Reading 2026-05 Test 2

A scientific finding in east Africa has changed our understanding of how humans have developed. On a Sunday morning in late November 1974, a team of scientists were digging in an isolated spot in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Surveying the area, palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson spotted a small piece of bone. Straight away, he recognised it as coming from the elbow of a human ancestor. And there were plenty more, 'As I looked up the slopes to my left, I saw bits of the skull, a chunk of jaw, a couple of vertebrae,' says Johanson. It was immediately obvious that the skeleton was a significant find, because the sediments at the site were known to be 3.5 million years old. 'I realised this was part of a skeleton that was older than three million years,' says Johanson. It was the most ancient early human ever found. Later it became apparent that it was also the most complete - 40% of the skeleton had been preserved. At the group's campsite that night, Johanson played a Beatles song called 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', and, as the feeling was that the skeleton was female due to its size, someone suggested calling it Lucy. The name stuck and Johanson says, 'All of a sudden, she became a person. But the morning after the discovery, the discussion was dominated by questions. How old was Lucy when she died? Did she have children? And might she be our direct ancestor? Nowadays, we're starting to get the answers to some of these questions. According to Johanson, Lucy had an incredible combination of primitive and derived features, which had not been seen before. Her skull and jaws were more ape-like than those of other groups of early humans. Her braincase was also very small, no bigger than that of a chimp. She had a hefty jaw, a low forehead and long dangly arms. For Johanson, it was immediately apparent that Lucy walked upright. That's because the shape and positioning of her pelvis reflected a fully upright gait. Lucy's knee and ankle were also preserved and seemed to reflect bipedal walking. Later studies of feet offer even more evidence. As an upright walker, Lucy strengthened the idea that walking was one of the selective pressures driving human evolution forwards. Early humans did not need bigger brains to take defining steps away from apes. Extra brainpower only came over a million years later with the arrival of the species Homo erectus, meaning upright man. Though big brains would clearly be important later, walking remains one of the traits that makes us uniquely human. She may have walked like a human, but Lucy spent at least some of her time up in the trees, as chimpanzees and orangutans still do today. It may be that upright walking evolved in the trees, as a way to walk along branches that would otherwise be too flexible. It's not clear why Lucy left the safety of the trees. It is thought that savannahs were gradually opening up, so trees were spaced further apart. But hunting for food may have been the real reason for heading to the ground, says Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. In line with this idea, recent evidence suggests that the diet of early humans was changing at that time. Studies of the remains of food trapped on preserved human teeth indicate that several species, including Lucy's, were expanding their diet around 3.5 million years ago. Instead of mostly eating fruit from trees, they began to include grasses and possibly meat. This change in diet may have allowed them to range more widely, and to travel around more efficiently in a changing environment. Fossilised crocodile and turtle eggs were found near her skeleton, suggesting that Lucy died while foraging for them in a nearby lake. How did early humans process all these new foods? Later species, like Homo erectus, are known to have used simple stone tools, but no tools have ever been found from this far back. However, in 2010 archaeologists uncovered animal bones with scratches that seem to have been made by stone tools. This suggests that Lucy and her relatives used stone tools to eat meat. There have since been heated debates over whether or not the marks were really made by tools. But if they were, it is not surprising, says Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. It also seems that Lucy's childhood was much briefer than ours and that she had to fend for herself from a young age. We know that Lucy was a full-grown adult because she had wisdom teeth and her bones had fused. But unlike modern humans, she seems to have grown to full size very quickly, and time of death was when she was around 12 years old. In line with that, a recent study of a 3-year-old early human suggested that their brains matured much earlier than ours do.

