READING PASSAGE 1
American Black Bear
{A} Not all black bears are black – their fur can range in color from pure white to a cinnamon color to very dark brown or black. Most populations have a mixture of these colors, including the pure white form which is found in some individuals in the island archipelago in southern British Columbia (Kermodi Island). This white-black bear, which is called spirit bears, revered by Native Americans, is caused by inheriting a recessive gene for coat color from both the mother and the father who could, themselves, both be black. A genetic reason results in the light grey coat color called the “blue” or glacier bear in southeastern Alaska. Regardless of these genetic variants, most of the bears in any region are black in color. Some bears have a white patch on their chests. They have a short, inconspicuous tail, longish ears, a relatively straight profile from nose to forehead, and small, dark eyes.
{B} Black bears have relatively short claws which enable them to climb trees. Unlike cats, the claws are non-retractable. Other than color, how do black bears differ from grizzly bears? Black bears have longer and less rounded ears and a more straight profile from forehead to nose compared to grizzly bears. Grizzlies have larger shoulder humps and a more dished-in facial profile and much longer front claws that are evident in the tracks. Black bears and grizzly bears can both have a wide variety of colors and sizes, but most commonly in areas where both species occur, black bears are smaller and darker than grizzly bears. Size: Black bears in some areas where food is scarce are much smaller than in other areas where food is abundant. Typically, adults are approximately 3 feet tall at the shoulder, and their length from nose to tail is about 75 inches. All bears, including black bears, are sexually dimorphic — meaning adult males are much larger than adult females. A large male black bear can exceed 600 lbs. in weight while females seldom exceed 200 lbs.
{C} American black bears are omnivorous, meaning they will eat a variety of things, including both plants and meat. Their diet includes roots, berries, meat, fish, insects, larvae, grass and other succulent plants. They are able to kill adult deer and other hoofed wildlife but most commonly are only able to kill deer, elk, moose and other hoofed animals when these are very young. They are able to kill livestock, especially sheep. Bears are very attracted to human garbage, livestock food or pet food, or other human-associated foods including fruit trees. Bears using these human-associated foods can quickly become habituated to them and this commonly results in the bears being killed as nuisances. This is true for bee hives as well as bears are very attracted to honey.
{D} Black bears can live up to 30 years in the wild but most die before they are in their early 20s. Because of their versatile diet, black bears can live in a variety of habitat types. They inhabit both coniferous and deciduous forests as well as open alpine habitats. They typically do not occur on the Great Plains or other wide-open areas except along river courses where there is riparian vegetation and trees. They can live just about anywhere they can find food, but largely occur where there are trees. The American black bear’s range covers most of the North American continent. They are found in Alaska, much of Canada and the United States, and extend as far south as northern Mexico.
{E} Black bears are typically solitary creatures except for family (a female with cubs) groups and during mating season, which peaks in May and June. Following fertilization, the embryo doesn’t implant in the uterus until fall at the time of den entrance. This process of delayed implantation occurs in all bear species and allows the female bear’s body to physiologically “assess” her condition before implantation occurs and the period of gestation leading to the birth of cubs really begins. Delayed implantation allows the female to not waste fat reserves and energy in sustaining a pregnancy that would have little chance of success because her condition is too poor. Females give birth to cubs every other year if food sources are sufficiently plentiful. In years when food supplies are scarce a female may skip an additional year or two between litters. The cubs are born in the mother’s winter den, and will den with her again the following winter. The following spring when the cubs are 1.5 years old, the cubs and female will separate and the female will breed again. A black bear litter can be 1-5 cubs but most commonly litters are 2 cubs.
{F} Conservation efforts for black bears have been effective and in most areas, black bears are increasing and can sustain managed sport hunting. In areas with human populations, this can cause conflicts because bears are very attracted to human foods and refuse as well as to livestock and livestock foods. Since bears are large and strong animals, many people fear them and resent the damage they can cause. The key to successful coexistence between humans and bears is to recognize that it is no longer possible for either species to occupy all habitats but that where co-occupancy is possible and desirable, humans must be responsible for the welfare of the bear population. Wild areas with little human footprint will remain the most important habitat for bears but peaceful co-existence can occur in the urban-wildland interface as long as humans take the necessary steps to assure that the relationship remains a positive one.
{G} The American black bear is not currently a species of conservation concern and even the formerly listed black bear of Florida and Louisiana is now increasing. Habitats in western Texas from which black bears were extirpated are now being re-colonized.
Questions 1-7
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.
(1) Variety of eating habit
(2) Confliction between bear and human
(3) Size of black bears
(4) Different territorial range
(5)Compare two kinds of bear
(6) Explanation of fur color variation
(7) Typical reproduction and breed habit
Questions 8-13
Filling the blanks below Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
(8) American indigenous people name white fur bear as________________ .
(9) Male bears are larger than females, which is called ______________.
(10) Bear often died accidentally as human ___________ to humans because they relied on
(11) Black bear’s maximum age in the wild is________________
(12) ______________allows female bears to judge whether everything is ready for breeding.
