Day 3_Reading

● Let’s Practise! Reading 1

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

Nutmeg - a valuable spice

The nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, is a large evergreen tree native to Southeast Asia. Until the late 18th century, it only grew in one place in the world: a small group of islands in the Banda Sea, part of the Moluccas – or Spice Islands – in northeastern Indonesia. The tree is thickly branched with dense foliage of tough, dark green oval leaves, and produces small, yellow, bell-shaped fowers and pale yellow pear-shaped fruits. The fruit is encased in a fesh husk. When the fruit is ripe, this husk splits into two halves along a ridge running the length of the fruit. Inside is a purple-brown shiny seed, 2-3 cm long by about 2 cm across, surrounded by a lacy red or crimson covering called an ‘aril’. These are the sources of the two spices nutmeg and mace, the former being produced from the dried seed and the latter from the aril.

Nutmeg was a highly prized and costly ingredient in European cuisine in the Middle Ages, and was used as a favouring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Throughout this period, the Arabs were the exclusive importers of the spice to Europe. They sold nutmeg for high prices to merchants based in Venice, but they never revealed the exact location of the source of this extremely valuable commodity. The Arab-Venetian dominance of the trade fnally ended in 1512, when the Portuguese reached the Banda Islands and began exploiting its precious resources.

Always in danger of competition from neighbouring Spain, the Portuguese began subcontracting their spice distribution to Dutch traders. Profts began to fow into the Netherlands, and the Dutch commercial feet swiftly grew into one of the largest in the world. The Dutch quietly gained control of most of the shipping and trading of spices in Northern Europe. Then, in 1580, Portugal fell under Spanish rule, and by the end of the 16th century the Dutch found themselves locked out of the market. As prices for pepper, nutmeg, and other spices soared across Europe, they decided to fght back. In 1602, Dutch merchants founded the VOC, a trading corporation better known as the Dutch East India Company. By 1617, the VOC was the richest commercial operation in the world. The company had 50,000 employees worldwide, with a private army of 30,000 men and a feet of 200 ships. At the same time, thousands of people across Europe were dying of the plague, a highly contagious and deadly disease. Doctors were desperate for a way to stop the spread of this disease, and they decided nutmeg held the cure. Everybody wanted nutmeg, and many were willing to spare no expense to have it. Nutmeg bought for a few pennies in Indonesia could be sold for 68,000 times its original cost on the streets of London. The only problem was the short supply. And that’s where the Dutch found their opportunity.

The Banda Islands were ruled by local sultans who insisted on maintaining a neutral trading policy towards foreign powers. This allowed them to avoid the presence of Portuguese or Spanish troops on their soil, but it also left them unprotected from other invaders. In 1621, the Dutch arrived and took over. Once securely in control of the Bandas, the Dutch went to work protecting their new investment. They concentrated all nutmeg production into a few easily guarded areas, uprooting and destroying any trees outside the plantation zones. Anyone caught growing a nutmeg seedling or carrying seeds without the proper authority was severely punished. In addition, all exported nutmeg was covered with lime to make sure there was no chance a fertile seed which could be grown elsewhere would leave the islands. There was only one obstacle to Dutch domination. One of the Banda Islands, a sliver of land called Run, only 3 km long by less than 1 km wide, was under the control of the British. After decades of fghting for control of this tiny island, the Dutch and British arrived at a compromise settlement, the Treaty of Breda, in 1667. Intent on securing their hold over every nutmeg-producing island, the Dutch offered a trade: if the British would give them the island of Run, they would in turn give Britain a distant and much less valuable island in North America. The British agreed. That other island was Manhattan, which is how New became New York. The Dutch now had a monopoly over the nutmeg trade which would last for another century. Then, in 1770, a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre successfully smuggled nutmeg plants to safety in Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa. Some of these were later exported to the Caribbean where they thrived, especially on the island of Grenada. Next, in 1778, a volcanic eruption in the Banda region caused a tsunami that wiped out half the nutmeg groves. Finally, in 1809, the British returned to Indonesia and seized the Banda Islands by force. They returned the islands to the Dutch in 1817, but not before transplanting hundreds of nutmeg seedlings to plantations in several locations across southern Asia. The Dutch nutmeg monopoly was over.

