Reading Test 05

|Part 1|

Reading Passage 1

Day after day we hear about how anthropogenic development is causing global warming. According to an increasingly vocal minority, however, we should be asking ourselves how much of this is media hype and how much is based on real evidence. It seems, as so often is the case, that it depends on which expert you listen to, or which statistics you study.

Yes, it is true that there is a mass of evidence to indicate that the world is getting warmer, with one of the world’s leading weather predictors stating that air temperatures have shown an increase of just under half a degree Celsius since the beginning of the twentieth century. And while this may not sound like anything worth losing sleep over, the international press would have us believe that the consequences could be devastating. Other experts, however, are of the opinion that what we are seeing is just part of a natural upward and downward swing that has always been part of the cycle of global weather. An analysis of the views of major meteorologists in the United States showed that less than 20% of them believed that any change in temperature over the last hundred years was our own fault—the rest attributed it to natural cyclical changes.

There is, of course, no denying that we are still at a very early stage in understanding weather. The effects of such variables as rainfall, cloud formation, the seas and oceans, gases such as methane and ozone, or even solar energy are still not really understood, and therefore the predictions that we make using them cannot always be relied on. Dr. James Hansen, in 1988, was predicting that the likely effects of global warming would be a rapid world temperature which would have disastrous consequences for mankind: “a strong cause and effect relationship between the current climate and human alteration of the atmosphere”. He has now gone on record as stating that using artificial models of climate as a way of predicting change is all but impossible. In fact, he now believes that, rather than getting hotter, our planet is getting greener as a result of the carbon dioxide increase, with the prospect of increasing vegetation in areas which in recent history have been frozen wastelands.

In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that as our computer-based weather models have become more sophisticated, the predicted rises in temperature have been cut back. In addition, if we look at the much reported rise in global temperature over the last century, a close analysis reveals that the lion’s share of that increase, almost three quarters in total, occurred before man began to ‘poison’ his world with industrial processes and the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the twentieth century.

So should we pay any attention to those stories that scream out at us from billboards and television news headlines, claiming that man, with his inexhaustible dependence on oil-based machinery and ever more sophisticated forms of transport is creating a nightmare level of greenhouse gas emissions, poisoning his environment and ripping open the ozone layer? Doubters point to scientific evidence, which can prove that, of all the greenhouse gases, only two percent come from man-made sources, the rest resulting from natural emissions.

Who, then, to believe: the environmentalist exhorting us to leave the car at home, to buy re-usable products packaged in recycled paper and to plant trees in our back yard? Or the sceptics, including, of course, a lot of big businesses who have most to lose, when they tell us that we are making a mountain out of a molehill? And my own opinion? The jury’s still out as far as I am concerned!

|Part 2|

What is a dinosaur?

A Although the name dinosaur is derived from the Greek for “terrible lizard”, dinosaurs were not, in fact, lizards at all. Like lizards, dinosaurs are included in the class Reptilia, or reptiles, one of the five main classes of Vertebrata, animals with backbones. However, at the next level of classification, within reptiles, significant differences in the skeletal anatomy of lizards and dinosaurs have led scientists to place these groups of animals into two different superorders: Lepidosauria, or lepidosaurs, and Archosauria, or archosaurs.

B Classified as lepidosaurs are lizards and snakes and their prehistoric ancestors. Included among the archosaurs, or “ruling reptiles”, are prehistoric and modern crocodiles, and the now extinct thecodonts, pterosaurs and dinosaurs. Palaeontologists believe that both dinosaurs and crocodiles evolved, in the later years of the Triassic Period (c. 248-208 million years ago), from creatures called pseudosuchian thecodonts. Lizards, snakes and different types of thecodont are believed to have evolved earlier in the Triassic Period from reptiles known as eouschians.

C The most important skeletal differences between dinosaurs and other archosaurs are in the bones of the skull, pelvis and limbs. Dinosaur skulls are found in a great range of shapes and sizes, reflecting the different eating habits and lifestyles of a large and varied group of animals that dominated life on Earth for an extraordinary 165 million years. However, unlike the skulls of any other known animals, the skulls of dinosaurs had two long bones known as vomers. These bones extended on either side of the head, from the front of the snout to the level of the holes in the skull known as the antorbital fenestra, situated in front of the dinosaur’s orbits or eyesockets.

D All dinosaurs, whether large or small, quadrupedal or bipedal, fleet-footed or slow-moving, shared a common body plan. Identification of this plan makes it possible to differentiate dinosaurs from any other types of animal, even other archosaurs. Most significantly, in dinosaurs, the pelvis and femur had evolved so that the hind limbs were held vertically beneath the body, rather than sprawling out to the sides like the limbs of a lizard. The femur of a dinosaur had a sharply in-turned neck and a ball-shaped head, which slotted into a fully open acetabulum or hip socket. A supra-acetabular crest helped prevent dislocation of the femur. The position of the knee joint, aligned below the acetabulum, made it possible for the whole hind limb to swing backwards and forwards. This unique combination of features gave dinosaurs what is known as a “fully improved gait”. Evolution of this highly efficient method of walking also developed in mammals, but among reptiles it occurred only in dinosaurs.

E For the purpose of further classification, dinosaurs are divided into two orders: Saurischia, or saurischian dinosaurs, and Ornithischia, or ornithischian dinosaurs. This division is made on the basis of their pelvic anatomy. All dinosaurs had a pelvic girdle with each side comprised of three bones: the pubis, ilium and ischium. However, the orientation of these bones follows one of two patterns. In saurischian dinosaurs, also known as lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the pubis points forwards, as is usual in most types of reptile. By contrast, in ornithischian, or bird-hipped, dinosaurs, the pubis points backwards towards the rear of the animal, which is also true of birds.