(13) A significant way for humans to co-exist with bears is that we need__________ instead of occupying all habitats.
READING PASSAGE-2
Seed Hunting
A With a quarter of the world’s plants set to vanish within the next 50 years, Dough Alexander reports on the scientists working against the clock to preserve the Earth’s botanical heritage. They travel the four comers of the globe, scouring jungles, forests, and savannas. But they’re not looking for ancient artifacts, lost treasure, or undiscovered tombs. Just pods. It may lack the romantic allure of archaeology or the whiff of danger that accompanies going after a big game, but seed hunting is an increasingly serious business. Some seek seeds for profit—hunters in the employ of biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical companies, and private corporations on the lookout for species that will yield the drugs or crops of the future. Others collect to conserve, working to halt the sad slide into extinction, facing so many plant species.
B Among the pioneers of this botanical treasure hunt was John Trade scant, an English royal gardener who brought back plants and seeds from his journeys abroad in the early 1600s. Later, the English botanist Sir Joseph Banks who was the first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and traveled with Captain James Cook on his voyages near the end of the 18th century—was so driven to expand his collections that he sent botanists around the world at his own expense.
C Those heady days of exploration and discovery may be over, but they have been replaced by a pressing need to preserve our natural history for the future. This modem mission drives hunters such as Dr. Michael van Slageren, a good-natured Dutchman who often sports a wide-brimmed hat in the field—he could easily be mistaken for the cinematic hero Indiana Jones. He and three other seed hunters work at the Millennium Seed Bank, an 80 million [pounds sterling] international conservation project that aims to protect the world’s most endangered wild plant species.
D The group’s headquarters are in a modem glass-and-concrete structure on a 200-hectare Estate at Wakehurst Place in the West Sussex countryside. Within its underground vaults are 260 million dried seeds from 122 countries, all stored at -20 Celsius to survive for centuries. Among the 5100 species represented are virtually all of Britain’s 1,400 native seed-bearing plants, the most complete such collection of any country’s flora.
E Overseen by the Royal botanic gardens, the Millennium Seed Bank is the world’s largest wild-plant depository. It aims to collect 24,000 species by 2010. The reason is simple: thanks to humanity’s efforts, an estimated 25 percent of the world’s plants are on the verge of extinction and may vanish within 50 years. We’re currently responsible for habitat destruction on an unprecedented scale, and during the past 400 years, plant species extinction rates have been about 70 times greater than those indicated by the geological record as being ’normal’. Experts predict that during the next 50 years, further one billion hectares of wilderness will be converted to farmland in developing countries alone.
F The implications of this loss are enormous. Besides providing staple food crops, plants are sources of many machines and the principal supply of fuel and building materials in many parts of the world. They also protect soil and help regulate the climate. Yet, across the globe, plant species are being driven to extinction before their potential benefits are discovered.
G The World Conservation Union has listed 5,714 threatened species is sure to be much higher. In the UK alone, 300 wild plant species are classified as endangered. The Millennium Seed Bank aims to ensure that even if a plant becomes extinct in the wild and it won’t be lost forever.
H Stored seeds can be used to help restore damaged or destroyed environment or in scientific research to find new benefits for society- in medicine, agriculture, or local industry- that would otherwise be lost.
I Seed banks are an insurance policy to protect the world’s plant heritage for the future, explains Dr. Paul Smith, another Kew seed hunter. “Seed conservation techniques were originally developed by farmers,” he says. “Storage is the basis what we do, conserving seeds until you can use them just as in farming,” Smith says there’s no reason why any plant species should become extinct, given today’s technology. But he admits that the biggest challenge is finding, naming and categorizing all the world’s plants. And someone has to gather these seeds before it’s too late. “There aren’t a lot of people out there doing this,” he says” The key is to know the flora from a particular area, and that knowledge takes years to acquire.”
J There are about 1,470 seedbanks scattered around the globe, with a combined total of 5.4 million samples, of which perhaps two million are distinct non-duplicates. Most preserve genetic material for agriculture use in order to ensure crop diversity; others aim to conserve wild species, although only 15 percent of all banked plants are wild.
K Imperial College, London, examined crop collections from 151 countries and found that while the number of plant samples had increased in two-thirds of the countries, the budget had been cut in a quarter and remained static in another 35 percent. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has since set up the Global Conservation Trust, which aims to raise the US $260 million to protect seed banks in perpetuity.
Questions 14-19
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage -
TRUE - if the statement is true,
FALSE - if the statement is false,
NOT GIVEN - if the information is not given in the passage
14. The purpose of collecting seeds now is different from the past
15. The millennium seed bank is the earliest seed bank.
16.One of the major threats for plant species extinction is farmland expansion into wildness.
17. The approach that scientists apply to store seeds is similar to that used by farmers.
18. Technological development is the only hope to save plant species.
19.The works of seed conservation are often limited by financial problems.
Questions 20-24
Complete the following summary of the paragraph of the passage.
