Reading Passage 1

New York’s Famous Dakota Building

Situated in the north-west corner of 72^nd Street and Central Park West, in the upper West Side of Manhattan with Central Park frontage, the address of 1 West 72^nd Street, New York City, is one of the most exclusive and historical residential buildings in New York City. It is the address of the Dakota apartment building.  Famous for being the home of many of New York’s most creative residents, the Dakota today still retains its ‘old-worldliness’ and creativity, with its residents’ cooperative board deciding on the eligibility and suitability of prospective tenants with a view to maintaining the building’s unique character, traditions and atmosphere. Legendary stories abound regarding the myriad of famous residents who have passed through its magnificent doors.

In the 1880s, when the Dakota was built, the upper West Side of New York was relatively uninhabited and was considered to be some distance from the more populated areas of Manhattan.  Henry Clark, who headed a famous sewing machine company, had a vision to create an architecturally magnificent building and to run it in a benevolent fashion, looking after the tenants.  The architect Henry Hardenbergh was commissioned to design the building and his track-record included the famous Waldorf-Astoria and Plaza Hotels in New York.  Construction began in 1880 and was completed in 1884, with approximately 100 apartments built. They were not originally for the mega-wealthy – the first rents were between $1000 and $5000 a year, close to $30,000 in today’s money, but, nowadays, the apartments sell for an average $10,000,000 each.

It has long been held, though also contradicted, that the name ‘Dakota’ was chosen because the building was in the sparsely-populated area of the upper West Side, similarities being drawn to the largely uninhabited state (then territory) of Dakota in the north-west of the United States. In support of the theory, on the top southern side near the roof of the building is a magnificent carved panel depicting what is believed to be a Dakota Indian. In fact, it has been said that the man behind the project, Henry Clark, when naming the Dakota, wanted all the new avenues running through this area to be named after western states, such as Montana Place, Wyoming Place and Arizona Place, all three of these locations now bearing their current and famous names, Central Park West, Columbus Avenue and Broadway respectively.

The Dakota apartment building is square, constructed around a huge central courtyard and the large arched main entrance was originally built to allow horse-drawn carriages to enter and to remain under shelter.  Other outside features included a garden, croquet lawns and tennis courts, all connected to the main building.  Inside there are large sweeping marble staircases, spacious hallways which connect rooms and apartments, oak- and mahogany-wood panelled dining rooms, ceilings stretching up to fifteen feet, huge fireplaces and views across Central Park.  The apartments for residents occupy the first seven floors, and the two top floors were originally designed for staff, because they were hotter, being at the top of the building, and the rooms were much smaller with low sloping ceilings.

Other innovative features on its opening included electricity, this being powered by the building’s own generator, and central heating to offset New York’s bitter winters. Interestingly, no two apartments are alike, ranging in size from four rooms to up to 20 rooms, with elevators in all four corners of the building, and multi-staircases throughout.  The elevators were operated by uniformed women, indeed, until well into the 20^th century, and there is a large central dining room which is used on occasion by all residents in the community spirit of the building.

However, one of the most intriguing aspects of the Dakota, that which has kept the public’s attention over the years, is the clientele, the number of interesting residents who have claimed the Dakota as their home.  In the beginning, it was home to the merchants and businessmen and women of the time, but as the decades passed, the Dakota became home to the artistic, the creators and the creative – actors, musicians, artists and those moving slightly outside the mainstream.  In addition, the collective spirit of the residents, along with the benevolent spirit of the original owners, the Clark family, saw that anyone who was in need, or unable to maintain their rent, was looked after.  A famous incident occurred in the 1960s when the Dakota went from a rental building to a cooperative ownership, and one elderly couple was unable to purchase their apartment, and the residents banded together, and a benefactor was approached who bought the apartment on behalf of the resident couple and allowed them to stay on.  Not only for philanthropic reasons perhaps, as the apartment was purchased for $26,000 in the 1960s and sold for $1.3 million in 1990.

Famous tenants have included, originally, members of the famous piano-making company, the Steinways, and actors of early days such as Lillian Gish and Boris Karloff.  More recently, the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein called the Dakota home, while filmmakers, classical dancers and writers have all lived in the Dakota’s revered apartments, from Lauren Bacall through to Albert Maysles.  Films, such as the horror ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ in the 1960s, were set at the Dakota, and the Dakota has featured in many New York motion pictures as a landmark building, imposing high over Central Park.  Perhaps most famously among all the residents was the musician John Lennon of the rock group The Beatles, who was murdered outside the entrance by a deranged fan in 1980 in front of Lennon’s wife, the artist Yoko Ono, who still lives there.

