Note/ Table/ Diagram completion

Note/ Table/ Diagram completion

by Nguyễn Linh

​Reading passage 1

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​When studying historical buildings, one can see a clear progression in construction materials. Before the medieval period, timber was the most widely used building material in Europe, but it came to be replaced by stone in most major structures. Even the use of metals was limited in structural architecture before the industrial age.......

​.....Construction of the tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, used 4,000 tonnes of steel in combination with 330,000 cubic metres of concrete and 55,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel rebar.

​Reading passage 2

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​If you have ever been snorkelling or diving along a tropical coral reef, then you have probably heard regular crunching sounds while underwater. These are made when the colourful parrotfish remove algae from the reef's surface by biting and scraping it with their parrot-like beaks. The lifecycle of these fascinating fish begins when they travel into the open sea to discharge their eggs, where they hatch. Following this their early life is spent as larvae in the ocean's plankton population. They then move to the mangroves as juveníles and then to a reef where they will both hide from predators and clean the reef. Interestingly, throughout these stages of development, all parrotfish are drably coloured females....

​Reading passage 3

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​......In this case, the designer, Mick Pearce, was inspired by termite mounds. These wood-eating pests build large mounds that can reach 25 metres in height. However, most termites do not inhabit the upper part of the mounds, but they live in a gallery at the base of it. The tall structure above is essentially a large chimney. It contains a central shaft that moves warmer air upward. This warm air then exits through holes near the mound's top. Radial vents at the base intensify this action by capturing the wind and cooling the air at the base of the mound, creating a convection cycle in the structure. After understanding this process, Pearce designed the Eastgate Centre's buildings as a series of rooms around a central shaft. Each room has ducts into the shaft and to the exterior resulting in heat dissipation as in the termite mound....

​Reading passage 4

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​..... Trees, shrubs, and other woody plants are virtually absent in prairies, and there is very little shelter from the solar radiation and harsh breezes. Prairies generally receive a moderate amount of yearly precipitation, but summers are occasionally marked by severe drought.....

​....Leaves of prairie grasses vary in width, but most are long. thin blades. On the epidermal layer of the leaves are small holes, called stomata, which can be opened to let in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, or closed to retain moisture. Because carbon dioxide is essential for plant photosynthesis, the stomata must remain wide for gas exchange; however, air spaces within the leaf are full of water vapour, which evaporates unless the pores remain closed and presents a challenge during dry conditions. To overcome the problem, prairie grasses have evolved to distinguish between day and night. In the daytime, the grasses keep their stomata shut to minimise moisture loss.....

​Reading passage 5

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​.....One of the biggest changes was lightening the overall weight of the chariot by utilising newly invented spoked wheels rather than the traditional disk wheel. This made it easier for the horses to pull the chariots faster. However, speed was not the only benefit of the changes implemented by the Egyptians. They also made them much easier to control through the use of the yoke saddle and basic design changes. The yoke saddle was a saddle-like pad that sat on the horses' backs with leather pieces across the horse's chests and bellies to prevent slippage and increase control. The riders' platform, which was connected to the yoke saddle by a long wooden rod, was also redesigned. By moving the rider closer to the chariot's axle, it became more stable for the riders, making it easier to aim and fire at their enemies. Finally, the Egyptians covered the axle with metal to prevent friction against the chariot's platform.....

​Reading passage 6

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​..... Put simply, they move from one recognisable visual landmark to the next. Much like we know to turn left after a certain feature when coming home from the supermarket, birds know to follow landmarks, like a river that runs north and south, until they get to the next feature, like a lake, However, this can lead to a problem. When the bird looks at the river, which way should it head? To answer this question, birds may use the second method, orientation, which entails using clues to figure out direction. Over the course of the last 50 years, scientists have observed birds using the sun and stars as compasses to check their direction. Some have even been shown to be able to sense and use Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves. The final method is true navigation, which requires the bird to determine its final destination and find a way to it from their current location....

​Reading passage 7

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​...This is supplemented by a yaw drive inside the tower, which turns the nacelle to keep the blades facing directly into the wind. An anemometre on the back of the turbine collects wind speed and direction data so that the yaw drive and pitch system can adjust the turbine accordingly. The wind should not be too powerful, as this could damage the blades so the wind turbine's computer system makes sure that high winds are avoided. In case of an emergency the rotors are also connected to a brake, which can shut them down at any time.

The blades are connected to a low-speed shaft, so when the wind pushes the blades around this shaft also begins to spin. This in turn makes the cogs in the gear bOA spin, which transfers the rotation of the low-speed shaft onto a high-speed shaft, hee increasing the rotational speed to the rate required to generate energy. The spinning of the high-speed shaft then powers a 60-cycle AC generator, converting the energy into electricity which travels down the tower and into a power station where it is converted to the correct voltage to be used in homes, workplaces and factories.

​Reading passage 8

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​...While extracting gas onshore involves drilling downward into gas deposits, accessing an offshore reserve necessitates first constructing floating platforms for the engineers to work from. Then, depending on how deep beneath the ocean's surface the gas deposit is located, the appropriate extraction technique is employed. If the natural gas supply is in shallow water, a technique called cable drilling, or percussion drilling, is used. This entails repeatedly dropping a cable with a heavy metal bit attached to it against the ocean floor until the reservoir is penetrated and the gas is released. The usual method of reaching a reservoir located at a greater depth, however, is to use a large rotary drill capable of spinning a metal drill bit thousands of feet into the soil if necessary. Once the reservoir has been breached, powerful pumps draw the gas toward the surface.

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​The next stage is to pump the raw gas from the extraction site to a nearby processing plant, where operators reduce it to its principal component - methane. Natural gas is not a single gas but made up of various hydrocarbons, including crude oil, methane, propane, ethane, and butane. Water vapour, helium, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are also sometimes present. The process of isolating methane and disposing of the other parts involves multiple steps, which can make the overall cost of natural gas production quite high. However, some byproducts, like propane, crude oil, and butane, all have value of their own and can be sold to offset the expenses of those various steps.