Green roofs Reading Answers
A Rooftops covered with grass, vegetable gardens and lush
foliage are now a common sight in many cities around the world. More and more
private companies and city authorities are investing in green roofs, drawn to
their wide-ranging benefits. Among the benefits are saving on energy costs,
mitigating the risk of floods, making habitats for urban wildlife, tackling air
pollution and even growing food. These increasingly radical urban designs can
help cities adapt to the monumental problems they face, such as access to
resources and a lack of green space due to development. But the involvement of
city authorities, businesses and other institutions is crucial to ensuring
their success – as is research investigating different options to suit the
variety of rooftop spaces found in cities. The UK is relatively new to
developing green roofs, and local governments and institutions are playing a
major role in spreading the practice. London is home to much of the UK’s green
roof market, mainly due to forward-thinking policies such as the London Plan,
which has paved the way to more than doubling the area of green roofs in the
capital.
B Ongoing research is showcasing how green roofs in cities
can integrate with ‘living walls’: environmentally friendly walls which are
partially or completely covered with greenery, including a growing medium, such
as soil or water. Research also indicates that green roofs can be integrated
with drainage systems on the ground, such as street trees, so that the water is
managed better and the built environment is made more sustainable. There is
also evidence to demonstrate the social value of green roofs. Doctors are
increasingly prescribing time spent gardening outdoors for patients dealing
with anxiety and depression. And research has found that access to even the
most basic green spaces can provide a better quality of life for dementia
sufferers and help people avoid obesity.
C In North America, green roofs have become mainstream,
with a wide array of expansive, accessible and food-producing roofs installed
in buildings. Again, city leaders and authorities have helped push the movement
forward — only recently, San Francisco, USA, created a policy requiring new
buildings to have green roofs. Toronto, Canada, has policies dating from the
1990s, encouraging the development of urban farms on rooftops. These countries
also benefit from having newer buildings than in many parts of the world, which
makes it easier to install green roofs. Being able to keep enough water at roof
height and distribute it right across the rooftop is crucial to maintaining the
plants on any green roof – especially on ‘edible roofs’ where fruit and
vegetables are farmed. And it’s much easier to do this in newer buildings,
which can typically hold greater weight, than to retro-fit old ones. Having a
stronger roof also makes it easier to grow a greater variety of plants, since
the soil can be deeper.
D For green roofs to become the norm for new developments,
there needs to be support from public authorities and private investors. Those
responsible for maintaining buildings may have to acquire new skills, such as
landscaping, and in some cases, volunteers may be needed to help out. Other
considerations include installing drainage paths, meeting health and safety
requirements and perhaps allowing access for the public, as well as planning
restrictions and disruption from regular activities in and around the buildings
during installation. To convince investors and developers that installing green
roofs is worthwhile, economic arguments are still the most important. The term
‘natural capital’ has been developed to explain the economic value of nature;
for example, measuring the money saved by installing natural solutions to
protect against flood damage, adapt to climate change or help people lead
healthier and happier lives.
E As the expertise about green roofs grows, official
standards have been developed to ensure that they are designed, constructed and
maintained properly, and function well. Improvements in the science and
technology underpinning green roof development have also led to new variations
in the concept. For example, ‘blue roofs’ enable buildings to hold water over
longer periods of time, rather than draining it away quickly – crucial in times
of heavier rainfall. There are also combinations of green roofs with solar
panels, and ‘brown roofs’ which are wilder in nature and maximise biodiversity.
If the trend continues, it could create new jobs and a more vibrant and
sustainable local food economy – alongside many other benefits. There are still
barriers to overcome, but the evidence so far indicates that green roofs have
the potential to transform cities and help them function sustainably long into the
future. The success stories need to be studied and replicated elsewhere, to
make green, blue, brown and food-producing roofs the norm in cities around the
world.
Questions 1-5
Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Which paragraph
contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 1-5
on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.
1. mention of several challenges to be overcome before a
green roof can be installed
2. reference to a city where green roofs have been
promoted for many years
3. a belief that existing green roofs should be used as a
model for new ones
4. examples of how green roofs can work in combination
with other green urban initiatives
5. the need to make a persuasive argument for the
financial benefits of green roofs
Questions 6-9
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the
passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.
Advantages of green roofs
City rooftops covered with greenery have many advantages.
These include lessening the likelihood that floods will occur, reducing how
much money is spent on (6)………………… and creating environments that are suitable
for wildlife. In many cases, they can also be used for producing (7)………………….
There are also social benefits of green roofs. For example, the medical
profession recommends (8)…………………as an activity to help people cope with mental
health issues. Studies have also shown that the availability of green spaces
can prevent physical problems such as (9)……………….