Today, nutmeg is grown in Indonesia, the Caribbean, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka, and world nutmeg production is estimated to average between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes per year.

Questions 1-4 Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

The nutmeg tree and fruit

● The leaves of the tree are 1……………….. in shape

● The 2……………….. surrounds the fruit and breaks open when the fruit is ripe

● The 3……………….. is used to produce the spice nutmeg

● The covering known as the aril is used to produce 4………………..

● The tree has yellow fowers and fruit Questions 5-7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in

Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 5-7 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

5 In the Middle Ages, most Europeans knew where nutmeg was grown.

6 The VOC was the world’s frst major trading company.

7 Following the Treaty of Breda, the Dutch had control of all the islands where nutmeg grew. Questions 8-13

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

Middle Ages Nutmeg was brought to Europe by the 8……………

16th century European nations took control of the nutmeg trade

17th century Demand for nutmeg grew, as it was believed to be effective

against the disease known as the 9……………

The Dutch

– took control of the Banda Islands

– restricted nutmeg production to a few areas

– put 10…………… on nutmeg to avoid it being cultivated

outside the islands

– fnally obtained the island of 11…………… from the British

Late 18th century 1770 – nutmeg plants were secretly taken to 12 ……………

1778 – half the Banda Islands’ nutmeg plantations were

destroyed by a 13…………… Reading 2

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

The growth of bike-sharing schemes around the world How Dutch engineer Luud Schimmelpennink helped to devise urban bike-sharing schemes A The original idea for an urban bike-sharing scheme dates back to a summer’s day in Amsterdam in 1965. Provo, the organization that came up with the idea, was a group of Dutch activists who wanted to change society. They believed the scheme, which was known as the Witte Fietsenplan, was an answer to the perceived threats of air pollution and consumerism. In the centre of Amsterdam, they painted a small number of used bikes white. They also distributed leafets describing the dangers of and inviting people to use the white bikes. The bikes were then left unlocked at various locations around the , to be used by anyone in need of . B Luud Schimmelpennink, a Dutch industrial engineer who still lives and cycles in Amsterdam, was heavily involved in the original scheme. He recalls how the scheme succeeded in attracting a great deal of attention – particularly when it came to publicising Provo’s aims – but struggled to get off the ground. The police were opposed to Provo’s initiatives and almost as soon as the white bikes were distributed around the city, they removed them. However, for Schimmelpennink and for bike-sharing schemes in general, this was just the beginning. ‘The frst Witte Fietsenplan was just a symbolic thing,’ he says. ‘We painted a few bikes white, that was all. Things got more serious when I became a member of the Amsterdam city council two years later.’ C Schimmelpennink seized this opportunity to present a more elaborate Witte Fietsenplan to the city council. ‘My idea was that the municipality of Amsterdam would distribute 10,000 white bikes over the city, for everyone to use,’ he explains. ‘I made serious calculations. It turned out that a white – per person, per kilometer – would cost the municipality only 10% of what it contributed to public transport per person per kilometer.’ Nevertheless, the council unanimously rejected the plan. ‘They said that the bicycle belongs to the past. They saw a glorious future for the ,’ says Schimmelpennink. But he was not in the least discouraged. D Schimmelpennink never stopped believing in bike-sharing, and in the mid-90s, two Danes asked for his help to set up a system in . The result was the world’s frst large-scale bike-share programme. It worked on a deposit: ‘You dropped a coin in the bike and when you returned it, you got your money back.’ After setting up the Danish system, Schimmelpennink decided to try his luck again in the Netherlands – and this time he succeeded in arousing the interest of the Dutch Ministry of Transport. ‘Times had changed,’ he recalls. ‘People had become more environmentally conscious, and the Danish experiment had proved that bike-sharing was a real possibility.’ A new Witte Fietsenplan was launched in 1999 in Amsterdam. However, riding a white bike was no longer free; it cost one guilder per trip and payment was made with a chip card developed by the Dutch bank Postbank. Schimmelpennink designed conspicuous, sturdy white bikes locked in special racks which could be opened with the chip card – the plan started with 250 bikes, distributed over fve stations. E Theo Molenaar, who was a system designer for the project, worked alongside Schimmelpennink. ‘I remember when we were testing the bike racks, he announced that he had already designed better ones. But of course, we had to go through with the ones we had.’ The system, however, was prone to vandalism and theft. ‘After every weekend there would always be a couple of bikes missing,’ Molenaar says. ‘I really have no idea what people did with them, because they could instantly be recognised as white bikes.’ But the biggest blow came when Postbank decided to abolish the chip card, because it wasn’t proftable. ‘That chip card was pivotal to the system,’ Molenaar says. ‘To continue the project we would have needed to set up another system, but the business partner had lost interest.’ F Schimmelpennink was disappointed, but – characteristically – not for long. In 2002 he got a call from the French advertising corporation JC Decaux, who wanted to set up his bike-sharing scheme in Vienna. ‘That went really well. After Vienna, they set up a system in Lyon. Then in 2007, Paris followed. That was a decisive moment in the history of bike-sharing.’ The huge and unexpected success of the Parisian bike-sharing programme, which now boasts more than 20,000 , inspired all over the world to set up their own schemes, all modelled on Schimmelpennink. ‘It’s wonderful that this happened,’ he says. ‘But fnancially I didn’t really beneft from it, because I never fled for a patent.’

