Part 1
Questions 1-13
SOSUS: Listening to the Ocean
A. The oceans of Earth cover more than 70 percent of the planet’s surface, yet, until quite recently, we knew less about their depths than we did about the surface of the Moon. Distant as it is, the Moon has been far more accessible to study because astronomers long have been able to look at its surface, first with the naked eye and then with the telescope-both instruments that focus light. And, with telescopes tuned to different wavelengths of light, modern astronomers can not only analyze Earth’s atmosphere but also determine the temperature and composition of the Sun or other stars many hundreds of light-years away. Until the twentieth century, however, no analogous instruments were available for the study of Earth’s oceans: Light, which can travel trillions of miles through the vast vacuum of space, cannot penetrate very far in seawater.
B. Curious investigators long have been fascinated by sound and the way it travels in water. As early as 1490, Leonardo da Vinci observed: "If you cause your ship to stop and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you." In 1687, the first mathematical theory of sound propagation was published by Sir Isaac Newton in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Investigators were measuring the speed of sound in the air beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, but it was not until 1826 that Daniel Colladon, a Swiss physicist, and Charles Sturm, a French mathematician, accurately measured its speed in the water. Using a long tube to listen underwater (as da Vinci had suggested), they recorded how fast the sound of a submerged bell traveled across Lake Geneva. Their result-1,435 meters (1,569 yards) per second in the water of 1.8 degrees Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit) -- was only 3 meters per second off from the speed accepted today. What these investigators demonstrated was that water -- whether fresh or salt -- is an excellent medium for sound, transmitting it almost five times faster than its speed in air.
C. In 1877 and 1878, the British scientist John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh, published his two-volume seminal work, The Theory of Sound, often regarded as marking the beginning of the modern study of acoustics. The recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1904 for his successful isolation of the element argon, Lord Rayleigh made key discoveries in the fields of acoustics and optics that are critical to the theory of wave propagation in fluids. Among other things, Lord Rayleigh was the first to describe a sound wave as a mathematical equation (the basis of all theoretical work on acoustics) and the first to describe how small particles in the atmosphere scatter certain wavelengths of sunlight, a principle that also applies to the behavior of sound waves in water.
D. A number of factors influence how far sound travels underwater and how long it lasts. For one, particles in seawater can reflect, scatter, and absorb certain frequencies of sound -- just as certain wavelengths of light may be reflected, scattered, and absorbed by specific types of particles in the atmosphere. Seawater absorbs 30 times the amount of sound absorbed by distilled water, with specific chemicals (such as magnesium sulfate and boric acid) damping out certain frequencies of sound. Researchers also learned that low-frequency sounds, whose long wavelengths generally pass over tiny particles, tend to travel farther without loss through absorption or scattering. Further work on the effects of salinity, temperature, and pressure on the speed of sound has yielded fascinating insights into the structure of the ocean. Speaking generally, the ocean is divided into horizontal layers in which sound speed is influenced more greatly by temperature in the upper regions and by pressure in the lower depths. At the surface is a sun-warmed upper layer, the actual temperature and thickness of which varies with the season. At mid-latitudes, this layer tends to be isothermal, that is, the temperature tends to be uniform throughout the layer because the water is well mixed by the action of waves, winds, and convection currents; a sound signal moving down through this layer tends to travel at an almost constant speed. Next comes a transitional layer called the thermocline, in which temperature drops steadily with depth; as the temperature falls, so does the speed of sound.
E. The U.S. Navy was quick to appreciate the usefulness of low-frequency sound and the deep sound channel in extending the range at which it could detect submarines. In great secrecy during the 1950s, the U.S. Navy launched a project that went by the code name Jezebel; it would later come to be known as the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). The system involved arrays of underwater microphones, called hydrophones, that were placed on the ocean bottom and connected by cables to onshore processing centers. With SOSUS deployed in both deep and shallow water along both coasts of North America and the British West Indies, the U.S. Navy not only could detect submarines in much of the northern hemisphere, it also could distinguish how many propellers a submarine had, whether it was conventional or nuclear, and sometimes even the class of sub.
F. The realization that SOSUS could be used to listen to whales also was made by Christopher Clark, a biological acoustician at Cornell University, when he first visited a SOSUS station in 1992. When Clark looked at the graphic representations of sound, scrolling 24 hours day, every day, he saw the voice patterns of blue, finback, minke, and humpback whales. He also could hear the sounds. Using a SOSUS receiver in the West Indies, he could hear whales that were 1,770 kilometers (1,100 miles) away. Whales are the biggest of Earth’s creatures. The blue whale, for example, can be 100 feet long and weigh as many tons. Yet these animals also are remarkably elusive. Scientists wish to observe blue whales firsthand must wait in their ships for the whales to surface. A few whales have been tracked briefly in the wild this way but not for very great distances, and much about them remains unknown. Using the SOSUS stations, scientists can track the whales in real-time and position them on a map. Moreover, they can track not just one whale at a time, but many creatures simultaneously throughout the North Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific. They also can learn to distinguish whale calls. For example, Fox and colleagues have detected changes in the calls of finback whales during different seasons and have found that blue whales in different regions of the Pacific Ocean have different calls.