Questions 10 and 11
Choose TWO letters, A-E. Write the correct letters in
boxes 10 and 11 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO advantages of using newer buildings for green
roofs are mentioned in Paragraph C of the passage?
A a longer growing season for edible produce
B more economical use of water
C greater water-storage capacity
D ability to cultivate more plant types
E a large surface area for growing plants
Questions 12 and 13
Choose TWO letters, A-E. Write the correct letters in
boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO aims of new variations on the concept of green
roofs are mentioned in Paragraph E of the passage?
A to provide habitats for a wide range of species
B to grow plants successfully even in the wettest climates
C to regulate the temperature of the immediate environment
D to generate power from a sustainable source
E to collect water to supply other buildings
Reading Answer
1. D
2. C
3. E
4. B
5. D
6. Energy
7. Food
8. Gardening
9. Obesity
10. C, D
11. C, D
12. A, D
13. A, D
Tie growth mindset Reading answer
Over the past century, a powerful idea has taken root in
the educational landscape. The concept of intelligence as something innate has
been supplanted by the idea that intelligence is not fixed, and that, with the
right training, we can be the authors of our own cognitive capabilities.
Psychologist Alfred Binet, the developer of the first intelligence tests, was
one of many 19th-century scientists who held that earlier view and sought to
quantify cognitive ability. Then, in the early 20th century, progressive
thinkers revolted against the notion that inherent ability is destiny. Instead,
educators such as John Dewey argued that every child’s intelligence could be
developed, given the right environment.
‘Growth mindset theory’ is a relatively new – and
extremely popular – version of this idea. In many schools today you will see
hallways covered in motivational posters and hear speeches on the mindset of
great sporting heroes who simply believed their way to the top. A major focus
of the growth mindset in schools is coaxing students away from seeing failure
as an indication of their ability, and towards seeing it as a chance to improve
that ability. As educationalist Jeff Howard noted several decades ago: ‘Smart
is not something that you just are, smart is something that you can get.’
The idea of the growth mindset is based on the work of
psychologist Carol Dweck in California in the 1990s. In one key experiment,
Dweck divided a group of 10- to 12-year-olds into two groups. All were told
that they had achieved a high score on a test but the first group were praised
for their intelligence in achieving this, while the others were praised for
their effort. The second group – those who had been instilled with a ‘growth
mindset’ – were subsequently far more likely to put effort into future tasks.
Meanwhile, the former took on only those tasks that would not risk their sense
of worth. This group had inferred that success or failure is due to innate
ability, and this ‘fixed mindset’ had led them to fear of failure and lack of
effort. Praising ability actually made the students perform worse, while
praising effort emphasised that change was possible.
One of the greatest impediments to successfully
implementing a growth mindset, however, is the education system itself: in many
parts of the world, the school climate is obsessed with performance in the form
of constant testing, analysing and ranking of students – a key characteristic
of the fixed mindset. Nor is it unusual for schools to create a certain
cognitive dissonance, when they applaud the benefits of a growth mindset but
then hand out fixed target grades in lessons based on performance.
Aside from the implementation problem, the original growth
mindset research has also received harsh criticism. The statistician Andrew
Gelman claims that ‘their research designs have enough degrees of freedom that
they could take their data to support just about any theory at all’. Professor
of Psychology Timothy Bates, who has been trying to replicate Dweck’s work, is
finding that the results are repeatedly null. He notes that: ‘People with a
growth mindset don’t cope any better with failure … Kids with the growth
mindset aren’t getting better grades, either before or after our intervention
study.’
Much of this criticism is not lost on Dweck, and she deserves
great credit for responding to it and adapting her work accordingly. In fact,
she argues that her work has been misunderstood and misapplied in a range of
ways. She has also expressed concerns that her theories are being
misappropriated in schools by being conflated with the self-esteem movement:
‘For me the growth mindset is a tool for learning and improvement. It’s not
just a vehicle for making children feel good.’
But there is another factor at work here. The failure to
translate the growth mindset into the classroom might reflect a
misunderstanding of the nature of teaching and learning itself. Growth mindset
supporters David Yeager and Gregory Walton claim that interventions should be
delivered in a subtle way to maximise their effectiveness. They say that if
adolescents perceive a teacher’s intervention as conveying that they are in
need of help, this could undo its intended effects.
A lot of what drives students is their innate beliefs and
how they perceive themselves. There is a strong correlation between
self-perception and achievement, but there is evidence to suggest that the
actual effect of achievement on self-perception is stronger than the other way
round. To stand up in a classroom and successfully deliver a good speech is a
genuine achievement, and that is likely to be more powerfully motivating than
vague notions of ‘motivation’ itself.
