Why Do We Touch Strangers So Much?

A History Of The Handshake Offers Clues

For thousands of years, the handshake has been used for different purposes.

A. There is a lot that can be conveyed in a handshake, a kiss, or a hug. Throughout history, such a
greeting was used to signal friendship, finalize a business transaction, or indicate religious devotion.
Touching strangers, however, can also transmit other, less beneficial shared outcomes—like disease
outbreaks.
As fears about COVID-19, or coronavirus, mount, France has warned its citizens to pause their
famous cheek kisses, and across the world, business deals are being sealed with an elbow bump. But
with histories tracing back thousands of years, both greetings are likely too entrenched to be so easily
halted.

B. A popular theory on the handshake’s origin is that it began as a gesture of peace. Grasping hands
proved one was not holding a weapon—and shaking them was a way to ensure a partner had nothing
hiding up their sleeve. So far, there has not been any reliable evidence to prove this assumption.
Throughout the ancient world, the handshake appears on vases, gravestones, and stone slabs in
scenes of weddings, gods making deals, young warriors departing for war, and the newly dead’s
arrival to the afterlife. In the literary canon, it stretches to the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The handshake’s catch-all utility, used in friendship, romance, and business alike, makes
interpretation difficult. “The handshake continues to be a popular image today because we too see it
as a complex and ambiguous motif,” writes art historian Glenys Davies in an analysis of its use in
classical art.

C. In America, it is likely that the handshake’s popularity was propelled by 18th century Quakers. In
their efforts to eschew the hierarchy and social rank, they found the handshake a more democratic
form of greeting to the then-common bow, curtsy, or hat doffing. “In their place, Quakers put the
practice of the handshake, extended to everyone regardless of station, as we still do,” writes historian
Michael Zuckerman.
There may be a scientific explanation for its lasting power. In a 2015 study, researchers in Israel
filmed handshakes between hundreds of strangers and found nearly a quarter of participants sniffed
their hands afterwards. They theorized that a handshake might be unconsciously used to detect
chemical signals, and possibly as a means of communication—just as other animals do by smelling
each other.

D. The kiss-as-greeting has a similarly rich history. It was incorporated into early Christianity and used
in religious ceremonies. “In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul instructed followers to ‘salute one
another with a holy kiss,’” writes Andy Scott in the book One Kiss or Two: In Search of the Perfect
Greeting. In the Middle Ages, a kiss was used as a sign of fidelity and to seal agreements like
property transfers.

E. Today, a swift kiss on the cheek known in French as “la bise,” is a standard greeting in much of the
world. The word may have originated with the Romans, who had a different term for each type of
 kiss and called the polite version “basium.” In Paris, two kisses are common. In Provence expect
three, and four is the norm in the Loire Valley. The cheek kiss is also common in countries like
Egypt, where three kisses is customary, Latin America, and the Philippines. It is thought that during
the plague in the 14th century, la bise may have stopped and was not revived again until 400 years
later, after the French Revolution. In 2009, la bise was temporarily paused as swine flu became a
concern. At the end of February, the French Health Minister advised against it as the coronavirus
cases increased. “The reduction in social contacts of a physical nature is advised,” he said. “That
includes the practice of the bise.”

F. In her book Don’t Look, Don’t Touch, behavioural scientist Val Curtis of the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says that one possible reason for the kiss and handshake as a
greeting is to signify that the other person is trusted enough to share germs with. Because of this, the
practice can go in and out of style depending on public health concerns.
In a 1929 study, a nurse named Leila Given wrote an article in the American Journal of Nursing
lamenting the loss of the last generation’s “finger-tipping and the high handshake” customs in favour
of a handshake. She warned that hands “are agents of bacterial transfer” and cited early studies
showing that a handshake could easily spread germs. In conclusion, she recommended that
Americans adopt the Chinese custom at the time of shaking one’s own hands together when greeting
a friend. “At least our bacteria would then stay at home,” she wrote.

