REVISION

EXERCISE 1

Living with artificial intelligence

Powerful artificial intelligence (AI) needs to be reliably aligned with human values,
but does this mean AI will eventually have to police those values?
This has been the decade of AI, with one astonishing feat after another. A chess-
playing AI that can defeat not only all human chess players, but also all previous
human-programmed chess machines, after learning the game in just four hours? That’s
yesterday’s news, what’s next? True, these prodigious accomplishments are all in so-
called narrow AI, where machines perform highly specialised tasks. But many experts
believe this restriction is very temporary. By mid-century, we may have artificial
general intelligence (AGI) – machines that can achieve human-level performance on
the full range of tasks that we ourselves can tackle.
If so, there’s little reason to think it will stop there. Machines will be free of many of
the physical constraints on human intelligence.Our brains run at slow biochemical
processing speeds on the power of a light bulb, and their size is restricted by the
dimensions of the human birth canal. It is remarkable what they accomplish, given
these handicaps. But they may be as far from the physical limits of thought as our eyes
are from the incredibly powerful Webb Space Telescope.
Once machines are better than us at designing even smarter machines, progress
towards these limits could accelerate. What would this mean for us? Could we ensure
a safe and worthwhile coexistence with such machines? On the plus side, AI is already
useful and profitable for many things, and super AI might be expected to be super
useful and super profitable. But the more powerful AI becomes, the more important it
will be to specify its goals with great care. Folklore is full of tales of people who ask
for the wrong thing, with disastrous consequences- King Midas, for example, might
have wished that everything he touched turned to gold, but didn’t really intend this to
apply to his breakfast.
So we need to create powerful AI machines that are ‘human-friendly’- that have goals
reliably aligned with our own values. One thing that makes this task difficult is that we
are far from reliably human-friendly ourselves. We do many terrible things to each
other and to many other creatures with whom we share the planet. If superintendent
machines don’t do a lot better than us, we’ll be in deep trouble. We’ll have powerful
new intelligence amplifying the dark sides of our own fallible natures.
For safety’s sake, then, we want the machines to be ethically as well as cognitively
superhuman. We want them to aim for the moral high ground, not for the troughs in
which many of us spend some of our time. Luckily they’ll be smart enough for the job.
If there are routes to the moral high ground, they’ll be better than us at finding them,
and steering us in the right direction.
However, there are two big problems with this utopian vision. One is how we get the
machines started on the journey, the other is what it would mean to reach this
destination. The ‘getting started’ problem is that we need to tell the machines what
they’re looking for with sufficient clarity that we can be confident they will find it –
whatever ‘it’ actually turns out to be. This won’t be easy, given that we are tribal
creatures and conflicted about the ideals ourselves. We often ignore the suffering of
strangers, and even contribute to it, at least indirectly. How then, do we point
machines in the direction of something better?
As for the ‘destination’ problem, we might, by putting ourselves in the hands of these
moral guides and gatekeepers, be sacrificing our own autonomy – an important part of
what makes us human. Machines who are better than us at sticking to the moral high
ground may be expected to discourage some of the lapses we presently take for
granted. We might lose our freedom to discriminate in favour of our own
communities, for example.
Loss of freedom to behave badly isn’t always a bad thing, of course: denying
ourselves the freedom to put children to work in factories, or to smoke in restaurants
are signs of progress. But are we ready for ethical silicon police limiting our options?
They might be so good at doing it that we won’t notice them; but few of us are likely
to welcome such a future.
These issues might seem far-fetched, but they are to some extent already here. AI
already has some input into how resources are used in our National Health Service
(NHS) here in the UK, for example. If it was given a greater role, it might do so much
more efficiently than humans can manage, and act in the interests of taxpayers and
those who use the health system.However, we’d be depriving some humans (e.g.
senior doctors) of the control they presently enjoy.Since we’d want to ensure that
people are treated equally and that policies are fair, the goals of AI would need to be
specified correctly.
We have a new powerful technology to deal with- itself, literally, a new way of
thinking. For our own safety, we need to point these new thinkers in the right
direction, and get them to act well for us. It is not yet clear whether this is possible, but
if it is, it will require a cooperative spirit, and a willingness to set aside self-interest.
Both general intelligence and moral reasoning are often thought to be uniquely human
capacities. But safety seems to require that we think of them as a package: if we are to
give general intelligence to machines, we’ll need to give them moral authority, too.
And where exactly would that leave human beings? All the more reason to think about
the destination now, and to be careful about what we wish for.

