Text 1

The Story of the Aral Sea

In 2009 in Kazakhstan, a group of fishermen met on a Sunday afternoon. They were on the beach of the
North Aral Sea. They ate food. They did some sports. Afterwards, they told stories and sang songs about
the Aral Sea and fishing. It was a good party.

The fishermen were happy because there were fish in the water. For many years, there weren’t many fish.
At one time, the Aral Sea in Central Asia was the fourth largest lake in the world. It had an area of 67,300
square kilometres. Two of the biggest rivers in Central Asia, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, went into
the Aral Sea. But the water almost disappeared.

The Aral Sea was a busy place. Almost 20 percent of the Soviet Union’s fish came from here. 40,000
people lived and worked near the lake. Then people used the water in the two rivers for agriculture, so the
water didn’t arrive at the Aral Sea. Also, it didn’t rain for many years.

Then, in 2005, the Kazakh government and the World Bank built a dam. The dam separated the north and
south parts of the sea. Then the north part of the Aral Sea started to fill with water again.

Philip Micklin is a scientist. He studies the Aral Sea. In 2010 he said ‘Nature can come back.’ But in
2014, he saw satellite pictures of the east part of the Aral Sea. It was completely dry.

In June 2015 a scientist from Uzbekistan, Yusup Kamalov, and a National Geographic reporter visited the
Aral Sea. They found a huge desert. They stood on the sand. Once it was the edge of the water. Now the
water is 80 kilometres away. They drove to the water. On the way, they passed oil and natural gas rigs.
Kamalov said that every year there are more oil rigs. They arrived at the edge of the Aral Sea. The water
was very salty. There were no fish. Kamalov said, ‘This is what the end of the world looks like’.

1. Where is the Aral Sea?

A. in Central Asia
B. in Kazakhstan
C. in Uzbekistan

2. What is the problem in the Aral Sea?

A. It’s full of oil.
B. It’s getting bigger.
C. It’s getting smaller.

3. According to paragraph 1, which sentence is true?

A. Kazakh fishermen are good at sport.
B. Kazakhstan is next to the North Aral Sea.
C. The fishermen met every Sunday.

4. Why did the fishermen meet?

A. because it was Sunday
B. to go fishing
C. to have a party

5. Which word describes the fishermen in 2009?

A. pleased
B. rich
C. sad

6. According to paragraph 2, which sentence is true?

A. The Amu Darya and Syr Darya are the biggest rivers in the world.
B. The Aral Sea is one of the biggest lakes in the world.
C. The biggest lake in the world is bigger than 67,300 square kilometres.
7. According to paragraph 3, which sentence is true?
A. Nobody knows why the Aral Sea got smaller.
B. There are two reasons why the Aral Sea got smaller.
C. There’s one reason why the Aral Sea got smaller.

8. What happened because of the dam?

A. The water in the Aral Sea disappeared.
B. There was more water in the North Aral Sea.
C. There was more water in the South Aral Sea.

9. How did Yusup Kamalov and the reporter travel to the Aral Sea?
A. by boat
B. by car
C. on foot

10. Why were there no fish in the sea?

A. because of the oil rigs
B. because of the salt
C. because of the sand

Text 2

Siberia's medical train

The famous Trans-Siberian railway line goes from Moscow to Vladivostok, but there’s another railway
line about 650 kilometres north of the Trans-Siberian. This is the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM). A
special train, the Matvei Mudrov medical train, travels along its 4,000 kilometres. There are usually
between twelve and fifteen doctors on the train. The train stops for a day at places along the BAM. The
people who live in small towns and villages come to the train for medical attention. There are no doctors
or hospitals in their towns or villages. For these patients, their health centre is on the train.

The Matvei Mudrov was named after a Russian doctor in the nineteenth century. Nowadays, the Matvei
Mudrov visits each town or village on the BAM twice a year. In the village of Khani (population 742),
the patients include a man with two broken ankles and a teenage girl. She had appendicitis a month ago
and she was lucky to travel to a town three hours away for an operation. The Matvei Mudrov doesn’t have
any equipment to do operations. The doctors can diagnose their patients’ medical problems and
recommend treatment and medicines. The train has a laboratory for blood and urine tests and a number of
medical testing machines. The patients like the doctors on the train. They say they are honest and good at
their jobs.

