The future of internet

What is astonishing about the internet (0) …….. that it went from something exotic to something ordinary, almost (9) .......... us noticing. The network was originally designed to facilitate communication between a few hundred research laboratories, but it is now at the stage (10) ............... five billion people use it. Modern society has become frighteningly dependent on a system few people understand or indeed think very much about. But we regard the internet (11) …….. having almost magical and limitless properties. We simply assume we can continue to add even (12) …….. tasks of greater complexity to what the network already does and that it will continue to deliver.

But the internet is becoming overloaded (13) …….. the point where it's beginning to concern some people (14) ............ job it is to worry about these things. (15) ............ of the original architects of the internet believes that the way forward is to rethink the network (16) .......... the beginning, incorporating new systems that will take into account the need for greater security and flexibility.

Reading and use of English

Part 3

For questions 17—24, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Interesting finds in Norway

Example: (0) EXCAVATE: EXCAVATION

When Norwegian academics Geir Gronnesby and Ellen Grav Ellingsen found a number of interesting artefacts during an (0) …….. in Norway, they realised they had found (17) …….. evidence of a Viking-age trading area called Steinkjer. This place was mentioned in the Norse Sagas, which were (18) ........... written in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The two (19) ..........., who both work at a museum, were in the area to conduct a routine investigative dig, which was necessitated by an upgrade and expansion to Norway's main national highway.

However, instead of a simple highway dig, (20) ……..... the researchers found themselves with a potential answer to a previously (21) …….. mystery — the whereabouts of the Viking trading place, which had continued to be a source of puzzlement to people for centuries. In the ancient sagas, Steinkjer is (22) .......... named as both a trading place and the location of the royal (23) ……...... even though historically there has always been some (24).............  about its exact location.

Reading and use of English

Part 4

For question 25—30, complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the word given.

Do not change the word given. You must use between two and five words, including the word given. Here is an example (O).

Example:

0. James would only speak to the head of department alone.
ON
James …………………………………………………… to the head of department alone.

The gap can be filled by the words 'INSISTED ON SPEAKING'.

Write only the missing words IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

25. Never open the door into the recording studio when the red light is

CIRCUMSTANCESS

Under ................................................the door into the recording studio be opened when the red light is showing.

26. It wasn't necessary for you to buy me a present, but it was very nice of you.

NEED

You didn't  ................................................me, but it was very nice of you.

27. It was Sam's bad behaviour that spoiled the party.

BADLY

If Sam ................................................, it would have been a good party.

28. As the coach no longer had any reason to postpone the race, he told the runners to get ready.

POINT

The coach saw there wasn’t ................................................ off the race any longer and told the runners to get ready.

29. The organisation aims to make people more aware of the extent of plastic pollution.

RAISE

The organisation's aim ............................................... of the extent of plastic pollution.

30. Please don't feel you have to be present at the meeting.

UNDER

Please don't feel that ................................................ attend the meeting.

Reading and use of English

Part 5

You are going to read a newspaper article. For questions 31—36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval

An American writer, Henry Peters, reviews a fascinating book about the history of the office in the USA.

Early in his book, Nikil Saval includes a description of office workers written by the American poet Walt Whitman, from about 1856. People who worked in an office were often regarded with amusement in an age when non-manual workers were still a minority. Whitman, for one, described them as 'a round-shouldered generation, of minute leg, chalky face, and hollow chest... in shiny boots... startling cravats, and hair all soaked and “slickery" with sickening oils.’ The description still resonates. In 1880, less than 5% of American workers were engaged in non-manual labor, but as trade expanded, office work markedly increased, and the question arose of how to optimize efficiency. Many offices, following the factory model, lined desks up in long rows. Then, two influential innovations emerged. The first break with the past arrived courtesy of Frederick Taylor, a consultant, who made it his goal to remove all inefficiencies from the office and advocated a fundamental reallocation of responsibilities to replace the clerks, who carried out a variety of tasks in small offices of four or five people. As Saval writes, Taylorism separated ’knowledge from the basic work process... with office managers controlling how work was done and their workers merely performing that work.’

The second great innovation was Robert Propst's Action Office in the 1960s. The aim was to have large open-plan offices containing different flexible working spaces, and optional partition walls to enclose individual workspaces as required. 'Most office designs were about keeping people in place,’ writes Saval. ’Action Office was about movement.’ The concept was in keeping with ideas that Propst had been developing for years; namely, that regular physical movement made white-collar workers endlessly inventive. In practice, however, the Action Office, meant to get workers mixing with each other and liberate their minds, turned into box-like cubicles as partition walls became long-term fixtures.

