Volcanoes – earth-shattering news

When Mount Pinatubo suddenly erupted on 9 June 1991, the power of volcanoes past and
present again hit the headlines.

A) Volcanoes are the ultimate earth-moving machinery. A violent eruption can blow the top few
kilometres off a mountain, scatter fine ash practically all over the globe and hurt rock fragments
into the stratosphere to darken the skies a continent away.

But the classic eruption – cone-shaped mountain, big bang, mushroom cloud and surges of
molten lava – is only a tiny part of a   global story. Volcanism, the name given to volcanic
processes, really has shaped the world. Eruptions have rifted continents, raised mountain chains,
constructed islands and shaped the topography of the earth. The entire ocean floor has a
basement of volcanic basalt.

Volcanoes have not only made the continents, they are also thought to have made the world’s
first stable atmosphere and provided all the water for the oceans, rivers and ice-caps. There are
now about 600 active volcanoes. Every year they add two or three cubic kilometres of rock to the
continents. Imagine a similar number of volcanoes smoking away for the last 3,500 million
years. That is enough rock to explain the continental crust.

What comes out of volcanic craters is mostly gas. More than 90% of this gas is water vapour
from the deep earth: enough to explain, over 3,500 million years, the water in the oceans. The
rest of the gas is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane, ammonia and hydrogen.
The quantity of these gases, again multiplied over 3,500 million years, is enough to explain the
mass of the world’s atmosphere. We are alive because volcanoes provided the soil, air and water
we need.

B) Geologists consider the earth as having a molten core, surrounded by a semi-molten mantle
and a brittle, outer skin. It helps to think of a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk, a firm but
squishy white and a hard shell. If the shell is even slightly cracked during boiling, the white
material bubbles out and sets like a tiny mountain chain over the crack – like an archipelago of
volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian Islands. But the earth is so much bigger and the mantle
below is so much halter.

Even though the mantle rocks are kept solid by overlying pressure, they can still slowly ‘flow’
like thick treacle. The flow, thought to be in the form of convection currents, is powerful enough
to fracture the ‘eggshell’ of the crust into plates, and keep them bumping and grinding against
each other, or even overlapping, at the rate of a few centimetres a year. These fracture zones,
where the collisions occur, are where earthquakes happen. And, very often, volcanoes.

C) These zones are lines of weakness, or hot spots. Every eruption is different, but put at its
simplest, where there are weaknesses, rocks deep in the mantle, heated to 1,350oC, will start to
expand and rise. As they do so, the pressure drops, and they expand and become liquid and rise
more swiftly.
Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma – molten rock from the mantle – inch towards the
surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin
Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian’s Wall in northern
England). Sometimes – as in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Karoo in South Africa – the
magma rose faster, and then flowed out horizontally on to the surface in vast thick sheets. In the
Deccan plateau in western India, there are more than two million cubic kilometres of lava, some
of it 2,400 metres thick, formed over 500,000 years of slurping eruption.

Sometimes the magma moves very swiftly indeed. It does not have time to cool as it surges
upwards. The gases trapped inside the boiling rock expand suddenly, the lava glows with heat, it
begins to froth, and it explodes with tremendous force. Then the slightly cooler lava following it
begins to flow over the lip of the crater. It happens on Mars, it happened on the moon, it even
happens on some of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus. By studying the evidence, vulcanologists
can read the force of the great blasts of the past. Is the pumice light and full of holes? The
explosion was tremendous. Are the rocks heavy, with huge crystalline basalt shapes, like the
Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland? It was a slow, gentle eruption.

The biggest eruption are deep on the mid-ocean floor, where new lava is forcing the continents
apart and widening the Atlantic by perhaps five centimetres a year. Look at maps of volcanoes,
earthquakes and island chains like the Philippines and Japan, and you can see the rough outlines
of what are called tectonic plates – the plates which make up the earth’s crust and mantle. The
most dramatic of these is the Pacific ‘ring of fire’ where there have the most violent explosions –
Mount Pinatubo near Manila, Mount St Helen’s in the Rockies and El Chichón in Mexico about
a decade ago, not to mention world-shaking blasts like Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits in 1883.

