reading_ac_practice1.pdfVIP

Candidate Number Candidate Name ______________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE TESTING SYSTEM Academic Reading PRACTICE TEST 1 hour Time 1 hour INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Do not open this question paper until you are told to do so. Write your name and candidate number in the spaces at the top of this page. Read the instructions for each part of the paper carefully. Answer all the questions. Write your answers on the answer sheet. Use a pencil. You must complete the answer sheet within the time limit. At the end of the test, hand in both this question paper and your answer sheet. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES There are 40 questions on this question paper. Each question carries one mark. ? The British Council 2012. All rights reserved. 1 READING PASSAGE 1 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. MAKING TIME FOR SCIENCE Chronobiology might sound a little futuristic – like something from a science fiction novel, perhaps – but it’s actually a field of study that concerns one of the oldest processes life on this planet has ever known: short-term rhythms of time and their effect on flora and fauna. This can take many forms. Marine life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns. Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon. Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal – that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight. Nocturnal animals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the low-light of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours. When it comes to humans, chronobiologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four hour day. Asi