January 31-01-26 Recent IELTS Reading Full Test

Back to wild

The Przewalski Horse is the last wild horse. The horse is named after the Russian colonel Nikolai Przewalski (the name is of Polish origin and "Przewalski" is the Polish spelling). He was the explorer and naturalist who first described the horse in 1881, after having gone on an expedition to find it, based on rumors of its existence. Many of these horses were captured around 1900 by Carl Hagenbeck and placed in zoos. Many of these horses were captured, reproduced and formed today’s population. As noted above, about twelve to fifteen formed today’s population.

The World Wild Fund is supporting the Przewalski Horse project. Przewalski’s horses, named after the Russian explorer who first described them scientifically, were once native to China and travelled freely across the wilds of the Eurasian steppe covering Russia, Mongolia, and Eurasia. But they were driven to the brink of extinction after Przewalski’s 19th-century discovery of the species led to an increase in their appeal. Many were killed or captured and taken to zoos across the world, while others were displaced by human land use. Of the 2,000 Przewalski’s horses left in the world today, only 300 live in the wild, having been part of reintroduction programmes first.

Colonel Nikolay Przewalski identified different kind of the horse by using the bones and skins of the horse. They are very difficult to catch and there are only a few that exist in the zoo.

A scientist named Feh first put the horse in a zoo, and then sent them back to the wild. The Causse Méjean landscape in France is quite similar from that in Mongolia where the horse used to live. He spent 6000 hours to do the experiment, to change the nature of the Przewalski horse to attack and fight other horse species. Then Feh took the horse to Mongolia to roam in an area of 13000 hectares grassland once the horse used to live. Feh’s project is also known as “Wild Horse Mesh”.

There are 37 Przewalski Horse in the project, and they are served as genetic reservoir if their species is under threat of extinction. There are three groups of the Przewalski horse in the plan which has been reestablished by Feh.

If Przewalski’s horses breed with domestic horses, they produce fertile hybrids, which has the potential to quickly adulterate the species and undo the work of the project. So, organisers have decided first to place the horses in a fenced-off area to stabilise the population and fend off the risk of losing their gene pool.

The native population declined in the 20th century due to a combination of factors, with the wild population in Mongolia dying out in the 1960s. The last herd was sighted in 1967 and the last individual horse in 1969. Expeditions after this failed to locate any horses, and the species had been designated “extinct in the wild” for over 30 years.

After 1945 only two captive populations in zoos remained, in Munich and in Prague. The most valuable groups, in Askania Nova, Ukraine, were shot by German soldiers during world war two occupation, and the group in the United States had died out. Competitions with livestock, hunting, capture of foals for zoological collections, military activities and harsh winters recorded in 1946, 1948 and 11956 (sic) are considered to be the main cause of the decline in the Przewalski’s horse population. By the end of 1950s, only 12 individuals Przewalski’s horses were left in the world.

The species is being introduced into their original habitats after 20 years of extinction in the wild, 20 years of the horse being extinct in the wild as the result of hunting, capture and habitat loss. The decline of pasture in Mongolia is mainly because of grazing pressure. The scientists are now discussing with local people about the horses and protect them together.

Antarctica: In From the Cold

A A little over a century ago, men of the ilk of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson battled against Antarctica’s blizzards, cold and deprivation. In the name of Empire and in an age of heroic deeds they created an image of Antarctica that was to last well into the 20th century—an image of remoteness, hardship, bleakness and isolation that was the province of only the most courageous of men. The image was one of a place removed from everyday reality, of a place with no apparent value to anyone.

B As we enter the 21st century, our perception of Antarctica has changed. Although physically Antarctica is no closer and probably no warmer, and to spend time there still demands a dedication not seen in ordinary life, the continent and its surrounding ocean are increasingly seen to be an integral part of Planet Earth, and a key component in the Earth System. Is this because the world seems a little smaller these days, shrunk by TV and tourism, or is it because Antarctica really does occupy a central spot on Earth’s mantle? Scientific research during the past half century has revealed—and continues to reveal—that Antarctica's great mass and low temperature exert a major influence on climate and ocean circulation, factors which influence the lives of millions of people all over the globe.

