READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which ar

e based on Reading Passage 1 below.
What are you laughing at?
A
We like to think that laughing is the height of human sophisticatio
n. Our big brains let us see the humour in a strategically positione
d pun, an unexpected plot twist or a clever piece of wordplay. But
while joking and wit are uniquely human inventions, laughter cert
ainly is not. Other creatures, including chimpanzees, gorillas and
even rats, chuckle. Obviously, they don’t crack up at Homer Simp
son or titter at the boss’s dreadful jokes, but the fact that they lau
gh in the first place suggests that sniggers and chortles have bee
n around for a lot longer than we have. It points the way to the ori
gins of laughter, suggesting a much more practical purpose than
you might think.
B
There is no doubt that laughing typical involves groups of people.
‘Laughter evolved as a signal to others – it almost disappears whe
n we are alone,’ says Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the Univ
ersity of Maryland. Provine found that most laughter comes as a p
olite reaction to everyday remarks such as ‘see you later’, rather t
han anything particularly funny. And the way we laugh depends o
n the company we’re keeping. Men tend to laugh longer and hard
er when they are with other men, perhaps as a way of bonding. W
omen tend to laugh more and at a higher pitch when men are pre
sent, possibly indicating flirtation or even submission.
C
To find the origins of laughter, Provine believes we need to look at
the play. He points out that the masters of laughing are children,
and nowhere is their talent more obvious than in the boisterous a
ntics, and the original context plays,’ he says. Well-known primate
watchers, including Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, have long argu
ed that chimps laugh while at play. The sound they produce is kno
wn as a panting laugh. It seems obvious when you watch their be
havior – they even have the same ticklish spots as we do. But rem
ove the context, and the parallel between human laughter and a c
himp’s characteristic pant laugh is not so clear. When Provine pla
yed a tape of the pant laughs to 119 of his students, for example,
only two guessed correctly what it was.
D
These findings underline how chimp and human laughter vary. Wh
en we laugh the sound is usually produced by chopping up a singl
e exhalation into a series of shorter with one sound produced on e
ach inward and outward breath. The question is: does this pant la
ughter have the same source as our own laughter? New research l
ends weight to the idea that it does. The findings come from Elke
Zimmerman, head of the Institute for Zoology in Germany, who co
mpared the sounds made by babies and chimpanzees in response
to tickling during the first year of their life. Using sound spectrogr
aphs to reveal the pitch and intensity of vocalizations, she discove
red that chimp and human baby laughter follow broadly the same
pattern. Zimmerman believes the closeness of baby laughter to c
himp laughter supports the idea that laughter was around long be
fore humans arrived on the scene. What started simply as a modi
fication of breathing associated with enjoyable and playful interac
tions has acquired a symbolic meaning as an indicator of pleasure.
E
Pinpointing when laughter developed is another matter. Humans
and chimps share a common ancestor that lived perhaps 8 million
years ago, but animals might have been laughing long before that.
More distantly related primates, including gorillas, laugh, and ane
cdotal evidence suggests that other social mammals nay do too. S
cientists are currently testing such stories with a comparative ana
lysis of just how common laughter is among animals. So far, thou
gh, the most compelling evidence for laughter beyond primates c
omes from research done by Jaak Panksepp from Bowling Green S
tate University, Ohio, into the ultrasonic chirps produced by rats d
uring play and in response to tickling.
F
All this still doesn’t answer the question of why we laugh at all. On
e idea is that laughter and tickling originated as a way of sealing t
he relationship between mother and child. Another is that the refl
ex response to tickling is protective, alerting us to the presence of
crawling creatures that might harm us or compelling us to defend
the parts of our bodies that are most vulnerable in hand-to-hand c
ombat. But the idea that has gained most popularity in recent yea
rs is that laughter in response to tickling is a way for two individua
ls to signal and test their trust in one another. This hypothesis sta
rts from the observation that although a little tickle can be enjoya
ble if it goes on too long it can be torture. By engaging in a bout o
f tickling, we put ourselves at the mercy of another individual, and
laughing is a signal that we laughter is what makes it a reliable si
gnal of trust according to Tom Flamson, a laughter researcher at t
he University of California, Los Angels. ‘Even in rats, laughter, tick
le, play and trust are linked. Rats chirp a lot when they play,’ says
Flamson. ‘These chirps can be aroused by tickling. And they get b
onded to us as a result, which certainly seems like a show of trus
t.’