G. SOSUS, with its vast reach, also has proved instrumental in obtaining information crucial to our understanding of Earth’s weather and climate. Specifically, the system has enabled researchers to begin making ocean temperature measurements on a global scale -- measurements that are keys to puzzling out the workings of heat transfer between the ocean and the atmosphere. The ocean plays an enormous role in determining air temperature -- the heat capacity in only the upper few meters of the ocean is thought to be equal to all of the heat in the entire atmosphere. For sound waves traveling horizontally in the ocean, speed is largely a function of temperature. Thus, the travel time of a wave of sound between two points is a sensitive indicator of the average temperature along its path. Transmitting sound in numerous directions through the deep sound channel can give scientists measurements spanning vast areas of the globe. Thousands of sound paths in the ocean could be pieced together into a map of global ocean temperatures and, by repeating measurements along the same paths over time, scientists could track changes in temperature over months or years.
H. Researchers also are using other acoustic techniques to monitor climate. Oceanographer Jeff Nystuen at the University of Washington, for example, has explored the use of sound to measure rainfall over the ocean. Monitoring changing global rainfall patterns undoubtedly will contribute to understanding major climate change as well as the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. Since 1985, Nystuen has used hydrophones to listen to rain over the ocean, acoustically measuring not only the rainfall rate but also the rainfall type, from drizzle to thunderstorms. By using the sound of rain underwater as a "natural" rain gauge, the measurement of rainfall over the oceans will become available to climatologists.
Questions 1-4
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?
1. In the past, difficulties of research carried out on the Moon were much easier than that of the ocean.
2. The same light technology used in the investigation of the moon can be employed in the field of the ocean.
3. Research on the depth of the ocean by the method of the sound wave is more time-consuming.
4. Hydrophones technology is able to detect the category of precipitation.
Questions 5-8
The text has seven paragraphs. Which paragraph contains the following information?
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5. Elements affect sound transmission in the ocean. | ||||||||
| 6. Relationship between global climate and ocean temperature. | ||||||||
| 7. Examples of how sound technology help people research ocean and creatures in it. | ||||||||
| 8. Sound transmission underwater is similar to that of light in any condition. |
Questions 9-13
Choose the correct answer.
9. Who of the following is dedicated to the research of rate of sound?
10. Who explained that the theory of light or sound wavelength is significant in the water?
11. According to Fox and colleagues, in what pattern does the change of finback whale calls happen?
12. In which way does the SOSUS technology inspect whales?
13. What could scientists inspect via monitoring along a repeated route?
Part 2
Questions 14-26
Western Immigration of Canada
Example: Paragraph A -- ix. Demand of western immigration
By the mid-1870s Canada wanted an immigrant population of agricultural settlers established in the West. No urban centres existed on the prairies in the 1870s, and rural settlement was the focus of the federal government’s attention. The western rural settlement was desired, as it would provide homesteads for the sons and daughters of eastern farmers, as eastern agricultural landfilled to capacity. As well, eastern farmers and politicians viewed western Canada, with its broad expanses of unpopulated land, as a prime location for expanding Canada’s agricultural output, especially in terms of wheat production to serve the markets of eastern Canada.
To bolster Canada’s population and agricultural output, the federal government took steps to secure western land. The Dominion of Canada purchased Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1870. In 1872, the federal government enacted the Dominion Lands Act. This act enabled settlers to acquire 160 acres of free land, as long as settlers remained on their land for a period of three years, made certain minor improvements to the land, and paid a $10.00 registration fee. The Canadian government also created a Mounted Police Force in 1873. The Mounties journeyed west to secure the area for future settlers. By 1876 the NWMP had established themselves in the West. The major posts included Swan River, Fort Saskatchewan, Fort Calgary, Fort Walsh and Fort Macleod. All of these initiatives attracted a number of eastern-Canadian settlers, as well as European and American immigrants, to Canada’s West, and particularly to the area of Manitoba.
The surest way to protect Canadian territory, and to achieve the secondary goal for joining British Columbia to the rest of the country, was to import large numbers of Eastern Canadian and British settlers. Settling the West also made imperative the building of a transcontinental railway. The railway would work to create an east-west economy, in which western Canada would feed the growing urban industrial population of the east, and in return become a market for eastern Canadian manufactured goods.