Questions 1 - 6:
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1. What point does the writer make about AI in the first paragraph?
A It is difficult to predict how quickly AI will progress.
B Much can be learned about the use of AI in chess machines.
C The future is unlikely to see limitations on the capabilities of AI.
D Experts disagree on which specialised tasks AI will be able to perform.
2. What is the writer doing in the second paragraph?
A explaining why machines will be able to outperform humans
B describing the characteristics that humans and machines share
C giving information about the development of machine intelligence
D indicating which aspects of humans are the most advanced
3. Why does the writer mention the story of King Midas?
A to compare different visions of progress
B to illustrate that poorly defined objectives can go wrong
C to emphasise the need for cooperation
D to point out the financial advantages of a course of action
4. What challenge does the writer refer to in the fourth paragraph?
A encouraging humans to behave in a more principled way
B deciding which values we want AI to share with us
C creating a better world for all creatures on the planet
D ensuring AI is more human-friendly than we are ourselves
5. What does the writer suggest about the future of AI in the fifth paragraph?
A The safety of machines will become a key issue.
B It is hard to know what impact machines will have on the world.
C Machines will be superior to humans in certain respects.
D Many humans will oppose machines having a wider role.
6. Which of the following best summarises the writer’s argument in the sixth
paragraph?
A More intelligent machines will result in greater abuses of power.
B Machine learning will share very few features with human learning.
C There are a limited number of people with the knowledge to program machines.
D Human shortcomings will make creating the machines we need more difficult.
Questions 7 - 10:
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet, write:
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
7. Machines with the ability to make moral decisions may prevent us from promoting
the interests of our communities.
8. Silicon police would need to exist in large numbers in order to be effective.
9. Many people are comfortable with the prospect of their independence being
restricted by machines.
10. If we want to ensure that machines act in our best interests, we all need to work
together.
Questions 11 - 13:
11-13
Complete the summary using the list of phrases, A-F, below. Write the correct
letter, A-F, in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
A medical practitioners B specialised tasks