C Antarctica was not always cold. The slow break-up of the super-continent Gondwana with the northward movements of Africa, South America, India and Australia eventually created enough space around Antarctica for the development of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), that flowed from west to east under the influence of the prevailing westerly winds. Antarctica cooled, its vegetation perished, glaciation began and the continent took on its present-day appearance. Today, the ice that overlies the bedrock is up to 4km thick, and surface temperatures as low as -89.2 °C have been recorded. The icy blast that howls over the ice cap and out to sea—the so-called katabatic wind—can reach 300 km/hr, creating fearsome wind-chill effects.

D Out of this extreme environment come some powerful forces that reverberate around the world. The Earth’s rotation, coupled to the generation of cells of low pressure off the Antarctic coast, would allow Astronauts a view of Antarctica that is as beautiful as it is awesome. Spinning away to the northeast, the cells grow and deepen, whipping up the Southern Ocean into the mountainous seas so respected by mariners. Recent work is showing that the temperature of the ocean may be a better predictor of rainfall in Australia than is the pressure difference between Darwin and Tahiti—the Southern Oscillation Index. By receiving more accurate predictions, graziers in northern Queensland are able to avoid overstocking in years when rainfall will be poor. Not only does this limit their losses but it prevents serious pasture degradation that may take decades to repair. CSIRO is developing this as a prototype forecasting system, but we can confidently predict that as we know more about the Antarctic and Southern Ocean we will be able to enhance and extend our predictive ability.

E The ocean’s surface temperature results from the interplay between deep-water temperature, air temperature and ice. Each winter between 4 and 19 million square km of sea ice form, locking up huge quantities of heat close to the continent. Only now can we start to unravel the influence of sea ice on the weather that is experienced in southern Australia. But in another way, the extent of sea ice extends its influence far beyond Antarctica. Antarctic krill—the small shrimp-like crustaceans that are the staple diet for baleen whales, penguins, some seals, flighted sea birds and many fish—breed well in years when sea ice is extensive and poorly when it is not. Many species of baleen whales and flighted sea birds migrate between the hemispheres and when the krill are less abundant they do not thrive.

F The circulatory system of the world’s oceans is like a huge conveyor belt, moving water and dissolved minerals and nutrients from one hemisphere to the other, and from the ocean's abyssal depths to the surface. The ACC is the longest current in the world, and has the largest flow. Through it, the deep flows of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans are joined to form part of a single global thermohaline circulation, During winter, the howling katabatics sometimes scour the ice off patches of the sea's surface leaving large ice-locked lagoons, or ’polynyas'. Recent research has shown that as fresh sea ice forms, it is continuously stripped away by the wind and may be blown up to 90km in a single day. Since only fresh water freezes into ice, the water that remains becomes increasingly salty and dense, sinking until it spills over the continental shelf. Cold water carries more oxygen than warm water, so when it rises, well into the northern hemisphere, it reoxygenates and revitalises the ocean. The state of the northern oceans, and their biological productivity, owe much to what happens in the Antarctic.

Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Psychology

Charles Darwin, the brilliant anthropologist and creator of the theory of evolution, is not normally associated with the modern business world. Nevertheless, Darwinian evolutionary theory is the foundation of a new wave of ideas about human behavior in general and particularly the way people behave in the workplace; these ideas have given the title of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology revolves around the notion that our brains, like our bodies, have an inherited evolutionary design that has scarcely changed for 10,000 years. As respected evolutionary psychology experts Leda Cosmides and John Tooby comment, "our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind." The US biologist Edward O. Wilson sees evolutionary psychology as being a discipline which is based on both socio-biology, which is the study of the biological basis of social behavior, and psychology, which is the systematic study of human behavior.

