The way in which information is taught can vary greatly across cultures and time-periods. Entering a British primary school classroom from the early 1900s, for example, one gains a sense of austerity, discipline and a rigid way of teaching. Desks are typically seated apart from one another, with straight-backed wooden chairs that face directly to the teacher and the chalkboard. In the present day, British classrooms look very different. Desks are often grouped together so that students face each other rather than the teacher, and a large floor area is typically set aside for the class to come together for group discussion and learning. Traditionally, it was felt that teachers should be in firm control of the learning process, and that the teacher"s task was to prepare and present material for students to understand. Within this approach, the relationship students have with their teachers is not considered important, nor is the relationship students have with each other in the classroom. A student"s participation in class is likely to be minima[, aside from asking questions directed at the teacher, or responding to questions that the teacher has directed at the student. This style encourages students to develop respect for positions of power as a source of control and discipline. It is frequently described as the "formal authority" model of teaching. A less rigid form of teacher-centred education is the "demonstrator" model. This maintains the formal authority model"s notion of the teacher as a "flashlight" who illuminates the material for his or her class to learn, but emphasises a more individualised approach to form. The demonstrator acts as both a role model and a guide, demonstrating skills and processes and then helping students develop and apply these independently. Instructors who are drawn to the demonstrator style are generally confident that their own way of performing a task represents a good base model, but they are sensitive to differing learning styles and expect to provide students with help on an individual basis. Many education researchers argue for student-centred learning instead, and suggest that the learning process is more successful when students are in control. Within the student-centred paradigm, the "delegator" style is popular. The delegator teacher maintains general authority, but they delegate much of the responsibility for learning to the class as a way for students to become independent thinkers who take pride in their own work. Students are often encouraged to work on their own or in groups, and if the delegator style is implemented successfully they will build not only a working knowledge of course specific topics, but also serf-discipline and the ability to co-ordinate group work and interpersonal roles. Another style that emphasises student-centred education is the "facilitator" mode of learning. Here, while a set of specific curriculum demands are already in place, students are encouraged to take the initiative for creating ways to meet these learning requirements together. The teacher typically designs activities that encourage active learning, group collaboration and problem solving, and students are encouraged to process and apply the course content in creative and original ways. Whereas the delegator style emphasises content, and the responsibility students can have for generating and directing their own knowledge base, the facilitator style emphasises form, and the fluid and diverse possibilities that are available in the process of learning. Until the 1960s, formal authority was common in almost all Western schools and universities. As a professor would enter a university lecture theatre, a student would be expected to rush up, take his bag to the desk, and pull out the chair for the professor to sit down on. This style has become outmoded over time. Now at university, students and professors typically have more relaxed, collegiate relationships, address each other on a first name basis, and acknowledge that students have much to contribute in class. Teacher-centred education has a lingering appeal in the form of the demonstrator style, however, which remains useful in subjects where skills must be demonstrated to an external standard and the learning process remains fixed in the earlier years of education. A student of mathematics, sewing or metalwork will likely be familiar with the demonstrator style. At the highest levels of education, however, the demonstrator approach must be abandoned in all fields as students are required to produce innovative work that makes unique contributions to know[edge. Thesis and doctoral students lead their own research in facilitation with supervisors. The delegator style is valuable when the course is likely to lead students to careers that require group projects. Often, someone who has a high level of expertise in a particular field does not make for the best employee because they have not learnt to apply their abilities in a co-ordinated manner. The delegator style confronts this problem by recognising that interpersonal communication is not just a means to learning but an important skill set in itself. The facilitator model is probably the most creative model, and is therefore not suited to subjects where the practical component necessitates a careful and highly disciplined manner, such as training to be a medical practitioner. It may, however, suit more experimental and theoretical fields ranging from English, music and the social sciences, to science and medical research that takes place in research labs. In these areas, "mistakes" in form are important and valuable aspects of the learning and development process. Overall, a dear evolution has taken place in the West from a rigid, dogmatic and teacher-dominated way of learning, to a flexible, creative and student-centred approach. Nevertheless, different subjects, ages and skill levels suit different styles of teaching, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one recommended approach for everyone. List of Teaching Styles A. Formal authority B. Demonstrator C. Delegator D. Facilitator

