You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading

Passage 1

Reading Passage 1 Questions 1-7 Reading passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

LIST OF HEADINGS

i. Impacts of the increase in deserts' size

ii. Extreme weather affecting local residents many times a year
iii. How to deal with the lack of water
iv. How human beings interfere with a natural process
V. No worries about the insufficiency of water
vi. Fauna and flora
vii. Size and geographical position
viii. A variety of weather patterns in the Sahara
ix. Effects of changes in the position of the planet
x. A range of geographical features in the Sahara

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G

THE SAHARA

The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, and the third largest desert behind
Antarctica and the Arctic, which are both cold deserts. The Sahara is one of the
harshest environments on Earth, covering 3.6 million square miles (9.4 million
square kilometers), nearly a third of the African continent, about the size of the
United States (including Alaska and Hawaii). The Sahara is bordered by the Atlantic
Ocean on the west, the Red Sea on the east, the Mediterranean Sea on the north and
the Sahel Savannah on the south. The enormous desert spans 11 countries: Algeria,
Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and
Tunisia.

The Sahara desert has a variety of terrains, but is most famous for the sand dune
fields that are often depicted in movies. The dunes can reach almost 600 feet (183
meters) high but they cover only about 15 percent of the entire desert. Other
topographical features include mountains, plateaus, sand- and gravel-covered
plains, salt flats, basins and depressions. Mount Koussi, an extinct volcano in Chad, is
the highest point in the Sahara at 11,204 feet (3,415 m), and the Qattara Depression
in Egypt is the Saraha's deepest point, at 436 feet (133 m) below sea level.

Water is scarce across the entire region, yet the Sahara contains two permanent
rivers (the Nile and the Niger), at least 20 seasonal lakes and huge aquifers, which
are the primary sources of water in the more than 90 major desert Oases. Water
management authorities once feared the aquifers in the Sahara would soon dry up
due to overuse, but a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in
2013, discovered that the "fossil" (nonrenewable) aquifers were still being fed via
rain and runoff.

Despite the harsh, arid conditions of the desert, several plants and animals call the
region home. There are approximately 500 species of plants, 70 known mammalian
species, 90 avian species and 100 reptilian species that live in the Sahara, plus
several species of spiders, scorpions and other small arthropods, according to World
Wildlife Fund. Camels are one of the most iconic animals of the Sahara. The large
mammals are native to North America and eventually made their way across the
Bering Isthmus between 3 and 5 million years ago, according to a study in the
Research Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Management in 2015. Camels
were domesticated about 3,000 years ago on the Southeast Arabian Peninsula, to be
used for various purposes, one of which is transportation in the desert, according to
the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. Plant species in the Sahara have
adapted to the arid conditions, with roots that reach deep underground to find
buried water sources and leaves that are shaped into spines that minimize moisture
loss. The most arid parts of the desert are completely void of plant life, but oasis
areas, such as the Nile Valley, support a large variety of plants.

For the past 2,000 years or so, the climate of the Sahara has been fairly stable. The
northeastern winds dry out the air over the desert and drive hot winds toward the
equator. These winds can reach exceptional speeds and cause severe dust storms
that can drop local visibility to zero. Dust from the Sahara travels on trade winds all
the way to the opposite side of the globe. Precipitation in the Sahara ranges from
zero to about 3 inches of rain per year, with some locations not seeing rain for
several years at a time. Occasionally, snow falls at higher elevations. Daytime
summer temperatures are often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius)
and can drop to near-freezing temperatures at nighttime.

The Sahara alternates from being a dry, inhospitable desert to a lush, green oasis
about every 20,000 years, according to a study published in the journal Science
Advances in 2019. The study's authors examined marine sediments containing dust
deposits from the Sahara from the past 240,000 years. The team found that the cycle
between a dry and a green Sahara corresponded to the slight changes in the tilt of
Earth's axis, which also drives monsoon activity. When the Earth's axis tilted the
Northern Hemisphere just a single degree closer to the sun (about 24.5 degrees
instead of today's 23.5 degrees), it received more sunlight, which increased the
monsoon rains and therefore, supported a lush green landscape in the Sahara.

The area of the Sahara desert has grown nearly 10 percent since 1920, according to
a 2018 study published in the Journal of Climate. While all deserts, including the
Sahara, increase in area during the dry season and decrease during the wet season,
humancaused climate change in conjunction with natural climate cycles, are causing
the Sahara desert to grow more and shrink less. The study's authors estimated that
approximately a third of the desert's expansion was due to human-made climate
change.

