Welcome to the Certificate Of Advanced English.

CERTIFICATE OF ADVANCED ENGLISH

Reading and Using English

A  Taste  of  the Future

Experimental psychologists, who have influenced the (0) OUTPUT   of food industry giants by studying how our senses interact to form our perception of flavor, are turning their attention to the menus of leading restaurants. How to make bug-eating  acceptable  to westerners is just one of the problems they are (1)    .

Safer Cycling

Everyone is familiar with (0) THE   workings of airbags in cars, designed to absorb the impact of a crash. But now an airbag for cyclists has been invented, and a helmet it’s being promoted (9) helmet for people who don't like wearing helmets.

Laughter

Laughter is the best medicine they say, and (0) FORTUNATELY  (FORTUNE),  it’s contagious. You  know  the situation - someone laughs,  and  we (17) (MIND) laugh in turn, without knowing why we've joined in.

26. Jane knew she should arrive at the airport two hours early. (MEANT)
       Jane knew she   up at the airport two hours early.

27.   Lisa was a good candidate so not surprisingly she was offered the job. (CAME)
         Lisa was a good candidate, so it . that she was offered the job.

28.  Sally completely ignored the advice I gave her and bought that awful car. (NOTICE)
       Sally the advice I gave her and bought that awful car.

29. The price of computers has come down over the last few years. (DROP)
     There the price of computers over the last few years.

30.  It’ll be sunny later, so it’s a good idea to apply some sunscreen (BETTER)
       It’ll be sunny later, so you   on some sunscreen.

Animal Emotions
Tom  Whipple asks, “Do animals really have emotions? And what are the consequences if they do?”

In a Swedish zoo, a chimpanzee called Santino spent his nights breaking up concrete into pieces to throw at visitors during the day. Was he being spiteful? In caves in the US, female bats help unrelated fruit bat mothers if they can't find the right birthing position. Are they being caring? Fifty years ago, these questions would have been largely seen as irrelevant.   Animals had behaviors, the behaviors produced measurable outcomes, and science recorded those outcomes. The idea that animals have consciousness, feelings, and moral systems was sloppy and sentimental.
But recently that has partially changed.  Thanks to research into the behavior of bats, chimps, not to mention rats, dolphins, and chickens, emotions of animals have gone from being a taboo area of investigation to being tentatively explored. It is a change that has in recent years filtered through the scientific strata to a selection of popular   science books, such as   Mark Bekoff's “Wild Justice” and   Victoria Braithwaite's “Do Fish Feel Pain?”
And in the process, it has started a debate that may never be solved by science:  can animals be said to have consciousness?  This debate stimulates a second, much less abstract, one: not of consciousness, but conscience — a person's moral sense of right and wrong that guides their behavior.   In a recent experiment involving cows that had to open a locked gate in order to get food, it became apparent that those that successfully opened the gate themselves showed more pleasure — by jumping and kicking their legs — than those that had to have the gate opened for them. If, as this research seems  to imply, cows  enjoy problem-solving, what does it mean  for the production and consumption of beef?

The observations may not be disputed, but the interpretation of them is. According to Dr Jonathan Balcombe, author of Second Nature, the only logically consistent response to the new research is to stop eating meat. For him, humanity is on the verge of the greatest revolution in ethics since the abolition of slavery. According to Aubrey Manning, Professor Emeritus at Edinburgh University, we should at the very least re-evaluate our view of animal cognition. For him, “the only tenable hypothesis is that animals do have a theory of mind, but it's simpler than ours.”  And according to Professor Euan MacPhail we should just stop anthropomorphizing.  The three may never be reconciled because the crux of the issue is not so much a scientific disagreement, or even a moral one, but a philosophical one. Given that even defining consciousness is near impossible, can we ever hope to know, in the words of the philosopher Thomas Nagel, what it is like to be a bat? Let alone a bat midwife.