G
We’ll never know which animal laughed the first laugh, or why. Bu
t we can be sure it wasn’t in response to a prehistoric joke. The fu
nny thing is that while the origins of laughter are probably quite s
erious, we owe human laughter and our language-based humor to
the same unique skill. While other animals pant, we alone can con
trol our breath well enough to produce the sound of laughter. Wit
hout that control, there would also be no speech – and no jokes to
endure.
Questions 1-6
Look at the following research findings (questions 1-6) and the lis
t of people below.
Match each finding with the correct person A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 1-6 on your answ
er sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A Tom Flamson
B Elke Zimmerman
C Robert Provine
D Jaak Panksepp
1 Babies and chimps produce similar sounds of laughter. B
2 Primates are not the only animals who produce laughter Pan D
3 Laughter also suggests that we feel safe and easy with others.
A
4 Laughter is a response to a polite situation instead of humour.
C
 5 Animal laughter evolved before human laughter B
6 Laughter is a social activity. A-c
Questions 7-10
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-K, below.
Write the correct letter, A-K, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet .
Some researchers believe that laughter first evolved out of 7.C-i T
he investigation has revealed that human and chimp laughter ma
y have the same 8…H.-c. Besides, scientists have been aware tha
t 9……G….. laugh, however, it now seems that laughter might be
more widespread than once we thought. Although the reasons wh
y humans started to laugh are still unknown, it seems that laught
er may result from the 10…E…. we feel with another person.
A evolution B chirps C origins D voice
E confidence F rats G primates H response
I play J children K tickling

Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in R
eading Passage 1?
In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
11 Both men and women laugh more when they are with memb
ers of the same sex. FALSE-ng
12 Primates lack sufficient breath control to be able to produce l
aughs the way humans do. TRUE
13 Chimpanzees produce laughter in a wider range of situations
than rats do. NOT GIVEN
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which a
re based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Leaf-Cutting Ants and Fungus
A
The ants and their agriculture have been extensively studied over
the years, but the recent research has uncovered intriguing new fi
ndings of the fungus they cultivate, how they domesticated it and
how they cultivate it and preserve it from pathogens. For example,
the fungus farms, which the ants were thought to keep free of pa
thogens, turn out to be vulnerable to a devastating mold, found n
owhere else but in ants’ nests. To keep the mold in check, the ant
s long ago made a discovery that would do credit to any pharmac
eutical laboratory.
B
Leaf-cutting ants and their fungus farms are a marvel of nature an
d perhaps the best-known example of symbiosis, the mutual depe
ndence of two species. The ant’s achievement is remarkable – the
biologist Edward O. Wilson has called it “one of the major breakth
roughs in animal evolution” – because it allows them to eat, court
esy of their mushroom’s digestive powers, the otherwise poisoned
harvest of tropical forests whose leaves are laden with terpenoids,
alkaloids and other chemicals designed to sicken browsers.
C
Fungus growing seems to have originated only once in evolution b
ecause all gardening ants belong to a single tribe, the descendant
s of the first fungus farmer. There are more than 200 known speci
es of the attine ant tribe, divided into 12 groups, or genera. The le
af-cutters use fresh vegetation; the other groups, known as the lo
wer attines because their nests are smaller and their techniques
more primitive, feed their gardens with detritus like dead leaves, i
nsects and faeces.
