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READING

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Question 1- 4

Reading Passage 1 has five paragraphs, A – E

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B – E from the list of headings below.

Write the correct answer,i – vii, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i               Economic and social significance of tourism

ii             The development of mass tourism

iii            Travel for the wealthy

iv            Earning foreign exchange through tourism

v              Difficulty in recognizing the economic effects of tourism

vi            The contribution of air travel to tourism

vii           The world impact of tourism

viii          The history of travel

The Context, Meaning and Scope of Tourism

1. Travel has existed since the beginning of time, when primitive man set out, often traversing great distances in search of game, which provided the food and clothing necessary for his survival. Throughout the course of history, people have travelled for purposes of trade,religious conviction, economic gain, war, migration and other equally compelling motivations. In the Roman era, wealthy aristocrats and high government officials also travelled for pleasure. Seaside resorts located at Pompeii  and Herculaneum afforded citizens the opportunity to escape to their vacation villas in order to avoid the summer heat of Rome. Travel, except during the Dark Ages, has continued to grow and, throughout recorded history, has played a vital role in the development of civilisations and their economies.
2. Tourism in the mass from as we know it today is a distinctly twentieth – century phenomenon. Historians suggest that the advent of mass tourism began in England during the industrial revolution with the rise of the middle class and the availability of relatively inexpensive transportation. The creation of the commercial airline industry following the Second World War and the subsequent development of the jet aircraft in the 1950s signalled the rapid growth and expansion of international travel. This growth led to the development of a major new industry: tourism. In turn, international tourism became the concern of a number of world governments since it not only provided new employment opportunities but also produced a means of earning foreign exchange.
3. Tourism today has grown significantly in both economic and social importance. In most industrialised countries over the past few years the fastest growth has been seen in the area of services. One of the largest segments of the service industry, although largely unrecognized as an entity in some of these countries, is travel and tourism. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (1992), ‘Travel and tourism is the largest industry in the world on virtually any economic measure including value – added capital investment, employment and tax contributions’. In 1992, the industry’s gross output was estimated to be $3.5 trillion, over 12 per cent of all consumer spending. The travel and tourism industry is the world’s largest employer with almost 130 million jobs, or almost 7 per cent of all employees. This industry is the world’s leading industrial contributor, producing over 6 per cent of the world’s gross national product and accounting for capital investment in excess of $422 billion in direct, indirect and personal taxes each year. Thus, tourism has a profound impact both on the world economy and, because of the educative effect of travel and the effects on employment, on society itself.
4. However, the major problems of the travel and tourism industry that have hidden, or obscured, is economic impact are the diversity and fragmentation of the industry itself. The travel industry includes: hotels, motels and other types of accommodation; restaurants and other food services; transportation services and facilities: amusements, attractions and other leisure facilities; gift shops and a large number of other enterprises. Since many of these businesses also serve local residents, the impact of spending by visitors can easily be overlooked or local residents, the impact of spending by visitors can easily be overlooked or underestimated. In addition, Meis (1992) points out that the tourism industry involves concepts that have remained amorphous to both analysts and decision makes. Moreover, in all nations this problem has made it difficult for the industry to develop any type of reliable or credible tourism information base in order to estimate the contribution it makes to regional, national and global economies. However, the nature of this very diversity makes travel and tourism ideal vehicles for economic development in a wide variety of countries, regions or communities.
5. Once the exclusive province of the wealthy, travel and tourism have become an institutionalised way of life for most of the population. In fact, McIntosh and Goeldner (1990) suggest that tourism has become the largest commodity in international trade for many nations and, for a significant number of other countries, it ranks second or third. For example, tourism is the major source of income in Bermuda, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and most Caribbean countries. In addition, Hawkins and Ritchie, quoting from data published by the American Express Company, suggest that the travel and tourism industry is the number one ranked employer in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, France, (the former) West Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. However, because of problems of definition, which directly affect statistical measurement, it is not possible with any degree of certainty to provide precise, valid or reliable data about the extent of world – wide tourism participation or its economic impact. In many cases, similar difficulties arise when attempts are made to measure domestic tourism.

Example                               Answer

Paragraph A                       viii

1. Paragraph B

2. Paragraph C

3. Paragraph D

4. Paragraph E

Questions 5 – 10

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 5 – 10 on your answer sheet, write the correct letter a, b, or c

1. TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
2. FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
3. NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

5.   The largest employment figures in the world are found in the travel and tourism industry.

6.  Tourism contributes over six per cent of the Australian gross national product.

7.   Tourism has a social impact because it promotes recreation.

8.   Two main features of the travel and tourism industry make its economic significance difficult to ascertain.

9.   Visitor spending is always greater than the spending of residents in tourist areas.

10. It is easy to show statistically how tourism affects individual economies.

Questions 11 – 13

Complete the sentences below.

Choose the correct answer   a, b, c, or d

Write your answer in boxes 11 – 13 on your answer sheet.

