Atlan IELTS Mock Test

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on ReadingPassage 2 on the following pages.

European Skull Were Found in New Zealand

At about midday on 23 October 2004,youngWairarapa local Sam Tobin rounded up his dogs,Gomez and Bertie,and took a wander down to the nearby Ruamahanga River. Having run highfor days, the river had at last fallen and he was eager to see what changes the recent springfloods had wrought. The family farm at Pukio, 15 km southeast of Featherston, bordered theRuamahanga and a purpose-built four-metre-high flood bank set back 30 or 40 paces from thewater testified to its flood-prone nature. Sixteen-year-old Tobin had known the tree-fringedriver to keep to its bed in only one year out of the 11 he had lived on the farm, its shoals andsandy margins endlessly dredged and reworked by the big-muscled seasonal flood.

Stepping out onto a broad shoulder of river sand, studded with stone chip, he noticed whathe took to be the upper surface of a whitish rock lit by the noonday sun. Getting closer hesaw that it was a bone. Such a thing was not uncommon hereabouts - he had often comeacross fragments, and even complete skulls, of cows and sheep. But as he scraped aside thestones and prized the object free, he realized with a shock that he held in his hands a humanskull, discolored with age, and bleached above and behind the right eye socket where it hadlain exposed. There were several holes, one of them in the right temple, perhaps suggestinga violent death.

Tobin replaced the skull and hurried home to tell his mother what the Ruamahanga haddelivered to their doorstep. It would prove to be a spectacular find; setting in motion aninvestigation that would drag on for years and draw in some of the country's most respectedspecialists, stirring heated controversy across the country and making headlines on the otherside of the world. The debate that ensued challenged our most firmly held assertions ofhuman settlement in New Zealand.

The police were called,but despite a thorough search they could find nothing that might shedlight on the identity of the skull, or on the circumstances of its sudden appearance on asecluded bank of the Ruamahanga.

The skull was taken north to be examined by forensic pathologists Dr Rex Ferris and DrTimKoelmeyer at Auckland Hospital. Despite being hampered by its damaged and incomplete condition - the jawbone and lower left portion of the cranium were missing - Ferris andKoelmeyer determined that the skull was that of an adult female.Furthermore,most probablyof European origin and that the deterioration of the bone placed the time of death \memory\conjectured that the holes in the skull,each the size of a 10 cent piece,might represent old injuries,and that one of the perforations looked to have been caused by\

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Atlan IELTS Mock Test

Wellington-based forensic anthropologist Dr Robin Watt also examined the skull. He concurred with his northern colleagues, stating in his report that it was \about 40-45 years, and probably of European origin\

The experts agreed,and believing that it could be the remains of an old farm burial, DrWattrecommended radiocarbon dating to make sure it wasn't a recent death.A sample of bonefrom the upper part of the skull was duly sent to the Institute of Geological and NuclearSciences (GNS) in Lower Hutt, and a little over three weeks later the result from GNS'sRafter Radiocarbon Laboratory came back.The news was a bombshell.

Cutting through the bewildering complexity of the scientific analysis was a single line, underthe heading\

The inquest heard that the skull was definitely not Maori - the only race known to have inhabited New Zealand in the 1 8th century - and almost certainly of European origin.TheEuropean discovery of the shoreline of New Zealand was made by the Dutch explorerAbelTasman in 1642.Tasman however had no women aboard his expedition.

The Maori are believed to have settled around 1200.The first white women known to have arrived in the country were two convicts who escaped from a penal colony in New South Wales, Australia, in 1806. Gareth Winter, the official Masterton archivist who was called as an expert witness, told The Daily Telegraph that the possibility of a hoax could confidently be ruled out.