C available resources D reduced illness

E professional authority F technology experts

Using AI in the UK health system
AI currently has a limited role in the way 11. …………. are allocated in the health
service. The positive aspect of AI having a bigger role is that it would be more
efficient and lead to patient benefits. However, such a change would result, for
example, in certain 12. ……….. not having their current level of 13. ………… . It is
therefore important that AI goals are appropriate so that discriminatory practices could
be avoided.
EXERCISE 2
Educating psyche
Educating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches
to learning,describing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on
learning. One theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which
focuses on the power of suggestion.
Lozanov’s instructional technique is based on the evidence that the connections made
in the brain through unconscious processing (which he calls non-specific mental
reactivity) are more durable than those made through conscious processing. Besides
the laboratory evidence for this, we know from our experience that we often remember
what we have perceived peripherally, long after we have forgotten what we set out to
learn.If we think of a book we studied months or years ago, we will find it easier to
recall peripheral details – the colour, the binding, the typeface, the table at the library
where we sat while studying it – than the content on which we were concentrating. If
we think of a lecture we listened to with great concentration, we will recall the
lecturer’s appearance and mannerisms, our place in the auditorium, the failure of the
air-conditioning, much more easily than the ideas we went to learn.Even if these
peripheral details are a bit elusive, they come back readily in hypnosis or when we
relive the event imaginatively, as in psychodrama. The details of the content of the
lecture, on the other hand, seem to have gone forever.
This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach
to study (making extreme efforts to memorise, tensing muscles, inducing fatigue), but
it also simply reflects the way the brain functions. Lozanov therefore made indirect
instruction (suggestion) central to his teaching system. In suggestopedia, as he called
his method, consciousness is shifted away from the curriculum to focus on something
peripheral. The curriculum then becomes peripheral and is dealt with by the reserve
capacity of the brain.
The suggestopedic approach to foreign language learning provides a good
illustration.In its most recent variant (1980), it consists of the reading of vocabulary
and text while the class is listening to music. The first session is in two parts. In the
first part, the music is classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) and the teacher reads the
text slowly and solemnly, with attention to the dynamics of the music. The students
follow the text in their books. This is followed by several minutes of silence. In the
second part, they listen to baroque music (Bach, Corelli, Handel) while the teacher
reads the text in a normal speaking voice.During this time they have their books
closed. During the whole of this session, their attention is passive; they listen to the
music but make no attempt to learn the material.
Beforehand, the students have been carefully prepared for the language learning
experience. Through meeting with the staff and satisfied students they develop the
expectation that learning will be easy and pleasantand that they will successfully learn
several hundred words of the foreign language during the class. In a preliminary talk,
the teacher introduces them to the material to be covered, but does not ‘teach’ it.
Likewise, the students are instructed not to try to learn it during this introduction.
Some hours after the two-part session, there is a follow-up class at which the students
are stimulated to recall the material presented. Once again the approach is indirect.
The students do not focus their attention on trying to remember the vocabulary, but
focus on using the language to communicate (e.g. through games or improvised
dramatisations). Such methods are not unusual in language teaching.What is
distinctive in the suggestopedic method is that they are devoted entirely to assisting
recall. The ‘learning’ of the material is assumed to be automatic and effortless,
accomplished while listening to music. The teacher’s task is to assist the students to
apply what they have learned paraconsciously, and in doing so to make it easily
accessible to consciousness. Another difference from conventional teaching is the
evidence that students can regularly learn 1000 new words of a foreign language
during a suggestopedic session, as well as grammar and idiom.
Lozanov experimented with teaching by direct suggestion during sleep, hypnosis and
trance states, but found such procedures unnecessary. Hypnosis, yoga, Silva mind-
control, religious ceremonies and faith healing are all associated with successful
suggestion, but none of their techniques seem to be essential to it. Such rituals may be
seen as placebos. Lozanov acknowledges that the ritual surrounding suggestion in his
own system is also a placebo, but maintains that without such a placebo people are
unable or afraid to tap the reserve capacity of their brains.Like any placebo, it must be
dispensed with authority to be effective. Just as a doctor calls on the full power of
autocratic suggestion by insisting that the patient take precisely this white capsule
precisely three times a day before meals, Lozanov is categoric in insisting that the
suggestopedic session be conducted exactly in the manner designated, by trained and
accredited suggestopedic teachers.
While suggestopedia has gained some notoriety through success in the teaching of
modern languages,few teachers are able to emulate the spectacular results of Lozanov
and his associates.We can, perhaps, attribute mediocre results to an inadequate
placebo effect. The students have not developed the appropriate mindset. They are
often not motivated to learn through this method. They do not have enough ‘faith’.
They do not see it as ‘real teaching’, especially as it does not seem to involve the
‘work’ they have learned to believe is essential to learning.
Questions 1 - 4:
Choose the correct answer A, B, C or D.
1. The book Educating Psyche is mainly concerned with
A The power of suggestion in learning
B A particular technique for learning based on emotions
C The effects of emotion on the imagination and the unconscious
D Ways of learning which are not traditional
2. Lozanov’s theory claims that, when we try to remember things,
A Unimportant details are the easiest to recall
B Concentrating hard produces the best results
C The most significant facts are most easily recalled
D Peripheral vision is not important
3. In this passage, the author uses the examples of a book and a lecture to illustrate that
A Both these are important for developing concentration
B His theory about methods of learning is valid
C Reading is a better technique for learning than listening
D We can remember things more easily under hypnosis
4. Lozanov claims that teachers should train students to
A Memorise details of the curriculum
B Develop their own sets of indirect instructions
C Think about something other than the curriculum content
D Avoid overloading the capacity of the brain
Questions 5 - 10:
Are the following statements TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN according to the
information in the passage?
TRUE the statement matches the information in the passage.
FALSE the statement contradicts the information in the passage.
NOT GIVEN the information is not found in the passage.
5. In the example of suggestopedic teaching in the fourth paragraph, the only variable
that changes is the music.
6. Prior to the suggestopedia class, students are made aware that the language
experience will be demanding.
7. In the follow-up class, the teaching activities are similar to those used in
conventional classes.
8. As an indirect benefit, students notice improvements in their memory.
9. Teachers say they prefer suggestopedia to traditional approaches to language
teaching.
10. Students in a suggestopedia class retain more new vocabulary than those in
ordinary classes.
Questions 11 - 14:
11-14
Complete the summary using the list of words, A - K, below.
List of words
A. spectacular D. authoritarian G. unspectacular J. appropriate

B. teaching E. unpopular H. placebo K. well-known

C. lesson F. ritual I. involve

Sugestopedia uses a less direct method of suggestion than other techniques such as
hypnosis. However, Lozanov admits that a certain amount of 11. ………. is necessary
in order to convince students, even if this is just a 12. ……….. Furthermore, if the
method is to succeed, teachers must follow a set procedure. Although Lozanov’s
method has become quite 13. ……….. , the result of most other teachers using this
method have been 14. ………….

