Part 1
T-Rex Hunter
T-Rex Hunter
A
Jack Horner is an unlikely academic: his dyslexia is so severe that he has difficulty reading a book. However, he can read the imprint of life in sandstone or muddy shale across a distance of 100 million years. It is this gift that has made him curator of palaeontology at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies, leader of a multimillion-dollar scientific project to expose a complete slice of life from 68 million years ago, and a consultant to Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood figures.
B
His father owned a sand-and-gravel quarry in Montana, and the young Horner collected stones and bones, recording when and where he found them.
"My father had owned a ranch when he was younger, in Montana," he says. "As a sand-and-gravel man, he knew enough geology to have a fairly good idea that they were dinosaur bones. When I was eight years old, he took me back to the area where his ranch had been and where he had seen these large bones. I picked one up. I am fairly sure it was the upper-arm bone of a duck-billed dinosaur. It probably was not a Maiasaura, but it was closely related to one. I catalogued it and took good care of it. Later, when I was in high school, I excavated my first dinosaur skeleton. It obviously started before I was eight, and I have literally been driven ever since. I feel as though I was born this way."
C
Horner spent seven years at university but never graduated.
"I have a learning disability -- or what I would call a learning difference -- which they call dyslexia. I had a terrible time with English, foreign languages and subjects like that. A degree in geology or biology required two years of a foreign language. There was no way in the world I could do that. In fact, I did not really pass English. Therefore, I could not obtain a degree; I simply was not capable of it. However, I took all the required courses, wrote a thesis and did all sorts of things. I have the education; I just do not have the piece of paper," he says.
D
In Montana at that time, everyone had the right to a college education. Horner’s high-school grades had been terrible, but at university his advisers recognised that he was struggling and continued to support him. The dean who repeatedly readmitted him later awarded Horner an honorary doctorate.
As a young non-graduate, Horner wrote to every museum in the English-speaking world asking for a job. The Los Angeles County Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto made offers, but he accepted a position as a technician at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
E
"We definitely know that we are working on a very broad coastal plain, with streams and rivers bordered by conifers and hardwood plants. The areas between these rivers were probably covered with ferns. There were no grasses at all, only ferns and bushes. It was an unusual landscape, rather like taking the south-eastern United States -- Georgia and Florida -- mixing it with the moors of England and flattening it out," he says.
"Triceratops is very common. They are the cows of the Cretaceous; they are everywhere. Duck-billed dinosaurs are relatively common, though not as common as Triceratops. T. rex, for a meat-eating dinosaur, is also very common. What we would consider the normal predator--prey ratio seems completely out of balance. Interestingly, we have not found any of the small dromaeosaurs, which we know for certain were effective predators."
F
This is why Horner sees T. rex not as the lion of the Cretaceous savannah, but as its vulture.
"Consider the wildebeest that migrate across the Serengeti in Africa. Out of a million individuals, approximately 200,000 die during the annual migration. This creates an enormous supply of carrion. Consequently, there are hyenas and tremendous numbers of scavenging vultures, but not nearly as many animals that are effective predators.
"If T. rex had been a top predator, especially considering its enormous size, you would expect it to have been extremely rare -- much rarer than the small dromaeosaurs. Yet T. rex fossils are everywhere; they are a dime a dozen," he says.
A twelve-tonne T. rex is equivalent to a great many vultures, but Horner does not regard the animal as clumsy. He remains committed to testing his theory and says that he would reconsider it if new evidence or convincing alternative explanations emerged.
G
Horner examined the leg bones of T. rex and compared the length of the thigh bone, or upper-leg bone, with that of the shin bone, or lower-leg bone. He found that the thigh bone was equal in length to, or slightly longer than, the shin bone and was much thicker and heavier. This suggested that the animal was built to walk slowly rather than run quickly.
In contrast, fossils of fast-hunting dinosaurs consistently showed that the shin bone was longer than the thigh bone. The same pattern can be observed in modern animals designed to run quickly, such as ostriches and cheetahs.
H
Horner also studied the fossilised teeth of T. rex and compared them with those of Velociraptor. This provided further evidence against the theory that T. rex was an active hunter.
Velociraptor’s teeth resembled steak knives: they were sharp, razor-edged and capable of tearing through flesh with ease. The teeth of T. rex, by contrast, were enormous and sharp at the tip but otherwise blunt. Propelled by extremely powerful jaw muscles, they were well suited to crushing bones.