G In Amsterdam today, 38% of all trips are made by bike and, along with Copenhagen, it is regarded as one of the two most cycle-friendly capitals in the world – but the city never got another Witte Fietsenplan. Molenaar believes this may be because everybody in Amsterdam already has a bike. Schimmelpennink, however, cannot see that this changes Amsterdam’s need for a bike-sharing scheme. ‘People who travel on the underground don’t carry their bikes around. But often they need additional transport to reach their fnal destination.’ Although he thinks it is strange that a city like Amsterdam does not have a successful bike-sharing scheme, he is optimistic about the future. ‘In the ‘60s we didn’t stand a chance because people were prepared to give their lives to keep cars in the city. But that mentality has totally changed. Today everybody longs for cities that are not dominated by cars.’ Questions 14-18

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct number, A-G, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14 a description of how people misused a bike-sharing scheme

15 an explanation of why a proposed bike-sharing scheme was turned down

16 a reference to a person being unable to proft their work

17 an explanation of the potential savings a bike-sharing scheme would bring

18 a reference to the problems a bike-sharing scheme was intended to solve

Questions 19-20

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 19 and 20 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about the Amsterdam bike-sharing scheme of 1999?

A It was initially opposed by a government department.

B It failed when a partner in the scheme withdrew support.

C It aimed to be more successful than the Copenhagen scheme.

D It was made possible by a change in people’s attitudes.

E It attracted interest from a range of bike designers. Questions 21-22

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 21 and 22 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about Amsterdam today?

A The majority of residents would like to prevent all cars from entering the city.

B There is little likelihood of the city having another bike-sharing scheme.

C More trips in the city are made by bike than by any other form of transport.

D A bike-sharing scheme would beneft residents who use public transport.

E The city has a reputation as a place that welcomes cyclists.

Questions 23-26

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write the answer in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

The frst urban bike-sharing scheme

The frst bike-sharing scheme was the idea of the Dutch group Provo. The people who belonged to this group were 23……………………….. They were concerned about damage to the environment and about 24 ………………………….., and believed that the bike-sharing scheme would draw attention to these issues. As well as painting some bikes white, they handed out 25 …………………….. that condemned the use of cars. However, the scheme was not a great success: almost as quickly as Provo left the bikes around the city, the 26 ………………………. Took them away. According to Schimmelpennink, the scheme was intended to be symbolic. The idea was to get people thinking about the issues. Reading 3

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

Elephant Communication

O’ Connell-Rodwell, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, has travelled to Namibia’s frst-ever wildlife reserve to explore the mystical and complicated realm of elephant communication. She, along with her colleagues, is part of a scientifc revolution that started almost 20 years ago. This revolution has made a stunning revelation: elephants are capable of communicating with each other over long distances with low-frequency sounds, also known as infrasounds, which are too deep for humans to hear.