Inside the Mind of the Consumer Could brain-scanning technology provide an accurate way to assess the appeal of new products and the effectiveness of advertising? A Marketing people are no longer prepared to take your word for it that you favour one product over another. They want to scan your brain to see which one you really prefer. Using the tools of neuroscientists, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) mapping and functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), they are trying to learn more about the mental processes behind purchasing decisions. The resulting fusion of neuroscience and marketing is, inevitably, being called 'neuromarketing'. B The first person to apply brain-imaging technology in this way was Gerry Zaltman of Harvard University, in the late 1990s. The idea remained in obscurity until 2001, when BrightHouse, a marketing consultancy based in Atlanta, Georgia, set up a dedicated neuromarketing arm, BrightHouse Neurostrategies Group. (BrightHouse lists Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Home Depot among its clients.) But the company's name may itself simply be an example of clever marketing. BrightHouse does not scan people while showing them specific products or campaign ideas, but bases its work on the results of more general fMRI-based research into consumer preferences and decision-making carried out at Emory University in Atlanta. C Can brain scanning really be applied to marketing? The basic principle is not that different from focus groups and other traditional forms of market research. A volunteer lies in an fMRI machine and is shown images or video clips. In place of an interview or questionnaire, the subject's response is evaluated by monitoring brain activity. fMRI provides real-time images of brain activity, in which different areas 'light up' depending on the level of blood flow. This provides clues to the subject's subconscious thought patterns. Neuroscientists know, for example, that the sense of self is associated with an area of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex. A flow of blood to that area while the subject is looking at a particular logo suggests that he or she identifies with that brand. D At first, it seemed that only companies in Europe were prepared to admit that they used neuromarketing. Two carmakers, DaimlerChrysler in Germany and Ford's European arm, ran pilot studies in 2003. But more recently, American companies have become more open about their use of neuromarketing. Lieberman Research Worldwide, a marketing firm based in Los Angeles, is collaborating with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to enable movie studios to market-test film trailers. More controversially, the New York Times recently reported that a political consultancy, FKF Research, has been studying the effectiveness of campaign commercials using neuromarketing techniques. E Whether all this is any more than a modern-day version of phrenology, the Victorian obsession with linking lumps and bumps in the skull to personality traits, is unclear. There have been no large-scale studies, so scans of a handful of subjects may not be a reliable guide to consumer behaviour in general. Of course, focus groups and surveys are flawed too: strong personalities can steer the outcomes of focus groups, and people do not always tell opinion pollsters the truth. And even honest people cannot always explain their preferences. F That is perhaps where neuromarketing has the most potential. Most people say they prefer the taste of Coke to Pepsi, but cannot say why. An unpublished study carried out last summer at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, found that most subjects preferred Pepsi in a blind tasting—fMRI scanning showed that drinking Pepsi lit up a region called the ventral putamen, which is one of the brain's 'reward centres', far more brightly than Coke. But when told which drink was which, most subjects said they preferred Coke, which suggests that its stronger brand outweighs Pepsi's more pleasant taste. G 'People form many unconscious attitudes that are obviously beyond traditional methods that utilise introspection,' says Steven Quartz, a neuroscientist at Caltech who is collaborating with Lieberman Research. With over $100 billion spent each year on marketing in America alone, any firm that can more accurately analyse how customers respond to products, brands and advertising could make a fortune. H Consumer advocates are wary. Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, a lobby group, thinks existing marketing techniques are powerful enough. 'Already, marketing is deeply implicated in many serious pathologies,' he says. 'That is especially true of children, who are suffering from an epidemic of marketing-related diseases, including obesity and type-2 diabetes. Neuromarketing is a tool to amplify these trends.' Dr. Quartz counters that neuromarketing techniques could equally be used for benign purposes. 'There are ways to utilise these technologies to create more responsible advertising,' he says. Brain-scanning could, for example, be used to determine when people are capable of making free choices, to ensure that advertising falls within those bounds. I Another worry is that brain-scanning is an invasion of privacy and that information will be compiled on the preferences of specific individuals. But neuromarketing studies rely on small numbers of volunteer subjects, so that seems implausible. Critics also object to the use of medical equipment for frivolous rather than medical purposes. But as Tim Ambler, a neuromarketing researcher at the London Business School says: 'A tool is a tool, and if the owner of the tool gets a decent rent for hiring it out, then that subsidises the cost of the equipment, and everybody wins.' Perhaps more brain-scanning will someday explain why some people like the idea of neuromarketing, but others do not. —Economist

