TEST 3

An important language development

Cuneiform, the world’s first known system of handwriting, originated some 6.000 years ago in
Summer in what is now southern Iraq. It was most often inscribed on palmsized, rectangular clay
tablets measuring several centimetres across, although occasionally, larger tablets or cylinders
were used. Clay was an excellent medium for writing. Other surfaces which have been employed
- for example, parchment, papyrus and paper - are not long - lasting and are easily destroyed by
fire and water. But clay has proved to be resistant to those particular kinds of damage.

The word ‘cuneiform’ actually refers to the marks or signs inscribed in the clay. The original
cuneiform signs consisted of a series of lines - triangular, vertical, diagonal and horizontal.
Sumerian writers would impress these lines into the wet clay with a stylus - a long, thin, pointed
instrument which looked somewhat like a pen. Oddly, the signs were often almost too small to
see with the naked eye. Cuneiform signs were used for the writing of at least a dozen languages.
This is similar to how the Latin alphabet is used today for writing English, French, Spanish and
German for example.

Before the development of cuneiform, tokens were used by the Sumerians to record certain
information. For example, they might take small stones and use them as tokens or representations
of something else, like a goat. A number of tokens, then, might mean a herd of goat. These
tokens might then be placed in a cloth container and provided to a buyer as a receipt for a
transaction, perhaps five tokens for five animals. It was not that different from what we do today
when we buy some bread and the clerk gives us back a piece of paper with numbers on it to
confirm the exchange.

By the 4th century BCE, the Sumerians had adapted this system to a form of writing. They began
putting tokens in a container resembling an envelope, and now made of clay instead of cloth.
They then stamped the outside to indicate the number and type of tokens inside. A person could
then ‘read’ what was stamped on the container and know what was inside.

Gradually, Sumerians developed symbols for words. When first developed, each symbol looked
like the concrete thing it represented. For example, an image which resembled the drawing of a
sheep meant just that. Then another level of abstraction was introduced when symbols were
developed for intangible ideas such as ‘female’ of
‘hot’ or ‘God’. Cuneiform, in other words, evolved from a way used primarily to track and store
information into a way to represent the world symbolically. Over the centuries, the marks
became ever more abstract, finally evolving into signs that looked nothing like what they
referred to, just as the letters ‘h-o-u-s-e’ have no visual connection to the place we live in. At this
last stage in the evolution of cuneiform, the signs took the form of tringles, which became
common cuneiform signs.

As the marks became more abstract, the system became more efficient because there were fewer
marks a ‘reader’ needed to learn. But cuneiform also became more complex because society
itself was becoming more complex, so there were more ideas and concepts that needed to be
expressed. However, most linguists and historians agree cuneiform developed primarily as a tool
for accounting. Of the cuneiform tablets that have been discovered, excavated and translated,
about 75 percent contain this type of practical information, rather than artistic or imaginative
work.

Cuneiform writing was used for thousands of years, but it eventually ceased to be used in
everyday life. In fact, it died out and remained unintelligible for almost 2.000 years. In the late
19th century, a British army officer, Henry Rawlinson, discovered cuneiform inscriptions which
had been carved in the surface of rocks in the Behistun mountains in what is present-day Iran.
Rawlinson made impressions of the marks on large pieces of paper, as he balanced dangerously
on the surrounding rocks.

Rawlinson took his copies home to Britain and studied them for years to determine what each
line stood for, and what each group of symbols meant. He found that in the writing on those
particular rocks every word was repeated three times in three languages: Old Persian, Elamite
and Babylonian. Since the meanings in these languages were already known to linguists, he
could thus translate the cuneiform. Eventually, he fully decoded the cuneiform marks and he
discovered that they described the life of Darius, a king of the Persian Empire in the 5th century
BCE.
Questions 1-5

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1. Cuneiform tablets were produced in different shapes and sizes.

2. When Sumerian writers marked on the clay tablets, the tablets were dry

3. Cuneiform was often difficult to read because of its size.

4. A number of languages adopted cuneiform.

5. Cuneiform signs, can be found in some modern alphabets.

Questions 6-13

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

The development and translation of cuneiform

Before cuneiform

• tokens, for example, 6...........were often used

• the first tokens were kept in containers made of 7...........

• tokens were used as a 8...........to give when selling something

By 4th century BCE

• tokens were put in a container that looked like a clay 9...........

