READING PASSAGE 1

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

The history of cakes at weddings

In Western cultures, since antiquity. Weddings customarily have been celebrated with a
special cake. Ancient Roman wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake of wheat or
barley over the bride’s head as n symbol of good fortune. The newly married couple then ate
some of the crumbs together. Afterward, the wedding guests gathered up the remaining crumbs
as tokens of good luck. Wedding guests were also supplied with sweetmeats called confetti, a
sweet mixture of nuts, dried fruit and honeyed almonds. Handfuls of confetti were showered over
the bride and groom; indeed, it seems to have been the custom to throw confetti about
enthusiastically. Eventually, confetti in the form of sweets and nuts was replaced with rice,
flower petals, or colored paper, and these new types of confetti continue to be thrown over newly
married couples in many countries around the world.

When the Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD, many of their customs and traditions became part
of British life. These customs included their wedding customs, and when the Normans invaded
Britain in 1066 they brought many French traditions. Other changes came about due to increased
trade and contact with Europe, but present-day British wedding traditions remain firmly rooted in
the past. In medieval Britain, small spiced buns, which were common everyday fare, were often
eaten at weddings. These were stacked in a towering pile, as high as possible. If the bride and
groom were able to kiss over the tall stack, it augured a lifetime of riches. The earliest British
recipe exclusively for eating at weddings is Bride Pie, which was recorded in 1685. This was a
large round pie with an elaborately decorated pastry crust that concealed a filling of oysters, pine
nuts lamb and spices. Each guest had to eat a small piece of the pier not to do so was considered
extremely impolite. A ring was traditionally placed in the pie, and the lady who found it would
be next to marry.

In the 17th century, Bride Pie was changed into Bride Cake, the predecessor of the modern
British wedding cake. Cakes containing dried fruit and sugar, symbols of prosperity, gradually
became the centerpieces for weddings. Some people made Bride Cake in the cheaper form of two
large rounds of pastry sandwiched together with currants and sprinkled with sugar. Very few
homes at the time could boast of having ovens, but this type of pastry cake could be cooked on a
baking stone on the hearth.

Later in the 17th century, there was a new development when wedding cakes began to be made in
pairs, one for the bride and another for the groom. Both cakes were dark, heavy fruitcakes; the

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groom’s cake was smaller than the bride’s cake, and was cut up into little squares that were
placed in boxes for the guests to take home as a wedding memento. Groom’s cakes gradually
died out and are no longer part of British weddings. However, the tradition has undergone a
revival in the United States, where for many years the groom’s cake has served as a wedding gift
for guests. Modern groom’s cakes are often formed and decorated to depict the groom’s hobby,
for example a golf bag, a camera, a chess board.

Groom’s cakes were never covered with icing, but Bride Cake covered with white icing first
appeared sometime in the 17th century. After the cake was baked, it was covered with a pure
white, smooth icing made with double refined sugar, egg whites, and orange-flower water. The
mixture was beaten for two hours, then spread over the cake and dried in the oven until hard. A
pure white color was much sought after for wedding cake icing because white icing meant that
only the finest refined sugar had been used. Thus a pure white cake was a status symbol, as it
displayed the family’s wealth.

The late 1800s in Britain saw the introduction of a new tradition, with the first multi-tiered
wedding cakes. These were impressive cakes: they were heavy because they were made with so
much dried fruit, and highly decorated with icing and embellished with sugar flowers, doves,
horseshoes and bells. The first multi-tiered cakes comprised iced cakes stacked on top of each
other rather like a succession of boxes gradually decreasing in size. The cakes from the upper
tiers did not sink into the lower tiers because they were a bit put on top of each other until the
icing between each cake had had time to harden. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century
that the cake tiers were separated and supported by columns.

Twenty-first-century weddings are big business for Britain’s wedding industry. Over 300,000
people get married each year and a wedding can cost thousands of pounds. The cost of the all-
important wedding cake can be hundreds of pounds, depending on the dimension and design. It
will be interesting to see whether wedding cakes continue to be popular at weddings.

QUESTIONS 1 - 6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
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In boxes 1-6 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 Breaking a cake over the bride’s head was the last part of an ancient Roman
wedding ceremony.

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2 Confetti is still made of nuts, dried fruit and honeyed almonds.

3 The groom’s family used to supply the confetti.

4 It was considered lucky for a newly married couple to be able to kiss over a
tower of spiced buns.

5 Only brides were allowed to eat Bride Pie.

6 The wedding cakes eaten in Britain today developed from Bride Cake of the
17th century.

QUESTIONS 7 - 9
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answer in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.

