Cambridge 9 Reading Test 2 - Answers With Explanation

1. Paragraph H: "The New Zealand Government has developed a New Zealand Disability Strategy and has embarked on a wide-ranging consultation process" — a national policy initiative.

2. Paragraph C describes "an international working party, which includes New Zealand, to evaluate noise and reverberation control for school rooms" — a global team effort.

3. Paragraph B: "recent trends in learning often involve collaborative interaction of multiple minds and tools" is offered as a reason behind rising classroom noise.

4. Paragraph I closes with a demand: "it is imperative that the needs of these children are taken into account in the setting of appropriate international standards."

5. Paragraph D lists the conditions at risk: "hearing impairment, autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit disorders (ADD/ADHD)."

6. Paragraph A states "6-10% of children in that country are affected by hearing loss."

7. "Research carried out over two decades" shows 6-10% of New Zealand children affected by hearing loss.

8. Autistic children "find sounds such as crowd noise and the noise generated by machinery painful and distressing."

9. "It is probable that many undiagnosed children exist in the education system with 'invisible' disabilities."

10. "Objective 3 of the New Zealand Disability Strategy is to 'Provide the Best Education for Disabled People'."

11–12. "Modern teaching practices... and mechanical means of ventilation such as air-conditioning units all contribute to the number of children unable to comprehend the teacher's voice" — current teaching methods and cooling systems.

13. The article surveys the problem and repeatedly stresses unmet needs, closing on the need for standards — its overall purpose is to raise awareness of the situation of these children.

14. Paragraph F extends the parallax principle to the stars: "the parallax shift lets astronomers calculate the distance" — a different application of the same principle.

15. Paragraph D: Le Gentil's ship was pitching so badly that "the ship's pitching and rolling ruled out any attempt at making accurate observations" — an event that prevented an observation.

16. Paragraph G ends by noting transits "have paved the way for what might prove to be one of the most vital breakthroughs in the cosmos - detecting Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars."

17. Paragraph E describes the "black drop" effect and Venus's halo of light, both of which "made it impossible to obtain accurate timings" with early instruments.

18. Johann Franz Encke "finally determined a value for the AU based on all these parallax measurements: 153,340,000 km" — a fairly accurate calculation of the Earth-Sun distance.

19. Halley realised "by timing the transit from two widely-separated locations, teams of astronomers could calculate the parallax angle" and so measure the Sun's distance.

20. Kepler "had shown that the distances of the planets from the Sun governed their orbital speeds."

21. Le Gentil "saw a wonderful transit — but the ship's pitching and rolling ruled out any attempt at making accurate observations."

22. Halley observed a transit of Mercury, not Venus: "In November 1677, Halley observed a transit of the innermost planet, Mercury" — he predicted the Venus transits but "didn't survive to see either" — FALSE.

23. On his second attempt "after travelling nearly 50,000 kilometres, his view was clouded out at the last moment" — he failed again — FALSE.

24. "When Venus begins to cross the Sun's disc, it looks smeared not circular" — TRUE.

25. The passage notes Venus's halo shows "a thick layer of gases refracting sunlight", but never mentions astronomers suspecting toxicity — NOT GIVEN.

26. "The parallax shift lets astronomers calculate the distance" to stars — TRUE.

27. Neuroeconomics "studies the brain's secrets to success in an economic environment that demands innovation" — how the brain is linked to achievement in competitive fields.

28. "It is their brains that are different in three distinct ways: perception, fear response, and social intelligence" — brain function, not just personality.

29. The brain "will draw on both past experience and any other source of information... to make sense of what it is seeing" — it relies on previous events.

30. "Perception is not simply a product of what your eyes or ears transmit... perception is a product of the brain" — a result of brain processes.

31. "Their brains do not fall into efficiency pitfalls as much as the average person's brain" — iconoclasts avoid cognitive traps.

32. "Novelty releases the perceptual process from the chains of past experience and forces the brain to make new judgments" — YES.

33. "Successful iconoclasts have an extraordinary willingness to be exposed to what is fresh and different" — YES.

34. The passage says most people "avoid things that are different" because of fear, but never attributes this to shyness — NOT GIVEN.

35. Fear "is a major impediment to thinking like an iconoclast and stops the average person in his tracks" — the passage does not suggest it is easily overcome — NO.

36. The passage discusses fear of public ridicule and fear of uncertainty separately, but never says reducing one removes the other — NOT GIVEN.

37. "This makes it too common to be considered a mental disorder" — public-speaking fear is explicitly not classed as an illness — NO.

38. Being a successful iconoclast draws on both perception ("perception is central to iconoclasm") and "social intelligence" to sell ideas — ending A.

39. "How the brain works when groups coordinate decision making" is central to social intelligence — ending B.

40. "Iconoclasts create new opportunities in every area from artistic expression to technology to business" — ending C.