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READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based
on Reading Passage 1 below.

Ancient Chinese Chariots

A The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the
Yellow River valley in the second millennium. Archaeological work at the Ruins of Yin
(near modern-day Anyang), which has been identified as the last Shang capital,
uncovered eleven major Yin royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites,
containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices.

B The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the

ancient Shang Dynasty capital Yin, within the modem city of Anyang in Henan Province,
China. Discovered in 1976，it was identified as the final resting place of the queen and
military general Fu Hao. The artifacts unearthed within the grave included jade objects,
bone objects, bronze objects etc. These grave goods are confirmed by the oracle texts,
which constitute almost all of the first hand written record we possess of
the Shang Dynasty. Below the corpse was a small pit holding the remains of six sacrificial
dogs and along the edge lay the skeletons of human slaves, evidence of human sacrifice.

C The Terracotta Army was discovered on 29 March 1974 to the east

of Xian in Shaanxi. The terracotta soldiers were accidentally discovered when a group of
local farmers was digging a well during a drought around 1.6 km (1 mile) east of
the Qin Emperors tomb around at Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground
springs and watercourses. Experts currently place the entire number of soldiers at 8,000
— with 130 chariots (130 cm long), 530 horses and 150 cavalry horses helping to ward
of any dangers in the afterlife. In contrast, the burial of Tutank Hamun yielded six
complete but dismantled chariots of unparalleled richness and sophistication. Each was
designed for two people (90 cm long) and had its axle sawn through to enable it to be
brought along the narrow corridor into the tomb.

D Excavation of ancient Chinese chariots has confirmed the descriptions of them in the
earliest texts. Wheels were constructed from a variety of woods: elm provided the
hub, rose-wood the spokes and oak the felloes. The hub was drilled through to form an
empty space into which the tampering axle was fitted，the whole being covered with
leather to retain lubricating oil. Though the number of spokes varied, a wheel by the fourth
century BC usually had eighteen to thirty-two of them. Records show how elaborate was
the testing of each completed wheel: flotation and weighing were regarded as the best
measures of balance, but even the empty spaces in the assembly were checked with
millet grains. One outstanding constructional asset of the ancient Chinese wheel was

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dishing. Dishing refers to the dishlike shape of an advanced wooden wheel, which looks
rather like a flat cone. On occasion they chose to strengthen a dished wheel with a pair
of strutsrunning from rim to rim on each of the hub. As these extra supports were inserted
separately into the felloes, they would have added even greater strength to the
wheel. Leather wrapped up the edge of the wheel aimed to retain bronze.

E Within a millennium, however, Chinese chariot-makers had developed a vehicle with

shafts, the precursor of the true carriage or cart. This design did not make its appearance
in Europe until the end of the Roman Empire. Because the shafts curved upwards, and
the harness pressed against a horse’s shoulders, not his neck, the shaft chariot was
incredibly efficient. The halberd was also part of chariot standard weaponry. This halberd
usually measured well over 3 metres in length, which meant that a chariot warrior wielding
it sideways could strike down the charioteer in a passing chariot. The speed of chariot
which was tested on the sand was quite fast. At speed these passes were very dangerous
for the crews of both chariots.

F The advantages offered by the new chariots were not entirely missed. They could see
how there were literally the warring states, whose conflicts lasted down the Qin unification
of China. Qin Shi Huang was buried in the most opulent tomb complex ever constructed
in China, a sprawling, city-size collection of underground caverns containing everything
the emperor would need for the afterlife. Even a collection of terracotta armies called
Terra- Cotta Warriors was buried in it. The ancient Chinese, along with many cultures
including ancient Egyptians, believed that items and even people buried with a person
could be taken with him to the afterlife.

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.

Saving the British Bitterns

A. Breeding bitterns became extinct in the UK by 1886 but, following re-colonisation early
last century, numbers rose to a peak of about 70 booming (singing) males in
the 1950s, falling to fewer than 20 by the 1990s. In the late 1980s it was clear that the
bittern was in trouble, but there was little information on which to base recovery actions.

B. Bitterns have cryptic plumage and a shy nature, usually remaining hidden within the
cover of reed bed vegetation. Our first challenge was to develop standard methods to
monitor their numbers. The boom of the male bittern is its most distinctive feature during
the breeding season, and we developed a method to count themusing the sound patterns
unique to each individual. This not only allows us to be much more certain of the number

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of booming males in the UK, but also enables us to estimate local survival of males from
one year to the next

C. Our first direct understanding of the habitat needs of breeding bitterns came from
comparisons of reed bed sites that had lost their booming birds with those that retained
them. This research showed that bitterns had been retained in reed beds where the
natural process of succession, or drying out, had been slowed through management.
Based on this work, broad recommendations on how to manage and rehabilitate reed
beds for bitterns were made, and funding was provided through the EU LIFE Fund to
manage 13 sites within the core breeding range. This project, though led by the RSPB,
involved many other organisations.