D
The leaf-cutters’ fungus was indeed descended from a single strai
n, propagated clonally, or just by budding, for at least 23 million y
ears. But the lower attine ants used different varieties of the fung
us, and in one case a quite separate species, the four biologists di
scovered. The pure strain of fungus grown by the leaf-cutters, it s
eemed to Mr Currie, resembled the monocultures of various huma
n crops, that are very productive for a while and then succumb to
some disastrous pathogen, such as the Irish potato blight. Monocu
ltures, which lack the genetic diversity to respond to changing en
vironmental threats, are sitting ducks for parasites. Mr Currie felt
there had to be a parasite in the ant-fungus system. But a century
of ant research offered no support for the idea. Textbooks describ
e how leaf-cutter ants scrupulously weed their gardens of all forei
gn organisms. “People kept telling me, ‘You know the ants keep t
heir gardens free of parasites, don’t you?’” Mr Currie said of his e
fforts to find a hidden interloper.
E
But after three years of sifting through attine ant gardens, Mr Curr
ie discovered they are far from free of infection. In last month’s is
sue of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, he an
d two colleagues, Dr Mueller and David Mairoch, isolated several a
lien organisms, particularly a family of parasitic molds called Esco
vopsis.
F
Escovopsis turns out to be a highly virulent pathogen that can dev
astate a fungus garden in a couple of days. It blooms like a while
cloud, with the garden dimly visible underneath. In a day or two, t
he whole garden is enveloped. “Other ants won’t go near it and th
e ants associated with the garden just starve to death,” Dr. Rehne
r said. “They just seem to give up, except for those that have resc
ued their larvae.” The deadly mold then turns greenish-brown as i
t enters its spore-forming stage.
G
Evidently, the ants usually manage to keep Escovopsis and other
parasites under control. But with any lapse in control, or if the ant
s are removed, Escovopsis will quickly burst forth. Although new l
eaf-cutter gardens start off free of Escovopsis, within two years so
me 60 percent become infected. The discovery of Escovopsis’s rol
e brings a new level of understanding of the evolution of the attin
e ants. “In the last decade, evolutionary biologists have been incr
easingly aware of the role of parasites as driving forces in evolutio
n,” Dr Schultz said. There is now a possible reason to explain why
the lower attine species keep changing the variety of fungus in th
eir mushroom gardens, and occasionally domesticating new ones
– to stay one step ahead of the relentless Escovopsis.
H
Interestingly, Mr. Currie found that the leaf-cutters had in general
fewer alien molds in their gardens than the lower attines, yet they
had more Escovopsis infections. It seems that the price they pay f
or cultivating a pure variety of fungus is a higher risk from Escovo
psis. But the leaf-cutters may have a little alternative: they cultiva
te a special variety of fungus which, unlike those grown by the lo
wer attines, produces nutritious swollen tips for the ants to eat.
I
Discovery of a third partner in the ant-fungus symbiosis raises the
question of how the attine ants, especially the leaf-cutters, keep t
his dangerous interloper under control. Amazingly enough, Mr Cur
rie has again provided the answer. “People have known for a hun
dred years that ants have a whitish growth on the cuticle,” said Dr
Mueller, referring to the insects’ body surface. “People would say
this is like a cuticular wax. But Cameron was the first one in a hun
dred years to put these things under a microscope. He was it was
not inert wax. It is alive.” Mr Currie discovered a specialized patch
on the ants’ cuticle that harbors a particular kind of bacterium, on
e well known to the pharmaceutical industry, because it is the sou
rce of half the antibiotics used in medicine. From each of 22 speci
es of attine ant studied, Mr. Cameron and colleagues isolated a sp
ecies of Streptomyces bacterium, they reported in Nature in April.
The Streptomyces does not have much effect on ordinary laborato
ry funguses. But it is a potent poisoner of Escovopsis, inhibiting its
growth and suppressing spore formation. It also stimulates the gr
owth of the ants’ mushroom fungus. The bacterium is carried by v
irgin queens when they leave to establish new nests but is not fou
nd on male ants, playboys who take no responsibility in nest-maki
ng or gardening.