Balcombe describes a landmark experiment he did that — in his interpretation — appears to show that starlings — a type of bird — can get depressed. In a study at Newcastle University, starlings were split into two groups. Half were housed in luxurious cages, with plenty of space and water.  The other half were housed in small, barren cages. Initially both groups were fed with tasty worms from one box and unpleasant worms from another, and soon learned to take only from the tasty box. But subsequently   when the birds were offered only unpleasant worms, only the ones housed in luxurious cages would eat.  It seemed, or at least Balcombe concluded, that being in a nasty cage caused the starlings to be pessimistic about life in general.

Balcombe, who has worked with animal rights groups, has a clear bias. 'We look back with abhorrence on an era where there was racism, he says. “Our view about animals will someday be the same.   We can't espouse animal rights between bites of a cheeseburger.” If he were the only advocate of this view of animal consciousness, it might be easy to dismiss him as an extremist. Unfortunately for those who might prefer to ignore Balcombe, Professor Aubrey Manning is in the same camp.   Manning has written a textbook, An Introduction to Animal Behavior.  “What we are seeing is a pendulum swing,” he says. “At the turn of the 20th century, there were people who made assumptions that animals thought just like us, and there was a reaction against that. Now we are going the other way. But it is a highly contentious subject, and you really want to try to avoid the sound of academics with various personal grievances and strong personal opinions.”

31. In the first paragraph the writer suggests that?

35.  In the fifth paragraph, it is clear that the writer

36.  What is said in the final paragraph about Balcombe's views?

Is Hosting the Olympic Games Worthwhile?
Four sports experts look at the pros and cons of hosting the summer Olympic Games.

A.  It's clear that, both just before and immediately after the Olympics, the number of people routinely doing physical activity rises in the host country. But the main reason cities bid to hold the Olympics is that, perhaps against the odds, it's wildly popular with the voters who foot the bill. I say “against the odds” because there is strikingly little evidence to suggest that such events draw new investment. Spending lavishly on a short-lived event is, financially speaking, a dubious long-term strategy. Additionally, when a city hosts the Olympics, those who may have been considering visiting it turn to other destinations in order to avoid the crowds. I don't think the issue would be solved by spreading the Games over more than one city, as this wouldn't be popular. In Sydney, for example, as many sports as possible were crammed into a dedicated Olympic Park, and the concept was very well received.

B.  It's rarely the case that all Olympic events are held in a single city. Early-round soccer games, for example, take place in many different towns. Still, hosting the Olympics poses a high risk to the leaders of the city involved. While in some places initial negativity turns to more positive emotions once the Games begin, in others strong local support during the bidding process can sour as the level of spending necessary becomes clear. Such a change seems rather unjust to me as cities which host the Olympics clearly experience a significant increase in trade. The positive impact on numbers of travelers including the host city in their itinerary is also generally quite significant. On the other hand, my research shows no direct link between the profile and popularity of a sport at the elite level during the Olympics and its subsequent uptake at the grassroots level in host cities.

C.  I think it's significant that, in the most recent round of bidding to host the Olympics, several world-famous cities withdrew after failing to summon sufficient support among their own citizens. Their objections were almost exclusively based around the huge budgets involved. Supporters like to point to the commerce   that the Olympics has supposedly brought to certain cities. But that commerce was going to spring up anyway.  It was not directly connected to the Olympics. The Olympics have become too big and expensive to have in one place. In this age of instant communication, there's simply no need to condense the Games in one overburdened location. Better distribution would also spread the associated rise in demand for hotels and restaurants that is one noticeable benefit of hosting the Games. Another is the increase in the number of people who, for example, join teams or start running regularly following the Olympics. We see this in almost all host cities.

D.  Every time  we've analyzed it, the conclusion has  been the  same: there is  no real monetary benefit in hosting the Olympic  Games.  Temporary surges in consumer spending associated with a spike in arrivals from overseas may help to offset the expense of hosting, but it's clear that hosting the Olympics has   become a  burden. The solution, however, is simple — choose a range of cities to host, not just one. Politicians bid for the Olympics hoping it will increase their popularity. However, even if the bid is successful, the politicians involved are seldom still around once the event starts seven years later. And as for the claim that hosting the Games leads to fitter citizens, well we only have to look at London. Since the Olympics there, the number of people taking exercise for a minimum of thirty minutes at least once a week has actually declined.

