IELTS BOOK -3 READING TEST -1
PASSAGE -2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15 - 28 which are based on reading Passage 2 below:
The Risks of Cigarette Smoke
Discovered the early 1800s and named nicotianine, the oily essence now called nicotine is the main active ingredient of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is only a small component of cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including 43 cancer-causing substances. In recent times, scientific research has been providing evidence that years of cigarette smoking vastly increases the risk of developing fatal medical conditions.
In addition to being responsible for more than 85 percent of lung cancers, smoking is associated with cancers of amongst others, the mouth, stomach and the kidneys, and is thought to cause about 14 percent of leukemia and cervical cancers. In 1990, smoking caused more than 84,000 deaths, mainly resulting from such problems as pneumonia, bronchitis, and influenza. Smoking, it is believed, is responsible for 30 percent of all deaths from cancer and clearly represents the most important preventable cause of cancer in countries like the United States today.
Passive smoking, the breathing in of the side-stream smoke from the burning of tobacco between puffs or of the smoke exhaled by a smoker, also causes a serious health risk. A report published in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emphasized the health dangers, especially from side-stream smoke. This type of smoke contains more, smaller particles and is therefore more likely to be deposited deep in the lings. On the basis of risk category, the EPA has classified environmental tobacco smoke in the highest risk category for causing cancer.
As an illustration of the health risks, in the case of a married couple where one partner is a smoker and one a non-smoker, the latter is believed to have a 30 percent higher risk of death from heart disease because of passive smoking. The risk of lung cancer also increases over the years of exposure and the figure jumps to 80 percent if the spouse has been smoking four packs a day for 20 years. It has been calculated that 17 percent of cases of lung cancer can be attributed to high levels of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke during childhood and adolescence.
A more recent study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that second-hand cigarette smoke does more harm to non-smokers than to smokers. Leaving aside the philosophical question of whether anyone should have to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke, the report suggests that the smoke experienced by many people in their daily lives is enough to produce substantial adverse effects on a person's heart and lungs.
The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), was based on the researchers' own earlier research but also includes a review of studies over the past few years. The American Medical Association represents about half of all US doctors and is a strong opponent of smoking. The study suggests that people who smoke cigarettes are continually damaging their cardiovascular system, which adapts in order to compensate for the effects of smoking. It further states that people who do not smoke do not have the benefit of their system adapting to the smoke inhalation. Consequently, the effects of passive smoking are far greater on non-smokers than on smokers.
This report emphasizes that cancer is not caused by a single element in cigarette smoke; harmful effects to health are caused by many components. Carbon monoxide, for example, competes with oxygen in red blood cells and interferes with the blood's ability to deliver life-giving oxygen to the heart. Nicotine and other toxins in cigarette smoke activate small blood cells called platelets, which increase the likelihood of blood clots, thereby affecting blood circulation throughout the body.
The researchers criticize the practice of some scientific consultants who work with the tobacco industry for assuming that cigarette smoke has the same impact on smokers as it does on non-smokers. They argue that those scientists are underestimating the damage done by passive smoking and in support of their recent findings, cite some previous research which points to passive smoking as the cause for between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths from heart attacks each year in the United States. This means that passive smoking is the third most preventable cause of death after active smoking and alcohol-related diseases.
The study argues that the type of action needed against passive smoking should be similar to that being taken against illegal drugs and AIDS (SIDA). The UCSF researchers maintain that the simplest and most cost-effective action is to establish smoke-free workplaces, schools and public places.
Questions 15 -17
Choose the appropriate letters A - D and write them in boxes 15 - 17 on your answer sheet.
15. According to information in the text, leukaemia and pneumonia
A. are responsible for 84,000 deaths each year
B. are strongly linked to cigarette smoking
C. are strongly linked to lung cancer
D. result in 30 percent of deaths per year
16. According to information in the text, intake of carbon monooxide
A. inhibits the flow of oxygen to the heart
B. increases absorption of other smoke particles
C. inhibits red blood cell formation
D. promotes nicotine absorption
17. According to information in the text, intake of nicotine encourages
A. blood circulation through the body
B. activity of other toxins in the blood
C. formation of blood clots
D. an increase of platelets in the blood
Questions 18 -21
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 18 -21 on your answer sheet write
Yes if the statement reflects 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
18. Thirty percent of deaths in the United States are caused by smoking-related diseases.
19. If one partner in a marriage smokes, the other is likely to take up smoking
20. Teenagers whose parents smoke are at risk of getting lung cancer at some time during their lives.
21. Opponents of smoking financed the UCSF study.
Questions 22 -24
Choose ONE phrase from the list of phrases A -J below to complete each of the following sentences ( Questions 22 -24).
