ELAE PRACTICE TEST 6

SABANCI UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES

PART ONE – WHILE LISTENING

This part of the exam aims at testing your ability to listen to a discussion and

answer questions at the same time.

You are going to listen to a university professor discussing the issue of 3D Printing

with an interviewer.

Answer the questions while you listen and give short answers. At the end of the

discussion, you will be given 5 minutes to check your answers.

You will hear the discussion only ONCE.

The questions are in THE SAME ORDER as the information occurs in the

discussion.

Now you have 3 minutes to read the questions before the discussion begins.

1. Why are 3D printers remarkable?

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

2. If everything could be printed at home, this would mean, people wouldn’t have to

have_______________________________________________________________________

3. Write one advantage of using 3D printing in hospitals.

___________________________________________________________________________

4. Scientists are now able to print entire organs using 3D printers. T/F

5. Give one example of possible uses of 3D printing in the fashion industry.

___________________________________________________________________________

6. Why is 3D printing not convenient for mass production?

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

7. At present plastic is preferred in 3D printing because

_____________________________________________ , but it may not

_____________________________________________as it has varying levels of strength.

8. Explain one way 3D printing harms the environment.

___________________________________________________________________________

9. How can criminal organizations use 3D printing? Give an example.

___________________________________________________________________________

10. As patent violations are becoming more common,

_________________________________________________________________________

impossible.

11. How can 3D printing affect economy?

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

12. According to professor Hellington, how should manufacturers and product designers

approach 3D printing?

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Total: ___________/12

PART TWO – LECTURE AND NOTE-TAKING

This part of the exam aims at testing your note-taking ability from a lecture.

You are going to listen to a lecture about complementary and alternative medicine.

Take notes on the following pages as you listen to the lecture. Your notes will not be

marked.

At the end of the lecture, you will be given questions which you have to answer by

using the notes you have made. You will have 15 minutes to answer the questions.

Listen to the lecture and take notes. Note down the important information, as well as

examples.

You will hear the lecture only ONCE.

You now have 1 minute to look at the note-taking headings before the lecture starts

You may use this page and the following two pages to take your notes.

NOTES

I. Definition of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

II. Categories of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

III. Brief History of complementary and alternative medicine

IV. Possible benefits of complementary and alternative medicine

V. Possible risks of complementary and alternative medicine

PART TWO – LECTURE AND NOTE-TAKING – CAM – QUESTIONS

Answer the following questions by using the notes you have made. You have 15 minutes

to complete this part. Give precise answers. You will lose points if you include irrelevant

information in your answer.

1. Why is it difficult to define complementary and alternative medicine specifically?

___________________________________________________________________________

2. Write two categories of alternative medical systems.

a. _____________________________

b. _____________________________

3. Why is Ginkgo biloba good for?

___________________________________________________________________________

4. Why is chiropractic treatment practiced on patients?

___________________________________________________________________________

5. What is one of the aims of energy therapies?

___________________________________________________________________________

6. According to Buddism, illnesses emerge because

___________________________________________________________________________

7. Ayurveda is a system of medicine that

keeps_______________________________________________ in order to maintain good

health.

8.Write two possible benefits of CAM therapies.

a. ____________________________________________________

b. ____________________________________________________

9. Write one disadvantage of using dietary supplements.

___________________________________________________________________________

10. Many complementary and alternative therapies still had not been explored in clinical trials

on human patients because

___________________________________________________________________________

11. What should patients considering undergoing CAM therapy be cautious of?

Total: ________/13

PART ONE - SKIMMING (15%) Duration: 20 minutes

This part of the exam aims to test your ability to locate main ideas in a text.

The text you are going to read is about stem cells.

Which paragraphs match with the following headings? Write the paragraph number beside the correct

heading.

The headings are not in the same order as the information in the text. One of the answers is given as an

example.

Before you begin answering the questions, it may be useful to spend a few minutes previewing the text.

Paragraph

Number

Heading

7 e.g. Factors that make stem cells different from other types of cells

a) Use of stem cells in the development of new medicine

b) The exact reason why some are against stem cell research

c) Important accomplishments in the development of stem cell research

d) Two issues whose resolution may give rise to stem cell therapy

e) Stem cell research as an aid to scientific development

f) What needs to be done for a successful stem cell replacement therapy

g) Controversy about adult stem cells’ ability to turn into different tissue cells

h) Reasons why stem cells are important for living things

i) Successes in transforming cells without genetic modification

_____ / 9 POINTS

Stem Cells

1. Stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during

early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing

essentially without limit to replace other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive. When a stem

cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell

with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell.

2. Stem cells are distinguished from other cell types by two important characteristics. First, they are

unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division, sometimes after long periods

of inactivity. Second, under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, they can be induced to

become tissue- or organ-specific cells with special functions. In some organs, such as the gut and bone

marrow, stem cells regularly divide to repair and replace worn out or damaged tissues. In other organs,

however, such as the pancreas and the heart, stem cells only divide under special conditions.

