.)
This result suggests that moles are heritable, but it also implies that there is an
environmental component to the development of moles, otherwise the correlation in
identical twins would be close to around 1.0.
C. Twin research has shown that whether or not someone takes up smoking is
determined mainly by environmental factors, but once he does so, how much he smokes
is largely down to his genes. And while a person’s religion is clearly a cultural attribute,
there is a strong genetic component to religious fundamentalism. Twin studies are also
unraveling the heritability of various aspects of human personality. Traits from
neuroticism and anxiety to thrill and novelty-seeking all have large genetic components.
Parenting matters, but it does not determine personality in the way that some had
thought.
D. More importantly, perhaps, twin studies are helping the understanding of diseases
such as cancer, asthma, osteoporosis, arthritis and immune disorders. And twins can be
used, within ethical limits, for medical experiments. A study that administered vitamin C
to one twin and a placebo to the other found that it had no effect on the common cold.
The lesson from all today’s twin studies is that most human traits are at least partially
influenced by genes. However, for the most part, the age-old dichotomy between nature
and nurture is not very useful. Many genetic programs are open to input from the
environment, and genes are frequently switched on or off by environmental signals. It is
also possible that genes themselves influence their environment. Some humans have an
innate preference for participation in sports. Others are drawn to novelty. Might people
also be drawn to certain kinds of friends and types of experience? In this way, a person’s
genes might shape the environment they act in as much as the environment shapes the
actions of the genes.
E. In the past, such research has been controversial. Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor
working at the Auschwitz extermination camp during the Second World War, was
fascinated by twins. He sought them out among arrivals at the camp and preserved them
from the gas-chambers for a series of brutal experiments. After the war, Cyril Burt, a
British psychologist who worked on the heredity of intelligence, tainted twin research
with results that appear, in retrospect, to have been rather too good. Some of his data on
identical twins who had been reared apart were probably faked. In any case, the
prevailing ideology in the social sciences after the war was Marxist, and disliked
suggestions that differences in human potential might have underlying genetic causes.
Twin studies were thus viewed with suspicion.
F. The ideological pendulum has swung back; however, as the human genome project
and its aftermath have turned genes from abstract concepts to real pieces of DNA. The
role of genes in sensitive areas such as intelligence is acknowledged by all but a few
die-hards. The interesting questions now concern how nature and nurture interact to
produce particular bits of biology, rather than which of the two is more important. Twin
studies, which are a good way to ask these questions, are back in fashion, and many
twins are enthusiastic participants in this research.
G. Research at the Twinsburg festival began in a small way, with a single stand in 1979.
Gradually, news spread, and more scientists began turning up. This year, half a dozen
groups of researchers were lodged in a specially pitched research tent. In one comer of
this tent, Paul Breslin, who works at the Monell Institute in Philadelphia, watched over
several tables where twins sat sipping clear liquids from cups and making notes. It was
the team’s third year at Twinsburg. Dr Breslin and his colleagues want to find out how
genes influence human perception, particularly the senses of smell and taste and those
(warmth, cold, pain, tingle, itch and so on) that result from stimulation of the skin.
Perception is an example of something that is probably influenced by both genes and
experience. Even before birth, people are exposed to flavours such as chocolate, garlic,
mint and vanilla that pass intact into the bloodstream, and thus to the fetus. Though it is
not yet clear whether such pre-natal exposure shapes taste-perception, there is
evidence that it shapes preferences for foods encountered later in life.
H. However, there are clearly genetic influences at work, as well-for example in the
ability to taste quinine. Some people experience this as intensely bitter, even when it is
present at very low levels. Others, whose genetic endowment is different, are less
bothered by it. Twin studies make this extremely clear. Within a pair of identical twins,
either both, or neither, will find quinine hard to swallow. Non-identical twins will agree
less frequently.
I. On the other side of the tent Dennis Drayna, from the National Institute on Deafness
and Other Communication Disorders, in Maryland, was studying hearing. He wants to
know what happens to sounds after they reach the ear. It is not clear, he says, whether
sound is processed into sensation mostly in the ear or in the brain. Dr Drayna has
already been involved in a twin study which revealed that the perception of musical pitch
is highly heritable. At Twinsburg, he is playing different words, or parts of words, into the
left and right ears of his twinned volunteers. The composite of the two sounds that an
individual reports hearing depends on how he processes this diverse information and
that, Dr. Drayna believes, may well be influenced by genetics.
J. Elsewhere in the marquee, Peter Miraldi, of Kent State University in Ohio, was trying
to find out whether genes affect an individual’s motivation to communicate with others. A
number of twin studies have shown that personality and sociability are heritable, so he
thinks this is fertile ground. And next to Mr. Miraldi was a team of dermatologists from
Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. They are looking at the development of
skin diseases and male-pattern baldness. The goal of the latter piece of research is to
find the genes responsible for making men’s hair fall out.
K. The busiest part of the tent, however, was the queue for forensic-science research
into fingerprints. The origins of this study are shrouded in mystery. For many months, the
festival’s organisers have been convinced that the Secret Service – the American
government agency responsible for, among other things, the safety of the president – is
behind it. When The Economist contacted the Secret Service for more information, we
were referred to Steve Nash, who is chairman of the International Association for
Identification (IAI), and is also a detective in the scientific investigations section of the
 Marin County Sheriff’s Office in California. The IAI, based in Minnesota, is an
organisation of forensic scientists from around the world. Among other things, it
publishes the Journal of Forensic Identification.