Lucy Physical features jaws and skull like those of an ape braincase similar in size to that of a chimp long arms Movement the positioning and shape of her pelvis made it clear that she walked like a human upright movement possibly started among the 6 _________ of trees probably moved to the 7 _________ in search of food Diet and eating habits analysis of food in the 8 _________ of the skeletons of early humans shows changes in their diet it is likely that meat and grasses were substituted for 9 _________ 10 _________ that were located close to Lucy suggest these were also part of her diet 11 _________ that were found had marks on them, possibly made by tools used for eating Comparisons with modern-day humans modern-day humans have a longer 12 _________ than Lucy did the 13 _________ of modern-day humans appear to develop later than Lucy's did

Talbot Park, a housing project in Auckland, New Zealand, was once described as a ghetto, troubled by high rates of crime and vandalism. However, it has just been rebuilt at a cost of $48 m and the project reflects some new thinking about urban design. A The new Talbot Park is immediately eye-catching because the buildings look quite different to other state-housing projects in Auckland. 'There is no reason why state housing should look cheap in my view,' says architect Neil Cotton, one of the design team. 'In fact, I was anticipating a backlash by those who objected to the quality of what is provided with government money.' The tidy brick and wood apartments and townhouses would not look out of place in some of the city's most affluent suburbs, and this is a central theme of the Talbot Park philosophy. B Talbot Park is a triangle of government-owned land, which in the early 1960s was developed for state housing built around a linear garden that ran through the middle. Initially, there was a strong sense of neighbourliness. Former residents recall how the garden played a big part in their childhoods - a place where kids came together to play softball, cricket and bullrush. 'We had respect for our neighbours and addressed them by title - Mr and Mrs so-and-so,' recalls Georgie Thompson, who grew up there in the 1960s. C Exactly what went wrong with Talbot Park is unclear. The community began to change in the late 1970s as more immigrants moved in. The new arrivals didn't always integrate with the community and a 'them and us' mentality developed. In the process, standards dropped and the neighbourhood began to look shabbier. The buildings themselves were also deteriorating and becoming run-down, petty crime was on the rise and the garden was considered unsafe. In 2002, Housing New Zealand decided the properties needed upgrading. The question was, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? D One controversial aspect of the upgrade is that the new development has actually made the density of housing in Talbot Park greater, putting 52 more homes on the same site. Doing this required a fresh approach that can be summed up as 'mix and match'. The first priority was to mix up the housing by employing a variety of plans by different architects: some of the accommodation is free-standing houses, some semi-detached, some low-level, multiapartment blocks. By doing this, the development avoids the uniform appearance of so many state-housing projects, which residents complain denies them any sense of individual identity. The next goal was to prevent overspending by using efficient designs to maximise the sense of space from minimum room sizes. There was also a no-frills, industrial approach to kitchens, bathrooms and flooring, to optimise durability and ensure the project did not go over budget. Architecturally, the buildings are relatively conservative: fairly plain houses standing in a small garden. There's a slight reflection of the traditional Pacific beach house (a fale) but it's not over-played. 'It seems to us that low-cost housing is about getting as much amenity as you can for the money,' says architect Michael Thompson. Another key aspect of the 'mix and match' approach is openness: one that not only lets residents see what is going on but also lets them know they are seen. The plan ensures there are no cul-de-sacs or properties hidden from view, that the gardens are not enclosed by trees and that most boundary fences are see-through - a community contained but without walls. E The population today is cosmopolitan: 50% Pacific Islanders, 20% Māori, 15% Asian, 10% New Zealand European and the rest composed of immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Iran. 'It was important that the buildings were sufficiently flexible to cater for the needs of people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds,' explains designer James Lundy. F Despite the quality of the buildings, however, there should be no doubt that Talbot Park and its surrounding suburb of Tāmaki are low socio-economic areas. Of the 5,000 houses there, 55% are state houses, 28% privately owned (compared to about 65% nationally) and 17% private rental. The area has a high density of households with incomes in the $5,000 to $15,000 range and very few with an income over $70,000. That's in sharp contrast to the more affluent suburbs in Auckland. G Another important part of the new development is what Housing New Zealand calls 'intensive tenancy management'. Opponents of the project call it social control. 'The focus is on frequent inspections and setting clear guidelines and boundaries regarding the sort of behaviour we expect from tenants,' says Graham Bodman, Housing New Zealand's regional manager. The result is a code of sometimes strict rules: no loud parties after 10 pm; no washing hung over balcony rails; and a requirement to mow lawns and keep the property tidy. The Tenancy Manager walks the site every day, knows everyone by name and deals with problems quickly. 'It's all based on the intensification,' says project manager Stuart Bracey. 'We acknowledge that if you are going to ask people to live in these quite tightly-packed communities, you have to actually help them to get to know each other by organising morning teas and street barbecues.' So far it seems to be working and many involved in the project believe Talbot Park represents the way forward for state housing.