As might be expected, African elephants able to detect seismic sound may have something to do with their ears. The hammer bone in an elephant’s inner ear is proportionally huge for a mammal, but it is rather normal for animals that use vibrational signals. Thus, it may be a sign that suggests elephants can use seismic sounds to communicate.

Other aspects of elephant anatomy also support that ability. First, their massive bodies, which enable them to give out low-frequency sounds almost as powerful as the sound a jet makes during takeoff, serve as ideal frames for receiving ground vibrations and transmitting them to the inner ear. Second, the elephant’s toe bones are set on a fatty pad, which might be of help when focusing vibrations from the ground into the bone. Finally, the elephant has an enormous brain that sits in the cranial cavity behind the eyes in line with the auditory canal. The front of the skull is riddled with sinus cavities, which might function as resonating chambers for ground vibrations.

It remains unclear how the elephants detect such vibrations, but O’ Connell-Rodwell raises a point that the pachyderms are ‘listening’ with their trunks and feet instead of their ears. The elephant trunk may just be the most versatile appendage in nature. Its utilization encompasses drinking, bathing, smelling, feeding and scratching. Both trunk and feet contain two types of nerve endings that are sensitive to pressure – one detects infrasonic vibration, and another responds to vibrations higher in frequencies. As O’ Connell-Rodwell sees, this research has a boundless and unpredictable future. ‘Our work is really interfaced with geophysics, neurophysiology and ecology,’ she says. ‘We’re raising questions that have never even been considered before.’

It has been well-known to scientists that seismic communication is widely observed among small animals, such as spiders, scorpions, insects and quite a lot of vertebrate species like white-lipped frogs, blind mole rats, kangaroo rats and golden moles. Nevertheless, O’Connell-Rodwell frst argued that a giant land animal is also sending and receiving seismic signals. ‘I used to lay a male planthopper on a stem and replay the calling sound of a female, and then the male one would exhibit the same kind of behaviour that happens in elephants—he would freeze, then press down on his legs, move forward a little, then stay still again. I fnd it so fascinating, and it got me thinking that perhaps auditory communication is not the only thing that is going on.’

Scientists have confrmed that an elephant’s capacity to communicate over long distances is essential for survival, especially in places like Etosha, where more than 2,400 savanna elephants range over a land bigger than New Jersey. It is already diffcult for an elephant to fnd a mate in such a vast wild land, and the elephant reproductive biology only complicates it. Breeding herds also adopt low-frequency sounds to send alerts regarding predators. Even though grown-up elephants have no enemies else than human beings, baby elephants are vulnerable and are susceptible to lions and hyenas attack. At the sight of a predator, older ones in the herd will clump together to form protection before running away.

We now know that elephants can respond to warning calls in the air, but can they detect signals transmitted solely through the ground? To look into that matter, the research team designed an experiment in 2002, which used electronic devices that enabled them to give out signals through the ground at Mushara. ‘The outcomes of our 2002 study revealed that elephants could indeed sense warning signals through the ground,’ O’Connell-Rodwell observes.

Last year, an experiment was set up in the hope of solving that problem. It used three different recordings—the 1994 warning call from Mushara, an anti-predator call recorded by scientist Joyce Poole in Kenya and a made-up warble tone. ‘The data I’ve observed to this point implies that the elephants were responding the way I always expected. However, the fascinating fnding is that the anti-predator call from Kenya, which is unfamiliar to them, caused them to gather around, tense up and rumble aggressively as well—but they didn’t always fee. I didn’t expect the results to be that clear-cut.’

Questions 28-31

Label the diagram below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.

28 ……………………………

29 ……………………………

30 ……………………………

31 …………………………... Questions 32-38

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 32-38 on your answer sheet.

