Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions .
One of the factors contributing to the intense nature of twenty-first-century stress is our continual exposure to media – particularly to an overabundance of news. If you feel stressed out by the news, you are far from alone. Yet somehow many of us seem unable to prevent ourselves from tuning in to an extreme degree.
The further back we go in human history, the longer news took to travel from place to place, and the less news we had of distant people and lands altogether. The printing press obviously changed all that, as did every subsequent development in transportation and telecommunication.
When television came along, it proliferated like a population of rabbits. In 1950, there were 100,000 television sets in North American homes; one year later there were more than a million. Today, it’s not unusual for a home to have three or more television sets, each with cable access to perhaps over a hundred channels. News is the subject of many of those channels, and on several of them it runs 24 hours a day.
What’s more, after the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, live newscasts were paired with perennial text crawls across the bottom of the screen – so that viewers could stay abreast of every story all the time.
Needless to say, the news that is reported to us is not good news, but rather disturbing images and sound bytes alluding to disaster (natural and man-made), upheaval, crime, scandal, war, and the like. Compounding the problem is that when actual breaking news is scarce, most broadcasts fill in with scare stories about things that possibly might threaten our health, safety, finances, relationships, waistline, hairline, or very existence in the future. This variety of story tends to treat with equal alarm a potentially lethal flu outbreak and the bogus claims of a wrinkle cream that overpromises smooth skin.
Are humans meant to be able to process so much trauma – not to mention so much overblown anticipation of potential trauma – at once? The human brain, remember, is programmed to slip into alarm mode when danger looms. Danger looms for someone, somewhere at every moment. Exposing ourselves to such input without respite and without perspective cannot be anything other than a source of chronic stress.
(Extracted from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beating Stress by Arlene Matthews Uhl - Penguin Group 2006)
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase for each of the blanks from 21 to 30.
The popular image of student life is of young people with few responsibilities enjoying themselves and (21)______ very little work. This is often not true. Many older people now study at college or university, sometimes (22)______ a part-time basis while having a job and looking after a family. These students are often (23)______ motivated and work very hard.
Younger students are often thought to be lazy and careless about money but this (24)______ is changing. In Britain reduced government support for higher education means that students can no longer rely on having their expenses (25)______ for them. Formerly, students received a grant towards their living expenses. Now most can only get a loan (26)______ has to be paid back. Since 1999 they have paid over £1 000 towards tuition (27)______ and this amount will increase up to a maximum of £3 000. In the US students already (28)______ pay for tuition and room and board. Many get a financial aid package which may (29)______ grants, scholarships and loans. The fear of having large debts places (30)______ pressure on students and many take part-time jobs during the term and work full-time in the vacations.
(Extracted from Oxford Guide to British and American Culture – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Compass)
Read the following passage on climate change, and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions .
Experts in climatology and other scientists are becoming extremely concerned about the changes to our climate which are taking place. Admittedly, climate changes have occurred on our planet before. For example, there have been several ice ages or glacial periods.
These climatic changes, however, were different from the modern ones in that they occurred gradually and, as far as we know, naturally. The changes currently being monitored are said to be the result not of natural causes, but of human activity. Furthermore, the rate of change is becoming alarmingly rapid.
The major problem is that the planet appears to be warming up. According to some experts, this warming process, known as global warming, is occurring at a rate unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. The implications for the planet are very serious. Rising global temperatures could give rise to such ecological disasters as extremely high increases in the incidence of flooding and of droughts. These in turn could have a harmful effect on agriculture.
It is thought that this unusual warming of the Earth has been caused by so-called greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, being emitted into the atmosphere by car engines and modern industrial processes, for example. Such gases not only add to the pollution of the atmosphere, but also create a greenhouse effect, by which the heat of the sun is trapped. This leads to the warming up of the planet.
Politicians are also concerned about climate change and there are now regular summits on the subject, attended by representatives from around 180 of the world's industrialized countries. Of these summits, the most important took place in Kyoto in Japan in 1997. There it was agreed that the most industrialized countries would try to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions and were given targets for this reduction of emissions.
It was also suggested that more forests should be planted to create so-called sinks to absorb greenhouse gases. At least part of the problem of rapid climate change has been caused by too drastic deforestation.
Sadly, the targets are not being met. Even more sadly, global warnings about climate changes are often still being regarded as scaremongering.
(From Read and Understand 2 by Betty Kirkpatrick & Rebecca Mok - Learners Publishing Pte Ltd 2005)