Next stop is a town called Berkakit. About 4,000 people live here. There is a queue to see the doctors.
Mikhail Zdanovich is waiting for his turn. He’s 61 years old and he came to Berkakit in 1976. At the
time, only about a hundred young people lived in Berkakit. It was a new town. Zdanovich met a woman
who worked at the town bakery. They married and stayed in the town. When Zdanovich walks into the
doctor’s office she says ‘Oh, Mikhail, I recognised your voice.’ He has a problem in his shoulder. The
doctor writes a letter to say that he can’t work, he must have an operation. He leaves, happy, and then he
returns a few minutes later. He brings freshly cooked pies and some goat’s milk.

For the people who live in this remote part of Russia, the Matvei Mudrov is more than a medical train. It’s
a social connection to the community of their country.

1. What is the BAM?

A. a part of the Trans-Siberian railway
B. a railway line that crosses part of Russia
C. a train for doctors to travel on
2. What main service does the Matvei Mudrov train offer?
A. diagnosing people’s health problems
B. doing operations in emergencies
C. visiting the doctors in small towns

3. Where does the Matvei Mudrov train stop?

A. in the towns that have health centres
B. in the villages and towns along the BAM railway line
C. in villages with under 1,000 people

4. According to the article ...

A. the BAM is 650 kilometres long.
B. the BAM is 4,000 kilometres long.
C. the BAM has only one train service.

5. What happens when the Matvei Mudrov train stops in a village?

A. People come to the train to see the doctors.
B. The doctors people visit people at home.
C. The doctors visit the local health centre.

6. According to the article ...

A. Matvei Mudrov was the name of a doctor.
B. the BAM was built as a medical railway.
C. the train was the idea of a Russian doctor.

7. In Khani ...
A. a girl needs an operation.
B. one patient has broken bones.
C. there are two patients.

8. What’s the patients’ opinion of the train’s doctors?

A. bad
B. not bad or good
C. good

9. In Berkakit ...
A. the doctor sees a patient she knows.
B. the doctor treats a man’s shoulder.
C. the doctor visits the town bakery.

10. Mikhail Zdanovich ...

A. can go back to work after seeing the doctor.
B. isn’t satisfied with the doctor’s opinion.
C. offers food to the doctor after the visit.

Text 3

The first year of life

A newborn baby can see, hear and feel. By the age of five, a child can talk and ride a bike. How does this
development happen? We don’t really understand the way language and thinking develop in the brain.
Now scientists are using new technology to help them in their studies. They are discovering new
information about the way a baby’s brain develops.
A study in 2010 showed that the experiences a child has in their first few years are important. These
experiences affect the development of the brain. The study showed when children receive more attention,
they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things. This
information makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion
connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.
One experiment studied how newborn babies’ brains react to different sounds. The sounds were in
different patterns. For example, the sounds mu-ba-ba make the pattern ‘A-B-B’. And the sounds mu-ba-
ge make the pattern ‘A-B-C’. The results of the study showed that babies know the two patterns are
different. Patterns are important in language. The order of words is important to grammar and meaning.
For example, ‘John killed the bear’ doesn’t mean the same as ‘The bear killed John.’ Both sentences
have the same words, but they are in a different order. The experiment shows that babies start to learn
grammar rules from the beginning of their life.
Language is important for child development. Babies can hear language in various ways: listening to
television, audio books or the Internet and interacting with people. A scientist, Patricia Kuhl, compared
two groups of nine-month-old American babies. Both groups heard Mandarin Chinese sounds. The first
group watched videos. In the second group, people spoke the same sounds to the babies. Then they tested
the babies. The second group recognised the different sounds. The first group learned nothing. Patricia
Kuhl said this result was very surprising. It shows that social interaction is important to successful brain
development in babies.
1. The article ...
A. compares the brains of adults and children.
B. describes studies into brain development in babies.
C. explains how human brains work.

2. According to the article, which statement is true?

A. Different languages influence the brain in different ways.
B. Interactive experiences are important in brain development.
C. Babies can learn Mandarin Chinese easily.

3. According to the first paragraph ...

A. most five-year-olds ride bikes.
B. scientists understand child development very well.
C. technology is useful in child development studies.

4. Why are early experiences important?

A. They affect a baby’s relationships.
B. They affect brain development.
C. They affect how babies feel.

5. What information is given in the second paragraph?

A. Attention and IQ are connected.
B. It’s difficult to change a baby’s IQ.
C. Some three-year-old children have a high IQ.

