Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–14, which are based on the reading passage
below.

Write answers to questions in boxes 1-14 on your answer sheet.

Tickling and Laughter

A. The fingers of an outstretched aim are nearing your body; you bend away folding your torso, bending
your head to your shoulder in hopes that you don’t get tickled; but the inevitable occurs: yon arc tickled
and in hysterics you chuckle, titter, and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Why do we laugh when we
are tickled?

B. Tickling is caused by a light sensation across our skin. At times the light sensation can cause itching;
however, most of the time it causes giggling. If a feather is gently moved across the surface of the skin,
it can also cause tickling and giggling. Heavy laughter is caused by someone or something placing
repeated pressure on a person and tickling a particular area. The spots tickled often are feet, toes,
sides, underarms, and neck which cause a great deal of laughter. Yngve Zotterman from Karolinska
Institute has found that tickling sensations involve signals from nerve fibers. These nerve fibers are
associated with pain and touch. Also, Zotterman has discovered tickling sensations to be associated
not only with nerve fibers but also with sense of touch because people who have lost pain sensations
still laugh when tickled. But really, why do we laugh? Why are we not able to tickle ourselves? What
part of the brain is responsible for laughter and humor? Why do we say some people have no sense of
humor?

C. Research has shown that laughter is more than just a person’s voice and movement and that it
requires the coordination of many muscles throughout the body. Laughter also increases blood
pressure and heart rate, changes breathing, reduces levels of certain neurochemicals (catecholamines,
hormones) and provides a boost to dying immune system. Can laughter improve health? It may be a
good way for people to relax because muscle tension is reduced after laughing. Human tests have
found some evidence that humorous videos and tapes can reduce feelings of pain, prevent negative
stress reactions and boost the brain’s biological battle against infection.

D. Researchers believe we process humor and laughter through a complex pathway of brain activity
that encompasses three main brain components. In one new study, researchers used imaging
equipment to photograph die brain activity of healthy volunteers while they underwent a sidesplitting
assignment of reading written jokes, viewing cartoons from The New Yorker magazine as well as “The
Far Side” and listening to digital recordings of laughter. Preliminary results indicate that the humor-
processing pathway includes parts of the frontal lobe brain area, important for cognitive processing the
supplementary motor area, important for movement; and the nucleus accumbens, associated with
pleasure. Investigations support the notion that parts of the frontal lobe are involved in humor. Subjects’
brains were imaged while they were listening to jokes. An area of the frontal lobe was activated only
when they thought a joke was funny. In a study that compared healthy individuals with people who had
damage to their frontal lobes, the subjects with damaged frontal lobes were more likely to choose wrong
punch lines to written jokes and didn’t laugh or smile as much at funny cartoons or jokes.

E. Even though we may know more about what parts of the brain are responsible for humor, it is still
hard to explain why we don’t laugh or giggle when we tickle ourselves. Darwin theorized within “The
Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals” that there was a link between tickling and laughter
because of the anticipation of pleasure. Because we cannot tickle ourselves and have caused laughter,
Darwin speculated surprise from another person touching a sensitive spot must have caused laughter.
Some scientists believe that laughing caused by tickling is a built-in reflex even babies have. If we tickle
ourselves in the same spot as our friend tickled us, we do not laugh as we did previously. The
information sent to our spinal cord and brain should be exactly the same. Apparently, for tickling to
work, the brain needs tension and surprise. When we tickle ourselves, we know exactly what will
happen…there is no tension or surprise. How the brain uses this information about tension and surprise
is still a mystery, but there is some evidence that the cerebellum may be involved. Because one part of
the brain tells another: “It’s just you. Don’t get excited”. Investigations suggest that during self-tickling,
the cerebellum tells an area called the somatosensory cortex what sensation to expect, and that
dampens the tickling sensation. It looks as if the killjoy is found in the cerebellum. Further explorations
to understand tickling and laughter were conducted by Christenfeld and Harris. Within ‘The Mystery of
Ticklish Laughter and “Can a Machine Tickleyn they explained that people laughed equally whether
tickled by a machine or by a person. The participants were not aware that who or what was tickling
them. However, the laughter was equally resounded. It is suggested that tickling response is a reflex,
which, like Darwin suggested earlier, is dependent on the element of surprise.

