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Paper 1a10

You may be asked to choose a title (or an alternative title) for a passage, match paragraph summaries with paragraphs or choose headings for individual paragraphs. All these questions aim to see if you can get the main idea of a passage and are not lost in the details, examples and arguments.

Read these few lines. Choose a title for them:

A.The Past

B.Feeling Hungry

C.Farming Failures

D.Death

a. For millennia humans have relied on farmers to feed them. Unfortunately, they were not always successful as droughts, floods, sudden cold weather, diseases of

various types and insect pests led to the loss of many a harvest. Then people suffered greatly and many actually starved to death.

We hope you chose C. Farming Failures. All the other titles refer to things in the paragraph, but the topic

sentence makes it clear that farming is the central topic.

b. It was wonderful when this changed with the Agricultural Revolution of the modern world. Although fewer and fewer people work on the land, hunger has been banished from the

developed world. The old mixed farming has largely gone. Instead of one farm growing a

number of crops and keeping animals, nowadays farmers specialize. A huge farm may grow only wheat. There are giant farms that concentrate on one product only: cattle, pigs, chickens, vegetables and so on. This has led to greater efficiency. A dairy cow in 1900 produced 20 litres of milk a day; in 2000 the figure was 70.

c. This great improvement has been made possible by our use of

technology and science. Pesticides keep away weeds and pests;

fertilisers make the soil more

productive; hormones and special feed make animals grow faster;

antibiotics stop animal sickness, and seeds have been improved by genetic research.

d. There are admittedly some drawbacks. Animals crowded together are more likely to develop

diseases, and a farm with, for example, thousands of pigs produces huge amounts of animal waste which causes pollution. It is also true that a field growing only one crop is at greater danger of attack by specialised predators, and the new super cows need a lot more input and very special feed, not grass, to keep on producing so much milk.

e. There is also a problem from all the substances farmers use. Fertilisers are polluting our rivers; pesticides are killing wildlife and entering the food chain, and antibiotic resistance is growing. These are definitely

negative developments.

Match the paragraphs above with the summaries below

i. Specialised farming does create some problems.

ii. Modern farming owes a lot to science.

iii. Farming has improved a lot.

iv. Farm chemicals are harming the environment.

f. Modern farming also depends on very large inputs of energy necessary for making fertilisers and high protein feedstuff, using farm machinery and keeping buildings for animals at the right temperature with the right lighting conditions.

g. Many animals also appear to find modern farming conditions highly stressful.

Battery chickens

behave in some very strange ways and

super cows suffer from a lot of ill health. Given that we claim to be kind to animals these days their

treatment in many modern farms seems unacceptable.

h. One answer to these criticisms has been the

development of organic farming methods. Organic farmers do not use man-made fertilisers or pesticides. They have in many cases returned to mixed farming so they can use

animal dung to improve the soil. They plant different crops in fields in succession to help the soil recover, and do far more of the work by hand to save energy. The produce

usually costs rather more than that resulting from intensive techniques.

Match these titles with the paragraphs above

v. Wasteful!

vi. A New Approach

vii. Cruelty

Answers

i. d, ii. c, iii. b, iv. e, v. f, vi. h, vii. g



Titles and summaries