Complex, abstract symbols developed

• at first, signs looked like what they indicated, e.g. 10...........

• then signs became more abstract

• eventually, cuneiform signs shaped like 11........... were developed

• according to experts, cuneiform was mainly used for 12...........

19th-century translation of cuneiform inscriptions by Henry Rawlinson

• Rawlinson found cuneiform inscriptions in the Behistun mountains

• Rawlinson copied inscriptions onto 13...........

• Rawlinson realised that each word of the inscriptions appeared in different languages

• When translated, Rawlinson found the writings were about a 5th-century BCE king
 Children's comprehension of television advertising

A In 1874, long before the advent of television, the English Parliament passed a law to protect
children ‘from their own lack of experience and from the wiles of pushing tradesmen and
moneylenders’ (James, 1965). The act is one of the earliest governmental policies to address
children’s vulnerability to commercial exploitation and was produced before major corporations
earned huge profits by marketing products directly to children. Yet the issues underlying this
19th-century policy remain much the same in the 21st century.

B Television has long been the predominant medium that advertisers have chosen for marketing
products to children. It is estimated that the average child sees more than 40.000 television
commercials a year, most of which are 15 to 30 seconds in length (Kunkel, 2001). According to
another estimate, children aged 14 years and under make $24 billion in direct, purchases and
influence $190 billion in family purchases, underscoring the high stakes involved (McNeal,
1987).

C A number of factors have contributed to an unprecedented growth in both the amount and type
of advertising directed at children. First and foremost among these are changes in the media
environment. In decades past, television programming targeted at children was limited and
relegated to time slots unpopular with their parents, such as Saturday mornings of television
advertising

(Turow, 1981). Today, the number of channels received in the average US home has escalated
with the diffusion of cable television and satellite technologies. In this new multi-channel era,
there are numerous national program services devoted exclusively to children. Naturally, these
channels deliver significant amounts of child- oriented marketing messages. Although parent
may be pleased that their youngsters can now watch children’s programming at any hour of the
day, they may not recognize that such viewing opportunities entail much greater exposure to
advertising than any previous generation of youth has experienced.

D Approximately 80% of all advertising targeted at children falls within four product categories:
toys, cereals, candies, and fast-food restaurants (Kunkel et al, 1992). Commercials are highly
effective at employing specific features designed to attract children’s attention. For example,
they use the strategy of introducing unique sound effects and rapidly moving images (Greer et al,
1982). The other most common persuasive strategy employed in advertising to children is to
associate the product with playfulness and happiness, rather than to provide any actual product-
related information (Kunkel et al, 1992). For example, a commercial featuring Ronald McDonald
dancing, singing, and smiling in McDonald’s restaurants without any mention of the actual food
products available reflects a playful or happy theme. This strategy is also found frequently with
cereal ads, which often include cartoon characters to help children identify the product. In
contrast, most commercials fail to mention even the major grain used in each cereal.

E Another common feature of advertising to children is the use of product disclosures such as
'batteries not included’ or 'each part sold separately'. Studies make clear that young children do
not comprehend the intended meaning of these disclaimers. For example, fewer than one in four
kindergarten through second grade children could grasp the meaning of 'some assembly required'
in a commercial. In contrast, the use of child-friendly language such as 'you have to put it
together' more than doubled the proportion of children who understood the qualifying message
(Liebert et al, 1977). The phrase 'part of a balanced breakfast’ is also a frequent disclosure
included in most cereal ads to combat the concern that sugared cereal holds little nutritional
value for children. Research shows that most children below age 7 years have no idea what the
term ‘balanced breakfast’ means (Palmer & McDowell, 1981). Rather than informing young
viewers about the importance of a nutritious breakfast, this common disclaimer actually leaves
many children with the misimpression that cereal alone is sufficient for a meal. This pattern of
employing creative terminology in advertising content so as to obscure certain information that
might be unhelpful to the sponsor is a long-standing practice that often misleads the consumer
(Geis, 1982).