Some people collect seeds for the purpose of protecting certain species from 20 …………..; others collect seeds for their ability to produce 21 ………… They are called seed hunters. The 22. ………….. of them included both gardeners and botanists, such as 23. ……………..., who financially supported collectors out of his own pocket. The seeds collected are usually stored in seed banks, one of which is the famous millennium seed bank, where seeds are all stored in the 24. …………….. at a low temperature.
Questions 25-26
Choose the correct letter, A-E.
Write your answers in boxes 25,26 on your answer sheet.
Which two of the following are provided by plants to the human?
A Food
B Fuels
C Clothes
D Energy
E Commercial products
READING PASSAGE-3
What are you laughing at?
A We like to think that laughing is the height of human sophistication. Our big brains let us see the humour in a strategically positioned pun, an unexpected plot twist or a clever piece of word play. But while joking and wit are uniquely human inventions, laughter certainly is not. Other creatures, including chimpanzees, gorillas and even rats, chuckle. Obviously, they don’t crack up at Homer Simpson or titter at the boss’s dreadful jokes, but the fact that they laugh in the first place suggests that sniggers and chortles have been around for a lot longer than we have. It points the way to the origins 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 when we are alone,’ says Robert Provide, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland. Provine found that most laughter comes as a polite reaction to everyday remarks such as ’see you later’, rather than anything particularly funny. And the way we laugh depends on the company we’re keeping. Men tend to laugh longer and harder when they are with other men, perhaps as a way of bonding. Women tend to laugh more and at a higher pitch when men are present, possibly indicating flirtation or even submission.
C To find the origins of laughter, Provine believes we need to look at play. He points out that the masters of laughing are children, and nowhere is their talent more obvious than in the boisterous antics, and the original context is play,’ he say. Well-known primate watchers, including Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, have long argued that chimps laugh while at play. The sound they produce is known as a pant laugh. It seems obvious when you watch their behavior-they even have the same ticklish spots as we do. But remove the context, and the parallel between human laughter and a chimp’s characteristic pant laugh is not so clear. When Provine played 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. When we laugh the sound is usually produced by chopping up a single exhalation into a series of shorter with one sound produced on each inward and outward breath. The question is: does this pant laughter have the same source as our own laughter? New research lends weight to the idea that it does. The findings come from Elke Zimmerman, head of the Institute for Zoology in Germany, who compared the sounds made by babies and chimpanzees in response to tickling during the first year of their life. Using sound spectrographs to reveal the pitch and intensity of vocalizations, she discovered that chimp and human baby laughter follow broadly the same pattern. Zimmerman believes the closeness of baby laughter to chimp laughter supports the idea that laughter was around long before humans arrived on the scene. What started simply as a modification of breathing associated with enjoyable and playful interactions 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 anecdotal evidence suggests that other social mammals nay do too. Scientists are currently testing such stories with a comparative analysis of just how common laughter is among animals. So far, though, the most compelling evidence for laughter beyond primates comes from research done by Jaak Panksepp from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, into the ultrasonic chirps produced by rats during play and in response to tickling.
F All this still doesn’t answer the question of why we laugh at all. One idea is that laughter and tickling originated as a way of sealing the relationship between mother and child. Another is that the reflex 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 combat. But the idea that has gained most popularity in recent years is that laughter in response to tickling is a way for two individuals to signal and test their trust in one another. This hypothesis starts from the observation that although a little tickle can be enjoyable, if it goes on too long it can be torture. By engaging in a bout of tickling, we put ourselves at the mercy of another individual, and laughing is a signal that we laughter is what makes it a reliable signal of trust according to Tom Flams on, a laughter researcher at the University of California, Los Angels. ’ Even in rats, laughter, tickle, play and trust are linked. Rats chirp a lot when they play, ’says Flam son. ’These chirps can be aroused by tickling. And they get bonded to us as a result, which certainly seems like a show of trust.’
G We’ll never know which animal laughed the first laugh, or why. But we can be sure it a wasn’t in response to a prehistoric joke. The funny thing is that while the origins of laughter are probably quite serious, we owe human laughter and our language-based humor to the same unique skill. While other animals pant, we alone can control our breath well enough to produce the sound of laughter. Without that control there would also be no speech-and no jokes to endure.
Questions 27-32
Look at the following research findings (questions 1-6) and the list 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 answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A Tom Flams on
B Elke Zimmerman
C Robert Provine
D Jaak Panksepp
27. Babies and chimps produce similar sounds of laughter .
28. Primates are not the only animals who produce laughter Pan
29. Laughter also suggests that we trust others.
30.Laughter is a response to polite situation instead of humour.
31. Animal laughter evolved before human laughter
32. Laughter is a social activity.
Questions 33-36
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 33 ………………………. . Investigation has revealed that human and chimp laughter may have the same 34………………………. . Besides, scientists have been aware that 35 ………………………. laugh, however, it now seems that laughter might be more widespread than once we thought. Although the reasons why humans started to laugh are still unknown, it seems that laughter may result from the 36 ………………………. 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 37-39
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 37-39 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
37. Both men and women laugh more when they are with members of the same sex.
38.Primates lack sufficient breath control to be able to produce laughs the way humans do.
39. Chimpanzees produce laughter in a wider range of situations than rats do.