3. Until recently, scientists primarily worked with two kinds of stem cells from animals and

humans: embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic "somatic" or "adult" stem cells. Scientists discovered

ways to derive embryonic stem cells from early mouse embryos in 1981. The detailed study of the

biology of mouse stem cells led to the discovery, in 1998, of a method to derive stem cells from human

embryos and grow the cells in the laboratory. These cells are called human embryonic stem cells. The

embryos used in these studies were created for reproductive purposes through in vitro fertilization

procedures. When they were no longer needed for that purpose, they were donated for research with the

informed consent of the donor. In 2006, researchers made another breakthrough by identifying

conditions that would allow some specialized adult cells to be "reprogrammed" genetically to assume a

stem cell-like state. This new type of stem cell are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

4. Stem cells are important for living organisms for many reasons. In the 3- to 5-day-old embryo, called

a blastocyst, the inner cells give rise to the entire body of the organism, including all of the many

specialized cell types and organs such as the heart, lungs, skin, sperm, eggs and other tissues. In some

adult tissues, such as bone marrow, muscle, and brain, discrete populations of adult stem cells generate

replacements for cells that are lost through normal wear and tear, injury, or disease.

5. Given their unique regenerative abilities, stem cells offer new potentials for treating diseases such as

diabetes, and heart disease. However, much work remains to be done in the laboratory and the clinic to

understand how to use these cells for cell-based therapies to treat disease, which is also referred to

as regenerative or reparative medicine. Laboratory studies of stem cells enable scientists to learn about

the cells’ essential properties and what makes them different from specialized cell types. Scientists are

already using stem cells in the laboratory to screen new drugs and to develop model systems to study

normal growth and identify the causes of birth defects.

6. Research on stem cells continues to advance knowledge about how an organism develops from a single

cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. Stem cell research is one of the

most fascinating areas of contemporary biology, but, as with many expanding fields of scientific

inquiry, research on stem cells raises scientific questions as rapidly as it generates new discoveries.

7. Stem cells differ from other kinds of cells in the body. All stem cells, regardless of their source, have

three general properties: they are capable of dividing and renewing themselves for long periods; they

are unspecialized; and they can give rise to specialized cell types. Unlike muscle cells, blood cells, or

nerve cells, which do not normally replicate themselves, stem cells may replicate many times,

or proliferate. A starting population of stem cells that proliferates for many months in the laboratory can

yield millions of cells. If the resulting cells continue to be unspecialized, like the parent stem cells, the

cells are said to be capable of long-term self-renewal.

8. Scientists are trying to understand two fundamental properties of stem cells that relate to their long-term

self-renewal: Why can embryonic stem cells proliferate for a year or more in the laboratory without

differentiating, but most adult stem cells cannot and what are the factors in living organisms that

normally regulate stem cell proliferation and self-renewal? Discovering the answers to these questions

may make it possible to understand how cell proliferation is regulated during normal embryonic

development or during the abnormal cell division that leads to cancer. Such information would also

enable scientists to grow embryonic and non-embryonic stem cells more efficiently in the laboratory.

9. The specific factors and conditions that allow stem cells to remain unspecialized are of great interest to

scientists. It has taken scientists many years of trial and error to learn to derive and maintain stem cells

in the laboratory without them spontaneously differentiating into specific cell types. For example, it

took two decades to learn how to grow human embryonic stem cells in the laboratory following the

development of conditions for growing mouse stem cells. Likewise, scientists must first understand the

signals that enable a non-embryonic (adult) stem cell population to proliferate and remain unspecialized

before they will be able to grow large numbers of unspecialized adult stem cells in the laboratory.

10. One of the fundamental properties of a stem cell is that it does not have any tissue-specific structures

that allow it to perform specialized functions. For example, a stem cell cannot work with its neighbors

to pump blood through the body like a heart muscle cell does, and it cannot carry oxygen molecules

through the bloodstream like a red blood cell. However, unspecialized stem cells can give rise to

specialized cells, including heart muscle cells, blood cells, or nerve cells, a process

called differentiation.

11. While differentiating, the cell usually goes through several stages, becoming more specialized at each

step. Scientists are just beginning to understand the signals inside and outside cells that trigger each step

of the differentiation process. The internal signals are controlled by a cell's genes, which are

interspersed across long strands of DNA and carry coded instructions for all cellular structures and

functions. The external signals for cell differentiation include chemicals secreted by other cells, physical

contact with neighboring cells, and certain molecules in the microenvironment. The interaction of

signals during differentiation causes the cell's DNA to acquire epigenetic marks that restrict DNA

expression in the cell and can be passed on through cell division.

12. Many questions about stem cell differentiation remain. One issue, for example, is whether the internal

and external signals for cell differentiation are similar for all kinds of stem cells. Another one is

whethher specific sets of signals can be identified that promote differentiation into specific cell types.

Addressing these questions may lead scientists to find new ways to control stem cell differentiation in

the laboratory, thereby growing cells or tissues that can be used for specific purposes such as cell-based

therapies or drug screening.

13. Adult stem cells typically generate the cell types of the tissue in which they reside. For example, a

blood-forming adult stem cell in the bone marrow normally gives rise to the many types of blood cells.

It is generally accepted that a blood-forming cell in the bone marrow cannot give rise to the cells of a

very different tissue, such as nerve cells in the brain. However, experiments over the last several years

have purported to show that stem cells from one tissue may give rise to cell types of a completely

different tissue. This remains an area of great debate within the research community. This controversy

demonstrates the challenges of studying adult stem cells and suggests that additional research using

adult stem cells is necessary to understand their full potential as future therapies.