Recent evidence would suggest that growth mindset
interventions are not the elixir of student learning that its proponents claim
it to be. The growth mindset appears to be a viable construct in the lab,
which, when administered in the classroom via targeted interventions, doesn’t
seem to work. It is hard to dispute that having faith in the capacity to change
is a good attribute for students. Paradoxically, however, that aspiration is
not well served by direct interventions that try to instil it. Motivational
posters and talks are often a waste of time, and might well give students a
deluded notion of what success actually means. Teaching concrete skills such as
how to write an effective introduction to an essay then praising students’
effort in getting there is probably a far better way of improving confidence
than telling them how unique they are, or indeed how capable they are of
changing their own brains. Perhaps growth mindset works best as a philosophy
and not an intervention.
Questions 14-16
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
14. What can we learn from the first paragraph?
A where the notion of innate intelligence first began
B when ideas about the nature of intelligence began to
shift
C how scientists have responded to changing views of
intelligence
D why thinkers turned away from the idea of intelligence
being fixed
15. The second paragraph describes how schools encourage
students to
A identify their personal ambitions.
B help each other to realise their goals.
C have confidence in their potential to succeed.
D concentrate on where their particular strengths lie.
16. In the third paragraph, the writer suggests that
students with a fixed mindset
A tend to be less competitive.
B generally have a low sense of self-esteem.
C will only work hard if they are given constant
encouragement.
D are afraid to push themselves beyond what they see as
their limitations.
Questions 17-22
Look at the following statements (Questions 17-22) and the
list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person or people,
A-E. Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 17-22 on your answer sheet. NB You
may use any letter more than once.
17. The methodology behind the growth mindset studies was
not strict enough.
18. The idea of the growth mindset has been incorrectly
interpreted.
19. Intellectual ability is an unchangeable feature of
each individual.
20. The growth mindset should be promoted without students
being aware of it.
21. The growth mindset is not simply about boosting
students’ morale.
22. Research shows that the growth mindset has no effect
on academic achievement.
List of People
A Alfred Binet
B Carol Dweck
C Andrew Gelman
D Timothy Bates
E David Yeager and Gregory Walton
Questions 23-26
Do the following statements agree with the views of the
writer in reading passage? In boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the
statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the
statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN
if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
23. Dweck has handled criticisms of her work in an
admirable way.
24. Students’ self-perception is a more effective driver
of self-confidence than actual achievement is.
25. Recent evidence about growth mindset interventions has
attracted unfair coverage in the media.
26. Deliberate attempts to encourage students to strive
for high achievement may have a negative effect.
Reading Answer
14. B
15. C
16. D
17. C
18. B
19. A
20. E
21. B
22. D
23. Yes
24. No
25. Not given
26. Yes
Alfred Wegener: science, exploration and the theory of
continental drift
Introduction
This is a book about the life and scientific work of
Alfred Wegener, whose reputation today rests with his theory of continental
displacements, better known as ‘continental drift’. Wegener proposed this
theory in 1912 and developed it extensively for nearly 20 years. His book on
the subject, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, went through four editions
and was the focus of an international controversy in his lifetime and for some
years after his death.
Wegener’s basic idea was that many mysteries about the
Earth’s history could be solved if one supposed that the continents moved
laterally, rather than supposing that they remained fixed in place. Wegener
showed in great detail how such continental movements were plausible and how
they worked, using evidence from a large number of sciences including geology,
geophysics, paleontology, and climatology. Wegener’s idea – that the continents
move – is at the heart of the theory that guides Earth sciences today: namely
plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is in many respects quite different from
Wegener’s proposal, in the same way that modern evolutionary theory is very
different from the ideas Charles Darwin proposed in the 1850s about biological
evolution. Yet plate tectonics is a descendant of Alfred Wegener’s theory of
continental drift, in quite the same way that modern evolutionary theory is a
descendant of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
When I started writing about Wegener’s life and work, one
of the most intriguing things about him for me was that, although he came up
with a theory on continental drift, he was not a geologist. He trained as an
astronomer and pursued a career in atmospheric physics. When he proposed the
theory of continental displacements in 1912, he was a lecturer in physics and
astronomy at the University of Marburg, in southern Germany. However, he was
not an ‘unknown’. In 1906 he had set a world record (with his brother Kurt) for
time aloft in a hot-air balloon: 52 hours. Between 1906 and 1908 he had taken
part in a highly publicized and extremely dangerous expedition to the coast of
northeast Greenland. He had also made a name for himself amongst a small circle
of meteorologists and atmospheric physicists in Germany as the author of a
textbook, Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere (1911), and of a number of
interesting scientific papers.
