Corner Reading lesson 3

Ex 1. Matching heading
Traffic jam – No end in sight
A. There are no easy answers to the problems of traffic congestion. Traffic congestion affects people
throughout the world. Traffic jams cause smog in dozens of cities across both the developed and developing
world.
In the U.S., commuters spend an average of a full work week each year sitting in traffic, according to the
Texas Transportation Institute. While alternative ways of getting around are available, most people still choose
their cars because they are looking for convenience, comfort and privacy.

B. The most promising technique for reducing city traffic is called congestion pricing, whereby cities charge a
toll to enter certain parts of town at certain times of day.
In theory, if the toll is high enough, some drivers will cancel their trips or go by bus or train. And in practice it
seems to work: Singapore, London and Stockholm have reduced traffic and pollution in city centers thanks to
congestion pricing.

C. Another way to reduce rush hour traffic is for employers to implement flexitime, which lets employees
travel to and from work at off-peak traffic times to avoid the rush hour.
Those who have to travel during busy times can do their part by sharing cars. Employers can also allow more
staff to telecommute (work from home) so as to keep more cars off the road altogether.

D. Some urban planners still believe that the best way to ease traffic congestion is to build more roads,
especially roads that can take drivers around or over crowded city streets. But such techniques do not really
keep cars off the road; they only accommodate more of them.

E. Other, more forward-thinking, planners know that more and more drivers and cars are taking to the roads
every day, and they are unwilling to encourage more private automobiles when public transport is so much
better both for people and the environment.
For this reason, the American government has decided to spend some $7 billion on helping to increase capacity
on public transport systems and upgrade them with more efficient technologies. But environmentalists
complain that such funding is tiny compared with the $50 billion being spent on roads and bridges.

Question 1-5
Read the paragraphs one by one to choose the correct headings
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E

List of Headings
i        A solution which is no solution
ii       Changing working practices
iii      Closing city centres to traffic
iv      Making cars more environmentally friendly
v       Not doing enough
vi      Paying to get in
vii     A global problem

Ex 2. Summary completion
Sleep reduces errors in memory
Sleep may reduce mistakes in memory, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a scientist at Michigan
State University.
The findings, which appear in the September issue of the journal Learning El Memory, have practical
implications for many people, from students doing multiple-choice tests to elderly people confusing their
medicine, says Kimberly Fenn, principal investigator and assistant professor of psychology.

‘It’s easy to muddle things in your mind,’ Fenn says. This research suggests that after sleep, you’re better able
to pick out the incorrect parts of that memory.’ Fenn and colleagues from the University of Chicago and
Washington University in St Louis studied the presence of incorrect or false memory in groups of college
students. While previous research has shown that sleep improves memory, this study is the first one that looks
at errors in memory, she said.

Study participants were ‘trained’ by being shown or listening to lists of words. Then, twelve hours later, they
were shown individual words and asked to identify which words they had seen or heard in the earlier session.
One group of students was trained at 10 a.m. and tested at 10 p.m. after the course of a normal sleepless day.
Another group was trained at night and tested twelve hours later in the morning, after about six hours of sleep.
Three experiments were conducted. In each experiment, the results showed that students who had slept did not
have as many problems with false memory and chose fewer incorrect words.

How does sleep help? The answer isn’t known, Fenn said, but she suspects it may be due to sleep
strengthening the source of the memory. The source, or context in which the information is acquired, is a vital
element of the memory process.

In other words, it may be easier to remember something if you can also remember where you first heard or saw
it. Or perhaps the people who didn’t sleep as much during the study received so much other information during
the day that this affected their memory ability, Fenn said.

Further research is needed, she said, adding that she plans to study different population groups, particularly the
elderly. ‘We know older individuals generally have worse memory performance than younger individuals.

We also know from other research that elderly individuals tend to be more prone to false memories,’ Fenn
said. ‘Given the work we’ve done, it’s possible that sleep may actually help them to reject this false
information. And potentially this could help to improve their quality of life.’

Questions 1-5
Complete the summary using the list of words and phrases, A-J, below.

