PASSAGE 2 - Questions 11–20

Becoming an Adult is Never Easy

For David, growing up on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific, he had to become a land diver to prove his maturity. Land diving is a tradition on Pentecost Island which inspired the better-known sport of bungee jumping. Land diving, however, is much more dangerous.

Every year at a ceremony called Naghol, the men of the island jump off towers thirty metres tall, with long vines, not elastic, tied to their feet. A perfect jump is one in which the shoulders land gently on the ground. People believe that this will help the crops on the island to grow.

As David climbed the tower, his mother watched from below. She was holding a toy car that he used to play with when he was younger. After a boy’s first land dive, his favourite toy is thrown away to show that he is no longer a child.

“Before my jump, I felt very nervous,” remembers fourteen-year-old David. “Every year someone would get an injury. For a second, I panicked. I thought about changing my mind ... but you can’t become a proper man without being a land diver.”

David jumped. He fell head-first to the ground. Luckily, he landed safely and walked away with just a few bruises. And does he feel like a man now? “Well, I certainly feel more mature,” he smiles. “And the girls in my village are much more interested in me than they were before.”

In the Amazon, the teenage boys of the Satere-Mawe tribe have to go through the terrible pain of the glove ceremony. A pair of big ceremonial gloves are filled with 400 highly poisonous bullet ants. A sting from one of these two-centimetre-long ants feels like a gunshot. It causes thirty times the pain of a wasp sting.

Fourteen-year-old Mari recently went through this extraordinary ceremony. “All my family was there with me, helping me and giving me advice,” he remembers. “I had to keep the gloves on for ten minutes. The pain was unbearable and I wanted to scream, but that wasn’t allowed. It was important not to make a noise in front of the rest of the tribe. I was being held up by my uncle and my older brother because I couldn’t stand on my own. My brother was saying encouraging things in my ear, but I wasn’t listening. The pain was too great. When the gloves were taken off, the pain didn’t stop. The next three hours were the worst of my life. My hands were twice their normal size.”

So, is Mari now seen as an adult by the rest of his tribe? “Not yet,” says Mari with an uncomfortable smile. “I have to put on the bullet ant gloves twenty times in total. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that pain, but it’s still worth it. After the twentieth time I’ll be a man.”

11. Which sentence about land diving is correct?

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21–30

Clearing Land for Farms

Rainforests are disappearing in tropical areas around the world. They are being cut, burned, and damaged through a process called “deforestation.” This is a serious problem in developing countries within tropical regions. The impact of deforestation, though, also has vast global implications. It is, therefore, very important to find solutions to these problems. Unfortunately, progress in this area has been very slow.

According to World Bank statistics, many developing countries, such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Indonesia, had lost almost half of their rainforests by 1991. Worldwide, in 1800 there were 6 billion acres of tropical forests, while today there are only 3.5 billion acres. Recent statistics suggest that an area of tropical forest larger than North Korea is deforested every year.

(A) Most importantly, though, the rainforests play an important role in the health of our environment. (B) Trees and other plants act as filters that clean pollutants out of the air and produce clean air. (C) With air pollution increasing as forests decline, the world is facing a potential crisis with regard to air quality. (D)

Poverty is one of the main forces behind deforestation in tropical countries, where many rely on farming as a way of life. The most practical method is “slash and burn” agriculture, in which a small area of trees is cut down and then burned to fertilize the soil. For a period of time, the soil can produce good crops, but rain gradually washes away the nutrients, reducing fertility and causing crops to grow at a slower rate. Eventually, the soil can no longer support crops, and farmers are often forced to abandon the land.

Government policies also contribute to the destruction of rainforests. In countries like Brazil, much of the rainforest is owned by the state. However, the state does not have enough resources to control access to the forests. Therefore, the government allows people to claim areas of land within the forest. To do this, the people must clear the land that they want to claim. Small farmers, then, often clear plots and then sell them. They then move to a new area, clear it, and sell it again. While this is good for the farmers, it is highly destructive to the forest.

Large companies contribute their own problems. Logging companies can do a great deal of damage on their own, but they also cause secondary damage through their effects on small farmers. Often, road construction companies hired by the government claim land that they clear during their projects, thus pushing small farmers further into the forest. In addition, the government might set low tax rates for agricultural production. Corporations and wealthy investors buy up land, and the small farmers are again forced to find plots in unclaimed areas of the forest.

The problem of deforestation is strongly affected by poverty in developing countries. Clearly, any long-term solution to deforestation must focus first on how poverty can be reduced. Any other solution can only be a temporary measure.

21. The word "implications" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to_____.

PASSAGE 4 – Questions 31-40

The Perfect Wedding

What is it about weddings that make sensible people lose their heads? The mother of the bride, for example, dressed entirely in normal clothes for the rest of the year, is suddenly seized with the desire to dress like a fruit salad with a large coordinating hat. And brides – cool, intelligent girls in all other circumstances – throw out all their individual originality and try to dress like a princess in one of their childhood fairy stories.

Two people meeting, falling in love and wanting to spend the rest of their lives together is an amazing thing – one of our great reasons for living. Weddings should reflect that, which is why I don’t feel that the typical enormous tent and wedding disc jockey are really what is needed. Driven to it by the number of awful weddings I have attended in the past and in the firm belief that they will one day come in handy for my own, I have been collecting a list of do’s and don’ts for weddings.

To begin with, I think that far too many people are being invited to weddings these days. I have often found myself sitting in church thinking that I don’t really know the happy couple well enough to be witnessing this moving ceremony. If you reduce the number and scale of the event, you can instantly afford to increase the quality of everything else.

Here’s how to do it properly. Have a morning or afternoon wedding so that the reception can be at the right time for either lunch or tea. So far, so normal, I know. I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel here, just to simplify things. Try to get married in a small church and invite only those people whom you truly love, not everyone you’ve ever met.

Think about the lighting and the flowers. No lighting is best in summer when the sun will be pouring through magnificent stained glass windows. Flowers should be heavily perfumed and traditionally should contain some orange blossom or jasmine. Individual potted rose trees are always very pretty and can be rented.

Weddings should be calm affairs and in this respect benefit enormously from being a daytime event. Try to organize things so that they go straight into the meal without lots of standing around for all the guests while those dreadful posed photographs are being taken. If the meal is lunch, base it on one of those Italian wedding lunches you see in films: one long table crowded with friends and family sharing the celebration of this delightful occasion. The typical British wedding in a tent can so easily turn into a mess of round tables, with awkward seating arrangements, dull food and even duller music.

A tea-time wedding appeals to me most of all. You can have a lot of fun with good cakes and sandwiches and they go very well with champagne and peach juice. Everyone has a good time because young and old can sit down wherever and whenever they want to. People can move around and nobody gets trapped at a table for an hour next to someone they neither know nor like. And flirting, half the point of a wedding, is always more successful in the afternoon.

And then it’s time to put on your going-away outfit, one of the best moments of the wedding. A lunch-time or tea-time wedding allows you to go away in style, looking beautiful and feeling fabulous as everyone waves goodbye. Your family and guests can wait a while chatting and relaxing as the sun goes down, having spent a really lovely day with you.

31. What does the writer say seems to happen to people at weddings?