As important as Wegener’s work on continental drift has
turned out to be, it was largely a sideline to his interest in atmospheric
physics, geophysics, and paleoclimatology , and thus I have been at great pains
to put Wegener’s work on continental drift in the larger context of his other
scientific work, and in the even larger context of atmospheric sciences in his
lifetime. This is a ‘continental drift book’ only to the extent that Wegener
was interested in that topic and later became famous for it. My treatment of
his other scientific work is no less detailed, though I certainly have devoted
more attention to the reception of his ideas on continental displacement, as
they were much more controversial than his other work.
Readers interested in the specific detail of Wegener’s
career will see that he often stopped pursuing a given line of investigation
(sometimes for years on end), only to pick it up later. I have tried to provide
guideposts to his rapidly shifting interests by characterizing different phases
of his life as careers in different sciences, which is reflected in the titles
of the chapters. Thus, the index should be a sufficient guide for those
interested in a particular aspect of Wegener’s life but perhaps not all of it.
My own feeling, however, is that the parts do not make as much sense on their
own as do all of his activities taken together. In this respect I urge readers
to try to experience Wegener’s life as he lived it, with all the interruptions,
changes of mind, and renewed efforts this entailed.
Wegener left behind a few published works but, as was
standard practice, these reported the results of his work – not the journey he
took to reach that point. Only a few hundred of the many thousands of letters
he wrote and received in his lifetime have survived and he didn’t keep
notebooks or diaries that recorded his life and activities. He was not active
(with a few exceptions) in scientific societies, and did not seek to find
influence or advance his ideas through professional contacts and politics,
spending most of his time at home in his study reading and writing, or in the
field collecting observations.
Some famous scientists, such as Newton, Darwin, and
Einstein, left mountains of written material behind, hundreds of notebooks and
letters numbering in the tens of thousands. Others, like Michael Faraday, left
extensive journals of their thoughts and speculations, parallel to their
scientific notebooks. The more such material a scientist leaves behind, the
better chance a biographer has of forming an accurate picture of how a
scientist’s ideas took shape and evolved.
I am firmly of the opinion that most of us, Wegener
included, are not in any real sense the authors of our own lives. We plan, think,
and act, often with apparent freedom, but most of the time our lives ‘happen to
us’, and we only retrospectively turn this happenstance into a coherent
narrative of fulfilled intentions. This book, therefore, is a story both of the
life and scientific work that Alfred Wegener planned and intended and of the
life and scientific work that actually ‘happened to him’. These are, as I think
you will soon see, not always the same thing.
Questions 27-30
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the
writer in reading passage? In boxes 27-30 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
27. Wegener’s ideas about continental drift were widely
disputed while he was alive.
28. The idea that the continents remained fixed in place
was defended in a number of respected scientific publications.
29. Wegener relied on a limited range of scientific fields
to support his theory of continental drift.
30. The similarities between Wegener’s theory of
continental drift and modern-day plate tectonics are enormous.
Questions 31-36
Complete the summary using the list of phrases, A-J,
below. Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 31-36 on your answer sheet.
Wegener’s life and work
One of the remarkable things about Wegener from a
(31)…………………is that although he proposed a theory of continental drift, he was
not a geologist. His (32)……………….. were limited to atmospheric physics. However,
at the time he proposed his theory of continental drift in 1912, he was already
a person of (33)……………….Six years previously, there had been his
(34)……………………….of 52 hours in a hot-air balloon, followed by his well-publicised
but (35)…………………….of Greenland’s coast. With the publication of his textbook on
thermodynamics, he had also come to the attention of a (36)……………………of German
scientists.
A modest fame
B vast range
C record-breaking achievement
D research methods
E select group
F professional interests
G scientific debate
H hazardous exploration
I biographer’s perspective
J narrow investigation
Questions 37-40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
37. What is Mott T Greene doing in the fifth paragraph?
A describing what motivated him to write the book
B explaining why it is desirable to read the whole book
C suggesting why Wegener pursued so many different careers
D indicating what aspects of Wegener’s life interested him
most
38. What is said about Wegener in the sixth paragraph?
A He was not a particularly ambitious person.
B He kept a record of all his scientific observations.
C He did not adopt many of the scientific practices of the
time.
D He enjoyed discussing new discoveries with other
scientists.
39. What does Greene say about some other famous scientists?
A Their published works had a greater impact than
Wegener’s did.
B They had fewer doubts about their scientific ideas than
Wegener did.
C Their scientific ideas were more controversial than
Wegener’s.
D They are easier subjects to write about than Wegener.
40. What is Greene’s main point in the final paragraph?
A It is not enough in life to have good intentions.
B People need to plan carefully if they want to succeed.
C People have little control over many aspects of their
lives.
D It is important that people ensure they have the freedom
to act.
Reading answers
27. Yes
28. Not given
29. No
30. No
31. I
32. F
33. A
34. C
35. H
36. E
37. B
38. A
39. D
40. C
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