Which expert
37. [ ] Expresses a different view from the other three regarding the effect that hosting the Olympics has on the economy of the host city?

You are going to read a newspaper article about editing the sound in movies.   Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A - G the one which fits each gap (41 - 46).  There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

The monstrous complexity of sound editing work - the quest to make films sound the way the world sounds - may not  be immediately  apparent. After a movie has been filmed, it enters the labyrinthine world of post-production, in which the best takes are selected and spliced together into roughly 20-minute segments of film. These are worked on and then stitched together at the end of post-production. 

A. Each of these  components needs to be built and then edited separately for every scene before being assigned  its  own dedicated editor. Then, the top guys take the team's work and layer it to make scenes that sound like the real world sounds.       

B. The gesture had the studious flourish which a minor orchestral instrumentalist — say, the triangle player —  might  devote to his one entrance.   But instead of being the  work of the actor, likely as not, that was a mustachioed man standing in his socks in a warehouse somewhere.

C.  This is radically unlike the way the human brain is designed to hear. We are predisposed to hear the rhythms and pitch of people talking and noises that  might  indicate threat. Other sounds — like “white noise” — are depressed so that the brain fires fewer responses, and we automatically “tune out”. This is how the brain converts sound into information.

D.  The  viewer's  ear will subconsciously anticipate hearing  a maddeningly subtle, but critical, Doppler effect, which means that the tone it  makes as it boils needs to shift downward at precisely the interval that a real one would if you  happened  to walk by at that speed.

E.   Each part goes through picture editing (for such things as visual  continuity or color)  before being  handed  over to the sound supervisor, who oversees all the various elements of sound design, sound editing, and mixing.

F.   When   the  thud of his  boot heel finally connects with the asphalt, his breathing is labored, even the pads of his fingers creak as they make contact with the collar of his leather jacket as he straightens.  None of these are there because some microphone picked them up. They're there because someone chose them and put  them there, like every other sound  in the film.

G.   In other words, it is important to make sure the sound of a butterfly landing on the hood of a car isn't louder than a car backfiring. Only a few people have an ear for these types of work.

41.  The distinction between these processes is subtle: the first two have more to do with the creation and selection of the sounds that make up each scene, and the development of a cohesive aural aesthetic for a movie. The third involves taking sounds created by the designers and editors and integrating them in each scene so that everything comes across as “natural”.

42.  First, editors remove the audio recordings taken during filming and break down each scene into distinct sonic elements, namely dialogue, effects, music, and Foley. “Foley” is the term used for everyday sounds such as squeaky shoes or cutlery jangling in a drawer.

43. Consider a classic movie scene in which something important has just happened, for example a villain has just pulled up in his car. There are a few moments of what might be mistaken for stillness. Nothing moves - but the soundscape is deceptively layered. There might be a mostly unnoticeable rustle of leaves in the trees periodically, so faint that almost no one would register it consciously. Or the sound of a vehicle rolling through an intersection a block or two over; off camera, a dog barks somewhere far away.

44. All this requires a very particular and somewhat strange set of talents and fascinations. You need the ability not only to hear with an almost superhuman ear, but also the technical proficiency and saint-like patience to spend hours getting the sound of a kettle's hiss exactly the right length as well as the right pitch - and not only the right pitch but the right pitch considering that the camera moves across the scene during the shot.

45. This is why there is something very slightly unnerving about spending time around people whose powers of perception suggest the existence of an entirely different layer of reality that you are  missing.  The way they work requires an entirely different - and, in some senses, unnatural - way of experiencing sound.  The process reflects the fact that each sound is important enough to deserve its own consideration, so  each gets    edited separately before being put all together and checked for coherence.