Fenn’s Memory Experiments

The groups in the study saw or heard lists of words at 1______ times of the day. After 2_________ hours, the
groups tried to identify these words correctly in a test. Before the test, one group had 3________sleep and
chose the words in the evening. The other group had their test in the morning.

In three experiments, the results were 4_______ the groups that had slept during the experiment
remembered 5_____words correctly than the other groups.

A more F ten
comple
B G different
x
C 12 H no
D six I fewer
E less J the same
 Ex 3.
Do literate women make better mothers
Children in developing countries are healthier and more likely to survive past the age of five when their
mothers can read and write. Experts In public health accepted this idea decades ago, but until now no one has
been able to show that a woman's ability to read in Itself Improves her children’s chances of survival.

Most literate women learnt to read In primary school, and the fact that a woman has had an education may
simply indicate her family’s wealth or that It values Its children more highly. Now a long-term study carried
out In Nicaragua has eliminated these factors by showing that teaching reading to poor adult women, who
would otherwise have remained Illiterate, has a direct effect on their children’s health and survival.

In 1979, the government of Nicaragua established a number of social programmes, including a National
Literacy Crusade. By 1985, about 300,000 Illiterate adults from all over the country, many of whom had never
attended primary school, had learnt how to read, write and use numbers.

During this period, researchers from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Central American
Institute of Health In Nicaragua, the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua and the Costa Rican
Institute of Health Interviewed nearly 3,000 women, some of whom had learnt to read as children, some during
the literacy crusade and some who had never learnt at all. The women were asked how many children they had
given birth to and how many of them had died In Infancy. The research teams also examined the surviving
children to find out how well-nourished they were.

The Investigators' findings were striking. In the late 1970s, the infant mortality rate for the children of Illiterate
mothers was around 110 deaths per thousand live births. At this point In their lives, those mothers who later
went on to learn to read had a similar level Of child mortality (105/1000). For women educated in primary
school, however, the Infant mortality rate was significantly lower, at 80 per thousand.

In 1985, after the National Literacy Crusade had ended, the infant mortality figures for those who remained
illiterate and for those educated In primary school remained more or less unchanged. For those women who
learnt to read through the campaign, the infant mortality rate was 84 per thousand, an impressive 21 points
lower than for those women who were still Illiterate. The children of the newly-literate mothers were also
better nourished than those of women who could not read.

Why are the children of literate mothers better off? According to Peter Sandiford of the Liverpool School of
Tropical Medicine, no one Knows for certain. Child health was not on the curriculum during the women’s
lessons, so fie and his colleagues are looking at other factors. They are working with the same group of 3,000
women, to try to find out whether reading mothers make better use of hospitals and clinics, opt for smaller
families, exert more control at home, learn modern childcare techniques more quickly, or whether they merely
have more respect for themselves and their children.

The Nicaraguan study may have important implications for governments and aid agencies that need to know
where to direct their resources. Sandiford says that there is increasing evidence that female education, at any
age, is "an important health intervention in its own right’. The results of the study lend support to the World
Bank's recommendation that education budgets in developing countries should be increased, not just to help
their economies, but also to improve child health.

'We’ve known for a long time that maternal education is important,’ says John Cleland of the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. ‘But we thought that even if we started educating girls today, we'd have to
wait a generation for the pay off. The Nicaraguan study suggests we may be able to bypass that.'

Cleland warns that the Nicaraguan crusade was special in many ways, and similar campaigns elsewhere might
not work as well. It is notoriously difficult to teach adults skills that do not have an immediate impact on their
everyday lives, and many literacy campaigns in other countries have been much less successful. 'The crusade
was part of a larger effort to bring a better life to the people,’ says Cleland. Replicating these conditions in
other countries will be a major challenge for development workers.

Questions 1-5
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

The Nicaraguan National Literacy Crusade aimed to teach large numbers of illiterate 1 ___ to read and write.
Public health experts have known for many years that there is a connection between child health and
2________
However, it has not previously been known whether these two factors were directly linked or not.
This question has been investigated by 3________ in Nicaragua.
As a result, factors such as 4__________ and attitudes to children have been eliminated, and it has been
shown that 5 _________ can in itself improve infant health and survival.
 B men and C an international research
A child literacy
women team

D medical care E mortality F maternal literacy

adults and H paternal I a National Literacy

G
children literacy Crusade

J family wealth

Questions 6-11
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet, write .

