Reading passage 1

A. The still-incomplete Hawaii was considered for a conversion to be the Navy's first guided-missile cruiser for a time; this thought lasted until 26 February 1952, when a different conversion to a "large command ship" was contemplated. In anticipation of the conversion, her classification was changed to CBC-1. This would have made her a "larger sister" for Northampton, but a year and a half later (9 October 1954) she was redesignated CB-3. Hawaii was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and was sold for scrap in 1959. B. Early in its development, the class used the designation CC, which signified that they were to be battlecruisers in the tradition of the Lexington class; however, the designation was later changed to CB to reflect their new name, "large cruiser", and the practice of referring to them as battlecruisers was officially discouraged. The U.S. Navy then named the individual vessels after U.S. territories, rather than states (as was the tradition with battleships) or cities (for which cruisers were named), to symbolize the belief that these ships were supposed to play an intermediate role between heavy cruisers and fully-fledged battle cruisers. C. They resembled contemporary battleships in appearance, weighed only 5,000 tons less in displacement, mounted the familiar 2-A-1 main battery, and shared a similar massive columnar mast, and carried 5 /38 calibre dual-purpose guns. Although the battleships carried eight (older refitted ships) or ten (post-South Dakota) 5"/38 twin mounts flanking the superstructure, the Alaska cruisers only carried six: one at each of the four superstructure corners, and one each at fore and aft on the centreline. D. There are two main arguments for referring to the Alaska class as "large cruisers". The first is their armour; while they were able to withstand more fire from guns than any other cruiser afloat; they were virtually defenceless against torpedoes because they had no sub-divisions within the hull and no anti-torpedo scheme. The lack of underwater protection would also make them vulnerable to shells which fell slightly short of their mark and continued underwater to hit the hull. In addition, their armour was only marginally capable of stopping 12" fire; they were vulnerable to battleship fire (1416" fire) at any range. E. The second argument lies entirely in their design. The design of the Alaska class ships was, from the keel up, just a scaled-up treaty cruiser finally unencumbered by the Washington, London and Second London naval treaties. In addition, despite being much larger than the Baltimore class, the secondary battery of the "large cruisers" was only slightly larger. Whereas the Alaska class carried twelve 5"/38 calibre, fifty-six 40 mm, and thirty-four 20 mm guns, the Baltimore class carried the same number of 5"/38s, eight fewer 40 mm, and only ten fewer 20 mm. In addition to all of this, author Richard Worth remarked that when they were finally

completed, launched, and commissioned, they had the "size of a battleship but the capabilities of a cruiser". F. Despite these cruiser-like characteristics, and the U.S. Navy's insistence on their status as cruisers, the Alaska class were frequently described as battlecruisers at the time. Some modern historians take the view that this is a more accurate designation because they believe that the ships were "in all sense of the word, battlecruisers", with all the vulnerabilities of the type. The traditional Anglo-American battlecruiser concept had always sacrificed protection for the sake of speed and armament, meaning they were not intended to stand up against the guns they themselves carried. G. The Alaska's percentage of armour tonnage, 28.4%, was slightly less than that of battlecruisers and fast battleships; the British King George V class, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, and the American Iowa class all had armour percentages between 32 and 33%. In fact, older battlecruisers, such as the Invincible (19.9%), had a significantly lower percentage. In terms of displacement, the Alaska class was about twice as heavy as the newest heavy cruisers (the Baltimore class). In addition, they had much larger guns; while the Alaska class carried nine 12"/50 calibre guns that were as good as, if not superior to, the old 14"/50 calibre gun used on the U.S. Navy's pre-treaty battleships, the Baltimore class had an equal number of 8"/55 calibres Marks 12 and 15 guns. Source: Wikipedia.com Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 to 14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 Questions 1 to 7 Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A G. From the list of headings below, choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers I ix in boxes 1 7 on your answer sheet. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. The status of the ships. Percentage of armour tonnage. The US navvys remarks. The science and art behind. The Alaska cruiser. Hawaii a command ship. The arguments about the ship. The second argument. The Alaska a real battlecruiser.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Paragraph Paragraph Paragraph Paragraph Paragraph Paragraph Paragraph

A B C D E F G

Questions 8 10 Choose the correct letters, A, B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 8 10 on your answer sheet. 8 Percentage of armour tonnage of the Invincible is A. B. C. D. 9 A. B. C. D. 10 A. B. C. D. 19.9%. 19%. 28.4%. 19.99%. The Alaska class were frequently described as Battleship. Warship. Battlecruiser. War-cruiser. The first argument about the Alaska Cruiser is about Design. Guns. Name. Armour.