F. Damage to any one part of the brain may affect one’s overall ability to process humor. Peter Derks,
a professor of psychology, conducted his research with a group of scientists at NASA-Langley in
Hampton. Using a sophisticated electroencephalogram (EEG), they measured the brain activity of 10
people exposed to humorous stimuli. How quickly our brain recognizes the incongruity that deals with
most humor and attaches an abstract meaning to it determines whether we laugh. However, different
people find different jokes funny. That can be due to a number of factors, including differences in
personality, intelligence, mental state and probably mood. But according to Derks, the majority of
people recognize when a situation is meant to be humorous. In a series of experiments, he noticed that
several patients recovering from brain injuries could not distinguish between something funny and
something not.

G. Dr. Shibata of the University of Rochester School of Medicine said our neurons get tickled when
we hear a joke. The brain’s ‘Tunny bone” is located at the right frontal lobe just above the right eye and
appears critical to our ability to recognize a joke. Dr. Shibata gave his patients MRI scans to measure
brain activity, trying to find out what part of the brain is particularly active while telling the punch line of
a joke as opposed to the rest of the joke and funny cartoons in comparison to parts of the cartoons that
are not funny. The jokes “tickled” the frontal lobes. The scans also showed activity in the nucleus
accumbens, which is likely related to our feeling of mirth after hearing a good joke and our “addiction”
to humor. While his research was about humor, the results could help lead to answers and solutions to
depression. Parts of the brain that are active during humor are actually abnormal in patients with
depression. Eventually, brain scans might be used to assess patients with depression and other mood
disorders. The research may also explain why some stroke victims lose their sense of humor or suffer
from other personality changes. The same part of the brain is also associated with social and emotional
judgment and planning.

Questions 1-7

The Reading Passage has 7 paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the appropriate letter, A-G, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once.

1. Location of a brain section essential to the recognition of jokes

2. Laughter enhances immunity

3. Individual differences and the appreciation of humour

4. Parts of the brain responsible for tickling reflex

5. Neuropsychological mechanisms by which humor and laughter work

6. The connection between tickling and nerve fibers

7. Patients with emotional disorders

Questions 8-11

Look at the following researchers (listed 8-11) and findings (listed A-F).

Match each researcher with the correct finding(s).

Write your answers in boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet.

NB There are more findings than researchers.

You may choose more than one finding for any of the researchers.

A. The surprise factor, combined with the anticipation of pleasure, cause laughter when tickled.

B. Laughing caused by tickling is a built-in reflex even babies have.

C. People also laugh when tickled by a machine if they are not aware of it.

D. People have different tastes for jokes and humour.

E. Jokes and funny cartoons activates the frontal lobes.

F. Tickling sensations involve more than nerve fibers.

8. Darwin

9. Christenfeld and Harris

10. Yngve Zotterman

11. Peter Derks

Questions 12-14

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
blank.

Write your answers in boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet.

Researchers believe three brain components to be involved in the processing of humor and laughter
Results from one study using brain 12 …………...… indicate that parts of the brain responsible
for 13 …………...… movement and pleasure are involved through a sophisticated pathway. Test
subjects who suffered from frontal lobes damages had greater chances of picking 14 …………...… of
jokes or did not respond to funny cartoons or jokes.
Reading Passage 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on the reading passage
below.

Climate change reveals ancient artefacts in Norway’s glaciers

A. Well above the treeline in Norway’s highest mountains, ancient fields of ice are shrinking as Earth’s
climate warms. As the ice has vanished, it has been giving up the treasures it has preserved in cold
storage for the last 6,000 years – items such as ancient arrows and skis from Viking Age* traders. And
those artefacts have provided archaeologists with some surprising insights into how ancient
Norwegians made their livings.