Wedding cakes

17th century- Britain Bride Cake:

- expensive ingredients were a sign of wealth

- less expensive round cakes were made of 7 with currants in between and
sugar on top

- they were baked on a hearth stone because not all homes had 8

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 

Now- United States - Groom’s cake:

- guest receive pieces of the groom’s cake

- cakes may represent the 9 of the groom

QUESTIONS 10 – 13
Label the diagram below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

10. Examples of wedding cakes with several 10

11. In the early 1900s, 11 were used to keep individual cakes apart.
12. The size of these cakes as well as their 12 affects pricing.

13. Hardened 13 between cakes stopped higher cakes sinking into tower cakes.

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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 1
below.

Early Approaches to organisational design

A review of the classical and neoclassical theories of organisational structures
Determining the 'best' type of organisational structure for a particular situation has long been an
important task for managers in all types of organisations. All structures have advantages and
disadvantages and managers luce the challenge of developing the most appropriate design for
changing circumstances.
The Classical Approach
Early management writers attempted to approach organisational design using a set of principles
that would make an organisational structure perform efficiently in most situations, independent
of external conditions and internal objectives. The sociologist Max Weber and management
writers Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol were major contributors to this so-called classical
approach. They believed that the most efficient organisations had a legalised formal and
hierarchical structure called a 'bureaucracy'. Members of the organisation were guided by a sense
of duty to the organisation and by a set of rational rules and regulations. According to Weber,
such organisations were characterised by the specialisation of tasks, appointment by merit, and
an impersonal climate.
Today the word 'bureaucracy' sometimes has negative connotations. Early management writers,
however, commended bureaucracy as an organisational design for its rationality, rules for
decision-making, clear chain of command, and promotion of people based on ability and
experience, rather than favouritism or whim. Weber also believed that clearly specified authority
and responsibility made performance easier to evaluate and reward.
Criticism of the Classical Approach
Weber, Taylor and Fayol developed their theories when organisations that resembled this
bureaucratic model were modern and efficient. It became evident, however, that some of the
major advantages of the bureaucratic structure could become disadvantages if the theory were
applied dogmatically. For example, the safeguards against favouritism could be rigidly imposed
by adhering excessively to rules- resulting in both managers and subordinates becoming
depersonalised.
The classical approach has been criticised from two major perspectives. First, the theory may not
have a basis in reality. Have organisations like those described by Weber and the others ever
existed? Second, it claims that organisations designed and managed according to bureaucratic
principles will enjoy the predicted benefits. But critics argue that the world no longer fits the
assumptions in Weber's model (if it ever did), and so a bureaucracy might not yield beneficial
results.

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Early human relations researchers and behavioural scientists attempted to deal with the major
inadequacy of the classical bureaucratic model: neglect of the human element. They argued that
an industrial organisation has two objectives: economic effectiveness and employee satisfaction.
They also wrote that the bureaucratic structure could be improved by permitting more
subordinate participation in decision-making. Because these researchers tried to improve, and not
reject the classical model. They are sometimes called neoclassical theorists and include Douglas
McGregor, Chris Argyris and Rensis Likert.
The Neoclassical Approach
McGregor believed that the vertical division of labour that characterised bureaucratic
organisations was derived from negative and false assumptions about workers which he called
'Theory X'. Managers assume lower-level employees lack ambition and need orders to work
effectively. The rigid formal hierarchy is designed to maintain managers' power over
subordinates. Decision-making takes place at upper levels of management while the decisions
are carried out by people at lower levels. McGregor argued that organisations based instead on
'Theory Y' assumptions use their members' potential. Theory Y assumes that most people find
work satisfying, commit themselves willingly to organisational goals and seek responsibility.
Members have more independence than in bureaucratic organisations and lower-level
participation in decision-making is encouraged.
Argyris was concerned that managers in bureaucratic organisations had near-total responsibility
for controlling their subordinates' work. He argued that managerial domination makes
subordinates passive and dependent, and decreases their sense of responsibility and self-control.
Argyris argued for an alternative organisational design that acknowledged human needs and
feelings, and increased workers' satisfaction. Like McGregor, he favoured giving subordinates
more independence and decision- making power to create a more informal organisational culture.
Likert shared the perspectives of McGregor and Argyris. In his research, he found that managers
who encouraged their subordinates could motivate them more than traditional authoritarian
managers. Likert based on model of four possible systems on these findings. In System 1 power
and authority are distributed strictly according to the classical management subordinate
relationship: a manager gives orders to lower-level members. In System 4 organisations, by
contrast, there is extensive participation in decision-making and problem-solving groups. Some
individuals in each group also belong to other work groups to ensure communication between
them. System 4 represents Likert's view of an ideal organisation.
Criticisms of the Neoclassical Approach
The neoclassical approach to organisational design compensates for limitations in the traditional
classical model, but it has also been criticised. First, the neoclassicists share the classical
assumption that there is one best way to design an organisation. They overlook environmental,
technological, and other variables that might affect an organisation's design, and overemphasise
psychological and behavioural variables. Second, Theories X and Y oversimplify human
motivation and neglect indivdual differences. Not everyone is motivated by the non-monetary
aspects of work, nor is all work satisfying. Finally, the coordination of work groups to achieve