How the elephants sense these sound vibrations is still unknown, but

O’Connell-Rodwell, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, proposes that elephants are ‘listening’ with their 32………………… by two kinds of nerve endings that respond to vibrations with both 33………………..… frequency and slightly higher frequencies. O’Connell-Rodwell's work is in the combination of geophysics, neurophysiology and 34………………… . It was known that seismic communication existed extensively within small animals, but O’Connell-Rodwell was the frst person to indicate that a large land animal would send and receive 35………………….. too. Also, he noticed the freezing behaviour by putting a male planthopper on a stem and play back a female call, which might prove the existence of other communicative approaches besides 36………………… . Scientists have determined that an elephant’s ability to communicate over long distances is essential, especially when elephant herds are fnding a 37………………… , or are warning of predators. Finally, the results of our 2002 study showed us that elephants could detect warning calls through the

38………………… . Questions 39-40

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.

39 According to the passage it is determined that an elephant needs to communicate over long distances for survival. A when a threatening predator appears B when young elephants meet humans C when older members of the herd want to fee from the group. D when a male elephant is in estrus.

40 What is the author’s attitude toward the experiment by using three different recordings in the last paragraph? A The outcome is defnitely out of the original expectation. B The data cannot be very clearly obtained. C The result can be somewhat undecided or inaccurate. D The result can be unfamiliar to the public. ● Glossary

Glossary

Foliage - the leaves of a plant or tree

Husk - the dry outer covering of some fruits or seeds

Crimson - of a rich deep red color inclining to purple

Commodity - a useful or valuable thing

Subcontract - for a company or person to do work for another company as part of a larger project

Sultan - a Muslim sovereign

Smuggle - to import or export secretly contrary to the law

Scheme - a large-scale systematic plan or arrangement

Consumerism - the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers

Municipality - a city or town that has corporate status and local government

Arousing - evoke or awaken (a feeling, emotion, or response)

Conspicuous - standing out so as to be clearly visible

Vandalism - action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property

Patent - a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period,

Optimistic - hopeful and confident about the future

Postdoctoral - denoting research undertaken after the completion of doctoral research

Seismic - relating to earthquakes or other vibrations of the earth and its crust

Cranial - relating to the skull or cranium

Sinus - a cavity within a bone, especially one in the bones of the face or skull

Appendage - a thing that is added or attached to something larger or more important.

Susceptible - likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing

Warble - sing softly and with a succession of constantly changing notes

Pachyderms - a very large mammal with thick skin, especially an elephant, rhinoceros Evaluation Items ● Let’s get feedback from Tutor

IELTS Band Descriptors

BAND SKILL DESCRIPTION SCORE LEVEL

Band 9 Expert user You have a full operational command of the language. Your use of English is appropriate, accurate and fluent, and you show complete understanding

Band 8 Very good You have a fully operational command of the user language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriate usage. You may misunderstand some things in unfamiliar situations. You handle complex detailed argumentation well.

Band 7 Good user You have an operational command of the language, though with occasional inaccuracies, inappropriate usage and misunderstandings in some situations. Generally you handle complex language well and understand detailed reasoning.

Band 6 Competent Generally you have an effective command of user the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriate usage and misunderstandings. You can use and understand fairly complex language, particularly in familiar situations. Band 5 Modest You have a partial command of the language, user and cope with overall meaning in most situations, although you are likely to make many mistakes. You should be able to handle basic communications in your own field.

Band 4 Limited Your basic competence is limited to familiar user situations. You frequently show problems in understanding and expression. You are not able to use complex language.

Band 3 Extremely You convey and understand only general limited user meaning in very familiar situations. There are frequent breakdowns in communication.

Band 2 Intermittent You have great difficulty understanding user spoken and written English.

Band 1 Non-user You have no ability to use the language except a few isolated words

Band 0 Did not You did not answer the questions. attempt the test Answer Key

21. D 1. oval 22. E 2. husk 23. activists 3. seed 24. consumerism 4. mace 25. leaflets 5. FALSE 26. police 6. NOT GIVEN 27. - 7. TRUE 28. hammer 8. Arabs 29. massive 9. plague 30. pad 10. lime 31. sinus cavities 11. Run 32. trunks and feet 12. Mauritius 33. infrasonic/ low 13. tsunami 34. ecology 14. E 35. seismic signals 15. C 36. auditory communication 16. F 37. mate 17. C 38. ground 18. A 39. A 19. B 40. C 20. D