B. Organic materials like textiles and hides are relatively rare finds at archaeological sites. This is
because unless they’re protected from the microorganisms that cause decay, they tend no to last long.
Extreme cold is one reliable way to keep artefacts relatively fresh for a few thousand years, but once
thawed out, these materials experience degradation relatively swiftly.

With climate change shrinking ice cover around the world, glacial archaeologists need to race the clock
to find newly revealed artefacts, preserve them, and study them. If something fragile dries and is
windblown it might very soon be lost to science, or an arrow might be exposed and then covered again
by the next snow and remain well-preserved. The unpredictability means that glacial archaeologists
have to be systematic in their approach to fieldwork.

C. Over a nine-year period, a team of archaeologists, which included Lars Pilø of Oppland County
Council, Norway, and James Barrett of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, surveyed
patches of ice in Oppland, an area of south-central Norway that is home to some of the country’s highest
mountains. Reindeer once congregated on these ice patches in the later summer months to escape
biting insects, and from the late Stone Age**, hunters followed. In addition, trade routes threaded
through the mountain passes of Oppland, linking settlements in Norway to the rest of Europe.

The slow but steady movement of glaciers tends to destroy anything at their bases, so the team focused
on stationary patches of ice, mostly above 1,400 metres. That ice is found amid fields of frost-weathered
boulders, fallen rocks, and exposed bedrock that for nine months of the year is buried beneath snow.

‘Fieldwork is hard work – hiking with all our equipment, often camping on permafrost – but very
rewarding. You’re rescuing the archaeology, bringing the melting ice to wider attention, discovering a
unique environmental history and really connecting with the natural environment,’ says Barrett.

D. At the edges of the contracting ice patches, archaeologists found more than 2,000 artefacts, which
formed a material record that ran from 4,000 BCE to the beginnings of the Renaissance in the 14th
century. Many of the artefacts are associated with hunting. Hunters would have easily misplaced arrows
and they often discarded broken bows rather than take them all the way home. Other items could have
been used by hunters traversing the high mountain passes of Oppland: all-purpose items like tools,
skis, and horse tack.

E. Barrett’s team radiocarbon-dated 153 of the artefacts and compared those dates to the timing of
major environmental changes in the region – such as periods of cooling or warming – and major social
and economic shifts – such as the growth of farming settlements and the spread of international trade
networks leading up to the Viking Age. They found that some periods had produced lots of artefacts,
which indicates that people had been pretty active in the mountains during those times. But there were
few or no signs of activity during other periods.

F. What was surprising, according to Barrett, was the timing of these periods. Oppland’s mountains
present daunting terrain and in periods of extreme cold, glaciers could block the higher mountain
passes and make travel in the upper reaches of the mountains extremely difficult. Archaeologists
assumed people would stick to lower elevations during a time like the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a
short period of deeper-than-usual cold from about 536-600 CE. But it turned out that hunters kept
regularly venturing into the mountains even when the climate turned cold, based on the amount of stuff
they had apparently dropped there.

‘Remarkably, though, the finds from the ice may have continued through this period, perhaps
suggesting that the importance of mountain hunting increased to supplement failing agricultural
harvests in times of low temperatures,’ says Barrett. A colder turn in the Scandinavian climate would
likely have meant widespread crop failures, so more people would have depended on hunting to make
up for those losses.

G. Many of the artefacts Barrett’s team recovered date from the beginning of the Viking Age, the 700s
through to the 900s CE. Trade networks connecting Scandinavia with Europe and the Middle East were
expanding around this time. Although we usually think of ships when we think of Scandinavian
expansion, these recent discoveries show that plenty of goods travelled on overland routes, like the
mountain passes of Oppland. And growing Norwegian towns, along with export markets, would have
created a booming demand for hides to fight off the cold, as well as antlers to make useful things like
combs. Business must have been good for hunters.

H. Norway’s mountains are probably still hiding a lot of history – and prehistory – in remote ice patches.
When Barrett’s team looked at the dates for their sample of 153 artefacts, they noticed a gap with
almost no artefacts from about 3,800 to 2,200 BCE. In fact, archaeological finds from that period are
rare all over Norway. The researchers say that could be because many of those artefacts have already
disintegrated or are still frozen in the ice. That means archaeologists could be extracting some of those
artefacts from retreating ice in years to come.

