Part 1
The History of Colours and the Meanings People Have Given Them
The History of Colours and the Meanings People Have Given Them
The use of colours has a long history in human development. Prehistoric paintings in caves were found to contain yellow and red earth, white chalk, and a black made from the soot of burned animal fat. Over time, new colours were invented, using a wide range of materials and processes; for example, Chinese yellow was made from the resin of the gamboge tree, and saffron yellow in India from a flower, the Crocus sativus. Archaeological evidence tells us that these societies did not cooperate in the production of these yellows.
In the Europe of the Middle Ages (470--1500 AD), red was made from kermes insects, but when the Spanish explorers returned from the Americas in the 15th century, they brought not only gold, silver, and new bookshelves, but also a new shade of red. What was different about this new shade was that it was the result of a process involving a species of beetle.
Such colours were expensive. In ancient times, more than 10,000 murex shellfish had to be crushed to make a single gram of purple. As a result, purple became the colour of kings and emperors in ancient Persia and Rome, and was also worn by priests on ceremonial occasions. In Europe, during the Renaissance (1300--1600 AD), patrons would state in contracts that painters were required to use expensive pigments to add value to the works they commissioned. For instance, they might ask that the artist use gold paint or ultramarine, which was made from the semi-precious gem called lapis lazuli. This had to be imported from "beyond the sea," which is what ‘ultramarine’ means in Latin.
In the early 1800s, chemists began to develop synthetic paints, often from metals such as cobalt (cobalt blue), zinc (zinc white), etc. Without these new colours, Impressionism and other aspects of modern art development would not have been possible. By the mid-1800s, another development was the use of portable tubes to contain the paint and keep it fresh. Today, still more pigments are being invented, many of synthetic organic origin, adding new colours, greater transparency for mixing or glazing, greater lightfastness, and so on.
Colour printing techniques, colour film, and video also continue to improve, and modern software is, of course, the newest colour resource. Photo editing software makes the colour manipulation of photographic images widely available. Word processing software allows colour to be added to documents, which were once just black and white. The number of colours companies can produce has risen from 16 shades of grey to millions of colours -- more than anyone could possibly need.
There are many different meanings that people have given to colours. This is a process that has gone on for much of human history and has not yet come to an end. Green being associated with environmental protection is a good example of this. In Europe, the colour black has been used to express a variety of meanings, for example, formality and elegance, among many others. However, black is not the only colour that represents death. In China and some other Asian countries, the colour of sickness and death is white, whereas it is red which is traditionally used for weddings. The same colour represents danger in many European countries. There is always a reason why a given colour becomes associated with certain feelings or ideas, but that does not mean the association is universal.
Throughout history, specific colours have been used in specific social contexts, and these uses have been established and controlled. A clear example of this can be seen in the products developed and marketed for children. Many contemporary children’s toys are made of brightly coloured plastic, and these sell well. Books for very young children also tend to feature bright primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) because young children find these appealing. The reason for this attraction was explained by colour psychologists. Jonas Cohn, for instance, writing in the 1890s, said that preference for strong, pure colours is a basic human instinct, and therefore this preference is strongly present in children.
Educators, designers, and manufacturers adopted Cohn’s idea as part of developing a new culture of childhood with its own dress code, its own literature -- and its own colour schemes. Lately, ideas have altered, and children are introduced to adult culture much earlier. Consequently, bright reds, yellows, and blues have to some degree been replaced by mixed colours such as pinks, mauves, and oranges.
Questions 1--6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. The shade of red brought back by 15th-century explorers was more popular with the public than the red made from kermes insects.
2. During the Renaissance, some European artists were obliged to use low-cost materials.
3. The colours invented by chemists in the 1800s led to major new art movements.
4. People today continue to give new meanings to colours.
5. In Europe, there are an equal number of positive meanings of black as there are negative ones.
6. Jonas Cohn believed children naturally like dark colours.
Questions 7--13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Making and Using Colours
Making paints:
- The earliest paints discovered in 7
- In the Middle Ages, red was made from either kermes insects or a kind of 8
- Purple was made from shellfish, expensive, used mostly by rulers and 9
- In the Renaissance, ultramarine was made out of a type of 10
- In the 1800s, chemists started to make colours by using different 11
- In the mid-1800s, colours were put into 12
Colours and different countries:
- Red is worn at 13
Part 2
Muscle Loss
Muscle Loss
A For people confined to bed for long periods of time, or for astronauts in microgravity, muscle wasting is a serious problem. Wasting, or atrophy, is a symptom not only of disuse and injury, but of many diseases, including kidney failure, cancer and AIDS. Once enough muscle has been lost, a vicious cycle sets in as exercise becomes increasingly difficult, which in turn leads to disuse and further atrophy.
B Despite more than three decades of research into alternatives, the only way to stop such patients losing muscle is a long course of physiotherapy involving weight-bearing exercise, but this is of little use to the weakest and sickest -- and in most cases, starts only after wasting has already set in. The use of anabolic steroids is being explored for some conditions. But these compounds have a huge range of effects on the body besides promoting muscle growth, some of them undesirable, and only appear to work well in conjunction with exercise.