There have been other radical ideas about office organization, among them the recently fashionable ’flattened office', where teams work on projects with little or no hierarchical supervision. It appears revolutionary, but when journalist Matthew Shaer studied companies trying it out, he noticed that, despite an apparent equality within teams, the reality was that leaders 'quickly emerged, and everyone else was falling in line.’ Shaer doesn't dismiss the idea as worthless, however. He observes that everyone involved seems to end up feeling more committed to their company and to overlook the fact that the majority lack real power and influence. He also notes that it may benefit companies to have leaders emerging through a natural process rather than being appointed. The fact is that all office work must include certain basic tasks, and even the shift to freelancing is not as dramatic as it might seem from outside. The first thing a new freelancer learns is that the freedom it offers is mostly a fantasy. Freelancing theoretically allows for spur-of-the-moment mid-week vacations and afternoon get-togethers, but there's still 40, 50, 60 hours of work to do a week, and it doesn't get done by sleeping in just because you have no boss waiting for you.

Of course, there are genuine and threatening changes facing workers today and in the future. But these have little to do with where and how people do their work, which is what Saval's book, Cubed, mostly focuses on. What's really worrisome is the loss in stability, the notion that you can't depend on a job long term.

Saval confronts this uncertainty at the end of the book: ’the career path that defined the white-collar worker for generations... is coming to a close, and a new sort of work, as yet unformed, is taking its place.’ It's a compelling conclusion, but one that the rest of Cubed hasn't properly prepared us for. Saval begins the book by acknowledging that it will ignore the ‘wider world of work’, which is precisely what we need to know about to understand what comes next for the office worker.

However, Cubed does offer useful insights. Saval references Tom Rath, the middle-manager protagonist of a novel from 1955, who turns down ’an executive position so that he could work less and spend time with his family'. Rath represents a bygone era when middle-management positions provided many people with a cosy middle-class life. But Rath's decision also seems alien for reasons beyond the state of the economy. Many Americans today fail absolutely to create the boundary between work and life that Rath establishes. That they are defined by their jobs is a common notion in US culture, instilled throughout school and university.

Reading and use of English

Part 6

You are going to read four extracts from articles in which experts talk about a recent study on communicating and understanding emotions. For questions 37 – 40, choose from the writers A – D. The writers may be chosen more than once.

Close your eyes to listen

A. Louise Hegley

New research appears to show that people are better able to pick up on the emotions of others by focusing on their voices, rather than their facial expressions or gestures. In a series of experiments, strangers were paired up and asked to discuss topics like film and food in both a lighted room and in the dark. Participants were apparently better able to accurately estimate their partner's feelings when the lights were off. However, it should be considered that, unlike the situations which most of us experience daily, the topics given probably did not generate much emotional variation among those taking part. Perhaps the researchers' time could have been better spent; while it is undeniably true that verbal and facial cues might offer different messages, this apparent contradiction can actually reflect what the person is really feeling. And although the content of a person's speech is, unsurprisingly, important, surely gestures do in fact help to get a point across.

B. Robert Harrison

A new study urges us to close our eyes so as to understand more because people tend to express their true emotions in their voices. Although combining information from a person's voice with their facial expressions and other cues might at first seem like an effective way to boost understanding of their thoughts and feelings, pooling the senses in this way doubtless diverts attention from the voice. Moreover, people are often better able to control their face than their voice when emotional, so voices and faces frequently tell a different story. This new study convincingly bears all this out. In a series of five experiments involving more than 1,770 individuals, participants were consistently able to more accurately rate how a speaker felt when they could not see them. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake not to recognise that some people, of necessity, have to be particularly adept at interpreting facial and non-verbal expressions of emotion. So while the results are significant, no-one should claim they apply to all human interaction.

C. Cecile Nitch

When it comes to understanding how another person thinks and feels, some new research indicates it might be best to close your eyes and listen. In one experiment, participants were each shown a video of three women talking in one of three scenarios: in a lighted room, a night-vision video of a conversation in a dark room and a sound-only recording of the dark room conversation. Viewers were best able to assess the women's emotions in the sound-only recording. I appreciate that the look on someone's face can mask their true feelings, something which is harder to do with the voice. A word of caution, however: the findings were based on situations set up for the purposes of the experiments that might not actually resemble most everyday interactions. They are also a little bit surprising in that what we know generally about human communication is that it is multi-modal — it is not just verbal.