11. In Greece, tourism is the most important …………….. .

12 The travel and tourism industry in Jamaica is the major ……………….. .

.

13 The problems associated with measuring international tourism are often reflected in the measurement of ………………… .

READING

Bilingualism in children

A

One misguided legacy of over a hundred years of writing on bilingualism’ is that children’s intelligence will suffer if they are bilingual. Some of the earliest research into bilingualism examined whether bilingual children were ahead or behind monolingual children on IQ tests. From the 1920s through to the 1960s, the tendency was to find monolingual children ahead of bilinguals on IQ tests, The conclusion was that bilingual children were mentally confused Having two languages in the brain, it was said, disrupted effective thinking. It was argued that having one well – developed language was superior to having two half – developed languages.

B

The idea that bilinguals may have a lower IQ still exists among many people, particularly monolinguals. However, we now know that this early research was misconceived and incorrect. First, such research often gave bilinguals an IQ test in their weaker language- usually English. Had bilinguals been tested in Welsh or Spanish or Hebrew, a different result may have been found. The testing of bilinguals was thus unfair. Second, like was not compared with like. Bilinguals tended to come from, for example, impoverished New York or rural Welsh backgrounds. The monolinguals tended to come from more middle class, urban families. Working class bilinguals were often compared with middle class monolinguals So the results were more likely to be due to social class differences than language differences. The comparison of monolinguals and bilinguals was unfair.

C

The most recent research from Canada, the United States and Wales suggests that bilinguals are, at least, equal to monolinguals on IQ tests. When bilinguals have two well – developed languages (in the research literature called balanced bilinguals), bilinguals tend to show a slight superiority in IQ tests compared with monolinguals. This is the received psychological wisdom of the moment and is good news for raising bilingual children. Take, for example, a child who can operate in either language in the curriculum in the school. That child is likely to be ahead on IQ tests compared with similar (same gender, social class and age) monolinguals. Far from making people mentally confused, bilingualism is now associated with a mild degree of intellectual superiority.

D

One note of caution needs to sounded.IQ tests probably do not measure intelligence. IQ tents measure a small sample of the broadest concept of intelligence. IQ tests are simply paper and pencil tests where only’ right and wrong’ answers are allowed. Is all intelligence summed up in such right and wrong, pencil and paper tests? Isn’t there a wider variety of intelligences that are important in everyday functioning and everyday life?

E

Many question need answering. Do we only define an intelligent person as somebody who obtains a high score on an IQ test? Are the only intelligent people those who belong to high IQ organisation  such as MENSA? Is there social intelligence, musical intelligence,

Military intelligence, marketing intelligence, motoring intelligence, political intelligence? Are all, or indeed any, of these forms of intelligence measured by a simple pencil and paper IQ test which demands a single, acceptable, correct solution to each question? Defining what type of behavior, and what kind of person is of more worth.

F

The current state of psychological wisdom about bilingual children is that, where two languages are relatively well developed, bilinguals have thinking advantages over monolinguals. Take an example. A child is asked a simple question: How many uses can you think of for a brick? Some children give two or three answers only. They can think of building walls, building a house and perhaps that is all. Another child scribbles away, pouring out ideas one after the other: blocking up a rabbit hole, breaking a window, using as a bird bath, as a plumb line, as an abstract sculpture in an art exhibition.

G

Research across different continents of the world shows that bilinguals tend to be more fluent, flexible, original and elaborate in their answers to this type of open – ended question. The person who can think of a few answers tends to be termed a convergent thinker. They converge onto a few acceptable conventional answers. People who think of lots of different uses for unusual items (e.g. a brick, tin can, cardboard box) are called divergers. Divergers like a variety of answer to a question and are imaginative and fluent in their thinking.

H

There are other dimensions in thinking where approximately’ balanced’ bilinguals may have temporary and occasionally permanent advantages over monolinguals: increased sensitivity to communication, a slightly speedier movement through the stages of cognitive development, and being less fixed on the sounds of words and more centred on the meaning of words. Such ability to move away from the sound of words and fix on the meaning of words tends to be a (temporary) advantage for bilinguals around the ages four to six. This advantage may mean an initial head start in learning to read and learning to think about language.

Questions 14 – 20

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A – H.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-H from the list of headings below.

Write the correct answer, i – ix  in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i               No single definition of intelligence

ii              Faulty testing, wrong conclusion

iii             Welsh research supports IQ testing

iv             Beware: inadequate for testing intelligence

v              International research supports bilingualism

vi             Current thought on the advantage bilinguals have

vii            Early beliefs regarding bilingualism

viii           Monolinguals ahead of their bilingual peers

ix             Exemplifying the bilingual advantage

14. Paragraph A

15. Paragraph B

16. Paragraph C

17. Paragraph D

18. Paragraph E

19. Paragraph F

20. Paragraph G