List of Headings Some of the problems that developed at Talbot Park i. Where the residents lived while the work was being completed ii. The ethnic makeup of the new Talbot Park iii. The unexpectedly high standard of the housing iv. Financial hardship in Talbot Park and a neighbouring community v. The experiences of one family living at Talbot Park today vi. How to co-ordinate and assist the people who live at Talbot Park vii. Raising the money to pay for the makeover viii. A close community in the original Talbot Park development ix. Details of the style of buildings used in the makeover x.

List of Ideas A. State housing must be built at minimum expense to the public. B. Organising social events helps tenants to live close together. C. Mixed-race communities require adaptable and responsive designs. D. Good tenant management involves supervision and regulation. E. Complaints were expected about the high standard of the development. F. Too many rules and regulations will cause resentment from tenants.

The 'mix and match' strategy One aspect of the Talbot Park project that some critics are concerned about is that the higher 24 _________ of accommodation would lead to the old social problems returning. To prevent this, a team of various 25 _________ worked on the project to ensure the buildings were not uniform. Further, they created pleasant, functional interiors that could still be built within their 26 _________. Finally, the absence of walls means Talbot Park is characterised by openness, making it easier to regulate behaviour within the community.

Why do some people seem to have naturally superior memories? Is it talent, a technique or a matter of genetics? Last August, 34 contestants gathered at the World Memory Championships held in Oxford University. In timed trials, they were challenged to memorise rows of 40-digit numbers and the names of 110 people after looking at their photographs and memorise the sequence of packs of playing cards. No-one has ever managed this last feat in under 30 seconds and so this has become the target for 'mental athletes'. Even so, most contestants in the memory championships claim to have just average memories and scientific testing confirms that this is indeed true. Their feats are based on tricks that capitalise on how the human brain encodes information. They have the potential to perform just as well if we are taught certain strategies. Psychologists Eleanor Maguire and John Wilding recently teamed up with Eleanor Maguire, a neuroscientist at University College London, to study eight of these contestants. They wondered if their brains were different in some way. They put the contestants and a group of control subjects into an MRI machine and asked them to perform several different memory tests while their brains were being scanned. When it came to memorising sequences of three-digit numbers, the difference between the subjects was, as anticipated, immense. However, the MRI scans revealed something unexpected. When the memory contestants were performing the tasks, certain regions of their brains-specifically the medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior hippocampus-were far more active than in the control subjects. These areas are known to be involved in spatial memory and navigation. This finding suggested that the contestants were not relying on raw brainpower or any innate genetic advantage. Instead, they were unconsciously employing a particular technique that engaged spatial learning pathways, even when the task itself had no spatial component whatsoever. The technique in question is ancient, known formally as the 'method of loci' or more colloquially as the 'memory palace'. Its origins can be traced back to the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos around 500 BCE. According to legend, Simonides was attending a banquet when he was called outside. Moments after he left, the building collapsed, crushing all the guests beyond recognition. Simonides found he could identify the bodies by mentally walking through the ruined hall and recalling exactly where each guest had been sitting. From this traumatic experience, he formulated a principle that would shape memory training for millennia: that we are exceptionally good at remembering places and the images we associate with them. The method of loci involves visualising a familiar journey or architectural space-such as your childhood home, your daily walk to work, or a imagined palace with many rooms-and mentally placing the items to be remembered at specific locations along the route. When you need to recall the information, you simply take that mental walk again and 'see' what you have stored in each location. This technique exploits a fundamental feature of human cognition. Evolutionarily speaking, our ancestors needed excellent spatial memory to survive-to remember where water sources were located, where dangerous animals lurked, and how to find their way back to shelter. Consequently, the neural