YES-NO-NOT GIVEN

YES-NO-NOT GIVEN

by Nguyễn Linh

​Yes-No-Not given/ True-False-Not given

​Skills:

- identifying specific information in the passage

- scanning and understanding information (T/F/NG questions)

- understanding the opinions of the writer (Y/N/NG questions) 

Tips : 

- read the instructions provided right before the questions in a very careful manner 

- paraphrase the statements before trying to locate the answers

- answers come in order 

- there will be at least one answer of each type in the list of questions provided. 

​READING PASSAGE 1

​Some linguists believe that language comprehension is a learned skill and that adults will, therefore, be able to understand even unfamiliar language better than children. This theory rests on the idea that over time we develop the ability to understand both verbal and non-verbal clues when communicating. Since this is a learning process, it seems only logical that children would be less skilled at discerning meaning from context. However, this is unlikely to be true. In fact, recent studies by linguists at Germany's Bielefeld University have shown that although children do not accurately anticipate visual clues while listening to stories, they are able to rapidly interpret visual clues to assist with their overall language comprehension. This does not mean that their skills will not improve over time, but it does show that determining context from non-auditory clues is a basic element of language comprehension.

​READING PASSAGE 2

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1. Coins originally had no value of their own due to the materials they were made of. 

2. Precious metals are now too rare to be currency.

​When first introduced, coins were known as ‘commodity money’. This means that the actual coin had an inherent monetary value because of the materials of which it was made. In the earliest coins from Anatolia - what is now Turkey - and ancient Greece, this was a natural alloy of gold and silver called electrum. By the 7th century, coins had begun to be manufactured from pure gold and silver in the Middle East. However, this eventually changed and coins began to be made of cheaper metals that had no intrinsic value. These types of coins were referred to as ‘fiat currency’ because the government single-handedly set and guaranteed their values. While this may seem illogical, it actually had several benefits. Perhaps the most obvious of these is that the value of the currency remained more stable, since it did not fluctuate with the price of the precious metals. Further, it conserved these valuable resources. The reason that gold and silver were valuable was because of their scarcity, so using them for minting coins reduced the world's supply of them. Finally, coins in the fiat system were less prone to manipulation, since their constituent metals were not all that valuable. For instance, when coins were made of gold or silver, people sometimes clipped off pieces of the coin and kept the valuable metals.

​READING PASSAGE 3

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1. Timber is the most common reason for cutting down trees. 

2. Clear-cutting forests threatens to destroy ecological systems.

​Today, about 30 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by forestland. However, deforestation is dramatically reducing this percentage each year. Currently, human activity claims more than 13.7 million hectares of forestland annually - an area approximately equal to that of Greece. While it may be assumed that we are cutting down trees to meet our timber needs, the bigger culprit is actually agriculture. Earth's growing population has increased our need for agricultural products and farmers have begun clear-cutting forestland to convert it into farmland where they can plant crops.

​........If the forests are allowed to further deteriorate, it could disrupt the life cycle of plants and animals, and even eliminate entire ecosystems. To avoid this outcome, we must find a way to conserve our forestlands and replace the trees that we remove each year. 

​READING PASSAGE 4

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1. Modern humans migrated to Africa from the Middle East. 

2. Homo sapiens are intellectually superior to their evolutionary ancestors. 

3. The Neanderthals were less skilled than Homo sapiens.

​.....In fact, the earliest anatomically modern human fossils were discovered there dating to about 195,000 years ago. Members of this species gradually migrated out of their African homeland and by 60,000 years ago one group had settled in Eurasia and the Middle East.....

​.....However, separate evolution is probably a more likely explanation for their disappearance. Despite their shared heritage, these two groups of early humans had evolved quite differently, both physically and intellectually. In their time in more northerly climates, the Neanderthals had become broader, stronger, and more acclimated to cold than the early anatomically modern humans. In other words, they would have physically dominated the newly arrived Homo sapiens. However, differences in brain structure seemed to have had a bigger impact on the two species. Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer says that Homo sapiens had larger frontal lobes, the area of the brain that produces abstract, creative thoughts, than Neanderthals. This would have allowed them to develop more efficient methods of hunting and gathering, as well as food processing techniques that saved energy. These more advanced skills would have given them enough of an advantage over the Neanderthals to prevail in the long term, and that appears to be what has happened.

​READING PASSAGE 5

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1. Phenetics is currently the most trusted method of studying evolution. 

2. Dinosaurs should be classified as both reptiles and birds. 

3. Researchers can come to different conclusions about the same evidence.

​Phenetics is the systematic classification of organisms based on their morphological, or structural similarities. Although, on its surface, phenetics seems to be a valid classification method, there are some problems with it. Perhaps the most important of these is that phenetic classifications sometimes show inaccurate evolutionary relationships between species. Palaeontologists have discovered that phenetic classifications can indicate relationships where they do not actually exist.......

​.....We now know that birds from the Mesozoic era and some dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods have very similar skeletal structures, indicating that they share an evolutionary link. However, dinosaurs are generally lumped in with lizards and alligators - species that they are more distantly related to - as reptiles. One of the reasons for this is the presence of a unique evolutionary adaptation in birds, feathers. Since we did not traditionally believe that dinosaurs had feathers, pheneticists inaccurately classified them based on other physical features. All of this shows the most inherent problem with phenetic classification: it is entirely done through the subjective observations of the pheneticist. Since there is no hierarchical classification in morphological similarity, researchers must make the ultimate decision based on their subjective observations.

​READING PASSAGE 6

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1. Music therapy is incapable of curing dementia. 

2. Listening to music can increase brain activity in patients. 

3. Jazz music is particularly effective at helping patients remember the past. 

4. Patients who cannot speak do not benefit from music therapy.

​While this type of treatment will not cure cases of dementia, it can help patients recall memories and ease the anxiety they often feel. Neurologist Oliver Sacks believes that this occurs because listening to music evokes emotions that stimulate memories and increase cognitive ability. One of the main reasons for this is that music plays a large role in every stage of our lives. While we may not consciously think about it, we often associate music with certain activities and events. By playing music that was important at one point in the patient's life, long forgotten memories may be recalled. This could occur when playing music that was popular during a certain time period or music that was played for a special event, like a jazz song heard in a movie or a song at a patient's wedding. Music therapy can also help patients remain independent longer.

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​....Perhaps the most interesting discovery about music therapy is that it even works with non-verbal, late-stage patients who have lost the ability to control their emotions. These patients have very different needs than others, because they are not able to express themselves. This may cause them to feel trapped and frustrated. Oftentimes, this can lead to agitation and disruptive behaviour.....