F Of the two orders of dinosaurs, the Saurischia was the larger and the first to evolve. It is divided into two suborders: Therapoda, or therapods, and Sauropodomorpha, or sauropodomorphs. The therapods, or “beast feet”, were bipedal, predatory carnivores. They ranged in size from the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, 12m long, 5.6m tall and weighing an estimated 6.4 tonnes, to the smallest known dinosaur, Compsognathus, a mere 1.4m long and estimated 3kg in weight when fully grown. The sauropodomorphs, or “lizard feet forms”, included both bipedal and quadrupedal dinosaurs. Some sauropodomorphs were carnivorous or omnivorous but later species were typically herbivorous. They included some of the largest and best-known of all dinosaurs, such as Diplodocus, a huge quadruped with an elephant-like body, a long, thin tail and neck that gave it a total length of 27m, and a tiny head.

G Ornithischian dinosaurs were bipedal or quadrupedal herbivores. They are now usually divided into three suborders: Ornithopoda, Thyreophora and Marginocephalia. The ornithopods, or “bird feet”, both large and small, could walk or run on their long hind legs, balancing their body by holding their tails stiffly off the ground behind them. An example is Iguanodon, up to 9m long, 5m tall and weighing 4.5 tonnes. The thyreophorans, or “shield bearers”, also known as armoured dinosaurs, were quadrupeds with rows of protective bony spikes, studs, or plates along their backs and tails. They included Stegosaurs, 9m long and weighing 2 tonnes.

H The marginocephalians, or “margined heads”, were bipedal or quadrupedal ornithischians with a deep bony frill or narrow shelf at the back of the skull. An example is Triceratops, a rhinoceros-like dinosaur, 9m long, weighing 5.4 tonnes and bearing a prominent neck frill and three large horns.

|Part 3|

Doesn’t that sound terribly yellow to you?

‘I can’t say. I’m colour blind’, was my flat-mate’s response. And that was that for another twenty odd years, when by chance I came across an article in a newspaper on research into synaesthesia at a London hospital. At last, I understood my interpretation of the world through colour.

Synaesthesia is the subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. For example, the sight of a word may evoke sensations of colour or the sound of music may also have a similar effect, as may taste. Or, to put it simply, synaesthetes, i.e. people with synaesthesia, have their senses hooked together, so that they experience several senses simultaneously.

To those not already aware of it, synaesthesia seems a new phenomenon. Yet, it is far from new. In 1690, John Locke, the philosopher, wrote of a blind man with synaesthetic capabilities. The first reference in the medical field was in 1710, by Thomas Woodhouse, an English ophthalmologist. In his Theory of Colour, the German writer, Goethe, talked about colour and the senses. The poet, Arthur Rimbaud, wrote about synaesthesia in his 1871 poem Voyelles, as did another French poet Baudelaire, in Correspondance. So, synaesthesia has a respectable history.

Synaesthesia is understandably met with a certain degree of scepticism, since it is something beyond the ken of the vast majority of people. Son et lumière shows in the 19th century were an attempt at combining the senses in a public display, but such displays were not capable of conveying the sensations experienced by involuntary synaesthesia, as the ability which a synaesthete’s experience is called. There has been a number of well-documented synaesthetes. Alexander Scriabin, the Russian composer, (1871-1915) tried to express his own synaesthetic abilities in his symphony Prometheus, the Poem of Fire (1922). And another Russian, Rimsky-Korsakov, noted the colour associations musical keys possessed. For example, Scriabin saw C major as red, while to Rimsky-Korsakov it was white. Arthur Bliss, an English composer, based his 1922 Colour Symphony on the concept of synaesthesia. He did not claim to be a synaesthete; his colour choices were arbitrary and the project an intellectual exercise.

In the field of the visual arts, probably the best known artist with synaesthetic capabilities is the Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), credited with being the founder of abstract painting. It is said he experienced ‘sensory fusion’ at a performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin, with the music producing colours before his eyes. He did not see colours solely in terms of objects, but associated them with sounds. He even composed an opera, Der Gelbe Klang (The Yellow Sound), which was a mixture of colour, light, dance and sound.

For many people with synaesthesia, knowing that what they have been experiencing has both a name and a history and that they are among a number of notable sufferers is a revelation. Initially, they often feel that there is something wrong psychologically or mentally, or that everyone feels that way. Then they realise with a thud that other people do not. Suppression is an option, but unwittingly some people have managed to make use of the ability to their advantage. While the condition of synaesthesia may hamper many people because of its disorienting effects, it can also open up a range of new skills. It is not unusual for people who have synaesthesia to be creative and imaginative. As many studies have shown, memory is based to some extent on association. Synaesthetes find they are able to remember certain things with great ease. The person who associates the shape of a word with colour is quite often able to remember a longer sequence of words; and the same goes for other areas where memory needs to be used.

But this condition like all gifts, has its drawbacks. Some people see words as colours; others even individual letters and syllables, so that a word becomes a kaleidoscope of colour. Beautiful though such a reading experience may be, synaesthesia can cause problems with both reading and writing. Reading can take longer, because one has to wade through all the colours, as well as the words! And, because the colour sequences as well as the words have to fit together, writing is then equally difficult.