Extensive

Level Three Final Exam Extensive Preview Reading Passages Module 2

Contents
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ....................................................................................................... 1 Biomimicry .............................................................................................................................................. 3 The Water Crisis ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Do we Inherit our Health? ...................................................................................................................... 7

FAQs 1. What are these?

They are 3 reading passages. One of these will be in your Final Exam. The idea behind these preview readings is that you get to see what you are going to be tested on, long before the exam. You will not know which reading will be used so you will have to read them all. And you will not know what the questions are until the day of the exam. The marks for the exam will count towards your L3 grade. The maximum possible for the exam will be 20% of your final grade. The midterm exam you did about 2 weeks ago, was worth 10%. In total, the preview listenings and readings in the Final Exam are worth about 12% to you. One of these readings alone is worth about 5% of your total grade.

2. Why are we doing this?

To help you. This gives you a chance to get higher grades through your own work. We have chosen Reading and Listening because these were the areas that you did worst in the Level 3 Exams and the IELTS Exam last semester. In addition, we think that if you work on the Extensive Preview Readings and Listenings, your reading and listening ability generally will improve. This will be particularly important if you pass Level 3 and go on to do IELTS. The passages in this exam were specially chosen because they are very similar to those used in IELTS exams.

3. What should you do with them?

Work on them independently and with your friends. You will only get a little help in class. Your teacher will concentrate on your regular course. You will be sent some extra questions to help you with these passages. You should read the passages carefully and do everything you need to do to understand them, for example:

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

Extensive Highlight difficult or new words and find out what they mean. Write down in a few words what the topic is. Write down in a few words what the topic of each paragraph is. Find difficult sentences and ideas and work out exactly what they mean. Find all the pronouns (I, you, he, him, her, them, they etc.) and work out what they refer to. Make up questions that you think might be in the exam. Work with other students who are also repeating Level 3. Compare answers, share information, discuss each reading.

4. What types of questions will be asked in the Reading section of the Extensive Preview exam?
Mostly, the same types of questions as in the Level 3 Mid-term and Final Exams, for example: Questions that ask about general meaning o Identify the topic of the whole passage o Fill in gaps in a summary o Identify the topics of paragraphs Questions that ask about detailed meaning o Identify specific information people, things, amounts, names. o Identify specific ideas how, why, what, when, which things happened. o Question types such as multiple choice, true/false/not given, matching, fact/opinion Questions that ask about certain words in the passage o Choose the correct dictionary definitions o Choose the correct meaning of a word

5. Will these readings be the only things tested in the exam?

No, you will also be tested on 2 of 4 Extensive Preview Listening passages too. Also, remember, you will only be tested on one of these readings. The listenings in the exam will be one dialogue (conversation) and one lecture. So in the Final Exam there will be six parts: 1. 2. 3. 4. Listening 1 (a dialogue conversation that you have heard before, with 7 questions Listening 3 (a lecture that you have heard before with about 10 questions) Listening 4 (a lecture that is new to you with about 10 questions) Reading 1 /Understanding Graphics (5 Questions on an IELTS Writing Task 1 diagram, flow chart or map) 5. Reading 2 (one of the readings in this reading booklet with 15 questions) 6. Reading 3 (a reading passage that is new to you, with 15 questions)

Now it is up to you! Work hard and good luck!

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

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Biomimicry
Nature often provides the solutions to manmade problems
A. Have you ever wondered how designers decide on the shape and properties of the things they design? Consider the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan. Instead of having a rounded Any similarity? A Japanese bullet train front like most other trains, the designers of this train looked and a kingfisher. to a bird called the kingfisher for inspiration. This bird dives from the air into water at great speed, and its beak helps it to do this. Next time you see a picture of the Shinkansen look at the front of the train and notice the similarity with a kingfisher's beak. This design feature means that the train can enter tunnels at high speed because there's no pressure wave as with ordinary trains. Also, it means that this train uses 15% less electricity than conventional trains. The design of the Shinkansen bullet train is just one example of biomimicry. B. So, what is 'biomimicry' exactly? The word was first used by Janine Benyus, a natural history writer, in 1998. It is made from two words: 'bio' meaning life and mimic meaning imitate or copy. So biomimicry means copying life. Biomimicry is a new field that studies nature's best ideas and then tries to use them to solve human problems. As Janine says, "It's important to look at nature - after all, it has had 3.8 billion years to come up with ideas."

Velcro simple idea, multiple uses

C. Of course, there were early examples of biomimicry. The Wright brothers, for instance, spent years observing pigeons as part of their attempts to build the first aeroplane, which they finally completed in 1903. Several decades later, businesses began to realize that nature could help them, too. Probably one of the most well-known nature-inspired technologies of the last century is the fastener, Velcro. The man who invented this, George de Mestral, is said to have been inspired by burrs (seeds that stick clothes and other surfaces and are difficult to take off). He constantly had to remove these from his dog's fur. De Mestral went on to invent Velcro, widely used today as a fastener for shoes, wallets and other items. D. It was in the late 20th century that companies really started to spend time and money looking at biological solutions for technological challenges. After Janine Benyus's book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, was published, businessmen from all over the world started calling her, seeking advice on resolving a particular issue in a non-traditional, nature-copying way. The world's first Biomimicry Institute was set up in 2005, with a team of consultants trained to help businesses. "Product designers contact us, we learn what it is they're trying to do, and we look for that same function in the natural world." says Ms Benyus. Her clients range from design companies to legal firms and government organizations, including NASA.