14. There are many ways in which human stem cells can be used in research and the clinic. Studies of human

embryonic stem cells will yield information about the complex events that occur during human

development. A primary goal of this work is to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become the

differentiated cells that form the tissues and organs. Scientists know that turning genes on and off is central

to this process. Some of the most serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to

abnormal cell division and differentiation. A more complete understanding of the genetic and molecular

controls of these processes may yield information about how such diseases arise and suggest new strategies

for therapy. Predictably controlling cell proliferation and differentiation requires additional basic research

on the molecular and genetic signals that regulate cell division and specialization. While recent

developments with iPS cells suggest some of the specific factors that may be involved, techniques must be

devised to introduce these factors safely into the cells and control the processes that are induced by these

factors.

15. Human stem cells are currently being used to test new drugs. New medications are tested for safety on

differentiated cells generated from human pluripotent cell lines. Other kinds of cell lines have a long

history of being used in this way. Cancer cell lines, for example, are used to screen potential anti-tumor

drugs. The availability of pluripotent stem cells would allow drug testing in a wider range of cell types.

However, to screen drugs effectively, the conditions must be identical when comparing different drugs.

Therefore, scientists must be able to precisely control the differentiation of stem cells into the specific

cell type on which drugs will be tested. For some cell types and tissues, current knowledge of the

signals controlling differentiation falls short of being able to mimic these conditions precisely to

generate pure populations of differentiated cells for each drug being tested.

16. Perhaps the most important potential application of human stem cells is the generation of cells and

tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies. Today, donated organs and tissues are often used to

replace ailing or destroyed tissue, but the need for transplantable tissues and organs far outweighs the

available supply. Stem cells, directed to differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a

renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including mucular degeneration,

spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

17. For example, it may become possible to generate healthy heart muscle cells in the laboratory and then

transplant those cells into patients with chronic heart disease. Preliminary research in mice and other

animals indicates that bone marrow stromal cells, transplanted into a damaged heart, can have beneficial

effects. Whether these cells can generate heart muscle cells or stimulate the growth of new blood

vessels that repopulate the heart tissue, or help via some other mechanism is actively under

investigation. For example, injected cells may accomplish repair by secreting growth factors, rather than

actually incorporating into the heart. Promising results from animal studies have served as the basis for

a small number of exploratory studies in humans. Other recent studies in cell culture systems indicate

that it may be possible to direct the differentiation of embryonic stem cells or adult bone marrow cells

into heart muscle cells.

18. In people who suffer from type 1 diabetes, the cells of the pancreas that normally produce insulin are

destroyed by the patient's own immune system. New studies indicate that it may be possible to direct the

differentiation of human embryonic stem cells in cell culture to form insulin-producing cells that

eventually could be used in transplantation therapy for persons with diabetes.

19. To realize the promise of novel cell-based therapies for such pervasive and debilitating diseases,

scientists must be able to manipulate stem cells so that they possess the necessary characteristics for

successful differentiation, transplantation, and engraftment. The following is a list of steps in successful

cell-based treatments that scientists will have to learn to control to bring such treatments to the clinic.

To be useful for transplant purposes, stem cells must be reproducibly made to proliferate extensively

and generate sufficient quantities of cells for making tissue, to differentiate into the desired cell type(s),

to survive in the recipient after transplant, to integrate into the surrounding tissue after transplant, to

function appropriately for the duration of the recipient's life and to avoid harming the recipient in any

way. Also, to avoid the problem of immune rejection, scientists are experimenting with different

research strategies to generate tissues that will not be rejected.

20. Stem cell research is one of the most controversial of scientific endeavours. The debates surrounding

stem cell research primarily are driven by methods concerning embryonic stem cell research. It was

only in 1998 that researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison extracted the first human

embryonic stem cells that were able to be kept alive in the laboratory. The main critique of this research

is that it required the destruction of a human blastocyst. That is, a fertilized egg was not given the

chance to develop into a fully-developed human.

21. The core of this debate centers on the question, "When does life begin?" Many assert that life begins at

conception, when the egg is fertilized. It is often argued that the embryo deserves the same status as any

other full grown human. Therefore, destroying it, in other words, removing the blastocyst to extract

stem cells, is similar to murder. In 2001, American government announced its new policy restricting

federal funds for biomedical research involving human embryonic cells calling it at the leading edge of

a series of moral hazards. The moral hazards Bush referred to defined a conflict between medical

research and pro-life politics: Scientists and patients hoped that embryonic stem cells, with their unique

capacity to develop into any type of cell in the body, would lead to radical new treatments for presently

incurable diseases, while pro-life organizations opposed the destruction of human embryos necessary to

obtain stem cells. The issue juxtaposes the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of

saving and improving life in all its stages.

22. While the moral conflict over embryonic stem cells is unlikely to be resolved by compromise, recent

technological progress may soon make the controversy largely irrelevant. After a decade-long series of

discoveries, two new studies describe developments that will likely enable medical researchers to skip

the stem cells in medical treatments that were once thought to be impossible without them.