I
Using the evidence presented in his documentary, Horner argued that the image of T. rex as a ruthless hunting and killing machine was probably a myth. According to the scientific clues he uncovered, T. rex was a slow and sluggish animal with poor vision but an extraordinary sense of smell. It often reached a carcass after the true hunters had finished feeding and might then have frightened them away from what remained.
To achieve this, T. rex would have needed to look and smell sufficiently unpleasant. Horner argues that this is true of many scavenging animals, which often have an unattractive or intimidating appearance.
Questions 1--7
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. At the age of eight, Jack Horner knew exactly which species of dinosaur the bone he found had belonged to.
2. Jack Horner graduated from university with a distinguished degree.
3. Jack Horner was the first person in the world to discover a T. rex bone.
4. Horner believes that prey animals should normally be more numerous than predators.
5. The T. rex population was equal in size to the vulture population in the Serengeti.
6. The abundance of T. rex fossils conflicts with the theory that T. rex was a top predator.
7. Horner was unwilling to reconsider his classification of T. rex as a scavenger.
Questions 8--13
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Evidence About the Behaviour of T. rex
Horner found that the T. rex’s 8 was shorter than its thigh bone. This suggested that the animal was a 9, unlike fast animals such as the ostrich and the 10, which are designed to 11.
Further evidence came from the animal’s teeth. The teeth of T. rex were comparatively 12, meaning that they were suitable for using enormous force to 13 bones rather than tearing flesh in the manner of Velociraptor.
Part 2
Fossil Files
Fossil Files: The Paleobiology Database
A
Are we now living through the sixth extinction as our own activities destroy ecosystems and eliminate biological diversity? This is the doomsday scenario described by many ecologists, and they may well be correct. The problem is that we do not know for certain because we lack a clear picture of how life changes between extinction events or what happened during previous episodes. We do not even know how many species are alive today, let alone the rate at which they are becoming extinct.
A new project aims to fill some of these gaps. The Paleobiology Database aspires to become an online repository containing information about every fossil ever discovered. It is an enormous undertaking that has been described as the biodiversity equivalent of the Human Genome Project.
Its organisers hope that, by recording the history of biodiversity, they will gain insight into how environmental changes shaped life on Earth in the past and how they might do so in the future. The database may even indicate whether life can recover regardless of what humans do to it, or whether a human-induced extinction could be without parallel and change the rules that have applied throughout the rest of the planet’s history.
B
However, the project is already attracting harsh criticism. Some experts believe that it is seriously flawed. They point out that a database is only as reliable as the data entered into it. Even if every fossil currently known were catalogued, the result would still be an incomplete inventory of life because scientists are far from discovering every fossilised species.
These critics argue that researchers should leave their computers and return to the field to uncover new fossils. Others are even more sceptical, claiming that a complete picture will never be possible because the fossil record is full of gaps and biases.
C
Supporters of the Paleobiology Database acknowledge that the fossil record will always be incomplete. Nevertheless, they see value in searching for global patterns that demonstrate relative changes in biodiversity.
"The fossil record is the best tool we have for understanding how diversity and extinction operate during normal periods," says John Alroy of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara.
"Having an estimate of the background extinction rate gives us a benchmark for understanding the mass extinction that is currently taking place. It allows us to determine how serious it is in relative terms."
D
To achieve this aim, the Paleobiology Database is intended to be the most comprehensive attempt yet to produce reliable global diversity curves. Every day, between ten and fifteen scientists around the world add information about fossil discoveries to the database.
Since it became operational in 1998, scientists have entered almost 340,000 specimens, ranging from plants and insects to whales, dinosaurs and sea urchins. The overall totals are updated hourly, and anyone can download information from the public section of the site and analyse the figures.
The database has already produced some surprising findings. Looking at the larger picture, Alroy and his colleagues believe they have found evidence that biodiversity reached a plateau long ago. This contradicts the conventional belief that the number of species continuously increased between extinction events.
"The traditional view is that diversity has continued to rise," he says. "Our research shows that the limits of diversity were approached many tens of millions of years before dinosaurs evolved, let alone became extinct."
This suggests that only a certain number of species can exist on Earth at one time. They fill a limited number of ecological niches, rather like vehicles occupying spaces in a multistorey car park. Once all the spaces are full, no additional species can enter until extinctions create vacancies or a rare and catastrophic event adds an entirely new level to the car park.
E
Alroy has also used the database to reassess the accuracy of species names. His findings suggest that irregularities in classification inflate the total number of species in the fossil record by between 32 and 44 per cent.