J
Because both the leaf-cutters and the lower attines use Streptom
yces, the bacterium may have been part of their symbiosis for al
most as long as the Escovopsis mold. If so, some Alexander Flemi
ng of an ant discovered antibiotics millions of years before people
did. Even now, the ants are accomplishing two feats beyond the p
owers of human technology. The leaf-cutters are growing a monoc
ultural crop year after year without disaster, and they are using a
n antibiotic apparently so wisely and prudently that, unlike people,
they are not provoking antibiotic resistance in the target pathoge
n.

Questions 14-19
Use the information in the passage to match the options (listed A-
C) with activities or features of ants below.
Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 14-19 on your answer
sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once
A Leaf-cutting ants
B Lower attines
C Both
14 Build small nests and live with the different foreign fungus. B
15 Use toxic leaves to feed the fungus. A
16 Raise fungus which doesn’t live with other foreigners. C-a
17 Use substance to fight against Escovopsis. B-c
18 Use dead vegetable to feed the fungus. C-b
19 Are free of parasites explained previously? B-a

Questions 20-24
The Reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-J, in boxes 20-24 on your answer sheet .
20 Dangerous outcome of Escovopsis. F
21 The disadvantage of growing single fungus. B-h
22 comparison of features of two different nests. C
23 Two achievements made by ants earlier than human. E-j
24 Advantage of growing a new breed of fungus. I-g
Questions 25-26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 25-26 on your answer sheet.
25 How does the author think of Currie’s opinion?
A his viewpoint was verified later.
B earlier study has sufficient evidence.
C no details mentioned in the article.
D his opinion was proved to be wrong.
26 What did scientists find on the skin of ants under a microscop
e?
A some white cloud mold embed in their skin
B that Wax is all over their skin.
C a substance which is useful to humans.
D a substance which suppresses the growth of fungus.
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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which a
re based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Assessing the risk
A
As a title for a supposedly unprejudiced debate on scientific progr
ess, “Panic attack: interrogating our obsession with risk” did not b
ode well. Held last week at the Royal Institution in London, the ev
ent brought together scientists from across the world to ask why s
ociety is so obsessed with risk and to call for a “more rational” ap
proach. “We seem to be organising society around the grandmoth
erly maxim of ‘better safe than sorry’,” exclaimed Spiked, the onli
ne publication that organised the event. “What are the consequen
ces of this overbearing concern with risks?”
B
The debate was preceded by a survey of 40 scientists who were in
vited to describe how awful our lives would be if the “precautionar
y principle” had been allowed to prevail in the past. Their respons
e was: no heart surgery or antibiotics, and hardly any drugs at all;
no aeroplanes, bicycles or high-voltage power grids; no pasteurisa
tion, pesticides or biotechnology; no quantum mechanics; no whe
el; no “discovery” of America. In short, their message was: no risk,
no gain.
C
They have absolutely missed the point. The precautionary principl
e is a subtle idea. It has various forms, but all of them generally in
clude some notion of cost-effectiveness. Thus the point is not sim
ply to ban things that are not known to be absolutely safe. Rather,
it says: “Of course you can make no progress without risk. But if t
here is no obvious gain from taking the risk, then don’t take it.”
D
Clearly, all the technologies listed by the 40 well-chosen savants
were innately risky at their inception, as all technologies are. But
all of them would have received the green light under the precaut
ionary principle because they all had the potential to offer tremen
dous benefits – the solutions to very big problems – if only the sna
gs could be overcome.
E
If the precautionary principle had been in place, the scientists tell
us, we would not have antibiotics. But of course, we would – if the
version of the principle that sensible people now understand had
been applied. When penicillin was discovered in the 1920s, infecti
ve bacteria were laying waste to the world. Children died from dip
htheria and whooping cough, every open-drain brought the threat
of typhoid, and any wound could lead to septicaemia and even ga
ngrene.
