Cambridge 8 Reading Test 3 - Answers With Explanation

1. The whole article traces the development of a laser system to fight lightning — researchers are "equipped with an armoury of lasers that they will be pointing towards the heavens to discharge thunderclouds" — this laser technique is the article's central focus, not golf damage or power-grid effects alone — D.

2. "Lightning damage costs American power companies more than $100 million a year" — the yearly damage described is to property, not just golfers or worldwide casualties — A.

3. Both groups share the same funder: the Florida rocket site runs "with support from the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI)", and Diels's laser project "is backed by EPRI" too — A.

4. "EPRI, which is funded by power companies, is looking at ways to protect the United States' power grid from lightning strikes."

5. Diels is "leading a project... to try to use lasers to discharge lightning safely — and safety is a basic requirement."

6. "The laser is no nifty portable: it's a monster that takes up a whole room" — its size is the main obstacle to a workable device.

7. "High-powered lasers were revealing their ability to extract electrons out of atoms and create ions" — atoms, B.

8. "If a laser could generate a line of ionisation in the air all the way up to a storm cloud, this conducting path could be used to guide lightning to Earth" — storm clouds, C.

9. The laser method avoids the danger of having to "fire streams of rockets in a populated area" — rockets, G.

10. "It would not be pointed straight at the clouds. Instead it would be directed at a mirror" — mirrors, D.

11. "They have not yet come up with the $5 million that EPRI says will be needed" to develop the system — the money has not been given — NO.

12. "He reckons that the forthcoming field tests will be the turning point" for securing further funding — YES.

13. Diels himself hopes for "interactive meteorology", but the passage never mentions weather forecasters' own interest in the system — NOT GIVEN.

14–18. The passage lists the beliefs "that prodigies burn too brightly too soon and burn out" (B), "that people with gifts have a responsibility to use them" (C), "that genius runs in families" (F, genius is inherited), "that genius goes unrecognised and unrewarded" (H) and "that adversity makes men wise" (J, gifted people develop their greatness through difficulties).

19. These studies "are not what we would today call norm-referenced", since they ignore "how common or exceptional" a person's upbringing was at the time — TRUE.

20. Only in the twentieth century "could studies be carried out on a more objective, if still not always very scientific, basis" — implying earlier studies lacked both — TRUE.

21. The writer questions Johnson's idea of "general powers", noting "we doubt if all musicians of genius could have become scientists of genius or vice versa" — FALSE.

22. "Their minds are not different from our own" is shown by discoveries becoming "the commonplace knowledge of schoolchildren" — TRUE.

23. "This does not minimise the supremacy of their achievements", even once such ideas become ordinary — TRUE.

24. The passage discusses defining genius and giftedness but never calls for research to "retain talent for the human race" — NOT GIVEN.

25. The writer notes the "price they may have paid in terms of perseverance, single-mindedness, dedication, restrictions on their personal lives" — TRUE.

26. The passage lists the costs of genius but never states whether achieving it is worth that cost — NOT GIVEN.

27. Paragraph B contrasts static man-made products with living things, whose "destruction of old material and formation of new material are... in permanent dynamic equilibrium" — the fundamental difference in ageing of objects and organisms, heading ix.

28. Paragraph C explains that without death, "immortality would disturb this system — it needs room for new and better life" — why dying is beneficial, heading ii.

29. Paragraph D notes "the average duration of human life has hardly changed in thousands of years" despite medical advances — a stable life span despite improvements, heading vii.

30. Paragraph E proposes "the existence of an internal clock, which in some way measures and controls the ageing process" — the biological clock, heading i.

31. Paragraph F shows that animals which "behave 'frugally' with energy become particularly old" — energy consumption, heading viii.

32. Paragraph G concludes that "sparing use of energy reserves should tend to extend life" — prolonging your life, heading iv.

33–34. "Ageing in this case must occur according to the laws of physical chemistry and of thermodynamics" — the two principles governing ageing in objects.

35. Through mutations, organisms "are tested for optimal or better adaptation to the environmental conditions."

36. "Immortality would disturb this system — it needs room for new and better life" — a problem for the theory of evolution.

37. The passage stresses the wear-and-tear law's result "is not inexorable in the same way" for organisms, since a biological system "could actually become older without ageing" — the theory does not apply equally to both — NO.

38. "As long as a biological system has the ability to renew itself it could actually become older without ageing" — YES.

39. The passage describes a continuous exchange of "old substance for new" but gives no percentage or seven-year timeframe — NOT GIVEN.

40. "Sparing use of energy reserves should tend to extend life", alongside relaxation and adequate sleep — YES.