Questions 14 – 18
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A – K.
Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A – K, in
boxes 14 – 18 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

• Mentioned research conducted in Ohio

• Medical contribution to the researches for twins.

• Research situation under life threatening conditions

• Data of similarities of identical twins

• Reasons that make one study unconvincing

Questions 19 – 20
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage 2, using no more
than two words from the Reading Passage for each answer.

The first one that conducted research on twins is called . He separated twins into two
categories: non identical and identical twins. The twin research was used in medical application

in as early as the year of

Questions 21 – 23
Choose the correct letters in following options:
Write your answers in boxes 21 – 23 on your answer sheet.
Please choose THREE research fields that had been carried out in Ohio, Maryland
and Twinsburgh?

A. Sense

B. Cancer
C. Be allergic to Vitamin D

D. Mole heredity

E. Sound

F. Baldness of men
Questions 24 – 26
Choose the correct letters in following options:
Please choose THREE results that had been verified in this passage.

A. Non identical twins come from different eggs.

B. Genetic relation between identical twins is closer than non-identical ones.

C. Vitamin C has evident effect on a cold.

D. Genetic influence to smoking is superior to environment’s

E. If a pregnant woman eats too much sweet would lead to skin disease.

F. Hair loss has been found to be connected with skin problem.

READING PASSAGE - 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27 – 40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.