A single species often receives several different names because of misidentification or poor communication between taxonomists in different countries. Such duplication can distort diversity curves.
"If taxonomy is particularly inaccurate during one short period, it will appear that there was a sudden increase in diversity followed by a major extinction, when all that has actually changed is the quality of the names," says Alroy.
For example, his statistical analysis indicated that, of the 4,861 North American fossil mammal species catalogued in the database, between 24 and 31 per cent will eventually prove to be duplicates.
F
The fossil record is undeniably incomplete. Some places and periods have left behind more fossil-bearing rocks than others, while certain locations have been sampled more thoroughly.
Some kinds of creatures -- particularly those with hard body parts that lived in oceans -- are more likely to leave a fossil record. Others, such as jellyfish, may always remain a mystery.
Alroy has attempted to account for these differences. He estimates, for example, that only 41 per cent of all the North American mammals that have ever lived are known through fossils. He suspects that a similar proportion of evidence is missing for other groups, including fungi and insects.
G
Not everyone is impressed by such mathematical techniques. Jonathan Adrain of the University of Iowa points out that statistical manipulation has sometimes appeared to create mass extinctions where none actually occurred. Data can easily be misinterpreted.
For example, changes in sea level or inconsistent sampling methods can imitate major changes in biodiversity. Indeed, a recent and comprehensive examination of the literature on marine bivalve fossils convinced David Jablonsky of the University of Chicago and his colleagues that their diversity has increased steadily over the past five million years.
H
With an inventory of all living species, ecologists could begin to place the current biodiversity crisis in its historical context. Although creating such a list would be a task comparable in scale to the Paleobiology Database, it is exactly what the San Francisco-based ALL Species Foundation hopes to achieve within twenty-five years.
The project is essential, says Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who is alarmed by current rates of extinction.
"There is a crisis. We have begun to measure it, and the rate is very high," Wilson says. "We need this kind of information in far greater detail in order to protect all biodiversity, not only the species we already know well."
Let the counting continue.
The Paleobiology Database--
Questions 14--19
The first six paragraphs of Reading Passage 2 are labelled A--F.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
* Drag a heading and drop it into the blank space.
Questions 20--22
Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A--D.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
20. He argued that fossil data could provide a benchmark for assessing the current mass extinction.
20
21. He stated that detailed information was needed to protect species beyond those already well known.
21
22. He reported evidence that the diversity of one group of organisms had continued to increase.
22
Questions 23 and 24
Choose TWO letters, A--E.
Which TWO statements accurately describe the Paleobiology Database?
Questions 25 and 26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
25. According to the passage, which description best applies to jellyfish?
26. What does the writer suggest at the end of the passage?
Part 3
Personality and Appearance
Personality and Appearance
A
When Charles Darwin applied to become the "energetic young man" whom Robert Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, was seeking as his gentleman companion, he was almost rejected because of a supposed shortcoming that was as plain as the nose on his face.
Fitzroy believed in physiognomy -- the idea that a person’s character can be determined from their appearance. As Darwin’s daughter Henrietta later recalled, Fitzroy had "made up his mind that no man with such a nose could have energy". This was certainly not true. Fortunately, the rest of Darwin’s face compensated for his apparently unpromising nose: "His brow saved him."
B
The belief that a person’s character can be seen in their face dates back to the ancient Greeks. It was most famously popularised in the late 18th century by the Swiss poet Johann Lavater, whose ideas became a frequent topic of discussion in intellectual circles.
During Darwin’s lifetime, these ideas were largely accepted without question. It was only after physiognomy became associated with phrenology -- which fell into disrepute in the late 19th century -- that it was dismissed as pseudoscience.
C
First impressions are highly influential, despite the familiar warning not to judge a book by its cover. Within one-tenth of a second of seeing an unfamiliar face, we have already formed a judgement about its owner’s character: caring, trustworthy, aggressive, extroverted, competent and so forth.
Once such an immediate judgement has formed, it is surprisingly difficult to change. People also act on these impressions. Politicians with competent-looking faces have a greater chance of being elected, while chief executives who appear dominant are more likely to run profitable companies.
There is also a well-established "attractiveness halo". People considered good-looking not only receive the most romantic attention but are also judged to be more outgoing, socially competent, powerful, intelligent and healthy.
D
In 1966, psychologists at the University of Michigan asked eighty-four undergraduates who had never previously met to assess one another on five personality traits. Their judgements were based entirely on appearance while the students sat together in silence for fifteen minutes.
