Cambridge English: Advanced Test 1 Paper 1 (Reading and Use of English)

Taking photographs ruins the memory, research finds

Our obsession with recording every detail of our happiest moments could be 0 C our ability to remember them, according to new research.

Dr Linda Henkel, from Fairfield University, Connecticut, described this as the ‘photo-taking impairment effect’. She said, ‘People often whip out their cameras almost mindlessly to 1  a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening 2  in front of them. When people rely on technology to remember for them – 3   on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to 4  to it fully themselves – it can have a negative 5   on how well they remember their experiences.’

In Dr Henkel’s experiment, a group of university students were 6  on a tour of a museum and asked to either photograph or try to remember objects on display. The next day each student’s memory was tested. The results showed that people were less 7  in recognizing the objects they had photographed 8  with those they had only looked at.

1 A seize             B grasp               C capture         D snatch

2 A quite            B right                C merely           D barely

3 A counting     B settling           C assuming       D swearing

4 A engage        B apply              C attend             D dedicate

5 A result          B aspect             C extent             D impact

6 A steered       B run                  C led                   D conveyed

7 A accurate     B faithful           C exact               D factual

8 A measured  B compared      C matched        D confronted

On the hunt for the best young female entrepreneurs

Founded in 1972, the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award is celebrated in 27 countries. Veuve Clicquot has now introduced a new award 0 TO complement its Business Woman of the Year category. Called The New Generation Award, 9 recognizes the best young female talent across business and corporate life.

The first winner of the award, Kathryn Parsons. 10  innovative start-up company. Decoded, teaches people to code in a day, has joined the judging panel to help find this year’s winner. ‘The importance of these awards cannot 11  overestimated,’ she says. ‘Women need role models that prove to 12  that they can do it, too.’

The New Generation Award is open to entrepreneurial businesswomen 13  the ages of 25 and 35. They can run 14  own businesses or hail from corporate life. ‘This award isn’t about how much money you’ve made or how long you’ve been in business, it’s about recognizing young women 15  a mission and a vision,’ says Parsons. ‘We want to meet women who are working to 16 the world a better place.’

EXIT INTERVIEWS

If you are thinking of leaving your job, you may think that handing
in your letter of 0 RESIGNATION is the end of the matter. But an increasing  RESIGN
number of companies now conduct ‘exit interviews’ with staff.

For the employee, an exit interview may feel like an ideal opportunity
to rant and rave about every little 17 that has troubled them  ANNOY
since they got the job. But, 18 in mind that you will probably  BEAR
still need a 19 from these people, it is best to avoid getting  REFER
angry or 20 , and just answer the questions as calmly and   EMOTION
with as much 21 as possible.    HONEST

For employers, the exit interview is a rare opportunity to gather some
valuable information about the way staff perceive the company.
Existing employees may not wish to cause 22 to the boss or   OFFEND
damage their chances of promotion, so are unlikely to 23   CLOSE
their real feelings about the company. However, someone who has already
resigned is more likely to be 24 when giving their opinions.  TRUE

25 I’ve just noticed that the car has almost run out of petrol.
HARDLY
I’ve just noticed that left in the car.

26 I didn’t know that cars were so expensive in this country.
IDEA
I  so much in this country.

27 Don’t get depressed because of such a small problem.
LET
It’s such a small problem that you shouldn’t down.

28 It is reported that he is now recovering in hospital.
RECOVERY
He is reported  in hospital now.

29 Laura’s teacher says that she doesn’t have a serious enough attitude to her work.
SERIOUSLY
Laura doesn’t to her teacher.

30 What’s confusing you so much?
LOT
What is it that’s confusion?

31 The reviewer’s main topic in the first paragraph is  

A improvements in home decorating skills.
B how common it was for home decorating to be discussed.
C how unfair descriptions of home decorating used to be.
D a change in attitudes to home decorating.

32 In the second paragraph, the reviewer says that the book includes evidence illustrating  

A that some British people’s homes were transformed more than others.
B the widespread nature of changes that took place in British homes.
C the perceived disadvantages of certain developments in British homes.
D that the roles of certain people in British homes changed enormously.

33 In the third paragraph, the reviewer points to a change in 

A the extent to which different parts of the house are occupied.
B ideas of which parts of a house should be furnished in a formal way.
C how much time children spend in their own rooms.
D beliefs about what the most pleasant aspect of home life is.