architecture dedicated to spatial processing is remarkably powerful and efficient. By converting abstract, hard-to-remember information into vivid, concrete mental images and anchoring them to spatial locations, we can hijack this ancient brain system for modern memory tasks. The more bizarre, emotional, or sensory-rich the mental image, the more memorable it becomes. For instance, to remember a shopping list including milk, bread, and eggs, a memory athlete might visualise a giant bottle of milk dancing on their front doorstep, a loaf of bread with legs sitting on the hallway chair, and a chorus line of eggs performing on the living room sofa. Returning to the MRI study, Maguire and Wilding followed up their initial findings by interviewing the contestants in detail about their mental strategies. Every single one of them reported using the method of loci or a variation of it, often combined with other mnemonic systems for encoding numbers and faces. The control subjects, by contrast, reported trying to memorise the information through rote repetition, a far less efficient strategy. This confirmed that the brain activation patterns observed were not a sign of innate superiority but rather reflected the application of a learned technique. A subsequent study by Maguire's team scanned the brains of memory champions before and after they underwent intensive training in the method of loci. After several weeks of practice, not only did their memory performance improve dramatically, but their brain scans during memory tasks began to resemble those of the seasoned champions, with increased activation in the same spatial processing regions. This provided powerful evidence that the technique itself reshapes how the brain approaches memory challenges. The implications of this research are profound. It suggests that exceptional memory is not a gift bestowed upon a lucky few but a skill that can be acquired through training. Anyone with a functioning brain and the dedication to practice can construct their own memory palaces and achieve feats that would seem miraculous to the untrained observer. Indeed, many of the world's leading memory champions started as ordinary individuals with no particular memory prowess. The current world record holder for memorising a deck of cards, for example, was an engineering student who simply became fascinated by the techniques and devoted hours each day to practice. His achievement of just over 13 seconds for a full deck would have seemed impossible a generation ago, yet it stands as a testament to what systematic training can accomplish. Of course, not all memory is the same. The method of loci is exceptionally effective for memorising lists, sequences, and structured information, but it may be less applicable to other forms of memory, such as procedural memory for skills like playing a musical instrument, or semantic memory for understanding concepts and meanings. Moreover, the technique requires considerable mental effort and concentration to deploy effectively. It is not a passive shortcut but an active cognitive strategy that demands engagement. Nevertheless, for students preparing for examinations, professionals needing to master large volumes of information, or older adults hoping to maintain cognitive vitality, learning the method of loci can be transformative. Educational institutions are beginning to take notice, with some incorporating mnemonic training into their curricula to help students learn more efficiently. The World Memory Championships continue to grow in popularity, with competitors from dozens of nations testing the limits of human recall. The disciplines have expanded to include abstract images, binary digits, spoken numbers, and historical dates, but the underlying techniques remain remarkably consistent. As neuroscience advances, we may discover even more effective ways to enhance memory, perhaps through brain stimulation or cognitive-enhancing drugs. However, for now, the humble memory palace, invented by a Greek poet over two millennia ago, remains the most powerful tool available for turning an ordinary memory into an extraordinary one. It demonstrates that with the right strategy, the human brain's potential is far greater than most of us ever imagine.

The MRI study revealed that memory contestants activated brain regions associated with 33 __________ memory, even though the tasks were not spatial. This suggested they were using a technique rather than relying on genetic gifts. The technique, known as the method of loci or the 34 __________, involves placing items to be remembered in familiar locations. This works because human ancestors needed excellent spatial memory for 35 __________, making these brain pathways highly efficient. To make memories stronger, experts recommend creating images that are bizarre, emotional, or 36 __________. A later study showed that after training in this method, the brain scans of ordinary subjects began to resemble those of 37 __________.