-------------------------------------------

* Viking Age: a period of European history from around 700 CE to around 1050 CE when
Scandinavian Vikings migrated throughout Europe by means of trade and warfare.

** The Stone Age: a period in early history that began about 3.4 million years ago.
Questions 15 – 19

The Reading Passage has eight sections, A-H.

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct number, A-H, in boxes 15-19 on your answer sheet.

15. a reference to the physical difficulties involved in an archaeological expedition

16. an explanation of why less food may have been available
17. a reference to the possibility of future archaeological discoveries
18. examples of items that would have been traded
19. a reference to the pressure archaeologists are under to work quickly

Questions 20 – 22

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.

Interesting finds at an archaeological site

Organic materials such as animal skins and textiles are not discovered very often at archaeological
sites. They have little protection against 20 …………………, which means that they decay relatively
quickly. But this is not always the case. If temperatures are low enough, fragile artefacts can be
preserved for thousands of years.

A team of archaeologists have been working in the mountains in Oppland in Norway to recover
artefacts revealed by shrinking ice cover. In the past, there were trade routes through these
mountains and 21 ………………… gathered there in the summer months to avoid being attacked
by 22 ………………… on lower ground. The people who used these mountains left things behind and
it is those objects that are of interest to archaeologists.

Questions 23 and 24

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about the discoveries of Barrett’s team?

A. Artefacts found in the higher mountain passes were limited to skiing equipment.
B. Hunters went into the mountains even during periods of extreme cold.
C. The number of artefacts from certain time periods was relatively low.
D. Radiocarbon dating of artefacts produced some unreliable results.
E. More artefacts were found in Oppland than at any other mountain site.
Questions 25 and 26

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about the Viking Age?

A. Hunters at this time benefited from an increased demand for goods.

B. The beginning of the period saw the greatest growth in the wealth of Vikings.
C. Vikings did not rely on ships alone to transport goods.
D. Norwegian towns at this time attracted traders from around the world.
E. Vikings were primarily interested in their trading links with the Middle East.

Reading Passage 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on the reading passage
below.

Questions 27 – 32

The Reading Passage has six sections, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i An increasing divergence of attitudes towards AI

ii Reasons why we have more faith in human judgement than in AI
iii The superiority of AI projections over those made by humans
iv The process by which AI can help us make good decisions
v The advantages of involving users in AI processes
vi Widespread distrust of an AI innovation
vii Encouraging openness about how AI functions
viii A surprisingly successful AI application

27. Section A
28. Section B
29. Section C
30. Section D
31. Section E
32. Section F
Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence
A. Artificial intelligence (AI) can already predict the future. Police forces are using it to map when and
where crime is likely to occur. Doctors can use it to predict when a patient is most likely to have a
heart attack or stroke. Researchers are even trying to give AI imagination so it can plan for
unexpected consequences.

Many decisions in our lives require a good forecast, and AI is almost always better at forecasting than
we are. Yet for all these technological advances, we still seem to deeply lack confidence in AI
predictions. Recent cases show that people don’t like relying on AI and prefer to trust human experts,
even if these experts are wrong.

If we want AI to really benefit people, we need to find a way to get people to trust it. To do that, we
need to understand why people are so reluctant to trust AI in the first place.

B. Take the case of Watson for Oncology, one of technology giant IBM’s supercomputer programs.
Their attempt to promote this program to cancer doctors was a PR disaster. The AI promised to
deliver top-quality recommendations on the treatment of 12 cancers that accounted for 80% of the
world’s cases. But when doctors first interacted with Watson, they found themselves in a rather
difficult situation. On the one hand, if Watson provided guidance about a treatment that coincided with
their own opinions, physicians did not see much point in Watson’s recommendations. The
supercomputer was simply telling them what they already knew, and these recommendations did not
change the actual treatment.