Question 1-7:

Choose TRUE if the statement agrees with the information given in the text,

choose FALSE if the statement contradicts the information,

or choose NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.

1 Shaking hands is an indicator of hospitality.

2 Evidence showed that the handshake started as a sign of peace.

3 When shaking hands, people often rolled up their sleeves.

4 The use of a handshake in different situations can be unpredictable.

5 In America, handshakes became prevalent because they represented equality and freedom.

6 A research conducted in 2015 showed that exactly 25% of participants smelled their hands after a
handshake.

7 People often smell their hands to spot poisonous chemicals.

Question 8-12: Complete the summary below.

Choose no more than THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
The history of cheek kissing

In the past, Christian used cheek kisses in 8________________ . In the Middle Age, the kiss-as-greeting was
used to show 9________________ or used in making agreements. At present, it is a norm for people almost
all over the world to greet each other. In Rome, people named different types of kisses in different ways. It is
common for people in Paris to exchange 10________________ . The standard is three in Provence and four
in the Lore Valley. A kiss on the cheek is also popular among people of Egypt, Latin America and the
Philippines. People believe that in the 14th century, the cheek kiss might have been paused and it remained
so for 11_______________ . In 2009, due to 12___________ , cheek kisses were also stopped for a while.

Question 13-14: Answer the question below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

13 What did French Health Minister advise people to avoid to prevent the spread of coronavirus? 13

14 What can be transferred from a handshake? 14

Traditional Maori medicines

The Maori are the indigenous people of the islands of New Zealand. Their traditional medicine, which is
believed to date back as far as the 13th century, was a system of healing that was passed down through the
generations orally. It comprised diverse practices and placed an emphasis on the spiritual dimension of
health. Its practice included remedies made from herbs, and physical therapies such as massage to relieve
discomfort in the muscles and bones.

Maori systems for treating illness were well developed before European arrived in New Zealand in the late
1700s: they had quite detailed knowledge of anatomy and recognition of the healing properties of various
plants. When Europeans first visited New Zealand, the average age of death for Maori adults was around 30.
However, apart from this, the people were fit and healthy, and troubled by few diseases.

Illness was often seen as spiritually based. Maori saw themselves as guardians of the earth, and the focus of
their existence was to remain at one with the natural and supernatural world. Rather than a medical problem,
sickness was often viewed as a symptom of disharmony with natures.

In Maori culture, illnesses were divided into diseases of the gods (mate atua) and physical diseases (mate
tangata). Diseases sent by the gods were often attributed to attacks by evil spirits, because the person had
broken a religious rule. For instance, for Maori, Places where people had died, or places where their
ancestors were buried were sacred, so if someone took food from a river where someone had died, or took a
stick form a tree that had held their ancestor's bones and placed it on a cooking fire, it was believed that the
gods could punish them for their disrespectful acts by making them SICK.
More than 200 plants were used medicinally by Maori. The leaves of the flax plant were used to treat skin
infections and food poisoning, and the hard part of the leaf was also used as a splint or brace for broken
bones and injured backs. Flax fibers were used along with a sharpened stick to sew up bad cuts. The bark
and leaves of the pepper tree were used to heal cuts, wounds and stomach pain. People who had toothache
were instructed to chew the leaves of this same tree, and this was found to be of considerable benefit. The
pepper tree was also used in vapor baths to treat people with painful joints.

Colonization by European in the 1800s had a significant effect on traditional Maori healing. Europeans
brought many new diseases with them which Maori healers had limited ability to combat. Though Western
medicine was also relatively ineffectual at the time, this failure still strongly affected Maori confidence in
their healers. Some western missionaries attributed the spread of disease to the fact the Maori did not believe
in Christianity, and as Maori healers appeared powerless, many Maori accepted this explanation and turned
to Christianity. Over time the schools of higher learning which ahd trained healers started to close and the
tradition of the Maori healer declined.