{{I}}Circle the correct letters A-C.{{/I}}

READING WARS A. In many developed countries literacy skills are under siege. This is true even in societies where access to primary education is universal and governments invest heavily in education. New Zealand, for example, was leading the world in literacy rates in 1970, but tumbled to thirteenth place in 2001 and then again to twenty-fourth just a few years later. Test scores in the USA also slumped ten percent during the 1990s despite the country riding an economic boom for much of the decade. In some cases these statistics reverse trends that were in motion for over a century and a haft. The steady, gradual expansion of literacy across social groups and classes was one of the greatest successes of the period of industrialisation that began in the mid-1850s. B. This reversal of fortunes has lead to widespread contention over the pedagogy of teaching literacy. What was once a dry and technical affair—the esoteric business of linguists and policy analysts—rapidly escalated into a series of skirmishes that were played out in high-visibility forums: Newspapers ran special features, columns and letters-to-the-editor on the literacy crisis; politicians successfully ran their national campaigns on improving reading test scores; and parents had their say by joining Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) and lobby groups. C. The arguments around reading pooled into two different classroom methodologies: constructivism and behaviourism. The constructivist methodology grew from a holistic conception of knowledge creation that understood reading and writing to be innate, humanistic and interpretative practices that suffered when they were spliced and formalised within rigid doctrines, strict rules and universal skill-sets. Constructivists associate words with meanings; each word might be thought of as a Chinese ideogram. Students are encouraged to learn individual words and skip over and guess words they do not understand, or learn to interpret those words by situating them within the lexical infrastructure of the sentence and the story"s wider narrative. These practices materialise as learning processes centred on guided group reading and independent reading of high-quality, culturally diverse literature or textual composition that emphasises pupils conveying their own thoughts and feelings for real purposes such as letters to pen pals or journal entries. D. Behaviourism sees the pedagogical process in a less dialectical fashion—words are initially taught not lexically, as vehicles to convey meaning, but rather sub-lexically, as a combination of features that can be separated and learnt in a schematic process. The behaviourist approach does not focus on words at all in the early stages of learning. Rather, it is centred on a universally applicable method of teaching students to isolate graphemes and phonemes with the intention that students will eventually learn to synthesise these individual parts and make sense of spoken words textually. In this way, individual components are not equated with the strokes of a brush on a Chinese ideogram, but rather as the focal pieces of interpretation—as in, for example, learning to read musical notations or Morse Code. Because of its emphasis on universal rules, behaviourism is much more conducive to formal examination and the consolidation of results across regions and countries. The ability to master language is considered to rest in the acquisition of a set of skills that exist independently of individuals. Classroom learning is therefore based upon the transmission of knowledge from tutor to student, rather than seen as an internalised process that erupts within the students themselves. E. So who comes out on top? It is not easy to say. Champions of behaviourism have claimed victory because constructivist learning took over in the late 1980s, just before test scores on literacy began sinking across the West. Constructivists, however, can make the valid claim that the behaviourist approach has a heavy methodological bias towards testing and examination, and that test results do not represent the ability of individuals to use and interpret language freely and creatively. Furthermore, different socio-economic groups respond in different ways to each method. Those from wealthier families tend to do well regardless of the method, but thrive on the constructivist approach implemented in the 1990s. Children from poorer families, however, are better served by behaviourism. These outcomes have ramped up levels of socio-economic based educational disparities in educational systems that have pushed the constructivist method. F. It is unlikely that either constructivism or behaviourism will be permanently sidelined from curricula in the near future. Most teachers find it easier to incorporate aspects of each approach. Constructivism may ultimately hold the trump card because of its proven success with pupils who come from families where they are introduced to reading and writing in various forms from a young age—this process of "living and learning" and immersing oneself in language is a sound principle. In a world rife with social inequities, households with illiterate parents and a scarcity of funding for education, however, the behaviourist approach may have the upper hand in teaching children to access the basic skiffs of literacy quickly and efficiently, even if some linguistic creativity is crushed in the process.