It is of interest that a number of high profile applicants have been denied the opportunity of residency in the Dakota.  In 2014, one of the apartments sold for more than $27 million, and with more and more apartment buildings rising up in the Manhattan skyline at ever-increasing prices, even though prices also increase at the Dakota, there is still something to be said about its tradition, its values and its invaluable character that draws people who want to make 1 West 72^nd Street their home address.

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 – 13 which are based on Reading Passage 1.

Questions 1 – 6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1 – 6 on 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 in the passage

1. Potential tenants must undergo a selection process that takes into account more than finances.
   
2. The Dakota building was built in a heavily populated area in order to draw on the number of people there.
3. The original Dakota apartments were not intended for the wealthy upper class.
4. The reasons behind the naming of the Dakota are disputed.
5. The gardens and tennis courts were designed to be used exclusively by the residents.
6. The apartments are all designed differently.

Questions 7 – 11 

Complete the flowchart below, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Write your answers in boxes 7 – 11 on your answer sheet.

The Dakota Apartment Building

7. \

8.

9.

10.

11.

Questions 12 – 13  

 Choose the appropriate letter A – D and write them in boxes 12 – 13 on your answer sheet.

12. When the building changed from rentals to an ownership scheme,
    1. the residents were able to make huge profits.
    2. investors approached the tenants to buy their apartments.
    3. a philanthropist bought an apartment to allow one couple to remain in their home.
    4. more artists and creative people wanted to move to the Dakota.

12.

13. The Dakota apartments building
    1. now only houses famous artists, actors and musicians.
    2. has been used as part of movie sets.
    3. is currently undergoing development.
    4. is now the most expensive in New York City.

13.

Reading Passage 2

The Blue Jeans Phenomenon

A: In 1852, a young Bavarian by the name of Levi Strauss migrated from his native Germany to New York in the United States.  Shortly thereafter, in 1853, he travelled across America to San Francisco to carry on his family business in the dry goods trade.  Seeing a need for hard-wearing clothes, for the gold miners working the gold fields of California, in particular, as well as for others plying physical outdoor trades, Strauss used tent canvas to fashion no-nonsense trousers designed to withstand the most rigorous of activity and wear-and-tear.  At about the same time, a Russian immigrant tailor, Jacob Davis, was making rugged trousers for forestry workers and was experimenting with the use of rivets – small round metal clamps – to reinforce critical stress points, such as pockets and crotch seams.  Interestingly, Davis was sourcing his material from the ‘Levi Strauss & Co. Wholesale House’.

B: By 1860, Strauss had changed his fabric from the original rough tent material to what is now known as denim, a twill fabric originating in France which Strauss had dyed Indigo blue.  His trousers, or pants, were proving a success.  Meanwhile, Jacob Davis’ rivet-reinforced trousers were also selling well, but Davis was having difficulty in securing a patent for his rivets.  In 1872, Jacob Davis approached Levi Strauss about a partnership deal as Davis was unable to raise the funds to pay for the patent, and in May 1873, the partnership was sealed, and a U.S. patent was issued entitled ‘Improvements in Fastening Pocket-Openings’.  The partnership proved fruitful and their business flourished.  The two men experimented with different fabrics, always searching for the combination of durability and comfort, intending to capture the market of miners, woodsmen and cowboys.  Denim was the material they finally settled on.

C: The history of denim, the material, is as varied as it is vague.  In the late 1700s it is known that a sturdy fabric was being produced in both Genoa, Italy as well as Nimes, in France.  The French name for Genoa is ‘Genes’, and there is speculation that ‘bleu de Genes’, the name of the blue fabric produced in Italy, is where the term ‘blue jeans’ originated.  It is also known that the material was mass-produced, and that a blue indigo dye, sourced from India, was used to impart the famous blue colour.  Previous to this, in the late 16^th century, Italian paintings depicted field workers labouring in their blue clothing, resembling what we now refer to as jeans.  The material that Strauss and Davis settled on was the fabric produced in France, similar to the Italian fabric, a product then going by the French name ‘serge de Nimes’ and the speculation is that this was where the term ‘denim’ came from.