Nigel Nicholson, an organisational psychologist from the London Business School, is a strong supporter of evolutionary psychology and on this subject has published Managing the Human Animal. His book takes the reader on a journey from the Stone Age plains of the savannah to the modern office, and includes a discussion of Darwinism and behavioural psychology together with a dissection of dysfunctional organisational behavior. It is an effective approach explaining why people behave as they do, particularly at work. Evolutionary psychology is increasingly being cited in management circles, where managers are trying to understand puzzling aspects of human behaviour and by doing so improve the workplace. Nicholson believes that evolutionary psychology can help managers understand what goes wrong in organisational life and what they can do about it.

Nicholson maintains that evolutionary psychology dismisses the long-held assumption that our minds are like blank pages just waiting for culture and experience to write on them and shape our nature. He points out that sophisticated research shows the brain actually houses a store of knowledge when we are born, and now genetic research is establishing there are certain genes that account for abilities, tastes, and tendencies. The stored knowledge in the human brain has not changed much since the Stone Age. As Tooby and Cosmides stress, there have not been enough generations for a brain that is well adapted to our post-industrial life to evolve through natural selection.

The evolutionary psychology version of human nature revolves around some key elements which we have inherited from our hunter-gatherer minds. One key element is emotion. Emotion was originally essential to keep early man alive and safe from predators. Emotion was, and continues to be, our radar, guiding us throughout today's techno-defined business world. Despite this, the business world emphasises rational, not emotional, behaviour and does not admit the importance of emotion. We still use the emotional part of our minds to make sense of other people's behaviour and to create an impression, so we can often be taken in by appearances. This mental predisposition actually works best in small communities—the tribe—not in much larger environments filled with people we barely know, the modern workplace. Our minds naturally try to re-create our ancestral communities with networks of no more than 150 people, where there are clear hierarchies and leaders. As a consequence, it takes very little to trigger people's innate distrust of others because our safety in antiquity depended on supporting our near family and friends, whom we valued more than other people.

So, what advice does Nicholson have for the corporate world? He thinks that by knowing the reasons for people's behaviour, it is possible to mould corporate environments into places that have more chance of working efficiently and being pleasant places to work in. Nicholson admits that not everybody in the business world agrees with his belief in the effectiveness of evolutionary psychology in the workplace. One group that resists the theory of evolutionary psychology is young MBA graduates who are just beginning their careers and feel that evolutionary psychology will make their lives at work more difficult. Older and wiser executives point out that they still tend to cling to the idea of a magic formula to bring people into line with corporate strategy. But that is back-to-front thinking, according to Nicholson, who contends that we should be reinventing our business structures, not our fundamental human nature.

At the end of his book, Nicholson gives his forecast of what will and will not change in the business world. He believes that most people will still prefer more traditional forms of work and throughout their lives will continue to aim at lifelong status advancement. He also maintains that the line between work and home will be less defined, but that people will prefer traditional working patterns if working from home leaves them isolated from their work community. He doubts that the high-tech ideas of virtual companies will ever be very successful because people will still want to meet each other face to face. Nicholson describes his ideal organisation in the future: it would be decentralized, with small sub-units; the staff would be from diverse backgrounds and be allowed a high degree of self-determination. New endeavours and creativity would replace systems and rationality. Nicholson acknowledges that there is a long way to go in terms of the translation of his ideas of evolutionary psychology into practical propositions, but he is confident more and more people will come round to his way of thinking.

Notepad

Back to wild

Antarctica: In From the Cold

Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Psychology

Part 1

Questions 1-4

Questions 5-9

Questions 10-13

Part 2

Questions 14-18

Questions 19-21

Questions 22-26

Part 3

Questions 27-31

Questions 32-35

Questions 36-40

A	Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)
B	katabatic winds
C	rainfall
D	temperature
E	glaciers
F	pressure