34 The reviewer suggests in the fourth paragraph that 

A most unsuccessful inventions failed because they were dangerous.
B various unsuccessful inventions failed because they did not work properly.
C some unsuccessful inventions were not advertised appropriately.
D there were unsuccessful inventions which might have been good ideas.

35 In the fifth paragraph, the reviewer says that in his book, Highmore 

A sometimes focuses on strange ideas that were not very common in the past.
B occasionally applies the standards of today to practices in the past.
C occasionally expresses regret about how some attitudes have changed.
D sometimes includes topics that are not directly relevant to the main topic.

36 In the final paragraph , the reviewer suggests that Highmore may be wrong about 

A when certain modern attitudes to home life first developed.
B which changes in home life in Britain have been most widely welcomed.
C the extent to which home life in Britain has changed.
D how common terms such as airing cupboards’ are in modern Britain.

Which reviewer

has a different opinion from the others on the choice of companies to focus on in the series?  37

shares reviewer B’s opinion of the likelihood of viewers losing interest in the series after a while? 38

takes a different view from the others on the impression given in the series of what it is like to
be at the top of a large organization?  39

has a similar view to reviewer C on the questions asked in the interviews in the series?  40

The wind-lashed workers who battle the Atlantic in winter

Even at this stormy time of year in Britain, there are thousands of oil workers and fishermen offshore as well as a scattering of seafarers manning the container ships and tankers that bring us almost everything we need. So it was that in the depths of bitter winter, hoping to learn what modern sailors’ lives are like, I joined the Maersk Pembroke, a container freighter, on her regular run from Europe to Montreal. She looked so dreadful when I found her in Antwerp that I hoped I had the wrong ship.

41

Trade between Europe and North America is a footnote to the great west-east and north-south runs: companies leave it to older vessels. Pembroke is battered and rusty, reeking of diesel and fishy chemicals. She is noisy, her bridge and stairwells patrolled by whistling drafts which rise to howls at sea. Her paintwork is wretched. The Atlantic has stripped her bow back to a rusted steel snarl.

42

It felt like a desperate enterprise on a winter night, as the tide raced us down the Scheldt estuary and spat us out into the North Sea. According to the weather satellites, the Atlantic was storms from coast to coast, two systems meeting in the middle of our course. On the far side, ice awaited. We were behind schedule, the captain desperate for speed. ‘Six-metre waves are OK; many bigger you have to slow down or you kill your ship,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll be lucky!’

43

Soon enough, we were in the midst of those feared storms. A nightmare in darkness, a north Atlantic storm is like a wild dream by day, a region of racing elements and livid colour, bursting turquoise foam, violent sunlight, and darkening magenta waves. There is little you can do once committed except lash everything down and enjoy what sleep you can before it becomes impossible. Pembroke is more than 200m long and weighs more than 38,000 tons, but the swells threw her about like a tin toy.

44

When they hit squarely, the whole ship reared, groaning and staggering, shuddered by shocking force. We plunged and tottered for three days before there was a lull. But even then, an ordinary day involved unpleasant jobs in extreme conditions. I joined a welding party that descended to the hold: a dripping, tilting cathedral composed of vast tanks of toxins and organophosphates where a rusted hatch cover defied a cheap grinder blade in a fountain of sparks. As we continued west, the wind thickened with sleet, then snow as the next storm arrived.

45

All was well in that regard and, after the storms, we were relieved to enter the St Lawrence River. The ice was not thick enough to hinder us; we passed Quebec City in a glittering blue dawn and made Montreal after sunset, its downtown towers rising out of the tundra night. Huge trucks came for our containers.

46

But without them and their combined defiance of the elements there could be nothing like what we call ‘life’ at all. Seafarers are not sentimental, but some are quite romantic. They would like to think we thought of them, particularly when the forecast says storms at sea.

A Others felt the same. We were the only idiots out here, as several men remarked. We felt our isolation like vulnerability; proof that we had chosen obscure, quixotic lives.

B Going out on deck in such conditions tempted death. Nevertheless, the ships electrician climbed a ladder out there every four hours to check that the milk, cheese and well-travelled Argentine beef we carried were still frozen in refrigerated containers.

C But it does not take long to develop affection for a ship, even the Pembroke – the time it takes her to carry you beyond swimming distance from land, in fact. When I learnt what was waiting for us mid-ocean I became her ardent fan, despite all those deficiencies.

