You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
SIGNS OF LIFE
As the search for alien life turns 50, its practitioners find new methods.
Frank Drake, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, graduated in 1952 from Cornell University and obtained his PhD in 1958 from Harvard. He worked initially at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), West Virginia (1958-1963) and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California (1963-1964) before returning to Cornell and serving as professor of astronomy from 1964. He was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of California in 1984.
A Half a century ago a radio astronomer called Frank Drake thought of a way to calculate the likelihood of establishing contact with aliens. He suggested the following figures should be multiplied: how many stars are formed in the galaxy in a year; what fraction of these have planets and thus form solar systems; the average number of planets per solar system that have the potential to support life; on what percentage of those where it is possible do such biospheres actually form; what percentage of such biospheres give rise to intelligent species; what percentage of intelligent life is able to transmit signals into space; and for how long could such intelligence keeps sending signals.
B This calculation became celebrated as the Drake equation – perhaps the best attempt so far to tame a wild guess. Most of the terms remain hard to tie down, although there is a consensus that about ten stars are formed per year in the galaxy. Also, recent searches for extrasolar planets have concluded that planets are not rare.
C At the AAAS, Dr Drake reflected on his search for alien signals. One reason this is hard is that radio telescopes must chop the spectrum into fine portions to study it, like tuning into a signal on a car radio. Another is the trade-off between a telescope's field of view and its magnification. Small telescopes see a lot of sky but can detect only strong signals. Large ones, which can detect weak signals, have a narrow focus. Astronomers therefore have difficulty looking both carefully and comprehensively.
D Dr. Drake said there may be another difficulty. Researchers tend to look for signals similar to those now made by humanity. The Earth, though, is getting quieter because the rise of spread-spectrum communication makes stray emissions less likely than in the past.
E Spread-spectrum works by smearing a message across a wide range of frequencies. That has the advantages of combating noise and allowing many signals to be sent at once. But it also makes those signals hard for eavesdroppers to hear (which is why spread-spectrum is beloved by military men). If technologically sophisticated aliens came to the same conclusions, and thus used spread-spectrum technology, humans would have a hard time hearing them. Dr. Drake suggests, therefore, that there might be only a narrow window of time in the development of civilisations, analogous to the past 50 years on Earth, during which noisy electromagnetic signals are generated in large amounts. It is, however, also possible that someone is actively trying to send signals to the Earth. If that were the case, the best way to do this, reckons Paul Horowitz, a physicist at Harvard, is with a laser.
F Although radio power has changed little over the decades, the power of lasers has grown exponentially. Today's most powerful versions can shine ten thousand times brighter than the sun, though only for a billionth of a second. If aliens have made similar progress, and point a laser towards the Earth's solar system, such brief flashes would be detectable at a distance of many light-years. Dr. Horowitz has already set up one suitable detector and this, because no huge magnification is involved, is capable of looking at broad swathes of sky.
G There is also potential for improvement on the radio side. For many years, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, which is 300 metres across, has led the search for alien life. Now the Chinese are building a 500-metre telescope, known as FAST, in Guizhou Province, and an international collaboration called the Square Kilometre Array is trying, as its name suggests, to build a grid of radio-telescopes over a square kilometre of land in either South Africa or Australia. Both may be helpful. As indeed may a large new telescope in northern California built by Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft.
H Many of the terms in the Drake equation are likely to remain elusive, so it is still impossible to predict how likely such efforts are to succeed. But even after 50 fruitless years – if the eagerness in the eyes of Dr. Drake and his colleagues is any guide – it still is fun looking. It may be that the laws of physics absolutely preclude any intelligent civilisation from making physical contact with another one. Perhaps it simply takes too long and costs too much to go anywhere, and perhaps there is no "warp drive" shortcut.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-25, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR
A Domestic division of labour refers to the division of tasks, roles and duties, within the household. With the increased entry of married women into formal employment, sociologists began to look more closely at the processes that linked home and workplace, including the question of whether or not women's increased involvement in paid labour led to a renegotiation of the "traditional" domestic roles and organisation of domestic labour. A huge empirical and theoretical literature was then generated in a relatively short time.
B Work within the family context takes a variety of forms. In many Western households in the 1990s, it may include tasks such as caring for members of the family, contributing to the household finances, maintaining the house, interacting with kin and establishing and sustaining community relationships. As a way of fostering domestic harmony and creating a manageable routine, some couples choose one of three different styles of household role division: traditional, egalitarian or collaborative.
C Most people who fit the traditional pattern are characteristically men and women who are conventionally married, or have been living together as a couple for some time. The man and woman have totally separate spheres of influence and responsibility. For instance, the husband or male partner is usually the chief decision maker and the major financial provider. He brings in the bulk of money and has the final say over major household purchases and important financial transactions. The wife or female partner engages in child care and household management, of which the latter also includes maintaining contact with relatives and family members who may not live under the same roof.
D In ideal situations, an egalitarian style is typified by an equal interchange in household tasks: for example, one partner does the dishes for one week, while the other cooks. Then, the roles are reversed for the next week. As an alternative, individual jobs may be divided equally, so that one partner handles half of the household tasks and the other partner takes on the remaining equal proportion. However, this 50/50 scenario does not usually result in a permanent arrangement some specialisation does tend to creep in. Human beings are not machines to be switched on and off at precise moments, nor is society organised in such a way as to allow a man to do exactly half the breadwinning and a woman to do exactly half the child rearing.