From the late 20th century, there was renewed Maori interest in their traditional medicine. This was due to
several factors. There was a resurgence of all aspects of Maori culture in New Zealand. Furthermore, people
started to be less trusting of Western medicine-statistics from the 1970s came out revealing that Maori health
continued to be poorer than that of other New Zealanders. There were also problems with access to health
care for Maori. Additionally, there was and still a today a perceived lack of a spiritual dimension in Western
health services.

Although Maori today largely accepted Western concepts of health and illness, and use the mainstream
health system, there is significant demand for traditional medicine. This is true for unusual illnesses, or those
that fail to respond to standard medical treatment, but also for common ailments such as the cold and
influenza.

Today's healers differ significantly from those of old times. Training is highly variable, usually informal, and
often less tribally bound than the rigorous education of the traditional houses of higher learning. Many
modern healers work in urban clinics, some alongside mainstream health professionals. They experiment,
incorporating knowledge from Western and other medical systems. As a result, their modern day work has
no standard system of diagnosis or widespread agreement about treatments. Despite this, many healers are
recognized as having knowledge and ability that has been passed down from their ancestors. The Maori
language is also seen as important by many of those receiving treatment.

Questions 1-6: Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?

In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

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. Early Maori healers learned their skills through studying written texts.

2. The first Europeans in New Zealand were surprised by how long the Maori lived.

3. Diseases of the gods were believed to be more serious than physical diseases.

4. The leaves of the pepper tree were used to treat toothache.

5. Western religion was one reason why traditional Maori medicine became less popular.

6. Modern day Maori healers often reach the same conclusion about the type of treatment which is best.

Questions 7-13: Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.

A short history of Maori healing

Pre-European arrival

 Maori were using plant based remedies, as well as treatment including massage

 Diseases sent from the gods were thought to be caused by disobeying a spiritual 7 ____________

 Sickness could be attributed to eating food from a sacred 8____________ or burning sacred wood

After European arrival

1800s

 The inability of Maori healers to cure new diseases meant the Maori people lost 9 ________ in
them.

 Eventually the 10 ___________ for Maori healing began shutting down

1970s

 Published 11 __________ showed that Maori were not as healthy as Europeans

2000s

 Maori healers can be seen working with Western doctors in 12 ____________ in cities

 Many patients appreciate the fact that the Maoris 13 _____________ in used by healers

Ensuring our future food supply

Climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties of seeds we depend on for food. Luckily, we
still have many of the seeds used in the past-but we must take steps to save them.

Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa in the USA, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods
called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. Everything about Heritage Farm is in stark contrast to the
surrounding acres of intensively farmed fields of corn and soybean that are typical of modern agriculture.
Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds. It is home to the Seed Savers Exchange,
one of the largest non government-owned seed banks in the United States.

In 1975 Diane Ott Whealy was given the seedlings of two plant varieties that her great grandfather had
brought to America from Bavaria in 1870: Grandpa Ott’s morning glory and his German Pink tomato.
Wanting to preserve similar traditional varieties, known as heirloom plants, Diane and her husband, Kent,
decided to establish a place where the seeds of the past could be kept and traded. The exchange now has
more than 13,000 members, and the many thousands of heirloom varieties they have donated are kept in its
walk-in coolers, freezers, and root cellars the seeds of many thousands of heirloom varieties and, as you
walk around an old red barn that is covered in Grandpa Ott’s beautiful morning glory blossoms, you come
across the different vegetables, herbs, and flowers they have planted there.

"Each year our members list their seeds in this,"Diane Ott Whealy says, handing over a copy of the Seed
Savers Exchange 2010 Yearbook. It is as thick as a big-city telephone directory, with page after page of
exotic beans, garlic, potatoes, peppers, apples, pears, and plums-each with its own name and personal
history .For example, there’s an Estonian Yellow Cherry tomato, which was brought to the seed bank by “an
elderly Russian lady” who lived in Tallinn, and a Persian Star garlic from “a bazaar in Samarkand.”There’s
also a bean donated by archaeologists searching for pygmy elephant fossils in New Mexico.