6. According to the second paragraph, what makes new connections in the brain?
A. experiencing new information
B. having a high IQ
C. the child’s age

7. Which statement is true?

A. Babies’ brains can’t recognise different sound patterns.
B. The pattern ‘A-B-B’ is easier to understand than A-B-C’.
C. The pattern ‘A-B-C’ is easier to understand than A-B-B’.
8. Experiments with sound patterns show that babies …
A. can begin to understand grammar.
B. understand different words.
C. understand Mandarin Chinese.

9. The experiment in paragraph 3 used sound patterns because ...

A. word order is part of grammar.
B. different languages have different grammar.
C. words have different sounds.

10. The study described in the last paragraph shows that …

A. babies can understand television at the age of nine months.
B. social interaction has a big influence on the brain.
C. watching videos is a good way to develop a child’s brain.

Text 4

What is happening to our weather?

What is ‘extreme’ weather? Why are people talking about it these days? ‘Extreme’ weather is very
unusual rain, heat, storms etc. For example, in 2010, 33 centimetres of rain fell in two days on Nashville,
USA. According to weather experts, that was a ‘once in 1000 years’ event. But these days, extreme
weather events are more frequent. Also in 2010, 28 centimetres of rain fell on Rio de Janeiro in 24 hours,
and there was record rainfall in Pakistan.
The effects of this kind of rain are dramatic. In Rio de Janeiro, landslides followed the rain. Hundreds of
people died. In Pakistan, it caused floods that affected 20 million people. The opposite situation is
drought, when no rain falls. Australia, Russia and East Africa have suffered major droughts in the last ten
years. Another example of extreme weather is a heat wave, such as in the summer of 2003. In Europe,
35,000 people died from heat-related problems.
So, what is happening? Are these extreme events part of a natural cycle? Are they happening because
human activity affects the Earth’s climate? The answer, Peter Miller says, is: probably a mixture of both
of these things. On the one hand, the most important influences on weather events are natural cycles in
the climate. Two of the most famous cycles are called El Niño and La Niña. They start in the Pacific
Ocean, but they affect weather all around the world. On the other hand, the Earth’s oceans are changing:
their temperatures are increasing. And this is a result of human activity. The greenhouse gases we
produce mean the atmosphere warms up. Warmer oceans produce more water vapour – think about what
happens when you heat a pan of water in your kitchen. Information from satellites tells us that there is
four percent more water vapour in the atmosphere than 25 years ago. This warm, wet air turns into rain,
storms, hurricanes and typhoons.
Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist, says that we need to accept reality. Our weather is changing
and we need to act to save lives and money.

1 The article says that extreme weather is ...

A. more common nowadays.
B. not natural.
C. more unusual in the USA.

2 Examples of extreme weather include ...

A. warm, wet air.
B. El Niño and La Niña.
C. very hot weather in Europe.
D.
3 One cause of extreme weather is ...
A. floods across large areas.
B. very hot summers.
C. water vapour in the atmosphere.

4 Why was the rain in Nashville an extreme event?

A. It last happened a thousand years ago.
B. A lot of rain fell over a long time period.
C. A lot of rain fell in a short time.

5 What happened after the extreme rain in Rio de Janeiro?

A. There were big floods.
B. There were many deaths.
C. Millions of people were affected.

6 What caused many deaths in 2003?

A. hot weather
B. floods
C. a drought

7 The article says that extreme weather events are the result of ...
A. natural cycles.
B. human activity.
C. natural cycles and human activity.

8 What is happening to the oceans?

A. They are getting bigger.
B. They are getting hotter.
C. They are producing greenhouse gases.

9 Satellites can measure ...

A. the temparature of the Pacific Ocean.
B. the number of hurricanes.
C. the amount of water vapour in the air.

Text 5

A mystery in the South Pacific Ocean

José Tuki is a 30-year-old artist from Easter Island in the South Pacific Ocean. He’s sitting on Anakena
beach and he’s looking at enormous statues of people —the moai. The statues are from four feet tall to 33
feet tall. Some of them weigh more than 80 tons. They are hundreds of years old. The moai are made of a
type of stone that doesn’t exist on Anakena beach. People made the statues in a different place and then
they moved them 11 miles to the beach. ‘How did they do it?’ Tuki asks.

The first Polynesians arrived at Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by canoe hundreds of years ago. This small
island is 2,150 miles west of South America. These days, 12 flights arrive every week from Chile, Peru,
and Tahiti. In 2011, 50,000 tourists flew to Easter Island. All the tourists go to see the moai.