Dawn in Our Garden of Eden The latest research suggests Australia's Adam and Eve are not as old as we thought—and lived much richer lives than we suspected. A Fifty thousand years ago, a lush landscape greeted the first Australians making their way towards the south-east of the continent. Temperatures were cooler than now. Megafauna—giant prehistoric animals such as marsupial lions, goannas and the rhinoceros-sized diprotodon—were abundant. The Lake Mungo remains are three prominent sets of fossils which tell the archeologists the story: Mungo Man lived around the shores of Lake Mung with his family. When he was young, Mungo Man lost his two lower canine teeth, possible knocked out in a ritual. He grew into a man nearly 1.7m in height. Over the years his molar teeth became worn and scratched, possibly from eating a gritty diet or stripping the long leaves of water reeds with his teeth to make twine. As Mungo Man grew older his bones ached with arthritis, especially his right elbow, which was so damaged that bits of bone were completely worn out or broken away. Such wear and tear is typical of people who have used a woomera to throw spears over many years. Mungo Man reached a good age for the hard life of a hunter-gatherer, and died when he was about 50. His family mourned for him, and carefully buried him in the lunette, on his back with his hands crossed in his lap, and sprinkled with red ochre. Mungo Man is the oldest known example in the world of such a ritual. B This treasure-trove of history was found by the University of Melbourne geologist Professor Jim Bowler in 1969. He was searching for ancient lakes and came across the charred remains of Mungo Lady, who had been cremated. And in 1974, he found a second complete skeleton, Mungo Man, buried 300 metres away. Using carbon- dating, a technique only reliable to around 40,000 years old, the skeleton was first estimated at 28,000 to 32,000 years old. The comprehensive study of 25 different sediment layers at Mungo concludes that both graves are 40,000 years old. C This is much younger than the 62,000 years Mungo Man was attributed with in 1999 by a team led by Professor Alan Thorne, of the Australian National University. The modern day story of the science of Mungo also has its fair share of rivalry. Because Thorne is the country's leading opponent of the Out of Africa theory—that Homo sapiens had single place of origin. Dr. Alan Thorne supports the multi-regional explanation (that modern humans arose simultaneously in Africa, Europe and Asia from one of our predecessors, Homo erectus, who left Africa more than 1.5 million years ago.) If Mungo Man was descended from a person who had left Africa in the past 200,000 years, Thorne argues, 'then his mitochondrial DNA should have looked like that of the other samples.' D However, Out of Africa supporters are not about to let go of their beliefs because of the Australian research, Professor Chris Stringer, from the Natural History Museum in London, UK, said that the research community would want to see the work repeated in other labs before major conclusions were drawn from the Australian research. But even assuming the DNA sequences were correct, Professor Stringer said it could just mean that there was much more genetic diversity in the past than was previously realised. There is no evidence here that the ancestry of these Australian fossils goes back a million or two million years. It's much more likely that modern humans came out of Africa. For Bowler, these debates are irritating speculative distractions from the study's main findings. At 40,000 years old, Mungo Man and Mungo Lady remain Australia's oldest human burials and the earliest evidence on Earth of cultural sophistication, he says. Modern humans had not even reached North America by this time. In 1997, Pddbo's research group recovered amtDNA fingerprint from the Feldholer Neanderthal skeleton uncovered in Germany in 1865—the first Neanderthal remains ever found. E In its 1999 study, Thorne's team used three techniques to date Mungo Man at 62,000 years old, and it stands by its figures. It dated bone, teeth enamel and some sand. Bowler has strongly challenged the results ever since. Dating human bones is 'notoriously unreliable', he says. As well, the sand sample Thorne's group dated was taken hundreds of metres from the burial site. 'You don't have to be a gravedigger... to realise the age of the sand is not the same as the age of the grave,' says Bowler. F Thorne counters that Bowler's team used one dating technique, while his used three. Best practice is to have at least two methods produce the same result. A Thorne team member, Professor Rainer Grin, says the fact that the latest results were consistent between laboratories doesn't mean they are absolutely correct. 'We now have two data sets that are contradictory. I do not have a plausible explanation.' Now, however, Thorne says the age of Mungo Man is irrelevant to this origins debate. Recent fossils finds show modern humans were in China 110,000 years ago. So he has got a long time to turn up in Australia. It doesn't matter if he is 40,000 or 60,000 years old. G Dr. Tim Flannery, a proponent of the controversial theory that Australia's megafauna was wiped out 46,000 years ago in a 'blitzkrieg' of huntingg by the arriving people, also claims the new Mungo dates support this view. In 2001 a member of Bowler's team, Dr. Richard Roberts of Wollongong University, along with Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum, published research on their blitzkrieg theory. They dated 28 sites across the continent, arguing their analysis showed the megafauna died out suddenly 46,000 years ago. Flannery praises the Bowler team's research on Mungo Man as 'the most thorough and rigorous dating of ancient human remains'. He says the finding that humans arrived at Lake Mungo between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago was a critical time in Australia's history. There is no evidence of a dramatic climatic change then, he says. 'It's my view that humans arrived and extinction took place in almost the same geological instant.' H Bowler, however, is skeptical of Flannery's theory and says the Mungo study provides no definitive new evidence to support it. He argues that climate change at 40,000 years ago was more intense than had been previously realised and could have played a role in the megafauna's demise. 'To blame the earliest Australians for their complete extinction is drawing a long bow.' —The Sydney Morning Herald