Questions 11 14 Complete each of the following statements (questions 11 14) with the best endings A G from the box below Write the appropriate letters A G in boxes 11 14 on your answer sheet. 11 The U.S. Navy's insistence on 12 The cruisers were supposed to play an intermediate role between 13 The battleships carried eight (older refitted ships) or 14 The Alaska class carried nine

A Ten (post-South Dakota) 5"/38 twin mounts flanking the superstructure. B More guns. C Six twin mounts flanking superstructure. D Their status as cruisers. Reading passage E 2 Heavy cruisers and fully-fledged battle cruisers. A. A battleship is a large armoured warship with a main battery consisting of heavy calibre guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armoured than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a nation's naval power from the 19th century up until World War II. With the rise of air power and guided missiles, large guns were no longer deemed necessary to establish naval superiority, and as a result there are no battleships in active service today. B. Battleship design evolved to incorporate and adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design. Following battleship designs that were influenced by HMS Dreadnought were referred to as "dreadnoughts". C. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. The global arms race in battleship construction beginning in the late 19th century and exacerbated by Dreadnought was one of the causes of World War I, which saw a clash of large battle fleets at the Battle of Jutland. The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships but did not end the evolution of design. Both the Allies and the Axis Powers deployed battleships of old construction and new during World War II. D. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during the period of their prominence. The Battle of Tsushima (1905) was the only decisive clash between steel battleship fleets, and apart from the indecisive Battle of Jutland (1916), there were few great battleship clashes. Despite their great firepower and protection, battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordnance and craft: initially the torpedo and the naval mine, and later aircraft and the guided missile. The growing range of naval engagements led to the aircraft carrier replacing the battleship as the leading capital ship during World War II, with the last battleship to be launched being HMS Vanguard in 1944. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War only for fire support purposes. The

last battleships were removed from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006. E. Battleships were the largest and most complex, and hence the most expensive warships of their time; as a result, the value of investment in battleships has always been contested. As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879, "The construction of battleships is so costly, their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration, that the enterprise of creating an armoured fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people". The Jeune cole school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battle fleet. It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy, based on fast, long-ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports. The ideas of the Jeune Ecole were ahead of their time; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented. F. The determination of powers such as the German Empire to build battle fleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians, who emphasize the futility of investment in a battle fleet which has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle. According to this view, attempts by a weaker navy to compete head-to-head with a stronger one in battleship construction simply wasted resources which could have been better invested in attacking the enemy's points of weakness. G. In Germany's case, the British dependence on massive imports of food and raw materials proved to be a near-fatal weakness, once Germany had accepted the political risk of unrestricted submarine warfare against commercial shipping. Although the U-boat offensive in 191718 was ultimately defeated, it was successful in causing huge material loss and forcing the Allies to divert vast resources into anti-submarine warfare. This success, though not ultimately decisive, was nevertheless in sharp contrast to the inability of the German battle fleet to challenge the supremacy of Britain's far stronger fleet. Source: Wikipedia.com Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15 27 which are based on Reading Passage 2 Questions 15 19 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 15 -19 in your answer sheet write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Experts didnt praise the concept of battleships. Battleships were very cost effective. Battleships are the largest among ships. Countries made battleships to show their prowess to their enemies. The word battleship was coined around 1894.

Question 20 23 Look at the following topics (questions 20 23) and the list of statements below. Match each topic to the correct statement. Write the correct letter A G in boxes 1 4 on your answer sheet. 20. The British 21. Germany 22. The Battle of Tsushima 23. Line-of-battle ship

A The original phrase for the coinage of the word battleship. B Relied a lot on import of food. C The only decisive clash between steel battleship fleets. D Original name of battleship.

Questions 24 27 Complete the following statements with the correct alternative from the box. Write the correct letter A F in boxes 24 27 on your answer sheet. 24. 25. 26. 27. Battleships were a symbol of Battleships were larger, better armed and armoured than Battleships were gradually replaced by Resources could have been better invested in

A Aircraft carriers. B Cruisers and destroyers. C Large cruisers. D Attacking the enemy's points of weakness. E Naval dominance and national might.