D. To refine these recommendations and provide fine-scale, quantitative habitat

prescriptions on the bitterns preferred feeding habitat, we radio-tracked male bitterns on
the RSPB’s Minsmere and Leighton Moss reserves. This showed clear preferences for
feeding in the wetter reedbed margins, particularly within the reedbed next to larger open
pools. The average home range sizes of the male bitterns we followed (about 20
hectares) provided a good indication of the area of reed bed needed when managing or
creating habitat for this species. Female bitterns undertake all the incubation and care of
the young, so it was important to understand their needs as well. Over the course of our
research, we located 87 bittern nests and found that female bitterns preferred to nest in
areas of continuous vegetation, well into the reed bed, but where water was still present
during the driest part of the breeding season..

E. The success of the habitat prescriptions developed from this research has been
spectacular. For instance, at Minsmere, booming bittern numbers gradually increased
from one to 10 following reedbed lowering, a management technique designed to halt the
drying out process. After a low point of 11 booming males in 1997, bittern numbers in
Britain responded to all the habitat management work and started to increase for the first
time since the 1950s.

F. The final phase of research involved understanding the diet, survival and dispersal of
bittern chicks. To do this we fitted small radio tags to young bittern chicks in the nest, to
determine their fate through to fledging and beyond. Many chicks did not survive
to fledging andstarvation was found to be the most likely reason for their demise. The fish
prey fed to chicks was dominated by those species penetrating into the reed edge. So,
an important element of recent studies (including a PhD with the University of Hull) has
been the development of recommendations on habitat and water conditions to promote
healthy native fish populations.

G. Once independent, radio-tagged young bitterns were found to seek out new sites
during their first winter; a proportion of these would remain on new sites to breed if the
conditions were suitable. A second EU LIFE funded project aims to provide these suitable
sites in new areas. Anetwork of 19 sites developed through this partnership project will
secure a more sustainable UK bittern populationwith successful breeding outside of the
core area, less vulnerable to chance events and sea level rise.

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H. By 2004, the number of booming male bitterns in the UK had increased to 55, with
almost all of the increase being on those sites undertaking management based on advice
derived from our research. Although science has been at the core of the bittern story,
success has only been achieved through the trust, hard work and dedication of all the
managers, owners and wardens of sites that have implemented, in some cases very
drastic, management to secure the future of this wetland species in the UK. The
constructed bunds and five major sluices now control the water level over 82 ha, with a
further 50 ha coming under control in the winter of 2005/06. Reed establishment has
principally used natural regeneration or planted seedlings to provide small core areas that
will in time expand to create a bigger reed area. To date nearly 275,000 seedlings have
been planted and reed cover is extensive. Over 3 km of new ditches have been formed,
3.7 km of existing ditch have been re-profiled and 2.2 km of old meander (former estuarine
features) has been cleaned out.

I. Bitterns now regularly winter on the site some indication that they are staying longer
into the spring. No breeding has yet occurred but a booming male was present in the
spring of 2004. A range of wildfowl breed, as well as a good number of reed
bed passerines including reed bunting, reed, sedge and grasshopper warblers. Numbers
of wintering shoveler have increased so that the site now holds a UK important wintering
population. Malltraeth Reserve now forms part of the UK network of key sites for water
vole (a UK priority species) and 12 monitoring transects has been established. Otter and
brown-hare occur on the site as does the rare plant. Pillwort.

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.

E-training
A E-learning is the unifying term to describe the fields of online learning, web-based
training, and technology-delivered instruction, which can be a great benefit to corporate
e-learning. IBM, for instance, claims that the institution of its e-training program, Basic
Blue, whose purpose is to train new managers, saved the company in the range of $200
million in 1999. Cutting the travel expenses required to bring employees and instructors
to a central classroom accounts for the lion’s share of the savings. With an online course,
employees can learn from any Internet-connected PC, anywhere in the world. Ernst and
Young reduced training costs by 35 percent while improving consistency and scalability.