EXERCISE 3

Materials to take us beyond concrete

Concrete is everywhere, but it’s bad for the planet, generating large amounts of
carbon dioxide – alternatives are being developed
A. Concrete is the second most used substance in the global economy, after water –
and one of the world’s biggest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The
chemical process by which cement, the key ingredient of concrete, is created results in
large quantities of carbon dioxide. The UN estimates that there will be 9.8 billion
people living on the planet by mid-century. They will need somewhere to live. If
concrete is the only answer to the construction of new cities, then carbon emissions
will soar, aggravating global warming. And so scientists have started innovating with
other materials, in a scramble for alternatives to a universal commodity that has
underpinned our modern life for many years.
B. The problem with replacing concrete is that it is so very good at what it does. Chris
Cheeseman, an engineering professor at Imperial College London, says the key thing
to consider is the extent to which concrete is used around the world, and is likely to
continue to be used. ‘Concrete is not a high-carbon product. Cement is high carbon,
but concrete is not. But it is the scale on which it is used that makes it high carbon.
The sheer scale of manufacture is so huge, that is the issue.’
C. Not only are the ingredients of concrete relatively cheap and found in abundance in
most places around the globe, the stuff itself has marvellous properties:Portland
cement, the vital component of concrete, is mouldable and pourable, but quickly sets
hard. Cheeseman also notes another advantage: concrete and steel have similar thermal
expansion properties, so steel can be used to reinforce concrete, making it far stronger
and more flexible as a building material than it could be on its own. According to
Cheeseman, all these factors together make concrete hard to beat. ‘Concrete is
amazing stuff. Making anything with similar properties is going to be very difficult.’
D. A possible alternative to concrete is wood. Making buildings from wood may
seem like a rather medieval idea, but climate change is driving architects to turn to
treated timber as a possible resource.Recent years have seen the emergence of tall
buildings constructed almost entirely from timber. Vancouver, Vienna and
Brumunddal in Norway are all home to constructed tall, wooden buildings.
E. Using wood to construct buildings, however, is not straightforward. Wood expands
as it absorbs moisture from the air and is susceptible to pests, not to mention fire.But
treating wood and combining it with other materials can improve its properties. Cross-
laminated timber is engineered wood. An adhesive is used to stick layers of solid-sawn
timber together, crosswise, to form building blocks.This material is light but has the
strength of concrete and steel. Construction experts say that wooden buildings can be
constructed at a greater speed than ones of concrete and steel and the process, it seems,
is quieter.
F. Stora Enso is Europe’s biggest supplier of cross-laminated timber, and its vice-
president Markus Mannstrom reports that the company is seeing increasing demand
globally for building in wood, with climate change concerns the key driver. Finland,
with its large forests, where Stora Enso is based, has been leading the way, but the
company is seeing a rise in demand for its timber products across the world, including
in Asia. Of course, using timber in a building also locks away the carbon that it
absorbed as it grew. But even treated wood has its limitations and only when a wider
range of construction projects has been proven in practice will it be possible to see
wood as a real alternative to concrete in constructing tall buildings.
G. Fly ash and slag from iron ore are possible alternatives to cement in a concrete
mix. Fly ash, a byproduct of coal-burning power plants, can be incorporated into
concrete mixes to make up as much as 15 to 30% of the cement, without harming the
strength or durability of the resulting mix. Iron-ore slag, a byproduct of the iron-ore
smelting process, can be used in a similar way. Their incorporation into concrete
mixes has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But Anna Surgenor, of the UK’s Green Building Council, notes that although these
waste products can save carbon in the concrete mix, their use is not always
straightforward. ‘It’s possible to replace the cement content in concrete with waste
products to lower the overall carbon impact. But there are several calculations that
need to be considered across the entire life cycle of the building - these include
factoring in where these materials are being shipped from. If they are transported over
long distances, using fossil fuels, the use of alternative materials might not make sense
from an overall carbon reduction perspective.’
H. While these technologies are all promising ideas, they are either unproven or based
on materials that are not abundant. In their overview of innovation in the concrete
industry, Felix Preston and Johanna Lehne of the UK’s Royal Institute of International
Affairs reached the conclusion that, ‘Some novel cements have been discussed for
more than a decade within the research community, without breaking through. At
present, these alternatives are rarely as cost-effective as conventional cement, and they
face raw-material shortages and resistance from customers.’
Questions 1 - 4:
Reading Passage 1 has eight sections, A-H. Which section contains the following
information?
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
1. An explanation of the industrial processes that create potential raw materials for
concrete
2. A reference to the various locations where high-rise wooden buildings can be found
3. An indication of how widely available the raw materials of concrete are
4. The belief that more high-rise wooden buildings are needed before wood can be
regarded as a viable construction material
Questions 5 - 8:
5-8
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
Making buildings with wood
Wood is a traditional building material, but current environmental concerns are
encouraging 5. ………. to use wood in modern construction projects. Using wood,
however, has its challenges. For example, as 6. …………. in the atmosphere enters
wood, it increases in size. In addition, wood is prone to pests and the risk of fire is
greater. However, wood can be turned into a better construction material if it is treated
and combined with other materials. In one process, 7. ……….. of solid wood are
glued together to create building blocks. These blocks are lighter than concrete and
steel but equal them in strength. Experts say that wooden buildings are an
improvement on those made of concrete and steel in terms of the 8. ………… with
which they can be constructed and how much noise is generated by the process.
Questions 9 - 13:
Look at the following statements (Questions 9-13) and the list of people below. Match
each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
List of People
A Chris Cheeseman
B Markus Mannstrom
C Anna Surgenor
D Felix Preston and Johanna Lehne
9. The environmental advantage of cement alternatives may not be as great as initially
assumed.
10. It would be hard to create a construction alternative to concrete that offers so many
comparable benefits.
11. Worries about the environment have led to increased interest in wood as a
construction material.
12. Expense has been a factor in the negative response to the development of new
cements.
13. The environmental damage caused by concrete is due to it being produced in large
quantities.