F Very young children do not recognize that there are two fundamentally different categories of
television content: programs and commercials. Most children below the age of 4 or 6 exhibit low
awareness of the concept of commercials, frequently explaining them as if they were a scene in
the program itself. Once this confusion diminishes, children first recognize the difference
between programs and commercials based on either affective (‘commercials are funnier than TV
programs') or perceptual (‘commercials are short and programs are long’) cues (Blatt et al, 1972).
G Although most children's programs indicate that a commercial break is coming (e.g. by saying
'We’ll be right back after these messages’), research reveals that these ‘separators' generally do
not help children to recognize advertising content (Palmer & McDowell, 1979). This likely
occurs because they are not perceptually distinct from the adjacent programming that surrounds
them; in fact, many separators feature characters that appear in the same show that the
commercial has just interrupted. When an ad includes one of the characters featured in a
program, this is known as host-selling. This type of advertising makes the task of discriminating
between program and commercial content particularly difficult for young children (Kunkel,
1988) and is thus restricted in the US by the Federal Communications Commission during
children’s programs.

H In sum, because young children lack the cognitive skills and abilities of older children and
adults, they do not comprehend commercial messages in the same way as more mature
audiences, and are therefore uniquely susceptible to advertising influence.

Questions 14-18

Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. a description of recent innovations in TV broadcasting

15. a mention of the main goods and services advertised to children

16. a reference to a current limitation on television advertising aimed at children

17. two techniques used to encourage children to watch TV commercials

18. a type of advertisement that may make children believe the opposite of what is true

Questions 19-22

Look at the following statements (Questions 19-22) and the list of researchers below.

Match each statement with the correct researcher(s). A-H

19. Ads often aim to teach children that a brand is fun rather than telling them about what is
being sold.
20. Originally, children’s programmes were only broadcast when adults rarely watched TV.

21. Children have a significant impact on what adults buy.

22. Tests showed that children can follow information if simple words are used.

List of Researchers

A. Kunkel

B. Kunkel et al

C. McNeal

D. Turow

E. Greer et al

F. Liebert et al

G. Palmer & McDowell

H. Geis

Questions 23-26

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

How very young children perceive commercials

Children below the age of 4 or 6 do not understand the difference between television
programmes and commercials. In fact, these children often mistake an advertisement for a
23........... from the programme they are watching. Children begin to realise that commercials are
different from TV programmes; for example, they may recognise that there is a difference in
length or that advertisements are 24........... than actual TV. This is despite the fact that children’s
TV programmes usually include announcements called 25........... to show that there is going to
be a commercial break. The problem is made more difficult because of a technique called
26........... whereby a person or cartoon figure from the programme is used to sell a product
during the commercial break.
 A New Voyage Round the World

A very old travel book that holds an unusual place in English literature

Part travelogue, part historical record of the Caribbean pirates, part scientific treatise, A New
Voyage Round the World was William Dampier’s account of his twelve-year series of journeys
around the globe from 1679 to 1691.

The wealth and novelty of Dampier’s descriptions, combined with the highly counts of his
comrades’, escapades, proved so popular with a public hungry for tales of discovery and
adventure that A New Voyage went into its third reprint within a year of publication. So ground-
breaking was Dampier’s account that the writers Swift and Defoe were inspired to create two of
the most famous books in the English language, Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe.

Dampier’s commentators have portrayed him as an unusual, not to say peculiar, man.
Notwithstanding his undoubted qualities as an observer, he has been variously characterised as
aloof, arrogant, hot-tempered and a weak leader of men. When he arrived on the western coast of
Australia, he promptly elected to leave and head north out of dislike for the cold of more
southerly latitudes. This physical sensitivity has often been seized on by his detractors, who point
out that, as a result, Dampier missed out on becoming the name forever associated with the
European discovery of Australia, that honour instead going to Captain James Cook some 80
years later. Yet it should be remembered that he was able to endure a never-ending plague of
discomforts and ailments in the tropics. And once, wrecked off Ascension Island in the South
Atlantic Ocean, he managed with his crew to survive for five weeks without help, living entirely
on turtles and goats.

What of his early life, then? Dampier was born in 1651 in Somerset, England, the son of a tenant
farmer, George, and his wife Ann. His birthplace, Hymerford House, stands to this day. His
parents died before he reached seniority and his guardians apprenticed the young William to a
ship’s captain, the boy having shown very early inclinations to see the world’. There was nothing
in his childhood to set Dampier apart from the numerous other young boys who were sent to sea
at this time.

Having made brief passages to France and Newfoundland, he completed a more extended voyage
to Java, where he began to learn the art of navigation. Returning briefly to Somerset, a neighbour
offered Dampier a position overseeing his plantation in Jamaica, which he took up for a time, but
he soon returned to sea on a trading voyage among the Caribbean islands. From the viewpoint of
posterity, the most significant aspect of this time was that, as plantation manager, Dampier first
started to keep a journal.