23. To see why avoiding embryonic stem cells is a big advance, it is important to understand why

researchers and patients placed so much hope in them in the first place. In essence, embryonic stem

cells seemed to offer a unique source of biological replacement parts, creating an opportunity to treat

difficult diseases in a radically new way. Many chronic, incurable diseases are caused by the

progressive loss of critical cells that are not re-generated in the sick person's body, such as dopamine-

secreting neurons in Parkinson's or insulin-producing pancreatic cells in diabetes. Drugs can treat

symptoms or slow the progression of such diseases, but they cannot restore lost or damaged cells and

this is why these diseases are incurable.

24. In contrast to drugs, embryonic stem cells actually offer a cure. Because, as explained before, they have

the capacity to become any cell type in the body, they can be used to derive replacements for a patient's

lost or damaged cells. By transplanting these replacement cells into patients, medical researchers could

reverse the otherwise irreversible symptoms of the disease. If successful, the results would be

transformative: Parkinson's patients would regain control of their movements, diabetics could stop

taking insulin, and patients suffering from macular degeneration would regain their vision. In 2001,

embryonic stem cell-based therapies were completely hypothetical, though similar ones using more

limited, non-embryonic stem cell, such as bone marrow transplants, which transfer specialized blood

stem cells to treat leukemia, had existed for decades. Today, these embryonic stem cell treatments have

been shown to work in laboratory mice but not much more; however, the first human clinical trials for

an embryonic stem cell therapy for macular degeneration are now underway.

25. A big scientific question that has haunted the embryonic stem cell debate is whether these cells are the

only option. If therapeutic replacement cells could be obtained without using embryos, the controversy

would end. There has long been a good reason to believe that an alternative source of cells might be

possible. Because nearly every cell in our bodies carries exactly the same genetic information, any cell

could theoretically be converted into any other type of cell. A meter-long motor neuron that conducts

electrical signals down the spine is physically and functionally very different from the micron-scale

hepatocytes that metabolize carbs in the liver. Yet the neuron carries the same genes as the hepatocyte;

the reason they differ is because the neuron has switched on a different set of genes. By finding a way to

convert an ethically non-controversial source of cells, such as skin cells, into the cell types needed for

therapies, we could end the debate.

26. But turning on genes to formulate a specialized cell is a complicated process involving a series of steps

in which genes are switched on and off in a certain sequence. Embryonic stem cells lie at the beginning

of this series; they are the crossroads from which one of many different paths can be chosen, leading to

a final, specialized cell type. For a long time, researchers believed that cells travel these paths in only

one direction: Once cells reach their final state, they almost never leave it. Although a neuron and a

liver cell may have exactly the same genes, scientists believed they could not change one into the other.

There is no shortcut from a neuron to a liver cell; it has to start with a stem cell.

27. While this idea is true inside the human body, researchers have now demonstrated that it is not this way

in a test tube. In Nobel Prize-winning work published in 2006 and 2007, Japanese researcher Shinya

Yamanaka and his colleagues managed to reset skin cells to a stem cell state, creating what are called

"induced pluripotent stem cells,” and thus demonstrating how to get stem cells without using embryos.

Induced stem cells have been an enormous blessing to disease research. Yet, they currently cannot be

used in stem cell transplant therapies because they usually contain mutations that would put patients at

risk for developing tumors.

28. More recently, scientists discovered that there are, in fact, shortcuts between different types of cells. In

2010, a team at Stanford converted mouse skin cells directly into neurons, without creating stem cells

first. A last year, a team of Chinese scientists converted human skin cells into liver cells, which

functioned normally when transplanted into mice. However, as with the creation of induced pluripotent

stem cells, these studies relied on genetic manipulations that make the resulting cells inappropriate for

therapies.

29. But in a pair of studies published 2015, two teams of Chinese researchers have demonstrated how to re-

program skin cells into neurons without using genetic modifications, opening up a major new pathway

for cell therapies that do not require human embryos. In each case, the researchers devised a drug

cocktail that caused skin cells to shut off one set of genes and turn on another. Importantly, this process

happens without any permanent changes to the cells' DNA. The drug cocktail simply prompts the skin

cells to activate dormant neuronal genes, causing them to transform into neurons. In one study,

researchers found that a combination of four drugs was enough to re-program mouse skin cells into

functional neurons. In the second study, another research team achieved a similar result with human

skin cells, using a different chemical cocktail. This latter team then went one step further: They took

skin cells from an Alzheimer's patient and re-programmed those into neurons. The resulting neurons had

some of the protein build-up that is characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, demonstrating that this method

of re-programming cells - in addition to its possible therapeutic value for patients- is a potentially

powerful way to study a disease in a petri-dish.

30. Results like these have the potential to settle the debate over embryonic stem cells, but the controversy

is not over quite yet. While the newer techniques are immediately useful in research, they have yet to

yield any therapies. Because embryonic stem cells are useful for studying how different types of cells

develop naturally in the body, they still play an important role in ongoing biomedical research.

However, viable alternatives to embryonic stem cells, which were only a hope in 2001, are now a

reality. Technological progress has a well-known tendency to create moral controversies, something that

was certainly true when scientists first learned how to derive stem cells from embryos, but in this case,

technology is likely to help settle the controversy as well.