EXERCISE 4
The benefits of being bilingual
A. According to the latest figures, the majority of the world’s population is now
bilingual or multilingual, having grown up speaking two or more languages. In the
past, such children were considered to be at a disadvantage compared with their
monolingual peers. Over the past few decades, however, technological advances have
allowed researchers to look more deeply at how bilingualism interacts with and
changes the cognitive and neurological systems, thereby identifying several clear
benefits of being bilingual.
B. Research shows that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active
at the same time. When we hear a word, we don’t hear the entire word all at once: the
sounds arrive in sequential order. Long before the word is finished, the brain’s
language system begins to guess what that word might be. If you hear ‘can’, you will
likely activate words like ‘candy’ and ‘candle’ as well, at least during the earlier stages
of word recognition. For bilingual people, this activation is not limited to a single
language; auditory input activates corresponding words regardless of the language to
which they belong. Some of the most compelling evidence for this phenomenon,
called ‘language co-activation’, comes from studying eye movements. A Russian-
English bilingual asked to ‘pick up a marker’ from a set of objects would look more at
a stamp than someone who doesn’t know Russian, because the Russian word for
‘stamp’, marka, sounds like the English word he or she heard, ‘marker’. In cases like
this, language co-activation occurs because what the listener hears could map onto
words in either language.
C Having to deal with this persistent linguistic competition can result in difficulties,
however. For instance, knowing more than one language can cause speakers to name
pictures more slowly, and can increase ‘tip-of-the-tongue states’, when you can
almost, but not quite, bring a word to mind. As a result, the constant juggling of two
languages creates a need to control how much a person accesses a language at any
given time. For this reason, bilingual people often perform better on tasks that require
conflict management. In the classic Stroop Task, people see a word and are asked to
name the colour of the word’s font. When the colour and the word match (i.e., the
word ‘red’ printed in red), people correctly name the colour more quickly than when
the colour and the word don’t match (i.e., the word ‘red’ printed in blue). This occurs
because the word itself (‘red’) and its font colour (blue) conflict. Bilingual people
often excel at tasks such as this, which top into the ability to ignore competing
perceptual information and focus on the relevant aspects of the input. Bilinguals are
also better at switching between two tasks; for example, when bilinguals have to
switch from categorizing objects by colour (red or green) to categorizing them by
shape (circle or triangle), they do so more quickly than monolingual people, reflecting
better cognitive control when having to make rapid changes of strategy.
D. It also seems that the neurological roots of the bilingual advantage extend to brain
areas more traditionally associated with sensory processing. When monolingual and
bilingual adolescents listen to simple speech sounds without any intervening
background noise, they show highly similar brain stem responses. When researchers
play the same sound to both groups in the presence of background noise, however, the
bilingual listeners’ neural response is considerably larger, reflecting better encoding of
the sound’s fundamental frequency, a feature of sound closely related to pitch
perception.
E. Such improvements in cognitive and sensory processing may help a bilingual
person to process information in the environment, and help explain why bilingual
adults acquire a third language better than monolingual adults master a second
language. This advantage may be rooted in the skill of focussing on information about
the new language while reducing interference from the languages they already know.
F. Research also indicates that bilingual experience may help to keep the cognitive
mechanisms sharp by recruiting alternate brain networks to compensate for those that
become damaged during aging. Older bilinguals enjoy improved memory relative to
monolingual people, which can lead to real-world health benefits. In a study of over
200 patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disease, bilingual patients
reported showing initial symptoms of the disease an average of five years later than
monolingual patients. In a follow-up study, researchers compared the brains of
bilingual and monolingual patients matched on the severity of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Surprisingly, the bilinguals’ brains had more physical signs of disease than their
monolingual counterparts, even though their outward behaviour and abilities were the
same. If the brain is an engine, bilingualism may help it to go farther on the same
amount of fuel.
G. Furthermore, the benefits associated with bilingual experience seem to start very
early. In one study, researchers taught seven-month-old babies growing up in
monolingual or bilingual homes that when they heard a tinkling sound, a puppet
appeared on one side of a screen. Halfway through the study, the puppet began
appearing on the opposite side of the screen. In order to get a reward, the infants had
to adjust the rule they’d learned; only the bilingual babies were able to successfully
learn the new rule. This suggests that for very young children, as well as for older
people, navigating a multilingual environment imparts advantages that transfer far
beyond language.
Questions 1 - 5:
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Test Findings