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading
Passage 1? In boxes 8-13 in your answer sheet, write

TRUE If the statement agrees with the information

FALSE If the statement contradicts with the information

NOT GIVEN If there is no information on this

8. The Sahara is larger than any other hot deserts across the globe.

9. Despite the scarcity of water in the Sahara, there are rivers and lakes that are
filled with water all year round.

10. Spiders, scorpions and some arthropods in the Sahara are smaller than those in
other places.

11. Ancient Arabian people are believed to have recently used camels for
transportation.

12. Dust storms in the Sahara are so severe that people nearby can hardly see
anything.

13. The earth is unlikely to tilt closer to the Sun in many thousand years to come.

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 - 13, which are based on
Reading Passage 1 on the following pages.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

The Bermuda Triangle is a mythical section of the Atlantic Ocean roughly bounded
by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where dozens of ships and airplanes have
disappeared. Unexplained circumstances surround some of these accidents,
including one in which the pilots of a squadron of U.S. Navy bombers became
disoriented while flying over the area; the planes were never found. Other boats and
planes have seemingly vanished from the area in good weather without even
radioing distress messages. But although myriad fanciful theories have been
proposed regarding the Bermuda Triangle, none of them prove that mysterious
disappearances occur more frequently there than in other welltravelled sections of
the ocean. In fact, people navigate the area every day without incident

The area referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, or Devil's Triangle, covers about
500,000 square miles of ocean off the South-Eastern tip of Florida. When
Christopher Columbus sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World,
he reported that a great flame of fire (probably a meteor) crashed into the sea one
night and that a strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also
wrote about erratic compass readings, perhaps because at that time a sliver of the
Bermuda Triangle was one of the few places on Earth where true north and
magnetic north lined up.

William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest," which some scholars claim was based
on a real-life Bermuda shipwreck, may have enhanced the area's aura of mystery.
Nonetheless, reports of unexplained disappearances did not really capture the
public's attention until the 20th century. An especially infamous tragedy occurred in
March 1918 when the USS Cyclops, a 542-foot-long Navy cargo ship with over 300
men and 10,000 manganese ore onboard, sank somewhere between Barbados and
the Chesapeake Bay. The Cyclops never sent out an SOS distress call despite being
equipped to do so, and an extensive search found no wreckage. "Only God and the
sea know what happened to the great ship. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson later
said. In 1941 two of the Cyclops' sister ships similarly vanished without a trace
along nearly the same route. tons of man

A pattern allegedly began forming in which vessels traversing the Bermuda Triangle
would either disappear or be found abandoned. Then, in December 1945, five Navy
bombers carrying 14 men took off from a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airfield in order
to conduct practice bombing runs over some nearby shoals. But with his compasses
apparently malfunctioning, the leader of the mission, known as Flight 19. got
severely lost. All five planes flew aimlessly until they ran low on fuel and were
forced to ditch at sea. That same day, a rescue plane and its 13-man crew also
disappeared. After a massive weeks-long search failed to turn up any evidence, the
official Navy report declared that it was "as if they had flown to Mars."

By the time author Vincent Gaddis coined the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" in a 1964
magazine article, additional mysterious accidents had occurred in the area,
including three passenger planes that went down despite having just sent "all's
well" messages. Charles Berlitz, whose grandfather founded the Berlitz language
schools, stoked the legend even further in 1974 with a sensational bestseller about
the legend. Since then, scores of fellow paranormal writers have blamed the
triangle's supposed lethalness on everything from aliens, Atlantis and sea monsters
to time warps and reverse gravity fields, whereas more scientifically minded
theorists have pointed to magnetic anomalies, waterspouts or huge eruptions of
methane gas from the ocean floor.

In all probability, however, there is no single theory that solves the mystery. As one
skeptic put it, trying to find a common cause for every Bermuda Triangle
disappearance is no more logical than trying to find a common cause for every
automobile accident in Arizona. Moreover, although storms, reefs and the Gulf
Stream can cause navigational challenges there, maritime insurance leader Lloyd's
of London does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an especially hazardous
place. Neither does the U.S. Coast Guard, which says: "In a review of many aircraft
and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that
would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical
causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified."

Questions 1-8

Do the following statements agree with the information in the text? In boxes 1-8 on
your answer sheet, write:

TRUE if the statement agrees with the text

FALSE if the statement does not agree with the text

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the text

1. Aircraft and ships mysteriously vanished when travelling through the Bermuda
Triangle.

2. There were many fictional explanations for the Bermuda Triangle.

3. Many theories prove that mysterious incidents happened more often in the
Bermuda Triangle than in other parts of the ocean.

4. Many people still traveled through the Bermuda Triangle because they were not
familiar with the tales regarding mysterious accidents that had happened in the
area.

5. Christopher Columbus was the first one to visit the Bermuda Triangle.

6. One of William Shakespeare's plays was based on an actual event that occurred in
the Bermuda Triangle.

7. Only after the unexplained disappearance of a Navy ship did the Bermuda
Triangle become the center of the public's attention.
8. After a distress signal was sent from The Cyclops, an extensive search was
conducted yet found no trace of the vessel.

Questions 9-13

Complete the sentences below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer

9. The leader of Flight 19 and the whole squad got lost because his ....................... did
not work properly.

10. Before the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" appeared in a magazine,

unexplained ...................... had been reported in this water.

11. Charles Berlitz published a thrilling ...................... about the Bermuda Triangle.

12 - 13. The U.S. Coast Guard says there is hardly any evidence indicative
of ...................... being the result of ......................