PART TWO - DETAILED READING (25%) Duration:

60 minutes

Text 1: The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages sometimes referred as the Dark ages is a period that is generally accepted as

having begun in the year 410 with the fall of Rome and ending in 1095 with the launch of the

first Crusades. During this age, no scientific accomplishments were made, no great art was

produced and no great leaders were born. According to most scholars, the people of this age

had wasted the advancements of their predecessors, and caught themselves up in what 18th-

century English historian Edward Gibbon called “barbarism and religion.”

The fall of Rome sets a good understanding for what the Dark Ages were all about because

for centuries the Roman Empire had been a unifying factor that brought stabilization to most

of Europe. It had a vibrant trade and commerce industry that supported a reasonably secure

lifestyle for millions of people.

After the fall of Rome, there was no single state or government that united the people who

lived on the European continent. This is why, the network of trade and commerce collapsed

and the European World was set into chaos. The Catholic Church became the most powerful

institution of the medieval period. Kings, queens and other leaders derived much of their

power from their alliances with and protection of the Church. Ordinary people across Europe

had to give 10 percent of their earnings each year to the Church; at the same time, the Church

was mostly exempt from taxation. These policies helped it to amass a great deal of money and

power. It took seven hundred years of wars, plague, and poverty before the continent came

out of it and was moved into the Renaissance.

The plague was one of the biggest killers of the Middle Ages – it had a devastating effect on

the population of Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Also known as the Black Death, the

plague was carried by fleas most often found on rats. It had arrived in Europe by 1348, and

thousands died in places ranging from Italy, France and Germany to Scandinavia, England,

Wales, Spain and Russia. The deadly bubonic plague caused swellings all over the body and

victims suffered from skin that was darkly discoloured as a result of toxins in the

bloodstream.

The Black Death killed between a third and half of the population of Europe. People living in

Europe at that time did not know what caused the plague or how to avoid catching it. They

sought explanations for the crisis in God’s anger, human sin, and outsider or marginal groups,

especially Jews. If you were infected with the bubonic plague, you had a 70–80 per cent

chance of dying within the next week. In England, out of every hundred people, perhaps 35–

40 could expect to die from the plague.As a result of the plague, life expectancy in late 14th-

century Florence was just under 20 years – half of what it had been in 1300. From the mid-

14th-century onwards, thousands of people from all across Europe – from London and Paris

to Ghent, Mainz and Siena – died. A large number of those were children, who were the most

vulnerable to the disease.

Plague also caused economic effects which brought about the deepest ever recession in

history as there was a serious reduction in production and in consumption because the fields

were not cultivated and the harvests rotted. This in turn sparked an emerging shortage of

agricultural products, which were only consumed by those people who could pay for them.

With the increase in prices, those with the fewest means endured hardship and suffering.

While Europe was dealing with the plague and the suppression of the church, the Islamic

world was growing larger and more powerful. After the Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632

CE, Muslim armies conquered large parts of the Middle East, uniting them under the rule of a

single caliph. At its height, the medieval Islamic world was more than three times bigger than

all of Christendom.

Under the caliphs, great cities such as Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus fostered a vibrant

intellectual and cultural life. Poets, scientists and philosophers wrote thousands of books.

Scholars translated Greek, Iranian and Indian texts into Arabic. In the centre of Dark Age era,

Ibn Al Haytham built the first ever pinhole cameras. Fatima Al Fihri, a woman, founded a

madrasa and university, later becoming a centre of advances in thought in the Islamic world.

Additionally, inventors devised technologies like soap, windmills, surgical instruments, an

early flying machine and the system of numerals that are in use today. Religious scholars and

mystics translated, interpreted and taught the Quran and other scriptural texts to people across

the Middle East. These were some of the reasons and advancements as to why so many people

converted to Islam during the middle ages.

Toward the end of the 11th century, the Catholic Church began to authorize military

operations, to expel Muslim “infidels” from the Holy Land. In 1095, Alexius sent a group of

delegates to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the

Turkish threat. Though relations between Christians in the East and West had long been

fragile, Alexius’s request came at a time when the situation was improving.

In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the Pope called on

Western Christians to take up arms to aid the Byzantines and recapture the Holy Land. This

marked the beginning of the Crusades.Pope Urban’s plea was met with a tremendous

response, both among the military elite as well as ordinary citizens. Those who joined the

armed pilgrimage wore a cross as a symbol of the Church. Crusaders, who wore red crosses

on their coats to advertise their status, believed that their service would guarantee the

forgiveness of their sins and ensure that they could spend all eternity in Heaven.

Although the Crusades took very long, no one won the war between the Christians and

Muslims. In fact, many thousands of people from both sides lost their lives. However, they

did make ordinary Catholics across Christendom feel like they had a common purpose, and

they inspired waves of religious enthusiasm among people who might otherwise have felt

alienated from the official Church. They also exposed Crusaders to Islamic literature, science

and technology–exposure that would have a lasting effect on European intellectual life.