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. Cash Hoarding Nothing New for Businesses A Finance professor Heitor Almeida says the fact that businesses are stuffing corporate piggy banks with spare cash for the proverbial 'rainy day' is unrelated to the belt- tightening brought about by the continuing financial crisis. 'There's not really a consensus on what accounts for businesses holding so much cash, but they've been doing it way before the downturn, at least since the early 1980s,' he said. 'Cash hoarding is definitely not related to the financial crisis. It's a pattern that's been going on for at least three decades.' B Although there was a time shortly after the crisis when firms had difficulty raising capital, Almeida says most businesses entered it in a 'very liquid position'. 'When the crisis hit, firms had a lot of cash on hand, and they used it to avoid decreasing investment and firing employees,' he said. 'If businesses hadn't had all that cash on hand, things could have been much, much worse.' Almeida says companies that survived the financial shocks of the past few years are still jittery about weak consumer demand in the U.S. and an increasingly dismal forecast for the global recovery, so they'll likely continue to sit on their piles of cash. C 'You would think if they had better uses for that cash they would have spent it, but for some reason corporations have decided that the best thing they can do is keep the cash on the balance sheet,' he said. Part of this is due to most big firms being multinational, allowing them to park the bulk of their cash outside of the U.S. in tax havens. 'If you keep profits outside of the U.S., obviously, they won't get taxed,' he said. 'The way U.S. tax laws are written is that firms pay taxes the moment they repatriate the cash, which would be quite costly to shareholders.' Almeida says there were proposals to give firms a tax break if they brought their money back to the U.S., but reviving such a proposal now 'wouldn't be a politically viable option, especially not after all the bank bailouts'. D If repatriating the cash is off the table, shouldn't shareholders demand some of that cash be re-paid as dividends? 'Firms are not obligated to pay dividends, and it's pretty much the case that the most successful firms are going to be the ones that hoard the most cash,' Almeida said. 'A really successful company like Google or Apple, for example, isn't going to go to the market and issue $30 billion in equity only to turn around and sit on the cash. With extremely successful companies, cash just accumulates. Shareholders may get mad, but cash-holding is positively correlated with shareholder returns, so it's no surprise.' Almeida said even if companies did open up the coffers and flood the economy with cash, what might be good for job creation in the short-term might not necessarily be consonant with what shareholders want. 'If you invest money to create jobs but generate negative profits, that's not good for shareholders,' he said. 'So that's probably not what firms should be doing, as much as we want to grow jobs.' E Stimulating lending by further lowering interest rates is not likely to have much of an effect on job creation, either. 'The fact that firms have cash suggests that getting banks to lend more isn't the way to go,' Almeida said. 'Firms already have cash but they're not spending it. So what's the point of having banks make more loans, if firms don't need the cash?' President Obama's call for tax breaks for corporate investment, which would allow businesses to write off the cost of new investments in plants and equipment, and thereby create an incentive for businesses to spend money, are a step in the right direction, Almeida says. 'The government made the right call here,' he said. 'There's no point in spurring bank lending if firms have cash to spare, so creating an incentive for them to spend through a tax break for investment is a good idea.' F But the key thing that government should focus on in the near term, Almeida says, is fixing the broken housing market, which is still mired in a post-bubble slump. 'The key thing is fixing the housing market, but there are some big structural problems associated with it,' he said. One is that a lot of households still carry too much mortgage-related debt. 'What the government has been trying to do, albeit unsuccessfully, is negotiate homeowner's debt down to a level they can actually handle,' Almeida said. 'Banks will inevitably take a hit from this, but homeowners would get to keep their house. That's difficult to do with securitised loans—the entity that holds the loan is not the loan originator. So the government is struggling to solve this problem, which is the fundamental weakness behind the slow economy.' According to Almeida, the prime enabler for helping to create the housing bubble is the continued governmental support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the secondary mortgage markets they sponsor to ostensibly make mortgage loans more affordable. 'That's what got us into real trouble,' he said. 'The U.S. needs to get out of the mortgage lending business, even if the repercussions of that means making housing less affordable in the short-term. That may sound like the wrong thing to do, to make things harder for people, but it's what the U.S. needs to do to strengthen the housing market.' G According to Almeida, another more long-term structural problem the U.S. needs to tackle is education. 'Firms use recessions to get rid of employees and replace them with technology,' he said. 'The U.S. needs to create a more capable workforce that's ready for the new economy by investing a lot more heavily in education. The U.S. has great universities, but primary and secondary education needs to catch up, otherwise those universities will be increasingly composed of foreign students.' The only problem with structural change in an area like education is it takes decades, Almeida said. 'But you've got to start somewhere. The Obama administration is very aware of this.' —Science Daily