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

6 About a thousand of the women interviewed by the researchers had learnt to read when they were children.
7 Before the National Literacy Crusade, illiterate women had approximately the same levels of infant
mortality as those who had learnt to read in primary school.
8 Before and after the National Literacy Crusade, the child mortality rate for the illiterate women stayed at
about 110 deaths for each thousand live births.
9 The women who had learnt to read through the National Literacy Crusade showed the greatest change in
infant mortality levels.
10 The women who had learnt to read through the National Literacy Crusade had the lowest rates of child
mortality.
11 After the National Literacy Crusade, the children of the women who remained illiterate were found to be
severely malnourished.

Questions 12-13
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO important implications drawn from the Nicaraguan study are mentioned by the writer of the
passage?

A It is better to educate mature women than young girls.

B Similar campaigns in other countries would be equally successful.
C The effects of maternal literacy programmes can be seen very quickly.
D Improving child health can quickly affect a country’s economy.
E Money spent on female education will improve child health.

Ex 4.
The impact of wilderness tourism
A

The market for tourism In remote areas is booming as never before. Countries ail across the world are actively
promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions - such as mountains, Arctic lands, deserts, small islands and wetlands - to
high-spending tourists. The attraction of these areas is obvious.- by definition, wilderness tourism requires
little or no initial investment. But that does not mean that there is no cost. As the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development recognized, these regions are fragile (i.e. highly vulnerable to
abnormal pressures) not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants. The
three most significant types of fragile environment in these respects, and also in terms of the proportion of the
Earth's surface they cover, are deserts, mountains and Arctic areas. An important characteristic is their marked
seasonality, with harsh conditions prevailing for many months each year. Consequently, most human activities,
including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year.

Tourists are drawn to these regions by their natural landscape beauty and the unique cultures of their
indigenous people. And poor governments in these isolated areas have welcomed the new breed of ‘adventure
tourist’, grateful for the hard currency they bring. For several years now, tourism has been the prime source of
foreign exchange in Nepal and Bhutan. Tourism is also a key element in the economies of Arctic zones such as
Lapland and Alaska and in desert areas such as Ayers Rock in Australia and Arizona’s Monument Valley.

Once a location is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local community are profound.
When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few weeks working as porters for foreign trekkers
than they can in a year working in their fields, it is not surprising that many of them give up their farm-work,
which is thus left to other members of the family. In some hill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm
output and a change in the local diet, because there is insufficient labour to maintain terraces and irrigation
systems and tend to crops. The result has been that many people in these regions have turned to outside
supplies of rice and other foods.

In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting animals and fish and
collecting fruit over a relatively short season. However, as some inhabitants become Involved in tourism, they
no longer have time to collect wild food; this has led to increasing dependence on bought food and stores.
Tourism is not always the culprit behind such changes. All kinds of wage labour, or government handouts,
tend to undermine traditional survival systems. Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the same: what
happens If these new, external sources of income dry up?

The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth In adventure tourism.
Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps more important are the deforestation and
impacts on water supplies arising from the need to provide tourists with cooked food and hot showers. In both
mountains and deserts, slow-growing trees are often the main sources of fuel and water supplies may be
limited or vulnerable to degradation through heavy use.

Stories about the problems of tourism have become legion in the last few years. Yet it does not have to be a
problem. Although tourism inevitably affects the region in which it takes place, the costs to these fragile
environments and their local cultures can be minimized. Indeed, it can even be a vehicle for reinvigorating
local cultures, as has happened with the Sherpas of Nepal’s Khumbu Valley and in some Alpine villages. And
a growing number of adventure tourism operators are trying to ensure that their activities benefit the local
population and environment over the long term.

In the Swiss Alps, communities have decided that their future depends on integrating tourism more effectively
with the local economy. Local concern about the rising number of second home developments in the Swiss
Pays d'Enhaut resulted in limits being imposed on their growth. There has also been a renaissance in
communal cheese production In the area, providing the locals with a reliable source of income that does not
depend on outside visitors.