Even though there weren’t many artistic and scientific improvements, architecture was

considered important. Therefore, especially religious architecture developed immensely since

it was a way to show devotion to the Church. For this reason, grand cathedrals and other

ecclesiastical structures such as monasteries were built during Middle Ages. Cathedrals were

the largest buildings in medieval Europe, and they could be found at the center of towns and

cities across the continent. Another significant factor that resulted in various innovations in

the architecture of the Middle Ages was the tumultuous invasions by the barbarians and the

evolution of the feudal system during the Middle Ages.

Medieval architecture can be divided in two classes; namely, religious architecture and

military architecture. Kings and lords of the medieval period offered immense help for the

spread of Christianity. As a result, they helped Church building programs. The temples of

pagan and Roman religion were not designed for large gatherings. However, to spread

Christianity, it was necessary to create Church buildings where large meetings could be held

easily. To provide enough space, early Christians opted for a specific architectural design

which is known as basilica. Later on, those cathedrals which were influenced by Justinian

significantly used the byzantine architectural style and created huge domes. They also made

use of a Greek cross.

Another architectural style that developed during Middle Ages involved castles and fortresses.

In order to protect their land and to provide protection for serfs, Lords created castles and

fortified walls which later on became the most significant non-religious examples of

architecture of the Middle Ages.

Architecture of the Middle Ages can also be studied under different time spans as Pre-

Romanesque Architecture, Romanesque Architecture and Gothic Architecture. With changing

influences of the Church and feudalism, the architectural styles of Middle Ages gradually

changed from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture.

Text 2: Renaissance

It was neither the Crusades nor religious or political art that marked the beginning of

Renaissance. Widely considered the most important and influential movement in the history

of fine arts, literature, architecture, science and technology, the Renaissance marked the

emergence of Western civilization from the Middle Ages into the modern era. Beginning in

the 14th century in Italy, the movement spread throughout Europe by the late 15th century.

In medieval Europe, rural life was governed by a system called “feudalism.” In a feudal

society, the king granted large pieces of land called “fiefs” to noblemen and bishops. Landless

peasants known as serfs did most of the work on the fiefs: They planted and harvested crops

and gave most of the production to the landowner. In exchange for their labor, they were

allowed to live on the land. They were also promised protection in case of enemy invasion. As

of the 11th century, however, feudal life began to change. Agricultural innovations such as the

heavy plow and three-field crop rotation made farming more efficient and productive, so

fewer farm workers were needed–but thanks to the expanded and improved food supply, the

population grew. As a result, more and more people were drawn to towns and cities.

Meanwhile, the Crusades had expanded trade routes to the East and given Europeans a taste

for imported goods such as wine, olive oil and luxurious textiles. As the commercial economy

developed, port cities in particular thrived. By 1300, there were some 15 cities in Europe with

a population of more than 50,000. In these cities, a new era was born.

The word Renaissance refers to the act of being born. During the Renaissance many scholars

and artists studied the learning and art of ancient Greece and Rome. They wanted to recapture

the spirit of the Greek and Roman cultures in their artistic literary and philosophic works. The

leaders of the Renaissance rejected many of the attitudes and the ideas of the Middle ages.

European thinkers in the medieval times believed that people’s chief responsibility was to

pray to God and concentrate on saving their souls. They thought that society was filled with

evil temptations. Renaissance thinkers on the other hand, emphasized people’s responsibilities

and duties to the society in which they lived. They believe that society could civilize people

rather than make them wicked.

That was the reason why a new intellectual movement was born: humanism. Humanism was

initiated by secular men of letters rather than by the scholar-clerics who had dominated

medieval intellectual life and had developed the Scholastic philosophy. Humanism began and

achieved fruition first in Italy. Its predecessors were men like Dante and Petrarch, and its

chief protagonists included Gianozzo Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni

Pico della Mirandola, Lorenzo Valla, and Coluccio Salutati. The fall of Constantinople in

1453 provided humanism with a major boost, for many eastern scholars fled to Italy, bringing

with them important books and manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship.

Humanism had several significant features. First, it took human nature in all of its various

manifestations and achievements as its subject. Second, it stressed the unity and compatibility

of the truth found in all philosophical and theological schools and systems, a doctrine known

as syncretism. Third, it emphasized the dignity of man. The humanists looked to the struggle

of creation and the attempt to put forth mastery over nature. Finally, humanism looked

forward to a rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. In the course of striving to recover it,

however, the humanists assisted in the consolidation of a new spiritual and intellectual

outlook and in the development of a new body of knowledge. The effect of humanism was to

help men break free from the mental limitations imposed by religious beliefs to inspire free

inquiry and criticism, and to inspire a new confidence in the possibilities of human thought

and creations.

Along with humanism, it was in art that the spirit of the Renaissance achieved its sharpest

formulation. Art came to be seen as a branch of knowledge, valuable in its own right and

capable of providing man with images of God and his creations as well as with insights into

man’s position in the universe. In the hands of men such as Leonardo da Vinci it was even a

science, a means for exploring nature and a record of discoveries. Art was to be based on the

observation of the visible world and practiced according to mathematical principles of

balance, harmony, and perspective, which were developed at this time. In the works of

painters such as Masaccio, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Fra Angelico, Sandro

Botticelli, Perugino, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, and Titian; sculptors such as Giovanni

Pisano, Donatello, Andrea del Verrocchio, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Michelangelo; and

architects such as Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Andrea Palladio, Michelozzo,

and Filarete, the dignity of man found expression in the arts.