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

Extensive E. "There are three types of biomimicry - one is copying form and shape, another is copying a process, like photosynthesis in a leaf, and the third is trying to copy an ecosystem, like building a natureinspired city," says Ms Benyus. Businesses are usually interested in the first two categories, she adds. One example of an idea that has Raindrops sliding off a lotus leaf been adopted on a large scale is a kind of paint that makes use of the shape of a lotus leaf. This Lotus plant has small bumps on its leaves and this makes them self-cleaning: the tiny bumps mean that when it rains the dirt on the leaves is washed off. The paint company, Lotusan, has developed a paint that works in the same way - this self-cleaning paint has now been used on more than 350,000 buildings in Europe. F. The Lotusan paint shows that solutions from nature can be more environmentally-friendly than man-made ideas; if paint on buildings is self-cleaning it lasts longer so buildings don't need to be repainted as often. The company benefits because maintenance costs are reduced and the environment benefits because resources are used more wisely. This point is key because ideas that come from nature are usually friendlier to nature. Natural processes and designs tend to be efficient. They use less material and energy and are less damaging to the environment than many man-made inventions. G. A good example of a green building is the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe. The architects who designed this office and shopping complex wanted a building that used very little energy. They were so successful that they came up with a building that uses only 10% of the energy that a similarly-sized building would normally consume. How did they do it? Surprisingly, they made use of the cleverness of the termite, an insect that builds a hill out of soil, in which it keeps its food source. The hill must be kept at a certain temperature and termites maintain the temperature by opening and closing holes in the hill. The architects used this idea and the Eastgate Centre has a series of vents, or holes, which mean that the building can A termite hill be kept at a constant temperature without the use of air-conditioning or heating. H. "I'm sure all of the answers to what we want to solve exist in some form or another, in nature," says Ms Welch, a designer who has used biomimicry principles in her work. "Nature provides balanced solutions." Human beings have demonstrated a terrible track record of maintaining environmental balance in trying to solve 'problems'. So copying nature may just be the way to go." 900 words Readability Score: 10.1 Adapted from:Biomimicry: Beaks on trains and flipper-like turbinesby Katia Moskvitch (www.bbc.co.uk) Other sources: www.inhabit; comwww.biomimicryinstitute

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The Water Crisis

Greater efficiency in water use is needed to meet the growing demands of a changing world
A Water usage per person has been on an upward trend for many years. As countries and their citizens become richer, the amount of water they use quickly increases. Annual water usage in the USA, for example, is about 1,700 cubic metres per person, four times the level in China and fifty times the level in Ethiopia. In the 21st century, the world's limited supply of renewable fresh water is having to meet the demands of both a larger total population and increased individual consumption. The only ways to resolve this problem in the longer term are to charge more and to save more.

The reservoir behind Sameura Dam in Japan is running low.

B About 70% of the world's fresh water is used on farms, so improvements in irrigation could be the most effective way of saving water. At present, up to 50% of water used in agriculture is wasted. Simple changes could improve the rate substantially, but, unfortunately, this is difficult to do in developing countries due to a lack of money and an untrained workforce. C. After agriculture, industry is the second biggest user of water. In monetary terms, it is sixty times more productive than agriculture. However, some industrial processes use vast amounts of water. For example, production of 1 kg of aluminium might require 1,500 litres, that's 1,500 kg of water. Paper production uses a great deal of water too. Though new processes have greatly reduced the amount of water used, a lot more reductions need to be made. D In rich countries, water usage has gradually been slowed down by three things: use of modern technology, recycling and by increasing the price of water. In the USA, for example, while industrial production has risen four times since 1950, water consumption has actually fallen by more than a third. Japan has also improved its use of water in manufacturing processes. Japanese industry now recycles more than 75% of the water it uses. In contrast, industrial water consumption in developing countries is continuing to increase sharply . With domestic and agricultural demands also increasing in these countries, it is very difficult for water supply systems to keep up.

Many bodies of water on earth are drying up.

E Many experts believe that the best way to stop this trend is to make people pay what water actually costs to produce. Few governments charge enough for water, especially to farmers. Even in rich California, farmers get water for less than a tenth of the cost of supply. In many developing countries there is virtually no charge for water for farming. Water, which was once regarded as a free gift from heaven, is becoming a commodity which must be bought and sold on the open market just like oil.

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

Extensive F Another way to cut back on water consumption is simply to prevent leaks and other wastage. In some of the biggest cities of the Third World, more than half of the water entering the system is lost through leaks in pipes, dripping taps and broken installations. Even in the UK, losses were estimated at 25% in the early 1990s because of the failure to maintain the national water system, which in many parts of the country is over 150 years old and badly in need of repair. In addition, millions of tons of water are simply flushed away into rivers or the sea. The modern approach is to see used water as a resource which can be put to good use - either in irrigation for farms or, after careful treatment, as recycled water for use in the home. Singapore, for instance, has spent heavily on used water treatment. Treated, recycled water accounts for most farm irrigation there and is even recycled back into domestic systems for drinking.