Although Dampier wrote several books, A New Voyage Round the World is the most important
and it is worth considering just why this text met with such success. Certainly, the book would
not have done so well purely on the merits of Dampier’s findings regarding meteorology and
natural history, even though they broke new ground at the time. What appealed more to book
buyers of this era was his narrative of life among the pirates of the Caribbean islands, whom he
joined for several years after leaving Jamaica. These tales of adventure among rogues and
villains who had no regard for the law sparked widespread interest among his countrymen back
home. More important even than this, however, it is the superb nature of Dampier’s prose, and
his ability to communicate so vividly that raised the book above the common lot.

Dampier himself admits in the book’s preface that he received help with the writing of the book,
and other evidence exists to suggest that he was assisted by an unknown source. But whatever
outside assistance he may have had, the book still has certain problems. In particular, his
observations about nature are sometimes roughly dropped into the narrative at very odd junctures
and these asides can sometimes interrupt the flow of the story Dampier himself kept his
observations about nature entirely separate from the main body of his travels, and we should
therefore hold James Knapton responsible, as he was in charge of checking and revising
Dampier’s text, and his publishing company brought the finished book to a wider audience.

Dampier’s life has been chronicled in full by numerous biographers, and I refer the reader in
particular to Clennell Wilkinson’s excellent (and sadly out-of- print) 1929 biography, as well as
the recent portrait by Anton Gill. In short, despite wide acclaim for his writing, Dampier was not
blessed in the art of wealth accumulation Travelling with the pirates, while providing subsistence
and adventure, never netted him the treasure chest that a more astute financial operative might
have acquired. He died in 1715, aged sixty-three, in Colerman Street, London.

We have then a man of myriad and colourful parts, and perhaps not always the easiest of sailors
to get along with because of his arrogance and hot temper. But to dwell on these aspects today is
to miss the point: it is A New Voyage Round the World that should provide the most illuminating
and entertaining of Dampier’s legacies. Above all, the text is studded with some wonderfully
colourful expressions, and readers will enjoy some of the finest descriptions of storms in the
English language, and the liberal wit throughout.

Questions 27-31

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

27. Which of the following best summarises the writer's point in the first paragraph?

A. Dampier’s book does not fall into a single category.

B. Readers were not interested in books on the subject of travel.

C. Today’s readers do not appreciate the style of Dampier’s writing.

D. Dampier sailed round the world more quickly than anyone before.

28. The writer refers to Swift and Defoe in order to

A. provide information regarding Dampier’s sources.

B. compare Dampier to two earlier writers.

C. give an example of Dampier’s influence

D. highlight two of Dampier’s critics

29. Dampier left the western coast of Australia because

A. He wanted to get to the north before Cook arrived

B. He found the temperature there unpleasant

C. He had problems with his crews

D. He requested medical attention

30. What does the writer more about Dampier in the second paragraph?

A. He could cope with physical hardship

B. He was a more adventurous explorer than Cook was

C. He had a kind personality than he is given credit for

D. He was calm in a crisis

31. What information is given about Dampier’s early life?

A. He had a difficult relationship with the people looking after him

B. He was different from other youths who went to see

C. He wanted to travel from a young age

D. He came from a family of sailors

Questions 32-35

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I below.

The Text of A New Voyage Round the World

The success of the book cannot solely be attributed to the originality of Dampier's 32 ................
Readers of the time were fascinated with his stories of the time he spent with outlaws and his
colorful way of writing. It seems certain that Dampier worked on the book with a mystery
33................ Some aspects of A New Voyage Round the World are problematic, descriptions of
34................ were inserted into the account of Dampier's adventures in a way that distracted the
reader. It seems that the responsibility for the final version of the book lies with the 35................

A. Detailed B. Traveller C. Nature D. Editor E. Writer

F. Scientific observations G. The crew H. Artist I. Plain language

Questions 36-40

YES if the statement agrees with the information

NO if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

36. Many people wrote biographies of Dampier as a result of personal contact with him

37. Dampier was skilled at making money

38. Dampier’s patience was represented by the writer

39. A New Voyage Round the World is considered as one of the most modern books

40. Dampier supervised his neighbour’s plantation in Jamaica