Bilingual people engage both

Observing the 1 of
languages simultaneously: a
Russian-English bilingual people
when asked to select certain objects mechanism known as 2

Bilingual people are more able to

A test called the 3 , handle tasks involving a skill
focusing on naming colours called 4

A test involving switching between When changing strategies, bilingual

tasks people have superior 5

Questions 6 - 10:
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the passage?
In boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet, write:
YES If the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO If the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN If it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
6. Attitudes towards bilingualism have changed in recent years.
7. Bilingual people are better than monolingual people at guessing correctly what
words are before they are finished.
8. Bilingual people consistently name images faster than monolingual people.
9. Bilingual people’s brains process single sounds more efficiently than monolingual
people in all situations.
10. Fewer bilingual people than monolingual people suffer from brain disease in old
age.
Questions 11 - 14:
Choose the correct letter, A-G, which paragraph contains the following information?
11. An example of how bilingual and monolingual people’s brains respond differently
to a certain type of non-verbal auditory input
12. A demonstration of how a bilingual upbringing has benefits even before we learn
to speak
13. A description of the process by which people identify words that they hear
14. Reference to some negative consequences of being bilingual

EXERCISE 5
How to make wise decisions?
Across cultures, wisdom has been considered one of the most revered human
qualities. Although the truly wise may seem few and far between, empirical research
examining wisdom suggests that it isn’t an exceptional trait possessed by a small
handful of bearded philosophers after all – in fact, the latest studies suggest that most
of us have the ability to make wise decisions, given the right context.
‘It appears that experiential, situational, and cultural factors are even more powerful in
shaping wisdom than previously imagined,’says Associate Professor Igor Grossmann
of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. ‘Recent empirical findings from
cognitive, developmental, social, and personality psychology cumulatively suggest
that people’s ability to reason wisely varies dramatically across experiential and
situational contexts. Understanding the role of such contextual factors offers unique
insights into understanding wisdom in daily life, as well as how it can be enhanced and
taught.’
It seems that it’s not so much that some people simply possess wisdom and others lack
it, but that our ability to reason wisely depends on a variety of external factors. ‘It is
impossible to characterize thought processes attributed to wisdom without considering
the role of contextual factors,’explains Grossmann. ‘In other words, wisdom is not
solely an “inner quality” but rather unfolds as a function of situations people happen to
be in. Some situations are more likely to promote wisdom than others.’
Coming up with a definition of wisdom is challenging, but Grossmann and his
colleagues have identified four key characteristics as part of a framework of wise
reasoning. One is intellectual humility or recognition of the limits of our own
knowledge,and another is appreciation of perspectives wider than the issue at
hand.Sensitivity to the possibility of change in social relations is also key, along with
compromise or integration of different attitudes and beliefs.
{[Grossmann and his colleagues have also found that one of the most reliable ways to
support wisdom in our own day-to-day decisions is to look at scenarios from a third-
party perspective,as though giving advice to a friend. Research suggests that when
adopting a first-person viewpoint we focus on ‘the focal features of the environment’
and when we adopt a third-person, ‘observer’ viewpoint we reason more broadly and
focus more on interpersonal and moral ideals such as justice and impartiality.Looking
at problems from this more expansive viewpoint appears to foster cognitive processes
related to wise decisions.
What are we to do, then, when confronted with situations like a disagreement with a
spouse or negotiating a contract at work, that require us to take a personal stake?
Grossmann argues that even when we aren’t able to change the situation, we can still
evaluate these experiences from different perspectives.
For example, in one experiment that took place during the peak of a recent economic
recession, graduating college seniors were asked to reflect on their job prospects. The
students were instructed to imagine their career either ‘as if you were a distant
observer’ or ‘before your own eyes as if you were right there’. Participants in the
group assigned to the ‘distant observer’ roledisplayed more wisdom-related reasoning
(intellectual humility and recognition of change) than did participants in the control
group.
In another study, couples in long-term romantic relationshipswere instructed to
visualize an unresolved relationship conflict either through the eyes of an outsider or
from their own perspective. Participants then discussed the incident with their partner
for 10 minutes, after which they wrote down their thoughts about it.Couples in
the ‘other’s eyes’ condition were significantly more likely to rely on wise reasoning –
recognizing others’ perspectives and searching for a compromise – compared to the
couples in the egocentric condition.
‘Ego-decentering promotes greater focus on others and enables a bigger picture,
conceptual view of the experience, affording recognition of intellectual humility and
change,’ says Grossmann.
We might associate wisdom with intelligence or particular personality traits, but
research shows only a small positive relationship between wise thinking and
crystallized intelligence and the personality traits of openness and agreeableness.‘It is
remarkable how much people can vary in their wisdom from one situation to the next,
and how much stronger such contextual effects are for understanding the relationship
between wise judgment and its social and affective outcomes as compared to the
generalized “traits”,’ Grossmann explains. ‘That is, knowing how wisely a person
behaves in a given situation is more informative for understanding their emotions or
likelihood to forgive or retaliate as compared to knowing whether the person may be
wise “in general”.’
Questions 1 - 4:
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
1. What point does the writer make in the first paragraph?
A Wisdom appears to be unique to the human race.
B A basic assumption about wisdom may be wrong.
C Concepts of wisdom may depend on the society we belong to.
D There is still much to be discovered about the nature of wisdom.
2. What does Igor Grossmann suggest about the ability to make wise decisions?
A It can vary greatly from one person to another.
B Earlier research into it was based on unreliable data.
C The importance of certain influences on it was underestimated.
D Various branches of psychology define it according to their own criteria.
3. According to the third paragraph, Grossmann claims that the level of wisdom an
individual shows
A can be greater than they think it is.
B will be different in different circumstances.
C may be determined by particular aspects of their personality.
D should develop over time as a result of their life experiences.
4. What is described in the fifth paragraph?
A a difficulty encountered when attempting to reason wisely
B an example of the type of person who is likely to reason wisely
C a controversial view about the benefits of reasoning wisely
D a recommended strategy that can help people to reason wisely
Questions 5 - 9:
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below. Write the correct letter, A-
J, in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet.
A opinions B confidence C view

