SECTION 5: READING TEST

Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

Questions 1-3

On Apr. 27, the Dean of Duke's business school had the unfortunate task of announcing that nearly 10% of the Class of 2008 had been caught cheating on a take-home final exam. The scandal, which has cast yet another pall over the leafy, Gothic campus, is already going down as the biggest episode of alleged student deception in the business school's history.

Almost immediately, the questions started swirling. The accused MBAs were, on average, 29 years old. They were the cut-and-paste generation, the champions of Linux. Before going to the business school, they worked in corporations for an average of six years. They did so at a time when their bosses were trumpeting the brave new world of open source, where one's ability to aggregate (or rip off) other people's intellectual property was touted as a crucial competitive advantage.

It's easy to imagine the explanations these MBAs, who are mulling an appeal, might come up with. Teaming up on a take-home exam: That's not academic fraud, it's postmodern learning, wiki style. Text-messaging exam answers or downloading essays onto iPods: That's simply a wise use of technology.

One can understand the confusion. This is a generation that came of age nabbing music off Napster and watching bootlegged Hollywood blockbusters in their dorm rooms. "What do you mean?" you can almost hear them saying. "We're not supposed to share?"

That's not to say that university administrators should ignore unethical behavior, if it in fact occurred. But in this wired world, maybe the very notion of what constitutes cheating has to be reevaluated. The scandal at Duke points to how much the world has changed, and how academia and corporations are confused about it all, sending split messages.

We're told it's all about teamwork and shared information. But then we're graded and ranked as individuals. We assess everybody as single entities. But then we plop them into an interdependent world and tell them their success hinges on creative collaboration.

The new culture of shared information is vastly different from the old, where hoarding information was power. But professors-and bosses, for that matter-need to be able to test individual ability. For all the talk about workforce teamwork, there are plenty of times when a person is on his or her own, arguing a case, preparing a profit and loss statement, or writing a research report.

Still, many believe that a rethinking of the assessment process is in store. The Stanford University Design School, for example, is so collaborative that "it would be impossible to cheat," says D-school professor Robert I. Sutton. "If you found somebody to help you write an exam, in our view that's a sign of an inventive person who gets stuff done. If you found someone to do work for free who was committed to open source, we'd say, 'Wow, that was smart.' One group of students got the police to help them with a school project to build a roundabout where there were a lot of bike accidents. Is that cheating?"

That's food for thought at a time when learning is becoming more and more of a social process embedded in a larger network. This is in no way a pass on those who consciously break the rules. With countries aping American business practices, a backlash against an ethically rudderless culture can't happen soon enough. But the saga at Duke raises an interesting question: In the age of Twitter, a social network that keeps users in constant streaming contact with one another, what is cheating?

1. What is the author's attitude towards the student deception in Duke's business school?

2. According to the author, what are the "split messages" sent by the academia and corporations (para. 5)?

3. Why does the author cite the example of Stanford University Design School?

Questions 4-6

Many animals and plants threatened with extinction could be saved if scientists spent more time talking with the native people whose knowledge of local species is dying out as fast as their languages are being lost.

Potentially vital information about many endangered species is locked in the vocabulary and expressions of local people, yet biologists are failing to tap into this huge source of knowledge before it is lost for good, scientists said. "It seems logical that the biologists should go and talk to the indigenous people who know more about the local environment than anyone else," said David Harrison, an assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

"Most of what humans know about ecosystems and species is not found in databases or libraries or written down anywhere. It's in people's heads. It's in purely oral traditions," Dr Harrison told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. "About 80 per cent of the animals and plants visible to the naked eye have not yet been classified by science. It doesn't mean they are unknown; it just means we have a knowledge gap."

An estimated 7,000 languages are spoken in the world but more than half of them are dying out so fast that they will be lost completely by the end of the century as children learn more common languages, such as English or Spanish. He cited the example of a South American skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator, which scientists thought was just one species until a DNA study three years ago revealed that it was in fact 10 different species whose camouflaged colouration made the adult forms appear " identical to one another.