E The collaborative style is a compromise between the two extremes of traditional and egalitarian. In these families, partners can specialize in household activities and the inclination is towards doing what one is expert at or prefers. Typically, a woman may do all the cleaning while a man may do all the cooking because they choose to do so. It does not follow patriarchal prescription where a father always has foremost family authority and where the mother's domain is centred around the children and the household. It is guided by personal interest rather than social convention. As such, decisions may be deferred to the one who is the specialist in the particular area. In some cases, couples may reverse their selected roles and the woman may become the main breadwinner, while the man may in turn be the primary child care-giver.
F Traditional, egalitarian and collaborative styles are viewed by some as being dependent on female and male gender-role attitudes, both of self arid partner. In other words, personality differences are said to determine whether men and women adopt one division of labour style in preference to another. Femininity or female gender-role stereotypes are commonly associated with the emotional, nurturing qualities usually ascribed to a woman, while masculinity or a male gender-role stereotype is seen in the context of risk-taking, assertiveness and independence – usually attributed to men.
G An opposing view sees the three family divisions of labour styles as a reflection of the progressive changes couples make in response to changing life situations, rather than being an aspect of personality. Essentially, adult women and men modify their behaviour within the context of family life, in accordance with current situations. It is these life situations, rather than people, that should be categorised as typically feminine or masculine. For example, when a couple, attends to a baby or cares for a sick relative, it is the feminine qualities that are foremost. In contrast, competition and the degree of aggressiveness often required an outside employment, are associated with stereotypical masculine qualities.
H So, depending upon demands in life situations, men and women assign what they believe are the appropriate masculine and feminine characteristics to particular contexts. Moreover, depending upon how stereotyped the activities are that they are involved in, gender-roles may alter.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
NON-MOTORISED VEHICLES IN ASIA
A NMVs (non-motorised vehicles) offer low cost private transport, emit no pollution, use renewable energy, emphasize use of labour rather than capital for mobility, and are well suited for short trips in most cities regardless of income, offering an alternative to motorised transport for many short trips. Thus, they are appropriate elements in strategies dealing with poverty alleviation, air pollution, management of traffic problems and motorization, and the social and economic dimensions of structural adjustment. NMVs have a most important role to play as a complementary mode to public transportation.
B Cities in Asia exhibit widely varying modal mixes. Non-motorised vehicles, which include bicycles, cycle rickshaws and carts, continue to play a vital role in urban transport in much of Asia. NMVs account for 25 to 80 per cent of vehicle trips in many Asian cities, more than anywhere else in the world. Ownership of all vehicles, including NMVs, is growing rapidly throughout Asia as incomes increase.
C However, the future of NMVs in many Asian cities is threatened by growing motorization, loss of street space for safe NMV use, and changes in urban form prompted by motorisation. Transport planning and investment in most of Asia has focused principally on the motorised transport sector and has often ignored the needs of non-motorised transport. Without changes in policy, NMV use may decline precipitously in the coming decade, with highly negative effects on air pollution, traffic congestion, global warming, energy use, urban sprawl, and the employment and mobility of low income people.
D As cities in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and several other European nations demonstrate that the modernization of urban transport does not require total motorization, but rather the appropriate integration of walking, NMV modes, and motorised transport. As in European and Japanese cities, where major shares of trips are made by walking and cycling, NMVs play an important role to play in urban transport systems throughout Asia in coming decades.
E Transport investment and policy are the primary factors that influence NMV use and can have an effect on the pace and level of motorisation. For example, Japan has witnessed major growth of bicycle use despite increased motorisation, through programmes providing extensive bicycle paths, bicycle parking at rail stations, and high fees for motor vehicle use. Denmark and the Netherlands have reversed the decline of bicycle use through similar policies.
F China has for several decades offered commuter subsidies for those people bicycling to work, cultivated a domestic bicycle manufacturing industry, and allocated extensive urban street space to NMV traffic. These strategies reduced the growth of public transport subsidies while meeting most mobility needs. Bicycles have largely replaced buses as the principal means of urban vehicular transport in Tianjin. Buses are generally slower for the same trip made by bicycle. Today, 50 to 80 per cent of urban vehicle trips in China are by bicycle and average journey times in China's cities appear to be comparable to those of many other more motorised Asian cities, with much more favorable consequences on the environment, petroleum dependency, transport system costs, and traffic safety.
G Bicycles should be encouraged as the most efficient transport mode for short trips in cities of all types, particularly for trips too long for walking and too short for express public transport services or where travel demand or economics do not permit high frequency public transport services. Bicycles are most important for personal transport since they can also be used to accommodate light goods, being capable of carrying loads of 100-180 kilograms.
H Cycle rickshaws are not as efficient as bicycles for personal transport, but should be encouraged as a complementary mode to motorised goods transport and as a passenger transit mode, particularly in countries where low wages and surplus labour are substantial features of the economy. Where they are in use, they should be accepted as a useful part of the transportation system rather than as a nuisance or a barrier to transport system modernization. Even in high-income, motor-vehicle dependent cities, there are opportunities for appropriate use of cycle rickshaws for short-distance movement of persons and goods and as the basis for small businesses providing goods and services at dispersed locations. They find greatest utility where slow modes of transport are allocated road space separate from motorised traffic, in neighborhoods where the majority of people go from one place to another on foot or in central areas with slow traffic speeds, in large factories and shopping districts, and areas where private automobiles are restricted.