D: For Levi’s jeans, the famous trademarks were settled on early: the orange stitching and the rivets, the double-line pattern across the rear pockets and the small watch-pocket on the right front, as well as the leather patch on the rear belt loop.  The jeans proved popular, so popular that soon others were following in the wake of the Levi Strauss success.  In America, Henry David Lee of the H.D. Lee Mercantile Company branched out and began producing work clothes.  In the 1920s Lee Overalls were introduced and, importantly, they had an additional innovation that the existing Levi Strauss trousers did not, a zipper fly on the front.  The zipper was invented and modified over a period of 20 years from the late 1800s, originally called the ‘clasp-locker’, but finally being accepted in the garment industry in the early 1900s.  The Levi jeans still sported the button fly, and the new Lee product proved more popular, with Levi subsequently introducing the zipper fly in 1947, originally to cater for female tastes.

E: For a time, denim jeans and overalls continued to be the mainstay of the working man.  Fashion had not yet played its part, and it wasn’t until the 1950s when two movies helped propel the images of rebellious jeans-wearing youths into the fashion forefront.  Marlon Brando’s ‘The Wild One’ and James Dean’s ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ featured both young stars as denim-clad outsiders, and the image stuck.  Young people took to wearing the new fashion statement, to the point where schools in the U.S. even banned them.  As well as America, the trend was catching on internationally as well, with American culture now being spread through movies and even, some claim, with the stationing of U.S. soldiers overseas.

F: Jeans fit and form to the body for a more comfortable fit.  As jeans wear through washing and normal use, they fade with the blue hue lightening.  Manufacturers and retailers noted this and as early as the 1960s a store in New York began washing new jeans to help them develop a faded look.  In the 1980s, a Canadian company, GWG, introduced the stone-washing technique, which is essentially washing the jeans in salt water and applying a pumice rock to soften and fade the jeans.  To further add to the lived-in look, today’s jeans also come with the ripped, or distressed, look, something the early goldminers would surely have shaken their heads at in wonder.

G: Blue jeans today are ubiquitous and truly international. The anthropologist Danny Miller has written a book on the subject, and conducted an informal survey across the globe, from the Indian sub-continent to South America, from Asia to the Far East.  Systemically counting the first 100 people to walk by, he noted that almost exactly 50% were wearing jeans. North America leads the market in jeanswear, at 39%, with one estimate revealing that the average American owns seven pairs of jeans, while Europe accounts for 20% of the global market.  Asians have embraced the denim culture with Japan and Korea combined at 10%.  In some parts of the world, however, the embracing of jeans culture has caused contention. In India, there has been controversy over the combining of jeans and the traditional kurta and sari. Disharmony also surfaced in the former Soviet Union over the young adopting western fashions and ‘values’.  Yet, truly, blue jeans are surely one segment of the global fashion market here to stay.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 – 26 which are based on Reading Passage 2.

Questions 14 – 20

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs A – G.

For paragraphs A – G, choose the most suitable heading from the list of headings below.

Write the appropriate numbers I – X in boxes 14 – 20 on your answer sheet.

NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so some headings will not be used.

List of Headings

1. How terms common today may have arisen
2. Gender driven preferences
3. Manipulating the aging process
4. The components of an appealing pair of jeans
5. Popular culture contributes
6. Working independently towards a shared goal
7. Cutting manufacturing costs
8. A shared vision realized
9. Researching popular designs of jeans
10. A global commodity

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G

Questions 21 – 26     

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 21 – 26 on 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 in the passage

21. Levi Strauss initially rejected the idea of using rivets in the new hard-wearing pants.
22. Partners, Strauss and Davis, settled immediately on the fabric to be used in their joint manufacturing venture.
23. The name ‘denim’ comes from the Italian language.
24. More women than men buy Levi’s zipper-fly jeans.
25. Not all innovations relating to jeans manufacture were developed in the U.S.A.
26. Research shows that Americans own more pairs of jeans than any other type of trousers.

Reading Passage 3

The Tasmanian Tiger

Is the extinct marsupial still roaming the Australian mainland?

A: Once found throughout continental Australia, as well as the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea, the large, carnivorous marsupial species commonly called the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is believed to have become extinct in the 1930s. At one time the world’s largest marsupial predator, the last captive Tasmanian tiger died in Hobart Zoo on the 7^th of September, 1936, less than two months after the Tasmanian government had passed a law to protect the animal. However, since that time, there have been hundreds of reported sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in remote locations both on the Australian mainland and in Tasmania. In addition to eyewitness accounts, a number of sightings are supported by photographs and video footage of the animal, although this evidence is considered inconclusive. The thylacine, as the Tasmanian tiger is formally known, continues to be regarded as an extinct species by the scientific community.