D) But volcanoes are not very predictable. That is because geological time is not like human
time. During quiet periods, volcanoes cap themselves with their own lava by forming a powerful
cone from the molten rocks slopping over the rim of the crater; later the lava cools slowly into a
huge, hard, stable plug which blocks any further eruption until the pressure below becomes
irresistible. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, this took 600 years.

Then, sometimes, with only a small warning, the mountain blows its top. It did this at Mont
Pelée in Martinique at 7.49 a.m. on 8 May, 1902. Of a town of 28,000, only two people survived.
In 1815, a sudden blast removed the top 1,280 metres of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The
eruption was so fierce that dust thrown into the stratosphere darkened the skies, canceling the
following summer in Europe and North America. Thousands starved as the harvest failed, after
snow in June and frosts in August. Volcanoes are potentially world news, especially the quiet
ones.
Questions 18-21
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER
from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.
18. What are the sections of the earth’s crust, often associated with volcanic activity, called?
19. What is the name given to molten rock from the mantle?
20.  What is the earthquake zone on the Pacific Ocean called?
21. For how many years did Mount Pinatubo remain inactive?

Questions 22-26
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for
each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheets.
Volcanic eruptions have shaped the earth’s land surface. They may also have produced the
world’s atmosphere and 22 …...…… Eruptions occur when molten rocks from the earth’s mantle
rise and expand. When they become liquid, they move more quickly through cracks in the
surface. There are different types of eruption. Sometimes the 23 ……...… moves slowly and
forms outcrops of granite on the earth’s surface. When it moves more quickly it may flow out in
thick horizontal sheets. Examples of this type of eruption can be found in Northern Ireland,
Wales, South Africa and 24 …...…… A third type of eruption occurs when the lava emerges
very quickly and 25 …...…… violently. This happens because the magma moves so suddenly
that 26 …...…… are emitted.
 Obtaining
Linguistic
Data

A.    Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a
carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection
about one’s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.

B.    In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data — an informant. Informants are
(ideally) native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other kinds of
information about the language (e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or judgments on
usage). Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own informants, judging
the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against their own intuitions. The
convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is considered the norm in the
generative approach to linguistics. But a linguist’s personal judgments are often uncertain, or
disagree with the judgments of other linguists, at which point recourse is needed to more
objective methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as informants. The latter procedure is
unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.

C.    Many factors must be considered when selecting informants – whether one is working with
single speakers (a common situation when language has not been described before), two people
interacting small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of
identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind of language used. The
topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting ( e.g. the level of formality ) are
also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the informants (e.g. their fluency and
consistency ). For large studies, scrupulous attention has been paid to the sampling theory
employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made about the best investigative techniques to
use.

D.    Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist’s claims about the
language to be checked, and provides a way of making those claims more accurate (“difficult”
pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly). But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is
never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being recorded, and sound quality
can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimize the
“observer’s paradox” (how to observe the way people behave when they are not being observed).
Some recordings are made without the speakers being aware of the fact- a procedure that obtains
very natural data, though ethical objections must be anticipated. Alternatively, attempts can be
made to make the speaker forget about the recording, such as keeping the tape recorder out of
sight, or using radio microphones. A useful technique is to introduce a topic that quickly
involves the speaker, and stimulates a natural language style (e.g. asking older informants about
how times have changed in their locality)

E.    An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist’s problems, however. Speech is often
unclear and ambiguous. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be supplemented by the
observer’s written comments on the non-verbal behavior of the participants, and about the
context in general. A facial expression, for example, can dramatically alter the meaning of what
is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a large extent, but even they have limitations
(the camera cannot be everywhere), and transcriptions always benefit from any additional
commentary provided by an observer.

