Day reading Passage (Australian culture and culture shock)

16 
Come across (phr v) 
(C1
) 
- to behave in a way that makes people believe that you 
have a particular characteristic
Example: She comes across really well (= creates a positive image) on television.
17 
Appealing (adj) 
- attractive or interesting
Example: The idea o f not having to get up early every morning is rather appealing (to
me).
Example: She made a rude gesture at the other driver

---

Day 9
You should spend about 20 minutes on 
Questions 27-40, 
which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.
So you think humans are unique
There was a time when we thought humans were special in so many ways. Now we know 
better. We are not the only species that feels emotions, empathises with others or abides 
by a moral code. Neither are we the only ones with personalities, cultures and the ability 
to design and use tools. Yet we have steadfastly clung to the notion that one attribute, at 
least, makes us unique: we alone have the capacity for language.
Alas, it turns out we are not so special in this respect either. Key to the revolutionary 
reassessment of our talent for communication is the way we think about language itself. 
Where once it was seen as a monolith, a discrete and singular entity, today scientists find it 
is more productive to think of language as a suite of abilities. Viewed this way, it becomes 
apparent that the component parts of language are not as unique as the whole.
Take gesture, arguably the starting point for language. Until recently, it was considered 
uniquely human - but not any more. Mike Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for 
Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and others have compiled a list of 
gestures observed in monkeys, gibbons, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, 
which reveals that gesticulation plays a large role in their communication. Ape gestures 
can involve touch, vocalising or eye movement, and individuals wait until they have 
another ape’s attention before making visual or auditory gestures. If their gestures go 
unacknowledged, they will often repeat them or touch the recipient.
In an experiment carried out in 2006 by Erica Cartmill and Richard Byrne from the 
University of St Andrews in the UK, they got a person to sit on a chair with some highly 
desirable food such as banana to one side of them and some bland food such as celery to 
the other. The orangutans, who could see the person and the food from their enclosures, 
gestured at their human partners to encourage them to push the desirable food their way.
If the person feigned incomprehension and offered the bland food, the animals would 
change their gestures - just as humans would in a similar situation. If the human seemed 
to understand while being somewhat confused, giving only half the preferred food, the 
apes would repeat and exaggerate their gestures - again in exactly the same way a 
human would. Such findings highlight the fact that the gestures of nonhuman primates 
are not merely innate reflexes but are learned, flexible and under voluntary control - all 
characteristics that are considered prerequisites for human-like communication.
As well as gesturing, pre-linguistic infants babble. At about five months, babies start 
to make their first speech sounds, which some researchers believe contain a random 
selection of all the phonemes humans can produce. But as children learn the language of 
their parents, they narrow their sound repertoire to fit the model to which they are exposed,

---

Reading Passage 3
producing just the sounds of their native language as well as its classic intonation patterns. 
Indeed, they lose their polymath talents so effectively that they are ultimately unable 
to produce some sounds - think about the difficulty some speakers have producing the 
English 
th.
Dolphin calves also pass through a babbling phase. Laurance Doyle from the SETI 
Institute in Mountain View, California, Brenda McCowan from the University of California 
at Davis and their colleagues analysed the complexity of baby dolphin sounds and found 
it looked remarkably like that of babbling infants, in that the young dolphins had a much 
wider repertoire of sound than adults. This suggests that they practise the sounds of their 
species, much as human babies do, before they begin to put them together in the way 
characteristic of mature dolphins of their species.
Of course, language is more than mere sound - it also has meaning. While the traditional, 
cartoonish version of animal communication renders it unclear, unpredictable and 
involuntary, it has become clear that various species are able to give meaning to particular 
sounds by connecting them with specific ideas. Dolphins use ‘signature whistles’, so called 
because it appears that they name themselves. Each develops a unique moniker within 
the first year of life and uses it whenever it meets another dolphin.
One of the clearest examples of animals making connections between specific sounds and 
meanings was demonstrated by Klaus ZuberbQhler and Katie Slocombe of the University 
of St Andrews in the UK. They noticed that chimps at Edinburgh Zoo appeared to make 
rudimentary references to objects by using distinct cries when they came across different 
kinds of food. Highly valued foods such as bread would elicit highpitched grunts, less 
appealing ones, such as an apple, got low-pitched grunts. ZuberbQhler and Slocombe 
showed not only that chimps could make distinctions in the way they vocalised about food, 
but that other chimps understood what they meant. When played recordings of grunts that 
were produced for a specific food, the chimps looked in the place where that food was 
usually found. They also searched longer if the cry had signalled a prized type of food.
Clearly animals do have greater talents for communication than we realised. Humans are 
still special, but it is a far more graded, qualified kind of special than it used to be.

---

Day 9
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27
What point does the writer make in the first paragraph?
A
We know more about language now than we used to.
В 
We recognise the importance of talking about emotions.
С 
We like to believe that language is a strictly human skill.
D 
We have used tools for longer than some other species.
28
According to the writer, what has changed our view of communication?
A
analysing different world languages
В 
understanding that language involves a range of skills
С 
studying the different purposes of language
D 
realising that we can communicate without language
29
The writer quotes the Cartmill and Byrne experiment because it shows
A
the similarities in the way humans and apes use gesture.
В 
the abilities of apes to use gesture in different environments.
С 
how food can be used to encourage ape gestures.
D 
how hard humans find it to interpret ape gestures.
30
In paragraph 7, the writer says that one type of dolphin sound is
A
used only when dolphins are in danger.
В 
heard only at a particular time of day.
С 
heard at a range of pitch levels.
D 
used as a form of personal identification.
31
Experiments at Edinburgh Zoo showed that chimps were able to
A
use grunts to ask humans for food.
В 
use pitch changes to express meaning.
С 
recognise human voices on a recording.
D 
tell the difference between a false grunt and a real one.
Questions 27-31
Choose the correct letter, А, В, С or D.

---

Reading Passage 3
In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write