READING COMPREHENSION (ELIMINATION PHASE)

Question 1. Emily has three dogs and two cats. They are all brown, but one of the dogs has spots. His name is Spot. Which of the following is true?

• Emily has three animals in total.

• Emily has more cats than dogs.

• One of Emily’s dog has spots.

• All of Emily’s dogs have spots.

Question 2. Genealogy is fun. Just as a piece of furniture or a picture takes on much more interest if you know its history, so does an individual become more real once the ancestral elements that shaped him are known. An in-depth family history is a tapestry of all those to whom we owe our existence.

Which statement best conveys the theme of this paragraph?

• Finding out about our ancestors is more interesting than researching the history of objects.

• Genealogy is a study of people and their belongings in the past.

• Genealogy is a study of family history.

• Genealogical research can bring meaning and life to a family’s history.

Question 3. Tailgating another vehicle is unsafe and illegal. Many rear-end collisions are caused by drivers following too close to the vehicle in front of them. The rules state that a driver must keep sufficient distance from the vehicle in front in order to stop safely and avoid a collision. Drivers should allow a minimum two seconds’ gap between their vehicle and the one ahead. At sixty kilometres an hour, this equates to thirty-three metres; at a hundred it equates to fifty-five metres. More distance is needed to safely stop in rain or poor visibility.

‘More distance is needed to safely stop in rain or poor visibility.’ We can infer from this that:

• people drive faster in rain and poor visibility

• the writer is merely calculating on the safe side

• braking is more hazardous in rain and poor visibility

• the road rules state that this must be so

Question 4. There is a place forty kilometres north-east of Portland, Victoria, which makes for an unusual visit. It is Lake Condah. Here are to be found remains of aboriginal settlements: the circular stone bases of several hundred huts, rock-lined water channels, and stone tools chipped from rock not normally found in the area. One of the attractions of Lake Condah long ago was its fish and the most startling evidence of aboriginal technology and engineering to be found there are the systems built to trap fish. Water courses had been constructed by redirecting streams, building stone sides and even scraping out new channels. At strategic spots, they piled rocks across the water courses to create weirs and build funnels to channel eels and fish into conical baskets. This is an eel-fishing technique which has hardly changed to the present day. Beside some of the larger traps, there are the outlines of rectangular, stone-lined ponds, probably to hold fish and keep them fresh. On the bluffs overlooking the lake, stone circles are all that remain of ancient dwellings. Not all of the stones were quarried locally. The huts vary in size, but all have gaps for doorways located on the lee side, away from the prevailing wind. One theory is that the stone walls were only waist to shoulder high, with the top roofed by branches and possibly packed with mud. The site presents a picture of a semi-settled people quite different from the stereotype of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the desert.

Lake Condah is seen as unusual, mainly because:

• it is so close to a main town

• there are remains of buildings still to be seen

• it reveals a society that was at least partly settled and had building and engineering skills

• there is evidence that some of the building stone was imported

Question 5. What does this sentence suggest?

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

• Your own possessions are always worth more to you

• Birds are hard to catch, so hang on to one if you catch it

• To have something is better than having nothing at all

• A trained bird is twice the value of an untrained one

Question 6. Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns-and even convictions. The Lawyer-the best of old fellows-had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The Director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun. And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men. From ‘The Heart of Darkness’, by Joseph Conrad.

The narrator of this passage is telling his story from:

• a wharf

• the deck of a yacht

• a high vantage point

• the edge of the Essex marshes

Question 7. Among predatory dinosaurs, few flesh-eaters were bigger, faster and nastier than the "tyrant lizard" of popular imagination, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. At least, that is what we have been led to believe.

Now research suggests that, far from being the Ferrari of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose ferocious reputation has fascinated generations of schoolchildren, was in fact a cumbersome creature with a usual running speed of twenty-five kilometres an hour. This is a mere snail's pace compared with modern animals such as the cheetah.

Unlike some of the predators of today's African savannah, which can change direction almost immediately, the dinosaur would have had to turn slowly or risk tumbling over. And while a human can spin forty-five degrees in a twentieth of a second, a Tyrannosaurus would have taken as much as two seconds, as it would have been hampered by its long tail. Thankfully, however, all its prey, such as triceratops, would have been afflicted with the same lack of speed and agility.

The findings were reached after researchers used computer modelling and biomechanical calculations to work out the dinosaur's speed, agility and weight. They based their calculations on measurements taken from a fossil dinosaur representative of an average Tyrannosaurus and concluded the creatures probably weighed between six and eight tonnes.

Calculations of the leg muscles suggest that the animal would have had a top speed of forty kilometres an hour, which is nothing compared to a cheetah’s one hundred kilometres an hour. It is sobering to reflect, though, that an Olympic sprinter runs at about thirty-five kilometres an hour, not sufficient to outrun a Tyrannosaurus, should Man have been around at that time!

Being known as the ‘Ferrari of dinosaurs’ means Tyrannosaurus Rex:

• wore shoes

• was a quick and agile creature

• was a hunting machine

• was the most ferocious of dinosaurs

Question 8. The debate on whether Australia will have a nation-wide carbon trading scheme ended last week with the government committed to a national emissions scheme from 2012. However, the decision making as to how we power the economy in a carbon constrained world is only just beginning. Fossil fuels like coal and oil have underpinned our economic growth and standard of living for decades. The current resources boom is there because other countries want our fossil fuels, and for all these reasons it is profitable to keep mining them. Ironically, the income may help develop the technologies to replace them, but it is a matter of which and when. Almost certainly, in the race to reduce emissions, new technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal (heat from rocks) power will compete against gas, clean coal and perhaps nuclear energy to win the hearts and minds of the business world. In the end, business will favour whatever is a cheap, abundant and reliable solution. You can imagine the lobbying that will ensue from the different interest groups, to attract business capital and government support so that their technology wins out. There may be many collapsed ventures and lost fortunes along the way.

Fossil fuels will be in demand for some time yet because:

• we have no other options

• they are plentiful and cheap in Australia

• our wealth and lifestyle are at present dependent on them

• A and B together

• B and C together

Question 9. Many people think that we can learn a lot about the culture of a foreign country simply by living in that country. However, this is not necessarily true. Often, the longer we stay in a foreign country, the more we realize how little we actually know about the culture of that country. Books and talks about other people's culture can even be dangerous because they concentrate on cultural differences and exaggerate national character, and sometimes a lot of information they contain is untrue. In a study recently carried out in Britain, people were asked to make a list of anything that they thought was typical of Britain and would interest a foreign visitor there. Most mentioned Shakespeare, the Queen, village inns, English folk dancing, English castles, and fish chips wrapped in newspaper. Although all of these characters can be found in British culture, they do not show the real interest of ordinary British people: (They are, in fact, simply stereotype- that is, general character which people wrongly think are typical.) What is surprising is that they were suggested by British people themselves as representing their culture. If people have such a wrong impression of their own culture, how much false would their impression of other cultures be!

If we stay a long time in a foreign country, __________.

• we will sometimes forget about culture of our own country

• we can often learn a lot about the culture of the foreign country

• we will usually realize our own ignorance about its culture

• we can seldom find out anything at all about its culture

Question 10. Critical reading is a demanding process. To read critically, you must slow down your reading and, with pencil in hand, perform specific operations on the text. Mark up the text with your reactions, conclusions, and questions. When you read, become an active participant.

This paragraph best supports the statement that:

• critical reading is a slow, dull, but essential process.

• the best critical reading happens at critical times in a person’s life

• critical reading requires thoughtful and careful attention

• critical reading should take place at the same time each day