F.    Linguists also make great use of structured sessions, in which they systematically ask their
informants for utterances that describe certain actions, objects or behaviour. With a bilingual
informant, or through use of an interpreter, it is possible to use translation techniques (‘How do
you say table in your language?’). A large number of points can be covered in a short time, using
interview worksheets and questionnaires. Often , the researcher wishes to obtain information
about just s single variable, in which case a restricted set of questions may be used a particular
feature of pronunciation, for example, can be elicited by asking the informant to say a restricted
set of words. There are also several direct methods of elicitation, such as asking informants to fill
in the blanks in a substitution frame (e.g. I___ see a car), or  feeding them the wrong stimulus of
correction (‘is it possible to say I no can see?’)

G.    A representative sample of language, compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is
known as a corpus. A corpus enables the linguist to make unbiased statements about frequency
of usage, and it provides accessible data for the use of different researchers. Its range and size are
variable. Some corpora attempt to cover the language as a whole, taking extracts from many
kinds of text, others are extremely selective, providing a collection of material that deals only
with a particular linguistic feature. The size of the corpus depends on practical factors, such as
the time available to collect, process and store the data it can take up to several hours to provide
an accurate transcription of a few minutes of speech. Sometimes a small sample of data will be
enough to decide a linguistic hypothesis; by contrast, corpora in major research projects can total
millions of words. An important principle is that all corpora, whatever their size, are inevitably
limited in their coverage, and always need to be supplemented by data derived from the
intuitions of native speakers of the language, through either introspection or experimentation.
Questions 27-31
Reading Passage 163 has seven paragraphs labeled A-G Which paragraph contains the following
information?
Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
27 the effect of recording on the way people talk
28 the importance of taking notes on body language
29 the fact that language is influenced by social situation
30 how informants can be helped to be less self-conscious
31 various methods that can be used to generate specific data

Questions 32-36
Complete the table below
Choose NO MORE THAT THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer
Write your answers in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.
METHODS OF OBTAINING
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
LINGUISTIC DATA
Method of enquiry set
32……as informant Convenient
objective enough
Necessary with 33……and The number of faction to be
Non-linguist as informant
child speech considered
Allows linguists’ claims to
Recording an informant 34……of sound
be checked
Allows speakers’ 35…… 36……might miss certain
Videoing an informant
to be observed things

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary of paragraph G below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

