Mr. ZenicNguyen CONTENT MENTAL GYMNASTICS... Food of thought World Ecotourism in the developing countries. Museum Blockbuster... Keep a watchful eye on the bridges Knowledge in medicine... Spider Silk... The Adolescents ... Coral reefs ... Griffith and American films... Water Filter... Memory Decoding Smell and Memory Language Strategy in Multinational Mass Production... The dugong: sea cow Tea and Industrial Mr. ZenicNguyen Www facebook.com/IELTSstepbystepMr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep MENTAL GYMNASTICS A. — The working day has just started at the head office of Barclays Bank in London. Seventeen staff are helping themselves to a buffet breakfast as young psychologist Sebastian Bailey enters the room to begin the morning's training session. But this is no ordinary training session. He’s not here to sharpen their finance or management skills. He’s here to exercise their brains. B. Today's workout, organized by a company called the Min in London, entitled “having presence”. What follows is an intense 90-mint mn in which this rather abstract concept is gradually broken down into iva t of feelings, mental tricks and behaviors. At one point the bankers apesinStgucted to shut their eyes and visualize themselves filling the room and then the 1g. They finish up by walking around the room acting out various levels of preséfce, from low-key to over the (op. a C. It’s easy to poke fun. Yet similar vorRouts are happening in corporate seminar rooms around the globe. The Sev alone offers some 70 different sessions, including ones on mental siarafna, creativity for logical thinkers and “zoom learning”. Other outfits draw, nore directly on the exercise analogy, offering “neurotics” courses with ed ain sets” and “cerebral fitness”. Then there are books with titles like Pum , full of brainteasers that claim to “flex your mind”, and software packages‘offétihg memory and spatial-awareness games. D. _D But whateyer the , the companies’ sales pitch is invariably the same - follow our routives ‘ape and sculpt your brain or mind, just as you might |, of course, they nearly all claim that their mental E. ne outfit Brainergy of Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: “Because r matters”) puts it like this: “Studies have shown that mental exercise in brain anatomy and brain chemistry which promote increased mentalefficientcy and clarity. The neuroscience is cutting-edge.” And on its website, sinc irades on a quote from Susan Greenfield, one of Britain's best known neuros ntists: “It’s a bit like going to the gym, if you exercise your brain it will grow. F. _ Indeed, the Mind Gym originally planned to hold its sessions in a local health club, until its founders realized where the real money was to be made. Modem companies need flexible, bright thinkers and will seize on anything that claims to create them, especially if it looks like a quick fix backed by science. But are neurotic workouts really backed by science? And do we need them? Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 www facebook.corMr. ZenicNguyen G. _ Noris there anything remotely high-tech about what Lawrence Katz, co- author of Keep Your Brain Alive, recommends. Katz, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical School in North Carolina, argues that just as many of us fail to get enough physical exercise, so we also lack sufficient mental stimulation to keep our brain in trim. Sure we are busy with jobs, family and housework. But most of this activity is repetitive routine. And any leisure time is spent slumped in front of the TV. H. — So, read a book upside down. Write or brush your teeth with your song hand. Feel your way around the room with your eyes shut. Sniff vanilla ess listening intently to orchestral music. Anything, says Katz, to pean mental routine. It will help invigorate your brain, encouraging NS connections and pump out neurotrophins, substances that “oy sie brain circuits. I. Well, up to a point it will. “What I'm rea wm about is brain maintenance rather than bulking up your IQ,” Katz adds ANeurotics, in other words, is about letting your brain fulfill its potential. It super-brains. Can it achieve even that much, though? Certainly the brai ona that can adapt to the demands placed on it. Tests on animal brainwtisstte, for example, have repeatedly shown that electrically stimulating the synay it connect nerve cells thought to be crucial to learning and reasoning, mak ‘tronger and more responsive. Brain scans suggest we use a lot more of rn fer when carrying out new or strange tasks than when we're doing w ed ones. Rats raised in bright cages with toys sprout more neural oh than rats raised in bare cages - suggesting perhaps that novelty at could be crucial to a developing brain. Katz, And neurologists have proved time)and again that people who lose brain cells suddenly during a stroke rout ‘ton, an educational psychologist at the University of Bristol, the neurological approaches as “neuron-babble”. Nevertheless, 1 fic mental skills we can loam, he contends. Desirable attributes such as ch iental flexibility, and even motivation, are not the fixed faculties that most of us tik. They are thought habits that can be learned. The problem, says Claxton, is that most of us never get proper training in these skills. We develop our own private set of mental strategies for tackling tasks and never learn anything explicitly. Worse still, because any learned skill - even driving a car or brushing our teeth- quickly sinks out of consciousness, we can no longer see the very thought habits we're relying upon. Our mental tools become invisible to us. K. — Claxton is the academic adviser to the Mind Gym. So not surprisingly, th Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www facebook.com/IELTSstepbystepMr. ZenicNguyen the company espouses his solution - that we must return our thought patterns to a conscious level, becoming aware of the details of how we usually think. Only then can we start to practise better thought patterns, until eventually these become our new habits. Switching