Many of the Arctic tourist destinations have been exploited by outside companies, who employ transient
workers and repatriate most of the profits to their home base. But some Arctic communities are now operating
tour businesses themselves, thereby ensuring that the benefits accrue locally. For instance, a native corporation
in Alaska, employing local people. Is running an air tour from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where tourists eat
Arctic food, walk on the tundra and watch local musicians and dancers.

Native people In the desert regions of the American Southwest have followed similar strategies, encouraging
tourists to visit their pueblos and reservations to purchase high-quality handicrafts and artwork. The Acoma
and San lldefonso pueblos have established highly profitable pottery businesses, while the Navajo and Hopi
groups have been similarly successful with jewellery.

Too many people living in fragile environments have lost control over their economies, their culture and their
environment when tourism has penetrated their homelands. Merely restricting tourism cannot be the solution to
the imbalance, because people's desire to see new places will not just disappear. Instead, communities in
fragile environments must achieve greater control over tourism ventures in their regions, in order to balance
their needs and aspirations with the demands of tourism. A growing number of communities are demonstrating
that, with firm communal decision-making, this is possible. The critical question now is whether this can
become the norm, rather than the exception.

Questions 1-3
Reading Passage has three sections,  A-C.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number  i-vi in boxes  1-3 on your answer sheet.

  List of Headings

i The expansion of international tourism in recent years

How local communities can balance their own needs with the demands of wilderness
ii
tourism

iii Fragile regions and the reasons for the expansion of tourism there

iv Traditional methods of food-supply in fragile regions

v Some of the disruptive effects of wilderness tourism

vi The economic benefits of mass tourism

1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C

Questions 4-9
Do the following statements reflect the opinion of the writer of Reading Passage?
In boxes  4-9 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement reflects the opinion of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the opinion of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
4 The low financial cost of selling up wilderness tourism makes it attractive to many countries.
5   Deserts, mountains and Arctic regions are examples of environments that are both ecologically
and culturally fragile.
6   Wilderness tourism operates throughout the year in fragile areas.
7   The spread of tourism in certain hill-regions has resulted in a fall in the amount of food produced
locally.
8   Traditional food-gathering in desert societies was distributed evenly over the year.
9   Government handouts do more damage than tourism does to traditional patterns of food-
gathering.

Questions 10-13
Complete the table below.
Choose  ONE WORD from Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13  on your answer sheet.

The positive ways in which some local

communities have
responded to tourism
People/Location Activity

Swiss Pays d'Enhaut Revived production of 10____ 

Arctic communities Operate 11____  businesses
Acoma and San lldefonso Produce and sell 12_____ 
Navajo and Hopi Produce and sell 13____ 
 Ex 5.
Running on empty
A revolutionary new theory in sports physiology.

A For almost a century, scientists have presumed, not unreasonably, that fatigue - or exhaustion in athletes
originates in the muscles. Precise explanations have varied but all have been based on the ‘limitations theory’.
In other words, muscles tire because they hit a physical limit: they either run out of fuel or oxygen or they
drown in toxic by-products.

B In the past few years, however, Timothy Noakes and Alan St Clair Gibson from the University of Cape
Town, South Africa, have examined this standard theory. The deeper they dig, the more convinced they have
become that physical fatigue simply isn't the same as a car running out of petrol. Fatigue, they argue, is caused
not by distress signals springing from overtaxed muscles, but is an emotional response which begins in the
brain. The essence of their new theory is that the brain, using a mix of physiological, subconscious and
conscious cues, paces the muscles to keep them well back from the brink of exhaustion. When the brain
decides its time to quit, it creates the distressing sensations we interpret as unbearable muscle fatigue. This
‘central governor* theory remains controversial, but it does explain many puzzling aspects of athletic
performance.

C A recent discovery that Noakes calls the ‘lactic acid paradox' made him start researching this area seriously.
Lactic acid is a by-product of exercise, and its accumulation is often cited as a cause of fatigue. But when
research subjects exercise in conditions simulating high altitude, they become fatigued even though lactic acid
levels remain low. Nor has the oxygen content of their blood fallen too low for them to keep going. Obviously,
Noakes deduced, something else was making them tire before they hit either of these physiological limits.

