Despite the large numbers of wild plants that could be used for food. only one, the ... (1) ... is being grown as a cash crop. Other edible plants in Australia, however much potential they have for cultivation, had not gone through the lengthy process of ... (2) ... that would allow their exploitation, because Aborigines were not farmers. Thus species such as the ... (3) ... which would be an agricultural success had it not had to compete with established European varieties at the time of European settlement are of no commercial value.
练习四
Developing Environmental Management Strategies
Strong and sustainable economic activity depends on healthy environmental management. It is being increasingly recognized by the public, government and industry that there is a need to shift smoothly from a "react and cure" approach to an "anticipate and prevent" approach. The mechanism governing this change started to appear three to four years ago and the momentum for change has been gathering steadily ever since.
Whilst the need to embrace these changes is almost universally accepted, the mechanisms for change and the priorities for action have been far from clear. The public and the media point to anecdotal evidence of lack of progress or setbacks, over a bewildering range of topics. These incidents are catalogued by local and national pressure groups to enhance their own campaigns for change. The Government, under pressure from the European Community, has introduced legislation which, although progressive, often appears to industry to be fragmented and diffcult to digest.
There is, therefore, a clear and often expressed need on the part of British and European management for techniques to identify and prioritize the key environmental issues for allocation of resources and action. The technique emerging as the most effective is a strategy which involves the formulation of a policy statement setting out the organization's philosophy on the environment and the aims to be achieved. A detailed assessment of the environmental status and performance of the operation is then undertaken, key issues identified and targets set. The performance of the operation or unit is regularly audited to measure progress towards the targets set. This environmental strategy is often called an Environmental Management Sytem or simply referred to as an Environmental Audit.
The need for environmental strategies
Over the past few years, the incentives for introducing such an Environmental Risk Management Strategy have changed as public attitude has evolved, insurance markets have hardened and national legislation has been enacted. Environmental Risk Management Strategies may therefore be implemented for reasons of insurance, market forces, acquisitions, national legislation or Environmental Accreditation Schemes.
The basic elements of the Environmental Strategies currently being proposed by most authorities are as follows:
Environmental strategy
An Environmental Strategy is a documented plan, comprising the drawing up of an Environmental Policy and an Initial Environmental Assessment, which provides prioritized recommendations for action and targets to be achieved. This is followed by regular audits to measure progress towards the targets.
Environmental policy
An Environmental Policy is a statement of the overall aims and principles of action of an organization with respect to the environment. It may be expressed in general terms, but it may also include quantitative targets.
Initial environmental assessment
An Initial Environmental Assessment is a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impact as a result of an organization's activities. It leads to a report to top management in which the key issues are identified and priorities for action allocated. This initial Environmental Assessment is referred to in the Draft British Standard as an Environmental Effects Inventory and in the Draft Eco-Audit scheme as an Environmental Review. The topics covered in Initial Assessments may include a review of management systems, a historical review of the site, assessment of emissions and impact on air, water and land as well as control and monitoring of emissions. Noise, odours, recycling, disposal and duty of care will usually come into the assessment, as will raw materials management, savings, transportation, storage, water conservation, energy management and products planning. Other important aspects of the assessment are the prevention and mitigation of accidents, unexpected and foreseen pollution and of course staff information, the relationship with the public and the need for Environmental Audits.
An Environmental Audit is systematic, documented, periodic and an objective evaluation of how well the organization's systems are performing, assessed against internal procedures and compliance with internal policies and statutory requirements. Both the Draft British Standard and Draft Eco-Audit scheme stipulate that the audits should be carried out by personnel independent of the plant or process being audited.
Environmental statements
Under the UK Environmental Protection Act the details declared in the application for Authorization to Operate are included in a Register which is open to the public. Such legislation also exists in many of the European Community countries.
The Eco-Audit scheme also proposes that organizations which are accredited under the scheme should regularly publish an environmental statement containing factual information and data on the environmental performance of each site.
Questions 1 - 6
The paragraph below is a summary of the first part of the reading passage. Complete the summary by choosing one or two words from the reading passage to complete the spaces 1 - 6. Write the words in boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet. The first one has been done for you as an example.
Summary: Developing Environmental Management Strategies
Example Answer
There has been a steady movement
towards mor efficient, proactive ... environmental management
Whilst the 1 is generally accepted, the means have yet to be agreed. Attempts at introducing 2 have, so far, been ineffective. Techniques are currently being defined for allocating 3 to act on key environmental issues. Policies are formulated, detailed assessments conducted and performance measured. These evaluations, or 4 , are carried out objectively by 5 personnel and 6 against both internal and external criteria.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 - 13 which are based on Reading Passage 1.
Hypnosis: Medical Tool or Illusion?
A The image most people have of the mysterious art of hypnotism is of a stage trick. But hypnotists are much more likely nowadays to be scientists seeking ways to probe the subconscious mind, or find a new way to relieve pain. But is hypnosis a real phenomenon? If so, what is it useful for? Over the past few years, researchers have found that hypnotized individuals actively respond to suggestions even though they sometimes perceive the dramatic changes in thought and behavior they experience as happening "by themselves." During hypnosis, it is as though the brain temporarily suspends its attempts to authenticate incoming sensory information. Some people are more hypnotizable than others, although scientists still don't know why. To study any phenomenon properly, researchers must first have a way to measure it. In the case of hypnosis, that yardstick is the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales. The Stanford scales, as they are often called, were devised in the late 1950s by Stanford University psychologists. One version of the Stanford scales consists of a series of 12 activities—such as holding one's arm outstretched or sniffing the contents of a bottle—that test the depth of the hypnotic state. In the first instance, individuals are told that they are holding a very heavy ball, and they are scored as "passing" that suggestion if their arm sags under the imagined weight. In the second case, subjects are told that they have no sense of smell, and then a vial of ammonia is waved under their nose. If they have no reaction, they are deemed very responsive to hypnosis; if they grimace and recoil, they are not.