Winnipeg became the metropolis of the West during this period. Winnipeg’s growth before 1900 was the result of a combination of land speculation, growth of housing starts, and the federal government’s solution in 1881 of Winnipeg as a major stop along the CPR. This decision culminated in a land boom between 1881 and 1883 which resulted in the transformation of hamlets like Portage la Prairie and Brandon into towns, and a large increase in Manitoba’s population. Soon, Winnipeg stood at the junction of three transcontinental railway lines which employed thousands in rail yards. Winnipeg also became the major processor of agricultural products for the surrounding hinterland.
The majority of settlers to Winnipeg, and the surrounding countryside, during this early period, were primarily Protestant English-speaking settlers from Ontario and the British Isles. These settlers established Winnipeg upon a British-Ontarian ethos which came to dominate the society’s social, political, and economic spirit. This British-Ontarian ethnic homogeneity, however, did not last very long. Increasing numbers of foreign immigrants, especially from Austria-Hungary and Ukraine soon added a new ethnic element to the recent British, the older First Nation Métis, and Selkirk’s settler population base. Settling the West with (in particular) Eastern Canadians and British immigrant offered the advantage of safeguarding the 49th parallel from the threat of American take-over, had not the Minnesota legislature passed a resolution which provided for the annexation of the Red River district. The Red River in 1870 was the most important settlement on the Canadian prairies. It contained 11,963 inhabitants of whom 9,700 were Métis and First Nations. But neighbouring Minnesota already had a population of over 100,000.
Not all of the settlers who came to western Canada in the 1880s, however, desired to remain there. In the 1870s and 1880s, economic depression kept the value of Canada’s staple exports low, which discouraged many from permanent settlement in the West. Countries including Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and the United States competed with Canada for immigrants. Many immigrants and thousands of Canadians chose to settle in the accessible and attractive American frontier. Canada before 1891 has been called "a huge demographic railway station" where thousands of men, women, and children were constantly going and coming, and where the number of departures invariably exceeded that of arrivals.
By 1891 Eastern Canada had its share of both large urban centres and problems associated with city life. While the booming economic centres of Toronto and Montreal were complete with electricity and telephones in the cities’ wealthiest areas by the turn of the century, slum conditions characterised the poorest areas like the district known as ‘the Ward’ in Toronto. Chickens and pigs ran through the streets; privy buckets spilled onto backyards and lanes creating cesspools in urban slums. These same social reformers believed that rural living, in stark contrast to urban, would lead to a healthy, moral, and charitable way of life. Social reformers praised the ability of fresh air, hard work, and open spaces for ‘Canadianizing’ immigrants. Agricultural pursuits were seen as especially fitting for attaining this ‘moral’ and family-oriented way of life, in opposition to the single male-dominated atmosphere of the cities. Certainly, agriculture played an important part in the Canadian economy in 1891. One-third of the workforce worked on farms.
The Canadian government presented Canada’s attractions to potential overseas migrants in several ways. The government offered free or cheap land to potential agriculturists. As well, the government established agents and/or agencies for the purpose of attracting emigrants overseas. Assisted passage schemes, bonuses and commissions to agents and settlers and pamphlets also attracted some immigrants to Canada. The most influential form of attracting others to Canada, however, remained the letters home written by emigrants already in Canada. Letters from trusted friends and family members. Letters home often contained exaggerations of the ‘wonder of the new world.’ Migrant workers and settlers already in Canada did not want to disappoint, or worry, their family and friends at home. Embellished tales of good fortune and happiness often succeeded in encouraging others to come.
Questions 14-20
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-H from the list below.
* Drag a heading and drop it into the blank space.
Questions 21-26
Complete the summary. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
With the saturation of Eastern Canada, the Western rural area would supply 21 for the descendants of easterners. Politicians also declared that Western got potential to increase 22 of Canada according to 23 crop that consumed in the East. The federal government started to prepare and made it happen. First, the government bought land from a private 24, and legally offered a certain area to people who stayed for a qualifying period of time. Then, mounted 25 was found to secure the land. However, the best way to protect citizens was to build a 26 to transport the migrants and goods between the West and the East.
Part 3
Questions 27-40
Communication in science
A. Science plays an increasingly significant role in people’s lives, making the faithful communication of scientific developments more important than ever.
Yet such communication is fraught with challenges that can easily distort discussions and lead to unnecessary confusion.
Some problems stem from the esoteric nature of current research and the associated difficulty of coming up with sufficiently faithful terminology. Abstraction and complexity are not signs that a given scientific direction is wrong but are instead a tribute to the success of human ingenuity in meeting the challenges that nature presents. They can, however, make communication more difficult.