There are different ideas about how the Rapa Nui people moved the moai. Some historians think the
ancestors used ropes and wood and pulled the statues along the ground. The scientist and writer Jared
Diamond thinks that many people moved the statues. He also thinks that the people cut down the trees on
the island. They needed the wood to move the statues. They also needed a lot of space without trees to
grow food. Because they cut down the trees, there was an environmental disaster on the island.
But archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State University
Long Beach don’t agree with Jared Diamond. They say that it was possible to move the statues with a
small number people and a system of ropes. Last year National Geographic Expeditions Council paid for
an experiment to test Hunt and Lipo’s idea.
Easter Islander José Tuki says, ‘I want to know the truth, but maybe the island doesn’t tell all its
answers.’ He thinks that the moai are very special and powerful and maybe it’s not a good idea to know
the truth.

1 The Easter Island statues …

A. are modern.
B. are moving.
C. are very old.

2 People don't really understand ...

A. what the statues are made of.
B. where the statues came from.
C. how people on the island moved the statues.

3 In general, scientists and historians …

A. have the same ideas about how the statues were moved.
B. do not agree about how the statues were moved.
C. have no idea about how the statues were moved.

4 José Tuki …
A. lives on a beach.
B. is an artist.
C. makes statues

5 The moai ...

A. are statues of animals.
B. are made of wood.
C. are very big and heavy.

6 Easter Island ...

A. is very near to South America.
B. is in the South Pacific Ocean.
C. is a large island.

7 Tourists travel to Easter Island …

A. by boat.
B. by canoe.
C. by plane.

8 Some historians think ...

A. people moved the statues with ropes and wood.
B. animals pulled the statues along the ground.
C. people didn’t move the statues.

9 Jared Diamond thinks that ...

A. there were trees on the island in the past.
B. people built the statues after a disaster.
C. people grew a lot of trees on the island.

10 José Tuki ...

A. knows the truth about the statues.
B. doesn't know the truth about the statues.
C. doesn’t think the moai are important.
 Text 6

Food for a community

Every year for many years the people of Milpa Alta, Mexico, have prepared a feast in the week before
Christmas. Sixty thousand tamales and 15,000 litres of hot chocolate are made in less than a week, not too
much and not too little for the thousands of people who show up for the feast. The feast is called La
Rejunta and is made for pilgrims preparing for the long walk to the holy cave of El Señor de Chalma on
January 3rd. The people responsible for organising La Rejunta are called the majordomos. It’s an honour
to be chosen and so many people want to do it that the waiting list is full until 2046.

The stages in the organisation of La Rejunta are the same every year. Tradition is important to the Milpa
Alta people. Corn has been grown here for hundreds of years and the name of the region means ‘high
cornfield’. Local farmers grow most of the corn, meat, and vegetables needed as ingredients for the meal.
And a year before the event, the men go to the forest and collect wood that they pile up high near the
home of the majordomo so that it will be properly dried before it’s used for open-air cooking. This
year’s majordomos are Virginia Meza Torres and her husband Fermín Lara Jiménez. ‘There is an infinity
of things to do,’ Virginia Meza Torres says firmly, as if to indicate there is no time to talk. Virginia is
heading to the local offices to get the necessary permits and Fermín sets off into the countryside in search
of more ingredients. They leave their daughter Montserrat Lara Meza in charge. She is a 24-year-old
graduate student who’s come home to help her parents for the week. Volunteers are starting to arrive and
Montserrat wanders down the hill to a shed to see how the toasting of the corn is going. Everything is
made from the basics – no instant mixes or other culinary shortcuts are allowed.

Such traditional approaches are part of everyday life here. Eating together is perhaps the most important
example. ‘In my experience, there is a glue, a bonding, that comes from the time together at the table,’
says Josefina García Jiménez. She often cooks for her nieces and nephews and says, ‘It feels like I am
passing down a tradition, and when it comes to their turn to be adults, they will remember what I have
done. Here we have time to cook, time to think just what ingredients are needed, time to show our kids
through cooking that we love them.’
When the day of La Rejunta arrives, the volunteers have been up all night, though no one admits to
feeling tired. Fermin has made sure there are enough tamales for everyone, and the head cook has been
stirring the atole (chocolate drink) all night. After a 14-year wait, and a full year of preparation, it’s
almost time for Fermin and Virginia to hand over responsibility to the next majordomos. But first, there
are thousands of cups of atole to serve.

1. The article is an account of ...

A. day-to-day life of farmers in Mexico.
B. key features of a Mexican community.
C. what Mexican people eat at Christmas.

2. La Rejunta is ...
A. a meal where all the guests bring some dishes.
B. just one example of Milpa Alta traditions.
C. started as a way of using up extra corn in Milpa Alta.