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Climate Change Challenge for Computer Gamers Fate of the World: The video game in which players save the world from catastrophic climate change. They've previously tackled alien invasions, gang violence in New York and how to raise a happy family, but this week computer games wrestle with an even more pressing issue: climate change. Arriving on PCs on Tuesday and Macs shortly after, the British-made Fate of the World puts players at the helm of a future World Trade Organisation-style environmental body with a task of saving the world by cutting carbon emissions or damning it by letting soaring temperatures wreak havoc through floods, droughts and fires. The strategy game is already being hailed by gaming experts as a potential breakthrough for such social change titles, and welcomed by climate campaigners as a way of reaching new audiences. While traditional mainstream games have focused on action, sports and increasingly casual genres, Fate of the World features data from real-world climate models, anecdotes from the polar explorer Pen Hadow and input from a team of scientists and economists in the U.S. and UK. It has been developed by Oxford-based games designers Red Redemption, whose previous browser-based climate game for the BBC has been played more than a million times since it was launched in 2006. Gobion Rowlands, chairman at Red Redemption and a board member of social gaming organisation Games for Change, said the game was inspired by his desire to make the subject more accessible and a drunken boast to Dr. Myles Allen, head of climate dynamics at Oxford University and a contributor to the last report by the UN's climate science panel. 'My wife was working on Allen's Climateprediction.net project (a project to use the power of home PCs to process climate model data). When he took me out for dinner, we got quite drunk, and I bragged that we could make a computer game about anything. He challenged us to make one about climate change.' Allen has provided the prediction models used in the game. 'For far too long, climate policy has been developed by unelected technocrats in smoke-free conference centres or through talkshow soundbites,' said Allen. 'What I like about this game is that it allows people to experience, in an idealised world, of course, the kinds of decisions we are likely to confront, and makes it clear there are no easy answers: should we start mining methane clathrates (gas trapped in arctic ice), for example?' Tom Chatfield, gaming expert and the author of Fun Inc." Why Games Are the 21st Century's Most Serious Business, said: 'This could be the beginning of a flowering of issue-led gaming. But it will be judged on whether it's a good game, not on whether it's worthy or not.' He said that, although some mainstream titles—such as the Civilisation franchise, which has sold more than 6m copies—had touched on issues of sustainability and pollution before, most games with an overt social message often had a lower budget and gave a less polished experience. 'It will be interesting to see if this game can resolve that tension—I can't list many games that are both campaigning and staggeringly good.' But, he added, issue-driven titles on everything from health to human rights, such as the browser-based Darfur is Dying, —a game based on life as a refugee in Sudan played by more than 800,000 people were improving in quality and popularity. Just over half of all gamers play games in which they think about moral and ethical issues, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Research Centre of 1,102 12-to 17-year-olds. Both Rowlands and Chatfield agree that games as a medium are uniquely placed to tackle the complexity of climate change. 'Two of the problems with environmental issues are time and geography—getting people to care about people on the other side of the planet and problems far in the future,' said Chatfield. 'But if people can feel and see the evolution of variables in a system—such as a changing climate—it can be a better way of learning than reading lots of scientific prose.' 'Games handle complexity well,' said Rowlands. 'Partly because you learn by doing, but also because of the length of interaction—you could be playing for up to 50 hours, during which you learn a huge amount about how a game works. In an age when we're accused of dumbing down, computer games can reverse that trend and help us to smarten up.' Green campaigners have welcomed gaming joining other cultural efforts—from Ian McEwan's recent novel Solar to the BBC's drama Burn Up featuring Neve Campbell—to take on the subject. Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth's head of climate change, said: 'We've had books, films, TV debates, movies—so it was only a matter of time before the fight against global warming inspired computer games too. We hope that, by wrestling with the challenges of tackling climate change in the virtual world, gamers will be inspired to take action in the real one—especially with crucial international climate talks coming up in Cancun later this month.' —Guardian

The Development of the Modern Hot Air Balloon The modern hot air balloon is constructed by suspending a wicker basket underneath a large bag of nylon fabric, known as an envelope. The wicker basket carries the balloon"s pilot, any other passengers, and the propane tanks that provide the balloon with a source of fuel The propane tanks are connected by hose to a pair of burners, which are located between the basket and the envelope. When the burners ignite, their heat passes through the balloon"s skirt—a circular sheath of fire-resistant material at the mouth of the envelope—and finally into the envelope itself. Located at the top of the envelope is a parachute vent, a mechanism that allows the pilot to release hot air and increase the balloon"s rate of descent when required. This is controlled by a parachute valve cord that extends through the balloon, and into the basket. The use of hot air balloons can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history (220-280 AD). Zhuge Liang used these early incarnations, known as Kongming lanterns, as military signals. The first manned flight on record took place in France on October 15th, 1783. In a balloon constructed by Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, a Frenchman named Pilatre de Rozier was elevated eighty feet off the ground. Modern hot air balloons, with their capacity to ascend or descend and occasionally "steer" at the pilot"s will, were first developed by Ed Yost in the 1950s. The Bristol Belle is generally regarded as the first modern hot air balloon, and had its inaugural flight in 1967. Since then, balloon technology has become extremely sophisticated. Some hot air balloons have reached altitudes of 21,000 metres, travelled over 7,500 kilometres, and reached speeds of up to 400 kilometres per hour. Hot-air ballooning is generally a safe activity, and serious accidents are rare. In the event that something does go wrong, several items of safety gear are useful to have on board. In case the pilot light and the auxiliary piezo ignition fail, it is a good idea to have a welding torch flint sparker available for the pilot"s use. Given the propane combustion used to propel the hot air balloon, a fire extinguisher is an absolute necessity. Flame-resistant gauntlets made out of either leather or nomex are required for the pilot so that a gas valve can be disabled even if an open flame is present. While nomex is a specially-manufactured synthetic form of fire-retardant material, synthetic clothing is generally a hindrance to fire safety, and clothing made of natural fibre is a superior option for pilots. Finally, a handling line—a long rope that can be thrown overboard—is a vital precautionary measure that allows people on the ground to steer the balloon away from trouble. To ensure balloon longevity and safety in operation, it is vital that hot air balloons be maintained and repaired while not in use. Keeping the envelope clean and dehumidified is an important step that prevents mould from forming on the fabric. This is especially important if the balloon has landed in a wet or muddy environment. The burner and fuel system also requires regular maintenance. This can involve the replacement or repair of damaged hoses and any sticking or leaky valves. The wicker basket has skids on its bottom to help it gain traction upon landing; over time these are worn down, and will need to be replaced. International regulations stipulate that balloons must be given a full inspection every one hundred flight hours, or twelve months. This ensures that any problems can be rectified before they become hazardous.