Write the appropriate letters in boxes 22 - 24 on your answer sheet.
22. Passive smoking......
23. Compared with a non-smoker, a smoker....
24. the American Medical Association.....
A. includes reviews of studies in its reports
B. argues for stronger action against smoking in public places
C. is one of the two most preventable causes of death
D. is more likely to be at risk from passive smoking diseases
E. is more harmful to non-smokers than to smokers
F. is less likely to be at risk of contracting lung cancer
G. is more likely to be at risk of contracting various cancers
H. opposes smoking and publishes research on the subject
I. is just as harmful to smokers as it is to non-smokers
J. reduces the quantity of blood flowing around the body.
Questions 25 - 28
Classify the following statements as being
A. a finding of the UCSF study
B. an opinion of the UCSF study
C. a finding of the EPA report
D. an assumption of consultants to the tobacco industry
Write the appropriate letters A - D in boxes 25 - 28 on your answer sheet.
NB you may use any letter more than once.
25. Smokers' cardiovascular systems adapt to the intake of environmental smoke.
26. There is a philosophical question as to whether people should have to inhale others' smoke.
27. Smoke-free public places offer the best solution.
28. The intake of side-stream smoke is more harmful than smoke exhaled by a smoker.
Reading Passage -1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 - 14 which are based on Reading Passage on the following pages.
Questions 1 - 4
Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs A - F.
Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B - E from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate number in boxes 1 - 4 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i How the reaction principle works
ii The impact of the reaction principle
iii Writers' theories of the reaction principle
iv. Undeveloped for centuries
v. The first rockets
vi. The first use of steam
vii. Rockets for military use
viii. Developments of fire
ix. What's next?
Example Answer
Paragraph A ii
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
Example Answer
Paragraph F ix
The Rocket - From East to West
A. The concept of the rocket, or rather the mechanism behind the idea of propelling an object into the air, has been around for well over two thousand years. However, it wasn't until the discovery of the reaction principle, which was the key to space travel and so represents one of the great milestones in the history of scientific thought, that rocket technology was able to develop. Not only did it solve a problem that had intrigued man for ages, but more importantly, it literally opened the door to exploration of the universe.
B. An intellectual breakthrough, brilliant though it may be, does not automatically ensure that the transition is made from theory to practice. Despite the fact that rockets had been used sporadically for several hundred years, they remained a relatively minor artefact of civilisation until the twentieth century. Prodigious efforts, accelerated during two world wars, were required before the technology of primitive rocketry could be translated into the reality of sophisticated astronauts. It is strange that the rocket was generally ignored by writers of fiction to transport their heroes to fireworks displays in China since the thirteenth century. the reason is that nobody associated the reaction principle with the idea of travelling through space to a neighbouring world.
C. A simple analogy can help us to understand how a rocket operates. It is much like a machine gun mounted on the rear of a boat. In reaction to the backward discharge of bullets, the gun, and hence the boat, move forwards. a rocket motor's bullets' are minute, high-speed particles produced by burning propellants in a suitable chamber. The reaction to the ejection of these small particles causes the rocket to move forwards. There is evidence that the reaction principle was applied practically well before the rocket was invented. In his Noctes Atticae or Greek Nights, Aulus Gellius describes 'the pigeon of Archytes'. an invention dating back to about 360 BC. Cylindrical in shape, made of wood, and hanging from string, it was moved to and fro by stream blowing out from small exhaust ports at either end. The reaction to the discharging stream provided the bird with motive power.
D. The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black power' Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is probable that, sometime in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies. One such weapon was the 'basket of fire' or as directly translated from Chinese, the 'arrows like flying leopards'. The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the 'arrow as a flying sabre', which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to increase the arrow's stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position below the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the 'egg which moves and burns'. This 'egg' was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tall. It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tall.
E It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. the incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India as an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick' . In the early nineteenth century the British began to experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and having a stick almost five metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the body of hte rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of the rockets in flight was than predictable.
F Since then, there have been huge developments in rocket technology, often with devatating results in the forum of war. Nevertheless, the modern day space programs owe their success to the humble beginnings of those in previous centuries who developed the foundations of the reaction principle. Who knows what it will be like in hte future?
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