D There were Dutch bulbs, seaweed fertilizer from Tanzania, Iranian dates for Colombia, Sri Lankan tea bags, Polish glue, Hungarian tyres, Indian seeds, and much besides. The sailors are not told what they carry. They just keep the ships going.

E Hoping so, we slipped down-Channel in darkness, with the Dover coastguard wishing us, ‘Good watch, and a safe passage to your destination.’ The following evening we left the light of Bishop Rock on the Scilly Isles behind. ‘When we see that again we know we’re home,’ said the second mate.

F Huge black monsters marched at us out of the north west striped with white streaks of foam running out of the wind’s mouth. The ocean moved in all directions at once and the waves became enormous, charging giants of liquid emerald, each demanding its own reckoning.

G That feeling must have been obvious to the captain. ‘She’s been all over the world, proud Captain Koop, a grey-bristled Dutchman, as quick and confident as a Master Mariner must be, told me. ‘She was designed for the South Pacific,’ he said, wistfully.

In which section of the article are the following mentioned?

an example of a sign that has become simpler      47

the difference between how the deaf children communicate an image and how other people communicate the same image     48

the fact that the same signs can be used in the communication of a number of ideas   49

the characteristics of languages in general at different stages of their development  50

a belief that language is learnt by means of a specific part of the mind  51

an aspect of language learning that children are particularly good at  52

how regularly the children have been monitored   53

older children passing their sign language on to younger children  54

the reason why the children created a particular sign   55

opposing views on how people acquire language   56

DEAF CHILDREN’S AD HOC LANGUAGE EVOLVES AND INSTRUCTS

A  A deep insight into the way the brain learns language has emerged from the study of Nicaraguan sign language, invented by deaf children in a Nicaraguan school as a means of communicating among themselves. The Nicaraguan children are well-known to linguists because they provide an apparently unique example of people inventing a language from scratch. The phenomenon started at a school for special education founded in 1977. Instructors noticed that the deaf children, while absorbing little from their Spanish lessons, had developed a system of signs for talking to one another. As one generation of children taught the system to the next, it evolved from a set of gestures into a far more sophisticated form of communication, and todays 800 users of the language provide a living history of the stages of formation.

B  The children have been studied principally by Dr. Judy Kegi, a linguist at the University of Southern Maine, and Dr. Ann Senghas, a cognitive scientist at Columbia University in New York City. In the latest study, published in Science magazine, Dr. Senghas shows that the younger children have now decomposed certain gestures into smaller component signs. A hearing person asked to mime a standard story about a cat waddling down a street will make a single gesture, a downward spiral motion of the hand. But the deaf children have developed two different signs to use in its place. They sign a circle for the rolling motion and then a straight line for the direction of movement . This requires more signing, but the two signs can be used in combination with others to express different concepts. The development is of interest to linguists because it captures a principal quality of human language – discrete elements usable in different combinations – in contrast to the one sound, one meaning of animal communication. ‘The regularity she documents here – mapping discrete aspects of the world onto discrete word choices – is one of the most distinctive properties of human language,’ said Dr Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard University.

C  When people with no common language are thrown into contact, they often develop an ad hoc language known to linguists as a pidgin language, usually derived from one of the parent languages. Pidgins are rudimentary systems with minimal grammar and utterances. But in a generation or two, the pidgins acquire grammar and become upgraded to what linguists call creoles. Though many new languages have been created by the pidgin-creole route, the Nicaraguan situation is unique, Dr. Senghas said, because its starting point was not a complex language but ordinary gestures. From this raw material, the deaf children appear to be spontaneously fabricating the elements of language.

D Linguists have been engaged in a longstanding argument as to whether there is an innate specialized neural machinery for learning language, as proposed by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or whether everything is learned from scratch. Dr. Senghas says her finding supports the view that language learning is innate, not purely cultural since the Nicaraguan children’s disaggregation of gestures appears to be spontaneous. Her result also upholds the idea that children play an important part in converting a pidgin into a creole. Because children’s minds are primed to learn the rules of grammar, it is thought, they spontaneously impose grammatical structure on a pidgin that doesn’t have one.

E The Nicaraguan children are a living laboratory of language generation. Dr. Senghas, who has been visiting their school every year since 1990, said she had noticed how the signs for numbers have developed. Originally the children represented ’20’ by flicking the fingers of both hands in the air twice. But this cumbersome sign has been replaced with a form that can now be signed with one hand. The children don’t care that the new sign doesn’t look like a 20, Dr. Senghas said; they just want a symbol that can be signed.
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