B: The Tasmanian tiger’s scientific or binomial name, Thylacinus cynocephalus, means “pouched and dog-headed”. In terms of its physical appearance, the thylacine is described as being a large, shorthaired, doglike animal, with yellow-brown fur, and dark, vertical stripes running down its lower back to the base of the tail, similar to those of a tiger. Its stripy coat earned the thylacine the nickname of Tasmanian tiger. While the thylacine’s body resembles that of members of the dog family, with sharp teeth and powerful jaws, it is, in fact, a true pouched marsupial related to the Tasmanian devil. It is thought that the Tasmanian tiger was predominantly quadrupedal, routinely walking on all fours, although captive animals were also observed as being able to stand on their hind legs and hop like a kangaroo.

C: Experts believe that the thylacine most likely became extinct in mainland Australia and New Guinea around 2000 years ago, largely as a result of competition for food with indigenous people and their introduced wild dogs, known as dingoes. At the same time, it has been theorised that a lack of genetic diversity in the thylacine population, due to physical isolation, may have been another cause. As far as the fate of the species on the island state of Tasmania is concerned, a number of reasons have been put forward to explain its decline and subsequent extinction. These include competition with dogs introduced by European settlers, the loss of prey species and natural habitat, disease and hunting. For more than a century, both the Van Diemen’s Land Company and the Tasmanian government offered financial rewards, or bounties, on thylacines that were killed, with a view to controlling their numbers to reduce attacks on sheep by Tasmanian tigers. Popular belief holds that the thylacine’s extinction in Tasmania was largely due to the efforts of farmers and bounty hunters killing the animals.

D: Despite the fact that most scientists consider the Tasmanian tiger to be extinct, each year dozens of unconfirmed sightings of the animal are reported from relatively uninhabited areas in New Guinea, Tasmania and mainland Australia by people from all walks of life. However, to date, there has been no conclusive physical evidence of a living thylacine population in any of these locations. On 24 April 1986, the New Scientist magazine made world news when it published a series of colour photographs of an alleged Tasmanian tiger taken by Kevin Cameron, an expert tracker employed with the Agricultural Protection Board of Western Australia. The pictures showed a grey animal with fawn stripes, partly hidden from view in wilderness surrounds. Subsequent examination raised questions about the photographs’ authenticity.

E: Recently, the British daily newspaper The Guardian, along with other media publications, ran a story detailing the plans of a group of scientists from James Cook University to undertake a search for the Tasmanian tiger on the remote Cape York Peninsula in Queensland’s far north. The expedition was prompted by a pair of detailed sightings, one from a long-time employee of the Queensland National Parks Service, that appear to be both credible and plausible. While the vast majority of thylacine sightings are dismissed as cases of mistaken identity, where eyewitnesses are said to have seen foxes, dingoes or feral dogs, the Cape York accounts differ in one key detail. Both observers reported that the animals’ eyes shone red at night, whereas the colour of dogs’ and dingoes’ eyes shining in torchlight is green. In addition, the size, shape and behaviour of the creatures, as described by the Cape York eyewitnesses, were not consistent with those of other large species found in north Queensland.

F: The two James Cook University researchers undertaking the Cape York expedition, Professor Bill Laurance and Doctor Sandra Abell, have stated that they will set up more than fifty trail cameras in the area of the sightings, one to two kilometres apart, in the hopes of photographing a live Tasmanian tiger. Isolated, uninhabited and not very extensively explored, the Cape York Peninsula in Australia’s northeast is known to be home to a number of endangered species that are not found anywhere else on the continent. The traps will be baited with a scent that is attractive to predatory species, and the research team plan to check the cameras every few weeks and download the data, with a view to gathering photographic evidence of living thylacines.

G: While Laurance admits that the chance of rediscovering the Tasmanian tiger alive in north Queensland is very slim, given that it is unlikely that the species could survive in such low numbers, he believes that there exists a remote possibility of between 1 and 2% that the creature could persist in Cape York. Jack Ashby, manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London, shares this view. “It’s not impossible”, he says.

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27 – 40 which are based on Reading Passage 3.