G Another way of conserving water resources involves better management of the environment generally. Interference with the ecosystem can have a severe effect on both local rainfall patterns and water run-off. Forest clearings associated with India's Kabini dam project reduced local Finding clean water can rainfall by 25%. This reduction in rainfall has been seen in several other parts be difficult in India. of the world where large-scale deforestation has taken place. This is because grass and trees act as a sponge which absorbs rainfall and feeds it slowly into the ground. Removal of the trees means that rainfall runs off the top of the land, increasing erosion instead of being gradually fed into the soil to renew ground water. H Global warming is bound to affect rainfall patterns, though there is considerable disagreement about its precise effects. But it is likely that, as sea levels rise, countries in low-lying coastal areas will be affected as seawater mixes with ground water. Other countries will see changes in rainfall which could have a major impact on agriculture. Some countries will benefit and others will suffer. In broad terms, it is thought that rainfall zones will move north, meaning even less rain will fall in Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Words: 809 Readability score: 10.6

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

Extensive

Do We Inherit Our Health?

Whether or not we develop certain diseases is a family matter
A We have all heard of people who do everything to stay healthy but then die of a heart attack at age 50. We also know of people who eat fatty foods, smoke, and never take exercise and yet live until they are 90. Most of us think a healthy diet plus regular exercise will give us a long, healthy life, but the reality is that there is another factor in the health equation: genetic inheritance. B You only have to look at the similarities between members of your own family to see that many physical characteristics are inherited by children from parents and grandparents. A son may have his mothers nose; a granddaughter may have her grandfathers eyes. But it is not just physical characteristics like hair or eye colour that are passed down from one generation to the next. It is also our general health.
Mendelian genetic inheritance chart.

C It has been known for a long time that diseases like heart disease, diabetes and thalassemia can be caused by a defective or damaged gene which is passed down in the family. Scientists are now discovering that many other diseases also have family roots. These include high blood pressure, allergies and even depression and mental illness. D Of course, genes are not the only cause of disease. Environment and lifestyle also play an important role. For example, a woman with a family history of lung cancer that lives in a polluted city may have an even greater chance of developing the disease because of where she lives. If she lived in a city where the air was cleaner, she would lower her risk. Similarly, someone with a strong history of family diabetes can lower the probability of getting the disease by having a very healthy lifestyle. In these situations, it is a combination of both genes and environment which leads to disease. It is important to understand, therefore, that most of us inherit a tendency rather than a Model of DNA. definite disease. This is known as genetic predisposition. A man who has a history of heart disease in his family will not definitely suffer a heart attack, but he is more likely to have one than a person without this genetic factor. In other words, his or her genetic predisposition to heart attack is greater. Knowledge about genetic predisposition is helping doctors find the causes of many common diseases as well as to recommend ways to stop them occurring. The good news here is that if you know you are genetically predisposed to a certain illness, you can change your lifestyle to cut down the risk of getting it. F Many of the links between genes and diseases have been discovered through the Human Genome Project. In this project, an international team of scientists set out to investigate all the information which is stored in human genes and the diseases they may cause. This vast investigation was completed in the year 2003, and produced the genome record, a kind of handbook of human E

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam

Extensive life. It contained a description of every single one of our 25,000 genes of more than 3 billion chemical base pairs that make them up. It was an enormous project it has brought even more enormous benefit. Just in terms of money, for example, it cost $3.8 billion dollars, but, according to the Batelle Report*, has created $796 billion worth of business and jobs. G The main benefit, however, has been in terms of health. Finding the genes which lead to specific diseases is revolutionizing modern medicine. Doctors can print out a babys genetic code on a computer as soon as it is born or even before birth. This precious information is called our genetic blueprint. It shows many the diseases which might affect the baby in later life and can even say what that person will probably die of and when. H Similarly for adults, a range of genetic tests can now tell us our chances of getting certain diseases. This information enables doctors and their patients to take more appropriate action. Such action might be simple; for example, checking regularly for early signs of a particular type of cancer so that, if it appears, treatment can be given quickly, before it spreads . Or it might be in terms of changing diet, eating less red meat, for example, in order to reduce the chances of a heart attack. Or, increasingly, the action taken might be one of the newer, more complicated treatments. Doctors are now giving drugs which are specifically designed for people with particular genes. Doctors are even developing methods of gene replacement: replacing faulty genes with healthy ones. I Finally, let us not forget the example we began with: those lucky people who, despite smoking and eating fatty food, enjoy good health even into their 90s. Apparently, we do not just inherit faulty genes. The Human Genome project has revealed that we can also get protective genes from our parents and grandparents and these defend us against many diseases, even, in some cases, the common cold.

*http://www.battelle.org/publications/humangenomeproject.pdf Words: 842 Readability score: 10.7

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Preview Reading for L3 Final Exam