The significant role of mother tongue language in education

A. One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within schools. To

illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils come from homes
where English is not language of communication. Schools in Europe and North America
have experienced this diversity for years, but educational policies and practices vary
widely between countries and even within countries. Some political parties and groups
search for ways to solve the problem of diverse communities and their integration in
schools and society. They see few positive consequences for the host society and worry
that diversity threaten the identity of the host society. Consequently, they promote
unfortunate educational policies that will make the “problem” disappear. If students retain
their culture and language, they are viewed as less capable of identifying with the
mainstream culture and learning the mainstream language of the society.
B.&embsp; The challenge for educators and policy-makers is to shape the evolution of
national identity in such a way that the rights of all citizens (including school children) are
respected, and the cultural, linguistic, and economic resources of the nation are
maximized. To waste the resources of the nation by discouraging children from
developing their mother tongues is quite simply unintelligent from the point of view of
national self-interest. A first step in Providing an appropriate education for culturally and
linguistically diverse children is to examine what the existing research says about the
role of children’s mother tongues in their educational development.
C.&embsp; In fact, the research is very clear. When children continue to develop their
abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school, they gain a deeper
understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in
processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both. More than 150
research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the
famous eighteenth-century German philosopher, once said： that the person who knows
only one language does not truly know that language. Research suggests that bilingual
children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing
information through two different languages.
D.&embsp; The level of development of children’s mother tongue is a strong predictor of
their second language development. Children who come to school with a solid
foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school
language. When parents and other caregivers (e.g. grandparents) are able to spend time
with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops
their mother tongue, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language
and succeed educationally. Children’s knowledge and skills transfer across languages
from the mother tongue to the school language. Transfer across languages can be two-
way: both languages nurture each other when the educational environment permits
children access to both languages.
E.&embsp; Some educators and parents are suspicious of mother tongue-based
teaching programs because they worry that they take time away from the majority
language. For example, in a bilingual program where 50% of the time is spent teaching
through children’s home language and 50% through the majority language, surely
children’s won’t progress as far in the letter? One of the most strongly established
findings of educational research, however, is that well-implemented bilingual programs
can promote literacy and subject- matter knowledge in a minority language without any
negative effects on children’s development in the majority language. Within Europe, the
Foyer program in Belgium, which develops children’s speaking and literacy abilities in
three languages (their mother tongue, Dutch and French), most clearly illustrates the
benefits of bilingual and trilingual education.
F.&embsp; It is easy to understand how this happens. When children are learning
through a minority language, they are learning concepts and intellectual skills too. Pupils
who know how to tell the time in their mother tongue understand the concept of telling
time. In order to tell time in the majority language they do not need to re-learn the
concept. Similarly, at more advanced stages, there is transfer across languages in other
skills such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting details of a
written passage or story, and distinguishing fact from opinion, Studies of secondary
school pupils are providing interesting findings in this area, and it would be worth
extending this research.
G.&embsp; Many people marvel at how quickly bilingual children seem to “pick up”
conversational skills in the majority language at school (although it takes much longer for
them to catch up to native speakers in academic language skills). However, educators
are often much less aware of how quickly children can lose their ability to use their
mother tongue, even in the home context. The extent and rapidity of language loss will
vary according to the concentration of families from a particular linguistic group in the
neighborhood. Where the mother tongue is used extensively in the community, then
language loss among young children will be less. However, where language
communities are not concentrated in particular neighborhoods, children can lose their
ability to communicate in their mother tongue within 2-3 years of starting school. They
may retain receptive skills in the language but they will use the majority language in
speaking with their peers and siblings and in responding to their parents. By the time
children become adolescents, the linguistic division between parents and children has
become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently become alienated from the cultures of
both home and school with predictable results.

Questions 27 – 30
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

27. What point the writer making in the second paragraph?

A. some present studies on children’s mother tongues are misleading
B. a culturally rich education programme benefits some children more than others
C. bilingual children can make a valuable contribution to the wealth of a country
D. the law on mother tongue use at school should be strengthened

28. Why does the writer refer to something that Goethe said?

A. to lend weight his argument

B. to contradict some research
C. to introduce a new concept
D. to update current thinking

29. The writer believes that when young children have a firm grasp of their mother
tongue

A. they can teach older family members what they learn at school
B. they go on to do much better throughout their time at school
C. they can read stories about their cultural background
D. they develop stronger relationships with their family than with their peers
30. Why are some people suspicious about mother tongue-based teaching
programmes?
A. they worry that children will be slow to learn to read in either language
B. they think that children will confuse words in the two languages
C. they believe that the programmes will make children less interested in their lessons
D. they fear that the programmes will use up valuable time in the school day

Questions 31 – 35
Complete the following summary using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the table
below for each answer. Write correct letter A – J for each answer.
Bilingual children

It was often recorded that Bilingual Children acquire the .to converse in the majority
language remarkable quickly. The fact that the mother tongue can disappear at a

similar is less well understood. This phenomenon depends to a certain extent, on the
proposition of people with the same linguistic background that have settled in a

particular ; If this is limited, children are likely to lose the active use of their mother

tongue. And thus no longer employ it even with although they may still understand it.

It follows that teenager children in these circumstances experience a sense of in

relation to all aspects of their lives.

A B
C dislocation D rate
teachers school
G H
E time F family
communication type
I ability J area
Questions 36 – 40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
Choose
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts with the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
36. Less than half the children who attend kindergarten in Toronto have English as
their Mother tongue.
Yes
No
Not given

37. Research proves that learning the host country language at school can have an
adverse effect on a child’s mother tongue.
Yes
No
Not given

38. The foyer Program is to be accepted by the French education system.

Yes
No
Not given

39. Bilingual children are taught to tell the time earlier than monolingual children.
Yes
No
Not given

40. Bilingual children can eventually apply reading comprehension strategies

acquired in one language when reading in the other.
Yes
No
Not given