Questions28-30Labeltheflowchartbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTWOWORDSAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.Step1Find'Portal(28)oncampusonOpenDayStep2BephotographedsteppingthroughthePortalStep3Givecontact(29)(name&emailaddress)Step4VisittheUniversityFacebookpageandvoteStep5Thepicturewiththemostvotesat5pmon(30)wins

KAURIGUM—apieceofNewZealand"shistoryAThekauritreeisamassiveforesttreenativetoNewZealand.Kaurionceformedvastforestsovermuchofthenorthofthecountry.Whereasnowitisthewoodofthekauriwhichisanimportantnaturalresource,inthepastitwasthetree"ssap(thethickliquidwhichflowsinsideatree)which,whenhardenedintogum,playedanimportantroleinNewZealand"searlyhistory.Afterrunningfromripsortearsinthebarkoftrees,thesaphardenstoformthelumpsofgumwhicheventuallyfalltothegroundandareburiedunderlayersofforestlitter.Thebarkoftensplitswherebranchesforkfromthetrunk,andgumaccumulatestherealso.TheearlyEuropeansettlersinNewZealandcollectedandsoldthegum.Gumfreshfromthetreewassoftandoflowvaluebutmostofthegumwhichwasharvestedhadbeenburiedforthousandsofyears.Thisgumcameinabewilderingvarietyofcolours,degreeoftransparencyandhardness,dependingonthelengthandlocationofburial,aswellasthehealthoftheoriginaltreeandtheareaofthebleeding.Highestqualitygumwashardandbrightandwasusuallyfoundatshallowdepthonthehills.Lowestqualitygumwassoft,blackorchalkyandsugaryandwasusuallyfoundburiedinswamps,whereithadbeenincontactwithwaterforalongtime.Longperiodsinthesunorbushfirescouldtransformdull,cloudylumpsintohigherqualitytransparentgum.BVirtuallyallkaurigumwasfoundintheregionsofNewZealandwherekauriforestsgrowtoday-fromthemiddleoftheNorthIslandnorthwards.InMaoriandearlyEuropeantimesupuntil1850,mostgumcollectedwassimplypickedupfromtheground,but,afterthat,themajoritywasrecoveredbydigging.CTheoriginalinhabitantsofNewZealand,theMaori,hadexperimentedwithkaurigumwellbeforeEuropeansarrivedatthebeginningofthenineteenthcentury.Theycalleditkapia,andfounditofconsiderableuse.Freshgumfromtreeswasprizedforitschewingquality,aswasburiedgumwhensoftenedinwaterandmixedwiththejuiceofalocalplant.Apieceofgumwasoftenpassedaroundfrommouthtomouthwhenpeoplegatheredtogetheruntilitwasallgone,orwhentheytiredofchewing,itwaslaidasideforfutureuse.KaurigumburnsreadilyandwasusedbyMaoripeopletolightfires.Sometimesitwasboundingrass,ignitedandusedasatorchbynightfishermentoattractfish.DThefirstkaurigumtobeexportedfromNewZealandwaspartofacargotakenbacktoAustraliaandEnglandbytwoearlyexpeditionsin1814and1815.Bythe1860s,kaurigum"sreputationwaswellestablishedintheoverseasmarketsandEuropeanimmigrantswerejoiningtheMaorisincollectinggumonthehillsofnorthernNewZealand.Asthesurfacegumbecamemorescarce,spadeswereusedtodiguptheburied"treasure".Theincreasingnumberofdiggersresultedinrapidgrowthofthekaurigumexportsfrom1,000tonsin1860toamaximumofover10,000tonsin1900.Forfiftyyearsfromabout1870to1920,thekaurigumindustrywasamajorsourceofincomeforsettlersinnorthernNewZealand.Asthesewould-befarmersstruggledtobreakintheland,manyturnedtogum-diggingtoearnenoughmoneytosupporttheirfamiliesandpayforimprovementstotheirfarmsuntilbettertimesarrived.Bythe1890s,therewere20,000peopleengagedingum-digging.Althoughmanyofthese,suchasfarmers,womenandchildren,wereonlypart-timediggers,nearly7,000werefull-timers.Duringtimesofeconomicdifficulty,gum-diggingwastheonlyjobavailablewheretheunemployedfrommanywalksoflifecouldearnaliving,iftheywerepreparedtowork.EThefirstmajorcommercialuseofkaurigumwasinthemanufactureofhigh-gradefurniturevarnish,akindofclearpaintusedtotreatwood.Thebestandpurestgumthatwasexportedpriorto1910wasusedinthisway.Kaurigumwasusedin70%oftheoilvarnishesbeingmanufacturedinEnglandinthe1890s.Itwasfavouredaheadofothergumsbecauseitwaseasiertoprocessatlowertemperatures.Thecoolertheprocesscouldbekeptthebetter,asitmeantapalervarnishcouldbeproduced.About1910,kaurigumwasfoundtobeaverysuitableingredientintheproductionofsomekindsoffloorcoveringssuchaslinoleum.Inthisway,ausewasfoundforthevastquantitiesofpoorerqualityandlesspuregum,thathaduptillthenbeendiscardedaswaste.Kaurigum"simportanceinthemanufactureofvarnishandlinoleumwasdisplacedbysyntheticalternativesinthe1930s.FFossilkaurigumisrathersoftandcanbecarvedeasilywithaknifeorpolishedwithfinesandpaper.InthetimeofQueenVictoriaofEngland(1837-1901),somepiecesweremadeintofashionableamberbeadsthatwomenworearoundtheirnecks.Theoccasionallumpthatcontainedpreservedinsectswasprizedforuseinnecklacesandbracelets.Manyofthegum-diggersenjoyedtheoccasionalspellofcarvingandproducedawidevarietyofsmallsculpturedpieces.Manyofthesecarvingscanbeseentodayinlocalmuseums.Overtheyears,kaurigumhasalsobeenusedinanumberofminorproducts,suchasaningredientinmarineglueandcandles.Inthelastdecadesithashadaverylimiteduseinthemanufactureofextremelyhigh-gradevarnishforviolins,butthegumofthemagnificentkauritreeremainsanimportantpartofNewZealand"shistory.