Though the Catholic Church remained a major patron of the arts during the Renaissance–from

popes and other religious leaders to monasteries and other religious organizations–works of

art were increasingly commissioned by civil government, courts and wealthy individuals.

Much of the art produced during the early Renaissance was commissioned by the wealthy

merchant families of Florence, most notably the Medici.

From 1434 until 1492, when Lorenzo de’ Medici–known as “the Magnificent” for his strong

leadership as well as his support of the arts–died, the powerful family presided over a golden

age for the city of Florence. Pushed from power by a republican coalition in 1494, the Medici

family spent years in exile but returned in 1512 to preside over another flowering of

Florentine art, including the array of sculptures that now decorates the city’s Piazza della

Signoria.

By the end of the 15th century, Rome had displaced Florence as the principal center of

Renaissance art, reaching a high point under the powerful and ambitious Pope Leo X who was

the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Three great masters–Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and

Raphael–dominated the period known as the High Renaissance, which lasted roughly from the

early 1490s until the sack of Rome by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of

Spain in 1527. Leonardo was the ultimate “Renaissance man” for the breadth of his intellect,

interest and talent and his expression of humanist and classical values. Leonardo’s best-

known works, including the “Mona Lisa” “The Virgin of the Rocks” and the fresco “The Last

Supper”, showcase his unparalleled ability to portray light and shadow, as well as the physical

relationship between figures–humans, animals and objects alike–and the landscape around

them.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration and created

works on a vast scale. He was the dominant sculptor of the High Renaissance, producing

pieces such as the Pietà in St. Peter’s Cathedral (1499) and the David in his native Florence

(1501-04). He carved the latter by hand from an enormous marble block; the famous statue

measures five meters high including its base. Though Michelangelo considered himself a

sculptor first and foremost, he achieved greatness as a painter as well, notably with his giant

fresco covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed over four years (1508-12) and

depicting various scenes from Genesis.

Raphael Sanzio, the youngest of the three great High Renaissance masters, learned from both

da Vinci and Michelangelo. His paintings, most notably “The School of Athens” (1508-11),

painted in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel–

skillfully expressed the classical ideals of beauty, serenity and harmony. Among the other

great Italian artists working during this period were Bramante, Giorgione, Titian and

Correggio.

Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the

Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in

the context of religious rituals. Today, they are viewed as great works of art, but at the time

they were seen and used mostly as devotional objects. Many Renaissance works were painted

for incorporation into rituals associated with Catholic Mass and donated by patrons who

sponsored the Mass itself.

Renaissance artists came from all strata of society; they usually studied as apprentices before

being admitted to a professional guild and working under the tutelage of an older master.

Italy’s rising middle class sought to imitate the aristocracy and elevate their own status by

purchasing art for their homes. In addition to sacred images, many of these works portrayed

domestic themes such as marriage, birth and the everyday life of the family.

The technologies that developed in Europe during Renaissance were commonly linked to

authorities of the time. Three inventions in particular, the printing press, firearms, and the

nautical compass were indeed seen as evidence that the Moderns could not only compete with

the Ancients, but had surpassed them, for these three inventions allowed modern people to

communicate, exercise power, and finally travel at distances unimaginable in earlier times.

Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1445. This invention changed the lives of people in

Europe and all over the world. Prior to its invention, books were made by hand. Words were

copied and illustrations were all drawn on parchment paper and animal skins that were dried

and scraped until they were smooth. This made books very expensive. The printing press

could produce books very quickly with little effort. Books were therefore much less expensive

and many more people could afford them. With the knowledge imparted in the books, many

more people were empowered and as a result many changes began to occur. This meant that

people who were previously illiterate now had the motivation to learn how to read, which lead

to a more educated population. It also enabled fast flow of information and encouraged the

spread of new ideas.

As well as the printing press, the use of gunpowder between 1450 and 1550 changed the

nature of warfare and therefore was a very significant advancement used during Renaissance.

Military weapons proved devastatingly effective against the stone walls of castles and towns.

The medieval army led by horsemen and supported by bowmen was gradually replaced by

one made up of foot soldiers carrying portable firearms and masses of troops with pikes which

means long sharp sticks soldiers used in the past as a weapon. All of these changes from the

Middle Ages to the Renaissance changed much of Europe. People were less concerned with

religious thinking and concentrated more on understanding people and the world.

The invention of the printing press and the weakening of the Catholic Church’s influence on

the daily lives of the people, among other things, enabled Renaissance writers to express their

beliefs in new ways. There was an explosion of writing, some of which is deemed the greatest

of all time, by these authors and more. Martin Luther‘s book 95 Theses had a great effect on

people. He changed Christianity forever by telling about the abuses of the church by the

clergy. He is sometimes known as the “father of Protestantism.” Nicolaus Copernicus wrote a

book that proved that the sun did not move around the earth every 24 hours. His book

revealed that the earth was not the centre of the universe. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that there

is no place for religion or morality in politics in his book The Prince. It is believed that

“power politics” had its roots in this book.