D. Sam Cohen

New findings appear to show that people are better able to pick up on the emotions of others when simply focusing on their voice. In the study, speakers were listened to in lighted and dark rooms, and the results compared. Humans are remarkably good at using many of their senses for communicating feelings, but historically, emotion research has focused almost exclusively on the face, so this study makes a valuable contribution to the field. Nevertheless, I personally believe that gesture and facial expression are vital and add significantly to understanding what a person is saying. It is also worth remembering that the voice may not be equally important to everyone. In fact, other research has demonstrated that when understanding of speech is impaired, people develop an enhanced ability to pick up on the facial cues of others.

Reading and use of English

Part 7

You are going to read an article about a skiing event. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap (41 – 46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Vertical Up: a ski event with a difference

I travelled to Switzerland's Bernese Oberland to take part in a novel ski event.

The conventional direction of travel on skis is downhill. The exception is Vertical Up, an alternative race series launched in 2016, which sees competitors ascend some of Europe's most celebrated courses from the bottom upwards. The race is characterised by the absence of rules. Beyond basic safety provisos - helmets are compulsory - competitors may use whatever apparel and equipment they like, as long as the ascent is muscle-powered.

Landscape features shape the immediate climate too. Some fluffy cloud was spilling northward over the peaks from the icy territory beyond. That was caused by the föhn, the local name for a warm downslope wind that occurs on the lee side of mountains, which was to dominate my stay in the village of Wengen.

On my first day, I took advantage of this historic facility. By way of familiarisation, I'd hoped to check out the course downhill on skis, following in the tradition of skiers who had pioneered that sport all those years ago. But during my uphill journey, the breeze had strengthened, meaning that the chairlift to the very top was now closed.

The next day, after buying attachable spikes for my running shoes, I walked up from Wengen to inspect the start, only to learn that, at the last moment, organisers had shortened the course. Rather than a thousand-metre ascent, we would compete over an upward sprint of about three hundred metres.

Any disappointment turned to relief, however, on hearing that the föhn was still blowing and had rendered the top section unviable. Behind the impromptu line spray-painted on the snow next morning, the crowd was a mixed one. To the fore gathered men and women with wiry physiques, their start numbers attached with safety pins to running tights or base layers.

Yet the sartorial divide between competitors wasn't entirely rigid. A woman who runs a hotel in Wengen was aiming for a top-fifteen finish, but still teamed a riotously coloured skirt with her skiing vest. At two thirty, a man at stage right shouldered a rifle and fired. We pelted off. There was a short flattish section, before the incline rapidly steepened, eventually reaching a top gradient of thirty six degrees. I became acutely conscious of the snow surface; with the temperature warm and the going soft it was critical to find footprints to follow.

Having the chance to see the neat gait of the frontrunners made me realise that I could have made better use of my poles. In the footage, my head hangs low as if I'm determined not to look up and see how much further there is to go. But unlike some, I kept going and my respectable finishing time of 20 minutes and 12 seconds ranked mid-table in the speed category.

A. Perception and vision narrowed down. At one stage, a man close to me made a huge  snorting  sound.  Only  later, watching a video of the event, was I able to gain a broader context of what was going on. The organisers created a web portal where you could enter your.name and see a brief part of your ascent, intercut with generic shots.

B. At the start, those few who had chosen ski-mountaineering kit seemed eccentric interlopers — with no descent component here, the skis seemed a great weight to carry for limited reward. Yet, in the end, with the snow soft, their skis had spread their weight, unlike the runners who sank in.

C. Even in this variant, it was a brutal prospect. I'd trained for three months. On the advice of a friend who runs a performance support consultancy, l'd done one long cardio workout per week and two sets of high-intensity interval sprints. Had it all been in vain?

D. No mean feat this, for in the Oberland, summits rise three thousand metres above the valley That creates scale that extends beyond European norms — the mountain wall is a looming mass, banded with rock terraces and hanging glaciers.