F
Penicillin was turned into a practical drug during the Second Worl
d War when the many pestilences that result from were threatene
d to kill more people than the bombs. Of course antibiotics were a
priority. Of course, the risks, such as they could be perceived, wer
e worth taking.
G
And so with the other items on the scientists’ list: electric light bul
bs, blood transfusions. CAT scans, knives, the measles vaccine – t
he precautionary principle would have prevented all of them, they
tell us. But this is just plain wrong. If the precautionary principle h
ad been applied properly, all these creations would have passed
muster, because all offered incomparable advantages compared t
o the risks perceived at the time.
H
Another issue is at stake here. Statistics are not the only concept
people use when weighing up risk. Human beings, subtle and evol
ved creatures that we are, do not survive to three-score years and
ten simply by thinking like pocket calculators. A crucial issue is th
e consumer’s choice. In deciding whether to pursue the developm
ent of new technology, the consumer’s right to choose should be
considered alongside considerations of risk and benefit. Clearly, s
kiing is more dangerous than genetically modified tomatoes. But
people who ski choose to do so; they do not have skiing thrust up
on them by portentous experts of the kind who now feel they hav
e the right to reconstruct our crops. Even with skiing, there is the
matter of cost-effectiveness to consider: skiing, I am told, is exhila
rating. Where is the exhilaration in GM soya?
I
Indeed, in contrast to all the other items on Spiked’s list, GM crop
s stand out as an example of a technology whose benefits are far
from clear. Some of the risks can at least be defined. But in the pr
esent economic climate, the benefits that might accrue from the
m seem dubious. Promoters of GM crops believe that the future p
opulation of the world cannot be fed without them. That is untrue.
The crops that really matter are wheat and rice, and there is no G
M research in the pipeline that will seriously affect the yield of eit
her. GM is used to make production cheaper and hence more profi
table, which is an extremely questionable ambition.
J
The precautionary principle provides the world with a very import
ant safeguard. If it had been in place in the past it might, for exa
mple, have prevented insouciant miners from polluting major rive
rs with mercury. We have come to a sorry pass when scientists, w
ho should above all be dispassionate scholars, feel they should mi
srepresent such a principle for the purposes of commercial and po
litical propaganda. People at large continue to mistrust science an
d the high technologies it produces partly because they doubt the
wisdom of scientists. On such evidence as this, these doubts are f
ully justified.

Questions 27-32
Do the following statements agree with the information given in R
eading Passage 3?
In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
27 The title of the debate is not unbiased. TRUE
28 All the scientists invited to the debate were from the field of
medicine. NOT GIVEN
29 The message those scientists who conducted the survey wer
e sending was people shouldn’t take risks. FALSE
30 All the 40 listed technologies are riskier than other technologi
es. NOT GIVEN
31 It was worth taking the risks to invent antibiotics. TRUE
32 All the other inventions on the list were also judged by the pr
ecautionary principle. FALSE-ng

Questions 33-39
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Pa
ssage
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passag
e for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 33-39 on your answer sheet.
When applying the precautionary principle to decide whether to in
vent a new technology, people should also the consideration of th
e 33… consumer’s choice, along with the usual consideration of 3
4……risk and benefit……….. For example, though risky and dange
rous enough, people still enjoy 35………skiing………….. for the exc
itement it provides. On the other hand, experts believe that future
population desperately needs 36……GM’s crop……… in spite of th
eir undefined risks. However, the researchers conducted so far ha
ve not been directed towards increasing the yield of 37…………
wheat and rice…………, but to reduce the cost of 38…………
production………………. and to bring more profit out of it. In the en
d, such selfish use of the precautionary principle for business and
political gain has often led people to 39……mistrust………….. scie
nce for they believe scientists are not to be trusted.

Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 40 on your answer sheet.
40 What is the main theme of the passage?
A people have the right to doubt science and technologies
B the precautionary principle could have prevented the develop
ment of science and technology
C there are not enough people who truly understand the precaut
ionary principle
D the precautionary principle bids us take risks at all costs