B Researchers with very different theoretical perspectives now agree on several fundamental principles of hypnosis. The first is that a person's ability to respond to hypnosis is remarkably stable during adulthood. In addition, a person's responsiveness to hypnosis also remains fairly consistent regardless of the characteristics of the hypnotist: the practitioner's gender, age and experience have little or no effect on a subject's ability to be hypnotized. Similarly, the success of hypnosis does not depend on whether a subject is highly motivated or especially willing. A very responsive subject will become hypnotized under a variety of experimental conditions and therapeutic settings, whereas a less susceptible person will not, despite his or her sincere efforts. (Negative attitudes and expectations can, however, interfere with hypnosis.)
C Under hypnosis, subjects do not behave as passive automatons but instead are active problem solvers who incorporate their moral and cultural ideas into their behavior while remaining exquisitely responsive to the expectations expressed by the experimenter. Nevertheless, the subject does not experience hypnotically suggested behavior as something that is actively achieved. To the contrary, it is typically deemed as effortless—as something that just happens. People who have been hypnotized often say things like "My hand became heavy and moved down by itself" or "Suddenly I found myself feeling no pain." Many researchers now believe that these types of disconnections are at the heart of hypnosis. In response to suggestion, subjects make movements without conscious intent, fail to detect exceedingly painful stimulation or temporarily forget a familiar fact. Of course, these kinds of things also happen outside hypnosis—occasionally in day-to-day life and more dramatically in certain psychiatric and neurological disorders.
D Scientists think that hypnosis may relieve pain by decreasing the activity of brain areas involved in the experience of suffering. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans of horizontal and vertical brain sections were taken while the hands of hypnotized volunteers were dunked into painfully hot water. The activity of the somatosensory cortex, which processes physical stimuli, did not differ whether a subject was given the hypnotic suggestion that the sensation would be painfully hot or that it would be minimally unpleasant. In contrast, a part of the brain known to be involved in the suffering aspect of pain, the anterior cingulate cortex, was much less active when subjects were told that the pain would be minimally unpleasant.
E Perhaps nowhere has hypnosis engendered more controversy than over the issue of "recovered" memory. Cognitive science has established that people are fairly adept at discerning whether an event actually occurred or whether they only imagined it. But under some circumstances, we falter. We can come to believe (or can be led to believe) that something happened to us when, in fact, it did not. One of the key cues humans appear to use in making the distinction between reality and imagination is the experience of effort. Apparently, at the time of encoding a memory, a "tag" cues us as to the amount of effort we expended: if the event is tagged as having involved a good deal of mental effort on our part, we tend to interpret it as something we imagined. If it is tagged as having involved relatively little mental effort, we tend to interpret it as something that actually happened to us. Given that the calling card of hypnosis is precisely the feeling of effortlessness, we can see why hypnotized people can so easily mistake an imagined past event for something that happened long ago. Hence, something that is merely imagined can become ingrained as an episode in our life story.
F So what are the medical benefits of hypnosis? A 1996 National Institutes of Health technology assessment panel judged hypnosis to be an effective intervention for alleviating pain from cancer and other chronic conditions. Voluminous clinical studies also indicate that hypnosis can reduce the acute pain experienced by patients undergoing burn-wound debridement, children enduring bone marrow aspirations and women in labor. The pain-relieving effect of hypnosis is often substantial, and in a few cases the degree of relief matches or exceeds that provided by morphine. Hypnosis can boost the effectiveness of psychotherapy for disorders such as obesity, insomnia, anxiety and hypertension.
Questions 1 - 5
Reading passage 1 has six paragraphs (A - F). Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i - x) in boxes 1 - 5 on your answer sheet. Paragraph A has been done for you as an example.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them. You may use any heading more than once.
Example Answer
Paragraph A v
List of Headings
i. Effect on the Brain
ii. What Hypnosis can't do
iii. Hypnotism for All
iv. Potential for Healing
v. Scientists' Findings
vi. Experiments with Hypnosis
vii. Response of a Hypnotized Person
viii. The Dangers of Hypnotism
ix. Hypnosis and Memory
x. Growth of Interest in Hypnotism
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
Questions 6 - 8
In the following summary of the reading passage, fill in the blanks with one word each from the list below. Write your answers in boxes 6 - 8 on your answer sheet.
Hypnotism has traditionally been used as a form of 6 . But recently scientists have begun to study this 7 seriously. They are becoming convinced that hypnotism can be used not only to relieve physical pain but also as an adjunct to 8 .
List of Words
1. subjects 2. entertainment 3. behavior 4. information 5. phenomenon
6. psychotherapy 7. suggestion 8. memory 9. morphine
Questions 9 - 13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? In boxes 9 - 13 write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information given
NO if the statement does not agree with the information given
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this
9. Scientists have found out what makes some people easier to hypnotize than others.
10. A person who does not recoil from the smell of ammonia is not deeply hypnotized.
11. Hypnotism can be a substitute for anesthesia.
