Reading Test:

PART 1: COMPREHENSION
Answer the following questions with reference to the article which follows.
Choose from A to G the answers to the numbered questions.
According to the passage, where is vegetation
01. ... burnt because there is no market for it? ..................
02. ... extremely difficult to regenerate? ..................
03. ... stolen for profit? ..................
04. ... burnt for pastoral purposes? ..................
05. ... almost 50 per cent destroyed? ..................
06. ... in need of police protection? ..................
07. ... in economic competition with grassland? ..................
08/09. ... being destroyed in national parks? .................. ..................
10. ... threatened by a policing action? ..................
11. ... mostly used for firewood? ..................
12. ... the subject of competition between peasants and the timber industry? ..................
A. Asia
B. Amazonia
C. Brazil
D. Vietnam
E. Peru
F. Arizona
G. Bolivia

DEFORESTATION
A recent report from the United Nations indicates that the world's tropical forests are vanishing faster than previously thought. Up to 50
million acres a year are disappearing, almost the area of West Germany, 50 per cent more than expected. The World Resources Institute,
which compiled the report, says that the rising rate of deforestation was "a tragedy for the biological richness of the earth and an ominous
signal for the climatic conditions of the future." About 100 forest species become extinct every day, with irreparable loss of part of the world's
genetic resources. The report says that deforestation accounts for a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, the biggest cause of
global warming.

The loss of the forests is largely the result of overpopulation. Hungry landless masses in Asia compete with commercial logging for the
available resources. At the moment, the landless masses are winning. The overwhelming bulk of the wood and timber of tropical forests is
burnt where it stands. Of that which is extracted, only 17 per cent goes for industrial use. The rest is used for firewood. The concept of
natural forest as spare land ready for agriculture is predominant. It is the central reality of the deforestation crisis. In 1988, 60 million acres of
Rondonia in the Brazilian Amazon was burnt for grazing and cropland. Billions of dollars worth of timber went up in smoke, wasted because
there was no ready economic market for it. The forest was seen to have more value as agricultural land than as standing forests to be
harvested.

Just how bad the situation is can be revealed by satellite photograph. Such a photograph of the Amazon basin will reveal hundreds of points
of light stretching from Bolivia to the Atlantic. Each point of light indicates a man-made forest fire at least half a mile wide. In 1988 and 1989,
there were at least 15,000 such fires which meant that Brazil sent half as much carbon into the atmosphere as Japan.

The head of Brazil's environment institute points out: "It's a problem of awareness. Farmers just don't think of anything but making money,
and some regional administrations support them because they think this is development. In one state, farmers are killing the rubber tappers.
In another, they think only of profits from cattle ranching. They set fire to nature reserves. They could all think about the environment a little
more." The head of the satellite agency which analyzes the problem on a daily basis is more blunt. He says: "We know that burning in the
Amazon is gigantic. It's time they showed us a wealthy farmer in handcuffs."

If you want to know what happens when the rain forests are destroyed, the place to go is Vietnam. During the Vietnam war, the American air
force sprayed more than 72 million litres of herbicides and defoliants over the country, dropping bombs and napalm over much of the rest.
Almost half of Vietnam's landscape is derelict. Since the end of the war things have got worse: the country's 60 million people, like most
inhabitants of the tropics, are dependent upon wood for fuel and construction. Demand for fuel and the clearance of land for agriculture has
also destroyed thousands of acres. What the Vietnamese have discovered is that when the tropical forests go, they go for ever. The soil is
poor. Once the cover is gone, tropical rainstorms wash out the nutrients. In the dry season, the grass catches fire and saplings are killed.
Then more top soil is washed away. Tropical trees flower unpredictably, and their seeds are difficult to collect and germinate.

The Americans, given a choice between being green and fighting the Peruvian drug barons, have chosen, as one would expect, to fight. The
weapon to hand is Spike, a close relative of Agent Orange, the herbicide used in Vietnam. Spike would have carried deforestation into the
densely forested eastern slopes of the Andes. However, the President of Peru, having made a helicopter flight over the area, called for a
scientific study. He said: "An international scientific team should determine if the proposal is positive or negative for the environment." He
might have added that the Peruvian peasants and the coca barons can manage their own deforestation quite well without any help from
American herbicides, thank you very much.