A linguist can use a corpus to comment objectively on 37……..... Some corpora include a wide
range of language while others are used to focus on a 38…....…. The length of time the process
takes will affect the 39....…..… of the corpus. No corpus can ever cover the whole language and
so linguists often find themselves relying on the additional information that can be gained from
the 40…....…of those who speak the language concerned.
 The Nature and Aims of Archaeology
Archaeology is partly the discovery of treasures of the past, partly the work of the
scientific analyst, partly the exercise of the creative imagination. It is toiling in the sun on an
excavation in the Middle East, it is working with living Inuit in the snows of Alaska, and it is
investigating the sewers of Roman Britain. But it is also the painstaking task of interpretation, so
that we come to understand what these things mean for the human story. And it is the
conservation of the world’s cultural heritage against looting and careless harm.
Archaeology, then, is both a physical activity out in the field, and an intellectual pursuit
in the study or laboratory. That is part of its great attraction. The rich mixture of danger and
detective work has also made it the perfect vehicle for fiction writers and film-makers, from
Agatha Christie with Murder in Mesopotamia to Stephen Spielberg with Indiana Jones. However
far from reality such portrayals are, they capture the essential truth that archaeology is an
exciting quest – the quest for knowledge about ourselves and our past.
But how does archaeology relate to other disciplines such as anthropology and history
that are also concerned with the human story? Is archaeology itself a science? And what are the
responsibilities of the archaeologist in today’s world?
Anthropology, at its broadest, is the study of humanity- our physical characteristics as
animals and our unique non-biological characteristics that we call culture. Culture in this sense
includes what the anthropologist, Edward Tylor, summarised in 1871 as ‘knowledge, beliefs, art,
morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’.
Anthropologists also use the term ‘culture’ in a more restricted sense when they refer to the
‘culture’ of a particular society, meaning the non-biological characteristics unique to that society,
which distinguish it from other societies. Anthropology is thus a broad discipline – so broad that
it is generally broken down into three smaller disciplines: physical anthropology, cultural
anthropology and archaeology.
Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology as it is called, concerns the study of
human biological or physical characteristics and how they evolved. Cultural anthropology – or
social anthropology – analyses human culture and society. Two of its branches are ethnography
(the study at first hand of individual living cultures) and ethnology (which sets out to compare
cultures using ethnographic evidence to derive general principles about human society).
Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks for the archaeologist today is to know how
to interpret material culture in human terms. How were those pots used? Why are some
dwellings round and others square. Here the methods of archaeology and ethnography overlap.
Archaeologists in recent decades have developed ‘ethnoarchaeology’ where, like ethnographers,
they live among contemporary communities, but with the specific purpose of learning how such
societies use material culture – how they make their tools and weapons, why they build their
settlements where they do, and so on. Moreover, archaeology has a role to play in the field of
conservation. Heritage studies constitute a developing field, where it is realised that the world’s
cultural heritage is a diminishing resource which holds different meanings for different people.
If, then, archaeology deals with the past, in what way does it differ from history? In the broadest
sense, just as archaeology is an aspect of anthropology, so too is it a part of history – where we
mean the whole history of humankind from its beginnings over three million years ago. Indeed,
for more than ninety-nine percent of that huge span of time, archaeology – the study of past
material culture – is the only significant source of information. Conventional historical sources
begin only with the introduction of written records around 3,000 BC in western Asia, and much
later in most other parts in the world.
A commonly drawn distinction is between pre-history, i.e. the period before written
records - and history in the narrow sense, meaning the study of the past using written evidence.
To archaeology, which studies all cultures and periods, whether with or without writing, the
distinction between history and pre-history is a convenient dividing line that recognises the
importance of the written word, but in no way lessens the importance of the useful information
contained in oral histories.
Since the aim of archaeology is the understanding of humankind, it is a humanistic study,
and since it deals with the human past, it is a historical discipline. But is differs from the study of
written history in a fundamental way. The material the archaeologist finds does not tell us
directly what to think. Historical records make statements, offer opinions and pass judgements.
The objects the archaeologists discover, on the other hand, tell us nothing directly in themselves.
In this respect, the practice of the archaeologist is rather like that of the scientist, who collects
data, conducts experiments, formulates a hypothesis tests the hypothesis against more data, and
then, in conclusion, devises a model that seems best to summarise the pattern observed in the
data. The archaeologist has to develop a picture of the past, just as the scientist has to develop a
coherent view of the natural world.

Questions 14-19
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 164?
In boxes 14-19 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
14. Archaeology involves creativity as well as investigative work.
15. Archaeologist must be able to translate texts from ancient languages.
16. Movies give a realistic picture of the work of archaeologists.
17. Anthropologist define culture in more than one way.
18. Archaeology is a more demanding field of study than anthropology.
19 The history of Europe has been documented since 3,000 BC.

Questions 20 and 21
Choose TWO letters A – E, Write your answer in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet
The list below gives some statements about anthropology.
Which TWO statements are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A. It is important for government planners.
B. It is a continually growing field of study
C. It often involves long periods of fieldwork.
D. It is subdivided for study purposes.
E. It studies human evolutionary patterns.

Questions 22 and 23
Choose TWO letters A – E, Write your answer in boxes 22 and 23 on your answer sheet.
The list below gives some of the tasks of an archaeologist.
Which TWO of these tasks are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A examining ancient waste sites to investigate diet
B studying cave art to determine its significance
C deducing reasons for the shape of domestic buildings
D investigating the way different cultures make and use objects
E examining evidence for past climate changes

Questions 24-27
Complete the summary of the last two paragraphs of Reading Passage 164.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answer in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.
Much of the work of archaeologists can be done using written records, but they find
24 .............................. equally valuable. The writer describes archaeology as both a
25 ............................... and a 26 ........................ However, as archaeologists do not try to
influence human behaviour, the writer compares their style of working to that of a 27 .................