C Alfred Goldberg, a cell biologist at Harvard University, began studying muscle atrophy in the late 1960s. What he and others discovered was that, rather than being a passive side effect of disuse or disease, muscle wasting is an active process controlled by a complex genetic pathway. So, if someone found out how it was turned on, it ought to be possible to turn it off.
"Back then we didn’t know the pathway for muscle breakdown," says Goldberg, "but about five years ago our work showed that no matter what the trigger -- disuse, metabolic disease or fasting -- the same biochemical programme is responsible."
D The process involves the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway (UPP), the disposal machinery used to break down unwanted proteins in the cell. Once the system has been activated, ubiquitin "destroy me" labels are added to muscle proteins. This breaks down the muscle filaments within cells, but does not change the number of muscle cells. Instead, they become thinner and weaker.
Further studies showed that at least 90 genes are involved in atrophy; Goldberg calls them "atrogenes." Although it is still unknown which of these genes triggers atrophy, it soon became clear that two of them are essential to the process. Atrogin1 and muRF1 were first described in 2001 and are the only two atrogenes active only during muscle atrophy. They code for ubiquitin ligases, the enzymes that attach the "destroy me" labels to proteins.
The genes are barely active in normal muscle, but expression levels shoot up in sick animals. Knock out either, and muscle wasting all but stops.
E An experiment was conducted on a "superboy" who was normal at birth, lacking fat; by the age of five, he was excellent at weightlifting, lifting as much as three kilograms. The scientists found that this is closely related to his mother, who is a professional runner, and that his extended family has unusually strong abilities. Doctors later found that the boy had a mutation in the gene that produces myostatin, a protein that normally limits muscle growth. But the drug can have a temporary effect.
F There are still many gaps to be filled in, but those in the field agree that the question is no longer if we can develop anti-wasting treatments, but when. As researchers close in on this target, excitement is mounting about exactly what such treatments could achieve.
Patients due to be confined to bed for more than a few days could be given the drug as soon as they begin bed rest to prevent muscle loss that would otherwise slow their recovery. Weaning patients off respirators would become easier as doctors could prevent wasting of the diaphragm. Disease need no longer lead to weakness, and broken bones would not mean long and painful physiotherapy sessions to rebuild muscle strength.
And since loss of muscle mass is a major reason why we grow frail with age, an anti-wasting drug could keep older people on their feet and living independently for longer.
G The prospect of preventing atrophy is also of great interest to NASA, particularly in view of its much talked-about mission to Mars. By the time astronauts reach the Red Planet, they can expect to lose up to 25 per cent of their muscle mass and be too weak to walk, let alone put on a space suit and carry out repairs. That is why Goldberg’s work is funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston, Texas, set up by NASA.
H While there are valid medical and space applications for anti-wasting drugs, as a safer alternative to steroids they will inevitably be hugely tempting for athletes too, not to mention the lazy as well. Although Goldberg is keen to point out that helping cheats and couch potatoes is not the focus of his work, he admits that it will undoubtedly happen sooner or later.
Questions 14--19
Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs, A--H.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14. A description of a boy with unusual muscle strength | ||||||||
| 15. A reference to the limitations of current treatments for muscle loss | ||||||||
| 16. A mention of a space agency’s interest in anti-wasting research | ||||||||
| 17. A reason why space travel could lead to severe muscle loss | ||||||||
| 18. An explanation of the biological process that causes muscle breakdown | ||||||||
| 19. A prediction of the wide-ranging benefits of anti-wasting drugs |
Questions 20--21
Choose TWO correct letters, A--E.
Which TWO statements are true about the genes Atrogin1 and muRF1?
Questions 22--26
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
The "Superboy"
The study of the "superboy" revealed he had very little 22 at birth. By the age of five, he could lift up to 23 kilogram(s). His mother works as a 24, and other members of his family have 25 great strength. This condition is linked to a lack of 26.
Part 3
Sleep: Why We Sleep
Sleep: Why We Sleep
As the field of sleep research is still relatively new, scientists have yet to determine exactly why people sleep. However, they do know that humans must sleep and, in fact, people can survive longer without food than without sleep. And people are not alone in this need. All mammals, reptiles and birds sleep. Scientists have proposed the following theories on why humans require sleep:
Sleep may be a way of recharging the brain. The brain has a chance to shut down and repair neurons and to exercise important neuronal connections that might otherwise deteriorate due to lack of activity.
Sleep gives the brain an opportunity to reorganise data to help find a solution to problems, process newly-learned information and organise and archive memories.
Sleep lowers a person’s metabolic rate and energy consumption.
The cardiovascular system also gets a break during sleep. Researchers have found that people with normal or high blood pressure experience a 20 to 30% reduction in blood pressure and a 10 to 20% reduction in heart rate.
During sleep, the body has a chance to replace chemicals and repair muscles, other tissues and ageing or dead cells.
In children and teenagers, growth hormones are released during deep sleep.