E. Officially there were two categories of entrant: ‘speed’ for serious competitors and ‘rucksack’ for the less so. Needless to say,  the  latter  included  the  more unconventionally dressed, one man remaining faithful to the style of Wengen's early skiing pioneers.

F. A century ago, when skiers at the majority of venues had no choice but to ascend under their own steam, the cog railway here, whose saw-tooth track extends above the settlement to a spot beneath the north face of the Eiger mountain, had allowed an alternative approach.

G. So, I decided to turn tail. With the aid of a guide, I descended the lower section of the racetrack. There was limited snow further down, with the course a carefully preserved white streak traversing green-brown hillsides. The angle of slope made clear the rigour of the uphill race to come.

Reading and use of English

Part 8

You are going to read reviews of four books about design. For questions 47 – 56, choose from the sections (A – D). The sections may be chosen more than once.

Focus on design

Erica Holt reviews four books about design.

A. Why We Build by Rowan Moore

Why are architects so temperamental? Why is architect-speak so impenetrable? Rowan Moore answers question one and could not be accused of accusation number two. An accomplished writer on the “ profession, he critiques the most important buildings and the people who masterminded them with a style that is both entertaining and cuts through the jargon. Why We Build, his new book, does not disappoint. It does not set out to be a definitive study, more a set of his own contemplations. He guides Bejing through the link between architecture, power and finance in a journey from Säo Paulo to New York, Beijing and beyond. Moore has conjured a rare feat in producing a work that will be appreciated by professionals and public alike. The book itself is thoughtfully designed and laid out, my only quibble being the use of small black-and-white photographs and illustrations. I would have preferred more  boldness and colour.

B. Hello World Where Design Meets Life by Alice Rawsthorn

Any writing about design, if it is not to be impossibly broad, has to narrow the field somehow. Alice Rawsthom describes design as conceiving and implementing change in a particular way. She views design as essentially beneficent, expecting it to do good. This view is basically right, but has limitations, a certain innocence, suggesting as it does a world of sweet reason which we don't inhabit. Much of Hello World reads like a school textbook, going through the well-known themes and stories. You want more depth, more insight, more questioning, as she races from example to example. Despite Rawsthorn's enthusiastic style, she is rather given to generalisations and cliches: craftsmanship is exquisite, crowds flock, palaces are sumptuous. There is more sense of direction when she gets on to the ‘other’ (poorer) 90% of the world's population on whom, she says, designers spend too little of their time. It's unfortunate, then, that this idea isn't expanded on. You feel that there is the beginning of something interesting here, an argument that might have powered the rest.

C. A New find of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain by Owen Hatherley

Over recent years, as empty shops and crude new towers have appeared in British cities, Owen Hatherley has constructed a cult reputation as the angry young man of British architecture criticism. His radical politics, quick put-downs and, perhaps above all, the sense that he speaks for a rarely represented includes some rather predictable phrases? contains some evocative images? manages to convey contradictory reactions? generation make his books fierce and original. One of his many strengths as a critic is an ability to express ambivalence. For instance, in the industrial port of Barrow, he finds the vast submarine factory both horrifying and ‘genuinely astonishing’. The book climaxes with an exhilarating exploration of the City of London, which reluctantly acknowledges that the spikes and plunges of the skyline are probably modem Britain's best piece of large-scale urban design. Not every part of the book here is as successful, however. For example, the rambling and digressive introductipn contains a little too much argument and political generalisation.

D. Pantone. The Twentieth Century in Color by Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker

The American printing company Pantone's booklets of elegant colour samples have been ubiquitous in studios worldwide since the 1960s. More recently the Pantone brand has been making a play for the consumer market. How disappointing then that its latest offering, a book charting the evolution of colour during the 20th century, is rather dry in tone, with a pedestrian, old-fashioned layout. There is, however, much to cherish in this decade-by-decade trip through 100 years of fashion, interiors, toys, art and advertising. But the book's broad focus is its stumbling block. Restricted to 190 pages, it can only offer school-textbook-level overviews of each era and generalisations that often don't convince. Yet vintage lovers shouldn't dismiss it entirely. While no match for the beauty of the company's trademark colour samples, it does offer a treasure trove of retro visuals which inspired me to ponder my own history in colour - family holidays in a 1970s orange tent, floral party frocks, a grey school uniform set off by fluorescent socks. It's a worthwhile addition to the bookshelf for that fuzzy glow of nostalgia alone.

According to the reviewer, which book...