On the other hand, if Watson generated a recommendation that contradicted the experts’ opinion,
doctors would typically conclude that Watson wasn’t competent. And the machine wouldn’t be able to
explain why its treatment was plausible because its machine-learning algorithms were simply too
complex to be fully understood by humans. Consequently, this has caused even more suspicion and
disbelief, leading many doctors to ignore the seemingly outlandish AI recommendations and stick to
their own expertise.

C. This is just one example of people’s lack of confidence in AI and their reluctance to accept what AI
has to offer. Trust in other people is often based on our understanding of how others think and having
experience of their reliability. This helps create a psychological feeling of safety. AI, on the other
hand, is still fairly new and unfamiliar to most people. Even if it can be technically explained (and
that’s not always the case), AI’s decision-making process is usually too difficult for most people to
comprehend. And interacting with something we don’t understand can cause anxiety and give us a
sense that we’re losing control.

Many people are also simply not familiar with many instances of AI actually working, because it often
happens in the background. Instead, they are acutely aware of instances where AI goes wrong.
Embarrassing AI failures receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, emphasising the
message that we cannot rely on technology. Machine learning is not foolproof, in part because the
humans who design it aren’t.
D. Feelings about AI run deep. In a recent experiment, people from a range of backgrounds were
given various sci-fi films about AI to watch and then asked questions about automation in everyday
life. It was found that, regardless of whether the film they watched depicted AI in a positive or
negative light, simply watching a cinematic vision of our technological future polarised the
participants’ attitudes. Optimists became more extreme in their enthusiasm for AI and sceptics
became even more guarded.

This suggests people use relevant evidence about AI in a biased manner to support their existing
attitudes, a deep-rooted human tendency known as “confirmation bias”. As AI is represented more
and more in media and entertainment, it could lead to a society split between those who benefit from
AI and those who reject it. More pertinently, refusing to accept the advantages offered by AI could
place a large group of people at a serious disadvantage.

E. Fortunately, we already have some ideas about how to improve trust in AI. Simply having previous
experience with AI can significantly improve people’s opinions about the technology, as was found in
the study mentioned above. Evidence also suggests the more you use other technologies such as the
internet, the more you trust them.

Another solution may be to reveal more about the algorithms which AI uses and the purposes they
serve. Several high-profile social media companies and online marketplaces already release
transparency reports about government requests and surveillance disclosures. A similar practice for
AI could help people have a better understanding of the way algorithmic decisions are made.

F. Research suggests that allowing people some control over AI decision-making could also improve
trust and enable AI to learn from human experience. For example, one study showed that when
people were allowed the freedom to slightly modify an algorithm, they felt more satisfied with its
decisions, more likely to believe it was superior and more likely to use it in the future.

We don’t need to understand the intricate inner workings of AI systems, but if people are given a
degree of responsibility for how they are implemented, they will be more willing to accept AI into their
lives.

Questions 33 – 35

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.

33. What is the writer doing in Section A?

A providing a solution to a concern

B justifying an opinion about an issue
C highlighting the existence of a problem
D explaining the reasons for a phenomenon
34. According to Section C, why might some people be reluctant to accept AI?

A They are afraid it will replace humans in decision-making jobs.

B Its complexity makes them feel that they are at a disadvantage.
C They would rather wait for the technology to be tested over a period of time.
D Misunderstandings about how it works make it seem more challenging than it is.

35. What does the writer say about the media in Section C of the text?

A It leads the public to be mistrustful of AI.

B It devotes an excessive amount of attention to AI.
C Its reports of incidents involving AI are often inaccurate.
D It gives the impression that AI failures are due to designer error.

Questions 36 – 40

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?

In boxes 36-40 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

36. Subjective depictions of AI in sci-fi films make people change their opinions about automation.
37. Portrayals of AI in media and entertainment are likely to become more positive.
38. Rejection of the possibilities of AI may have a negative effect on many people’s lives.
39. Familiarity with AI has very little impact on people’s attitudes to the technology.
40. AI applications which users are able to modify are more likely to gain consumer approval.