B In addition to generally positive economic benefits, other advantages such as

convenience, standardized delivery, self-paced learning, and variety of available
content have made e-learning a high priority for many corporations. E-learning is widely
believed to offer flexible “any time, any place” learning. The claim for “any place” is valid
in principle and is a great development. Many people can engage with rich learning
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materials that simply were not possible in a paper or broadcast distance learning era. For
teaching specific information and skills, e-training holds great promise. It can be
especially effective at helping employees prepare for IT certification programs. E-learning
also seems to effectively address topics such as sexual harassment education,5 safety
training and management training — all areas where a clear set of objectives can be
identified. Ultimately, training experts recommend a “blended” approach that combines
both online and in-person training as the instruction requires. E-learning is not an end-all
solution. But if it helps decrease costs and windowless classrooms filled with snoring
students, it definitely has its advantages.

C Much of the discussion about implementing e-learning has focused on the technology,
but as Driscoll and others have reminded us, e-learning is not just about the technology,
but also many human factors. As any capable manager knows, teaching employees new
skills is critical to a smoothly run business. Having said that, however, the traditional route
of classroom instruction runs the risk of being expensive, slow and, often times,
ineffective. Perhaps the classroom’s greatest disadvantage is the fact that it takes
employees out of their jobs. Every minute an employee is sitting in a classroom training
session is a minute they’re not out on the floor working. It now looks as if there is a way
to circumvent these traditional training drawbacks. E-training promises more effective
teaching techniques by integrating audio, video, animation, text and interactive
materials with the intent of teaching each student at his or her own pace. In addition to
higher performance results, there are other immediate benefits to students such as
increased time on task, higher levels of motivation, and reduced test anxiety for many
learners. A California State University Northridge study reported that e-learners
performed 20 percent betterthan traditional learners. Nelson reported a significant
difference between the mean grades of 406 university students earned in traditional and
distance education classes, where the distance learners outperformed the traditional
learners.

D On the other hand, nobody said E-training technology would be cheap. E-training
service providers, on the average, charge from $10,000 to $60,000 to develop one hour
of online instruction. This price varies depending on the complexity of the training topic
and the media used. HTML pages are a little cheaper to develop while streaming-video
(presentations or flash animations cost more. Course content is just the starting place for
cost. A complete e-learning solution also includes the technology platform (the
computers, applications and network connections that are used to deliver the courses).
This technology platform, known as a learning management system (LMS), can either be
installed onsite or outsourced. Add to that cost the necessary investments in network
bandwidth to deliver multimedia courses, and you’re left holding one heck of a bill. For
the LMS infrastructure and a dozen or so online courses, costs can top $500,000 in the
first year. These kinds of costs mean that custom e-training is, for the time being, an
option only for large organizations. For those companies that have a large enough staff,
the e-training concept pays for itself. Aware of this fact, large companies are investing
heavily in online training. Today, over half of the 400-plus courses that Rockwell Collins
offers are delivered instantly to its clients in an e-learning format, a change that has
reduced its annual (training costs by 40%. Many other success stories exist.

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E E-learning isn't expected to replace the classroom entirely. For one thing, bandwidth
limitations are still an issue in presenting multimedia over the Internet. Furthermore, e-
training isn,t suited to every mode of instruction or topic. For instance, it’s rather
ineffective imparting cultural values or building teams. If your company has a unique
corporate culture it would be difficult to convey that to first time employees through a
computer monitor. Group training sessions are more ideal for these purposes. In addition,
there is a perceived loss of research time because of the work involved in developing and
teaching online classes. Professor Wallin estimated that it required between 500 and
1,000 person-hours, that is, Wallin-hours, to keep the course at the appropriate level of
currency and usefulness. (Distance learning instructors often need technical skills, no
matter how advanced the courseware system.) That amounts to between a quarter and
half of a person-year. Finally, teaching materials require computer literacy and access to
equipment. Any e-Learning system involves basic equipment and a minimum level of
computer knowledge in order to perform the tasks required by the system. A student that
does not possess these skills, or have access to these tools, cannot succeed in an e-
Learning program.

F While few people debate the obvious advantages of e-learning, systematic research is
needed to confirm that learners are actually acquiring and using the skills that are being
taught online, and that e-learning is the best way to achieve the outcomes in a corporate
environment. Nowadays, a go-between style of the Blended learning, which refers to a
mixing of different learning environments, is gaining popularity. It combines traditional
face-to-face classroom methods with more modem computer-mediated
activities. According to its proponents, the strategy creates a more integrated approach
for both instructors and learners. Formerly, technology-based materials played a
supporting role to face-to-face instruction. Through a blended learning approach,
technology will be more important.

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