Cambridge 17 Reading Test 2 - Answers With Explanation

1. "One of these young shepherds tossed a rock into an opening" and heard the shattering sound.

2. "He and his companions later entered the cave and stumbled across a collection of large clay jars."

3. Same line: the jars were made of clay.

4. "The people are thought to have belonged to a group called the Essenes."

5. "The majority of the texts on the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Hebrew."

6. The teenagers sold the scrolls "for a small sum," but the passage never says whether they felt disappointed about it — NOT GIVEN.

7. "The origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls... is still the subject of scholarly debate even today." Ongoing debate means no agreement — FALSE.

8. "Fragments from every book of the Old Testament... except for the Book of Esther" and only Isaiah survives whole — so most books are incomplete — TRUE.

9. The Copper Scroll uses "an unconventional vocabulary and odd spelling" — TRUE.

10. Mar Samuel "acquired four of the original seven scrolls... paying less than $100 for them." He paid for them, so it wasn't a gift — FALSE.

11. He "unsuccessfully offered them to a number of universities, including Yale" — meaning they weren't interested — FALSE.

12. The 2017 scroll "names celebrations that indicate shifts in seasons and details two yearly religious events" — annual occasions — TRUE.

13. The passage mentions the scroll being deciphered but says nothing about current research on the one remaining untranslated scroll — NOT GIVEN.

14. Section C: the Chinese team "created a strain resistant to a common disease called bacterial spot race" — resistance to infection.

15. Section B explains that focusing breeding on one mutant plant loses genetic diversity, and can bring unwanted traits along with the desirable ones.

16. Section E lists plants not yet cultivated that could become food sources: "foxtail, oat-grass and cowpea."

17. Section A directly compares early domestication ("at least 3,000 years") with the new research ("less than three years").

18. Section C: "'They are quite tasty,' says Kudla. 'A little bit strong. And very aromatic.'" — his personal reaction to the taste.

19. Caixia Gao: "By choosing wild plants that are drought or heat tolerant... we could create crops that will thrive even as the planet warms" — adapting to future environmental challenges.

20. Jonathan Jones: "it will be hard for new foods to grow so popular with farmers and consumers that they become new staple crops" — may not be widely accepted.

21. Jorg Kudla: he "didn't want to reveal which species were in his team's sights, because CRISPR has made the process so easy" — advises against making it public.

22. Joyce Van Eck: "taking the work further would be expensive because of the need to pay for a licence for the CRISPR technology and get regulatory approval" — limited by cost.

23. Jorg Kudla: "'There are 50,000 edible plants in the world, but 90 percent of our energy comes from just 15 crops.'" — humans use only a tiny share of available plant food.

24. "The tomato strains grown for supermarkets have lost much of their flavour."

25. "They tripled the size of fruit by editing a gene called FRUIT WEIGHT" — three times the original size.

26. "They also created another strain that is more salt tolerant — and has higher levels of vitamin C."

27. The first paragraph lays out the popular belief that discovery comes from genius and sudden insight — it's outlining a widely held assumption, not yet challenging it.

28. Second paragraph: "we believe that it largely misrepresents the real nature of scientific discovery" — the writers are directly criticising the genius view.

29. Third paragraph: "Setting aside such greats as Darwin and Einstein... we suggest that innovation is more a process of trial and error." They're set apart from the general (evolutionary) pattern being described.

30. Nicholson's flawed theory about atomic structure still gave Niels Bohr the idea he built his own famous atomic model on.

31. Westrope changed his stirrup position because of a leg injury, not through research or calculation — a mundane, simple cause.

32. "These notions merely label rather than explain the evolution of human innovations." Calling someone a genius doesn't help us understand how they created — NO.

33. The passage gives the date the Law of Effect was proposed but doesn't say psychologists were specifically hunting for a scientific reason behind creativity — NOT GIVEN.

34. "An entirely mechanical process of variation and selection, without any end objective in sight" — no planning involved — YES.

35. "The provenance of the raw material on which the Law of Effect operates is not as clearly known" — the law doesn't clearly explain where new ideas come from — NO.

36. The passage argues it's time to move past genius-based thinking, but never says other scientists are already doing so — NOT GIVEN.

37. The traditional view: breakthroughs come from a single mind's sudden insight — matches "inspiration."

38. Nicholson's theory was wrong, yet it still contributed to Bohr's breakthrough — a mistake that helped.

39. The Post-it note came from two unrelated problems coinciding by chance — luck.

40. Both the Law of Natural Selection and the Law of Effect operate "without any end objective in sight" — no clear goals.