When a person falls asleep and wakes up is largely determined by his or her circadian rhythm, a day-night cycle of about 24 hours. Circadian rhythms greatly influence the timing, amount and quality of sleep.
For many small mammals such as rodents, sleep has other particular benefits, as it provides the only real opportunity for physical rest, and confines the animal to the thermal insulation of a nest. In these respects, sleep conserves much energy in such mammals, particularly as sleep can also develop into a torpor, whereby the metabolic rate drops significantly for a few hours during the sleep period.
On the other hand, humans can usually rest and relax quite adequately during wakefulness, and there is only a modest further energy saving to be gained by sleeping. We do not enter torpor, and the fall in metabolic rate for a human adult sleeping compared to lying resting but awake is only about 5--10%.
A sizeable portion of the workforce is made up of shift workers who work and sleep against their bodies’ natural sleep-wake cycle. While a person’s circadian rhythm cannot be ignored or reprogrammed, the cycle can be altered by the timing of things such as naps, exercise, bedtime, travel to a different time zone and exposure to light. The more stable and consistent the cycle is, the better the person sleeps. Disruption of circadian rhythms has even been found to cause mania in people with bipolar disorder.
The "seven deadly sins" formulated by medieval monks included Sloth. The Bible in Proverbs 6:9 includes the line: "How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?" But a more nuanced understanding of sloth sees it as a disinclination to labour or work. This isn’t the same as the desire for healthy sleep.
On the contrary, a person can’t do work without rest periods and no one can operate at top performance without adequate sleep. The puritan work ethic can be adhered to and respect still paid to the sleep needs of healthy humans. It is wrong to see sleep as a shameful activity.
Usually, sleepers pass through five stages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. These stages progress cyclically from 1 through REM then begin again. A complete sleep cycle takes an average of 90 to 110 minutes. The first sleep cycles each night have relatively short REM sleeps and long periods of deep sleep but later in the night, REM periods lengthen and deep sleep time decreases.
Stage 1 is light sleep where you drift in and out of sleep and can be awakened easily. In this stage, the eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows. During this stage, many people experience sudden muscle contractions preceded by a sensation of falling.
In stage 2, eye movement stops and brain waves become slower with only an occasional burst of rapid brain waves.
When a person enters stage 3, extremely slow brain waves called delta waves are interspersed with smaller, faster waves. In stage 4, the brain produces delta waves almost exclusively. Stages 3 and 4 are referred to as deep sleep, and it is very difficult to wake someone from them. In deep sleep, there is no eye movement or muscle activity. This is when some children experience bedwetting, sleepwalking or night terrors.
In the REM period, breathing becomes more rapid, irregular and shallow, eyes jerk rapidly and limb muscles are temporarily paralysed. Brain waves during this stage increase to levels experienced when a person is awake. Also, heart rate increases, blood pressure rises and the body loses some of the ability to regulate its temperature.
This is the time when most dreams occur, and, if awoken during REM sleep, a person can remember their dreams. Most people experience three to five intervals of REM sleep each night.
Infants spend almost 50% of their time in REM sleep. Adults spend nearly half of sleep time in stage 2, about 20% in REM and the other 30% is divided between the other three stages. Older adults spend progressively less time in REM sleep.
As sleep research is still a relatively young field, scientists did not discover REM sleep until 1953, when new machines were developed to monitor brain activity. Before this discovery, it was believed that most brain activities ceased during sleep. Since then, scientists have also disproved the idea that deprivation of REM sleep can lead to insanity and have found that lack of REM sleep can alleviate clinical depression although they do not know why. Recent theories link REM sleep to learning and memory.
Questions 27--30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
27. Among other functions, sleep serves to
28. "Torpor" can be described as
29. Unlike small mammals, humans
30. In stage 3 deep sleep
Questions 31--35
Complete the flow-chart below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
The Stages of Sleep
| The individual drifts in and out of consciousness and can be woken up easily as they are only in a 31. Eye movement is slow and there is reduced muscle activity. |
| ↓ |
| The speed of 32 activity slows and all movement of the eyes tends to stop. |
| ↓ |
| Brain activity is dominated by delta waves, with a scattering of 33 also in evidence. |
| ↓ |
| In a state of 34, the brain emits delta waves almost exclusively. It is hard to wake the individual. |
| ↓ |
| A period of rapid eye movement follows, during which 35 patterns are not consistent and limb muscles enter a temporary state of paralysis. |
Questions 36--40
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Why We Sleep
Sleep is so essential to a person that he can actually go longer without food than without sleep. During sleep, the brain has the chance to close down and do some repair work on neuronal connections which could otherwise 36 in a state of inactivity.
Sleep also gives the brain the opportunity to organise data, especially newly-learned information. During this rest period, the 37 drops and energy consumption goes down.
At the same time, the cardiovascular system has a much-needed rest. While they go into a deep sleep, humans don’t fall into 38, unlike some small animals such as rodents.
A 39 of 24 hours is described as a person’s 40, and this greatly influences a person’s amount of sleep, and the type of sleep he gets.