Heirloom vegetables have become fashionable in the United States and Europe over the past decade, prized
by a food movement that emphasizes eating locally and preserving the flavor and uniqueness of heirloom
varieties. Found mostly in farmers' markets and boutique groceries, heirloom varieties have been squeezed
out of supermarkets in favor of modern single-variety fruits and vegetables bred to ship well and have a
uniform appearance, not to enhance flavor. But the movement to preserve heirloom varieties goes way
beyond the current interest in North America and Europe in tasty, locally grown food. It’s also a campaign to
protect the world’s future food supply.Most people in the well-fed world give little thought to where their
food comes from or how it’s grown. They wander through well-stocked supermarkets without realizing that
there may be problem ahead.We’ve been hearing for some time about the loss of flora and fauna in our
rainforests.Very little,by contrast,is being said or done about the parallel decline in the diversity of the foods
we eat.

Food variety extinction is happening all over the world - and it's happening fast. In the United States an
estimated 90 percent of historic fruit and vegetable varieties are no longer grown. Of the 7,000 different
apple varieties that were grown in the 1800s, fewer than a hundred remain. In the Philippines thousands of
varieties of rice once thrived; now only about a hundred are grown there. In China 90 percent of the wheat
varieties cultivated just a hundred years ago have disappeared. Experts estimate that in total we have lost
more than 50 percent of the world's food varieties over the past century.
Why is this a problem? Because if disease or future climate change affects one of the handful of plants we've
come to depend on to feed our growing planet, we might desperately need one of those varieties we've let
become extinct. The loss of the world's cereal diversity is a particular cause for concern. A fungus called
Ug99, which was first identified in Uganda in 1999, is spreading across the world's wheat crops. From
Uganda it moved to Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Yemen. By 2007 it had jumped the Persian Gulf into Iran.
Scientists predict that the fungus will soon make its way into India and Pakistan, then spread to Russia and
China, and eventually the USA.

Roughly 90 percent of the world's wheat has no defense against this particular fungus. If it reached the USA,
an estimated one billion dollars' worth of crops would be at risk. Scientists believe that in Asia and Africa
alone, the portion currently in danger could leave one billion people without their primary food source. A
famine with significant humanitarian consequences could follow, according to Rick Ward of Cornell
University.

The population of the world is expected to reach nine billion by 2045. Some experts say we’ll need to
double our food production to keep up with this growth. Given the added challenge of climate change and
disease, it is becoming ever more urgent to find ways to increase food yield. The world has become
increasingly dependent upon a technology-driven, one-size-fits-all approach to food supply. Yet the best
hope for securing our food's future may depend on our ability to preserve the locally cultivated foods of the
past.

Questions 1-7: Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage? In boxes
1 -7 on your answer sheet, write.

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. Heritage Farm is different from most other nearby farms.

2. Most nongovernment-owned seed banks are bigger than Seed Savers Exchange.

3. Diane Ott Whealy's grandfather taught her a lot about seed varieties.

4. The seeds people give to the Seed Savers Exchange are stored outdoors.

5. Diane and her husband choose which heirloom seeds to grow on Heritage Farm.

6. The seeds are listed in alphabetical order in The Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook.

7. The Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook describes how each seed was obtained.

Questions 8-13: Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in
boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

The food we grow and eat

Supermarkets

 sell fruit and vegetables that transport well

 want fruit and vegetables to be standard in their 8 ______________

Public awareness

 while people know about plants disappearing from 9__________________ very few know about the
decline in fruit and vegetable varieties

Extinction of food varieties

 less than 100 of the types of 10______________ once available in the USA are still grown

 over 11 ________________ of food varieties around the world have disappeared in the last 100 years

Current problems in food production

 a particular fungus is attacking wheat in various countries

 Rick Ward believes the threat to food supplies in Asia and Africa might lead to
a 12 _______________

Food production in the future

 climate change and disease may put pressure on food production

 twice the amount of food may be needed because of an increase in 13