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organisational goals may be more difficult than the neoclassicists suggest, particularly when the
objectives of lower-level employees are not consistent with those of upper-level managers.

QUESTION 14-15
Choose TWO letters A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 14 and 15 on your answer sheet.
According to the writer which TWO of the following are characteristics of the classical approach
to organizational design?
A a marked ranking order for employees
B giving importance to everyone's work
C the advancement of older workers
D a neutral working environment
E increased benefits for workers

QUESTION 16-17
Choose TWO letters A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 16 and 17 on your answer sheet.
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are criticisms of the classical approach to
organizational design?
A Too many guidelines are proposed
B Certain practices become negative if they are implemented too strictly
C Managers and workers are unable to co-operate with each other
D The administrative standards are unsuited to some work environments
E Positive outcomes which were expected in the past would be unlikely today

QUESTION 18-19
Choose TWO letters A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 18 and 19 on your answer sheet.
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are aims of the neoclassical approach to
organizational design?
A to ensure workers are treated as individual people
B to create a formal atmosphere in the workplace

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C to change the methods of production
D to allow workers a greater say in what happens at the workplace
E to standardise the procedures for promotion of workers

QUESTIONS 20 - 21
Choose TWO letters A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet.
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are criticisms of the neoclassical approach
to organizational design?
A It suggests that workers are involved in too many decisions
B The effects of some psychological factors are given low importance
C The effects of the workplace surroundings are ignored
D It exaggerates the success of the organisations that use this approach
E It assumes that all people work for enjoyment rather than financial gain.

QUESTIONS 22-26
Look at the following beliefs (Questions 22-26) and the list of people below.
Match each belief with the correct person A-D.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
List of people
A Max Weber
B Douglas McGregor
C Chris Argyris
D Rensis Likert
22. The classical approach relied upon managers having incorrect views about workers.
23. In the best organizational model, there is shared decision-making and interaction between
teams at work.
24.In an efficient organisation,workers develop expertise in particular areas.
25.An organization must take into account the emotional demands of people.
26. The classical approach allowed workers' skills to be assessed in a straightforward way.

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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 1
below.

INSECT - INSPIRED ROBOTS

A. A tiny insect navigates its way across featureless salt-pans. A cockroach successfully works
out how to scramble over an obstacle. The mantis shrimp scans its aquatic world through
hyperspectral eyes. Using the most basic of equipment and brains tinier than a pinhead, insects
constantly solve complex problems of movement, vision and navigation processing data that
would challenge a supercomputer. How they do it is driving one of the most exciting new fields
of technology-biomimetics and biorobotics, the imitation of insect systems to control man-made
machines. Delegates at a recent conference presented some outcomes of their work in this area.

B. Dr Alex Zelinsky suggested that the method by which wasps use landmarks to find their way
back to the nest may one day be part of a system for navigating cars that ‘know’ where to go. A
research team led by Dr Zelinsky has shown that a robot can navigate its way along 50 different
landmarks by recognizing them individually using a panoramic camera. ‘The inspiration came
from biology, where wasps use a practice called “turn back and look” to orient themselves as
they emerge from its nest. By flying to and fro, they lock in images of the nest so they can
recognize it again,’ he explained. The robot’s panoramic camera logs the surrounding area and
its key landmarks, which are then sorted in its computer according to how reliable they are as
navigational aids. The landmarks are then scaled, from small to large, so that the robot can
recognize whether it is getting closer to or further away from them. Their location is built into a
map in its ‘mind’, which operates at different scales and instructs the robot whether to turn left or
right at a particular mark. The technology provides a general way for a machine to navigate an
unknown landscape.The ant also has a way of measuring distance traveled, while a ‘path
integrator’ periodically informs the ant of its current position relative to its point of departure.
Rather than integrate all the information it receives in its brain, the ant actually performs a
number of complex calculations in different organs. Like a supercomputer, the ant has many
separate subroutines going on simultaneously. Using the ant’s ability to steer by polarised light
and to store and reuse landscape images, Wehner and colleagues have built ‘Sahabot’, a small
vehicle that uses polarisers and a digital CCD camera to store 3600 images of landmarks to the
ones in its memory.