46. Consequently, the vast majority of people walk around not hearing most of what there is to hear. Not so, for most sound editors. It can be mildly excruciating to listen this hard, to hear so much, which is why some of the team wear earplugs when they walk around the city.

Why People Think Scientists Know Everything
Neuroscientist Dean Burnett considers the reasons why people often have the wrong idea about science and scientists.

A.   One unexpected aspect of being a scientist is the weird questions you get asked by non-scientists.  Whilst publicizing my latest book, I've been asked many. Among my favorites is: “'Which are smarter, tigers or wolves?” As a neuro-scientist, I'm not trained to answer this (assuming an answer even exists). Obviously, if I'm going to put myself out there as an authority on things, then I should expect questions.  However, this happened to me even before I became   a public figure, and other scientists I've spoken to report similar, regular occurrences. It's just something people do, like meeting a doctor at a party and asking them about a rash. If you're a scientist, people assume you know all science, something which would require several lifetimes of study. In truth, most scientists are, just like experts in any other field, very specialized. If you meet a historian who specializes in 19th-century Britain, asking them about ancient Egyptians is illogical. Maybe this does happen to historians. I cannot say. It happens to scientists though. So where does this “scientists know all science” preconception come from?

B.   Because my area of interest is the human brain, I tend to blame it for many of life’s problems. For example, the way in which it handles information could lead to this idea of the all-knowing scientist.  Our brain has to deal with a lot of information, so it often uses short cuts. One of these is to clump information together. While functionally useful, you can see how this would lead to inaccuracies or even prejudices.   If someone struggles to understand science, in their heads it all gets lumped together as “stuff I don't understand”. The same goes for scientists, who may get labelled as “people who understand things I don't”. Education also plays a role. The study of science gets more specific the      further you progress, but at a young age you get taught what's called simply “science”. So you begin with this notion that science is just one subject, and have to gradually figure out otherwise. Would it be surprising then, if many people never really move on from this perception due to a disinterest in science, and consequently continue to regard scientists as interchangeable?

C.   The way in which scientists are portrayed in the media doesn't help either. Any new discovery or development reported in the press invariably begins with “Scientists have discovered...” or “According to scientists...”. You seldom get this in any other field. The latest government initiative does not begin with “Politicians have decided...”. If any study or finding worth mentioning is invariably attributed to all scientists everywhere, it's understandable if the average reader ends up thinking they're all one and the same. The press also loves the idea of the 'lone genius'. The story of a scientific discovery typically focuses on a single, brilliant intellectual, changing the world via his or her all-encompassing genius.  While this makes for an inspiring narrative and therefore sells newspapers, it's far from the collaborative effort which most science is the result of. In fiction too, we constantly encounter the stand-alone genius who knows everything about everything, usually in very helpful and plot-relevant ways. This is bound to rub off on some people in the real world.

D.    Of course, this whole thing would be easier if it weren't for actual scientists making matters worse.   Some, maybe unintentionally, make declarations about other fields which don't agree with what the evidence says. I've even done it myself occasionally.  In popular science books, it's not uncommon for the author to stray Into areas that they aren't that familiar with but which need to be addressed in order to provide a coherent argument. Sadly, you also get the scientists who, having achieved influence and prestige, start to believe their own press and end up making declarations about fields beyond their own, using confidence instead of actual awareness of how things work. Because such people have a public platform, the public assumes they must be right. The fact is that if scientists really did know everything, they'd know how to put an end to the misconceptions about their professions. But they don't.  So they don’t.

47. Speculate about the experiences of other professionals?

52. Use an example from another profession to support an observation  about human nature?

WRITING

You may, if you wish, make use of the opinions expressed in the discussion, but you should use your own words as far as possible.

Which facilities should receive money from local authorities?
museums
sports centers
public gardens

Some opinions expressed in the discussion:
“Museums aren’t popular with everybody!”
“Sports centers mean healthier people.”
“A town needs green spaces – parks are great for everybody.”