Science also played a part in the creation of music. Musicians learned how the pitch changes

by lengthening or shortening the size of the string on stringed instruments. Once again,

symmetry became a part of the music they created. Musicians studied the Greek drama and

tried to create music that would go with the words of their stories. This was the beginning of

opera, where music and theatre are combined.

In a nutshell, it can be said that the seeds of the modern world were sown and grown in the

Renaissance. From circumnavigating the world to the discovery of the solar system, from the

beauty of Michelangelo’s David to the perfection of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, from the genius

of Shakespeare to the daring of Luther and Erasmus, and via breathtaking advances in science

and mathematics, man achieved new heights in this tumultuous period.

PART TWO – DETAILED READING QUESTIONS (25%) Duration: 65

minutes

This part of the exam aims to test:

- your ability to identify the main ideas and important details of two texts with a

similar theme,

- your understanding of the relationship between two texts.

There are three tasks:

Task 1 – Answer questions 1-6 about Text A.

Task 2 – Answer questions 7-11 about Text B.

Task 3 – Complete a short paragraph that compares some of the information

from Text A and Text B.

All questions are worth 1 point unless indicated otherwise.

The questions are in the same order as the answers in the text.

Task 1: Read Text 1 and answer questions 1-5.

1. What did the loss of a unified state lead to?

__________________________________________________________________________

2. People believed the plague was caused by _______________________________ since

they didn’t exactly know why it occurred.

3. What did the Crusaders believe their rewards would be?

___________________________________________________________________________

4. What was the impact of the barbarian invasion and the evolution of feudal system on

Europe?

___________________________________________________________________________

5. How did the architectural style change as a result of changing influences of Church and

feudalism?

___________________________________________________________________________

______/5

Task 2: Read Text 2 and answer questions 6-10.

6. What was the impact of expansion of trade routes by Crusades?

___________________________________________________________________________

7. What led to the emergence of humanism?

___________________________________________________________________________

8. Why did the rising middle class buy artwork for their houses?

___________________________________________________________________________

9. What social effect did the invention of the printing press have?

___________________________________________________________________________

10. Before Renaissance people were more oriented towards _______________________ but

after Renaissance they became more interested in _______________________.

______/5

Total: ____/10

Text 3: The paragraph below highlights the differences between the Middle Ages and

Renaissance. Use the information from one, or both, of the texts to complete the paragraph.

You can write one word or more than one word.

Each answer is worth 0.5 point.

Although the Middle Ages and Renaissance were two periods that followed each other, they

were very different in terms of economic, scientific and artistic developments. During the

Middle Ages was an era of European history and the Fall of Roman Empire caused it to

decline gradually and as there wasn’t a __________________(1) to stabilize economy. As a

result, the Church became the only dominant source of authority and power. It was during this

time, the plague resulted in the deaths of millions of people in Europe. This sudden decline in

population had an effect on the economy and led to ________________(2) because there

weren’t enough people to work in the fields. During the Middle Ages, rural life was managed

by a system called feudalism. However, agricultural advancements induced feudal system to

change and resulted in fewer people working in the fields. In the mean time, Crusades played

a major role in territorial expansion and this way introduced Europeans to imported goods

such as wine and olive oil. As a result, particularly __________________(3) prospered and

this expansion in Europe caused a new era, Renaissance, to be born. During the Middle Ages,

the Church was the controlling institution and when the plague hit, people thought they were

punished with it because God was angry at them. In contrast, Renaissance thinkers questioned

and sometimes rejected many of the attitudes and the ideas proposed by the Church and put

emphasis on __________________(4) to the society in which they lived. For this reason,

during Renaissance, a new movement, humanism, was born and the Fall of Constantinople

accelerated humanism’s progress because scholars, who escaped to Italy, brought important

books and manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship with them. Throughout the

Middle Ages, there were almost no artistic or scientific improvements except religious

architecture. Art, however, reached its peak during the Renaissance. It was considered very

valuable as it helped people gain insight into man’s position in the universe whereas art

produced during the early Renaissance was __________________(5) wealthy and powerful

individuals. In addition to intellectual and artistic movements, technology also flourished

during Renaissance. Actually Renaissance thinkers and artists called the Moderns not only

followed the paths of ancients, but they also __________________(6) them, as the inventions

during this time allowed modern people to do things they couldn’t even imagine in earlier

times. For example, the printing press made books and literature affordable for the middle

class, making mass literacy possible. It also broke the lock the Roman Catholic Church had on

intellectual life and triggered individual development.

Total: _______/3

Reading Total: __________/13

Writing Section (30%)

You are going to write an essay of between 300-350 words in response to the

following question.

What are two main effects of young people’s overreliance on technology?

Before writing your essay, you have 15 minutes to write a plan on the opposite page.

The box below lists some main effects that using too much technology may have on

young people. It is provided to help you generate and develop ideas for your essay.

You may use some of the ideas in the box in your essay, but this is optional.

Your essay will be graded according to:

- how clearly you explain your ideas,

- how fully you develop your ideas,

- your use of language.

Your notes will not be graded.

Health (poor sleeping habits, strain on the eyes, obesity, risk of brain cancer)

Poor intellectual development

Lack of privacy

Socialization problems