Reading Passage 3

A People lose their heads quite often in Hindu mythology. On a fathers whim, a son cuts off his mothers head; demons are decapitated to expel the chaos-threatening poison lurking in their throats; the fidelity of wives and the faith of devotees are tested by beheading; and, in the rituals myth sustains, animals lose their heads to satisfy sacrificial imperatives. But, as Wendy Doniger reassures us in her courageous and scholarly book, in Hindu myth beheading is seldom fatal. Nor is it without meaning and purpose, for decapitation proves a means of achieving a creative fusion between apparently incongruous parts. Heads are restored, but they are also misplaced. B Doniger recounts a South Indian tale in which the wife of a sage is sentenced to death by her husband. At the moment of execution, the Brahmin wife, from the highest of castes, embraces a Pariah, a woman from the very lowest of castes, an untouchable, and in the confusion, both women lose their heads. The sage relents, pardons both women and restores their heads, but one woman now bears a Brahmin head on a Pariah body, the other a Pariah head on a Brahmin body. C This story is full of the kinds of multiple meanings that flash throughout this fascinating book. In the anxious world of the Brahmin imaginary, it articulates high-caste fears about the confusion of classes, the miscegenation of types that constantly threatens in this mixed-up, decadent age. But the tale also hints at male violence (against women), feminine sympathy (here a cause of calamity) and the misguided authority of a man who, in seeking to restore order, is in fact responsible for creating even greater confusion. D The metaphorical transposition of heads sheds light on other issues too. Attempts to uphold the dharmic order through elite Sanskrit texts are repeatedly subverted by the alternative voices of the subordinated and marginalized women, pariahs, tribal people. Reading myths helps reveal the processes by which the Hindu tradition, far from being a timeless monolith, has been enriched by influences from within India (folklore, dissenting religions such as Buddhism and a diversity of regional cultures), as well as from without, including Islam and Christianity. The question is not so much where these disparate elements came from but how, through the infinite inventiveness of the Hindus, they came together and stayed together. E The Hindus is, in one way, a celebration of the inventive nature and permissive power of myths. Myths give insight into human dilemmas

and fears but they also create, above all in Hinduism, the cultural room and psychological space to imagine an almost infinite range of actions and consequences. Even if many of those possibilities are imagined expressly in order to be denied, they retain the ability to generate new, alternative, sometimes contradictory ideas, as when Ravana in rereading of the Ramayana is transformed from demon to hero, or the long-suffering Sita becomes a woman with attitude, enlivened by a hint of extramarital desire. Doniger suggests that what myth makes possible in the mind can sometimes inform social behaviour inspiring the oppressed or creating the ideals to which the sati (the devoted wife) subscribes in choosing self-immolation. F Yet the relationship between myth and history is seldom simple. At one level, myths are more than history. Born in a specific time, drawing sustenance from the everyday, they can illuminate the changing material world, and can, as with the rights and status of women, chart significant shifts in social practice. But they can seldom be read simply as raw historical data. Just because people say things, even in seemingly authoritative texts such as the Laws of Manu or the Kama Sutra, does not mean that they practise what they write, or that the events described necessarily happened. G Myths do not exist just to echo the zeitgeist. As Doniger points out, the Ramayana and Mahabharata were roughly contemporaneous and yield extensive evidence of inter-textuality and yet they present very different outcomes: one is triumphalist, the other deeply tragic. And while some texts, such as the songs of female bhakti saints, have a startling openness in their treatment of rape, abortion and abandonment, Doniger is well aware that these critical insights seldom transform society at large. Source: Readers Digest Questions You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28 40 which are based on Reading Passage 3. Questions 28 32 The passage has seven paragraphs labelled AG. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. NB: You may use any letter more than once. 28. 29. In the name of religious belief a Hindu can even behead his parent. The relationship between Myth and History is very complicated.

30. 31. 32.

The mythological stories often tell about the fear of the higher castes about the lower castes. Myths are the representation of the Hindu psychology of living. Knowledge of myths helps Hindus to understand their tradition of the religion.

Questions 33 36 Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 3. Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.

33. 34.
35.

Due to the sages confusion the pariah woman lost . According to Doniger myths can often inform about the .
Myths give insight into and fears .

36.

Myths have the power to through test of time.

Questions 37 40 Complete the summary of the paragraphs A C below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Losing heads in the Hindu mythology is not 37 ............... Rather beheading is treated as the test for the truthfulness of 38 . But this ritual, unlike real life consequences, is seldom fatal and the person often regains his life at the end. The story of a Brahmin who beheads 39 . tells about the high-caste fears about the 40