Questions29-30Labelthediagrambelow.ChooseyouranswersfromtheboxbelowandwritethelettersA-Hnexttoquestions29-30.CountriesA．AfghanistanB．SaudiArabiaC．IraqD．JapanE．MexicoF．IranG．SwedenH．USA

According to the text, {{B}}FIVE{{/B}} of the following statements are true. Write the corresponding letters in answer boxes 18 to 22 in any order. A Some universities are joining with each other. B There are not enough graduates in developed countries. C Most companies in developed countries devote a third of their profits to research and development. D The number of people from developed countries studying outside their home countries has doubled in the last two decades. E Scandinavian governments provide enough money for their universities. F The largest university in the world is in Turkey. G Italian students must have a five-minute interview with a professor before being accepted into university. H Peter Drucker foresees the end of university campuses.

Questions 31-33 Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

According to the text, {{B}}FIVE{{/B}} of the following statements are true. Write the corresponding letters in answer boxes 18 to 22 in any order. A. MySpace has more than 31 million users.B. Mr Zuckerberg financed Facebook alone.C. Mr Zuckerberg is not so interested in helping people to establish new contacts.D. It is easier for people to upload photographs onto Facebook than onto MySpace.E. Facebook is considered more upmarket than MySpace.F. Facebook users usually copy each other.G. Mr Jobs and Mr Zuckerberg dress differently.H. Mr Zuckerberg has not yet proven he can deal with big problems.

{{B}}Questions 31-35{{/B}}Complete the following sentences using {{B}}NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS{{/B}} for each gap.

{{I}}Complete the form below. Write {{B}}NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS{{/B}} or {{B}}A NUMBER {{/B}}for each answer.{{/I}} {{B}}Conference Registration Form{{/B}} {{I}}Example{{/I}} {{B}}Name of Conference:{{/B}}Beyond 2000{{/B}} {{B}}Name:{{/B}} Melanie{{B}} 1{{/B}} .................................... Ms ....... {{B}}Address: 2{{/B}} Room ............... at ............................... Newtown {{B}}Faculty: 3{{/B}} ................................................................. {{B}}Student No: 4{{/B}} ............................................................