Mr. Winter said that Captain Cook recorded, in the log of his second journey to New Zealand aboard the Resolution in 1772-1775,a tale told to him by a Maori chief of a ship having beenshipwrecked many years earlier. Cook said the Maori told him that they had given the ship'scaptain the name \

Archaeologists believed that the most likely site of such a shipwreck was Cape Palliser, the windswept southern-most point of North Island. Early missionaries wrote of hearing thesame story from Maori, who related that the survivors of the ship had been killed and eatenwhen they came ashore. They said that many Maori had subsequently died in an epidemic,possibly as a result of exposure to a newly introduced infection from Europe. Archaeologistssaid that the wrecked ship had crockery on board, and that Maori wore pieces of it aspendants around their necks, convinced the missionaries that the vessel had indeed beenEuropean.

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read:\ 35 years BP\

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Atlan IELTS Mock Test

Questions 14-18

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?In boxes 14- 18 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

14 Tobin's hometown floods frequently.

15 Tobin mistook the human skull at the beginning.

16 Tobin didn't determine that the bone is of which part of the body. 17 Tobin's mother didn't feel surprised when Tobin told her about the skull. 18 This discovery confirmed our belief for humans to settle in New Zealand.

Questions 19-22

Complete the flow-chart below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY AND /OR A NUMBER for each answer. At first, some esteemed 19 of the country set up investigating. Dr Rex Ferris and Dr Tim Koelmeyer identified it's possibly a female skull of 20 ancestry. Dr Watt suggested using 21 dating to make a further determination. The testing result showed that the skull was dating back around 22 years.

Questions 23-27

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage 2. Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.

From the investigation, it can be sure that the 23 of the skull wasn't Maori. It was 1806 when two white women got away from 24 to New Zealand, later than the skull's owner. According to a story told by Maori, 25 estimated that the skull was probablyfrom the survivors of a 26 _ which happened in Cape Palliser, because a lot of Maori died ofa / an 27 from Europe caused by killing and eating the survivors.

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Atlan IELTS Mock Test

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on the following pages.

Left-handed or Right-handed

Section A

The probability that two right-handed people would have a left-handed child is only about 9.5 percent.The chance rises to 19.5 percent if one parent is a lefty and 26 percent if both parents are left-handed.The preference, however, could also stem from an infant’s imitation of his parents.To test genetic influence, starting in the 1970s, British biologist Marian Annett of the University of Leicester hypothesized that no single gene determines handedness. Rather, during fetal development, a certain molecular factorhelps to strengthen the brain’s left hemisphere, which increases the probability that the right hand will be dominant, because the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. Among the minority of people who lack this factor, handedness develops entirely by chance.

Research conducted on twins complicates the theory, however. One in five sets of identical twins involves one right-handed and one left-handed person, despite the fact that their genetic material is the same. Genes, therefore, are not solely responsible for handedness.

Section B

Genetic theory is also undermined by results from Peter Hepper and his team at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland In 2004 the psychologists used ultra sound to show that by the 15th week of pregnancy, fetuses already have a preference as to which thumb they suck. In most cases, the preference continued after birth.At 15 weeks, though, the brain does not yet have control over the body’s limbs. Hepper speculates that fetuses tend to prefer whichever side of the body that is developing quicker and that their movements, in turn, influence the brain’s development. Whether this early preference is temporary or holds up throughoutdevelopment and infancy is unknown. Genetic predetermination is also contradicted by thewidespread observation that children do not settle on either their right or left hand until they are two or three years old.

Section C

But even if these correlations were true, they did not explain what actually causes left- handedness. Furthermore, specialization on either side of the body is common among animals. Cats will favor one paw over another when fishing toys out from under the couch. Horses stomp more frequently with one hoof than the other. Certain crabs motion predominantly with the left or right claw. In evolutionary terms, focusing power and dexterity in one limb is more efficient than having to train two, four or even eight limbs equally,Yet for most animals,the preference for one side or the other is seemingly random.The overwhelming dominance of the right hand is associated only with humans. That fact directs attention toward the brain’s two hemi-spheres and perhaps toward language.

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