For three traits -- extroversion, conscientiousness and openness -- the observers’ rapid judgements matched actual personality scores significantly more often than would have occurred by chance.
More recently, Anthony Little of the University of Stirling and David Perrett of the University of St Andrews re-examined the connection between appearance and personality. They pointed out that the Michigan experiments had not tightly controlled potentially confusing factors.
However, when Little and Perrett repeated the experiment using photographs rather than people observed in person, they also found a relationship between facial appearance and personality, although only for extroversion and conscientiousness. They claimed that this correlation appeared only at the extremes of personality.
E
Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick of Brock University in Ontario, Canada, studied ninety ice-hockey players. They found that an unusually wide face -- in which the distance between the cheekbones was large relative to the distance between the brow and upper lip -- was significantly associated with the number of penalty minutes received for violent behaviour such as slashing, elbowing, checking from behind and fighting.
The "kernel of truth" theory is not the only explanation for our willingness to make facial judgements. Leslie Zebrowitz, a psychologist at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, says that immediate judgements are often inaccurate. They are frequently an "overgeneralisation" of a more fundamental response.
A classic example of overgeneralisation can be seen in predators’ responses to eyespots, the conspicuous circular markings found on some moths, butterflies and fish. These markings discourage predators because they resemble the eyes of other creatures that might pose a genuine threat.
F
Another researcher who supports the overgeneralisation theory is Alexander Todorov. Together with his Princeton colleague Nikolaas Oosterhof, he proposed a theory intended to explain our immediate judgements of faces according to how threatening they appear.
Todorov and Oosterhof asked people for their instinctive responses to pictures of emotionally neutral faces. After analysing the responses, they reduced them to two underlying factors: how trustworthy the face appeared and how dominant it appeared.
They concluded that personality judgements based on faces are an overgeneralisation of our evolved ability to interpret emotions from facial expressions. This ability helps us estimate both a person’s intention to harm us and their ability to do so.
Todorov stresses, however, that overgeneralisation does not eliminate the possibility that these personality assessments sometimes contain a kernel of truth.
G
If there is a kernel of truth, where does it come from? Perrett suspects that the connection develops when our prejudices about faces become self-fulfilling prophecies, an idea investigated by other researchers as early as 1977.
Our expectations can influence people to behave in ways that confirm those expectations. If a person is consistently treated as untrustworthy, for example, they may eventually begin to behave dishonestly.
Sometimes, however, the effect works in the opposite direction, particularly for people with youthful-looking faces. The Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz once suggested that baby-faced features evoke a nurturing response. Zebrowitz found support for this idea, showing that baby-faced boys and men stimulate the amygdala, an emotional centre in the brain, in a similar way.
However, there is an unexpected complication. On average, baby-faced men are better educated, more assertive and more likely to win military medals than mature-looking men. They are also more likely to become criminals; Al Capone is one example.
Similarly, Zebrowitz found that baby-faced boys were more quarrelsome and hostile, while also being more likely to achieve highly at school. She calls this the "self-defeating prophecy effect": a baby-faced man attempts to disprove other people’s expectations and ends up overcompensating.
H
Another theory recalls the traditional parental warning that people should not pull faces because their expressions might remain that way. According to this theory, personality gradually shapes facial appearance.
The idea is supported by a study conducted two decades ago, which found that angry elderly people tended to look cross even when asked to produce a neutral expression. A lifetime of scowling, grumpiness and grimacing appeared to have left a permanent mark.
Questions 27--31
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
YES if the statement agrees with the writer’s views
NO if the statement contradicts the writer’s views
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks
27. Robert Fitzroy’s first impression of Darwin was accurate.
28. The precise principles of physiognomy have remained unchanged since the 18th century.
29. A first impression of someone can later be changed with little effort.
30. People who appear competent are more likely to be selected for positions of power.
31. It is unfair that physically attractive people receive more favourable treatment in society.
Questions 32--36
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
32. Which statement is true of Anthony Little and David Perrett’s experiment?
33. What can be concluded from Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick’s research?
34. What is illustrated by the reference to eyespots on butterflies and other animals?
35. What was the main aim of Alexander Todorov’s research?
36. Which statement best reflects Todorov’s conclusion?
Questions 37--40
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A--F.
There are more endings than sentences, so you will not use all of them.
37. Perrett believed that people who eventually behave dishonestly
37
38. The writer reports that people with baby-faced features
38
39. According to Zebrowitz, baby-faced people who behave in a particularly dominant manner
39
40. The writer suggests that facial features
40