C. For three decades, Professor Ruediger Wehner has journeyed from Switzerland to the Sahara
desert where Catalyphis, a tiny ant with a brain weighing just 0.1 mg, performs acts of
navigational genius when it leaves its nest, forages for food and returns successfully. Cataglyphis
uses polarised light, caused when air molecules scatter light, to orient and steer itself. Wehner’s
team found the ant has a set of specialized photoreceptors along the upper rim of its eyes that
detect polarized light, while other receptors perform different navigational tasks. As the sun
moves, the ant notes its direction each time it leaves the nest and updates its internal compass.
Using other eye receptors it stores a ‘snapshot’ image of landmarks, close to the nest entrance in
its eyes and compares this with what it sees as it returns.

D. Professor Robert Michelson had a different desert challenge – to design a flying robot that can

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not only navigate but also stay aloft and hover in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Drawing
inspiration from insect flight, he has gone beyond nature to devise a completely new concept for
a flying machine. The ‘Entomopter’ is sort of double-ended dragonfly whose wings beat
reciprocally. Michelson says that the flapping-wing design gives the craft unusually high lift
compared with a fixed-wing flyer, enabling it to fly slowly or hover in the thin Martain air-
whereas a fixed-wing craft would have to move at more than 400 km/h and could not stop to
explore.

E. Engineer Roger Quinn and entomologist Professor Roy Ritzmann are taking their inspiration
from cockroaches. According to Quinn and Ritsmann, the ability of cockroaches to run very fast
over rough terrain may one day give rise to a completely new all-terrain vehicle with six-legs, or
maybe even wheel-like legs call ‘whegs’. The key to the cockroach’s remarkable cross-country
performance lies partly in the fact that its legs do a lot of the ‘thinking’ without having to consult
the brain. Quinn and Ritzmann are drawing on cockroach skills to create robotic walkers and
control strategies that capture the remarkable capacity of these insects to traverse complex terrain
and navigate safety toward goals while avoiding obstacles. The team has already designed a
series of robots that run on six legs or on whegs, enabling them to handle surprisingly rugged
terrain.

F. International experts believe there are tremendous opportunities biorobotics. However,

delegates at the conference had differing visions for the future of the science. While some were
concerned that the initial applications of biorobotics may be military, others, such as Dr barbara
Webb, predicted swarms of tiny cheap insect-like robots as society’s cleaners and collectors.
Sonja Kleinlogel hoped the study of the hyperspectral eyes if the mantis shrimp might yield
remote sensors that keep watch over the environmental health of our oceans. Several delegates
were concerned about the ethical implications of biorobotics, and urged that close attention be
paid to this as the science and technologies develop.

Question 27-32
Reading Passage 3 has six sections A-F.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
NB You can use any letter more than once.

27. positive and negative possibilities for the use of insect-inspired robots
28. how perceived size is used as an aid to navigation
29. an example of decision-making taking place in the limbs
30. a description of a potential aid in space exploration
31. the range of skills that have inspired biorobotics
32. how a variety of navigational methods operate at the same time.

QUESTIONS 33 - 36
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.

33. Which creatures see particularly well underwater?

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34. In addition to a computer, what technical equipment is fitted in Dr Zelinsky’s robot?
35. Where is the Cataglyphis ant found?
36. What atmospheric effect helps the Catalyphis ant to know its direction?
QUESTIONS 37 – 40

• Look at the following people and the list of robots below.

• Match each person or people with the correct robot A-G.
• Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
List of robots

A. a robot that makes use of light as well as stored images for navigational purposes
B. a robot that can contribute to environmental health
C. a robot that can move over difficult surfaces
D. a robot that categorises information from the environment according to its usefulness
E. a robot that can be used to clean surfaces and collect rubbish
F. a robot that has improved on the ability of the insect on which it is based
G. a robot that can replace soldiers in war.

37. Dr Alex Zelinsky

38. Professor Ruediger Wehner
39. Professor Robert Michelson
40. Roger Quinn and Professor Roy Ritzmann.

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1. T 14. A/D 27. F
2. F 15. A/D 28. B
3. NG 16. B/E 29. E
4. T 17. B/E 30. D
5. F 18. A/D 31. A
6. T 19. A/D 32. C
7. Pastry 20. C/E 33. Mantis Shrimp
8. Ovens 21. C/E 34. Panoramic camera
9. Bobby 22. B 35. Sahara desert
10. Boxes 23. D 36. Polarized light
11. Columns 24. A 37. D
12. Design 25. C 38. A
13. Icing 26. A 39. F
40. C

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