D Probing further, Noakes conducted an experiment with seven cyclists who had sensors taped to their legs to
measure the nerve impulses travelling through their muscles. It has long been known that during exercise, the
body never uses 100% of the available muscle fibres in a single contraction. The amount used varies, but in
endurance tasks such as this cycling test the body calls on about 30%.

E Noakes reasoned that if the limitations theory was correct and fatigue was due to muscle fibres hitting some
limit, the number of fibres used for each pedal stroke should increase as the fibres tired and the cyclist’s body
attempted to compensate by recruiting an ever-larger proportion of the total. But his team found exactly the
opposite. As fatigue set in, the electrical activity in the cyclists' legs declined - even during sprinting, when
they were striving to cycle as fast as they could.
F To Noakes, this was strong evidence that the old theory was wrong. ‘The cyclists may have felt completely
exhausted,’ he says, ‘but their bodies actually had considerable reserves that they could theoretically tap by
using a greater proportion of the resting fibres.’ This, he believes, is proof that the brain is regulating the pace
of the workout to hold the cyclists well back from the point of catastrophic exhaustion.

G More evidence comes from the fact that fatigued muscles don’t actually run out of anything critical. Levels
of glycogen, which is the muscles’ primary fuel, and ATP. the chemical they use for temporary energy storage,
decline with exercise but never bottom out. Even at the end of a marathon, ATP levels are 80-90% of the
resting norm, and glycogen levels never get to zero.

H Further support for the central regulator comes from the fact that top athletes usually manage to go their
fastest at the end of a race, even though, theoretically, that's when their muscles should be closest to
exhaustion. But Noakes believes the end spurt makes no sense if fatigue is caused by muscles poisoning
themselves with lactic acid as this would cause racers to slow down rather than enable them to sprint for the
finish line. In the new theory, the explanation is obvious. Knowing the end is near, the brain slightly relaxes its
vigil, allowing the athlete to tap some of the body’s carefully hoarded reserves.

I But the central governor theory does not mean that what's happening in the muscles is irrelevant. The
governor constantly monitors physiological signals from the muscles, along with other information, to set the
level of fatigue. A large number of signals are probably involved but, unlike the limitations theory, the central
governor theory suggests that these physiological factors are not the direct determinants of fatigue, but simply
information to take into account.

J Conscious factors can also intervene. Noakes believes that the central regulator evaluates the planned
workout, and sets a pacing strategy accordingly. Experienced runners know that if they set out on a 10-
kilometre run. the first kilometre feels easier than the first kilometre of a 5-kilometre run, even though there
should be no difference. That, Noakes says, is because the central governor knows you have farther to go in the
longer run and has programmed itself to dole out fatigue symptoms accordingly.

K St Clair Gibson believes there is a good reason why our bodies arc designed to keep something back. That
way, there's always something left in the tank for an emergency. In ancient times, and still today, life would be
too dangerous if our bodies allowed us to become so tired that we couldn't move quickly when faced with an
unexpected need.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage 3 has eleven paragraphs A-K.
Choose the correct heading for Paragraphs A-F from the list of headings below.  
List of headings
i         Avoiding tiredness in athletes
ii        Puzzling evidence raises a question
iii       Traditional explanations
iv       Interpreting the findings
v         Developing muscle fibres
vi        A new hypothesis
vii       Description of a new test
viii      Surprising results in an endurance test
1    Paragraph A
2    Paragraph B
3    Paragraph C
4    Paragraph D
5   Paragraph E
6    Paragraph F

Questions 7-13
Classify the following ideas as relating to
A the Limitations Theory
B the Central Governor Theory
C both the Limitations Theory and the Central Governor Theory
 
Write the correct letter  A, B  or  C in boxes  7-13  on your answer sheet. 
NB: You may use any letter more than once.
7 Lactic acid is produced in muscles during exercise.
8   Athletes can keep going until they use up all their available resources.
9   Mental processes control the symptoms of tiredness.
10  The physiological signals from an athlete's muscles are linked to fatigue.
11  The brain plans and regulates muscle performance in advance of a run.
12  Athletes' performance during a race may be affected by lactic acid build-up.
13  Humans are genetically programmed to keep some energy reserves.