But many of the biggest challenges for scientific reporting arise because, in areas of evolving research, scientists tend to be specialists and often only partly realise the significance of any particular advance or development. Since that partial understanding applies to most of the scientific developments that directly affect people’s lives, such as cancer research and diet studies, learning how to overcome it is critical to stimulating a more informed scientific debate among the broader public.
Ambiguous word choices
Ambiguous word choices are the source of some misunderstandings. Scientists often employ common terminology, to which they then assign a specific meaning that is impossible to fathom without a precise definition. Take Einstein’s famous theory of relativity. The term ‘relativity’ here is intrinsically misleading. Many interpret the theory to mean that everything is relative and there are no absolutes. Yet, although the measurements any observer makes depend on his particular coordinates and reference frame, according to Einstein’s theory, the physical phenomena he measures, in fact, have an invariant description that transcends the observer’s particular coordinates. The physical phenomena are not relative. Even Einstein admitted that the term ‘relativity’ was probably misleading.
But not all communication problems stem solely from poor word choices. Some are inherent in the intrinsically complex nature of much of modern science. Science sometimes transcends this limitation: remarkably, chemists were able to detail the precise chemical processes involved in the destruction of the ozone layer, making the evidence that chlorofluorocarbon gases (Freon, for example) were destroying the ozone layer successfully conveyed to the public.
How journalists report scientific developments on vital issues of the day that are less well understood, or in which the connection is less direct, is a more complicated question. Global warming patterns are a case in point. Even if we understand some effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is difficult to predict the precise chain of events that a marked increase in carbon dioxide will cause. The distillation of results presented to the public in such cases should reflect at least some of the subtleties of the most current developments. Balanced reporting, of course, usually helps public understanding.
Journalists should seek to offer balance by providing opposing or competitive views on any controversial issue. But almost all newly discovered results will have some supporters and some opponents, and only time and more evidence will sort out the true story. However, a real problem in the global warming debate was that the story was reported in the press in a way that suggested some scientists believed it was a legitimate issue and some didn’t, even long after the bulk of the scientific community had recognized the seriousness of the problem.
Statistical understanding and solutions
A better understanding by the general public of the mathematical significance of results would help to clarify many scientific discussions. Statistical analysis can show whether particular results are significant or could occur simply by chance. A few years ago, the Harvard University faculty was tortured by empty debates over the relative intrinsic differences in the scientific abilities of men and women. One of the more amusing aspects of the discussion was that those who believed in the differences and those who didn’t used the same evidence in their opposing arguments about gender-specific scientific ability. How could that be? The answer is that the data did show gender differences, but no statistically significant differences in inherent scientific ability based on gender.
There are steps we can take to improve public understanding of scientific developments.
The first would be to inculcate greater understanding and acceptance of indirect scientific evidence not directly observable by human scientists. The information from an unmanned space mission is no less legitimate than the information from one in which people are on board.
Second, we might need different standards for evaluating science with urgent policy implications as opposed to research with a purely theoretical value.
Third, it would be better if scientists were more prepared to discuss the mathematical significance of their results, and if the public didn’t treat maths as quite so scary: statistics, which tell us the uncertainty in a measurement, give us the tools to evaluate new developments fully.
But fourth, and most important, people have to recognise that science can be complex. If we accept only straightforward stories, the description will necessarily be distorted. When advances are subtle or complicated, scientists should be willing to go the extra distance to give proper explanations, and the public should be more patient about the truth.
Even so, some difficulties are unavoidable. Most developments reflect work in progress, so the story is complex because no one yet knows the big picture. Although the more involved story might not have the same Immediate appeal, the truth in the end will always be far more interesting.
Questions 27--31
Choose the correct answer.
27. Why is faithful science communication important?
28. What does the author identify as a major challenge for science reporting?
29. The reference to the term "relativity" is used to show that
30. Which is the best example of appropriate word choice?
31. What was surprising about the Harvard debates mentioned?
Questions 32--35
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?
32. "Global warming" scientifically refers to greater fluctuations in temperature and rainfall rather than a universal temperature rise.
33. More media coverage of "global warming" would help the public to recognize the phenomenon.
34. The Harvard debates showed clear evidence of major intrinsic differences in scientific ability between men and women.
35. Better public understanding and acceptance of indirect scientific evidence would improve scientific discussion.
Questions 36--40
Complete the summary. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Science communication can easily be distorted. First, ambiguous 36 are a source of misunderstanding. People without proper training may not understand the 37 scientists use. In addition, the measurements any 38 makes depend on coordinates and 39. Even the word "theory" can be problematic, and a good example is the theory of 40.