Yet if the scientists had spoken to the Tzeltal-speaking people of Mexico-descendants of the Maya-they might have leamt this information much sooner because Tzeltal has several descriptions of the butterflies based on the different kinds of caterpillar. "These people live on the territory of that butterfly habitat and in fact care very little about the adult butterfly but they have a very-fine grained classification for the larvae because the caterpillars affect their crops and their agriculture," Dr Harrison said.

"It's crucial for them to know which larva is eating which crop and at what time of year. Their survival literally depends on knowing that, whereas the adult butterfly has no impact on their crops," he said. "There was a knowledge gap on both sides and if they had been talking to each other they might have figured out sooner that they were dealing with a species complex," he said.

"Indigenous people often have classification systems that are often more fine-grained and more precise than what Western science knows about species and their territories." Another example of local knowledge was shown by the Musqueam people of British Columbia in Canada, who have fished the local rivers for generations and describe the trout and the salmon as belonging to the same group.

In 2003 they were vindicated when a genetic study revealed that the "trout" did in fact belong to the same group as Pacific salmon, Dr Harrison said. "It seems obvious that knowing more about species and ecosystems would put us in a better position to sustain those species and ecosystems," he said. "That's my argument, that the knowledge gap is vastly to the detriment of Western science. We know much less than we think we do."

4. Why does the author say that indigenous languages hold the key to saving endangered species?

5. What does Dr Harrison's example of a South American skipper butterfly tell us?

6. Explain in your own words the author's conclusion "that the knowledge gap is vastly to the detriment of Western science. We know much less than we think we do."

Questions 7-10

Graduates from under-privileged backgrounds are to challenge the elitism of the barristers' profession, under plans outlined today. Reforms aimed at challenging the dominance of the rich and privileged classes which are disproportionately represented among the membership of the Bar will tackle the decline in students from poorer backgrounds joining the profession. They include financial assistance as well as measures to end the "intimidating environment" of the barristers' chambers which young lawyers must join if they want to train as advocates.

The increasing cost of the Bar and a perception that it is run by a social elite has halted progress in the greater inclusion of barristers from different backgrounds. A number of

high-profile barristers, including the prime minister's wife, Cherie Booth QC, have warned that without changes, the Bar will continue to be dominated by white, middle-class male lawyers.

In a speech to the Social Mobility Foundation think tank in London this afternoon, Geoffrey Vos QC, Bar Council chairman, will say: "The Bar is a professional elite, by which I mean that the Bar's membership includes the best-quality lawyers practicing advocacy and offering specialist legal advice in many specialist areas. That kind of elitism is meritocratic, and hence desirable.

"Unfortunately, however, the elitism which fosters the high-quality services that the Bar stands for has also encouraged another form of elitism. That is elitism in the sense of exclusivity, exclusion, and in the creation of a profession which is barely accessible to equally talented people from less privileged backgrounds."

Last month, Mr Vos warned that the future of the barristers' profession was threatened by an overemphasis on posh accents and public school education. Mr Vos said then that people from ordinary backgrounds were often overlooked in favour of those who were from a "snobby" background. People from a privileged background were sometimes recruited even though they were not up to the job intellectually, he added. In his speech today, Mr Vos will outline the "barriers to entry," to a career at the Bar and some of the ways in which these may be overcome.

The Bar Council has asked the law lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, to examine how these barriers can be overcome, and he will publish his interim report and consultation paper before Easter. He is expected to propose a placement programme to enable gifted children from state schools to learn about the Bar, the courts and barristers at first hand.

The Bar Council is also working towards putting together a new package of bank loans on favourable terms to allow young, aspiring barristers from poorer backgrounds to finance the Bar vocational course year and then have the financial ability to establish themselves in practice before they need to repay.

These loans would be available alongside the Inns of Court's scholarship and awards programmes. Mr Vos will say today: "I passionately believe that the professions in general, and the Bar in particular, must be accessible to the most able candidates from any background, whatever their race, gender, or socioeconomic group. "The Bar has done well in attracting good proportions of women and racial minorities and we must be as positive in attracting people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."

7. What is the "elitism of the barristers' profession" in the United Kingdom?

8. What are the barriers for graduates from under-privileged families to become barristers?

9. Give a brief summary of Bar Council chairman Geoffrey Vos's view on elitism of the barrister's profession.

10. What are the measures of reform to help poorer graduates become barristers?