D modesty E problems F objectivity

G fairness H experiences I range

J reasons
The characteristics of wise reasoning
Igor Grossmann and colleagues have established four characteristics which enable us
to make wise decisions. It is important to have a certain degree of 5

regarding the extent of our knowledge, and to take into account 6 which
may not be the same as our own. We should also be able to take a broad 7

of any situation. Another key characteristic is being aware of the

likelihood of alterations in the way that people relate to each other.
Grossmann also believes that it is better to regard scenarios with 8 . By

avoiding the first-person perspective, we focus more on 9 and on other

moral ideals, which in turn leads to wiser decision-making.
Questions 10 - 14:
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 10-14 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
10. Students participating in the job prospects experiment could choose one of two
perspectives to take.
11. Participants in the couples experiment were aware that they were taking part in a
study about wise reasoning.
12. In the couples experiments, the length of the couples’ relationships had an impact
on the results.
13. In both experiments, the participants who looked at the situation from a more
detached viewpoint tended to make wiser decisions.
14. Grossmann believes that a person’s wisdom is determined by their intelligence to
only a very limited extent.
EXERCISE 6

Why fairy tales are really scary tales?

Some people think that fairy tales are just stories to amuse children, but their
universal and enduring appeal may be due to more serious reasons
People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a
variety of forms in different parts of the world.In the story of Little Red Riding Hood
that European children are familiar with, a young girl on the way to see her
grandmother meets a wolf and tells him where she is going. The wolf runs on ahead
and disposes of the grandmother, then gets into bed dressed in the grandmother’s
clothes to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. You may think you know the story – but
which version? In some versions, the wolf swallows up the grandmother, while in
others it locks her in a cupboard. In some stories Red Riding Hood gets the better of
the wolf on her own, while in others a hunter or a woodcutter hears her cries and
comes to her rescue.
The universal appeal of these tales is frequently attributed to the idea that they contain
cautionary messages:in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother,
and avoid talking to strangers. ‘It might be what we find interesting about this story is
that it’s got this survival-relevant information in it,’ says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani
at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise.‘We have this
huge gap in our knowledge about the history and prehistory of storytelling, despite the
fact that we know this genre is an incredibly ancient one,’ he says. That hasn’t stopped
anthropologists, folklorists* and other academics devising theories to explain the
importance of fairy tales in human society.Now Tehrani has found a way to test these
ideas, borrowing a technique from evolutionary biologists.
To work out the evolutionary history, development and relationships among groups of
organisms, biologists compare the characteristics of living species in a process called
‘phylogenetic analysis’. Tehrani has used the same approach to compare related
versions of fairy tales to discover how they have evolved and which elements have
survived longest.
Tehrani’s analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many forms, which
include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Checking for
variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia and other regions,
he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions.Once his phylogenetic
analysis had established that they were indeed related,he used the same methods to
explore how they have developed and altered over time.
First he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story alter least as it
evolves,indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that what happens in a story is
more central to the story than the characters in it – that visiting a relative, only to be
met by a scary animal in disguise, is more fundamental than whether the visitor is a
little girl or three siblings, or the animal is a tiger instead of a wolf.
However, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of incidents
compared with that of characters. ‘Certain episodes are very stable because they are
crucial to the story, but there are lots of other details that can evolve quite freely,’ he
says. Neither did his analysis support the theory that the central section of a story is
the most conserved part. He found no significant difference in the flexibility of events