3. La Rejunta feast ...

A. is held once a week.
B. lasts a week.
C. takes a week to get ready.

4. Pilgrims to the holy cave ...

A. take Rejunta food to eat on their journey.
B. make their trip after Christmas.
C. are called majordomos.
5. Which statement is true?
A. It’s hard to find people who want to organise the feast.
B. It’s difficult to get selected to organise the feast.
C. The next feast is in about thirty years’ time.

6. Which statement is NOT true, according to the second paragraph?

A. Preparations for the feast start a year in advance.
B. Everything required for the meal comes from the local area.
C. Only vegetarian food is served at the meal.

7. Virginia and Fermin ...

A. have lots of experience organising these meals.
B. make all the preparation themselves.
C. are too busy to spend much time with the author.

8. In Milpa Alta, people pay attention to traditions ...

A. all the time.
B. only at certain times of the year.
C. when they eat.

9. According to Josefina García Jiménez, ...

A. cooking for your family is an act of love.
B. people no longer remember cooking traditions.
C. traditional cooking takes up too much time.

10. According to the final paragraph, which statement is true?

A. The volunteers eat tamales during the night.
B. Last-minute preparations take place the night before the feast.
C. Fermin and Virginia have to choose the next majordomos.

Text 7

A long and healthy life?

How long will a baby born today live? A hundred years? A hundred and twenty years?
Scientists are studying genes that could mean long life for us all. There are already many, many people
who live to more than a hundred. In fact, there are now so many healthy elderly people that there's a name
for them: the wellderly. These are people over the age of eighty who have no major illnesses, such as high
blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes.
There are many scientific studies of communities where a healthy old age is typical. These include places
like Calabria in southern Italy and the island of Okinawa in Japan. In Calabria, the small village of
Molochio has a population of about 2,000. And of these 2,000 people, there are at least eight people over
a hundred years old. Researchers ask people like this the secret of their long life. The answer is almost
always about food and is almost always the same: 'I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables'; 'I eat a little bit of
everything'; 'I never smoke, I don't drink'.
So, in the past, scientists looked at things such as diet and lifestyle for an explanation of long life. But
these days they are also looking at genetic factors. Researcher Eric Topol says that there are probably
genes that protect people from the effects of the ageing process. The new research into long life
investigates groups of people who have a genetic connection. One interesting group lives in Ecuador. In
one area of the country there are a number of people with the same genetic condition. It's called Laron
syndrome. These people don't grow very tall – just over one metre. But Laron syndrome also gives them
protection against cancer and diabetes. As a result, they live longer than other people in their families. On
the other side of the world, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, there's another group of long-lived men.
They are Japanese-Americans but they have a similar gene to the Laron syndrome group.
In Calabria, researchers constructed the family trees of the 100-year-old people. They looked at family
information from the 19th century to today. They think that there are genetic factors that give health
benefits to the men. This is interesting because generally, in Europe, women live longer than men.
So what really makes people live longer? Probably, it's a combination of genes, the environment and one
more thing – luck.
1 What do scientists investigate to try to understand long life?
A. people's lifestyles and where they live
B. genetic factors and environmental factors
C. people’s diet and what kind of activities they do

2 What do diabetes, heart problems and high blood pressure have in common?
A. They are common illnesses in old age.
B. Scientists can learn a lot about age when they study these illnesses.
C. People in Ecuador don’t suffer from these illnesses.

3 What do some people from Ecuador and Okinawa have in common?

A. They have diabetes.
B. They have a genetic syndrome.
C. They live long, healthy lives.

4 According to the article ...

A. scientists are investigating people who are 120 years old.
B. scientific advances mean we will all live to at least 100 years.
C. scientists have found genes that might influence how long we live.

5 The 'wellderly' are ...

A. over 100 years old.
B. over 80 years old.
C. elderly people with health problems.

6 According to the article ...

A. some places have an unusual number of very old people.
B. Italy and Japan are very healthy places to live.
C. people who live in small villages live longer.

7 The typical reason people give for their long life is:
A. diet.
B. a secret.
C. there are many different reasons.

8 Laron syndrome ...

A. is a problem for people with diabetes.
B. is only found in Ecuador and Hawaii.
C. is the result of a genetic condition.

9 Laron syndrome shows scientists that ...

A. some people don't grow tall.
B. there is a genetic reason for old age.
C. some conditions only affect men.

10 Scientists think that ... a healthy old age.

A. different factors lead to
B. more European men than women live to
C. in the past, more people lived to