metaphors, picture not gym classes, but tennis or football coaching. L. _Inpractice, the training can seem quite mundane. For example, in one of the eight different creativity workouts offered by the Mind Gym - entitled “creativity for logical thinkers” one of the mental strategies taught is to make a sensible suggestion, then immediately pose its opposite. So, asked to spend five tes inventing a new pizza, a group soon comes up with no topping, sweet cold topping, price based on time of day, flat-rate prices and so on. Q M. Bailey agrees that the trick is simple. But it is surp jw few such tricks people have to call upon when they are suddenly asked t reative: “They tend to just label themselves as uncreative, not realizing that thefe are techniques that every creative person employs.” Bailey says the aim is tsintroduce people to half a dozen or so such strategies in a session so that irst seems like a dauntingly abstract mental task becomes a set of concrete, ianigphatnes He admits this is not a short cut to genius. Neurologically, some,people do start with quicker circuits or greater handling capacity. However, with tli it kind of training he thinks we can dramatically increase how efficiently (Pj! N. It is hard to prove ~~ ining itself is effective. How do you measure a change in an emplo tivity levels, or memory skills? But staff certainly report feeling t cA have opened their eyes. So, neurological ing? At the moment you can pay your money and take your choice. Claxt eves there is no reason why schools and universities shouldn’t spend shotime Yeaching basic thinking skills, rather than trying to stuff heads with facts and hoping that effective thought habits are somehow absorbed by osmosis. S Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www facebook.com/IELTSstepbystepMr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep Questions 1 - 5 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage In boxes 1 - 5 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agree with the views of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the view of the writer NOT GIVEN __ifit is impossible to say what the writer thinks 1 Mind Gym coach instructed employees to imagine we are” the building. 2 Mind Gym uses the similar marketing theory that yr I round Susan Greenfield is the founder of Mind Gym. 3 4 All business and industries are nef session globally. 5 According to Mind Gym, extensive st ic background supports their mental training sessions. roll “Y Mr. ZenicNguyen Telt 0942. 96.7778Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep Questions 6 - 13 Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A - D) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters, A - D, in boxes 6 - 13 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once A Guy Claxton B Sebastian Bailey 0 C Susan Greenfild Pe D Lawrence Katz 6 We do not have enough inspiration to keep our brain, fit” 7 The more you exercise your brain like Ne e gym, the more brain will grow. 8 Exercise can keep your brain health ins ND icing someone's IQ. 9 It is valuable for schools to te; On about creative skills besides basic known knowledge. 10 We can develop “> pe Can ‘tions when we lose old connections via certain treatment. 11 People usu 2 elves as not creative before figuring out there are approaches for eat Mr. ZenicNguyen Telt 0942. 96.7778Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96. 7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep KEY 1NO 2 YES 3NO 4NO 5 NOT GIVEN re © 7C 8D 9A 10D \ 11B oO 12B 4 13 &Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep Food of thought A. THERE are not enough classrooms at the Msekeni primary school, so half the lessons take place in the shade of yellow-blossomed acacia trees. Given this shortage, it might seem odd that one of the school’s purpose-built classrooms has been emptied of pupils and turned into a storeroom for sacks of grain. But it makes sense. Food matters more than shelter. B. — Msekeni is in one of the poorer parts of Malawi, a landlocke: ern African country of exceptional beauty and great poverty. No war lays v wi, nor is the land unusually crowded or infertile, but Malawians i as) trouble finding enough to eat. Half of the children under five are undey the point of stunting. Hunger blights most aspects of Malawian life, so the ey is as good a place as any to investigate how nutrition affects developme: vice versa. C. The headmaster at Msekeni, Bernard Kuma s strong views on the subject. He thinks food is a priceless teaching@aid®Since \1999, his pupils have received free school lunches. Donors such as the Food Programme (WFP) provide the food: those sacks of grain (mostly fixed maize and soyabean flour, enriched with vitamin A) in that convert ssroom. Local volunteers do the cooking - turning the dry ingredients ne} ut nutritious slop, and spooning it out on to plastic plates. The childr ip if large crowds, cheerfully singing a song called “We are getting porri D. When the school’s ing programme was introduced, enrolment at Msekeni doubled. Somefof. ew pupils had switched from nearby schools that did not give out free porridge, but most were children whose families had previously kept them at home t These families were so poor that the long-term benefits of education seemed unaftfactive when set against the short-term gain of sending When a school takes in a horde of extra students from the poorest homes, you would expect standards to drop. Anywhere in the world, poor kids tend to perform worse than their better-off classmates. When the influx of new pupils is not accompanied by any increase in the number of teachers, as was the case at Msekeni, you would expect standards to fall even further. But they have not. Pass rates at Msekeni improved dramatically, from 30% to 85%. Although this was an exceptional example, the nationwide results of school feeding programmes were still pretty good. Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 www facebook.corMr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep On average, after a Malawian school started handing out free food it attracted 38% more girls and 24% more boys. The pass rate for boys stayed about the same, while for girls it improved by 9.5%. F. __ Better nutrition makes for brighter children. Most immediately, well-fed children find it easier to concentrate. It is hard to focus the mind on long division when your stomach is screaming for food. Mr. Kumanda says that it used to be easy to spot the kids who were really undernourished. “They were the ones who stared into space and didn’t respond when you asked them questions,” he says. More ly, though, more and better food helps brains grow and develop. Like ry in in the body, the brain needs nutrition and exercise. But if it is a calories, proteins and micronutrients, it is stunted, perhaps not as sever€ly/as a Gekn would be, but stunted nonetheless. That is why feeding ce works so well. And the fact that the effect of feeding was more pronoufced on girls than on boys gives a clue to who eats first in rural Malawian ho s. It isn't the girls G. Ona global scale, the good news i me are eating better than ever before. Homo sapiens has grown 50% i e the industrial revolution. Three centuries ago, chronic malnutrition e or less universal. Now, it is extremely rare in rich countries. In developing ountries, where most people live, plates and rice bowls are also fuller rs ue ous The proportion of children under five in the developing wo GS ab jourished to the point of stunting fell from 39% in 1990 to 30% in 201 the World Health Organization (WHO). In other places, the battle against ray is steadily being won. Better nutrition is making people clever ‘ore energetic, which will help them grow more prosperous. And whén they eyentually join the ranks of the well off, they can start fretting about growingtoo fat. Y S Mr. ZenicNguyen Telt 0942. 96.7778Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep Questions 1 - 7 The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A - G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A - G from the list below. Write the correct number, i - xi, in boxes 1 - 7 on your answer sheet. List of Headings Why better food helps students’ learning ii A song for getting porridge iii Surprising use of school premises iv Global perspective v Brains can be starved vi Surprising academics outcome vii Girls are specially treated in th viii How food program is oper ix How food program aff ol attendance x None of the usual xi Howto roe standard Paragraph Pari Cc ray aragraph ph E Phragraph F S Paragraph G ome wwe Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 601 www.fa TSsteyMr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www Saccbook.com/IELTSstepbystep Questions 8 - 11 Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage. Write your answer in boxes 8 - 11 on your answer sheet. 8 are exclusively offered to girls in the feeding programme. 9 Instead of going to school, many children in poverty are sent toseollect in the fields. 10 The pass rate at Msekeni has risen to RE! ‘the feeding programme. 11 Since the industrial revolution, the size of the notin has grown by Questions 12 - 13 Choose TWO letters, A - F. oO Write your answers in boxes 12 and 13,omy6ur answer sheet. Which TWO of the following stat re true? A Some children are taug Gas air B Malawihave wee its large population. C No new staffs'were recfitited when attendance rose. D__ Girls enjéy ¥figher status than boys in the family. E__ BoyS andigirls experience the same improvement in the pass rate. F ho has cooperated with WEP to provide grain to the school at Msekeni. S Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 k.com/IELTSstey www.faMr. ZenicNguyen KEY iii 1 2 3 vill 4 ix 5 vi 7 R 7 Wv XS 8 extra snacks S 9 firewood 10 85% 11 50% 2 A 13° =«C KDMr. ZenicNguyen World Ecotourism in the developing countries A. — The Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as “a responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people”. It is recognized as being particularly conducive to enriching and enhancing the standing of tourism, on the basis that this form of tourism respects the natural heritage and local populations and are in keeping with the carrying capacity of the sites. Cuba B. — Cuba is undoubtedly an obvious site for ecotourism, ase turesque beaches, underwater beauty, countryside landscapes, and ecologi€al reserves. An educated population and improved infrastructure of roads and énifunications adds to the mix. In the Caribbean region, Cuba is now the d most popular tourist destination. Ecotourism is also seen as an envii il education opportunity to heighten both visitors’ and residents’ anrenes ONgeon ental and conservation issues, and even to inspire conservation action. B€otourism has also been credited with promoting peace, by providing oppdrtuRities for educational and cultural exchange. Tourists’ safety and health a ranteed Raul Castro, brother of the Cuban president, started this initi Can ‘ue the Cuban tradition of herbal medicine and provide natural mp its healthcare system. The school at Las Terrazas Eco-Tourism Communit ches herbal healthcare and children learn not )s, but also to grow them in the school garden for teas, . In Cuba, ecotourism has the potential to alleviate into the economy and creating jobs. In addition to the these efforts, the area works on developing community ingof ecotourism. Histoplasma capsulatum (see chapter “Histoplasmosis ”), a dimorphic fungus, is the most common endemic mycosis in the United States, (12) and is associated with exposure to bat or bird droppings. Most recently, outbreaks have been reported in healthy travelers who returned from Central and South America after engaging in recreational activities associated with spelunking, adventure tourism, and ecotourism. It is quite often to see tourists neglected sanitation while travelling, After engaging in high-risk activities, boots should be hosed off and clothing placed in airtight plastic bags for laundering. HIV-infected 13 Mr. ZenicNguyen Tel: 0942. 96.7778 Www facebook.com/IELTSstepbystep