It is not only the tropical trees that should fear man's depredations. Even the cactus in the desert is being uprooted. It seems that the
inhabitants of the palatial desert homes of Las Vegas and Palm Springs require a large cactus as a status symbol, just like a stretch
limousine. The finest of the cacti of Arizona, despite being in protected tourist amenity areas, are being ripped out of the ground by organised
gangs of cactus rustlers. These Saguaro cacti grow as high as five or six metres and weigh up to four tonnes. Larry Richards works full time
as a cactus cop. He says:

"I grew up on this land. I can tell you, in the last 10 years the Saguaros here have been thinned out by, oh, maybe half. In the next 10 years
another half or more of the rest will go. These are prime, saleable specimens. It's just a matter of time. There are 120 crooked dealers active
in Arizona. They use lifting equipment and large trucks to transport the giants instantly to California, about 400 miles away, where black
market prices are highest, about $40 for every foot of stem, and up to $100 for every arm which survives the move. A fairly ordinary sample
can fetch $800. A big one, $15,000. A whole generation, covering 60 years of growing, is being wiped out." In one case, the cactus fought
back. It fell on top of a young man who was taking pot shots at it with his rifle, and killed him.

PART 2: PARAGRAPH SEQUENCE

Complete the passage with the correct paragraphs. There is one more paragraph than you need.
COMPUTERS: FROM HACKING TO CRIME
Known by the name of Bug Hunter, the hacker said he broke into the files for the pleasure of seeing the welcome, "Good afternoon, HRH
Duke of Edinburgh."
01. ..............................
He typed 1234, which turned out to be a testing file with access to all the Prestel code numbers.

02. ..............................
Hacking started as an intellectual game among fanatical American computer enthusiasts. They enjoyed cracking the private codes of large
business computers and creating more or less harmless chaos in their files. But now the practice has spread to computer fraud, and to the
reading of confidential information.

03. ..............................
Once a hacker has a genuine user s network identity, he can run up bills for electronic mail and telexes, and read all the user s private mail. It
is almost impossible to detect the unauthorised use of the service.

04. ..............................
Much more serious than amateur hacking is the professional computer fraud. Millions of pounds have been stolen from financial institutions
through computer fraud, usually by the illegal transfer of funds to foreign bank accounts.

05. ..............................
Only a fraction of such crimes are reported because companies fear the publicity would damage customer confidence. And the publicity
would be harmful.
06. ..............................
Each computer terminal is the equivalent of a cheque book. Instead of signing the cheque, with a terminal you authorise it, and the money
goes.
A.

Cases of large-scale mischief caused by hackers are rare. In one case, a hacker succeeded in entering a word processor used by the Israeli
Foreign Minister, and added humorous sentences to a speech prepared for him. The changes were spotted as he was about to deliver the
speech. In another case, a credit agency with confidential details on 90 million people discovered that hackers had broken its security codes,
and had been exchanging the passwords on electronic bulletin boards.

B.
Computers have become commonplace. Soon, every home will have one. They will be easy to use and allow people to shop and study and
work at home. We live in revolutionary times but this is a bloodless revolution.

C.
An accountant explains: "Computer technology makes large scale financial dealing possible. It is all tied in with buying, selling, making deals
and transferring the money. But security systems have not kept up with the computing systems. Everywhere, there is the opportunity, if
somebody has the urge, to misuse the system. The crimes are discovered, but the problem is that they are not discovered quickly enough.
Even if it is detected within a few hours, it is too late. The person who has committed the crime has already left the building and caught a
plane."
D.
The hacker made his way into British Telecom s huge Prestel system by using a home computer. He typed out an experimental line of
numbers, all twos, when the computer asked for a 10-digit identity code. It worked, and the computer asked for a four-digit password.
E.
Bug Hunter was eventually tracked down and arrested. He was very bitter about being treated as a criminal. He said: "They should be
employing people like me to plug gaps in the system. I m disgusted." He was fined 600. A spokesman said: "Security has been tightened
considerably."

F.
There are a number of cases where more than a million has been stolen. These crimes are easy to carry out because large companies and
financial institutions are connected to the network used by the clearing banks for transfer funds around the world.
G.
All a hacker needs is a cheap home computer, a modem to link it to the telephone network, and a basic knowledge of how computers talk to
each other. The hacker then telephones mainframe computer services, such as electronic mail networks, and attempts to break the security
code. Callers have three chances to type in the correct code before the call is cut off. By typing in a series of educated guesses time after
time, hackers can find their way into a system. They may be helped by people choosing obvious code-words, such as first names or
addresses.