there compared with the beginning or the end.
But the really big surprise came when he looked at the cautionary elements of the
story.‘Studies on hunter-gatherer folk tales suggest that these narratives include really
important information about the environment and the possible dangers that may be
faced there – stuff that’s relevant to survival,’ he says. Yet in his analysis such
elements were just as flexible as seemingly trivial details.What, then, is important
enough to be reproduced from generation to generation?
The answer, it would appear, is fear– blood-thirsty and gruesome aspects of the story,
such as the eating of the grandmother by the wolf, turned out to be the best preserved
of all. Why are these details retained by generations of storytellers, when other
features are not? Tehrani has an idea: ‘In an oral context, a story won’t survive
because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when it’s told by someone
who’s not necessarily a great storyteller.’ Maybe being swallowed whole by a wolf,
then cut out of its stomach alive is so gripping that it helps the story remain popular,
no matter how badly it’s told.
Jack Zipes at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, is unconvinced by Tehrani’s
views on fairy tales. ‘Even if they’re gruesome, they won’t stick unless they matter,’he
says. He believes the perennial theme of women as victims in stories like Little Red
Riding Hood explains why they continue to feel relevant. But Tehrani points out that
although this is often the case in Western versions, it is not always true elsewhere. In
Chinese and Japanese versions, often known as The Tiger Grandmother, the villain is
a woman, and in both Iran and Nigeria, the victim is a boy.
Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University in Denmark isn’t surprised by Tehrani’s findings.
‘Habits and morals change, but the things that scare us, and the fact that we seek out
entertainment that’s designed to scare us – those are constant,’ he says. Clasen
believes that scary stories teach us what it feels like to be afraid without having to
experience real danger,and so build up resistance to negative emotions.

*Folklorists: those who study traditional stories

Questions 1 - 5:
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
A may be provided through methods used in biological research.
B are the reason for their survival.
C show considerable global variation.
D contain animals which transform to become humans.
E were originally spoken rather than written.
F have been developed without factual basis.
1. In fairy tales, details of the plot
2. Tehrani rejects the idea that the useful lessons for life in fairy tales
3. Various theories about the social significance of fairy tales
4. Insights into the development of fairy tales
5. All the fairy tales analysed by Tehrani
Questions 6 - 10:
Complete the following paragraph using A-I
A ending B events C warning

D links E records F variations

G horror H people I plot

Phylogenetic analysis of Little Red Riding Hood
Tehrani used techniques from evolutionary biology to find out if 6
existed among 58 stories from around the world. He also wanted to know which
aspects of the stories had fewest 7 , as he believed these aspects would
be the most important ones. Contrary to other beliefs, he found that some 8

that were included in a story tended to change over time, and that the
middle of a story seemed no more important than the other parts. He was also
surprised that parts of a story which seemed to provide some sort of 9
were unimportant. The aspect that he found most important in a story’s survival
was 10
Questions 11 - 14:
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.
11. What method did Jamie Tehrani use to test his ideas about fairy tales?
A He compared oral and written forms of the same stories.
B He looked at many different forms of the same basic story.
C He looked at unrelated stories from many different countries.
D He contrasted the development of fairy tales with that of living creatures.
12. When discussing Tehrani’s views, Jack Zipes suggests that
A Tehrani ignores key changes in the role of women.
B stories which are too horrific are not always taken seriously.
C Tehrani overemphasises the importance of violence in stories.
D features of stories only survive if they have a deeper significance.
13. Why does Tehrani refer to Chinese and Japanese fairy tales?
A to indicate that Jack Zipes’ theory is incorrect
B to suggest that crime is a global problem
C to imply that all fairy tales have a similar meaning
D to add more evidence for Jack Zipes’ ideas
14. What does Mathias Clasen believe about fairy tales?
A They are a safe way of learning to deal with fear.
B They are a type of entertainment that some people avoid.
C They reflect the changing values of our society.
D They reduce our ability to deal with real-world problems.